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A private audience with the Fire Lord was never something to be taken lightly. For this occasion, Admiral Zhao wore his finest military dress: boots polished to a perfect shine, clothes immaculately pressed, armor pristine and spotless. This outfit had never, and would never, see proper battle. It served a greater purpose.
Fire Lord Ozai, despite his position as High Commander of the entire body of both Army and Navy, wore robes that were nothing like Zhao's practical, militaristic garb. Fire flanked him on both sides, the armor of the Nation. He all but glowed with power through his finely-embroidered silk.
His attention was a precious resource. Zhao hoarded plenty of it, given his regular encounters with the Banished Prince. It wouldn't do to have a firstborn son disappear entirely to somewhere that he could sabotage the war effort, undermine his father's rule, or raise a popular revolt in the Earth Kingdom colonies. He was best kept on a tight rein.
The Fire Lord listened intently to Zhao's latest report. At the end of it, the flames flared once, briefly, searing Zhao with a moment's heat. Then, Ozai said, "Is that all, Admiral?"
His tone was not fully entrenched in boredom. He had remembered, and used, Zhao's rank. This boded well.
"I do have a request, Lord Ozai," Zhao said, still kneeling before the throne, eyes still trained on a spot halfway up the steps between himself and the Fire Lord.
"Admiral."
Zhao rose to his feet then, bowing so deeply that the muscles in his his lower legs strained with the effort of maintaining his balance. He withdrew his proposition from his belt: it was written on a slim scroll in neat, crisp calligraphy. Brief and to the point.
"You may approach."
Only then did Zhao allow himself to look upon the Fire Lord's face. His eyes gleamed with interest. They skimmed quickly over Zhao's armor, as if inspecting it for flaws. He wouldn't find any.
With quick, purposeful strides, Zhao advanced to the base of the steps. He proffered the scroll in an outstretched hand, then continued up the exact number of stairs that were required to hand off the proposition without the Fire Lord rising, or stretching to meet him, or otherwise exerting himself in the effort. One foot ended on the topmost step, the other at the base of the golden dais upon which the throne itself sat.
Fire Lord Ozai accepted the scroll in his left hand. With the nail of his thumb, he flicked off the red wax seal that had kept the scroll bound. It unfurled perfectly. Specialty craftsmanship, designed to be comfortably managed with only a single hand. Expensive. Useful for both veteran Firebenders who had found themselves victim to the Earthbenders' penchant for hand-crushing, and for those petitioning the Fire Lord.
The board was set. The tiles lay in Ozai's hand, to play or withold as he so chose.
Ever so slightly, the Fire Lord settled back in his throne. His left hand held the scroll out at an angle, elbow supported by the throne's arm. His right rested on the opposite side. The skirts of his robes shifted, belying the spread of his knees beneath into a more relaxed pose. His attention seemed to remain fixed on the text of Zhao's proposition.
Both men knew that the actual center of his focus was elsewhere.
Zhao advanced forwards once more, onto the golden plinth and to the base of the seat. For a single heartbeat, he stood over the Fire Lord himself. Then he fell to his knees once more and bent to his task. Haste was a crucial component: act too slowly, and the proposition would be read in its entirety and likely dismissed out of hand.
First, the breech cloth was swept aside. The lower skirts had been carefully tucked and folded into the belt by household servants just so, cleverly obscuring the edges of the fabric. Zhao found and unwound them quickly enough that the Fire Lord had not yet dismissed him. Then the laces of the blood-red breeches underneath were unravelled, and the upper fabric peeled away from the placket to reveal the member beneath, already halfway to rigid.
Zhao took the Fire Lord in hand. Firebenders' blood ran hot by very nature of their being, and the Fire Lord was no exception. He stiffened further in Zhao's practiced grip; there was much self-studying to be had by an unmarried Navy man. Ozai hummed. His posture relaxed a fraction further.
A few swift strokes were all that was necessary to bring the Fire Lord to his full stature. Zhao paused for only a single moment, running his tongue over his teeth, then across his lips. He let go of the shaft and ghosted his hand downwards first, brushing past Ozai's sack in a motion too brief to be called a proper caress. Then he returned to standard parade rest, hands clasped together against the small of his own back, albeit kneeling in deference. He bowed his head, and swallowed the Fire Lord whole.
