Episode IX: Bumi and the Air Temple
94 years ago (Bumi age 19), early fall.
--
Another egg spattered across his chest. Bumi merely stared down at it, ineffectual with shock as its liquid innards squished down into the recesses of his shirt. The boy from whose hand it had sailed grabbed a significant fraction of a rotting cabbage from a nearby refuse pile and wound back. Bumi abruptly returned to his senses as the boy let fly. In an elaborate roll worthy of the secret agents of his youth, Bumi dove for cover behind his wooden cart. Debris rained down upon him, shaking his cart with the impacts. What had he done wrong?
He couldn't figure it out. He had followed the very same tactics that had worked so well for him in the past; his muscles were adequately bulging behind his distinctive, skintight yellow vest, he had shaved the few scraggly whiskers he had accumulated over his journey, his leonine tower of hair was endearingly disheveled, and he came bearing peculiar curios, the likes of which these villagers had never seen! More importantly, however, he had, as always, brought along one of Mipsie's twins to pull his cart and get a little exercise. While Bizzorzix and his sister were not nearly so large or well trained as their mother, they were considerably more adorable and usually garnered Bumi and his wares a great deal of attention. So why wasn't it working here? Did the village of Iier have a bad history with white apes?
Bumi quickly dismissed that possibility. From his hiding place behind his cart he could see Bizzorzix, perched happily on the town's dry fountain a few meters away, being petted and doted upon by a bevy of girls. The ape was getting fed while he was accosted by assorted flying foodstuffs. He growled jealously.
For all his intelligence, Bumi was not well versed in the ways of the outside world. He had only last month begun his trips to the various villages in the scrublands surrounding Omashu, and had thus far met great success. The untapped markets turned out to be enormously profitable, as not only were the villagers incapable of making the great variety of specialty goods that could be found within Omashu's shops for themselves, but also they were unfamiliar with Bumi's eccentricities. All of his peculiar tricks still worked on them, whereas many in Omashu had begun to pick up on them. He had sold out everything he had brought in the villages of Shir and Kwair. The village of Iier, however, some thirty-five miles directly east of Omashu, was as far away as he had ever been from his home and was not nearly so accommodating. He risked a peek around his cart's wooden wheel, but promptly retracted his head again as roughly half of a tomato splashed across the ground.
The gang of boys was relentless in their jeering attack. Bumi fought to contain his anger, trying to remember what Shou had taught him about meditation. Why had none of their parents stepped in yet? Bumi looked entreatingly at the nearest adults who were hard at work repairing their homes, but they ignored him. A rock sailed through the air and struck his cart, knocking one of his Fire Nation dolls onto the ground in pieces. He growled.
"You'll have to pay for that!" he shouted from his hiding place. The boys laughed.
"That's what your mom said last night, but I got a discount!" one of the older attackers taunted, resulting in a chorus of 'oooooooh's from his companions. They braced for an attack, but Bumi was momentarily stunned with his confusion. What? He distractedly tried to recall what had happened to his mother. She was still alive somewhere, he figured, but he was not sure. He failed to see what that had to do with him, however.
"Okay… what?" he asked. The boys quickly realized, to their great disappointment, that mother related insults had no effect on Bumi and responded by tossing another rock at his cart. There was the audible crack of another of his possessions, or perhaps it was his own temper. That was enough.
With startling speed, Bumi darted out from behind his hiding place and grabbed the collar of the nearest boy, sending the rest of the gang dispersing in all directions in squealing fear. Bumi hefted the boy up several feet, to eye level. He and his companions looked terrified and Bumi was not for the first time thankful for his uncommon height and physique.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you attacking me?" he demanded. The boy's fear was quickly replaced by defiant anger.
"You don't belong here!" he spat. "Leggo, you filthy Shuer!" Bumi's eyes widened. The boy continued to struggle futilely in his grip. They hated him because he was from Omashu? His thoughts were interrupted when a third egg struck his left cheek, splashing yolk all over his face. His captive twisted out of his hand and fell to the ground, then scrambled to a safe distance.
Bumi merely stood there, eyes closed, listening to the gang of children berate him for his choice of hometown. He blew his lips in frustration, spitting the egg-y taste out of his mouth.
"Go back to your precious city, Shuer! You're not welcome here!" one of the boys shouted. Emboldened by Bumi's lack of response, they surrounded him predatorily. Bumi felt their vibrations through his bare feet. One of them stooped to pick up a rock and slung it forcefully at Bumi's face.
Bumi sprung into action. In one rapid motion he plucked the projectile out of the air, pulverized it into dust in one palm, and then pitched it mercilessly back into the boy's eyes. The boy crumpled to the ground, blinded and crying. His friends were shocked.
"You want to try that again?" Bumi asked smugly. There was an awkward silence.
"Hey! That guy hurt Hiro!" one of the boys shouted accusingly. Heads turned and all eyes focused on Bumi. The villagers chose that moment, of course, to notice him. Just his luck. Bumi crossed his arms in defiance, refusing to feel guilty for defending himself. A stubby man came marching towards them, an angry glint in his eyes. Bumi felt relieved to finally have one of the adults' attention.
"Finally!" he whined. "Why did you let them attack me? I'm just a merchant! What is wrong with this place!?" The man looked at him spitefully.
"Well apparently grown men show up and think they can beat up our children without us noticing," he responded. Bumi frowned.
"I was more than fair. If you aren't going to stop them from attacking innocent strangers… innocent allied strangers, than I will. Especially if it's me they're attacking." The man did not look convinced.
"Pfft… Allies, you say?" he scoffed. "I'm sorry, but hiding behind your impenetrable walls while the rest of us suffer and die to your enemies does not count as an alliance here." He knelt to pick up the fallen doll. "Bumi's Fire Nation Action Figure, with Real Detachable Limbs," he read. He snorted derisively and shoved the toy's pieces into Bumi's hands.
"We need food, and blankets, and military aid. Not toys," he spat. "We need somebody to protect us, to be here to defend us when the Fire Nation attacks. We need a King that cares whether we perish or not, a kingdom that will stand up for our interests. We don't need Omashu's merchants here to bandy their wealth about in our faces and try to sell us useless tripe like 'Fire Nation Action Figures'." The boys who had been attacking him nodded somberly from behind the man's bulk, all their previous aggressiveness gone in favor of cute misery. The man growled up at the much taller Bumi.
