56 Years Later

...

The black car honked angrily at Jing as she walked front of it. However, once the young woman reached the cement curb she simply turned to glare in the general direction of the driver and wave back at Tianzi for him to hurry up and cross the street after her. Tianzi glanced nervously in both directions at the other nearly-stalled cars before he dashed over their chosen not-entirely-legal crossing. To some degree it was those drivers' own fault, he rationalized. Driving around Kuang Harbor on the same day as this parade was frankly irresponsible. Still, Tianzi felt guilty so he touched the brim of his flat cap in apology back at the driver who he was stealing in front of. However, this just provoked another loud burst of honks and curses and Jing was already striding off around the corner sidewalk so Tianzi hurried after her.

If that last street was a parking lot, this next thoroughfare was a full army standing in close formation. The press of humanity was insane, and they hadn't even reached the parade route yet. In one direction down the street the building walls were spotted with the blue and white patterns and carved wooden eaves of that subtly defined Little Water Tribe neighborhood. Down the other way, the lampposts were suddenly decorated with metal flames indicating the historic Fire Town district. Then the light dimmed and Tianzi's eyes were briefly drawn upwards as a floating airship passed in front of the sun, casting the military's shadow down to patrol around the suburb out beyond the city wall.

"Hey, Jing," he called out before she tried to cross this next street without him. As soon as he knew she was actually going to stop for a moment he continued with some good-natured ribbing only partly fueled by true frustration. "You just had to try and get near the stage. We could have found spots along any of the streets up near Kuang Bed Park. Look at this place! It's a madhouse!"

Jing spun back, tugging down at the sides of her cloche hat as she twisted her lips to the side in mimed thought. The bottom edges of her short-cut hair curled up under her ears that peeked from the hat. "Nope," she concluded. "Still think this was a good idea. Come on, find some excitement in your soul! When are we going to get another chance to actually see the Avatar!"

"No idea. I don't know if we're going to get to see her today, now."

Jing did not have an immediate rejoinder since she could see he had a point. As she instead pouted theatrically at him, Tianzi stood up on his tiptoes to use every bit of what little height advantage he had to try and scout their route through the mob. This part of the town was absolutely packed. After a moment he nodded directionally and pointed off across the street.

"Ok, there's an alley over there that leads to Temple Street. It looks like it's stuffed full of cars now but we could get by if we squeeze and the cops probably had the far alley mouth kept open at least for a bit before they closed Temple completely. Might be a spot there with people only getting a chance to fill it un at the end."

"Sounds good." Jing concurred with his nod and followed along behind him as Tianzi struck out to ford the human sea.

It was tricky. At one point Jing almost got lost and Tianzi almost accidentally bought a souvenir photograph while waving her down. But they reached their destination in that exhaust-blackened alley and squeezed past the wide molded black steel of the wheel-wells of the first car.

"Oh wow," Jing said, looking ahead. "Talk about an eyesore. Well, we won't forget which alley we came from."

She had a point. That next vehicular obstacle was a slight departure from the dull shades of the alley and its other occupants. The car was pink. In fact it was very pink, with two big calligraphic characters printing a name in fancy script and a much smaller description of what the company actually did.

"Hey, yeah." Tianzi looked down at it. "One of those Gaoli cars. That's the get-housewives-to-sell-makeup-to-other-housewives company, right? I think they give the top sellers those cars. Probably just management though."

Jing shrugged. "I guess it's advertising for them. And if the ladies don't mind the color then, hey."

"Some women actually like pink."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Some women are wrong."

Tianzi laughed and they pushed on.

A moment later they popped free onto the banks of Temple street and discovered that even Tianzi had been overly optimistic in his assessment of the parade route. The sidewalks of the cordoned off street were completely packed, with the edge of the barricades formed into solid human battlements. People had been here saving spots for unimaginable amounts of time. On particularly prime viewing corners new civilizations had sprung, up complete with their own culture, traditions, and seating arrangements. They did not look kindly on outsiders.

