weirdlet

The AU: Sun Child, in which Princess Zura was pregnant when she was banished from the Fire Nation. Now she roams the world with a child in tow, seeking the Avatar as the key to redemption- for her, and her daughter...

The Prompt/Summary: Interlude in Ba Sing Se- a certain point of view from a business man.

The Fic-

It wasn’t that the boy had notions of honor, no- he was a lowdown, dirty rotten son of a bitch fighter who had skills to back up the ruthlessness. No- what he had was delusions of grandeur. He thought himself the hero in a rebel-tale, him and his crew- mad as marching-hares, and not in a way that was useful. It was a genuine shame, this Jet kid had the makings of one hell of a flim-flam man; when he spouted off his swamp-rot, he believed it, and he made you want to believe it too. The only problem was, he had but one keg to tap, and that was all about the war and the refugees and all sorts of things that were interesting to the wrong sorts of people.

And he wouldn’t stop spouting it.

Big Yan had no use for that sort of thing. He had survived this long knowing that while a certain amount of greased palms could allow him his business, there were just some aspects of the world that were off-limits. No one in his operation questioned or cared about whence came the refugees that they both fleeced and cultivated. Didn’t matter who you knew- questions like that would get you a short vacation at a long lake, and a goodly stretch wandering some other neighborhood far from your own, trying to figure out who you were.

The boy wouldn’t do for his line of work. But- because he was a kindly man, and it was what he did- perhaps he could throw a few scraps out, a hook and line, and see if the boy settled down enough to reel him in for real work somewhere down the line.

Be a shame to let that kind of potential slip through his fingers.