Okay, so this is being posted a little later then normal but just FYI, updates will usually be posted around 2 PM Eastern Time. This week is an exception. Anyway, on with the chapter...
Disclaimer: Nothing's changed in the past week...I still don't own Avatar.
"So remind me why we're listening to a guy we hardly know and going out of our way to follow his direction to avoid some storm that he could have just made up," Sokka stated as he and Suki finished setting up their tent. After a day's worth of flying, the group decided to land in a small clearing in the middle of the forest and make camp for the night as it was already very late. After all, they weren't in a hurry to get down to the Southern Watertribe. There weren't any deadlines, they could take their time and enjoy the last few days of travelling. That was exactly the point that Aang brought up to counter Sokka's comment.
"Why not?" he asked as he helped Katara set up their own tent, with Appa watching a few feet away, "We don't have to rush and I'd rather take his advice and not get caught in a storm then fly straight into it. Besides, why would he lie to us about that?"
"I don't know," Sokka shrugged, "I'm a skeptic and we don't know Tetsu well enough yet."
"Well he seemed nice," Katara added, backing Aang up in the mild argument, "You need to be a little more trusting of people Sokka."
"Hey," Sokka countered back, crossing his arms, "Just so you know, my skepticism has saved our group dozens of times…need I remind you of Jet?"
That shut Aang and Katara up. They had realized long ago that trusting Jet back when they had first met him all those years ago was not one of their best moments. There was really nothing they could say to turn the argument in their favor once Sokka brought that up.
"Well what are you suggesting Sokka," Suki butted in, throwing her and Sokka's sleeping bags into their tent, "Do you want us to just ignore the Earth King's advice and risk flying straight into that storm he was talking about?"
"No," Sokka answered, "I'm just saying that from now on, we need to be a little more independent. We rely on other people's help to much. Our group follows what everyone else asks of us and frankly, I think that is part of the reason why Tau was able to lead us on so easily."
"Lead us on?" Suki raised an eyebrow, taking notice that Aang and Katara seemed to have lost interest in the conversation and were now throwing a bunch of blankets into the tent. She also noticed that Aang seemed to be blushing at whatever the couple was now talking about.
"Please Suki," Sokka sighed, bringing her attention back to her boyfriend, "I didn't even interact with Tau all that much and by the end of that whole fiasco…it was pretty obvious that we had followed his every move exactly how he wanted us to. Besides, Tetsu may appear nice but the Council of Five isn't exactly being the most welcoming bunch at the moment so it would probably be better for us to just do our own thing for now."
Suki thought back and the past several months and truth be told, Sokka had a point.
"Okay, so you're right," Suki said, "But that has nothing to do with us doing whatever someone asks of us. It's called being helpful Sokka. If people ask us for help, we help them."
"Yeah, and that's good and all," Sokka waved his hands dismissively, "but it also makes us predictable. I mean, when we were chasing Tau all over the Earth Kingdom we did nearly exactly what the Council of Five requested of us. Tau took advantage of that and Katara and Aang almost died because of it…twice."
"Okay, so from now on we'll be more open to your own expertise," Suki gave him a smile, "Does that make you feel better?"
"Once I get past the fact that you're just saying that to shut me up…yeah it makes me feel better," Sokka smiled back.
"Good," Suki laughed, "Now can we finally turn in for the night and get some sleep. It's getting late."
Sokka nodded and pulled open the flap on their tent, motioning her to go inside, "Lead the way."
"Do you think Sokka has a point?" Aang asked as he crawled under the set of blankets they had set up in their tent.
"About what?" Katara questioned, stripping down to her undergarments before crawling in beside her fiancé.
"You know," Aang explained, "About us needing to rely on ourselves a bit more."
"Oh, right," Katara laughed, having forgotten about what her brother had been talking about. Not that she was surprised to have forgotten; what she and Aang had started talking about outside their tent had been…distracting.
She mulled Aang's question over for a few moments before answering, snuggling herself into his arms in the process.
