(no subject)
Title: The Wooden Woman (Part 1/4)
Recipient: Dove/pleonasm
Notes: Well, this story spiralled impressively out of control.
Please accept my apologies for an incomplete fic; the remaining parts
will be posted throughout November.
Characters: Lin, Toph, Mama Sato
Summary: Four years after Avatar Aang's death, nothing is going Lin
Beifong's way -- and it's time for a change. A not-quite-AU look at
what probably didn't happen between ATLA and LOK.
Creaky legs carried her home. It had been a day as hard, or as easy, as any she’d had in the past year. Lin wasn’t sure of the difference anymore. Meong’s bark greeted her before she opened the door, and a small cylindrical object flew at her face before it had closed behind her.
“Catch.”
Lin dropped her satchel and scooped the thrown sonic spool out of the air, but did not release its catch to play its message. “Good evening, Mother. Pretty good aim for a blind seventy-year-old.”
“Seventy-one. Play it, Lemongrass.”
“How are you?” Lin replied pointedly.
“Are you really not going to play it?”
“Let me guess instead.” Lin tossed the spool back to the daybed where her mother sat with the otterdog. “Sokka wanted you to know that Avatar Korra has mastered all four elements, has entered the spirit world and made friends with all her past lives, and is on her way up north to pick up where Aang left off. I imagine she also wants a lolly.”
Toph flopped onto her back. “Well, you certainly know how to take all the excitement out of a good thing.”
“It’s a gift,” Lin replied dryly. “Someone around here has to keep her feet on the ground.”
“Hmmph. Only you would say I ever had a problem with that.” She scratched at Meong’s sleek snout, and petted him when sneezed. “She’s begun her waterbending training. Sokka says Katara says she’s doing very well.”
Peeling her uniform off piece by piece, Lin hurled each part towards the armor case and then bent it into place. “Great. And in a decade and a half when the White Lotus agrees to let her out of their sight, we’ll teach her to metalbend and she can join the squad. Ma, what do you want me to say?”
“What I want is for you to admit that this girl is important to our lives.” Toph’s voice took on a pugnaciously stubborn tone. “Maybe you just don’t get it. You don’t remember a time when there was no Avatar. I do. I cleaned up that mess.” Lin rolled her eyes, but settled in. Try as she might to make it about the Avatar, Toph couldn’t hide her distaste for growing old. “Trust me,” she insisted. “You don’t want something like that again.”
“Mother,” Lin said gently, “The world’s not going to fall apart in the next twelve years.”
“Hmmph.”
“Not because Aang is gone. Not even because you are. I know you feel helpless right now. I know you miss work. But pinning all your hopes on one person isn’t going to make it better. He hasn’t been gone that long, Ma. Let him rest.” Toph sniffed. “Let yourself rest. That doesn’t mean you have to let go.”
“I shouldn’t have retired,” her mother said flatly.
Lin placed a hand on her mother’s arm, attempting a tender touch. “It was your time, Ma. You know you were ready to retire for years before Aang died, but neither of you could stand to let the other one down. You know it stopped being fun after - after everything. You made this city what it is. You served. You made all of us - all of Republic City - so proud.”
“Goody for me,” Toph grumbled. “I only left because you would be next.”
Would be.
Lin withdrew her hand. “I will be.”
Grim silence pervaded the room, then was shockingly cut short by a tinny explosion emitted from Meong’s mouth. Toph, it’s me. I thought you’d like to know what Katara has to say about Avatar Korra. She… Lin pried open the otterdog’s jaw and retrieved Sokka’s sonic spool from between tiny teeth. She twisted it off, cutting his vocal message short, and returning the house to quiet for a moment.
Toph exhaled and said, “You know, I wasn’t always exactly Miss Law and Order.” Lin snorted. Nor had her mother ever become that, even as Chief of Police. “And I might have made a few mistakes, or a lot of them. But Chief Jingguo is an idiot, Lin, and it’s not just him. I know you don’t like to hear this, but Aang always trusted me when it came to listening for balance. It’s been a battle this whole time, and now that he’s gone it’s getting worse. I may not be helpless, but my time has passed. It’s you or the Avatar,” she pronounced ominously. “If you can’t challenge Jingguo and step up, then we really are waiting for a four-year-old to solve our problems.”
“You won’t have to.” Thinking of the contents of her satchel, Lin stood. “Mother, I promise.”
Headquarters buzzed daily from just after dawn till long after moonrise, and Lin hadn’t missed a moment of it since she joined, fresh-faced and barely twenty. But it wasn’t enough for a council more afraid of potential power than actual crime. She forced down a pot of black tea and hauled herself in early. Only the scant night shift was in evidence at this hour. “Officer Beifong,” Tian called out at the desk. “Any good arrests to top our shift off?” He smirked, and she knew what was coming. Lin wished she’d just come in on time.
“Morning, Tian,” she gritted. “As you were.”
“No thefts to report?”
“You can head off now,” Lin suggested, rummaging through a supply drawer. “I’m starting my shift early.”
