So, I was sitting around doing my homework when this little idea plopped into my head as I tried to graph the derivative of an equation...It's safe to say what I decided to do with it.
I'm going to take a break for a bit, seeing as how my love for writing is really making a mess of something ironic: my English grades...hope you like it, and remember to check out my other fics (and my fave author's fics) as well...they need love too!
I actually own the names of the other Kiyoshi warriors...I know, it'll make sense once you start reading...when have I ever steered you wrong?
It was busy on the island today. There was so much activity, that even the town of Chin would be able to see the streams of people move about in preparation. Streamers were being strung up, the ports opened early to clear up traffic later in the night, and everyone was wearing their best. No, Kyoshi Island wasn't expecting any important visitors, quite the contrary.
"Don't worry Oyaji, there's no way that the Fire Nation could reach the island." Suki told her elder. "Not with the Avatar out there anyway…"
"No Suki, what I'm worried about is y-"
"Worried about what?" The brunette interrupted the man, "about us? Me?" The older man stood in silence, ashamed the he doubted the young girl and the other Kyoshi warriors' skills. Suki returned to her packing with a smile on her face. "You don't have to be so quiet about it Oyaji…you've always worried about us, and I'd be surprised if you stopped today. Ever since I found out that the Avatar's returned, I just couldn't stand by and continue to be 'neutral', especially since that the Fire Nation showed us that it will attack us no matter what."
"It sounds to me that this is far from a foolhardy decision; that you've thought about this a great deal." Oyaji handed the young girl a round Earth Kingdom shield.
"Thanks."
Later that evening, festivals were held in the honor of the Kyoshi warriors' departure. Everyone danced, ate, laughed, and for the main even, the younger girls gave a performance in front of the Avatar Kyoshi statue. The young girls, dressed similarly to the warriors' uniform, displayed a ceremonial dance, the exact one that the distinguished Kyoshi warriors had to learn and show at their age. Of course, a little practice wouldn't have hurt. The festival ended with the Kyoshi girls boarding their ferry to head to the mainland illuminated by fireworks and cheery 'goodbyes'. Every inch of the wooden dock was covered by the islanders who wished off the girls. As part of tradition, Suki and the other warriors cast off flower petals into the water, to try to lay a trail for them to follow back after they have completed their duty. It was once said that a warrior, who departed for a local dispute at the mainland, cast off a bouquet of flowers to his young fiancé from his ferry.
This story was made into a tradition, and as such, Suki cast off a bouquet into the waiting crowds. The bouquet landed in the hands of one unsuspecting young man, who stared at the group of bright flowers with bright eyes. He jumped for joy and held his hands up in the air to present the bouquet even though everyone's attention was paid to the ferry. The young man started to moan and mumble in excitement, foaming at the mouth before falling off the dock and into the water, washing up shore just before the ferry was out of sight.
On the ferry, the girls exhaled a sigh of relief that after hours of ceremonies and discipline, they could relax. Some of them went to sleep, others busied themselves from their excitement, but three girls in particular leaned on the rear banister of the wooden ferry. "So, what do you think?" The girl on the outside said, breaking the silence.
"What do you think', what?" The girl on the other side of the three asked. The first girl glared a 'not you!' at her friend and stared at the middle girl. The middle girl looked into the distance towards the island's direction, unaware of her friend's question.
"Suki…" the middle girl reacted at the sound of her name, "So?"
"So' what?" Suki responded to the monosyllabic question.
"You think that you'll see him again?" Two blank stares were the only response to the girl's question. "C'mon Suki, don't do this to me…"
"Kikyo, I have no idea who you're talking about." Suki told the girl on her left.
"You've only really talked to like, a total of three boys!"
The other girl realized who the person in question was. "Oh!" Suki glanced towards the girl on her right, and finally processed a name.
Darting her head from right to left, an embarrassed Suki gave Kikyo a slight punch, earning a pair of girlish giggles. "I think that if we do, that it's destiny!" The girl on the right sighed out passionately.
"I don't think that we're talking about the same person anymore…" Kikyo whispered to her leader. "Watch this…Hey Sai, don't you think that arrow of his is cute?"
"Oh definitely, and the cool grey of his eyes and that laugh…" The girl on the right stopped mid-sentence when she realized what she was confessing. Looking back to the two girls, Sai began to blush, and her eyes squinted in disbelief. "What?" she exclaimed defensively, "you have a crush on him too!" It was Kikyo's turn to blush now and after a short period of awkward silence, all three girls giggled at what had happened.