"We are trying to prepare for the Fire Nation's next attack. We faced them all alone not two days ago and will surely face them again. Please leave. Go back and hide behind your walls," he commanded spitefully. Bumi felt the sting from his tongue-lashing and only stood there until the man, apparently satisfied, walked away.
Bumi stared at his feet, lost in thought and surprise.
Bumi looked up at the villagers, many of whom were still glaring at him disapprovingly. Was it really that bad out here? He observed the nearby buildings. Upon second inspection, it was obvious that the city was recovering from some sort of brutal attack. He was embarrassed he hadn't noticed it before. Black scorch marks criss crossed many of the roofs. There was a gaping hole in one of the shops. Flowers and wreaths at many of the doors betrayed the presence of mourning families.
Bumi sighed audibly, giving up. He could feel the angry stares of him as he leaned into his cart and rifled around a bit before withdrawing a small crate of rock candy, the only food he had with him (not counting his lunch).
"It's not my fault," he reminded the villagers petulantly. "Have some candy." The eyes still followed him as he set the candy on the ground in front of him. No one moved to thank him, or even moved at all.
"Come on, Bizzy," he said quietly. Bizzorzix rushed enthusiastically to him, bowling through several of the girls that had been petting him in his rush to rejoin his master. He leapt into Bumi's arms, hoping to be carried (and nearly knocking Bumi out in the process), but Bumi quickly dropped him, grabbed his cart's yoke, and, with another loud sigh, began the long journey home. The villagers' angry stares bored holes in his back.
--
Sunlight filtered through the sparse cover of pine boughs, dappling Bumi's back as he plodded onward. Though Bumi had walked this very same road this very same morning, he was amazed by all he had missed on the way up. There were signs of the war everywhere. Burnt trees, freshly dug graves, conspicuously empty livestock pens; they all pointed to a world gripped by conflict.
Even beside all of the concrete proof of the world's difficulties, however, Bumi found that the day seemed a bit less bright. The birds that had this morning seemed carefree and happy now only sang dirges for nests lost in the blazes. The scraping of the wagon's wheels on the dirty road screeched endlessly in Bumi's head and he increased his pace, longing to get to the inn in Shir and rest.
Bumi wasn't sure how to feel. There were many advantages to being a realist. One could see the truth and act on it unburdened by silly outside factors. There were difficulties too, however. When something terrible happened and a realist was proven right, could he honestly brag about it? Bumi very rarely reconsidered his personal philosophies, but he was surprised to find himself longing for just a little bit of the optimistic world from all the fairy tales.
In the fairy tales, the city would have enough troops to go around and the villagers would not pelt their allies with garbage. War was supposed to bring out the best in the good guys. In the stories, the good guys were supposed to set aside their differences, bind together under the leadership of a courageous hero, and defeat a superior opponent through the twin powers of determination and righteousness! The world was not like the stories, however, and this was not happening. Nearly all contact between the four nations had ground to a halt (unless one counted physical contact of the lethal variety). News was slow enough within the Earth Kingdom, and a city could be occupied for weeks before Ba Sing Se knew it had fallen at all. It was even worse for their supposed allies. The Fire Nation had been firing on any ships found in open water and no one had seen a flying bison in years, so the Earth Kingdom was, for all intents and purposes, alone.
In the stories, this would be the time when a hero would surface to save the day. When things seemed like they couldn't get any worse, someone pure, who stood for everything that was good, would emerge and vanquish the world's foes. It would be so easy for the hero in question. Everyone would follow him and the war would end and no more people would die.
Of course, things were not so easy. Heroes like that did not exist. The war would end, but it would only do so by itself, through the efforts of ordinary men and the unstoppable progress of time. Eventually, the Fire Nation would run out of resources and have to stop. Or they might even conquer the world, but they would never be able to hold it. They would get too spread out, their supply lines would collapse, and the world would equilibrate again. It might take a hundred years, but the war would end.
This idea was not as comforting as Bumi wished it were.
--
Despite spending most of the day philosophizing, Bumi felt little better that night. He sat at one of the tables in Shir's inn, idly picking at a bowl of chicken and rice. There is a certain set of questions that every thinking man has to answer for himself at some point (or, alternately, ignore). Did everything have a purpose? Did heroes exist? Did Bumi, as a naturally gifted man who could likely, if he played his cards right, outwait the entire war in relative comfort without ever seeing a battle, owe the world at large anything? To Bumi, these answers had always been simply 'no', but he had to wonder.
Heroes were always exceptional individuals. They were almost always devoted to good, utterly flat and unthinkingly compassionate, they almost always had lost a parent or other loved one to the bad guys, and they almost always were generous to everyone they met. They were utterly, unfailingly exceptional, though. Better than the average person in some way.
This realization bothered Bumi. He was exceptional. He was smart, a genius even. He knew more than anybody he had ever met. He was obviously not devoted to good, nor particularly compassionate, nor had he lost parents to the Fire Nation, and he was quite the opposite of generous, but no one could claim Bumi did not possess uncommon talent. Was he this hero he struggled to picture? Was it his job to rally the world and defeat the bad guys? Bumi didn't have much of an appetite and pushed his bowl away.
Bumi had never really believed in the spirits. Of course, in a world where every third person claimed to have actually seen an actual spirit at some point or another in their life, you never admitted that you didn't believe in spirits. They were part of everyday life, whether they were real or not. There was very little to be gained by telling people that the one thing keeping them from committing suicide was something of an elaborate tall tale, so Bumi didn't. The problem, as Bumi saw it, was deeply ingrained in peoples' concept of the spirit world. People honestly believed that the spirits helped them in day-to-day life, that they were benevolent, supernatural beings of unfathomable power. To Bumi, this was obvious nonsense. There was a horrible war going on. Thousands of innocent lives were being lost. That it had happened at all was proof, in Bumi's mind, that the spirits either couldn't help or didn't care to. Bumi did think about and talk to the supernatural, but only in the manner one thinks about and talks to an imaginary friend one no longer really believes in to organize one's thoughts.
Regardless, if Bumi had believed in the spirits, he might have thanked them right then, for at that moment, Fate tossed him an answer.
"You mustn't give up hope, Mea. The Avatar will return." A trio of women sat at the next table. The two older women were trying to console a recently-married, recently-widowed girl. Bumi's eyes widened at the comment.
It had been innocent enough, really. It was the same sort of hopeful opiate that kept the people of the world from lying down in the dirt and dying. Bumi didn't overmuch approve of the idea of sitting back and presuming hope will fix your problems for you, but hope made people happy, and he saw no reason why it was his right to take that from them.
