Zuko felt like an worn out paper puppet, the type that had been used to tell pointless stories to children for far too many years. The paper was curling, the ink was fading, and it's joints were far to stiff, but day after day, it would be placed on stage to recite it's lines, praying for a different result, only to be met with the same stale story.
The prince rubbed his heavy eyes, pushing his weariness for at least a bit longer, and watched as the dull yellow light of dawn peered over the nearby mountains. It cast long shadows of the jagged, forested peaks, leaving the bog caught between the blossoming morning light and the ebbing midnight darkness. He licked his dry lips, and turned away from the glaring beams, instead choosing to watch his soldiers as they slowly made their way back to the bog. As more of the men returned, many of them in grass stained and waterlogged armor, it became clear that they had not been successful in the least. Zuko grit his teeth, and tugged at his hair, his hands unwilling to be still.
"Lieutenant, report." Zuko muttered, his voice lacking its familiar punch.
Jee gave a curt nod, large bags under his eyes. "We've found nothing, sir. We searched house by house, the entire bog, and combed most of the nearby forest. The Avatar is gone… If he was ever here to begin with, sir." The last statement was almost added as an afterthought, his eyes closed as he lifted his head, basking in the rising sun.
"Of course he's here." Zuko spat, his voice dropping dangerously low and his lips stretching into a snarl. "I can feel it in my bones. He's so close, but he slipped through my fingers."
Jee took a deep breath, and let out a drained weeze. "You haven't even seen the man yet. Why are you so sure it's the Avatar?"
Zuko raised an eyebrow, and turned to face the officer. "Are you questioning me, Lieutenant?"
Jee didn't respond to the prince's aggressive tone, simply giving a weary shrug as he let the warm sunbeams cascade onto his face. "No, sir. I'm just worried for the men. They're exhausted, and we haven't even found a trace of this man all night. I believe that we should return to the ship."
"Well, since they are my men, I believe I should be the one to assess that, Lieutenant." Zuko glared at Jee with malice, but glancing at the men, it was apparent that Jee was right. Regardless of Jee's lack of proper respect for royalty, Zuko had to begrudgingly agree with him. Looking at his soldiers, most of them were asleep on their feet, leaning against rocks or trees for support as they dozed off. They hadn't rested at all since they landed on the beaches, most of them longer than that even. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and just focused on the feeling of dawn against his skin. It was invigorating, like when he came up from below deck and breathed in the fresh morning air after sleeping in a cabin that smelled of burnt incense, oil, and steel. He knew that his father wouldn't approve of him finding joy in something so simplistic, but he found it to be a small blessing amidst his dejection and misery.
He just stood like that for a moment, his eyes closed, not unlike his lieutenant. Zuko's mind was hazy, slow and cumbersome like the hippo-cows of his homeland. The energy that came with dawn had helped slightly, but without sleep it was just greasing the gears of an engine that was running out of coal.
The Avatar had been hiding in this shackhere in the bog, it seemed, but had left...
… Which means he had to have given warning from one of the villagers…
… Was he still hiding in the village..? No, no, he would have fled. They had searched the village for him already.
Nearby? Almost certainly. He had left his belongings in his hut after all. A staff or walking stick of some sort, a bag full of clothes and trinkets, some scrolls of waterbending; not exactly anything that screamed "master of all four elements," Zuko had to admit, but the waterbending scrolls caught his eye. No earthbenders would've had them, and while Zuko wasn't as knowledgeable on other cultures as his uncle, he had, unfortunately, seen enough Northern Water Tribe warriors in action to recognize their distinct style of bending.
Regardless, it was obvious that, unless he wanted to interrogate every single person in the village as to where they hid the avatar was, he wasn't going to make any fast progress. His soldiers were exhausted, and even if the Avatar was nearby, he could almost certainly defeat a half dozen half asleep firebenders. That, of course, is assuming they could find him at all. The bog was a confusing maze of evergreens and peat moss, and the Avatar is a master of stealth. Zuko hated to confront the fact, but his soldiers would have to withdraw for the time being. Going back to the ship, though, would nullify the advantage of surprise that he had been relying on, and would give the Avatar enough space to flee the area, if he hadn't already.