"As I was saying, do you think that we'll see that water tribe boy again?"
"Sokka…" Suki interjected, "His name's Sokka" she slowly brought her hand up to her lips, remembering the peck on the cheek that she gave him when the Fire Nation attacked.
"See…told you." Kikyo said matter-of-factly to the young Sai. "You still haven't answered my question you know…" No longer worried about her beet red face, Suki left the two leaning on the banister without an answer to get some sleep. "Hey! Come back here!"
The sun had just begun to rise over the deck of the wooden ferry, and the group of warriors practiced their morning exercises—the same exercises that the little girls of Kyoshi Island had presented the night before. A fast patter on the wood called the attention of the girls to see one of their own stumbling in her pajamas with a closed fan in one hand and another held in her mouth. "Hey Akemi…nice to see you living up to your name!" Kikyo joked followed by giggles from the other girls.
"Kikyo…" Suki said strongly and turned her attention back to the late arrival. "Akemi, you know just as much as I do that we start our exercises at daybreak."
"Oh, I know Suki, I'm sorry and…"
"Don't worry about it, but you'll just have to do the exercises by yourself. Alright girls, we'll be arriving at port soon, so that's it for today." Suki and the four other girls made their way back to the cabin to get ready to disembark, leaving the disheveled girl to practice on her own. Unfazed, Akemi simply started alone as she was ordered.
"Akemi?" Sai called from behind her, "I'll do the exercises with you…" Smiling in gratitude, both girls went through the morning exercises together. A few feet behind them, Suki leaned against the open doorway of the cabin and smiled towards the girls.
"Thank you very much!" the girls, clad in their blue islander's garb waved to the ferry master after disembarking. They carried their uniforms and weapons bags until they found a stable to buy ostrich-horses.
"Alright, where to now Suki?" One of the girls asked their leader. They were atop six large ostrich-birds and headed out towards the town's exit, not knowing where to start.
"First thing that we need is to get some more supplies. It wouldn't make any sense to ride around in uniform if we couldn't clean them later." Suki said
"Well, we could always use the Army's discount if did wear them." Sai tried to suggest.
"Whether we wear them or not, the shops here are focused around fishing, not fighting." Kikyo informed the group.
"There are only two towns that we could go to with the supplies that we have." A long haired girl spoke out while reading a map, "the town of Peking, which is a day and a half away from here…or the town of Chin."
"How far is Chin from here?" Akemi mindlessly asked, receiving a nudge from Kikyo.
"Yeah Sumei…how far is Peking from here?" Kikyo emphasized the town's name.
"Alright then," Suki said, "we'll have to make a stop, but we'll go to Peking for supplies and find out where to go next from there. Sumei, you'll navigate for us. Myn and Sai," Suki began to order, "You two will take the first watch, followed by Akemi and Sumei, then Kikyo and me."
Kikyo grumbled against her leader's subtle way of punishing her, but kept silent considering that she probably deserved it. The trip was uneventful, followed by an uneventful night, which led to another uneventful morning. That day, they had made it to Peking, restocked on all the supplies that they needed, and left by sunset. Before leaving, the girls paid their respects to the spirit of the forest at its shrine; a group of bear statues that sat in the middle of the thick forest.
Feeling at ease near the shrine, they decided to stay just outside of the statues. The sun again rose above the thick green of Hei Bei's forest, and shone above an encampment temporarily left alone. The whole group was going through their morning activities until they heard the soft dulcet sounds of a stringed instrument. It was only seconds later that they were able to hear a tambourine's banging and a man singing, "Oh, don't let the cave-in get you down…"
"Who's that?" Sai said, pointing in the direction of a group of people moving towards them.
"Don't let the falling rocks turn your smile into a frown…."
"It could be a traveling circus…" Myn tried to hypothesize, intrigued as well. The six girls began to watch with interest the colorfully dressed singers that were now only a few feet away from their practice area and the shrine.
"When the tunnels are darkest that's when you need a clown, hey! Don't let the cave in get you down, Sokka!"
"Huh?" Suki blinked when she heard the grungy man mention that name. "Hey wait! What was that that you just said?" She called out to the group, effectively catching their attention.
"What'd I say?" the man tried to recount the verse to himself. He looked towards the girls and an idea struck him. "Oh, hey, yeah…sorry about that!"
"Wait, what are you sorry about?" Sumei asked confused.