"I understand where he is coming from," she said at last, "and maybe he is right…but I don't think we should just ignore everyone else's advice like he says we should. We should just do what we feel is right…like we always do."
"And look where that gets us," Aang responded.
"Okay," Katara conceded, "So maybe recently that hasn't worked out so well with Tau manipulating the government against us and everything but working with others doesn't always result in bad outcomes like that."
"Yeah, but just think about it," Aang speculated, "For the most part, we worked with the Earth Kingdom government to track down Tau. In that time, Kuei was murdered, you were kidnapped, we almost died in a desert, and the Council of Five briefly thought of us as traitors. Only when you and I decided to do things ourselves and track Tau down to the Southern Air Temple did we actually accomplish something."
Katara pulled back from his embrace to look him in the eye, "We got lucky. You know how close Tau came to releasing the Yanari. He got so close that you had to…"
She cut herself off, knowing that Aang was still upset deep down at having to destroy his own home, and she wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.
"My point is," Katara started once again a few moments later, "We don't know what will happen with some of the decisions we make and it won't help to worry about it. We just need to do what feels like the best choice at the time."
"You just thought of that point of yours a few seconds ago didn't you," Aang smiled and raised an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged one shoulder and let out a small hum, "Yeah, but you get what I'm saying don't you?"
Aang nodded, "I do," he then quickly reconsidered before speaking up again, "Although back before we ended the war we seemed to do pretty well on our own. What Sokka is talking about only really relates to well…everything that happened with Tau."
"Huh," Katara thought for a few seconds before shrugging, "I guess those two years of peace made us lose our touch a little bit."
"Yeah, I guess so," Aang agreed, laughing slightly.
"So are you all good now? You have enough to worry about," Katara told him, "Don't let Sokka's ideas go to your head."
"I'm fine," Aang gave her a soft smile, "Thanks Kat."
"Good," Katara smiled back at him seductively, running a hand along his chest, "Now if we're done with the serious talk, I was kind of hoping that you'd be up for a certain something…"
Aang just let out a small laugh, quickly catching on to what she was suggesting, before pulling her into a kiss that ended up leading to so much more…
Tau paced back and forth in his cell waiting. Any minute now, he should hear Fei's footsteps coming down the hall and then it would only be a matter of time before he got out of this wretched place. To say he was anxious was…an understatement.
Despite his bending being back to full strength during the past day or so now, Tau decided not to use it for fear of revealing his returned abilities to the guards that passed by his cell periodically. That was harder then he thought. However, if he was being honest with himself, he did cave in and use his bending briefly. Over the past few weeks his hair had grown a little longer and he had also grown a small beard. Just a few hours ago he had used waterbending to form a makeshift mirror as well as a knife to trim himself up a bit. He had gotten rid of the beard completely and though he had cut his hair a little bit, he left it a little longer than what it had been before. While before his hair had been very short, almost nonexistent, now it was long enough to reach the top of his ears. He kind of liked it that way, it was closer to how he had looked before he had been captured by the Fire Nation all those years ago…when his life had been somewhat…normal.
Besides that however, he had not truly manipulated his element ever since his fight with Katara back in the Southern Air Temple. He felt like he had all this energy stored up inside of him and it was just waiting to be released. He wasn't sure how Fei was planning to get him out of here but if there was one thing Tau knew it was that he needed a good fight.
Moments later, he heard the all too familiar footsteps walking down the hall towards his cell and he saw Fei's face looking at him through the cell door's window.
"I thought you might want a change of clothes," Fei told him, sliding some clean clothing through the windows bars, allowing Tau to take them, "That old ragged stuff you're wearing can't be comfortable."
"They smell too," Tau added, seeing Fei turn back around allowing Tau some privacy in undressing to he could put the new clothes on. They were just simple black robes, with black pants to go along with them, similar to what Fei was wearing
"Are you ready?" Fei asked, not yet turning around.
