Avatar:Outside Options

"We've declared war on the Avatar, [...] She just doesn't know it yet."

— Henshe muses on the shangs' position.

Template:Chapter infobox"Outside Options" is the twelfth chapter of The Dawn of Yangchen.

Overview

Henshe rallies the shangs after Yangchen's threat by proposing a secret contingency, Unanimity, and sends Sidao to Jonduri to activate it through Zongdu Chaisee. Yangchen escapes her tunnel infiltration and witnesses an injured woman she cannot publicly help without exposing herself.

Synopsis

Zongdu Henshe retreats to the barracks washroom to vent his frustration, throwing around a wooden sink, before resuming the meeting with the shangs. He checks with his watcher Miki about the Avatar's departure; she reports that Yangchen has left on her bison, but is unable to answer on Boma's whereabouts. Henshe pointedly orders Miki to inspect the steep and icy roof via a neglected interior bamboo scaffold, emphasizing how their neglect to consider spies watching from an elevated position has disadvantaged them. Having been chosen specifically because of her lack of alternative, and with a sick brother at home, Miki begins to climb precariously, Henshe telling her she is doing great.

Reentering the assembly room, Henshe faces an unruly chamber. Teiin publicly berates him for letting the Avatar single him out and turns on Sidao for failing to monitor the Avatar's movements at the docks. As tensions flare, Henshe restores order and reframes the crisis: the shangs exist at the mercy of monarchs like Earth King Feishan, Fire Lords, and Water Tribe Chiefs. He presents a solution, Unanimity. Younger shangs do not recognize the code word. Teiin is skeptical, aware of Henshe's predecessor's obsession with it, though he only ever heard of its possibilities, never its details. The project was spearheaded by former Zongdu Dooshim with Zongdu Chaisee of Jonduri. If deployed, Henshe claims, Unanimity would give the shangs sufficient leverage to force royal compliance and keep the Avatar at bay. The merchants, reassured, let Henshe proceed without objections. Henshe toasts to the future, and privately to himself, with a cup half-full of tea Yangchen left behind.

After the meeting, Noehi warns Henshe that she will not surrender any of her wealth, and departs. He internally judges her for talk of earning her riches when she inherited her pearl monopoly from her father, himself only having received it over sharing the Earth King's calligraphy tutor. With the hall empty, Sidao laments that his position is "burned". Henshe counters that he is still useful and assigns him to personally carry a message to Zongdu Chaisee: move forward with Unanimity and accelerate shipments to Bin-Er. Because Chaisee distrusts messenger hawks, Henshe insists on an in-person delivery. He advises Sidao to steer Yangchen's itinerary toward Jonduri by implying she will find a more receptive audience there. Henshe believes he understands Yangchen's need to show history and the Four Nations that she cared about people. He asks Sidao if he knows what Dooshim did after leaving the job. Receiving a negative answer, Henshe explains he bought an inn in Su Oku where he lived out the rest of his days, and died in his sleep. He got in and out, finding it lucky.

Meanwhile, Yangchen slips back into her inn through a window, soot-stained and bruised from the flues. Despite his concern for her, Boma gives her space. Yangchen is concerned she is losing her touch, having first nearly fallen for Kavik's performance, and now Henshe's. She recounts a clean exit by earthbending a tunnel away from the hall and leaping rooftops unseen, only to spot a crowd bearing an unconscious woman on a stretcher from the gathering hall. Wanting to heal her but unwilling to reveal she had never truly left, lest she tip off Henshe of eavesdropping on the talk of Unanimity, Yangchen held back, internalizing the guilt.

Shaken by Henshe's ruthlessness and the revelation of Unanimity, Yangchen resolves to stop whatever gives the shangs complete impunity. She reflects that proactive intervention is preferable to repairing damage afterward, recalling past regrets as Tienhaishi, as well as that of dozens of past, passive Avatars. She orders Boma to locate the injured woman via local doctors and pay for her treatment from the Bin-Er budget, and later to help her prepare to depart. Boma suggests cutting Sidao loose, but per Henshe's words, Zongdu Chaisee needs her message delivered by a trusted courier, so Yangchen delays their separation. She considers her recent recruiting pitch to have leaped in importance.

Production notes

Series continuity

• Unanimity, a covert shang initiative attributed to former Zongdu Dooshim and Zongdu Chaisee of Jonduri, is revealed.

Trivia

• The woman carried off on a stretcher, limp and with a twisted arm, who Yangchen could not help, is implied to be Henshe's watcher Miki.