The apparent buildings that mixed in with the old religious structures all had their windows flung open. People leaned out of every other portal, peering from packed rooms obviously hosting parties of people from other parts of the city. In the grand tradition of Ba Sing Se, Tianzi could only assume the guests were being charged rent. Every once and a while someone would get overexcited and throw out another premature handful of ticket tape confetti to drift down on the crowded sidewalk.

Jing blinked at this dense pack of humanity. "Ah, hmm. Maybe you were right. This looks like a failure from the start. How are we going to see her?"

Tianzi could not resist the opportunity to turn her own line back on her. "Aw, now who has not excitement in their soul?"

"Shut up."

He laughed again. "Ok, let's try and-"

Jing held up her hand absently as she looked off to the side. "No, actually shut up for a sec. I hear music."

Tianzi uncertainly turned his head back in forth. He did hear strings and brass somewhere. "Uh, yeah? And that means something to us because...?"

"Because I think I might actually know this place. I've been down around here before. Follow me."

"Jing?" Tianzi called after her but Jing was pushing through the crowd, now a woman on a mission. He had no choice but to follow after her. Luckily he kept sight on her until she squeezed off into the next alley. Unfortunately, Tianzi had to have brief and loud conversation with some man that Ba Sing Seites pushing in crowds like this was sure to be enshrined the new Confederacy constitution if it wasn't already, but he managed to get free and follow Jing into the alley in time to see her making her way up a set of narrow wooden stairs clinging to the side of the three story redbrick building. He could still hear music.

He looked up at Jing. "Hey, come on, that's someone's home."

She grinned down at him and struck a little pose up on the stairs. "Trust me for a second," she said with a wink.

Tianzi turned around aimlessly in the alley for a moment as he absently pushed his rolled up sleeves a little higher above his elbows. Oh well, he thought, might as well. He did want to see the Avatar.

The steps creaked alarmingly as he took them two at a time but he met Jing at the top before they both had a chance to meet a tumbling doom down to the ground so that all worked out. They were now stalled in front of a blank, blue painted door set into the side of a blank brick wall three stories up. Tianzi was so preoccupied determinedly not noticing how the crowded void below their narrow landing that he almost missed Jing suddenly taking a few quick primping gestures at her slim shapeless dress and cheap beaded necklace strings. He was just pursing his lips to ask where they were and why she was suddenly more fashion conscious when the door abruptly opened slightly, revealing a black gap filled by a pale angular man who silently stared at them.

Tianzi took half a step back in surprise and involuntarily puffed up in the conditioned response to male threat, however Jing just took a breath and said, "I'm a friend of Zhangyi's."

The pale man did not say a word, but he stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way to let them inside a narrow corridor. Tianzi stuck himself very close to Jing, trying his best to loom around her in some sort of protective manner as they vanished from the sunlight. He suddenly notice that the music was much louder.

He whispered down in her ear. "So who's this Zhangyi? How do you know this guy?"

She smiled confidently but Tianzi still heard a sigh of relief on her breath. "There's no guy, that's just the name of this place, Zhangyi's. I'm just glad it's open so early!"

Then they passed through a doorway and a swell of the music pounced upon them. Shaded light and swirling smoke mixed with the scent of alcohol and the sound of sour brass over over dark wood. It seemed the entire top floor of this building had banished its interior walls to form one unified space. Tianzi instantly knew his father would describe this as a "den" of some sort despite its elevation, and as he glanced around Tianzi had to admit that few other words were immediately springing to mind. To one side of the narrow low tables was a long and well stocked bar, then across the floor past some brick supports leading up to arches lay a low stage space where a five piece band was making their gentle way through an unfamiliar song. The staff looked Fire Nation, the band looked Water, and the music had the thumping rhythm of Republic City jazz. This place must have just opened for the day but there were already a few customers making quiet conversation over by the bar.

"Um, when exactly where you here before?" Tianzi found himself tugging on his vest and feeling underdressed or at least falling far below the required style quotient for this place.