Still, it was a surprisingly convenient answer to Bumi's questions. Of course he wasn't the hero. The Avatar was! The Avatar, who actually was the hero in many of the stories Bumi had been recalling, actually existed!
Or did, at one point. Bumi had never entirely squared with how he felt about Aang's fate. On one hand, he refused to sugarcoat it. The airbenders had been attacked. Attacked in a very significant manner at all four of their temples. A great fraction of them were dead. There was no denying this. Fire Lord Sozin had quite intentionally attempted mass genocide of their people, no doubt with the specific goal of killing the Avatar, Bumi's friend, Aang. The facts seemed stacked against Aang.
On the other hand, every time he considered that Aang might have died in these attacks, Bumi would be filled with unease. Some chord deep inside him would vibrate in irritation. Aang was not dead. Somehow he felt sure. Never having been one to rely on intuition, however, Bumi chose to point out the many facts that supported this theory as well. No other people on the planet were so singularly mobile as the airbenders, no others were as self sufficient, no others as good at hiding. It was entirely believable that dozens of the monks had survived and were at that very instant training Aang for his inevitable role as the world's savior.
Bumi smiled and pulled his bowl back to him.
--
The next evening, Bumi led Bizzorzix up the side path of Shou's new house to stable him with his mother and twin. At the time, Shou had felt guilty enough about spending so much of their money that he hadn't batted an eyelash at Bumi's demand that it have a stable and large yard for his beasts. Idala, Shou's new wife, had never particularly appreciated this agreement but Bumi didn't care. He figured that, considering he was paying for her house, the least she could do was take care of his pets.
He opened the wide swinging gate more out of tradition than anything else; Bizzorzix was more than capable of climbing over it. The two of them entered the stables, where Mipsie and Jipsie, Bizzorzix's sister, were grooming one another. As soon as they arrived all three apes hooted and jumped about, alternately tackling one another and Bumi in affection. While the twins set to chasing each other around the yard, Bumi scratched the fur behind Mipsie's long, floppy ears and brushed some of the mud off of her since-regrown horns. She rumbled in delight under his touch.
Shou's house was quite lovely, really. Bumi had early on recognized what Shou's marriage would do to their friendship and had had thenceforth made a point of vocally panning every feature of the house (and indeed every decision Shou made for a month or two afterwards). In truth, though, it was a fine building, spacious and well built with glass windows and carved wooden doors and situated in a clean neighborhood in Upper Omashu. Bumi decided he'd drop in and annoy Shou's wife, one of his new pastimes. While he was ultimately happy to see his friend happy, Idala had taken something from him, and he would not take that lying down.
--
It was dinnertime at the Shou residence when Bumi waltzed through the door. Shou was seated at the kitchen table playing a card game against his nine-year-old stepson Gao (and losing badly, as it turned out), while Idala was putting the finishing touches on some sort of noodle-based meal.
Bumi seated himself at one end of the table without asking for permission. Idala looked at him, her pretty face somewhere between surprise and great annoyance. Shou grunted, well used to Bumi's lack of anything resembling manners and too enrapt in his game to say anything coherent. Idala sighed, visibly bracing herself.
"There is plenty to go around, Bumi. Would you like to have dinner with us?" she asked quietly, clearly remembering the last time Bumi had dined with them.
"I think I would, actually," Bumi said, confirming her fears. Her face fell, but she raised no argument. That settled, Bumi leaned forward to spectate Gao and Shou's game.
"You're back early," Shou observed, glaring possessively at his hand.
"Yup. Play the Arsanine Armor card," he advised. Shou rubbed his chin in contemplation. He could never tell if Bumi was trying to help him or sabotage him. He chose to trust Bumi and played the card while Bumi tried to hide his victorious grin.
"Hey Bumi, did you bring me anything?" Gao asked hopefully. He and Bumi had gotten along rather well, mostly because they acted about the same age. Meeting someone who found his tricks almost as funny as he did was one of the few benefits Bumi had gained from Shou's marriage.
"Nah. I'm afraid they just threw eggs at me. I can ring some of the yolk out of my shirt if you want," Bumi offered jokingly, fingering his vest.
"Okay!" Gao replied cheerfully. Shou faced Bumi, eyes wide.
"Really?" he asked. Bumi shrugged.
"Sure. It's kindof dry, but maybe if we wet it a little it'll come out pretty well." Shou shook his head in irritation.
"They threw eggs at you?"
"Yup. Turken eggs, in fact. None too fresh, methinks. Turns out the village of Iier isn't much fond of 'Shuers'. Said the Army had betrayed them and so on." Shou looked very much disturbed by this news. Idala set a steaming bowl of noodles in front of each of them.
"Betrayed them?!" Shou sputtered, "after everything that's happened!? I can't even… of all the miserable, ungrateful things, how could they? Just goes to show-" he trailed off, muttering angrily. Bumi ignored him and was about to ask Gao to explain the mother-related insult he had heard when Idala took her seat.
"Did you hear about this?" Shou demanded of his wife, gesturing angrily at Bumi. "He goes to Iier and gets attacked, just for being from Omashu! Some gratitude! After all the things the army has done for them, all the things the soldiers have sacrificed!"
"That's terrible," Idala said, clearly not nearly so incensed as her husband.
"It wasn't that big of a deal, Shou," Bumi insisted. Shou turned on him.
"It is a big deal! The Earth Army has done everything it can and then some to save the kingdom, and yet it's still not enough! We can win this war, but not if our own people pelt us with garbage. They should be thanking us, supporting us in our time of need!"
"Dear, calm down," Idala commanded. "The army does wonderful things, and people appreciate the sacrifices you have made. It is their time of need too, though. More so than you realize. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They stayed in our town for weeks, eating up all of our food and medical supplies. Someone was raped nearly every night. It was terrifying. It became awfully easy to hate the people in the stronghold cities who didn't have to sleep on the floor because a firebender wanted their bed." Shou looked forlorn and embarrassed.
"I'm sorry. It's just… I know the army is doing all it can," he said sadly. "I only lasted one battle, but I don't regret it, not at all. I would give my other foot in an instant if I could. And I know my old soldier brothers would too. We love our nation; we would give anything to save it. It is…" Shou paused, searching for the right word, "disappointing that that means so little."
Nobody had a comment to that.
"I don't know," Shou continued. "How long will this war last? We're losing. Losing badly. We need something. A plan, a trick, an alliance."