Even in the tender embrace of the sunlight, the prince couldn't help but scowl, his eyebrows furrowing as the problem forced its way through his mind's rusted gears. His risking his soldier's safety for a chance at finding the Avatar, or risk losing track of his prize after searching for years, in order to secure his men's' safety? He chewed on the inside of his cheek, his heavy eyes tracing the bog's treeline, as if the solution would simply wander out of the woods like an unattended deer-calf.
Instead, his eyes fell upon the Avatar's wooden hut. A hut filled with the Avatar's personal belongings, ones that he had left in a hurry. Ones that he would almost certainly want back…
An idea niggled at the back of his mind, a small spark that slowly was growing bigger, like a flower in bloom. A dry smile tugged at his lips. Even if the Avatar was to flee, he undoubtedly would want his precious scrolls and trinkets. And so long as there were Fire Nation soldiers in the area, he wouldn't risk entering his hut.
"Lieutenant, I need to deliver a message to my uncle. Fetch me a messenger hawk."
Jee grunted, obviously not wanting to end his rest in the sun, but nodded. "Yessir."
"And as for you…" Zuko's gaze shifted over to the earthbender from yesterday, who had been reduced to a messy heap of dirty, torn clothing curled into a ball against a tree several paces away. The young prince approached the villager and squatted on his toes, grabbing the collar of his shirt and yanking it hard enough to wake the man up.
"Your name." Zuko did not phrase it as a question.
The man's eye were unfocused, slowly pivoting as to try and understand why he wasn't at home.
"I asked for your name," Zuko repeated, and realization dawned on the man's face as he heard the question again.
"Y-" The man's words caught in his throat. "Yugang! Yugang Guan!"
"I see." Zuko pushed away the urge to close his eyes, and forced a vicious sneer. "I'll remember that name well, because you are the man responsible for delivering a message to the village leader."
The old man whimpered, seeming to shrink smaller against the tree. Zuko paused for a moment, seeing the fear in the man's eyes. Zuko's stomach twist into knots, and he considered his next words carefully. As a prince, he had the responsibility to appear strong.
"Tell him this: I know you're hiding the Avatar. I know someone in your pathetic village is helping him, and you should know that you're going to pay dearly for it. But instead of burning you all to the ground, I'm going to occupy this village until whoever is responsible tells me where the Avatar is. I am in charge of this village now, understand?"
The man swallowed his pride and nodded, scampering down the path to the village, which Jee understood as his queue to step forward. "Your messenger hawk, sir."
Zuko nodded, and accepted the hawk onto his arm. He pulled a rolled up sheet of paper out of the hawk's tube, as well as a small brush and a vial of black ink. He jotted down a quick message, using a large stone as a table, before inserting the paper back into the tube and releasing the hawk.
"Lieutenant, issue new orders to the troops as they arrive. They are to guard the bog until the men from the ship arrive. After that, they will return to the ship and rest." He began stalking down the path, not even bothering to glance at Jee as he left.
Jee scowled, watching the young man leave. "... Yessir."
Qiuhua stripped off her soaked clothes and collapsed onto her bed, too drained to even care about the consequences.
Moss and rancid water getting on her sheets? She could clean it later. The fact that she smelled like the swamp itself had puked her out? A minor detail. Right now, all she could think about was lady sleep's lullaby, which wrapped around her like a motherly hug, and urged her to shut her eyes, even if just for a bit. And her ancestors knew she wanted to close them for a bit longer than that.
She might have been soaked to the bone, cold, and tired enough to sleep for a decade, but spirits her bed felt like heaven. She had been running around and hiding in the bog all night, trying to make sure the avatar didn't get caught by the firebenders that had attacked the village. While she appreciated that he could bend two elements, he was also just a ball of nervous energy that had no idea what "stealth" even meant, so avoiding all of the soldiers sweeping the forest for him had been Qiuhua's job. She felt like, with all the close calls they had, she should either offer an extra sacrifice to the spirits for making sure they didn't get caught, or curse them for making there be so many near misses in the first place. It was a massive peat bog, not a small grove, so why did the soldiers always manage to stumble into their hiding spot?!
She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding, and her chest relaxed. It was over now, at least. A few soldiers had landed earlier in the day and were still roaming the village, but it was obvious that they had no clue where the Avatar was. All they had to do was wait for the firebenders to give up, thinking the Avatar had fled.
Darkness had crept well past the corners of her vision, and time seemed to move like honey down a log. She might have drifted to sleep a few times; she wasn't really sure. What she was sure of, however, was the sound of someone slamming open the door to their house.