“Ah.” He nodded in conspiratorial understanding. “Always on alert, I say.”
She grimaced at him in a rictus of a grin. “Is there anything you need before you go?” she inquired, solicitous.
“No, ma’am!” He saluted exaggeratedly. “But if you catch wind of any hussies trying to steal your man, you just-”
“Get the hell out, Tian.” She slapped his uniformed back, armor crunching slightly at her touch. She might not be Chief, but she could still bend the little twerp into a pretzel, and it didn’t hurt to imply that she could be provoked. Shuddering, he scuttled away. “Send your esteemed mother my regards,” he called, at some distance.
Lin arranged the booking desk to her liking, chop on the left, inkpot and blotter to the right. Mother, a fool sends his finest fart, and Toph’s cackle filled her head. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all. She smiled benevolently to her papers, and began.
“Qiu and Shao, you’re on the sting. Report to Kayoru for that. Yoong and Yuuko, plainclothes at the wharf; Hana and Li, you’ll be beefing up arena security. The rest of you, usual patrols. Yes, Beifong?”
Lin stood her ground against the tide of fellow officers leaving the room, and when it had cleared approached the Chief’s desk. “Sir, my beat’s dead since the Hot Swords Triad broke up. With your permission I’d like to head up another round of investigation into the Fire Cult, or” - she clutched her sheaf of papers - “I’ve been looking at some different files and I think I have several solid leads within the ostrich horse gambling rings. It’s imperative that we look at these cases before their trails go cold. Solving any one could lead to much bigger things.” Jingguo raised an eyebrow. “Sir.”
“Bigger things, Beifong, very ambitious.” He crossed his legs atop his desk, sprinkling dirt from his shoes over every surface. “I have just the task. Councilman Branak is hosting a gala tonight, and it’s terribly important that we assure the council that the force is worthy of their confidence. Since I assume your mother will not be joining us” - Lin clamped her mouth shut hard - “perhaps you can act in her stead to assure the council that the Beifongs remain a solid part of the Republic City Police Force and support the Jingguo administration.”
“I wasn’t aware that the Beifong name held any sway with the council anymore, sir. Last I heard, the council was eager to prevent any sort of police dynasty.”
Jingguo twirled a finger in a widening gyre. “Politics, Beifong! Who can say. You’ll just be a symbol, of course.”
“Of course.” Lin cleared her throat. “Sir.”
“That’ll be all.”
Lin didn’t budge. “Those cases, sir, that I’d like to re-open.”
“No, no,” he gestured as though brushing off a bug, “I don’t think that will be wise. Perhaps next week, should you do well at this gala. It is, as you say, imperative.”
Lin bowed.
She managed to walk all the way down the hall before she had to kick something.
“Being late isn’t going to make this any better, Lemongrass. Just go. You look great.”
“Mother, you know that doesn’t work on me.” Lin shook off her mother’s vigorous shoos, breathed deeply, and conferred with her reflection for any heretofore untapped reserve of her go get ‘em attitude. Dreary as the evening was sure to be, rubbing elbows with the council as just herself could only help her case for chief. Certainly Jingguo simply being Jingguo was already digging his own grave. She might as well show up with her behind-kissing mouth firmly screwed on. She puckered up for the mirror, but only achieved a snarl.
“Go,” repeated her mother, attempting to push her out the door.
“What’s your hurry to get rid of me?” Being several handspans taller than her mother made it easy as always to elude her. The trick was in the elbows. “Got big plans with Meong?”
Toph sniffed. “We’ll be having more fun than you are, don’t worry about that.”
Lin rolled her eyes. “Try not to break too many laws, troublemakers.”
Her mother wrinkled her nose. “Say hi for me to Tenzin.”
Toph had no appreciation the withering glares Lin had been perfecting for the past twenty-five years, but that had never stopped Lin from shooting one at her before.
City Hall’s ballroom had lofty ceilings, a grand staircase cascading out from an ornate dome, and frescoes in the entryway depicting the founding of Republic City. The sight was never one Lin took in lightly. These immobile and immortal figures were real people in her life - the half dozen who had taken it upon themselves to raise her as no two parents could, and with her a city that represented the best of everything they had to give. A wave of understanding for her mother’s anxiety hit Lin as she passed through. What if her best wasn’t good enough?
The politicians before her were real people, too; the inheritors, who were shaping the city now that the first generation was going or gone. Republic City was theirs now; by the order of things, so was the force. Lin took a moment to pound that thought into her head. The police force existed to serve the people. That was what she was doing this for, not her family legacy or the glory of chiefdom. Though theoretically true, the thought was odd. Her mother, not to mention Jingguo, had never exhibited much in the way of humble public subservience.
Lakana, former councilwoman for the Northern Water Tribe, was the first to spot her - or at least the first to admit it. “Lin!” she cried, extending a heavily braceleted arm. “How lovely of you to come! I haven’t seen your face at many events lately. Not since…”
“Not since last year,” Lin supplied, lips pursing involuntarily.