"What do you think?" Tau asked back, bending some water out of the air and onto the handle of the locked door, freezing it, and then shattering it which allowed the door to slowly drift open.
Fei jumped back in surprised as the door suddenly opened up and Tau walked out confidently with a small smile on his face.
"Oh," Fei said, regaining his composure, holding up a small key in his hand, "I was just going to…"
"I needed a little practice," Tau interrupted gently.
"I see," Fei said, watching the man in front of him bend some water around him with a smooth control that was only common in the most powerful of benders. Fei suddenly found himself very nervous. His superiors had told him plenty about Tau, they had whole documents on him. Fei knew everything about him that the White Lotus was able to find out. However, a number of those things included how, besides the Avatar, Tau was possibly the most powerful bender in the world and he was also very manipulative when he wanted to be. A dozen scenarios shot through Fei's head on how this whole thing could go wrong and Tau could once again become a loose cannon as he had been a little over a month ago. Fei's superiors assured him many times before though that they had everything under control. He also couldn't forget that despite Tau's mistrust in almost everyone, he did show respect to people that made it clear that they were trying to help him. Fei felt he fit under that category and since Tau simply stood in front of him without seeing to have any attempts to harm him, it seemed like the Waterbender had no intention of turning against him…yet, at least.
"Okay," Fei began taking a deep breath as he felt Tau's icy blue eyes turn to him, "I have a way to sneak out of here without anyone finding out…"
He stopped when Tau held up a hand in a silent gesture to stop.
"Look Fei," Tau began, evaporating the stream of water that he had been using back into the air, "I appreciate what you and what the rest of your people are doing for me. However, I have been locked up in here for a month and if you think that I am just going to walk out of here as if nothing's happened then you are mistaken."
Fei just smiled and nodded understandingly, "I was told that you wouldn't be the one to let me sneak you out of here. To that end, there is another way we could go about doing this. A way that is a bit more…physical."
"Great," Tau responded, turning to start to make his way down the hall, "Let's get moving then."
"Wait," Fei called, running up to Tau, who stopped and turned to him expectantly.
"What's wrong?" Tau raised an eyebrow.
"Look," Fei started, trying to keep his voice low so as to not alert any other guards that could possible right around the next corner, "I know you probably want nothing more than to beat every guard in this prison to a pulp and then walk out of here like you owned the place," he paused to see if he would get a reaction from Tau but the waterbender just stared at him steadily until he continued, "But we can't do that. For this to work, for you to gain your freedom without being hunted once you get out of here, we have to do things the way that I have planned them out. If you want to storm through this place and fight anyone that gets in our way then fine, I won't stop you. However, you need to follow my lead, I'll lead you where you need to go."
"Well first off," Tau answered back, keeping his voice low as well, as he started walking again "They took something of mine that I would like to get back. Once I have what I want, I'll be happy to follow you wherever it is you want us to go."
"I already have that covered," Fei said, reaching in to his pocket to pull out Avatar Kuruk's necklace as Tau stopped walking and turned around.
Tau's eyes widened slightly upon seeing the necklace.
"I assume you're talking about this," Fei guessed.
Tau slowly reached out and took the necklace out of Fei's hand, turning it over in his palm to look it over before smirking and putting it back around his neck. It felt good to have it back, it felt as if he had just regained a part of himself.
"Thanks," Tau said appreciatively, "Now, where do you need us to go?"
"The armory," Fei answered, as he started to walk down the hallway with Tau falling into step beside him, "Unfortunately it's on the other side of this facility."
"Good," Tau answered simply, "The longer it takes, the more time I have to teach these assholes a lesson."
"Just try not to kill anyone okay?" Fei requested, "My superiors told me that they don't want to see a blood trail in our wake."
"I'll keep that in mind," Tau answered, pulling two streams of water out of the air, and holding them on each side of him as he and Fei turned the corner. Much to his disappointment, there weren't any guards in sight but a few moments later, he heard some footsteps around the next corner and he anxiously picked up the pace.
