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❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔? ❞
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They say that Ba Sing Se is a city so large you can find anything and anyone within its walls. So much so that it's easy to drown your face away in the crowds-a quick escape for lives poorly lived. In Ba Sing Se, it takes only a moment to notice its residents and find that they all are surely not what they have come to say they are.
It's as clear as day when you look just two more seconds longer at the refugee cattle farmer; he's the one who claimed their Earth Kingdom village was taken down by Fire Nation soldiers, but if you look closely, he actually bends the cattle's drink into their respective buckets. It's not that strange either to find the renown, local singer of Ba Sing Se's upper ring actually heating her cold tea with bending after a particularly long show. You don't...
"...need to be who you actually are in Ba Sing Se." Iroh chuckled, "Isn't that exciting, Prince Zuko? Or perhaps, I should call you Lee?"
Zuko let Iroh's laughter ring out; he was too wrapped within his thoughts to reply or even make a sarcastic remark. He had only thought about the implications of living in Ba Sing Se moments before when they registered their names as aliases.
Thank you, Mr. Lee. You are officially registered. It repeated in his head and confused him.
Every moment after his banishment, scrutinizing eyes glared at him and judged him-always racking to decide whether to laugh or mock. Perhaps these thoughts inherently came from him, but the voices in his head never stopped ringing--not even in dreams. Along the way, those voices took the forms of his father, his sister, the high generals, and even his old firebending teachers.
It's the first time that they are quiet today.
I can't really be disappearing, can I? Zuko repetitively thought. He reflected, then remembered: You can be anyone in Ba Sing Se.
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❝ Who is Prince Zuko if not a prince? Who is he if not a failure, scrambling to regain his honor? Who is Prince Zuko without what others think? And who will Zuko choose to be in the city where anyone can be anyone they like? ❞