“Yes, of course, you must be very busy,” Lakana agreed diplomatically. At least politicians were good for one thing. “And how is your mother, dear?”
This conversation proved to be the model for the next dozen Lin plodded through. Nearly everyone in attendance recognized her, either for her mother or her former connection to the council, and the same number appeared utterly disinterested in anything that might have originated from Lin herself, least of all her policework or possible support of Jingguo. Thus it came almost as a relief to find herself face to face with Tenzin and no way to avoid him, for a break in the monotony of impersonal small talk if nothing else.
“Lin.” He bowed his head in polite salutation with hands clasped per tradition. “How is your mother?”
There went that hope.
“She’s fine,” Lin snapped, though Tenzin was the one person who could possibly understand the ways in which Toph seemed less than fine. “She says hello. I trust your mother is also well.”
“Mm, yes, I think she’s very diverted by working with the young Avatar.” He paused. “You know how she loves children.”
Lin raised an eyebrow. Was he trying to insult her or just accidentally succeeding? Neither would be for the first time. She followed his restless gaze across the room to his young bride, looking lost in the throng of Republic City’s most pompous. This was one of her first outings as Tenzin’s companion to a council function, but she’d get used to it; Lin had, serving that role for seventeen years. “You and your mother have that in common,” she said sharply.
Tenzin’s eyes narrowed. “Listen -”
Lin cut him off. “Spare me, Tenzin, or better yet, let me spare you. I’m here on my own business for once and I don’t have time for your pussyfooting. Support the force with your vote or don’t.” With a grunt, she glided out of the nook where they stood and nearly collided with a woman whose short stature had hidden her behind a pedestaled vase.
“Lin!” Tenzin’s footsteps, much heavier than his father’s, followed her out, but before she could whip around and break the peace entirely, the lady hooked her arm around Lin’s own and started hauling her away.
“Old friend! How marvelous to meet you here.”
Lin’s fake acquaintance cooed like a politician and beamed at her like a bosom friend, but at this outburst Tenzin had stopped in his tracks, so Lin allowed herself to be led to a refreshments table several paces away before extracting herself and backing up a ways.
“Terribly sorry, ma’am, but I think you’ve mistaken me for your friend.”
“So quick to say I was wrong!” The woman smiled and extended a proper gesture of meeting. “My name is Shiori Sato. I saw a bad situation about to get worse, and thought I could help. Please forgive my presumption.”
Lin bowed her head. “Lin Beifong.”
“Of the Gaoling Beifongs?” Lin blinked in subtle surprise, and Shiori laughed. “Not every story begins in Republic City, Officer Beifong. Even I know that.”
Shiori was a thoroughly bejeweled socialite holding her own under finery that would have swallowed most other women her size. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my husband, Hiroshi Sato,” Shiori said lightly, as though not wanting to brag but aware that she was. He blew her a kiss when she waved, but did not disengage from his conversation with Councilwoman Hope. She sipped at sparkling wine. “As one of Republic City’s leading industrialists, he has taken quite an interest in municipal projects. I’m afraid I don’t share his head for politics. I’m a bit out of my element here, alas.”
“That probably speaks well of you,” Lin replied with a snort. Shiori’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “You’re from Gaoling?”
“My mother is. My father is from Yu Dao, mixed colony stock.”
“How United Republican of you,” said Lin.
“I can’t claim anything special,” Shiori said. “But when I was a little girl visiting my mother’s family, the Beifong name and crest was a pillar of the community. Very well known. They’re terribly proud of what the Beifongs have been to Republic.”
“Yes, my grandparents took a sudden interest in our lives when my mother became Chief of Police to Avatar Aang. I can’t say the feeling was mutual. I’ve never been to Gaoling.”
“Such wealth for your mother to turn her back on. But of course, with such legendary bending and the Avatar’s ear, what could your mother want for?” Shiori cocked her head to the side. “We would hardly have been neighbors in any case. Poor nonbenders on both sides, not quite a lineage for the history books or ancestral honors.”
“And yet here you are,” Lin noted uncomfortably.
“All thanks to my husband,” Shiori said, gesturing at him again. “We had nothing when we met, but he built us a fortune from scratch through hard, honest work. I’m very grateful for the amenities, of course - but I just want to focus on giving back.”
“How lovely.”
“You must feel quite at home among this crowd yourself,” Shiori suggested.
Lin schooled her expression. “I am familiar with it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say fond. Personally, I see my place on the streets. I am here for the force, not myself.” Across the room, Jingguo caught her eye, buttering up some deep-pocketed donor or another. “I do hope you and your husband will consider contributing to police projects and letting your representatives know of your support,” she added, as though he were listening.
“Mm,” Shiori swirled her drink, “perhaps. You’ll forgive me for being a bit hesitant to commit. I am very concerned with the rise in triad activity since Chief Jingguo took office. What are the police doing to stop this threat?”
“I’m afraid the problem is very complicated, ma’am. My mother was very tough on crime, and criminals banded together stand a fighting chance. They now have networks and resources that have never been seen before. In the…” Lin paused, reliving the arguments she’d had with Jingguo on the subject, “…future, the city may see a significant expansion of the metalbender patrol squad, which I believe may restore the city to its previous standards of order.”