"An Avatar?" Gao offered.
"Yeah… Yeah, we need the Avatar." There was a long silence. For his own part, Bumi spent it contemplating again the Avatar and his destiny. It was hard to reconcile Aang with the Avatar, hard to believe that the silly little boy he and Kuzon had led around was the planet's spirit incarnate.
"You know," he said after a moment through a mouthful of noodles, "I once knew the Avatar." The three looked at him with surprised stares. Bumi had barely accepted Aang as the Avatar himself; he certainly hadn't told anyone else about it.
"Really?" Shou breathed.
"Yup. He was my best friend before the war started." Bumi continued to eat, ignoring the ominous silence of the family trying to digest his words. There was an almost audible breaking point before Idala recovered enough to ask the obvious question.
"Where is he?"
"Don't know," Bumi admitted. They looked disappointed.
"How can you not know?" she pressed, perhaps suspecting Bumi was hiding something. "If you were his best friend, surely he has told you where he's hiding! Doesn't he know the world needs him?" Bumi frowned at her.
"Aang was a bit scatterbrained but he would never abandon the world to die. Neither would the other air monks. I'm sure there's a very good reason for why he hasn't shown himself."
"So he is hiding!" she accused. "You know more than you are saying. Surely you have enough loyalty to the crown not to hide something so important!"
"First of all, I don't have a lick of loyalty for the crown, so you might as well stow that kind of guilt trip. Second of all, like I just told you, I don't know where he is! He probably escaped the Fire Nation attacks and is holed up in some mountain somewhere, waiting to make his move! Be patient!"
"We can't afford to be patient!" she shrieked. "We need him, we need him now! People are dying!"
"Who am I to force his hand? He's the spirit of the whole world! Let him do his job!"
"But he's not doing his job!" Bumi pushed his chair back and rose threateningly to his feet, but Shou grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down into his chair.
"Enough, both of you!" Bumi and Idala stared daggers at one another, but quieted. The family ate in silence.
"He's probably dead. Moved onto the next nation," Gao suggested after a moment. The uneasiness in Bumi's stomach returned.
"He's not dead."
"He probably is. Probably reborn in the Water Tribes." They ignored him. Bumi gritted his teeth and tried to do the same.
"He's probably dead again, then," Idala said, no doubt trying to egg him on. "Water nation isn't doing too well either, last time I checked."
"Earth Kingdom, then?" Gao asked.
"Unless he's in Omashu or Ba Sing Se, there's a good chance he's dead again."
"So… Fire Nation?" Bumi slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes clatter noisily.
"He's not dead!" Idala glared at him.
"Why don't you prove it?" she challenged. Shou stepped in again.
"Enough of this! Let's keep things civil, alright?" Idala nodded, but kept her gaze on Bumi. Bumi matched it defiantly. "Dear," Shou continued conciliatorily, "you don't need to yell at Bumi for the world's problems, and Bumi…" he paused, clearly wary of his next words, "maybe she's right." Bumi growled.
"She's wrong," Bumi informed him.
"Prove it," Idala hissed. All three of them stared at him expectantly. The seconds ticked by like hours. Bumi frowned deeply, feeling cornered.
"Fine." Bumi rose from his chair and left the house, slamming the door violently behind him.
--
Bumi cussed and complained to no one in particular as he walked the darkened streets of Upper Omashu. He selected quite a few colorful adjectives for Idala and a few more for Shou's apparent lack of loyalty. Apparently it was his lot in life to lose every human whose company he had ever enjoyed. Shou was whipped, Kihni had passed away, Kee was too busy, his parents were losers, Kuzon was no doubt holed up in some stuffy court somewhere in the Fire Nation, and Aang was in hiding while the world sullied his good name.
Well, Bumi wouldn't stand for it. Aang was his friend, someone who would never betray him, nor anyone. Years ago Bumi had vowed to wait for Aang's return, but enough was enough. No more waiting. He would find Aang and prove that he had not forsaken his duties as Avatar. Aang was that hero and, wherever he was, he was acting in the world's best interest.
Bumi would seek Aang out. He wished, now, that he had kept Aang's last letter to him. He remembered it word for word (and indeed, it didn't offer any tremendous insight that would help him now), but somehow he knew he'd feel better if he still had it. It would be a great conversation piece when he found his friend; no doubt they'd each have many tales to tell. Aang had lived at the Southern Air Temple when Bumi had known him. He would begin there.
He would leave at once. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. The shops and such were closed already (and due to his actions a few years ago, there was no longer an organized nighttime market from which to buy). It did not matter that his ill-fated trip to Iier was the farthest he had been from the safety of Omashu in ten years, nor that it was a thousand miles of dangerous travel to get to the Southern Air Temple, nor that it would take him months to get there. Bumi was a mad genius, the maddest there ever was. If anybody could find the Avatar, it was he.
Bumi was so wrapped up in planning that he did not sleep at all that night.
--
"And you're saying this will keep me warm and comfortable?" Bumi asked, squeezing the parka's cuff in between his thumb and forefinger.
"Oh yes Sir, warm and comfortable."
"And you want eleven gold pieces for it? It doesn't look that warm or comfortable," Bumi said, standing and eyeing the merchant suspiciously. The man bleached.
"It… it's a real parka, though. Made by a real southern tribesman. They're the best in the world," he stuttered.
"Really…" Bumi replied incredulously. "I find that hard to believe, considering how all the trade lines have collapsed. Surely this doesn't predate the war?"
"Oh no sir!" the man insisted. "The trade lines haven't all collapsed. I have a brother who lives in Ojirun. The Fire Nation taxes everything that goes through it, of course, but they haven't cut it off. Lot of smuggling goes on. The tribesmen are desperate; they'll take practically any offer. It's the sneaking it out that's costly." Bumi decided not to press the issue, but not because of the man's arguments (in fact, he considered reporting the fellow to Kee just out of spite). However, the merchant had given him precisely the information he wanted. He probably could use a water tribe parka on his journey, but more useful was knowing how to find the tribesmen themselves. Ojirun it was.
"Very well," Bumi said, and placed the coat atop the pile of supplies he had already selected. The merchant looked visibly relieved and added its price to the little notepad he held.
Bumi returned his attention to the shelves of traveling gear as he checked off items in his mind. Warm clothing, rope, canned food, a machete, water, torches, oil, matches, a hat, a bedroll, a backpack, a fishing pole and line, maps of the Southern Earth Kingdom, nautical charts, he had them all. Added to a hefty sum of money tied up so it wouldn't jingle too invitingly, a few esoteric knick-knacks to barter, and the clothes on his back, and he was ready.