In that selfsame moment, Ozai said, voice the very image of serenity, "The full strength of both the Northern and Eastern fleets. Half of our Naval force."
Zhao did not respond. Those who paused to respond at this point lost. They lost utterly, and dreadfully, and were court-martialed in all but name, for all the authority they would never muster again afterwards. The rules to this were a secret so blown open among the officers' ranks that it made the Great Divide look like a chip in a shoulder spike.
Everyone knew that the Fire Lord was in no particular rush to take another wife, even years after the first had vanished without a trace. Zhao knew why that was so. Most of the inner circles and upper echelons did, too. Sozin's legacy stretched far, a shadow across the Nation that even the flame of his own descendant could not, or would not, banish. Its presence, Zhao couldn't help but notice, did provide immediate cause for severe censure should the circumstances of these arrangements be publicized.
To get ahead in the Fire Nation's nest of spider-snakes, one had to employ a strategic combination of spitting down and sucking up. This was simply a practical exercise of the latter.
With the same militaristic efficiency applied here as in every other aspect of his life, Zhao bobbed his head and swirled his tongue and listened to the crackling of the flames surrounding the both of them. The Fire Lord was a deity among men to the peasantry of the Nation, but even so, he was not so infallible that his breath would never stutter in this state. At every hitch, no matter how soft, the fire guttered and sparked, and Zhao knew.
And so the game was played, tiles on the board.
Another comment from the Fire Lord: "Two thousand foot from the Army, as well. Excessive for a backwater hovel in the ice."
Two thousand was, in fact, the conservative estimate. That ice would act as a nigh-impregnable fortress in the hands of trained and capable Waterbenders, even if by all accounts a full half of them were forbidden from defending it properly. Thrice that number of marines would be ideal for a comfortably crushing victory.
Once again, Zhao did not respond. This time, however, he forced himself to keep his jaw wide against the instinctive reflex to gnash his teeth together out of indignation. Forget the pleasantry of a court-martial should his teeth graze the Fire Lord himself.
The Fire Lord reclined further. The subtle shifting of his muscles indicated that he'd moved his right hand. It now rested on his own thigh. This was an excellent omen for Zhao, who continued to faithfully execute his task.
Take the length in its entirety, from tip to root in one smooth motion. Breathe in and out through the nose, in stark contradiction to the most fundamental of Firebending forms. Relax the throat. Clench the thumb tightly in a fist — though it may be a Spirits' tale said to prevent unwanted gagging. Gag just enough to demonstrate utmost devotion.
Ozai spoke again. "You would strip us of so much of our strength?"
Zhao would do so much more, if his Lord allowed it of him.
"You would gainsay our advantage in the Eastern Earth Kingdom, so near to the return of my forebear's Comet?"
Zhao's own advantage was refuted by the tug on his topknot. The fingers of the Fire Lord's right hand curled themselves in towards his scalp. A new pace was set, dicatated by he who was seated on the Throne of the Nation.
"You would provoke a still-dormant enemy while our more quarrelsome foe is not yet subdued? To what end, Admiral?"
Zhao's inner fire flared. His stomach tightened as a thrill of something unknowable besides ran through his core at the spoken invocation of his rank. Something… unconfrontable. He had his sights set elsewhere: a mission to fulfill. He would see it through to its end. Glory awaited him on the other side.
Some degree of trust was necessary to place oneself in the mouth of a Firebender. That was what this exercise was built on, in truth: trust was the foundation of any good bargain struck between two parties. Zhao fully intended to hold to his end.
After all, the last time he had participated in the Fire Lord's arrangement, he had earned his promotion to Admiral.
Zhao acted towards a selfsame end. He could not speak of mortal Spirits at the edge of the world, not while his tongue laved at Agni's most favored. He could not speak of that high purpose that had called to him in Wan Shi Tong's most illuminating library, when the highest purpose of the Nation sat before him. All that could be done was to convey that urgency, that fervor, that destiny, into his work upon the cock between his lips.