“Previous standards of order which allowed a kingpin like Yakone to flourish,” Shiori replied with something approaching zest. “Not to criticize your mother’s wonderful work, of course.”
“Of course not.” If her options were this or get into a shouting match with Tenzin in front of everyone who ever had any say over Chief, Lin would attempt to remain civil. “Yakone eluding the authorities for as long as he did was a terrible part of our history, I agree. In every battleground there are always a few unlikely winners, no matter how steep the odds. You and your husband’s good fortune, for example.”
Lin braced herself for a drink in the face after this impertinence, but to her surprise, Shiori laughed. “Indeed. We are quite the unlikely success story.”
Vaguely relieved, Lin looked again at Jingguo, and found him heading straight towards them. Assessing Shiori’s unusual conversational style as well as the debt she owed her from the Tenzin rescue, Lin decided to head him off. “Please excuse me, Mrs. Sato. Duty calls.”
“It was delightful to speak with you,” Shiori effused, clearly a person for whom the delight bar had been set tragically low. “And should that Airbender give you any future trouble, you just send him my way.”
Inwardly amused despite herself, Lin turned and met Jingguo.
“Well, that was a waste,” Lin told her mother between armor-disrobing crashes. “Politics are useless and I, consequently, have no use for them.”
“That’s the spirit,” a sleepy Toph cheered with mock enthusiasm, though Meong was curled up directly in her face. “If you can’t beat ‘em, the hell with ‘em.”
“I never said I couldn’t beat them.” Lin leaned over, stretching her long limbs. “Why spend time talking when I can prove I’d be a better chief than Jingguo?”
Her mother turned her head, freeing herself of dozing otterdog. “How are you doing to do that?”
“By proving it.”
Lin banged her locker shut, making an impact there at least if not anywhere else on the force. Since currying favor would never work for her unless she developed the stomach for it, she’d resigned herself to performing a dramatic feat to make chief that way instead. None seemed forthcoming. “I hate politics too, you know,” her mother had said aggravatingly. “But I didn’t need them, because I had friends.”
Lin threw her hands up. “Oh! Why didn’t you say so, Mother? Friends!”
“You’re a lot older than I was when I realized how valuable friendship can be.”
She tried not to sputter. “Yes, Mother, and I’m also old enough to have been friends with the only permanent member of the council for thirty-seven years, but you saw how that ended. I’m sorry I don’t happen to be best friends with everyone else in power like you were. The Avatar isn’t here. I wish he was. I miss him.” Aang had been a light in her life, one of the only idealistic people Lin had ever met who had earned his ideals. His death had helped kill her relationship with Tenzin as much as anything. “But he’s not. I’m alone in this.”
Toph set a hand on Lin’s back and said placidly, “That’s why you need a friend.”
The woman was going off the rails, sounding more like Great Uncle Iroh every day in her old age. Lin was glad to not have her mother living on her own anymore - she would never let anyone but Lin take care of her, and who knew what she might get up to unsupervised and unbeholden to the uniform, if the stories of her wild youth were any indication - but living under the same roof together had its own set of frustrations.
A young sergeant two lockers down banged hers shut just as hard as Lin had, and she refocused at sound.
“How did the sting go, Umeda?”
Umeda glowered. “It didn’t. Someone spilled. We spent weeks setting this up, and then the triad boss gives the signal and instead of an arrest we have a fire fight. We almost lost Qiu.” She threw a punch at the steel locker wall, then caught herself just before impact and sat down instead. “How does that happen?”
“Stings are dangerous work. Someone slips up, someone’s good at reading people. You can’t always predict that sort of thing,” Lin said.
“Yeah, but this didn’t feel like that. We had them. I know we had them. Everything was going perfectly.” She shook her head. “They shouldn’t have known. But they knew.”
They did know. Everyone on the sting was in agreement, Lin discovered. Nobody had tipped their hand, and none of the gangsters seemed to have suspected. The closest anyone could come to identifying anything unusual was the resignation of the first runner who’d been carrying messages between the triad and the undercover agents. “Said he got a legit job and didn’t want triad business if he could avoid it,” Kayoru grumped. “The triad has a lot of street kids they get to do favors for ‘em, so they just scrounged up another.”
“There’s your leak, Kayoru,” Lin predicted. “You didn’t have time to vet the second kid. These children are nothing if not sneaky. Information’s a commodity on the streets. They spy on you and sell it for bread. You’ll get ‘em next time.”
Consensus agreed, but two separate incidents later, criminal foreknowledge of police activity was unavoidably evident to those paying attention. Lin watched as Jingguo did his best to keep it quiet, keep it even from the ranks. “Better to falsify some arrest records to keep the numbers up rather than let the council realize how little confidence he’s due,” Lin spat to her mother that night. “Every time I think he can’t get worse.”
“But he can,” her mother prompted. “When it becomes public.”
Lin steepled her fingers beneath her chin, considering. “When I catch the mole.”
