Prompt #53: Rules, 'Guessing Agendas
Title: Guessing Agendas
Author: c3childs
Rating: k
Words: 471
Genre: …
Char/Pair: Long Feng/Mai
Note: AU. This story follows ‘This is not a vacation spot’, in which the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom come to a tenuous truce.
Summary: It’s a new city, and a new set of rules to ignore.
“Sir. We have a situation.”
“Since I gave orders not to be disturbed, it had better be dire." Long Feng didn’t look up from the reports.
There was a significant pause. Hesitation. Long Feng looked up with a frown. Then with some difficulty, managed not show any of the surprise he felt when he saw his new wife standing in his office. Under Lake Lagoai. Mai was looking around his office with something he’d call curiosity on anyone else.
“What is she doing here?”
“She was found wandering the base, sir.”
“She is standing right here and can tell them that she was bored so she decided to follow him for something to do,” Mai said. “He is not as stealthy as he likes to think.”
The Dai Li commander stared. That was the most he’d heard her speak at one time. He waved a hand. His agent bowed and went through the wall.
“Never disturb me at work,” he said easily.
“I didn’t disturb you. Your ghoul did.”
He arched a brow. Ghoul?
“Snooping is also not permitted."
Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Long Feng rose from his desk and went to tower over the girl. Her expression remained flat, and she snorted.
“I’m sorry, but are you trying to be intimidating right now?”
“What exactly are your orders? Speak now and plainly, and there should be no need for anything...unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant? You did meet Azula, right?”
“Did you see the Joo Dee?”
That gave her pause.
“I’m supposed to inform the Princess of any interesting finds,” she sighed.
Long Feng was already scheduling her appointment with the mindbenders. The image of a Joo Dee smile on that face almost made him wince. He wasn’t surprised by the news though. It was to be expected in this kind of situation, naturally. Only a fool would think otherwise.
“But,” she shrugged laconically, “I didn’t find anything interesting here.”
Brow arched, he considered her a moment.
“You expect me to believe that you’d withhold such information from your people?”
He held no illusions about her loyalties to him; she had none, despite their arrangement. Yet his wife seemed full of surprises and was not the simple noblewoman spy he’d thought she was.
“You expect me to believe that King Kuei knows about this place? You’re as loyal to your king as appearances demand. Same here. I have no desire to give Azula a better way to boss people around.”
A beat.
“Or my mother, for that matter.”
Well, that was…interesting.
A subtle movement of his foot. His ‘ghoul’ reappeared through stone and bowed.
“Take her home and make sure she stays there. See to it that she communicates with no one,” he told him without looking away from her. “We'll discuss this later. Behave.”
She bowed.
“Of course, lord husband. I always do.”