Basic drainage system is also in place so that waste won't run on the streets. Other town utilities include a postal office, a police station, a fire department, and a clinic... All of which should be here in the town square.
Oh, and the newly formed Yellow Palace Troupe also performs at the open air theatre every weekend."
...
They stopped as they reached the centre of the town square. A great stone obelisk at the centre acting as a sundial for the people glancing out their windows.
"What's that place?" Suki pointed at the largest structure thus far- a monolithic stone structure with green roof tiles that dwarfed all the other structures in the area. She fully expected it to be Khan's palatial home, so it came as a surprise to her when instead he said...
"Oh, that's the immigration centre." Khan shrugged. "With the war in full swing in this area of the Earth Kingdom, we're seeing a constant stream of refugees from the small nowhere hamlets trying to escape the war or just general poverty. Poor things had their hamlets razed by the Fire Nation. In response, I've ordered the town to take a more welcoming stance towards refugees. Seamstresses and carpenters, hunters and medicine women, acupuncturists and artists... Everyone is sorted and sent to their respective guilds for gainful employment."
Just as he finished his explanation, Suki watched as Fire Nation soldiers from the 41st led a parade of miserable-looking Earth Kingdom refugees to the immigration centre, and she immediately figured it out- rounding on Khan with her suspicions.
"That Fire Nation force going around raiding, pillaging and razing villages wouldn't happen to be the Giant and his Horde, would it?" She accused him with narrowed eyes.
"Naturally!" He laughed without shame, "These people have nowhere else to go after we had taken everything valuable they have, claimed their sisters and daughters as concubines and razed their sorry, poorly-located and poorly-governed hamlets to the ground. Of course we'll graciously welcome the homeless refugees into my town."
He led them to take a seat outside one of the inns where other people were apparently eating their breakfast. Unsurprisingly, the other patrons- seeing the warlord that forcibly resettled them- hurriedly ate their food to excuse themselves. Khan didn't seem to mind at all.
"They're better off here anyway." He unapologetically said with a shake of his head, "Zero homelessness, zero unemployment rates, and better standard of living. Before, the average starving Earth Kingdom citizen lived in single room homes where entire multi-generational families slept, cooked and bathed in the same room. It was barbaric. So, I made the two-bedroom home with a common room and shared bath as the minimum standard. Small, but a massive improvement to living conditions."
Suki glanced at her sisters for a moment before looking back at the Fire Nation giant.
"Khan, are you... a Fire Nation noble by any chance?" Suki couldn't help but ask, "Because that's how it is everywhere. The only places that have those lavish multi-bedroom places and dedicated baths are the manor's of nobles."
"I see..." he said dumbly, "So, that's why even the troops were looking at me so strangely when I commanded it. Regardless, this is the new standard that I'm aiming for. And no one is stopping me."
Suki just looked at the man strangely. "... I'll be honest. Building a village and making sure its inhabitants live comfortably flies in the face of the image of the conquering Fire Nation Warlord I had of you in my head."
Khan's skull-faced helmet just nodded in understanding.
"If it makes you feel better, It is in the 41st Division's best interest to keep the citizens in Yellow Palace." He explained, "This town is our primary source of supplies in more than just supplying food and water. Uniforms need to be mended, arrows fletched, weapons replaced, tents weaved, carts constructed. All from the Earth Kingdom citizens themselves."
"The skills and expertise of eight villages concentrated into one place..." Suki muttered in realisation. "Was this the Fire Nation's plan all along or did you come up with this by yourself?"
Despite his helmet covering his face, Suki just knew that Khan was smirking.
"I did. We all stand on the shoulders of giants- learning from their wisdom and adding our own to it." He solemnly told her, "Just as you strive to emulate your Avatar Kyoshi, I strive to emulate the likes of Chinggis, Ogedei, Mongke and Kublai... Conquering the world, connecting the once isolated kingdoms, uniting them under one system then refining it to perfection."
Suki didn't recognise those names- it really didn't sound like Fire Nation to her ears.
"Burn the world down and build something greater on its ashes... This is it." He said to her- gesturing to the town around them, "This is the start of that 'something greater.' This is what I could build from the ashes of eight tiny villages within a month. Now, imagine what I could do with the whole world across the decades."
Suki could see the determination in his words, and the indomitable look in his eyes. And she knew that if anyone could actually pull it off, it would be him. And it turned her o- scared her, it scared her knowing that one man could have that kind of immense impact on the world.
"But aren't you afraid that the Earth Kingdom will send an army to this town?" She couldn't help but ask.
"The Earth Kingdom?" He asked with a light chuckle as if she had told a joke, "And they'll do what, exactly? Raze this town to the ground while it's filled with their own citizens? Send them back to the smoldering cinders of what remains of their respective villages? March them leagues upon leagues away to Ba Sing Se where they can beg and starve on the streets? Even the citizens here know that they have a better shot at life in this place than anywhere else. The Earth Kingdom will have a better chance at unfucking the daughters that my troops have taken as concubines and regenerating their maidenheads than convincing the citizens here to leave."
"Now excuse me for a few minutes..." The giant of a man muttered as he stood up, "I'm going to cook us some food." "Likely the last proper hot meal that we'll have on the march to Omashu."
Now that caught Suki off guard.
"You, the Fire Nation Giant, cook?"
"Yes, I cook." He said- his green eyes staring at her pointedly through the eye slits of his helmet, "After some unnamed assassin tried to poison my tea, I don't trust anyone else to prepare my food anymore. Also, no one in this blasted country knows how to cook. So, stay right here; I'll be back in a few minutes with something actually edible. I should be able to squeeze in the experience to increase my [Cooking] skill..."
Without another word, his armoured bulk marched off into the inn. Suki and her sisters watched him off with various thoughts running in their heads.
"Khan is full of surprising skills..."
"I thought he was a noble, and they don't cook their own food."
"Maybe he just learned it during his time in the Fire Nation Army? His view on the world is skewed like he hasn't been outside his mansion until now..."
"Khan, a noble?" Suki echoed the running theory. She had thought Khan to be a barbarian rather than a noble... but shifting her perspective a bit, she could see it too. His brutish methods that Suki once attributed to barbarism... they were just typical arrogance of the nobility directed towards a war. His selective cluelessness that she thought was from a lack of education... they were now just the misconceptions of an out-of-touch noble who never had to mingle with the rabble before. Even his looting of books that she thought was just a thief's eye for value... it was now an actual educated nobleman with a passion for books. It all made sense now.
"Spirits give me strength to endure the giant in my kitchen." A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts, one that Suki immediately recognised.
"Uncle innkeeper?"
"Yes." The old gray-haired man with the liver-spotted face grinned at them, "The spirits have deigned for our paths to cross yet again, it seems... With me as an innkeeper in his new village, and you as his first set of concubines."
"We're not his concubines..." she answered for the group, "Khan has decided to make us fight for him instead."
"More's the pity..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Suki pointedly said with narrowed eyes. She really wasn't in the mood for remarks about how the Kyoshi Warriors aren't good enough for this war.
"It is always a great tragedy..." the old innkeeper began with a weary sigh, "...whenever one who is capable of great good, willingly chooses to walk the path of destruction instead. Even a simpleton can look at this place and know that Khan could bring about such peace and prosperity to the realm, but he chooses instead to focus his energies towards this wasteful war. I had hoped that with lovers by his side, he could be persuaded to the wisdom of hanging up his weapon and living a peaceful life."
Suki's blue eyes glanced at the town around them before settling back at the elderly innkeep.
"I know what you mean, but... Khan retiring to a peaceful life? I don't see it."