Fei noticed this and had to walk a little faster to keep up with Tau. At the same time however, as they got closer to the corner, he made sure to stay back a little bit. From what he read about Tau, Fei knew that the Waterbender wouldn't need any help and Fei wouldn't be the one to get in his way.
Sure enough, as they turned the corner they caught two guards casual walking down the dimply lit hallway. Tau simply just kept walking towards them until he was noticed. Upon seeing him the guards seemed startled and they swiftly came to a stop as they both looked at Tau in confusion. Tau never gave them a chance to react and before the guards were even able to recognize him, Fei watched as Tau sent the two streams of water that he had been holding at his side straight at the guards. The two streams knocked both guards off to the side so hard that they made a dent in the wall upon impact before falling to the floor with no sign of moving.
Fei held in a gasp of shock, not expecting the encounter to be over so quickly but Tau looked as if he was just getting started. The Waterbender walked by the two bodies, only sparing them a small glance as he passed them, as he conjured up two more streams of water from the air.
Snapping out of the trance he had briefly found himself in, Fei took his eyes off the two prone bodies to catch up to Tau, who had already turned into the next hallway. Before Fei could reach him, he heard two more loud thuds and he turned the corner to see Tau standing over two more bodies.
Tau looked up, quickly noticing that Fei seemed a little shocked, "I thought you were okay with this?"
"I am," Fei assured, glancing at the two bodies briefly, before looking back at Tau, "I just never expected that you would…be able to do this so easily. I mean, I was told about your abilities but seeing in action is just…"
"Different? Impressive?" Tau offered, creating two more streams of water as he started to move forwards again slowly, "Yeah, I get that a lot."
"I'm not surprised," Fei responded slightly amused, catching up to walk beside Tau.
They kept walking down the hall, surprisingly not running into many other guards. The only thing they heard was sounds from the numerous prison cells that they were passing. Fei noticed the look of curiosity on the prisoner's faces as they walked passed their cells. Some begged for Tau and Fei to help them get out to and others just seemed plain crazy. Fei didn't care what Tau had done before he was sent to this prison, he was definitely more sane then most of the people that were held here.
"So you want to tell me how to get to this armory of yours," Tau asked after about a minute, keeping his eyes ahead of him as he looked out for more guards.
"We're on the right trail," Fei answered, "We just keep walking straight down this hallway until we get to the end and then they'll be another hallway to the left."
"Couldn't we theoretically turn left down any off the other paths branching off from this one before that?" Tau asked, glancing down a few hallways that were branching off from the one they were walking in, "They all connect to each other right?"
"We could," Fei responded, giving Tau a questioning look, "Why?"
Tau shrugged, bringing up another topic, "You'd think there would be more guards around here."
"Well it's the night shift," Fei explained, "There is only a few of them patrolling during these hours. Although once they discover the bodies we left back there this whole place would be crawling with them."
"You think that there are some more down the other hallways?" Tau asked.
Fei wasn't really following Tau's line of questioning but he nodded in response any way, "I mean, if they're not here then there probably in the other parts of the facility."
Seconds after hearing that, Tau wordlessly turned left down the next branching off hallway that they came across and Fei instantly realized why Tau had been asking him all the questions.
"You know," Fei said, slightly annoyed, "When I said we can do this the way you wanted to, I didn't mean we could just go out of our way to hunt down everybody here."
"Relax," Tau said evenly, "We're still going to the all-important armory. We're just going my way."
Fei opened his mouth to argue but decided against it. He knew that it would be a losing argument for him. Tau was the one holding the power; he could get rid of Fei whenever he wanted to now that he was released from his cell. Fei assumed that the only reason he wasn't dead or unconscious by now was because the Waterbender was curious as to what he and the rest of the White Lotus wanted. If that was the case, Fei wanted to stay on his good side.
They didn't walk to far down the hallway before the whole prison seemed to come to life. A loud bell echoed through the halls and Fei instantly recognized it as the prisons alarm system. It was just a simple metal bell in the center off the prison, where the warden's office was, and the walls of the prison allowed it to echo throughout the whole place; though the farther you were away from it the quieter it was.