"Alright. I think that's it," he told the merchant and counted out the final payment.
--
Bumi found Shou waiting for him outside of the shop, petting Mipsie's broad head.
"What are you doing here?" he asked impersonally as he took a seat at the nearest bench and set to packing the gear into his new backpack. Shou joined him.
"I guess I wanted to see if you meant it or not."
"I meant it."
"I see that." They sat in silence while Bumi packed. Shou sighed.
"I'm glad to see you taking an interest in the war, I really am," Shou confessed after a time, "but I wonder if you might be going about it the wrong way."
"Aang is the Avatar. Finding him sounds like a pretty good way to me."
"But like you said, who are you to force his hand?"
"Oh, so now you're agreeing with me?" Bumi challenged. "I thought you thought your dear wife was right?"
"I never said that. I merely acknowledge the possibility." Bumi spat dismissively.
"What would you have me do, then? Join the army?"
"Yes."
"No," Bumi immediately replied, imitating Shou's tone. "You might be willing to give your feet for the crown, but I'm not. I'm doing this for Aang, for my friend, not for our fat pustule of a king and his bureaucracy." Shou seemed saddened by his words. Bumi shoved the last item into his bag, stood, and patted his surrogate father consolingly on the shoulder.
"Besides, I'm bored anyway. Take care of Mipsie for me." He offered a hand. Shou smiled and took it, allowing Bumi to help him to his feet. Shou pulled him into a hug.
"I will. Take care of yourself, Bumi."
"I will." Bumi patted Mipsie's snout, then turned to go.
"And say hi to Aang for me," Shou called.
--
Bumi's bare, calloused feet crunched against the gravelly road that stretched from Omashu and wove its way southeast towards the Si Wong Desert. It was the advent of a great new adventure, and Bumi swam with joy. He had put this off for too long. Omashu was his home and probably always would be, but the world was too big of a place for one to spend six whole years as a merchant, no matter how successful you were. The air was fresh, the sun was shining, and Bumi was hopeful.
Ahh, how he had dreamed of just this sort of thing when he was younger! He was a commando or a secret agent or a master hunter or even a king (hey, it was just pretend), embarking on a mighty journey! He would face many perils but emerge victorious over them all!
Bumi remembered his time with the Trio of Valor fondly. As he walked, he wondered how the years had changed his friends. Aang was immutably childlike, Bumi decided. Whether that was because Bumi remembered him only as a naïve twelve-year-old boy who had not yet seen the attempted genocide of his people or because of some inherent aspect of his personality, Bumi did not know. Either way, he imagined finding Aang much the way he left him, unchanged by growing up. He'd be taller, no doubt. And an even mightier bender, that was true too. But at his core, Aang would be the same. Bumi was sure of it.
As for Kuzon, Bumi had to think a little harder. Kuzon was a considerably more complex person than Aang, rather like Bumi himself was. To them, the airbender's unwavering moral stance had always seemed like something of a copout. While Aang accepted the world without questioning, Bumi and Kuzon struggled with the logistics and tried to reconcile their minds and their hearts. No, Kuzon would not be the same. He would have learned some truths, become smarter and wiser. He could have done any number of things in the past years. The Fire Nation was full of work for an intelligent nobleman. He could be a councilor, perhaps, or a minister. Or possibly he was working on his father's estate, preparing for when he would inherit it himself. The possibilities were many.
Bumi wondered for a moment how he had changed. Not much, he decided, and left it at that. He had all the time in the world to think about it.
--
If there was one thing that Bumi's journey instilled in him, it was an unhealthy hatred for whoever had drafted his map. On many an uncomfortable night after a ruthless day of hiking, Bumi would swear on his headband that, if he survived long enough to return to Omashu, he would hunt down the man responsible and gut him. Progress was excruciatingly slow; it turned out that what looked like a meager distance on the map was, in fact, an arduous trek across miles and miles of unforgiving terrain. The world was bigger than he wanted to believe.
The feeling of happiness and hope he had experienced on the first day had slowly but surely evaporated, leaving only angry stubbornness to fill the void. While at first Bumi had distracted himself by imagining all of the practical jokes he would play on Aang when he saw him, all the fun they would have, as the journey became rougher his mind became increasingly focused on trying to figure precisely how many more steps would finally take him to Ojirun. He absolutely refused to give up, however. He would finish his journey even if it killed him, if only to be able to say he had defeated the cartographer and his blasted little map.
Bumi's decision to leave the road and cut directly across to Ojirun turned out very poorly indeed. The terrain grew more and more difficult as he went. The dry scrubland had steadily given way to more lush biomes and soon Bumi had seen his first thunderstorm. It had been appealingly novel at the time, but as he worked his way along the western edge of the gigantic swamp, where fresh water met the ocean in a hideous, festering expanse of bog that extended out as far as he could see, he quickly added an unhealthy hatred for water of any form to his list. Insects pestered him constantly, it took him days to walk distances he had walked in hours before, many of his canned foods had spoiled and he couldn't find anything else to eat except for the slimy, eel-like creatures that writhed in the mud underfoot (on really lucky days he would find the occasional bitter fruit, which quickly became cause for celebration), and his clothes were never ever dry. He spent much of his time sick to his stomach from having tried to eat some poisonous creature or another (elbow leeches, as it turned out, tasted delicious, but contained a paralyzing neurotoxin).
It took him all of a month to pass through the swamp's southern border, after which point the journey became easier. The swamp again gave way to firmer, drier ground, and Bumi's spirits managed to lift at least a bit. When he finally saw the road, the first sign of humanity he had seen in weeks, Bumi dropped to his knees and embraced the ground. He swore never again to make up shortcuts through a swamp without thinking them through. The road was where it was for a reason.
As per his new philosophy, he stuck to the road and even took something of long detour through Chin village, wherein he rested for a few days, perhaps for the first time in his life glad to be sleeping in a bed. He mostly kept to himself, spending his time restocking those supplies ruined by the swamp and buying lavish meals at every opportunity. As per his general distrust of people (and wishing to avoid another barrage of eggs), Bumi told no one his name, hometown, nor where he was going (which was good because Chin village was almost uniquely incensed with the very mention of the word Avatar).
