restoringhonor | eight ➢ voice

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eight ➢ voice

I won't bother trying to brush all that off. Had things been different? I guess that person... during the flood, I mean. I could have been him.

My family doesn't exactly have the cleanest record when it comes to knowing how to run a country without just exterminating anything that got in our way. Or without using fear and torture to get people to listen to us.

But I know that. And I know that it's not the best way to run a country. Or that it's even acceptable. What we did was wrong, and cruel, and it had to be stopped. I saw that, and I fought for it to become a reality. A world where peace and kindness could help repair the damage and

I'm still fighting for it. We won the war, but that doesn't mean everything's magically been fixed. It'll take work, and it's not going to be easy, but that's what we have to do. And I'll keep fighting for that - a world where people aren't ruled by fear or prejudice or violence - until the day I die.

[Private to Vanessa]

I'm sorry.

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When I was eight, my father dishonored my uncle and grandfather after my cousin died, and my grandfather told him he needed to experience the pain of losing a first born child. He was going to do it, but my mother intervened. The next morning, my grandfather was dead, my father was declared Fire Lord and my mother was missing. My father told me before the end of the war that she'd only been banished, and that she might still be alive somewhere, but won't give me any more information, and neither will anyone else.

You don't know anything about what the Fire Nation's like right now. We don't have a well-run network with a kingdom behind it. I chose to come here now, with the promise that time wouldn't pass while I was gone, to get this out of the way and keep me focused on what matters to my people instead of some personal issue I'll never be able to let go of. I need to know if she's alive or not.

Give it to you? You don't know how to find it or take it. And if you've been in a war for a hundred years and don't have spies... [wtf.]

If you can't put it aside without knowing, what will you do when something else comes up, something that isn't years old? You won't always have the Admiral to turn to.

I don't have spies I can trust.

You're seriously going to tell me if our positions were reversed, you wouldn't want to have an answer? I want to go home. I want to do my job. But I have to know about this.

I don't know if my mother is alive or dead, but it didn't stop me at home and it wouldn't there, either. [...not knowing her probably helped with that.]

What do you think your job is?

What if it was your father?

I'm going to restore honor to the Fire Nation and balance to our world by taking responsibility for what we've done, and work to start rebuilding and repairing the damage. I want to end the years of hatred between the different kingdoms and tribes and build a world where it doesn't matter what village you came from.

[It takes a lot not to snap at him not to talk about her father, but she manages. Barely.]

A country needs spies to stay safe. If I needed answers, I would have found or made spies I could trust, then used them. You'll have to do it when you go back anyway... or find someone who knows how, and pray you can trust them with that much information, that much power.

And this ideal world of yours, are you Fire Lord of the whole thing? Do you rule it? Because it won't matter what village a common man comes from if he's trapped there all his life. If he'll never have a chance to have his voice be heard or lead, himself, because of an accident of birth like the one you think makes you entitled to talk about a whole country's honor as if you spoke for them all.

This is something I have to do for myself.

And no, I'm not the leader of all of it. This might come as a surprise? [Bitter, bitter sarcasm.] But I've kind of had a lot of exposure to why total dictatorship doesn't work when it comes to people's happiness and safety.

Why do you have to do it yourself?

Lordships don't work, either. There may be a leader to direct them, but the people have to rule themselves. Without equality among the people of one country, you'll never build a world where it doesn't matter where you come from, because a prince will always be worth more than a peasant.

Because it's my fault she was banished! If she hadn't been trying to protect me, it wouldn't have happened! I don't even know if she's alive, or if my father was just lying to me to buy time and he actually had her executed!

[He cuts himself off, still visibly upset and takes a long moment to calm down before replying to the second part.]

And I know that.

It doesn't matter whether it was your fault. There will always be things that are your fault, and if you go after all of them alone, you won't have time to do what needs to be done for the future and someone else will take control of that instead.

[His hands clench tightly again and he quickly sheathes the swords, turning away from her.] You can pretend you understand or try to make me question whether or not I made the right decision all you want. But you don't, and you don't know me. We're done here.

[She laughs at his back.] I don't understand? I grew up learning how lead a free people, not you. I'm the one who's done it.

What do you know besides selfishness? Doing what you want because you want to do it, because you think it's personal, and not putting your people before yourself. No, I know you well enough.

[Flatly:] Of course you do.

Well enough to beat you even with you keeping half my strengths from me. Well enough to get you to give me your back again afterwards.

You may think I went too far, but at least I knew what I was doing.

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eight ➢ voice

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