"Qiuhua!" Even while half asleep, the girl recognized her mom's strong, if shaky, voice.
She tried to respond, but her limbs were made of stone and her tongue felt too dry and brittle to form words. She opened her mouth, but time seemed to pass too quickly, and her mom was already grabbing her shoulders and pulling her off the bed, engulfing Qiuhua in her soft arms.
"Oh thank the spirits," her mother cooed, rocking back and forth as she caressed the girl's long, stiff hair. "I tried to look for you when the soldiers reached the village, but you were gone… Oh, my baby, I was so scared… Where did you go..?"
Qiuhua almost didn't respond, her mind unable to process all of the sounds and movement, but she finally forced out a few brief words, like a child using a loom to weave crude designs. "It's ok, Mom… I just had to go make sure he was safe…"
"Of course you would… you're my brave little girl, always wanting to help…" The older woman let out a long, relieved sigh, and Qiuhua didn't need to look to know there was a wide smile on the woman's face. Her mom was like a platypus-bear, fiercely protective of her cubs, and she had no doubt that her mom had turned the entire village upside down looking for her. Her chest twisted a bit at that thought, and a bittersweet smile came to her face. Sometimes, her mom worried too much for her own good.
For a few minutes, or at least what seemed like a few minutes, they simply sat on her bed, her mom gently swaying. Finally, though, her mom slowed, and broke the silence. "Is there any particular reason you smell like a swamp monster..?"
Qiuhua had to giggle at that, and her mom chuckled as well. "Ah, well… I had to hide with the Avatar. And you know how he lives in that marsh…"
Her mom was quiet for a moment, looking down at the ground. "Did you bend at all?"
"No, Mom." Her voice was beginning to finally become her's again, with the words coming out more easily. "We were just hiding. He occasionally had to bend the swamp around us so we could go underwater, but I didn't use my bending at all." As much as her mom worried, the idea to use her bending never crossed her mind last night. At least, not in a serious way.
The older woman sighed, a concerned smile still playing at her lips, and stood up from the bed. "Let's get you cleaned up, ok? We're going to have a busy day."
Qiuhua groaned, and rubbed her eyes. It seemed her brief rest was already over, and she had to get ready. Her mom pulled her off the bed, and led her to the a large stone tub behind the house. She slipped into the cold water, and her mother began to brush the knots and leaves out of her sandy hair. She tried her best to scrub everything off, but there always seemed to be another layer of slime and scum coating her skin, leaving her to give up when it seemed no more of it would come off. Normally she enjoyed her baths, but this time, the icy water just seemed to sink into her bones. She shivered as she climbed out of the tub, and stretched her arms, shaking away her lingering fatigue.
"Ok, dear," Qiuhua's mom shouted from the house, "I'm going to head to the temple and get to work. Come as soon as you're ready!"
"Okay!" She shouted back, wrapping herself in a towel. She made her way into the house, and slipped into her pale green shrine maiden outfit, before stepping out the door and hightailing it to the temple. Qiuhua furrowed her eyebrows in concern, already knowing why today was going to be busy. While she was tired, she doubted her mom got any sleep at all…
The sun hung high in the pale blue sky, white light cascading onto the dark jade tiled roofs of the village. Huisha had never been a big town, never even comparable to the hussle and bussle of the big trade towns like Omashu and Gaoling. On the rare occasion that a merchant would visit her small village, Qiuhua would listen to their stories for hours on end, entranced by their tales of far away lands and big cities. Of course she loved her home, and some people believed it immature, but who wouldn't be excited to hear stories of new places?
But a common theme was how small Huisha was compared to the rest of the world. She had never left her village, and yet she already knew that her entire world was just a small piece of what existed. This didn't really bother her, since she did love her village; she knew everyone here, from Grandma Wang, who made the best noodle soup in the village, to little Ai-ai, who was just born a few months ago. The whole village was her family, and she loved it.
Which is why the entire village felt so wrong right now. The village center, lined with stalls and usually filled with a scattering of people, adults chatting and kids playing ball, was completely empty. Grandma Wang's noodle stand, where she would make sure any passerby had a full stomach, was deserted. The wisps of quiet conversations that normally lingered in the air were gone, leaving Qiuhua with only an oppressive silence and the sound of her sandals slapping against the soft dirt path that weaved between the houses.