"Someone must have discovered the bodies," Fei told Tau, who simply just nodded with a small smile.
They began to walk at a faster pace and moments later they heard footsteps shuffling not too far from them.
"Are you a Firebender?" Tau asked suddenly, walking faster towards the sound of the footsteps.
"Yeah, why?" Fei asked, "I can't use my bending without seriously hurting these people and I'm not going to do that."
"Fine by me," Tau shrugged, as about half a dozen guards came into view a few dozen feet down the hall from them, "But it's not my problem if one of them gets past me and goes for you."
"I know how to handle myself if I have to," Fei countered, "I'm pretty good with a sword to."
Tau didn't seem to hear him however as he was too busy running forwards as he launched wave after wave of water towards the guards.
When all of them were lying down unconscious at Tau's feet a few moments later, Fei instantly realized that none of the guards here really stood a chance. Tau was too quick and the amount of water he was able to bend from the air was simply overwhelming. The guards never even had time to defend themselves with Earthbending before they were subdued. Granted they weren't as well trained as typical Earthbending soldiers but seeing Tau in action during that brief moment made Fei conclude one thing.
Tau was everything that Fei's superiors had told him he would be. They just needed to convince him to be on their side.
The warden of the Lake Laogai Prison, Xou, sighed as he stepped out of his office, hearing lots of commotion coming not too far from him. He was a thin old man, assigned to his position in the prison because he absolutely refused to retire from his military life but at the same time he had started to become more of a liability to the military because of his age. He was given the job as the warden in return that he leave the actual military without resistance. At the time he knew he didn't really have a choice, if he refused then they would have simply forced him to retire. He simply chose the lesser of the two evils and accepted the offer. That was a year ago, and now for the first time, something was actually happening.
Xou would have preferred it to be anything but this though. The Council of Five had made it very clear that Tau stayed locked up and away from any other prisoners. Xou wasn't sure why he was so important but now he was starting to see why. Once a few unconscious bodies had been reported to him, he had instantly sounded the alarms, believing that Tau would be back under control in just a few short minutes.
How wrong he had been.
The whole reason he was leaving his cozy little office was because things were getting out of hand. Tau was plowing through his men like they weren't anything at all. Xou could only let that happen for so long before he had to let himself get involved personally. He needed to see why his dozens of guards couldn't put up a decent fight against one Waterbender.
He was a well-trained Earthbender, despite his old age, so he was sure he had nothing to worry about. He motioned for the two guards that were standing outside of his office to follow him and after that all he had to do was follow the sounds of the fighting.
Fei had almost never been out of breath in his life. This was one of the few exceptions. He didn't know what was worse: that he couldn't keep up with Tau despite the fact the Tau was being regularly occupied by half a dozen guards at a time or that the guards where too weak to slow him down. Either the guards training was really just that terrible or Tau was just, well…that good.
Fei himself had never even been in any danger yet. No one had gotten past the Waterbender. In fact, it all really boiled down to Fei chasing after Tau hallway after hallway, following the trails of unconscious bodies that the other man left in his wake. Fei managed to stay close enough to him that he was able to yell out directions for how to get to the armory and to his credit; Tau was actually listening to him. Now Fei was just wondering how many more guards the warden could possibly throw at them before taking a step back and assessing the situation better. Then again, Fei had met the warden and he hadn't really seemed like the best strategist.
"We almost at the armory," Fei called out to Tau, who was a few dozen feet ahead of him freezing a few of the guards to the wall, "Just take your next left and it's at the end of the hallway."
Tau didn't make any gesture that he heard him but sure enough, he followed the directions Fei gave him and he disappeared out of view.
It took another several seconds for Fei to reach the corner and when he did, he came around it just in time to see Tau side step and duck to avoid two boulders that were bent at him before engulfing the remaining guards with water. They were the last ones to stand between them and the armory and for the first time since the alarms sounded Tau stood still.