Recipient: Dove/pleonasm
Notes: Well, this story spiralled impressively out of control.
Please accept my apologies for an incomplete fic; the remaining parts
will be posted throughout November.
Characters: Lin, Toph, Mama Sato
Summary: Four years after Avatar Aang's death, nothing is going Lin
Beifong's way -- and it's time for a change. A not-quite-AU look at
what probably didn't happen between ATLA and LOK.
Creaky legs carried her home. It had been a day as hard, or as easy, as any she’d had in the past year. Lin wasn’t sure of the difference anymore. Meong’s bark greeted her before she opened the door, and a small cylindrical object flew at her face before it had closed behind her.
“Catch.”
Lin dropped her satchel and scooped the thrown sonic spool out of the air, but did not release its catch to play its message. “Good evening, Mother. Pretty good aim for a blind seventy-year-old.”
“Seventy-one. Play it, Lemongrass.”
“How are you?” Lin replied pointedly.
“Are you really not going to play it?”
“Let me guess instead.” Lin tossed the spool back to the daybed where her mother sat with the otterdog. “Sokka wanted you to know that Avatar Korra has mastered all four elements, has entered the spirit world and made friends with all her past lives, and is on her way up north to pick up where Aang left off. I imagine she also wants a lolly.”
Toph flopped onto her back. “Well, you certainly know how to take all the excitement out of a good thing.”
“It’s a gift,” Lin replied dryly. “Someone around here has to keep her feet on the ground.”
“Hmmph. Only you would say I ever had a problem with that.” She scratched at Meong’s sleek snout, and petted him when sneezed. “She’s begun her waterbending training. Sokka says Katara says she’s doing very well.”
Peeling her uniform off piece by piece, Lin hurled each part towards the armor case and then bent it into place. “Great. And in a decade and a half when the White Lotus agrees to let her out of their sight, we’ll teach her to metalbend and she can join the squad. Ma, what do you want me to say?”
“What I want is for you to admit that this girl is important to our lives.” Toph’s voice took on a pugnaciously stubborn tone. “Maybe you just don’t get it. You don’t remember a time when there was no Avatar. I do. I cleaned up that mess.” Lin rolled her eyes, but settled in. Try as she might to make it about the Avatar, Toph couldn’t hide her distaste for growing old. “Trust me,” she insisted. “You don’t want something like that again.”
“Mother,” Lin said gently, “The world’s not going to fall apart in the next twelve years.”
“Hmmph.”
“Not because Aang is gone. Not even because you are. I know you feel helpless right now. I know you miss work. But pinning all your hopes on one person isn’t going to make it better. He hasn’t been gone that long, Ma. Let him rest.” Toph sniffed. “Let yourself rest. That doesn’t mean you have to let go.”
“I shouldn’t have retired,” her mother said flatly.
Lin placed a hand on her mother’s arm, attempting a tender touch. “It was your time, Ma. You know you were ready to retire for years before Aang died, but neither of you could stand to let the other one down. You know it stopped being fun after - after everything. You made this city what it is. You served. You made all of us - all of Republic City - so proud.”
“Goody for me,” Toph grumbled. “I only left because you would be next.”
Would be.
Lin withdrew her hand. “I will be.”
Grim silence pervaded the room, then was shockingly cut short by a tinny explosion emitted from Meong’s mouth. Toph, it’s me. I thought you’d like to know what Katara has to say about Avatar Korra. She… Lin pried open the otterdog’s jaw and retrieved Sokka’s sonic spool from between tiny teeth. She twisted it off, cutting his vocal message short, and returning the house to quiet for a moment.
Toph exhaled and said, “You know, I wasn’t always exactly Miss Law and Order.” Lin snorted. Nor had her mother ever become that, even as Chief of Police. “And I might have made a few mistakes, or a lot of them. But Chief Jingguo is an idiot, Lin, and it’s not just him. I know you don’t like to hear this, but Aang always trusted me when it came to listening for balance. It’s been a battle this whole time, and now that he’s gone it’s getting worse. I may not be helpless, but my time has passed. It’s you or the Avatar,” she pronounced ominously. “If you can’t challenge Jingguo and step up, then we really are waiting for a four-year-old to solve our problems.”
“You won’t have to.” Thinking of the contents of her satchel, Lin stood. “Mother, I promise.”
Headquarters buzzed daily from just after dawn till long after moonrise, and Lin hadn’t missed a moment of it since she joined, fresh-faced and barely twenty. But it wasn’t enough for a council more afraid of potential power than actual crime. She forced down a pot of black tea and hauled herself in early. Only the scant night shift was in evidence at this hour. “Officer Beifong,” Tian called out at the desk. “Any good arrests to top our shift off?” He smirked, and she knew what was coming. Lin wished she’d just come in on time.
“Morning, Tian,” she gritted. “As you were.”
“No thefts to report?”
“You can head off now,” Lin suggested, rummaging through a supply drawer. “I’m starting my shift early.”
“Ah.” He nodded in conspiratorial understanding. “Always on alert, I say.”
