UKANO - PLOT DROP 1.5
WC: 1120
When Ukano first received news of Ozai’s defeat, he considered running. As soon as the words left the messenger’s mouth, his mind raced through the list of mercenaries he could hire to smuggle him and his family out of the Fire Nation capital, and his business partners in the Earth Kingdom who would be willing to manufacture new identities for them… for the right price, of course.
But then he heard that the Avatar had spared Ozai’s life. More importantly, he heard who would be crowned the next Fire Lord. And Ukano immediately relaxed, slumping into his seat with a bout of deliriously relieved laughter.
He had spent his entire adult life cowering at Fire Lord Ozai’s feet. It had been a small price to pay to see the rest of the world bow down to him. But with Zuko, the banished prince who had been too weak to even defend himself in an Agni Kai? The teenager barely older than Mai, his own daughter? In a world where that pathetic boy sat at the throne, Ukano would no longer bow at anyone’s feet-- not even the Fire Lord.
The boy’s ferocity at the council meeting had been a surprise. This town hall meeting, even more so. But the councilmen dismissed all of it as a child’s tantrum. They would wait patiently for the new boy king to finish his attempt of asserting dominance, loudly but harmlessly, just as Ukano’s five-year-old son did whenever he failed to get his way.
So he grudgingly sat through the first two speakers of the town hall meeting, disinterested and unamused. He still could not fathom why the boy king insisted on wasting their time listening to the words of the lowly peasants like soldiers and prison guards. Ukano could not remember the last time he heard anyone in either of those professions even speak in his presence. And when a boy even younger than the new Fire Lord himself spoke, claiming his discovery of a hidden library full of proof of the council’s crimes, Ukano first sneered and rolled his eyes. There was no such thing.
But as the boy read through his list, Ukano began feeling an uncomfortable prickling sensation starting at the base of his spine. And when the boy looked right at him as he spoke of embezzled funds, his unease erupted into full-blown panic.
He could hear and feel the other councilmen next to him shifting in their seats.He could barely hear the words of the next girl who spoke, as he felt his blood rushing to his ears. Was it time now, to follow the lead of his fellow councilmen who had fled the city days ago? Should he have already left with them, when they first heard of Ozai’s downfall.
Ukano took a deep breath to steady himself, and focused on the tiny girl who had replaced the boy on stage. He looked around at the audience, who were mostly lower-class Fire Nation citizens. And then he looked at the Fire Lord, who was around the same age as his own daughter, he reminded himself. He thought of the way she, despite her brief moments of defiance, still bowed her head in shame any time he scolded her, or went silent when he so much as gave her a stern look. They were all below him. If Ukano could survive under Ozai’s tyrannical and violent rule, he could certainly maneuver himself out of this nonsense.
“Fire Lord Zuko,” Ukano said with a deep bow when it was his turn to stand in front of the crowd. He turned to address the people when he began to speak. “I came here today, ready to be a part of our great nation’s new history. Today was supposed to be about looking forward in our journey to forge a better future for our children. Instead, people have been telling exaggerated tales and pointing fingers to assign blame to those who did no wrong. The Fire Nation has had a shameful past, led by a tyrannical and cruel leader. But the council members are innocent! We were victims of Fire Lord Ozai, just like every other person here. Whatever sufferings our actions may have caused were not made with malicious intent, but consequences of following orders, with no other option if we wished to save our lives and our families. My own daughter was sent to prison for standing up to Princess Azula’s vile attempts to kill her own brother, our new Fire Lord.” He paused, allowing that statement to sink in the crowd.
“And that boy!” he pointed a finger to the boy with the long scroll of the apparent proof of their crimes. “That boy is not even from the Fire Nation! How do we know he is not a spy, sent to divide our people in our greatest hour of need? Why are we not questioning that a foreigner was snooping around our nation’s most protected building, discovering so-called secrets that no Fire Nation citizen knew about?”
He turned to face the boy king again. “You may want to punish us, innocent or not, for the good of the nation. But we are your citizens too. We are leaders of this nation. Ozai’s terrible dictatorship prevented us from doing our jobs, but now, we are ready to serve our nation to the fullest of our abilities. Before you begin your reign by persecuting your council just to make a political statement, I beg you to consider the trust you will permanently lose some of your valuable citizens.” The nobles. Not all of them were here today, and not all of them were council members. But all of them would be on the council’s side, Ukano was sure of that. What good did the approval of these peasants mean, if the Fire Lord lost the support of those who mattered?
“Yes, the people are right to be angry. However, their anger is greatly misdirected.” And the next part was the script he had prepared to say the moment he heard about this little gathering. “I understand that you feel the need to appease the people and their justified anger. However, this should not come at the expense of other innocent Fire Nation citizens like myself. Instead, I propose that their anger be avenged through the proper punishment of the Fire Lord, the root of all this evil, and his daughter, his greatest and most loyal follower. Those two represent the unbearable suffering the people have suffered, not the council members! Even a lifetime of imprisonment would not be a punishment worthy of the scale of their heinous crimes.”
With one last bow towards the Fire Lord, Ukano returned to his seat.