Thankful that the Waterbender had actually decided to wait on him, Fei strode over to him, giving the other man an impressed smile.
"You really are everything that I was told you would be," Fei breathed out.
"Well I'm glad I didn't disappoint you," Tau responded in mild sarcasm, not appearing to really care for the complement.
Fei just decided to keep quite as he took the lead and opened up the door to the armory, hearing Tau follow him inside.
"Okay, so this is your plan," Tau said, looking around the room for anything out of the ordinary, "Now what?"
"This room is on the outer edge of this whole facility," Fei began, "if any of these walls were to blow open the lake water would come rushing in. I think you know what to do once that happens. Although I assume you're wondering how we're going to find explosives in here big enough to blow open the…"
"I'm guessing you're going to detonate the blasting jelly sitting right over there," Tau interrupted confidently as he eyes fell on a trio of the explosive barrels that were sitting up against the wall at the far side of the room, "I'm more curious as to why a prison would even need those in here."
"Oh, they weren't here originally," Fei said with a small amount of pride, "You wouldn't believe the amount of things the White Lotus can do without anyone knowing. We smuggled those in earlier today."
"Is this the part where you try to persuade me to join your little club by patronizing it?" Tau raised an eyebrow.
Fei gave him a deadpanned look before shaking his head, "You know what? I'm not even going to try it again. I'll just let the people in charge take care of that part."
"Assuming I even let to take me to said people in charge," Tau corrected, pausing for a slight moment until he saw a look of worry spread across Fei's face before continuing, "Don't worry though. You have me curious. I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't find out what all this was about."
Fei wasn't sure if the other man was being sarcastic or if he was being honest or something in between but he found himself letting out a sigh of relief.
"So are you ready to get out of here," Fei asked, "Do I even need to tell you why we aren't just walking out the front door."
"The explosion is supposed to make it look like I was killed," Tau said simply, "You really think I don't know how this all works do you?"
"My superiors told me to be honest with you and make sure you know what's what," Fei explained, "I'm just following orders."
"Well stop," Tau told him, gaze turning to the door and out to the hall that they came from, hearing several footsteps coming towards them, "It's making you look stupid."
Fei chose to ignore his comment as his gaze shifted down the hall as well, seeing about two dozen soldiers come into view. He also noticed that the warden was among them.
"You might want to do your thing now," Tau suggesting, eyes narrowing at the large grouping running towards them, "Unless of course you want to watch me fight all of them as well."
Fei nodded, aiming one of his hands towards the barrels of blasting jelly as a large blast of fire shot out of his palm.
Xou let his men run ahead of him as Tau came in site and there was also a man that he didn't quite recognize standing alongside him. He instantly connected the pieces and realized that this other man must have freed Tau. For what purpose, Xou didn't have a clue and frankly, he didn't really care. He just needed to get Tau back to where he belonged. He stood back, watching his guards get closer and closer to the armory.
Suddenly however, a loud explosion rocked his ears and next thing he knew, Tau and the other figure vanished into the flames and in their place, water from the lake gushed into the prison. Instant chaos ensured as he saw his mean turning back around from the now destroyed armory to run from the wall of water washing towards them.
Xou kept his cool though. It was something he learned throughout all the years he had been in the military. He stood his ground, raised his arms and brought a wall of earth up to create a new wall between his guards and the oncoming water. There was a loud thud on the other side of the newly created wall as the water crashed against it but other than that there was complete silence. The armory was gone, and so was about a dozen feet of the hallway leading to it. Thankfully though his men seemed alright, if a little shaken up, and to him that was what mattered.
Unfortunately, he was sure that the armory would be unsalvageable, there would be no way to drain the water out of it but they could always replace it. The thing that brought a smile to Xou's face as he leaned up against the wall while everyone around him regained their composure was that the spirits had offered them their aid. That was the only explanation that he could think of as to how the whole room had suddenly exploded since there were no explosives of any kind in the prison. Though it may not have been his doing, Tau did not escape. Xou didn't let down his nation by letting him get loose and he felt a sense of relief in that.
