Chapter 4: A journey of 1000 miles…

As the royal procession donned their backpacks and set off, Tymon laid out his plan.

"Once off Ember Island, we need to travel north-east to the United Republic mainland, there you will have at least a measure of diplomatic immunity, since Zhao's agents won't be able to move freely in Republic territory; at least, without starting a war. Once there, we will move towards the Big City; I have a friend there who will help us."

"And how do you plan to leave the island without being spotted?" said Azara. "We can't just waltz into a harbour and take a boat out, surely?"

In addition to the main tourist resort, there were a number of smaller towns and villages dotted around the island, mostly inhabited by spiteful, xenophobic natives. Each would have its own small port or harbour from which the residents would fish or transport goods. Her brother was no fool, and would certainly have beady eyes watching every one by now.

"In the village we're headed to we're going to see a man called Shavi; he's a big name in the black market. Tell him what you want, and he'll give you a price. If doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for, I'm sure he'll have a boat or something."

At this, Azara frowned. Was there anything that could get one off an island, besides a boat? You could fly in a plane, but Ember Island didn't have an airfield, and even if it did, it's not something they could use discreetly.

Emerging from the trees onto a dusty road, the pair followed it north, eventually passing a sign that read:

Welcome to Nagita:
Fishing village

As villages go this one was quite large. It had a defined main road that ran eastwards along the beachfront, where several wooden jetties had been built into the sea. Fishing boats, both sailed and powered, drifted in and out of the wooden port, which seemed to harbour most of the village activity, even as the day drew to a close. Azara felt relief at finally reaching their destination. While the shoes Tymon have given her had prevented her getting blisters, her feet were more used to being ferried around in a car and felt very sore after 2 solid hours of walking. Only a combination of sheer pride and bloody-mindedness had kept her from complaining, not wanting to seem weak and needy.

Once in the village, Tymon directed them towards a shabby-looking glass fronted building, the peeling sign overhead called it 'Shavi's Sea Shack Pawn Shop'. A small bell rung as they opened the door and Azara spotted a vacant chair which she immediately pounced on, giving her feet a much deserved rest. She caught Tymon looking at her with amusement and turned her nose up at him. Over the course of their journey here she'd tried asking him about himself, but he'd dodged all of her questions, never giving a straight answer. This had put her in a bad mood.

After a moment, a short, stout man emerged from a curtain behind the counter. Once his gaze settled on Tymon, his face broke into a wide grin.

"Now now, I've been working here 21 years and if I've learned anything, it's that you never know what is gonna come through that door."

"But this" he said, indicating Tymon "is a surprise!"

"It's good to see you again Shavi, you haven't changed a bit!"

The two men shook hands companionably before Shavi pulled Tymon in to whisper to him, eyeing the hooded figure in the chair. Azara realised they were talking about her and tried to ignore it, thinking instead about the way the shopkeeper had treated Tymon. Who exactly was he? He'd called himself a fugitive and here he was talking to a black market dealer like it was nothing. Was he a thief?... Hired muscle?... A murderer? Her train of thought was derailed by a laugh from Shavi.

"I'd heard through the grapevine about this crazy plan of yours but I'd never thought you'd actually go through with it! Now whadd'ya need?"

"First we'll need some food; enough for a few days."

The deal went on for a while as Shavi produced various tinned goods and paper-wrapped snack foods, Tymon reciprocating with various coins and banknotes. This was a very strange pawn shop indeed. In reality, the food came from the black market, which was necessary because that kept it off the books, meaning they couldn't be traced as easily.

"Lastly, I'm looking for an airbender's glider." Said Tymon simply, which was met with a pause by Shavi.

"One of those new-fangled wingsuit things?" asked the dealer.

"No, nothing like that, one of the old staves would do me fine."

Shavi cracked a mischievous smile. "Well it looks like today's your lucky day. A couple months ago an airbender decided to go rogue, joined a group of bandits around these parts. Once the idiots got themselves caught, I managed to land my hands on this little beauty!" With a flourish, he retrieved a staff from behind his store curtain. Pushing a recessed button in the centre caused two pairs of blue fabric wings to spring violently from its body: a large pair at the front and a smaller pair towards the rear. A second press retracted these. "Cost me a pretty penny though…"

"And how many pretty pennies is it going to cost me?" Tymon was playing along with the little game.

"Three hundred, cash."

"For that stick of driftwood? You must be crazy. Two hundred."

This irked the dealer. "Okay, just for you I'll do two-twenty, and I'm taking a real risk here…"

Tymon considered his offer for a moment.

"Tell you what," he said. Reaching into a pocket of his cloak, he slapped two banknotes down on the counter. "I'll give you two-fifty. We walk away with the staff, and you forget we ever came here."

Shavi took the money after a pause and slid the staff over with a puzzled expression.

"Came where, good sir? Are you lost?"

Tymon flashed him a knowing smile.

"Looks like we are. Sorry to bother you good sir, we'll be on our way now."

"Come again soon!"


Tymon and Azara left the shop and started back along the seafront out of the village.

"Why did you pay him more than he wanted? Isn't the point of haggling to go as low as possible?" asked Azara.

Tymon replied, his voice solemn.