She grimaced at him in a rictus of a grin. “Is there anything you need before you go?” she inquired, solicitous.
“No, ma’am!” He saluted exaggeratedly. “But if you catch wind of any hussies trying to steal your man, you just-”
“Get the hell out, Tian.” She slapped his uniformed back, armor crunching slightly at her touch. She might not be Chief, but she could still bend the little twerp into a pretzel, and it didn’t hurt to imply that she could be provoked. Shuddering, he scuttled away. “Send your esteemed mother my regards,” he called, at some distance.
Lin arranged the booking desk to her liking, chop on the left, inkpot and blotter to the right. Mother, a fool sends his finest fart, and Toph’s cackle filled her head. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all. She smiled benevolently to her papers, and began.
“Qiu and Shao, you’re on the sting. Report to Kayoru for that. Yoong and Yuuko, plainclothes at the wharf; Hana and Li, you’ll be beefing up arena security. The rest of you, usual patrols. Yes, Beifong?”
Lin stood her ground against the tide of fellow officers leaving the room, and when it had cleared approached the Chief’s desk. “Sir, my beat’s dead since the Hot Swords Triad broke up. With your permission I’d like to head up another round of investigation into the Fire Cult, or” - she clutched her sheaf of papers - “I’ve been looking at some different files and I think I have several solid leads within the ostrich horse gambling rings. It’s imperative that we look at these cases before their trails go cold. Solving any one could lead to much bigger things.” Jingguo raised an eyebrow. “Sir.”
“Bigger things, Beifong, very ambitious.” He crossed his legs atop his desk, sprinkling dirt from his shoes over every surface. “I have just the task. Councilman Branak is hosting a gala tonight, and it’s terribly important that we assure the council that the force is worthy of their confidence. Since I assume your mother will not be joining us” - Lin clamped her mouth shut hard - “perhaps you can act in her stead to assure the council that the Beifongs remain a solid part of the Republic City Police Force and support the Jingguo administration.”
“I wasn’t aware that the Beifong name held any sway with the council anymore, sir. Last I heard, the council was eager to prevent any sort of police dynasty.”
Jingguo twirled a finger in a widening gyre. “Politics, Beifong! Who can say. You’ll just be a symbol, of course.”
“Of course.” Lin cleared her throat. “Sir.”
“That’ll be all.”
Lin didn’t budge. “Those cases, sir, that I’d like to re-open.”
“No, no,” he gestured as though brushing off a bug, “I don’t think that will be wise. Perhaps next week, should you do well at this gala. It is, as you say, imperative.”
Lin bowed.
She managed to walk all the way down the hall before she had to kick something.
“Being late isn’t going to make this any better, Lemongrass. Just go. You look great.”
“Mother, you know that doesn’t work on me.” Lin shook off her mother’s vigorous shoos, breathed deeply, and conferred with her reflection for any heretofore untapped reserve of her go get ‘em attitude. Dreary as the evening was sure to be, rubbing elbows with the council as just herself could only help her case for chief. Certainly Jingguo simply being Jingguo was already digging his own grave. She might as well show up with her behind-kissing mouth firmly screwed on. She puckered up for the mirror, but only achieved a snarl.
“Go,” repeated her mother, attempting to push her out the door.
“What’s your hurry to get rid of me?” Being several handspans taller than her mother made it easy as always to elude her. The trick was in the elbows. “Got big plans with Meong?”
Toph sniffed. “We’ll be having more fun than you are, don’t worry about that.”
Lin rolled her eyes. “Try not to break too many laws, troublemakers.”
Her mother wrinkled her nose. “Say hi for me to Tenzin.”
Toph had no appreciation the withering glares Lin had been perfecting for the past twenty-five years, but that had never stopped Lin from shooting one at her before.
City Hall’s ballroom had lofty ceilings, a grand staircase cascading out from an ornate dome, and frescoes in the entryway depicting the founding of Republic City. The sight was never one Lin took in lightly. These immobile and immortal figures were real people in her life - the half dozen who had taken it upon themselves to raise her as no two parents could, and with her a city that represented the best of everything they had to give. A wave of understanding for her mother’s anxiety hit Lin as she passed through. What if her best wasn’t good enough?
The politicians before her were real people, too; the inheritors, who were shaping the city now that the first generation was going or gone. Republic City was theirs now; by the order of things, so was the force. Lin took a moment to pound that thought into her head. The police force existed to serve the people. That was what she was doing this for, not her family legacy or the glory of chiefdom. Though theoretically true, the thought was odd. Her mother, not to mention Jingguo, had never exhibited much in the way of humble public subservience.
Lakana, former councilwoman for the Northern Water Tribe, was the first to spot her - or at least the first to admit it. “Lin!” she cried, extending a heavily braceleted arm. “How lovely of you to come! I haven’t seen your face at many events lately. Not since…”
“Not since last year,” Lin supplied, lips pursing involuntarily.
“Yes, of course, you must be very busy,” Lakana agreed diplomatically. At least politicians were good for one thing. “And how is your mother, dear?”
