plot drop 2 - open town hall meeting
“everything said today will be taken into consideration when i begin to develop our plans for transformation.”
yeah, not likely.
oh the poor soldiers who had to burn down homes and watch children cry over dead parents. oh the poor fire nation villages that didn’t get to see their fire lord come and visit. the pitiful lives they had to lead as they stood by and let the world burn down feeling helpless. it was no surprise it was an earth kingdom boy-- one she didn’t recognize but she was going to have to remember-- teo found a stash of hidden information. if only she could have gotten into the palace walls to find out what other secrets were hidden there. her fingers twitched in her gloves and she wished she had her swords on her back.
obviously the guard wouldn’t let her in carrying three weapons. they didn’t know about the one hidden in her chest plate. for her own protection. it wouldn’t exactly take out a fire bender from across the room, but if she was attacked, she was going to go down with a weapon in her hand.
smellerbee desperately wished for the easy air with which jet carried himself through rooms. people turned to look at him, captured by the way he walked and talked and the stupid stalk he liked to keep between his teeth. when she put her hand down hard on the podium, people had to turn to look at her, startled someone was there at all.
“i represent the freedom fighters, a civilian militia group that defended lands from the fire nation, and protected innocent people during the war. i saw the exact kinds of crimes the fire lord’s council was hiding.” rage was bubbling up in her chest, the memories, the images, and she clenched her hands until the familiar fabric of her dingy gloves reminded her to exhale. if she started screaming now, they’d throw her out before she so much as got two words in.
“if the fire nation intends at all to make reparations to the people it has slaughtered, injured, used, and imprisoned then the entirety of the council needs to be eliminated.and that includes the fire lord.” eliminated was an intentional word. they leave the council one way or another. smellerbee’s eyes shot to zuko and she hoped that even through the black warpaint under them he could see that she hated him. “no person who has committed a crime against the earth kingdom, and for that matter the water tribes either, should be making decisions about how to somehow make it better. your words mean nothing to the people of the earth kingdom when they come from the mouths of conquerors and liars.”
“i met the fire lord before he became the fire lord. then he was just a prince, no, not even a prince. he told us his name was lee. he was sneaking into ba sing se as an earth kingdom refugee, taking advantage of the kindness offered for people who had lost homes to his people, his actions. prince zuko destroyed villages, destroyed incomes, he left people bleeding and dying. and he has the--” smellerbee paused, inhaling again. she didn’t realize she had been getting louder until her voice choked. she composed herself again and flexed her hands. “he came into ba sing se pretending to be someone he wasn’t. he took a job that could have gone to someone in need. he lied to the police force when questioned about his heritage. he let a man be sent to jail for standing up to him when he was right to be accused of being a fire bender. and despite all the kindness the city showed him and the general, his uncle iroh, who tried once to conquer it, he was nothing but a spy sent there to help his sister overthrow the king, take the city from the inside out, and kill the avatar. our so called last hope for peace.”
the sneer on her mouth was involuntary as she finally looked away from zuko and crossed her arms over her chest. “the only reason he sits on the throne is because he had the avatar beat his father, and he had his sister thrown into jail. his actions have not proven he has remorse for what he did to the other nations of the world. this change he claims to have gone through is at the expense of earth kingdom blood. he is covered in it. that doesn’t make him any different than ozai or azula. it doesn’t mean he won’t turn on the nations again as soon as the avatar turns his back. fire lord zuko will just keep kicking change down the road and claiming it’s because he’s young and he needs time. and before we know it, it’ll be another hundred years and the colonies will still be there and the fire nation will just keep expanding their land and pretending they deserve any place in the earth kingdom.” jet would have been proud of that. he loved theatrics. smellerbee was never much good at them. jet also would have finished by taking the knife out of its hiding place and throwing it across the table between lee’s zuko’s eyes and hoping it hit its mark before anyone noticed. but she wasn’t jet. she wasn’t trying to be jet. not right now, anyway. she was trying to be smellerbee and lead the freedom fighters her way. it just so happened that what she wanted now was for no member of the old royal family to be on the throne, and jet would have done the same thing.
“that’s my piece.” she threw the words over her shoulder as she left the podium with a flick of her wrist, feeling much more confident in her walk and the fact that people seemed to notice her now, even without the stupid grass between her lips.