Jing gently elbowed him in the ribs, still hearing his silent inquiry of what she had been doing even without him saying a word. "Lala and the girls from work came down with Mao and his friends a few months ago. We couldn't get into the real Fire Town club they were shooting for but luckily one of the guys knew about this place. It was fun, and look over there. They've got a balcony! Just remember that we have to order something."

Sure enough one of the walls did in fact prove to have windows behind the heavy black curtains. After a few birdlike attempts of pulling back curtains to by stymied by glass they managed to find a door and start to slip outside, but not before an on-the-ball waitress tracked them down and struck to get an order. Tianzi was at a loss before that woman in the neat little apron around her waist; he knew that these hip places were all about cocktails now and he also knew that he didn't know the name of a single one. An Izumi's Crown might be one, or that could be a drug reference. He wasn't sure and in a place like this he was equally anxious about actually getting either of those options if he chanced it.

Fortunately, Jing had him covered here to and said a beverage name that in his anxiety Tianzi had forgotten an instant later. Then they were sneaking under the drapes to get out the door onto the narrow balcony.

In fact, it was a very narrow balcony that Tianzi half suspected was designed as a planter box with a railing. It only lasted for six feet of length until it was interrupted on each aide by brick protrusions of the building face, though there seemed to be more of these little areas along this whole floor. But though he and Jing were squeezed in there, and switching places would have required a possibly criminal amount of inappropriate touching, the view was great. The two friends leaned over the railing together and grinned at the parade route stretching out below them.

The soft roar of a thousand people packing these narrow streets drifted up to meet them. They were looking in the direction of the river, although of course all sight was blocked off by the tall waterfront buildings. Tianzi supposed he would have to content himself with the River God Temple up the street to their right, and of course in the other direction, the parade terminus that they had actually come all this way to see. Across the way, a stilt legged green spirit faded into sight on the sloping tiled roof, but no one gave it much mind. The city had prided its self in how quickly it had come to regard the post convergence bloom of spirits as another mundane thing that only tourists gawked at.

The parade route terminated at what under normal circumstances was a fairly major intersection, and was now thoroughly blocked at each mouth by three stages. On the river side were the union guys, wearing the characteristic black bands around their hats. The lead men chewed on cigars and tucked their thumbs into the pockets of their waistcoats which struggled in the fight against the dual threats of fat and muscle. Tianzi had heard that out here in Kuang Harbor the unions were basically another government. They were also supposed to be ridiculously corrupt behind closed doors but no one in Ba Sing Se could hold that against them. That was just how things worked, and at least this was corruption flowing down to the working man.

The center and grandest stage was of course the government's but no one cared about that too much. Governments came and went; from Huoting, to the Five Generals, to Kuvira, to Wu. It really wasn't worth getting attached. Expressing any sort of preference just set you up as a target when the next change came around.

"Ooh, ooh!" Jing knocked her fist against Tianzi's shoulder as she excitedly ignored him to point off at the third stage. "Look at old Ms. Miohuito! I heard she was the one behind the whole Historic Fire Town business. I wonder what kind of black magic she used to get the Avatar down out here past the walls."

Tianzi rolled his eyes. "The queen of the railway barons is richer than they got numbers for. Did you hear what she got Wu to give her as reparations in all that denationalization? She probably just paid the Avatar's weight in silver. No need for magic."

Still, despite what he'd read in the newspapers, Tianzi couldn't help looking down at that third stage. He did not seem to be alone in that regard. There was a subtle influence acing on the crowd. Here and there across the street, heads gravitated like a dust of iron filings arcing near a magnet, all turning towards the thin old woman sitting on the smallest stage. Well, towards the two old women.

If there were a hundred rumors about old Miohuito then a full half of them featured the witch she supposedly employed. A water tribe witchdoctor, the stories said, who never left her mistress's side. One who'd bound herself to that house by brokering a deal to marry her employer to a powerful evil spirit, explaining both Miohuito's business success and why she'd never married. Then there were other people who just snickered at old jokes about confirmed virgins and Fire Nation women.