In the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two men in dark black and red armor stalking through the streets. Her stomach tied into a proper seamen's knot, but she clenched her jaw, forcing down her fear. The two were simply standing in the village center, standing guard against the absent villagers. One turned her direction, and nudged his fellow guard's shoulder. Qiuhua gulped down the bile gathering in her mouth, trying to ignore the dark stares coming from within the skull-like masks, and walked faster.
Eventually, she reached the temple, a stout, wide building nestled into a small clearing at the base of the rocky cliffs. A grand caldron, made of rough black iron, stood in front of the temple, with several sticks of incense poking through the thick layers of ash settled within the caldron. The entrance of the temple, decorated with tile carvings of both the history and legends of her village, faced the dark sea, and a field full of short, stone totems stood in rows behind the temple. The familiar setting would comfort her, were it not for the dozens of men lying inside of the temple. If nothing else, it allowed her to push the images of soldiers out of her mind.
She hurried inside, greeted by the sight of two women treating yesterday's injuries. Some men were sleeping, others were being treated, but many were just waiting, using the musky old Paisho table settled in the back of the temple or playing with a well worn set of playing cards. One man groaned in pain as the older of the two women treated his burns.
"Bai, I need to have another batch of that salve, pronto! For spirit's sake, where is Chen?" Qiuhua's mom was no longer the same platypus bear she was before; now she carried with her the commanding presence of the Sea Serpent.
"She's at the well!" Bai, the pottery maker's wife, responded, her voice betraying how distracted she was as she focused on wrapping a large bandage around one man's leg.
"Still? How long does it take to get a bucket of water?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am!"
"Don't be sorry, just finish dressing that burn! An infection there could make him lose that leg."
That didn't help Bai focus at all, it seemed, her hands quivering as the young woman tried to figure out what to do. Qiuhua could see the woman was on the edge of tears, and she couldn't blame her. Some of these men were going to lose body parts if she messed up.
Qiuhua weaved through the crowd of patients, to the mat that Bai was working at. The young shrine maiden gently grabbed Bai's hands, steadying them, and Bai gasped, her head snapping towards the intruder.
"Oh ancestors, you gave me a heart attack!" Bai gave her friend a weak, but thankful, smile.
"It's ok, I'm not gonna bite." Qiuhua returned the smile, and took the bandages from Bai's hands. "Not today, at least. I'll take care of this for you."
"Thank you!" Bai bowed her head deeply, her shoulder length hair cascading downwards like a muddy waterfall. "Your mom just showed me how to treat a burn once last night, and told me to help her…"
"No problem, I got this covered." Qiuhua's eyes hardened, focusing on the angry red burn on the man's thigh. Even if she treated it perfectly, it was going to leave one hell of a scar, and that was assuming she could treat it perfectly. Her hands started to move with the smooth motions that only came after doing a task for years, like a weaver that had spent their entire life practicing the loom, and her mind began began listing ingredients. "Bai, grab me that dark green salve off the shelf, and that jar of pink leaves. Have you rinsed it yet?"
"Uh, y-... yeah, I made sure to." Bai struggled to her feet, looking to find what her friend had asked for. "But, where did you run off to last night? It was chaos in here, and other than you mom, no one in the village knows how to treat burns like these."
"Yeah, sorry about that." Qiuhua responded halfheartedly, too fixated looking at the nasty yellow gung gathering at the edges of the burn to actually listen. "While you're over there, grab me the knife. This ain't looking pretty."
"Knife?" The young man they had been operating on spoke up, his voice wavering. "Why do you need a knife?"
"You got this burn yesterday, and it's already infected." She took a wet cloth from a bucket and began wiping the grim from the edges of the wound. "I'm gonna have to trim the infection."
"You're gonna what?" The concern in his eyes became blatant fear.
"Trim it." Her voice was completely flat, offering no explanation as she took the knife from her friend, and handed the man a wet cloth. "Bite down on this."
"Why?" He hesitantly took the cloth, looking at his caretaker as though he wasn't sure if she was actually trying to help him, or just helping the spirit of death do its job.
"It'll help relieve pain. Just trust me on this." While not completely true, it was true that Qiuhua wanted him to be quiet during this. This was already a difficult task, and if he started screaming and thrashing around, it would be not only more difficult, but also dangerous. She didn't want to cut anything she wasn't supposed to.