There was no way Tau could have survived.
Xou couldn't have been more wrong. It took only half a minute for Tau to climb up onto the shoreline of Lake Laogai with Fei following close behind him. It hadn't been clear to Xou, but Fei had used his firebending to shield the two of them from the explosion and then once the water had rushed in, Tau had taken hold of Fei's arm and used waterbending to propel them through the water and up to the shore.
Tau swiftly pulled the water out of each of their clothes to dry them off quicker before looking around. The moon was high in the night sky and there was an eerie silence stretching over the city. No one was around to see them. Suddenly, he saw a bright light appear off to his right from the corner of his eye and he turned his head to see that Fei had conjured up a small flame in his palm to help them see easier.
"Well I thought that went rather well," the firebender said, walking up to him.
"It did," Tau nodded, squinting a little as his eyes adjusted to the light. The Lake Laogai prison was rather dark and it had been a month since he had seen anything as bright as the small flame that Fei held. It took some getting used to. He could only imaging what it would be like when daylight arrived. Hopefully, he got used to seeing light before then.
"Now we just need to walk up the shore and onto the city streets and there should be someone waiting for us not to far from here," Fei told him.
"So it isn't just you," Tau stated, "there were other people tasked with getting me out of here."
"The Order of the White Lotus believed that breaking you out was one of our top priorities. There are actually two others that we will be meeting up with us," Fei explained with a small smile, "You'd be happy to hear that one of them is a Grand Lotus, the highest rank in our organization."
"I'm assuming that he or she would be explaining everything to me then?" Tau asked.
"You'd have to ask him," Fei clarified, leading Tau up the shoreline, "I don't even know the full details on why they wanted you. The only thing they told me was that they needed your help and to get you out at any cost."
Tau just let out a contemplative hum in response as he followed Fei off of the shore and onto the one of the many, now empty, streets of Ba Sing Se. It didn't take him long to spot a small carriage with two ostrich horses to pull it along waiting a little way off. It was tucked away in the alley between two buildings, shrouded by darkness.
"I think I found your friend," Tau said, causing Fei to turn and look at him.
"Where?"
Tau pointed towards the carriage and Fei eye's followed Tau's finger and instantly spotted it as well.
"That's it alright," Fei began to towards it, "Come on."
Tau obeyed, curious as to who would be meeting them in there. As they got closer, the door on the side of the carriage opened and an old, somewhat heavy, man stepped out. Tau walked closer, stopping a few feet away from the newcomer, noticing that Fei decided to stay a few respectful feet behind them. One of the old man's hands came up to stroke his beard for a few moments before his golden eyes fell on Tau, narrowing slightly.
It took Tau a few moments but eventually, he recognized the man that stood before him. He had never met him before but it would be an understatement to say that he was well known. The man before him was practically a legend.
"Hello Tau. I never thought I would actually get the chance to meet you in person," the man said, golden eyes looking over Tau very closely as if to make sure the waterbender could be trusted, "I am General Iroh."
Okay, so for those of you that care about lemons and such...sorry about the small tease towards the beginning. My original intention was to have one but then the chapter got to the length that it was and a lemon really isn't necessary since we just had one in chapter 5...so I decided not to do it. I also think that in a fic that revolves a lot around plot, having a lot of lemons everywhere can cheapen it. There will be other lemons but I'm going to include them into parts that would actually be meaningful.
On another note, it should be pretty clear by now that the Order of the White Lotus will be featured quite a bit in this story. However, we never really learned all that much about it on the show. All that we really know is that the Grand Lotus seems to be the highest rank in it so they are the ones in charge, and its mixed with people from all the nation. Obviously, that is really not enough information to have a large plot revolving around them so I'll be expanding on it and explaining it in more detail then the show did. A lot of that will be coming up in the next few chapters so...yay?
Anyway, let me know your thoughts and I'll see you all next Friday!
