Tell Me...
'No loose ends.' Krane had heard that phrase a lot, especially from Uquo. He had been with the Rising for several years, primarily as a recruiter. It was his job to scope out those that he believed could be an asset to the Rising. More importantly, it was his job to eliminate those that could become potential problems for the future. The loose ends that Uquo spoke of. Even though Krane was a recruiter, more often than not his actual occupation was hunting down those recruits that didn't pan out. Those that wished to return to their families, those with weak wills and even weaker constitutions. The Rising had to remain a secret - that was its founding principle. The Rising was the organized rebellion the Phoenix Kingdom wouldn't see coming. It should strike so fast and so unseen that the Fire Nation military shouldn't even have time to mobilize before the Phoenix Kingdom crumbles. Any loose end, a single set of loose lips, would be enough to topple over the organization. It took a significant amount of trust initiates to meet Uquolaan, it took even more for them to begin to learn the secrets of the Rising. Tanvi had been around Krane for some time, but Tao, Zarina and Suzzio were brand new. The trust here wasn't in Uquo. The trust existed in Krane. He had killed so many before, and Uquo trusted he would again if any of them wavered.
"You're right. The Phoenix King will make a spectacle, but not immediately. By the time her casket goes down, she will have been dead for months. News will seep out into the inner circles slowly, the secret spreading only when allowed. I know because I have seen it. I have seen how the Fire Nation only allows something to come to light when it can no longer be hidden or it is beneficial for it to become public," Krane said. His tone was sardonic. It was as if those three little words flipped a switch him. No loose ends. No liability. No chance for failure. Zarina had to be tested. Zarina had to be shown.
"So yeah, you're right in saying her funeral will be grand. Unfortunately, Zarina, it won't be soon," he added.
Krane then looked at her specifically with the brown, beady eyes of an airbender that burnt with the passion of a firebending savant. Through his glower, he told her, "Do you remember why the Fire Nation took over for? Do you? I do. I went to the same schools you did, learned the same facts you did. Fire Lord Sozin maintained the most prosperous, powerful Nation and wanted to share that prosperity with the world. To do that, he destroyed two air temples and massacred over half of all airbenders. Food for thought. Fire Lord Azulon took it further. He walked into Ba Sing Se and told his soldiers the buildings around them were worth more than the lives of the people in them because it would all be rebuilt in his glory. Food for thought. Avatar Kiareu broke down the walls of Ba Sing Se and the Northern Water Tribe and killed until told to stop. Her hands have caused just as much death as either Fire Lord. Food for thought. Zarina, you need to understand that everything we are is against everything you were. I grew up in the courts, even closer to the royalty than you - I sparred with Azula daily. Lu Ten nearly killed me. Do you understand? You're not the only one from the Fire Nation. If you want to blame Sozin or Azulon, do it, but you won't cleanse the hands of any soldier, commander or even the Avatar. I can't cleanse my hands of what I have done for the Rising, and I live with it every single day. I see faces of soldiers some nights, Zarina. Soldiers whose names I never knew, but they still haunt me. No one haunted the Avatar. No one haunts the Phoenix King. They are people just like you and I, sure, but they didn't feel like people should. So, lie to me, Zarina. Lie to me like you lie to yourself - tell me that they were just as human as we are. Tell me that they weren't monsters."
Krane waited.
Zarina stopped her pacing and faced Krane slowly. She listened to him then stared at him in his eyes before she began to speak. "Does it matter what I tell you? Does it? Will you allow your opinion to be swayed or questioned even the tiniest amount?" She asked with a slight grin. "I doubt it. But, I've been surprised before. Does it matter what the royal family believes? No. Not really. Because at the end of the day, even sheep will stampede if they learn that nice warm house they've been told is a mansion, is really a slaughtering house. Both of us grew up in privileged positions, and we can sit here and argue until we are blue in the face and passed out." Her gaze didn't wander from his.
"My convictions haven't swayed. I will still seek justice for those that can't seek it themselves. In that quest, I will become much like the Avatar. My own whims and wants won't matter. I will kill when told to, and I will withhold when commanded. My feelings, my heart? They will have no place. So whom would I be to judge her for her actions? The same actions I've already committed. I refuse to become a hypocrite to serve my own vanity. I know what I am. I know what you are, and I know what she was. She was a person. A person that never got the chance to live her own life. Subjugated since whom knows how long, to serve the needs of an arrogant, self-righteous man with a complex." She says with a flat tone.
"I see my cause, your cause, as the right one. I've made my choice. She was never offered a choice. If I am to serve as the hand of justice, I cannot discriminate. I am not saying she is innocent, I am merely suggesting that WE don't forget that she was a person. A person that SHOULD have been protected and cared for and wasn't." She says with conviction. "She has blood on her hands. Just like you, and just like me. I'll not judge her for doing what she has known for her entire life under unseen lies and a wish for peace. She was misguided, not malicious." She said then set her hands on her hips and tilted her head. "Besides, we are all monsters. Every one of us is. We are all capable of inflicting horrendous mutilations on our fellows. The difference between us and the true monsters, is that we find no pleasure in taking a life. We do so because we deem it necessary. We don't celebrate their deaths, and they do weigh heavy on our hearts. It is people like Sozin that use these deaths as glory marks that are the true monsters. The dead are nothing to them except trophies."
"Of course Ozai would take his sweet time. He has nothing but time right now. All I am saying is that we use public opinion to force Ozai's hand. Don't let him have the funeral in his own time. Force him to be hasty, to please and reaffirm his own pride as well as his glory in the eyes of his subjects. As I've mentioned, to the common people and the common soldier, the Avatar was an icon. A hero. Her brave acts, to them, inspired them and the prospering of the Fire Nation showed that peace was attainable in some form. To them, the Avatar was a bigger influence than even the Phoenix King. After all, it wasn't him that delivered Ba Sing Se. It wasn't him that brought peace to the battlefield. It wasn't him that helped to bring home so many sons and daughters to them. And i t isn't him that sits on the throne of the Fire Nation, and it isn't him that has negotiated trade routes nor built safe havens for the airbenders." She said with a shrug.
"I think you place too much in what the royals think. Royals are bound by their subjects and their army. Imagine if half of the Fire Nation army decides the Phoenix King is not worth fighting for? That is a lot of men and women that we don't need to kill. That is also a lot of martyrs should the Pheonix King try to force them into service or kill for having a difference of opinion, which is valued to the common man. And that is a lot of men and women that can affect the flow of money and the economy of both the Fire Nation and the Phoenix King. What is the best way to seige a heavily armed castle, you know...without the Avatar to break stuff? You suffocate it. You starve it. You take resources from the castle or the army, in this case money, and you force it to depend on itself. Royals can only pay so much and taxes can only rise so much before people begin to question their way of life."
"What better way to starve an economy than to place distrust between consumers and producers, the most basic form of making money? If the economy suffers, and opinions are subjugated, people suffer due to lack of goods, lack of products to fill needs and will look elsewhere or be forced to live in suffering. If the people suffer, they look for a scapegoat. And if played right...that scapegoat could be Ozin. And look at that...a giant rebellion within the borders of the Nation supplying the Phoenix King's policing army...it is a slow process. But one that can be very beneficial if you set it into motion while militarizing." she says diplomatically. She recalled the lessons from her mother and grandfather about the importance of an economy to an army and nation. "And all because we could, potentially, remember that the Avatar was a person, and should be given respect, despite the atrocities she inflicted as a manipulated woman. I am not saying she should be "forgiven" or her deeds "forgotten", merely put into perspective and respected in the way anyone respects a dangerous and skilled opponent."