The Fire Lord grew more insistent in his guidance. His breathing grew more ragged. Flames audibly sputtered to either side of the throne. Heat emanated from him.
There was little Zhao could do but drink it in. His own groin grew more strained beneath his armor — some natural response to the other, willing actions of his body. He refused to grant it any more attention than what it already forced from him.
When this was done — if and when he succeeded in this — Ozai was right in that Zhao would directly command half of the Navy, and a good enough portion of the Army to be formidable in his own right. On paper, he would become the most prestigious officer in the Nation. In name, only below the Fire Lord himself and the Dragon of the West.
There were no dragons left for Zhao to slay. He should, however, be entitled to a novel title of his own after his plans came to fruition.
Suddenly, the Fire Lord sat upright, rigid as steel. His hand shoved down on Zhao's head, forcing his full length deep into his throat.
Zhao choked.
Then Ozai found his release, with a grunt through what could only be fiercely gritted teeth and another insistent shove on a skull that could yield no further. Spend hit the back of Zhao's throat. It burned in the way that a Firebender's very essence did, tracing a line down to the heart of Zhao's own.
Every drop was swallowed. The Fire Lord's heirs were devoured cleanly and without complaint.
For a few terse moments, Ozai's grip remained firm. Zhao couldn't breathe at all while pressed so deeply against his Lord. The burning in his lungs dangled on the precipice of immolation. Then the fingers unwound themselved from the roots of Zhao's topknot, which was certainly disheveled beyond recognition. He withdrew himself from Ozai, sitting back on his haunches, hands still diligently clasped. His gaze was trained obediently downwards, across the span of his own armor that shielded his own persistently redundant hardness. If it didn't resolve itself shortly, he would have to resort to the usual habits of unmarried Navy men.
Fire Lord Ozai set down the proposition with a soft clink. He shifted his robes enough to cover himself, though servants would be needed after Zhao's departure to return them to their original state. To touch the Fire Lord after completion, on the brink of victory, spelled disaster. Careers had been ruined over it… or so the rumors purported.
Zhao didn't dare to find out if they were true.
Even the Fire Lord's stare burned, which was indication for Zhao to turn his head upwards, and look into his eyes for his sentence.
The Fire Lord did not flush. He did not sweat, nor did he slacken as mortal men so often did in the minutes after. He looked down at Zhao, and told him, "Your request is granted. Three thousand foot, if you would find them useful to the cause."
One didn't celebrate before the Fire Lord. Instead, Zhao bowed his head once more and rocked back and up onto his feet. His heels dangled over the ledge of the golden plinth. He was able to convert the unwilling movement of nearly falling into a formal bow, hand-over-fist, deep enough yet again to root itself in the toes. "I thank you, Lord Ozai."
Ozai said nothing back. There was nothing more to be said with him, now. His war ministers would handle the logistics of such a massive requisition in due time. Zhao would spend that same time solidifying battle plans, coordinating with his own attendants and underlings.
It would normally be of the utmost disrespect to turn one's back on the Fire Lord. For those who petitioned him so closely, exceptions were broadly implied for those who had to return down the throne's steps the way that they came. Zhao claimed that exception for himself; as much as he loathed this disavowal of common convention, he valued keeping his neck intact more.
At the bottommost step, Ozai spoke. "And the Wànyī."
Zhao pivoted on his heel so fast that sparks flew beneath his boots. With another deep and grateful bow, he said, "Of course, Lord Ozai."
His son's ship. The vessel itself was useless, a barely-floating scrap that was by now more rust than steel. But, in a word, the ragtag crew of the Banished Prince himself had been effectively conscripted into Zhao's endeavor. Most important among them by a considerable margin, from a strategic standpoint, was the Dragon of the West. He who had broken the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. He who had turned tail and fled when the price of destiny made itself known to him. Under Zhao's leadership, he would not do so again.
"I anticipate a detailed report when you return."
"I would be honored to provide." The sharp click of Zhao's boots against the well-polished floor accompanied him outwards, towards the confrontation with his destiny.