Avatar: 31 Days: Falling In
Title: Falling In
Day/Theme: December 1. Piece by piece by piece
Series: Avatar, the Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Iroh
Rating: K
A/N: Warnings for blatant speculation Re: the White Lotus Society, in which I guess that rising to the upper levels is a combination of being granted tiles to play and earning other tiles by beating others. Also assumes that Iroh became involved with them before the Seige of Ba Sing Se, i.e. when he was still all up being the Fire Prince and stuff.
The first piece that had been granted to him was the Common Burdock, a simple piece, almost an annoyance with the way they stubbornly clung to cloth. The message had been clear: he would work his way to the top like any new member of the Society.
In response he had taken the Daylily, a piece he had felt more suitable to his station: one who opens at sunrise and closes at sunset. It had tied in with his status as a master firebender, he felt, and he had nearly shaken with pride as he fingered the cool tile, sure he had sent a positive message.
The next piece granted to him had been Horseradish: an eye-watering irritant. It had been the closest Iroh had ever come to giving up Pai Sho, for up until that point in his life no one had dared to show him so little respect.
The slight had irritated him just as much, and so he became aggressive, snapping up the Magnolia just to show them: he would not let them chew away at him, like insects crawling across the surface of a flower.
The cycle continued for many years, and Iroh struggled even as he gained power and prestige in the Society - it was power and prestige he’d had to earn, that had not been simply granted to him like his position as a royal prince. At one point the Society had sent him a Mirabilis tile, and accused him of being nothing more than an ornament, and that’s when Iroh knew he would have truly prove his worth once and for all.
The Daylily and the Magnolia were tossed aside, and Iroh learned the worth of other cultures. The year he studied the water tribes and their simple, flowing movements, he also took the Sagittaria.
Before the next full moon the servants presented him with a gilded box, and after sending them away Iroh opened it reverentially.
Inside lay a single, plain, white lotus tile, and Iroh knew he had arrived.