Refreshed and restocked, he continued on in an eastwardly direction, keeping primarily to the coast. The weather become colder and he finally donned his water tribe parka for warmth at night (and found it both warm and comfortable). The soil was rocky and Fire Nation patrols were numerous. Bumi was nearly captured several times.
Ultimately, Bumi's journey taught him many things. There was little incentive like wishing-not-to-die to teach a fellow survival skills, and Bumi felt stronger and more accomplished with each day that passed. He came to recognize the animals that made the Earth Kingdom their home, learned more about the advantages and disadvantages of different terrains than he could ever possibly use, and even found that the ardor of his travels and the fresh, clean air helped him think. He had envisioned a half dozen genius ideas, prank and business venture alike, to try as soon as he returned home. Still, despite the many things he gained from them, the recent months had been by far the hardest ones of Bumi's life, and so it was with no small amount of gladness that he laid eyes on Ojirun for the first time.
--
Ojirun was a dirty, cramped coastal city that, were it not occupied by the Fire Nation, would have about the same quaint charm as Lower Omashu. Dozens of homeless people, displaced by the Fire Nation troops that made the city their base, stared blankly at Bumi as he traveled the streets. Before the war, Ojirun had been a large port city, central to the trade routes between the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe and between the southern Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. The trade routes had all dried up with the Fire Nation's first attacks, but with or without trade, Ojirun was well outfitted to ship a great deal of people and goods. Its roads were large and well maintained, it had a ready supply of labor, and its massive, shallow harbor could safely service even the Fire Nation's iron warships.
The Fire Nation had stepped in and established a permanent footing in Ojirun and had been using it as base of operations in the south since the war began. Troops, war machines, and looted goods invariably went through Ojirun, where they would stay (enjoying their pick of the city's shifty nightlife activities, in the troops' case) until they were organized enough to depart. The Fire Nation were an enormously destructive force on the city itself, which once rivaled Gaoling, its sister city to the east, in beauty and riches.
Bumi picked his way down the narrow weave of streets, heading towards the dock. The merchant had claimed the earth and water nations still used the port, with and without Fire Nation permission. The Southern Air Temple rested on one of the peaks of the Patola mountain range, an archipelago of unbelievably tall mountains. Aside from the temple itself, there was no civilization that Bumi knew about, and with the Air Nomads supposedly extinguished, there was no convincing reason for him to be there. Surely the Fire Nation would stop him if he let slip his destination, so he'd have to find a way to do it secretly. Bumi figured any Water Tribe ships would be largely ignored, as they had to pass the Patolas anyway on their route home. A big Earth Kingdom ship would be suspicious, but what self respecting Fire Nation ship captain would waste his ammo on a mere fishing boat? None, Bumi hoped.
At the shoreline a half dozen ironclad ships rumbled like a pod of beached whales, their pointed bows curled up as if to clench the sun. Wooden docks and loading cranes straddled the great ships as dozens and dozens of people swarmed about them, loading and unloading their cargo. The smell of chum and sweat was everywhere. It started snowing softly, hiding the layer of dried gullican feces that covered nearly everything under something somewhat more palatable. The miserable workers paid the weather no heed and continued their labor. Fire Nation personnel were omnipresent and watched with hawkish eyes to oversee the loading. Bumi shivered and pulled his parka more snugly over his shoulders.
Bumi trudged through the puddles of dirty slush in the warships' shadows, trying to find a boat not of Fire Nation origin. When he squinted, he could just make out the splintered mast of a former trade ship in the choppy ocean beneath one of the iron giants, but aside from that found nothing. The only operable trade ships were run by Fire Nation merchants, no doubt desperate for the business the war had denied them. It was clear that even they, however, we carefully watched by the Fire Army, and so Bumi gave them a wide berth.
Ninety minutes into his stay in Ojirun, Bumi came to the unfortunate realization that he would be stuck there for a while.
--
"Pelts… Mostly arctic leopard," the man explained to one of the dock overseers. Bumi took notice from behind the crate he was carrying. He did not pause in his work, not wishing to be yelled at again, but strained his ears to listen. With a grunt, he hefted the heavy box of iron bars atop two others in the stack. He slowed his pace on his way back to the ship so he could catch a glimpse of this new man.
He was wearing drab gray and black clothes, a thick parka and boots. His eyes were blue and his hair black and flowing. On top of that, he had come to the port in a small sailboat, laden with animal hide and a young boy with a partially shaven head. Definitely a tribesman.
Bumi had been waiting for this opportunity for days, enduring backbreaking labor at the docks and using his well-honed eavesdropping skills. It hadn't taken long to learn that while indeed, water tribesmen occasionally did appear at the port, they were not particularly welcome and were scarcer and scarcer every week. Judging by the desperation and anxiety in the southern man's face as he faced the Fire Nation worker, he did not cherish his time here.
"Arctic leopard pelts, eh? Hmm…" the dock worker said, looking critically at the example pelt the tribesmen had handed him. "How many?"
"Thirty eight leopard, one hundred forty one penguin." The worker looked condescendingly at the man.
"Very well. Tariff is ten copper per penguin hide, two silver eight for each leopard." The tribesman's face fell further.
"It was only one silver thirty last month," he protested cautiously. The man shrugged.
"Times have changed. Shall I have you arrested for tax dodging?"
"No!" the man insisted. "No, no. I'll pay it." His son handed him a miserably thin cloth bag, from which he counted the requisite fee into the smirking overseer's hand.
"Pleasure doing business with you," he sneered. The tribesman only nodded morosely. He and his son gathered the pelts and headed off into the city.
Bumi watched them as carefully as he could without drawing suspicion. He loaded another two crates, waiting for a moment in which the overseer would not be watching. Eventually, that moment came, and Bumi snatched a lighter crate from another nearby pile, hefted it up in front of his face, and carried it purposefully down the street he had seen the tribesman go. He managed to look like he was on a delivery assignment (he was a rather experienced delivery boy, after all), and no one questioned his exodus.
--
As soon as he was out of sight of the docks, Bumi cracked open the crate and, finding it full only of salt, tossed it unceremoniously into the nearest alley.
He found the man after a brief search and shadowed him for a few blocks, pretending to browse the few remaining stalls. He would need to corner the man someplace reasonably private, someplace where they could talk without anyone thinking anything of it. Despite the man's obvious efforts to cobble together a disguise, he and his son screamed Water Tribe with their every action, and no doubt people would be watching him. He'd have to be careful.
