"Stop, thief! I'll have your hands for a trophy, street rat!" the blind woman yelled, pointing a finger at the young girl who was standing on the edge of a rooftop, in middle of the city of Agrabah.
The girl looked back, at the guard racing after her, and then down, and then into her hands, where she held a piece of bread.
Katara sighed. "All this for a loaf of bread?"
She jumped over the roof, but in her fall, she grabbed a rope dangling between two buildings, that was clearly used for hanging clothes.
Her trained hands never left the rope as she skimmed down, dragging all the pieces of clothing with her. At the end of the rope was an open window, and Katara smirked, knowing she'd get the guards off her, but a large woman closed the windows shut, and she slammed hard against the wall.
The shock made her hands loosen up, and she fell down, but luckily, the snowball of clothes around her eased her fall, and she didn't get hurt. After shimming out a bit, she managed to wring loose of the mountain of shirts and pants and sheets, and she stood up proudly, still clutching at the loaf of bread. She sighed again.
"There she is!"
Oh, great!
Katara didn't waste her time. She jumped to her feet.
"You won't get away so easy!"
She chuckled as she ran. "Do you think that was easy?"
She spotted a bunch of women chattering in a corner, and she grinned. As she ran, she jumped and pulled a sheet from another rope with clothes. She was thankful for an instant that this was Agrabah, the city of thiefs, beggars, sand… and ropes with clothes. She wrapped the sheet around herself, covering her head, and joined the women.
"Morning, ladies."
"Getting into trouble a little early today, aren't we, Katara?"
The young girl chuckled. "Trouble? Nah. You're only in trouble if you get caught-"
But in that precise moment, a small, but strong hand closed around her shoulder and made her spin around. The sheet slipped off her head as Katara found herself staring into the blind eyes of Toph, the captain of the Sultan's guard.
"I'm in trouble!"
Toph grinned menacingly. "And this time…-"
But her speech was cut in half when a small animal pulled from her headband from behind, screeching. Toph screamed in outrage and got distracted for a moment, while the lemur flew away, her headband in tow.
It took Katara a split second to wonder how weird the Captain of the Guard looked without her trademark green headband before making a run for her life.
The lemur quickly caught up with her, and perked itself on her shoulder, as she ran, zigzagging through the crowd at the market.
"Perfect timing, Momo!"
The lemur screeched for all answer, but Katara understood he was glad to help.
"C'mon, let's get out of here!"
Katara crashed against one of the guards, who drew his sword and swung at her, but she was quicker.
"Gotta keep, one jump ahead of the breadline, one swing ahead of the sword. I steal only what I can't afford, that's everything!"
In a quick maneuver, just as Momo distracted the guard, she pulled down the man's pants, and giggled at the guard's embarrassing pink pajamas before running away. But another guard popped in her way. Undeterred, Katara stepped behind a wooden pole, and the sword aimed at her stuck in the pole instead.
"One jump ahead of the lawmen, that's all, and that's no joke. These guys don't appreciate I'm broke!"
She turned around and climbed a mountain of barrels, but when the guards tried to follow, she tossed the barrels on their faces. Momo chirped in appreciation behind her, as she climbed onto the top of a wooden construction.
The guards glared up at her, drenched with wine from the barrels.
"Riff raff!"
"Street rat!"
"Scoundrel!"
"Take that!" one of them yelled as they tossed a bunch of fruits at Katara's head, which she dodged, of course.
With a sly smile, she leaned over, looking at the angered guards, more amused than she should be as she waved the loaf of bread.
"Oh, just a little snack guys!"
The guards didn't find the joke amusing, throwing all the weapons they had at her, and then shaking the wooden platform when she once again dodged.
"Rip her open, take it back guys!" they chorused.
"I can take a hint, gotta face the facts, you're my only friend, Momo!"
Katara sighed melodramatically, acting as if she was about to jump off the platform. But Momo was waiting for her, and Katara used the lemur's pull to swing in the air and slid inside a building through the window.
Unfortunately, though, the building was filled with buff-looking, frowning men, who seemed to be upset when the girl's landing in their apartment interrupted their shady business.
"Who?" they barked.
Katara gulped, and then she recognized one of the men as the Cabbage Merchant, who was a long-time friend of hers. But the man had never approved of Katara's wild way of living. He walked towards her, shaking his head.
"Oh, it's sad, Katara's hit the bottom. She's become a one-girl rise in crime."
Another man pushed him out of the way, swinging a sword, and Katara winced.
"I'd blame parents, except she hasn't got 'em."
She dodged the blow, and then hugged the man's shoulders from the side. "Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, tell you about it when I got the time!"
With a brief bow towards the Cabbage Merchant, Katara exited the building. She saw the guards still running around town, looking for her. She quickly found a hiding place behind a muscled man with an iron fist and leg and a third eye between his eyebrows, who was showing off his abilities before a large crowd of people, Momo hiding beneath Katara's long, wavy brown hair.
"One jump ahead of the slowpokes, one skip ahead of my doom," but in that moment she heard Toph yell.
"Behind that man!"
Damn, Katara thought, remembering how Toph could "see" what the other men couldn't see. "Next time, gonna use a nom de plume."
The young thief made her way jumping over a bunch of sheep in an alleyway, but Toph and her guards were catching up. "One jump ahead of the hitmen, one hit ahead of the flock… I think I'll take a stroll around the block."
She thought she'd laid off the guards, but she was wrong. She heard some screeching behind her and she turned around to see Momo being strangled by two merchants who were pulling from the necklaces the lemur had just stolen. By that point, they had called the attention of pretty much half the market.
