Long Distance — 127 ASC


"Hey Bumi, wake up."

"Mrrggggh."

"Come on, Little Bro."

"Five more minutes..."

There was a sigh, the sound of footsteps retreating from the room, and Bumi settled back under his blankets with a happy grumble. After a few moments, however, the footsteps returned accompanied by a faint scraping noise of cable over stone flooring. There was a click of a switch being thrown...

Secret Tunneeeel~! Secret Tunneeeeel~!
Through the mountain~!
Secret, secret, secret—

"Alright, I'm up!" Bumi catapulted into a sitting position and glared at the intruder. Kya stood there with a smirk, holding up the radio she'd brought over from her room.

"Are you sure you're awake?" she asked lightly. "If you're not sure, Republic Radio is holding a "Greatest Hits of Chong's Lilies" marathon all day~" She lifted her hand back up to the power switch.

"I'm up!" Bumi repeated frantically. He scowled at his older sister's beaming face. "Damned hippie," he muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. What's the big idea anyhow?"

"Dad and Tenzin are coming back from their training trip," she said, tucking the radio underneath her arm. Her voice took on a melodic lilt, "And they're bringing a vi-si-tor~"

Bumi blinked his eyes sleepily. "Huh?"

ooo

Bumi's mouth hung open as he leveled a finger, "...Huh?"

The visitor dismounted from Appa gracefully and caught a medium-sized travel bag that was tossed down to her. "Thank you, Tenzin," she called up to the saddle. As she slipped the strap over her shoulder she turned towards the head of the sky-bison and dipped forward into a relatively shallow Fire Nation bow. "Thank you for the smooth ride, Avatar Aang, as well as your hospitality."

"You're welcome, Your Highness," the Aang replied, matched her bow. "I'm always happy for the chance to show the progress Republic City has made in the last few years."

Their newest guest turned towards the rest of the welcoming party and bowed once more. "Master Katara."

Katara didn't bow, but she did let a maternal smile grow on her face. "I hope the trip wasn't too exhausting? Aang can sometimes be... a bit reckless with his passengers."

"Hey!"

The princess turned towards Kya and repeated her greeting, "Kya. How goes your training?"

The other girl grinned. "Not bad, even if Mom won't teach me some of the more advanced stuff yet. Even though I'm almost as old as she was during the The War!" she said that last part with a mock glare towards Katara, who merely rolled her eyes at the familiar complaint.

Finally she turned towards Bumi, who was still frozen with an incredulous expression on his face and his hand pointed directly at her face. She smirked.

"Hello, P—" her eyes flickered briefly towards Katara. "...Bumi," she finished.

Bumi shot a pleading glance towards his sister, only for it to morph into one of betrayal as she turned away laughing into her sleeve.

ooo

"So what brings you all the way to Republic City?" Bumi asked politely. He had been volunteered to show the princess to her guest quarters after Tenzin had wandered off to practice his airbending—that kid was way too serious about his training. Kya had gone off with his mother to help prepare dinner and the Avatar had taken off to the mainland for a meeting with the council.

"Officially: as a representative of the Fire Nation to ensure that the Avatar's great experiment is still proceeding smoothly and without any of the problems that plagued the former Colonies and the Harmony Restoration Movement," the Princess replied. She grimaced. "Unofficially: to keep me safe and out of the way while Father and his most trusted advisors clean house."

He made a face. "I thought that was over and done with."

"Not quite," she sighed. "There were two more attempts over the last year, both caught almost before they had even been started. It was enough for my father to decide to take on a more proactive approach. I don't think anybody outside the Palace other than your own father is even aware of it."

Bumi made a noncommittal noise which seemed to end the conversation until they turned into a hallway flanked by sliding doors. "Here we are: guest quarters," he announced. He made sure to slide one door open by the wooden frame, his mom would give him fits if he shredded yet another set of fragile rice-paper screens.

Although the last time it'd happened had been more Tenzin's fault than his own; how was he to know that an air-scooter generated enough pressure to rip the screens from their mountings? Clearly his little brother should have known better himself and not chased him down the hallway, no matter how angry he was that Bumi had run the same prank on him using the same airbending gates that he'd pulled on his sister all those years ago.

"It's a bit small, but I guess this will be sufficient," his guest concluded, bringing his attention back to the present. She had moved past him to scan the room he'd helped the Air Acolytes clean out and tossed her traveling pack into the corner where a bedroll had been laid out. Finished with her survey, she turned towards him with an expectant look.

"Right," he coughed into a fist. "So, dinner's normally in a few hours but they started preparing a meal early in case you needed something after your trip." He pointed towards one end of the hallway, then the other. "The docks are thataway, a ferry runs to the mainland and back twice per day if you felt like visiting the city itself. The dining hall and the quarters for the rest of the family and acolytes are this way." He lifted an eyebrow, "Anything else you might need, Princess?"

She sighed. "I didn't come here for relaxation, but I guess a visit to the city can wait until tomorrow. What do you do around here to pass the time?"

"Well, Tenzin and Kya's time is mostly spent training with my parents. The Order of the White Lotus maintains a small outpost here—'to protect the last remnants of Air Nomad culture' and such; sometimes I'll visit them and play a few games of chances or listen to the radio. Republic City has started some weird arena-games, I think you might like them."

She crossed her arms in disapproval. "So you don't do anything but play games and loiter around?" she summarized. "Don't you train in... anything?"