The man and his son sold their pelts at a leatherworker's shop on the northern edge of town, then set to browsing the street wares, no doubt replenishing their supplies. They kept their heads down and, though they walked with the confident agility that set them apart from Earth Kingdom men (who moved as if they were worried the ground might suddenly shift out from underneath them) and the Fire Nation soldiers (whose every step appeared an attack on the Earth itself), their desperation followed them like a cloud.
Eventually they turned into a small restaurant. Bumi put down the pair of eyeglasses he had been 'testing' for the past ten minutes (earning him a very angry glare from the man selling them) and rushed to intercept them. He entered the restaurant and, ignoring the greeter, marched up to the booth at which the tribesman sat and slid into the seat next to his son.
"Malakoda!" he brayed in mock drunkenness, as if he and the tribesmen were old friends. The tribesman's blue eyes glittered in surprise and anger.
"I think you have me confused with someone else, sir. Please leave." Bumi ignored him.
"Haha, you old kidder you! You didn't think you could fool your old pal Jimthro, did you? How's your mom doing?" He laughed disarmingly. The man looked about nervously, clearly frightened by the scene Bumi was making.
"It's an act. Play along. It works," Bumi whispered fiercely. The man looked about again. Indeed, no one seemed to have noticed a thing out of the ordinary.
"Umm… Heheh, yeah. Just kidding. She's fine," he replied, weakly. They paused. Still no one came to apprehend them, and Bumi grinned in self-satisfaction.
"See?"
"Yes, I see," the man snapped. "What do you want?"
"I want a ride."
"No. My boat won't carry you. Go away," the man replied instantly. Bumi rolled his eyes.
"Liar."
"I said no. Please leave." At that moment, a waitress materialized with two glasses of water for the man and his son.
"You ready to order?" she asked sweetly. The tribesmen looked about ready to talk, but Bumi interrupted him.
"My friend and I," he explained, "will have the mantatee steaks and a loaf of bread with honey. And this little guy wants," he pointed expectantly at the tribesman's son, who, not quite as cautious of Bumi as his father, enthusiastically requested fried arctic hen. Bumi nodded at the waitress. "And we need a pot of your finest coffee." She bowed and ambled away.
There was an awkward pause at the table as the tribesman fought to contain his surprise. As soon as he began to speak, Bumi interrupted him again.
"No. Eat it. I know you can't afford it, but I can, and I'm giving it to you. Eat it." The man nodded, understanding. "I need a ride to the Patolas. The big one, with the giant temple on top of it." The man's eyes widened.
"No, no way. We can't do that, it'd risk everything. The Fire Nation doesn't want anyone near that place." Bumi rolled his eyes again.
"Do they watch it?"
"I don't know, but I don't want to risk-"
"I'll give you ten gold pieces for a round trip," Bumi offered, interrupting a third time. The man stopped talking, clearly weighing his options.
"Fifteen," Bumi said. The man still didn't say anything. "Twenty, then." The man met his eyes, his face incredulous. He nodded slowly. Bumi smiled.
"That's settled, then. Heck, I would have gone up to twenty five-"
"Twenty five, then," the man insisted. Bumi looked at him in surprise, grinned, and nodded.
--
And so it was that a few hours later, Bumi was lowering himself into the tribesman's waiting boat, having spent the interim helping Tarka and his son Nukti buy supplies and load them aboard. They slipped out of the harbor without much trouble and were soon on their way.
It was Bumi's first time on a boat and he quickly decided it was a wonderful break after all of his recent walking and heavy lifting. He had tried to help at first but had quickly revealed his lack of finesse by pulling too hard on some rope or another and nearly upending the boat. Tarka had politely insisted they do the work themselves from that point on and so Bumi got to stretch out on the deck and enjoy the sea air whipping about his face. He watched Tarka and Nukti work and was struck by how adept and at ease they looked. He had ranted to them at length about proper disguises and how not to look like an idiot, but they had taken to their lessons with only moderate success. They were disoriented by the hustle and bustle that Bumi had thrived in for years, and yet there was a poetry in the way they handled the swift craft. Firebenders never looked so serene. Nor did earthbenders. Bumi recalled Master Gar's impassioned speeches about the nature of earth and felt a certain pang of pride at having never listened. There were things to be learned from these people.
--
The three of them talked a great deal during their trip. Bumi found it refreshing, having talked only to himself for months. Though they had been mistrustful of him at first, Bumi found that they were enthusiastically friendly to anyone they respected. They told him many things; about the Fire Nation's first attacks on their homeland, about the best times to catch bull oarfish, how to start a fire using only ice, and more. At his request, they went on at length about the proper operation of a sailboat, and by the time the first gigantic spire of the Patola mountain range appeared in the distance, Bumi could contribute the occasional helpful action with at least some measure of competence (though they immediately fielded the little kid in his place at the first sign of difficult waters. This was a little bit humbling, but Bumi could not deny Nikti's superior skills.)
In return, Bumi told them tales of the Earth Kingdom, stories about his antics with Aang and Kuzon, and how badly the war was going. He taught them tricks for acting like an Earth Kingdom trader, all sorts of unethical marketing practices (considering it would only be hurting the Fire Nation, Bumi did not hesitate to reveal even his most blatantly illegal techniques), and even gave them both haircuts that were less (in his words) 'dorky'.
--
Thirty-six hours at sea finally saw them sliding against the rocky shore of their destination. The mountain jutted mightily into the sky, its peak extending well above the low layer of storm clouds. Shards of rock that had eroded from the great spire's sides had piled into a ring of flat beach. It was dawn, and the early morning's gray light made the entire place look very surreal. Shattered plates of steel were littered about the beach, along with the occasional piece of firebender armor. The scars left by the Fire Nation ships' loading spikes still marred the mountain's otherwise smooth face, a grisly reminder of what had happened to this place.
Tarka and Nikti were visibly worried by even being near such a morbid scene. They helped Bumi gather his gear, promised to return in five days time to pick him up, and then promptly excused themselves. Bumi watched the silhouette of Tarka's sailboat disappear into the fog.
Eventually, Bumi turned his gaze back up to the mountain. Its height was impossible to guess, but it sufficed to say that it was quite high indeed. Bumi could make out a spiraling stone path chiseled into the peak's sides, strongly suggesting that earthbenders had helped the Fire Nation sneak up on the temple. It was broken and neglected, many pieces of it having toppled by the wind and rain. Bumi sighed and headed up the path.