The man swallowed nervously, but seemed to trust her, placing the cloth in his mouth. Qiuhua gave a reassuring smile, and brushed her bangs out of her face. "Don't worry, it'll be over soon."
She brought the small knife down and rested it on the pus-ridden skin, steadying her hand. She let out a deep breath, and began slicing out the infection. The man began to scream through the cloth, his back arched and his fists clenched as he started to whip back and forth.
"Bai, hold him down!"
Today was going to be a long day.
Breath in.
Breath out.
Feel the pulse of the flame, the flicker or life.
Zuko focused his energy into his breath, the steady pushing and pulling of air in and out his lungs. Even after resting for a good portion of the day, he had felt exhausted, with a stiff knot locked between his shoulder blades, and a haze clouding his mind. He had come so close! While he did have a plan, it would have been so much easier if the Avatar hadn't fled! Zuko would already have captured him, and be headed home by now…
He supposed that's why he had to capture the Avatar, since it was so difficult. It's a task only a worthy son could accomplish, one his father believed he could achieve. This banishment was to teach how to be a proper firelord, and one of a firelord's virtues had to be patience.
He knew that, consciously, but it didn't stop a low growl from leaving his throat. The line of candles in front of him flared higher, casting a fierce orange light against the crimson Fire Nation banner that hung on the wall.
Azula wouldn't have had these issues. She would have simply sailed into port, without a fight, and taken the Avatar without any effort at all. That's the sort of luck she had, the sort of luck that always eluded Zuko.
A series of dull knocks rattled through the metal door to his quarters, and the candles snuffed out, leaving only thin wisps of smoke drifting in the air. Zuko's pale gold eyes snapped open, and he pushed himself off of his meditation mat, wrapping a regal red robe around his well-defined chest. "Enter."
The gears of the door shrieked, and the door cracked open, letting pale ruby light into the dark room. "Prince Zuko, I hope I was not disturbing your rest. I just wanted to invite you to join me for dinner." Iroh poked through the door, a soft smile on his face as he glanced around the room, his eyes finally settling on his nephew.
Zuko grimaced, and he tied his robe. "I was meditating, Uncle."
"Oh, I apologize!" Iroh gave a toothy smile, his voice bouncy and jovial. "We haven't spoken since yesterday, so I was simply hoping to enjoy your company."
Zuko clicked his tongue, but did not respond, simply pulling the door open and walking past his uncle. He strode through the ship's corridors, his soft slippers soundlessly gliding over the cool metal floor. His uncle followed behind him as they passed several doors, Stopping at one with a lotus flower mark painted on the dull steel. Zuko twisted the door's wheel, unlocking it, and pushed it open, revealing a room with a single paisho table and a few pillows for sitting on.
The young prince sat at the table, crossing his legs, and his uncle soon joined him, after fetching the ship's cook.
"So, my nephew, how was your trip ashore? Successful, I hope?" The old man smiled genuinely as he poured two cups of tea, handing the first one to his nephew.
Zuko scoffed, and his mouth twisted into a sour expression. "Uncle, if I were successful, we would have charted a course for the Fire Nation by now."
Iroh smiled softly, sipping his tea, and placed a single tile onto the paisho table. "There is more to success than simply capturing the Avatar, young prince. Any new experience is a form of success in itself."
"That is what you say, Uncle, but it is not the type of 'success' I need right now." Zuko placed a piece in response, looking at the board rather than his uncle. While he had known how to play paisho since he was a child, being a basic building block of any noble man's education, he had not started playing it regularly until about two years ago, after a visit to the Northern Air Temple where Uncle had found an old set which he simply had to take the lotus tile from. Zuko never understood his uncle and his bizarre reasoning, but it had set him on the path to taking up the game as a way to pass time. Not that he was any good at it, despite his uncle's seemingly endless tutoring.
Iroh looked at the piece, thinking about Zuko's move, and gave a curt nod, a wide smile on his face. "You have been learning, Prince Zuko!"
Something in his heart jumped at his uncle's response, like a young child basking in his father's praise, but Zuko crushed the feeling immediately. "I am not a child Uncle; of course I'm learning."
"And I never said you were." Iroh continued the game, placing a white lotus tile in the center of the board. "Though, I have yet to meet a grown man who can learn faster than a child. Adults often worry more about their pride than learning, while children are known for their curiosity."
