Iroh's Gourmet Teas and Teapots

The Hunch

Firelord Zuko was the best Firelord Kiya had ever seen. Granted, he was only the third, and Azula had only lasted a day... but even with the bar set lower than the ground, he had excelled beyond her wildest expectations. He had legalized homosexuality, weed, and cactus juice, which were some of Kiya's favourite things.

But things went south when he asked the Kyoshi warriors to be his guards. Why would a young, attractive, bachelor noble ask a team of teenaged and twenty-somethings to be his guards if not to, er, make a move?

'Maybe I'm being paranoid,' she thought, 'but something just doesn't sit right. What if he wants to date one of the girls? What will he do if she says no?'

She didn't want to find out. Men in the past had disrespected her found family in inexcusable ways because they liked them... Zuko had better not be that kind of guy.

She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. But if he so much as looked at one of them with disrespect or lust, she would end his short career right there.

Zuko hadn't done anything suspicious yet. But Kiya still wasn't convinced that he wasn't plotting something. Plotting a way to date one of the warriors, plotting a way to have sex with them, plotting.... well, those were the two main things.
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"Hey, Sokka," Zuko called out, beckoning the water tribe ambassador over, "Can you come look at this law to make sure I didn't miss anything? I don't want any loopholes."

Sokka looked over the paper. "I think you've got your bases covered."

Kiya squinted her eyes. "Why are you asking him?"

Zuko frowned. "Who else would I ask?"

"I just think she means you should get multiple checks before you send it off," Ty Lee added, "Like from Katara and Aang."

Kiya nodded. That was a far more tasteful way of saying what she was thinking; did Zuko not respect women's opinions? The fire nation didn't have much sexism, Kiya knew, but Zuko had been part of the Earth kingdom for a while. Maybe it had rubbed off on him.

"Oh," Zuko said, "Yeah, that makes sense. Suki's already looked it over, as have Mai and Aang, though, so I just needed a water triber's opinion, and who better than Sokka? He's a genius, you know."

Ty Lee made a gagging sound. "Yuck! Just kidding, stop looking at me like that. You guys are sweet."

Okay, Kiya thought. He already asked women's opinions, and now he wanted a genius's, and the only genius in the room at the moment was Sokka. That made sense, but Kiya still felt something was off. She wasn't sure what, just a feeling in her gut that there was something, something amiss.

It wasn't that Kiya didn't like Zuko. She thought he was great. But previous fire lords hadn't been, and the long lasting effects of their tyranny lingered. Her family had died by their hands, and now she was in charge of helping guard the new fire lord with her new family. What if he was secretly a puppet for Ozai? What if he was buttering his people up so he could gain their trust and stab them in the back?

Trauma didn't leave when problems were solved, Kiya had learned. It stayed inside you forever. She was right to be wary of the new firelord. But the fact remained that he hadn't done anything wrong. It was still just her brain reminding her of her past.

She decided to talk about it to someone who wouldn't have her same trauma and who could see the situation from a more outside perspective. Unfortunately, all the other Kyoshi warriors (or at least, those who were guards and not still on Kyoshi) had similar pasts. Someone in their family, or in their friend's families, had been killed by the war.