There were also a hundred stories of what had happened during Harmonic Convergence, and even in the Lower Ring there were houses with the Eye of Ayika Kuang carved on their corners. The city priests and the spirit-technologies scientists had their own version of why different areas of Ba Sing Se took more or less time to reach a new other-world equilibrium. She and Miohuito were urban legends.

Or that lined brown face just belonged to an old housekeeper with a boss who was rich enough to not care what people thought about decorum for interacting with employees. Tianzi snorted to himself at people who actually bought all those stories of magic spells. Then he froze as the white haired woman looked up and for a moment Tianzi swore she was looking straight into his eyes. Then the old Northern woman turned to the side and whispered something to her mistress who, if Tianzi could tell from this distance, just looked patiently exasperated at the general delay though she found some humor in whatever her servant had said.

The parade was over an hour late, of course. If a civic function ever actually started on time in Ba Sing Se the population would burn the city down yet again in anticipation of the end of this world. The Avatar being delayed probably counted as respecting local customs. In the meantime the door behind Tianzi and Jing opened, allowing the waitress to hand over the drink from her tray. Tianzi felt a sinking feeling as he wondered exactly how much they were paying for this parade viewing spot. Jing took the glass of light brown liquid and ice-cubes, thanked the waitress, and then soon handed it over to Tianzi.

He grabbed it on pure reflex. "Wait, I thought you ordered that."

She flapped her hand. "You have to drink it. You're the guy and it's too early for me."

Tianzi could not help noticing that Jing's transfer process had actually involved her taking quite a large swallow mid motion. Still, he shrugged and put the glass rim to his lips. To his surprise whatever this was actually tasted quite aromatic and flowery over a smooth feel quite different from the burning he had expected. He supposed that liquor was a bit different when you paid more than five yuan for a bottle. Leaning on the railing as he was, Tianzi just could see two men on the next little balcony beside. One of them met his eye and raised his own glass before turning back to his friend and laughing at some private something.

Then the noise of the city changed. In the distance towards the Wall the sound grew body and depth, spilling around corners and over roofs as it expanded and swelled. The military airships in the sky above managed to float with increased determination, and far at the other end of the street, the parade entered into sight.

A wave of celebration swept down the sidewalks. Small children on their father's shoulders cheered to each other above the canopy of hats. These leaders of tomorrow now formed a new community forged on the principles of free communication, desire for snacks, and a a relief that something new was happening. Of course, this being Ba Sing Se, the crowd just as quickly switched to complaining about all the parts of the parade that weren't the Avatar.

Fortunately, they were quickly satisfied. The roar became deafening as a long open top convertible appeared from behind the third marching formation. Tianzi leaned out so far over the railing that Jing grabbed onto the back of his vest in sudden fear that he was going to fall, but he saw the Avatar. At this distance she was just barely defined as a slightly darker skinned figure sitting up on the back rim of the car cabin, her feet resting on the seat. She had the right haircut, and her bare shoulders were a clear sign, but still Tianzi could swear that he felt a radiated confidence even from here. The Avatar was the protecter of the world, and surely as part of the world he should respond to that connection, right?

As the parade drew closer the Avatar's car passed right under them. At times the flurries of ticker tape confetti caused a brief whiteout but still Tianzi felt closer than he had dared to dream.

"Wow," Jing cooed. "She's so pretty! I hadn't realized. She really does not take a good picture, does she. Oh, oh, and who's that sitting in the car at her feet?"

Tianzi looked down and wracked his brain for scraps of that newspaper article he had read. "I know this. I know...It's, um, Sato! Like the cars. She's the daughter of the one who was behind the big Equalist revolution in the Republic back seven years ago. Apparently, she's friends with Avatar Korra?"

