Far beneath the surface of the sea, a small group of skilled waterbenders pushed hard against the full weight of the ocean, propelling what looked like a metal egg towards the bottom. Four people had managed to squeeze in besides, and all were gazing intently through the thick glass of the front panel. Few had ever been down this far; even fewer had ever seen the skeleton on the sea bed, draped in sheets of deepest and purest blue.
Pok again laid eyes on his study, his life, his treasure. For so long, he had dreamed of the day he might come to see the lost airship. And now, it was his third mission down. The FN Comet was only an empty hull, but in that shell were secrets waiting to be uncovered.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Pok asked, his eyes sparkling in the dim light filtering down from above. "It still gets me when it appears out of nowhere, like a..."
"A ghost?," quipped his assistant, Meng, with a mischievous smile.
"Just think, eighty years ago, Captain Quin Li was flying high in the sky, without any inkling of what would happen..." Pok mused, ignoring, or perhaps not noticing the jibe. The craft moved forward, skirting the knife-like bow, and bobbing over the top. "Look, there's the maintenance entrance! Take us down." The small hatch where the balloon frame attached to the body of the engine was a dark square against the aged steel.
The waterbenders moved their arms in a circular motion, keeping the vessel a few feet above the opening. The small hatch in the submarine was unfastened. Pok, and his long-time friend Kamu, who bore a grey wolftail, scooted forward in the tiny vessel. They slid through the opening, suspended in a precise bubble over the wreck. Iluk pulled the door shut again, and Meng watched as her captain swam down into his ship.
Pok had gone over the floor plans with Kamu time and time again, Meng reminded herself. He knew where the state rooms were, and what he was supposed to be looking for. But would the master bender be able to make it that far and back before they ran out of air? Meng dismissed her doubts. Pok knew--they researched every type of Fire Nation locking vessel from that era—if anything with a dragon on it came up, it was coming with them.
Minutes dragged by. It seemed to take hours for each second to pass. Colorless deep sea life floated by, uncaring, if not untroubled about the strange craft in their midst. Species never seen before were appearing, and Meng studiously scratched ink marks onto paper, detailing what she observed, trying to quell the nervous boiling in her belly.
A fish with big teeth and a light on its head, how interesting. Had she been hired as a biologist, Meng would have eagerly tried to capture such a specimen, to study its little bioluminescent dangly. It looked absolutely terrifying, with those horrible teeth and claws. She pictured steel beams, rotting beneath the enormous pressure, like the teeth of the angler snapping up an empty-handed Pok...
It seemed the young woman could not take her mind off the man leading the expedition. Should he be this long away? His air supply would be running low, and if Kamu let up his bending for even a fraction of a second, their bodies would be crushed in less time it took than to gasp. With eyes trained only on the dark hole, Meng worried her fingers around the hem of her shirt. Then, a few faint bubbles caught the scant light. A collective breath was held, and released in great relief as Kamu in his bubble suit bobbed towards them, with a trove of treasures floating behind him.
Meng noted the large, ornate cube with curling dragons on every corner.
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Most of the artifacts Kamu had collected were safe boxes, filled with baubles and very soggy currency notes. But the little containers were of no importance to Pok. His heart was set on the safe. Jensu, the resident metal bender, carefully worked open the antique locks, manipulating the clasps, trying to preserve as much of the item as possible. It in itself was a valuable artifact, a priceless example of workmanship. The Firelord himself had used this safe, stored his personal belongings there, and today was the day they would see daylight after 85 years!
Pok could hardly stand the wait as Jensu twiddled the locks. He would rather have taken the Beifong approach, ripped the door off, and asked questions later! But the integrity of their finds had to be preserved, just so the officials who were funding him would have something worthwhile.
"Nervous, cappy?" Meng joked, sliding her arm around her close friend.
"I've got a feeling," Pok said, smiling triumphantly. Someone behind him popped a bottle of champagne, drenching the tightly wound crew, and spewing foamy goodness over the gush of red sludge from inside the safe. Jensu moved aside so Pok could kneel before his quarry. Hands shaking, the man from the Northern Water Tribe carefully pawed through the muck. His searching grew more frantic. There were only water-logged papers! Then he spied a thin side compartment, with some sort of box in it. He drew out the object, and found it was instead a book. Pok flipped through it. Nothing. "It's not in here."
Meng sighed as Pok dejectedly slumped to the deck, still holding the book open on his messy lap. She handed him an open flask of liquor. "There's always tomorrow."
"Not for them, there wasn't."
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Sunlight poured in through the simple windows of the house, illuminating a woman with long locks of snowy hair at an easel covered in new flat parchment, sabel-tipped brush in hand.
"Rising with the sun
A tradition so imposed
As one's own bloodline."
The characters flowed gracefully from her fingers that had long ago curved like claws due to arthritis. They shook with the effort to hold the brush aloft, and she set it on the tray next to her. How horrible growing old was, she thought. Sighing, she peered around the room, taking in the wonderful warm morning light. It made her bones ache less to be in the sun and the presence of her favorite poems.
"Great grandmother? I'm back! I have the oysterfish you wanted," called her youngest descendant, Lu Ten. Finally, he returned from his errand to the market to pick up her latest craving. She pushed herself up from the stool and hobbled into the entry room where a teenaged boy was struggling to keep a hold on all of them.
"Did you remember the fruit tart?"
Lu slapped his forehead. "Aw, I knew there was something!" He put the packages of food and goods in a heap on a nearby table. "I was just so caught up and excited to tell you the news, I forgot about it completely! I'll be back in a flash, don't you worry!"
"What news do you have? I'm sure the tart can wait, if your story was so important as to cause you to forget what I sent you for in the first place," Her old body plopped into a chair, and Lu pulled up a seat to share his findings.
"I was looking for a good oysterfish when I overheard these two fisherman talking about that Water Tribe treasure hunter. You know, the one searching for the place where the Comet went down?" The woman nodded, a smile of intrigue playing across her lips. "Well, he found it. In fact, he brought up some artifacts, including a high-security portable vault."
"I'll be damned."
"Grandmother?"
"Pack your bags, Lu Ten. We're going to the Bay of Ba Sing Se."
Authors Note: Yes, you can see what I'm doing here. But can you see where I'm going? Probably not. Stay tuned! :)