"Shavi has been good to me ever since I went on the run seven years ago. When I came here, he even took me in for a few weeks while I found my footing again. I owe him a lot, giving him a good deal is the least I can do."

"Oh." She didn't want to press the topic any further; when she'd asked about his past earlier today, he'd dodged the question; evidently something very bad had happened that he was now on the run from and he didn't want to talk about it.

"So what's the big stick for?" she asked playfully in an effort to change the subject.

"This?" he said, indicating the staff. "This is our ticket out of here."

Realisation suddenly dawned on her.

"You can't plan to fly away on that thing! What about me?"

Tymon looked hurt on behalf of the staff.

"This 'thing' can easily carry 3 times my weight; we'll fly on it together… Unless you think you're too heavy?"

It was now Azara's turn to look hurt.

"Don't be ridiculous, my figure has won me awards, you know!"

In an attempt to rile him up a bit, she struck the sexiest pose she could manage with the clothes she was wearing, which Tymon turned back look at. He simply chuckled, saying:

"Yeah, I think I can see why." And continued walking

"Thanks for the eye candy, by the way!"

Her plan had backfired. Her face went red, but she found it oddly reassuring the way he could brush off an advance like that. Too many men of his age would have licked her shoes at the merest glimpse of her skin.

She ran slightly to catch up with him.

"So where to now?" she asked.

"There's a secluded beach a few minutes' walk away through the forest. While I've read a book on how these gliders work I'll want to get at least some practice in before going straight into a long distance flight. After that, it'll take probably a couple of hours to fly to Republic territory; we can sleep when we get there."

Watching Tymon practise with the glider was refreshing for Azara. After several rocky starts (one of which had landed him face down in the sand, much to her amusement) he got the glider into the air and within about half an hour he was flying it comfortably, though he stayed high above the surface of the water for fear of crashing. The way he didn't pick it up instantly gave her a little comfort; previously, everything had followed his plans to the letter, and he had emerged from the fight the previous night without so much as a scratch. Watching him struggle in the first ten minutes reminded her that, while he was not normal by any stretch of the imagination, he was only human.

After an almost-crash landing onto the beach, they began to prepare dinner. While Tymon went into the forest for firewood, Azara boiled some water from a nearby brook with her firebending and left the pot in a rock pool to cool down. Once Tymon returned, she lit the fire for him and they drank their fills of the boiled water, re-using the pot over the fire to heat up two cans of the food they'd bought earlier. Of the two cans, Azara got one-and-a-half.

"I'm used to this kind of life, you need it more than I do." He'd said, not allowing her to argue.

The food was bland, but it was better than nothing. To be perfectly honest, she had eaten worse things as parts of diets to keep her slim, since she did little exercise outside of her weekly firebending lessons. To supplement his meagre portion, Tymon munched on a sugary energy bar. He'd offered her one, but she'd declined it. After their meal they sat together and stared out to sea, thinking about the future. About each other. Every time Azara remembered she was now a wanted fugitive she felt a pit form in her stomach, though the feeling was partially assuaged by the knowledge that she was with one of the most experience fugitives in the world. Eventually Tymon stood up and, deploying the wings of his glider, turned to her.

"Right. I'm ready to go whenever you are. Shall we?"

Truthfully Azara had been dreading this moment. She had flown once before in a military plane and remembered it as one of the scariest experiences in her life. She imagined flying without being strapped into a seat would be even worse.

"So how is this going to work?" she asked, stalling for time.

"Well, I'll hang underneath the glider to control it and you can lie on top, there's space to rest your feet on the tailplane, and we can strap the packs to the bases of the wings. You'll just need to find something to hold on to."

As he stood with the glider vertical on his back, she tried holding on to the leading edge of the wings, but her hold felt dangerously insecure. In the end, she swallowed her embarrassment and wrapped her arms around his waist, sliding her feet underneath the tailplane as instructed.

"Ready?" Said Tymon

"Ready." She replied, though she didn't feel it.

For the second time that day, Tymon lowered himself into a crouch, tilting the glider and its passenger horizontal. Azara closed her eyes and gritted her

"3… 2… 1…" and he sprang. Azara tightened her grip around him as she felt the backward pull of their acceleration. The wind jerked at her ponytail and she felt them level off, the acceleration disappearing. She carefully opened her eyes, and couldn't help but laugh. Silver moonlight bounced off the surface of the water below them in a way that was quite beautiful, making her fear of flight all but disappear. Resting her head against the staff between Tymon's shoulders, she gazed sideways, watching the waves as they passed beneath them. For just a moment, she forgot she was running for her life.

Tymon's face by comparison was the embodiment of concentration. He'd like to say he was focusing on the flying, but in reality, his mind was always flicking back to how nice Azara's breasts felt against his back. He punched himself mentally. While it was pleasant, that kind of thinking was a bad idea.

Content to keep to their own thoughts, innocent or otherwise, the pair continued in their flight north-east, towards the rising moon, towards safety.


Author's note: this chapter wasn't as much fun to write as the others, but I think it was necessary to get the ball rolling. As the title may suggest, there will be one more chapter before they arrive in Republic City, and I have a pretty good idea to write in it, but I need to think hard about how to set it up, so it may be a bit longer/later than other chapters. Stay tuned folks!

P.S. still waiting for reviews guys, whenever you're ready.