"Ha, that's a couple new women right there." Jing smiled as she watched the parade go by. "I'd like to see those anti-imperialists have something to say about those gals returning to preserve traditional households."

Tianzi glanced over at his friend. He'd not been aware that Jing kept up with politics enough to know those buzzwords. But then again he supposed that the other women at her work must be talking about something. Then he turned back to the street and the whole city growing up around it. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. Kuvira's revolution wasn't dead yet.

The roar of the crowd rose once more into a deafening surge as the parade slowed to a stop. A convoy of uniformed government figures rushed down from their central stage to present their official welcome, but the Avatar stood up and smoothly hopped out of the car before anyone even touched the side handle. Then she leaned back and opened the door for her friend. The government officials stumbled over themselves in the middle of the intersection and defaulted into toppling at the waists into a wave of bows, only to find the Avatar striding right past them. It looked like Miss Sato gave some apology as she passed the deflated officials before shaking her head at Avatar Korra ahead of her.

As the Avatar walked across the cleared intersection she glanced to her side at the union bosses getting together to hurriedly reorganize their own welcome, but she ignored them too. Tianzi grinned, she'd come here to honor the seventieth anniversary to the first official settlement for foreigners in Ba Sing Se and she was not about to be distracted by people who had not dedicated themselves to preserve it. Miohuito was the figure who had used her money to fight for unrestricted residence for non-earth nation peoples, and not even the most radical of the imperialists at their height had been able to assail the position she had earned for herself in this city. Now the Avatar herself walked up to the industrialist's stage and casually jumped up without bothering to find the stairs.

Old Miss Miohuito put her hand to her mouth in surprise as Avatar Korra put her hands before her and bowed her head in respect to the grey haired woman. The crowd murmured in excitement. No matter what her ethnicity, Miohuito was one of theirs. In classic fashion the city was as ready to claim credit for any success it could as it was ready to disavow any failure.

Then there was an odd moment. It was so slight that at this distance Tianzi was forced to admit he may have imagined all of it. The Avatar was about to say something when suddenly she tilted her head as if sensing something. She took half a step to the side and looked past the rest of the members of Miohuito's Historical Committee to face Ayika the Kuang Witch. The Avatar staring at her questioningly. It was barely half a moment but Tianzi could have sworn he sensed something rippling through the air, some meeting of power. In the corner of his eye he saw the green spirit on the rooftop was now one of many who perched on those eaves, looking down with uncharacteristic concern for human affairs.

Then Korra heard a sound and turned around to see Miss Sato folding her arms with good natured annoyance in front of the stage. The tension snapped. The Avatar laughed and tapped her foot to earthbend up a small block of pavement as a step. She leaned down and clasped Sato's hand to help her up with a warm smile. They were both on the stage and they were still holding hands for a few long moments. One of the other board members of the Historical committee inched forward to nudge Miohuito in the suggestion that they should start their prepared introduction. However, Old Miss Miohuito just shook her head, tears in the corners of her eyes as she grew new wrinkles from smiling. She waved her hand to the side, asking someone else to take care of the rededication ceremony.

The speaker took up the microphone and said some words that were instantly lost in sudden renewal of the crowd's roar when Avatar Korra turned to face them. Tianzi didn't care, he joined in too, yelling out cheers as Jing did the same at his side. They laughed together as they whooped and yelled, joining the whole city in its outburst of noise. Even the spirits bayed and thundered, adding their own force and celebration for the city that was theirs as much as anyone's. Ba Sing Se had lasted through fire, and war, and revolution, and it would last through all those ten thousand times again. Now, for this brief moment it roared together in triumph under a deep blue sky.

Tianzi grinned until his cheeks hurt. Jing was right. He was glad they were here.

...

...

The End

...

...

(Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I am still planning to revise "The Canals are Burning" from the beginning, tightening up some parts and rewriting other parts. I will then post the improved version as a Avatar: The Last Airbender story since the timeline is between the two shows. If anyone would be interested in providing suggestions or other help, please message me. I would greatly appreciate any aid.)