Zuko rolled his eyes, but didn't reply. His uncle seemed to enjoy saying wise-sounding, but useless, things, and Zuko had learned to simply ignore it. They sat in silence for several minutes, the scent of jasmine tea filling the stale cabin air as the two took turns placing and moving tiles around the board. Eventually, the ship's chef filtered through the room, giving each of the men a bowl of noodle soup. It was the sort that had more of a "feeling" than a "flavor," where the warmth of the fish broth in his stomach was more important than the actual taste of the broth. Zuko had come to prefer that sort of soup; any type of food that relied on its seasoning and freshness was a fruitless task on his ship, which would often spend a month or two at a time out on the open sea. After the fall of the Earth Kingdom, many of the ports his crew often docked at would no longer service the banished prince, so they were forced to find smaller and more obscure ports of call. This meant, to Zuko's distaste, that they were forced to buy from smaller local markets, each one having a small stock of local ingredients. And thus, fish broth and noodles for dinner, with a plate of seaweed for the two to share. Not exactly a meal fit for royalty.
"But, considering that you returned empty handed," Iroh savored the soup for a moment, "I suppose that the rumor you heard was simply another dead end?"
Zuko scarfed down his noodles, trying to ignore the pungent taste that came with using saltwater to boil the noodles. Despite the wretched flavor that seemed to stick to his tongue, he smiled slyly. "Not quite, Uncle."
Iroh simply quirked an eyebrow, watching the young man from across the table.
"The avatar was there, I just haven't captured him yet." Zuko set his bowl to the the side, and leaned over the table. "I've found him. And I have a plan to capture him."
"Oh?" Iroh moved one of his tiles, despite not looking at the board. "How did you find him?"
"The villagers led me to him. He's been living in a bog to the north of the village." His smile fell. "The avatar managed to slip through my fingers, though."
"That is indeed a tragedy, Prince Zuko." Iroh's soft demeanor wavered, an intelligent scowl crawling onto his face. "How are you so sure that this man is the Avatar, though? We have been wrong before."
Zuko grimaced, unable to stop memories of his misadventures in Si Wong desert from coming to mind. "I'm certain of it Uncle; the villagers would have no reason to lie to me about hiding the Avatar."
"There is always the chance that it isn't the villagers that are lying; a person wearing the mask of the Avatar could reap many rewards." Iroh stroked his long beard, his warm brown eyes filled with cold doubt.
"How could someone pretend to be the Avatar, Uncle?" Zuko grit his teeth. He was so close, yet his uncle still treated him like a foolish child who could not distinguish between reality and fantasy. "They either can bend all four elements, or they can't."
His uncle grunted, closing his eyes to think. "I am just an old man, I would not know. But I just believe you shouldn't be too reckless. This is not only your life you are impacting."
"I know," Zuko mumbled under his breath, looking at, but failing to see, the board in front of him. If Iroh heard him, he did not respond.
The rest of the game passed quietly, neither of the men speaking much. The game concluded, with Iroh victorious, as always, and Zuko wanting to flip the paisho table, and all the pieces on it. He stormed out of the cabin, bound for his own quarters, where he slammed and locked the door.
Regardless of what his uncle thought, Zuko had found the Avatar. And despite how stealthy the avatar might be, he still wouldn't dare try and sneak past the squad of fire nation soldiers guarding his hut. But when the guards left the bog, having given up, that's when the Avatar would attempt to retrieve his belongings.
Zuko slipped a stormy blue mask out of his trunk, it's smile stretched and contorted into a vicious grin by it's long, curved teeth.
When the Avatar thought the coast was clear, the Blue Spirit would strike.
A/N: Heya, everyone, it's Imp. So, thank you to everyone who followed and commented, I now have a dedicated fanbase of *looks at paper* eight! So to the eight that deem my story important, this goes out to you! *begins to play "dancing in the moonlight" on the kazoo*
In other news, I'm planning to make this a weekly story, with me dropping a new chapter every Friday. However, I know for a fact that I'm awful at editing, so if there's anyone that's willing to beta-read, it would be a godsend. Hope You all enjoyed this chapter!
Coolconnor95: Thank you! I'm always really nervous that I'm not making them seem like… well, themselves. So, it's good to know I have them seeming natural.
Desitdan: Thanks! I can't wait to write more! I'm personally just hoping more than just the intro is well written… *nervous chuckle*.