This conversation proved to be the model for the next dozen Lin plodded through. Nearly everyone in attendance recognized her, either for her mother or her former connection to the council, and the same number appeared utterly disinterested in anything that might have originated from Lin herself, least of all her policework or possible support of Jingguo. Thus it came almost as a relief to find herself face to face with Tenzin and no way to avoid him, for a break in the monotony of impersonal small talk if nothing else.
“Lin.” He bowed his head in polite salutation with hands clasped per tradition. “How is your mother?”
There went that hope.
“She’s fine,” Lin snapped, though Tenzin was the one person who could possibly understand the ways in which Toph seemed less than fine. “She says hello. I trust your mother is also well.”
“Mm, yes, I think she’s very diverted by working with the young Avatar.” He paused. “You know how she loves children.”
Lin raised an eyebrow. Was he trying to insult her or just accidentally succeeding? Neither would be for the first time. She followed his restless gaze across the room to his young bride, looking lost in the throng of Republic City’s most pompous. This was one of her first outings as Tenzin’s companion to a council function, but she’d get used to it; Lin had, serving that role for seventeen years. “You and your mother have that in common,” she said sharply.
Tenzin’s eyes narrowed. “Listen -”
Lin cut him off. “Spare me, Tenzin, or better yet, let me spare you. I’m here on my own business for once and I don’t have time for your pussyfooting. Support the force with your vote or don’t.” With a grunt, she glided out of the nook where they stood and nearly collided with a woman whose short stature had hidden her behind a pedestaled vase.
“Lin!” Tenzin’s footsteps, much heavier than his father’s, followed her out, but before she could whip around and break the peace entirely, the lady hooked her arm around Lin’s own and started hauling her away.
“Old friend! How marvelous to meet you here.”
Lin’s fake acquaintance cooed like a politician and beamed at her like a bosom friend, but at this outburst Tenzin had stopped in his tracks, so Lin allowed herself to be led to a refreshments table several paces away before extracting herself and backing up a ways.
“Terribly sorry, ma’am, but I think you’ve mistaken me for your friend.”
“So quick to say I was wrong!” The woman smiled and extended a proper gesture of meeting. “My name is Shiori Sato. I saw a bad situation about to get worse, and thought I could help. Please forgive my presumption.”
Lin bowed her head. “Lin Beifong.”
“Of the Gaoling Beifongs?” Lin blinked in subtle surprise, and Shiori laughed. “Not every story begins in Republic City, Officer Beifong. Even I know that.”
Shiori was a thoroughly bejeweled socialite holding her own under finery that would have swallowed most other women her size. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my husband, Hiroshi Sato,” Shiori said lightly, as though not wanting to brag but aware that she was. He blew her a kiss when she waved, but did not disengage from his conversation with Councilwoman Hope. She sipped at sparkling wine. “As one of Republic City’s leading industrialists, he has taken quite an interest in municipal projects. I’m afraid I don’t share his head for politics. I’m a bit out of my element here, alas.”
“That probably speaks well of you,” Lin replied with a snort. Shiori’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “You’re from Gaoling?”
“My mother is. My father is from Yu Dao, mixed colony stock.”
“How United Republican of you,” said Lin.
“I can’t claim anything special,” Shiori said. “But when I was a little girl visiting my mother’s family, the Beifong name and crest was a pillar of the community. Very well known. They’re terribly proud of what the Beifongs have been to Republic.”
“Yes, my grandparents took a sudden interest in our lives when my mother became Chief of Police to Avatar Aang. I can’t say the feeling was mutual. I’ve never been to Gaoling.”
“Such wealth for your mother to turn her back on. But of course, with such legendary bending and the Avatar’s ear, what could your mother want for?” Shiori cocked her head to the side. “We would hardly have been neighbors in any case. Poor nonbenders on both sides, not quite a lineage for the history books or ancestral honors.”
“And yet here you are,” Lin noted uncomfortably.
“All thanks to my husband,” Shiori said, gesturing at him again. “We had nothing when we met, but he built us a fortune from scratch through hard, honest work. I’m very grateful for the amenities, of course - but I just want to focus on giving back.”
“How lovely.”
“You must feel quite at home among this crowd yourself,” Shiori suggested.
Lin schooled her expression. “I am familiar with it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say fond. Personally, I see my place on the streets. I am here for the force, not myself.” Across the room, Jingguo caught her eye, buttering up some deep-pocketed donor or another. “I do hope you and your husband will consider contributing to police projects and letting your representatives know of your support,” she added, as though he were listening.
“Mm,” Shiori swirled her drink, “perhaps. You’ll forgive me for being a bit hesitant to commit. I am very concerned with the rise in triad activity since Chief Jingguo took office. What are the police doing to stop this threat?”
“I’m afraid the problem is very complicated, ma’am. My mother was very tough on crime, and criminals banded together stand a fighting chance. They now have networks and resources that have never been seen before. In the…” Lin paused, reliving the arguments she’d had with Jingguo on the subject, “…future, the city may see a significant expansion of the metalbender patrol squad, which I believe may restore the city to its previous standards of order.”