"I didn't mean anything by that, I mean, I like clowns as much as everyone else does!" The man calmly said to the girls in a leisurely tone.
"Clowns are nice…" a woman joined in with the same tone as the man.
"What!?" Kikyo shrieked at how ludicrously peaceful the unshaven man insulted them.
"Oh yeah. I'll definitely not say that anymore, clown lady. I don't try to be insulting to anybody. I'd rather be nice…like clowns are!" the man pointed towards the group, mainly towards a now fuming Kikyo.
"Clowns are nice"
"We're….Not...Clowns!" The Kyoshi warrior's face was red from frustration towards the calm man in the silly hat.
"You're not? Man, I'm not good at guessing things…"
It took a couple of minutes, a few fellow Kyoshi girls and some explanations before everything was settled with. The colorfully dressed group explained themselves to be nomads…twice…and the green and makeup covered girls explained that they were warriors from Kyoshi Island…not clowns.
"So how do you know Sokka?" Suki tried to hide her excitement while Sumei and Myn held Kikyo away from the Chong and Lily.
"Sokka? He's cool." Chong quickly answered the wrong question
"He seemed pretty nervous. Maybe he was afraid of the dark?" Lily continued on. Suki stared at the two nomads and smacked her hand onto her forehead out of frustration.
"Hey, you got that down pretty well! Do you know Sokka?" The girls sat astonished at what Chong said, "Him, Katara and the little arrow guy wanted to visit Omashu." The girls murmured when he said this, fully aware that Omashu had been taken over by the Fire Nation. "Oh wait…wasn't it taken over by the Fire Nation? I forgot to tell him that…"
"You mean you led Aang straight to a Fire Nation city?!" Sai jumped to her feet, terrified for the young airbender. Kikyo just grumbled some more.
"I guess…but don't worry; I heard that the Avatar managed to free a whole bunch of people from that place, so the Ga-Aang should be fine. Hey, I just made that up!" Chong happily finished the rest of his message.
"Nice!" Moku cheered
"Why didn't you tell us that before?" Kikyo managed to break from her human restraints and jumped in front of Chong.
"Well, you guys didn't ask…" Again, Suki stared at the nomad, only this time was joined by the rest of the Kiyoshi warriors in smacking their heads.
"You guys are really good at that…"
It wasn't for another day that the girls decided where to go next. They figured that they should try to find the Omashu refugees, thinking that they would be of more help with where the Avatar could be…much, much more helpful. Both groups said their goodbyes in the morning; the Kyoshi girls felt that skipping their exercises for one day wouldn't really hurt, and left as soon as they could in search of the refugees.
On their way, the warriors passed through a town that was reportedly attacked by a firebender not too long ago, but no information on Aang's whereabouts. "Well, could you tell us the direction that he went?" Myn asked an old man, who only shook his head with anger on his face.
"Nope, don't know and don't care."
"Uh, thank you very much…" Myn bowed reverently to the old man and returned to the rest of the group. She shook her head to the others in indication of what happened, and they soon set off on their way again. After days of more traveling, the girls had encamped themselves on a soft mossy hill overlooking the sun that set just beyond the Earth Kingdom plains. They had to circumvent the desert and were glad that they had successfully made it to the other side. The girls had busied themselves with cleaning their uniforms and weapons, setting up camp or practicing movements when Sumei ran into camp.
"Suki, you better come see this!" The rest of the girls followed their leader and Sumei to a high cliff where they stopped. "I was trying to get our bearings as to where we were from the stars when I saw some torches in the distance." The long haired brunette pointed towards the sandy border to a large group of people marching down below. The girls looked with amazement at the sea of people that traveled out of the Si Wong desert
"Found them." Kikyo announced.
As I already said, I need to get a handle on school again... Don't worry, my contest is still on, and all the rules still apply;
1) First (signed) reviewer gets the chance to come up with the topic of a future story. (It'll just take a lot longer to produce)
2) If you reviewed the previous story, you're gonna have to wait till the next one. sorry!
3) More detailed instructions will be given to the (In-fic) winner, so don't worry about the vagueness.
In an attempt to be teasy, I'll let you in on some projects that I'm working on:
1)A longerbee ToBSS oneshot...
2)My Economics project...what? I am!
3) A longerbee future-shot
4)change to kataang
5)change to tokka
6)change to soki (?)
7)y'know what? 3-6 are all in one story!! (and more)
5)English Essay...crap! It's due in three hours!!!