He was only some thirty feet off of the ground when he came to the first gap in the trail too large to jump over. He tried to bend a new one, but aside from making an ineffective crumbling sound, the stone was unresponsive. He frowned and placed a hand on the cliff face, trying to feel for a weakness in the smooth, cold rock. There was nothing. It would not yield to him. Bumi cursed his inability, slammed a hand into the wall, and began to climb.
Bumi had never conquered his difficulties in earthbending. While was arguably a competent bender, to be sure, and had, in a way, 'graduated' from Master Gar's class, he had done so rather behind his fellow students (and indeed, got so fed up by this fact that he declared his training over and never returned). It was not like he could not earthbend. Bumi displayed a mastery of many of the so-called 'lesser' earthbending tricks. His fingers could dig through rock like it was mere jelly, he could climb better than anyone he knew, and his earth puppet skills were second to none. He could sculpt masterfully, and had even invented dozens of earthbending tricks known to no one but himself. When it came to the real brute force, though, the actual movement and destruction of gigantic slabs of stone without touching them, Bumi had always struggled. He could not sustain earthbending, the power would course through him only sporadically. It ashamed and angered Bumi to no end.
Though inside his failures as an earthbender gnawed away at him, on the outside he presented as if he did not care, chose to downplay his love for earthbending to pursue other skills. All alone, slowly scaling a gigantic ocean over a several hundred-foot drop onto jagged rocks and a tumultuous ocean, however, he vented his anger through a lengthy cycle of curse words. It began to rain.
--
It took Bumi the entire day to scale the mountain. He would take the occasional opportunity to rest on the remains of the path, allowing the pounding agony in his arms and legs to lessen while he breathed some warmth into his ungloved hands, but otherwise maintained a brutal pace. Hand over hand, foot over foot, he crawled up the precipitous mountainside, the first one to do so in years, or so he suspected.
When he finally hefted himself over the edge, onto a gently-sloped hillside covered in snow, he was exhausted, famished, bored, and every square inch of his body demanded that he throw himself back off the mountainside, if only to end the pain. He ignored the screams, crawled a few feet, angled his head up to catch his first glimpse of the Southern Air Temple, and then slumped into the snow, instantly asleep.
--
It was dark when Bumi finally shivered himself awake. He rose groggily, groaning at the dull soreness that persisted in his muscles. A great deal of snow had migrated into his parka; this he shook out as thoroughly as possible. He felt dizzy and his breathing was shallow.
He sat and stared up at the temple again. Though it was night, this far above the clouds the moon and stars glowed brightly, illuminating the temple walls with an eerie blue color. He had apparently climbed up onto a raised stone walkway not unlike the bridge into Omashu. The pathway meandered in a natural fashion down a long, terraced slope, leading finally to a shallow valley, covered in snow. Bumi could just make out rooms carved into the vertical cliff faces below. The path climbed upwards as well, spidering out in all directions to lead to the temple's menagerie of blue-roofed buildings. It was an inspiring piece of architecture, somehow appearing simultaneously immovable and ethereal.
After a brief snack, Bumi lit a torch and started up the zig-zagging trail. The ground had been polished smooth by thousands of years of occupation and Bumi's booted feet scraped noisily against it. After passing a field of wooden totems to his left, Bumi came upon a plaza. The path branched several times. Bumi decided on the leftmost path, which extended most directly up the mountain, ending in a series of squat stone buildings stacked atop one another like a staircase.
Bumi explored the temple in wonderment, largely forgetting why he had come in the first place. He wandered from building to building, admiring the craftsmanship of the carved banisters and all of the eccentricities of a society not bound by gravity. Some paths would jut out over some deadly fall and then end suddenly, apparently expecting those who walked on them to be able to make the thirty foot vertical leap to the next one. Bumi found a cavernous hallway that ended in an imposing door with an elaborate system of tubes hanging from it. Bumi could not fathom a guess as to their purpose. He found bison paddocks, meditation rooms, a Pai Sho board, four abandoned gliders, clay ovens, and a few fruit trees. He climbed a curved bridge and stumbled into what was clearly a council room. Its five latticed wooden stools stood in a neat little row. The desiccated remains of a pair of gigantic flowers clumped inside of a pair of wide bowls.
Bumi was well into his second torch by the time he reached the very top of the temple's tallest tower. He peered down at the temple from a stone balcony, examining the tangle of paths and buildings from above. He tried to trace the path he'd taken with his eyes and guessed that he had only explored about half of the temple. He climbed back down to try a different route.
The longer he explored, the more worried Bumi became. The silence roared in his ears. He had never been to an air temple before, of course, but Aang had always described it as a place of activity. His friend had always had a soft spot for animals and had spoken highly of the colony of flighty lemurs. He saw no such creatures now. He was not sure whether to be disappointed or not. In truth, he had suspected that Aang and his mentors would be hidden someplace less obvious than one of the four Air Nomad sanctuaries (he took some offense at the choice of the word nomadic, for the air monks were anything but. Small wonder the Fire Nation had struck them so hard).
When he looked closely enough, Bumi could see signs of a struggle, but they were faint. There was the occasional errant scorch mark on the floor tiles and Bumi found a small piece of metal, apparently having popped off from an undeniably Fire Nation belt. There was not nearly enough damage, though, to support the rumor that the air monks had been completely wiped out. At elevations this high decomposition was slow. There should have been bodies and armor in great, heaping piles, but there was nothing.
More puzzling still, though, was the occasional hint that someone may have cleaned the temple since the Fire Nation attack. In one small room, Bumi found a broom with a great deal of ashes stuck in its bristles. The small grove of fruit trees were healthy and vibrant, as if they had been nursed, and, oddest of all, Bumi discovered a pile of neatly stacked metal blades in a closet.
It was all irritatingly unclear. As he worked his way up the rear path of the temple towards what looked to be a dead end at a balcony, Bumi struggled to rationalize what he had seen. He was alone; that much seemed obvious. The Fire Nation had attacked; that was hard to dispute as well. But how successful had this attack been? Where were the airbenders? Why was Fate messing with him like this? And who had cared enough to sweep the ashes off of the floors, only to abandon the temple later?
Bumi was so wrapped up in his questions that he almost bumped into the man seated serenely on the balcony floor.
"Hello…"
--
A/N: Another chapter! Let there be celebration in the streets! Alas, my boycott of whininess is not to last. Here comes some whining: I really, really hate losing data due to computer failures. Pardon my French, but that sucks. That is all.
Fifteen points to anyone who can tell me from where the names Tarka and Nukti came!
Next chapter: Bumi does some sleuthing.