“Previous standards of order which allowed a kingpin like Yakone to flourish,” Shiori replied with something approaching zest. “Not to criticize your mother’s wonderful work, of course.”
“Of course not.” If her options were this or get into a shouting match with Tenzin in front of everyone who ever had any say over Chief, Lin would attempt to remain civil. “Yakone eluding the authorities for as long as he did was a terrible part of our history, I agree. In every battleground there are always a few unlikely winners, no matter how steep the odds. You and your husband’s good fortune, for example.”
Lin braced herself for a drink in the face after this impertinence, but to her surprise, Shiori laughed. “Indeed. We are quite the unlikely success story.”
Vaguely relieved, Lin looked again at Jingguo, and found him heading straight towards them. Assessing Shiori’s unusual conversational style as well as the debt she owed her from the Tenzin rescue, Lin decided to head him off. “Please excuse me, Mrs. Sato. Duty calls.”
“It was delightful to speak with you,” Shiori effused, clearly a person for whom the delight bar had been set tragically low. “And should that Airbender give you any future trouble, you just send him my way.”
Inwardly amused despite herself, Lin turned and met Jingguo.
“Well, that was a waste,” Lin told her mother between armor-disrobing crashes. “Politics are useless and I, consequently, have no use for them.”
“That’s the spirit,” a sleepy Toph cheered with mock enthusiasm, though Meong was curled up directly in her face. “If you can’t beat ‘em, the hell with ‘em.”
“I never said I couldn’t beat them.” Lin leaned over, stretching her long limbs. “Why spend time talking when I can prove I’d be a better chief than Jingguo?”
Her mother turned her head, freeing herself of dozing otterdog. “How are you doing to do that?”
“By proving it.”
Lin banged her locker shut, making an impact there at least if not anywhere else on the force. Since currying favor would never work for her unless she developed the stomach for it, she’d resigned herself to performing a dramatic feat to make chief that way instead. None seemed forthcoming. “I hate politics too, you know,” her mother had said aggravatingly. “But I didn’t need them, because I had friends.”
Lin threw her hands up. “Oh! Why didn’t you say so, Mother? Friends!”
“You’re a lot older than I was when I realized how valuable friendship can be.”
She tried not to sputter. “Yes, Mother, and I’m also old enough to have been friends with the only permanent member of the council for thirty-seven years, but you saw how that ended. I’m sorry I don’t happen to be best friends with everyone else in power like you were. The Avatar isn’t here. I wish he was. I miss him.” Aang had been a light in her life, one of the only idealistic people Lin had ever met who had earned his ideals. His death had helped kill her relationship with Tenzin as much as anything. “But he’s not. I’m alone in this.”
Toph set a hand on Lin’s back and said placidly, “That’s why you need a friend.”
The woman was going off the rails, sounding more like Great Uncle Iroh every day in her old age. Lin was glad to not have her mother living on her own anymore - she would never let anyone but Lin take care of her, and who knew what she might get up to unsupervised and unbeholden to the uniform, if the stories of her wild youth were any indication - but living under the same roof together had its own set of frustrations.
A young sergeant two lockers down banged hers shut just as hard as Lin had, and she refocused at sound.
“How did the sting go, Umeda?”
Umeda glowered. “It didn’t. Someone spilled. We spent weeks setting this up, and then the triad boss gives the signal and instead of an arrest we have a fire fight. We almost lost Qiu.” She threw a punch at the steel locker wall, then caught herself just before impact and sat down instead. “How does that happen?”
“Stings are dangerous work. Someone slips up, someone’s good at reading people. You can’t always predict that sort of thing,” Lin said.
“Yeah, but this didn’t feel like that. We had them. I know we had them. Everything was going perfectly.” She shook her head. “They shouldn’t have known. But they knew.”
They did know. Everyone on the sting was in agreement, Lin discovered. Nobody had tipped their hand, and none of the gangsters seemed to have suspected. The closest anyone could come to identifying anything unusual was the resignation of the first runner who’d been carrying messages between the triad and the undercover agents. “Said he got a legit job and didn’t want triad business if he could avoid it,” Kayoru grumped. “The triad has a lot of street kids they get to do favors for ‘em, so they just scrounged up another.”
“There’s your leak, Kayoru,” Lin predicted. “You didn’t have time to vet the second kid. These children are nothing if not sneaky. Information’s a commodity on the streets. They spy on you and sell it for bread. You’ll get ‘em next time.”
Consensus agreed, but two separate incidents later, criminal foreknowledge of police activity was unavoidably evident to those paying attention. Lin watched as Jingguo did his best to keep it quiet, keep it even from the ranks. “Better to falsify some arrest records to keep the numbers up rather than let the council realize how little confidence he’s due,” Lin spat to her mother that night. “Every time I think he can’t get worse.”
“But he can,” her mother prompted. “When it becomes public.”
Lin steepled her fingers beneath her chin, considering. “When I catch the mole.”