He rubbed his head sheepishly. "We~ll... Uncle Sokka—that's probably Councilman Sokka to you—showed me how to use a boomerang a while back so I've got a small range set up. He promised he'd teach me the sword when I was older, or at least point any teachers he knew my way. But that's probably not for a while, maybe when I'm as old as he was during the war."

"A target range?" He didn't like the way her eyes lit up, nor the narrow grin that slashed across her face as she turned towards him. "Show me."

ooo

"It's not much," he said with a wave of his hand, "but it works."

She hummed, throwing a critical eye around the field. There were only three targets set up, at varying distances and heights. They were situated on wooden frames that held the targets away from themselves to allow a boomerang to strike them and continue on its flight. The farthest one stood fifteen meters away. She frowned, That's just about the limits for as far as I can throw and still reliably hit on-target.

She toed the marker that indicated the throwing position and glanced back at him. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the range of a boomerang was a little bit farther than this."

He shrugged, "I'm still learning. It's not as easy as it looks, you know. And at least it's farther than your little knives can go."

She raised an eyebrow, "Are you questioning my abilities?"

He raised his hands placatingly, "I'm just saying, Princess, boomerangs and knives are just different types of weapons."

She eyed the distance thoughtfully. "Well, you may be right about darts, but for shurikens and stilettos..." She gave him a flat look. "By the way, I do have a name you know, not just a title. It means a lot to my Father so I'd appreciate it if you used it."

He answered her with a lopsided smile and hefted blue-tinted curve of metal in one hand. "I'll take that into consideration, Princess. In the mean time, would you care to place a wager?"

She glared at him. "You must have been dropped on your head when you were a child, Peasant. What are your terms?"

"Well," he waved his arms at the targets. "We take turns hitting the targets. Three throws for each one, nine attempts total. Whoever has the most hits at the end wins."

She thought it over, then fought to keep a smug grin from her face as an idea occurred to her. She shrugged. "Very well. If I win, you must address me properly by my given name."

"Alright," he accepted her terms with a stiff nod. "But, if I win, then... " he frowned for a few moments then snapped his fingers. "If I win then I get one guaranteed favor from you. Redeemable at any time I want, be it now or in the future."

"That..." she blinked, "that's hardly an equal trade."

"You can make yours the same deal then," he replied. "If you want to burn it on ordering me to call you by name, go ahead."

"Fine," she bit out, trying to hide the grin threatening to appear on her face as she went back over her plan. She began to rummage through a small pouch at her side and brought out a bandolier of single-bladed throwing knives. "Shall I start us off?"

He gave her a mocking Earth Kingdom-styled bow. "Ladies first."

She stepped back to the line with her hands loosely at her side, her off-hand holding the bandolier. She quickly ran through the mental checklist her mother had drilled into her, checking the targets—how they swung from their frames in the wind, matching that to the feeling of the wind on her face, eyeballing their distance and comparing them to what she knew of their sizes from her earlier inspection.

Then, with a twist she brought her hand across her body, brushing it across the sheathed knives, and flinging her arm out in a backhanded arc.

There was a pair of thunks as the two closer targets were knocked back, swinging along their ropes as crimson shafts sprouted on their surfaces. The third, farthest one, remained still and she mentally cursed as she realized her final dagger had fallen short.

"Huh," an impressed voice sounded beside her and she finally let a smirk grow on her face.

"You did say up to three throws per target," she reminded Bumi in a playful tone. "But you never said how many weapons we could use at once.
"That counts as 'one throw'. I made two hits and I believe I still have two more attempts to make for this target."

Bumi was silent as he stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face. She was laughing inside as she made her second and third attempts in much the same manner, flinging out a knife for each target with each throw. She finally succeeded in hitting the farthest target on her third attempt for a score of seven hits. Her smile grew as he turned towards her, stone-faced at her impressive performance.

"That," he finally said, "was the most devious, most blatant abuse of 'exact wording' I have ever seen. I'm surprised, coming from you."

"Thank you," she said smugly, moving off to retrieve her weapons.

He shook his head and took his place as she walked back to a safe distance behind him. In contrast to her own mental checklist and preparation, he merely held out his boomerang at the closest target to sight it, then angled it off to the side and launched it with a basic over-arm throw. It arced through the air wide of the targets before it began its return trip.

Then she had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping as the boomerang's path took it straight through each target sequentially before dropping into his waiting hand. He tapped the weapon against his other palm with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Hmm, looks like a certain Princess forgot to take into consideration that this might not be the first time a certain Peasant has used this practice range, and in fact may have even set up the targets in such a way for his training."

He twirled around with a manic grin. "I meant what I said though, I'm surprised you were thinking pretty much the same thing I was. That's kind of neat." He switched to tapping the boomerang against his shoulder as he leaned forward. "I've still got two more throws, Princess. Eight more if we want to play this game to it's fullest. Shall we continue?"

She could feel her face heating up as she eyed him with every ounce of hatred she could muster in the hopes that he would spontaneously combust. He must not have seen it that way because he began chuckling and shaking his head even as she gave him her best death-glare.

I hate this boy, she seethed.

She insisted they play out the contest to its conclusion. She threw everything she had into her remaining attempts and managed to get a final total of twenty-three hits.

He got a full twenty-seven.

She was not impressed with his skill.

Not even a little...

...

...Okay maybe just a tiny bit.

...


(a/n)—probably not what the prompt meant by 'long distance' but then again, maybe it is! *shrug* R/R please