"Stop, thief!"
"Vandal!"
"Outrage!"
"Scandal!"
After rescuing Momo, Katara found herself trapped, Toph's guards surrounding her from every angle, and she stepped back, smiling cautiously, until she felt a wall behind her back.
"Let's not be too hasty…"
But the wall turned out to be a door, from where a very large man, widely known as Pipsqueak, took her in his arms.
"Still I think she's rather tasty…"
With another gulp, Katara jumped away from his arms, but Toph's Guard surrounded her.
"Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we'd get along."
"Wrong!" the guards yelled as they threw themselves over her. But Katara slipped away from the ruckus. Her luck didn't last, though. Toph "saw" her in an instant, and the entire Royal Guard chased after her.
After jumping over a fakir walking over glowering embers, and various other tricks Katara had learnt from living in the streets for so long, she had almost lost them, with Momo's cooperation. The lemur saw another man performing the act of swallowing a sword, and pulled the sword from the man's neck to scare the guards with it, but then Toph slapped her forehead in annoyance.
"You idiots, we all got swords!"
Momo dropped the sword as soon as he could after that, and with a screech he flew towards Katara, and perched himself over her shoulders.
Katara made a sharp turn right, hoping to lose the guards, but she had ran only half a block when she spotted them coming for her, right ahead. She spun around on her heels, but another group of guards had already turned around the corner. She was trapped.
She glanced around, but the only thing nearby was a man with a turbant and a flute making a rope levitate. Momo screeching in her ear, she climbed the levitating rope right on time. She grinned when she heard the guards collide against each other at the spot where she was two seconds ago. She jumped over a wall and landed on an alley, but as she reached the first corner, a bunch of guards appeared before her.
Spirits' sake, how many were there of them?
"One jump ahead of the hoofbeats."
"Vandal!"
She turned around, but some more guards came running from the adjacent street.
"One hop ahead of the hump."
"Street rat!"
Momo found the way out before she did, climbing a circular stair up a building, and Katara followed.
"One trick ahead of disaster."
"Scoundrel!"
The lemur screeched in horror when some guards landed right before him. Katara spotted an open window at her right and pulled from Momo's tail as she jumped inside, saving the little animal's neck for a split second.
"They're quick, but I'm much faster."
"Take that!"
The Royal Guard followed her into the room, which was fortunately empty, and Katara picked up a rug as she ran. She stopped by the window, turning around to give them a last wink.
"Here goes, better throw my hand in, wish me happy landing, all I gotta do is jump!"
She jumped through the window, using the rug and Momo's efforts to propel herself forward in the air, as some of the guards, who jumped after her, fell into a bunch of manure. She glanced back, and saw Toph leaning out the window, frowning at space.
Shame. Katara would have laughed her head off if Toph sunk into stinky manure, but the Captain of the Royal Guard wasn't that stupid.
"This isn't over, street rat!" she heard Toph's warning behind her, but it seemed only empty words at the time.
Sporting a wide grin and hearing Momo's excited chattering, Katara used the rug to ease her landing, some buildings away.
She high-fived her best friend, and snapped the bread in two.
"And now, esteemed effendi, we feast! All right!"
Momo immediately began to munch over his part of the deal, but as Katara was about to sink her teeth into the bread, she saw two little kids a few steps ahead. They were wearing rags, and even from the distance, Katara could distinguish the bones of their hips and ribs. The younger kid, a little girl who wouldn't be older than three, saw Katara looking at her, and with a gasp of surprise, dropped what she was holding in her hands and ducked behind the other boy, presumably her elder brother.
Katara's smile vanished as she stood up.
She had a flashback: her brother Sokka and herself, rummaging the garbage for food, just like these two little kids, many years ago.
Sokka had left not too long ago, when it became evident that Katara could fend for herself.
He had promised he would just travel to the next town and return a week later, but he had never come back.
Everybody thought he was dead, and Katara knew Sokka would never leave her by his own will, but something, deep inside of her, told her that he was still alive, and doing his best to find her.
She had rarely ventured away from Agrabah, specially after Sokka's disappearance, so she didn't know what kind of dangers crawled in the desert, hiding amongst the endless dunes. She trusted her brother would return one day, but for now, all she had was Momo.
She and Momo had learnt to feed themselves, whereas these kids had not.
Katara slowly walked towards the children, who cowered back, but she put one knee on the ground, and smiled, to show them she meant no harm. She offered the bread.
"Here, go on, take it."
The little boy gave her a suspicious look, and Katara felt a pang of sadness when she remembered how Sokka used to behave the same way towards strangers; but then he snatched the bread out of her hands. He looked at it, twisting it in his hands to check it was all right, and then he gave a tentative bite.
Katara grinned when she saw the eyes of the little boy brighten up with delight. He split the bread in two and gave his younger sister the largest part.
Just like Sokka always did.
Katara then looked at Momo, whose mouth was so full it didn't look like he could even screech, but the lemur understood the message, since he hugged the bread and shook his head.
Katara frowned. "Momo…"
Momo kept shaking his head, and Katara approached him to snatch the bread out of his hands. Momo screeched in outrage at her, but she pointed at the children.
"They need it more than we do, Momo."
The lemur sighed, and, opening his wings, flew away. Katara watched him soar over the air, smiling. She knew Momo wasn't angry at her, and that he'd be back. He always came back.
Smiling still, she gave the remaining bread to the pair of siblings, who, after a giggle of delight, ran away, towards the city's main street. It was only then that Katara saw that an abnormal amount of people had gathered around there.
Curious, she walked towards the crowd, and she saw that the street had turned into some kind of parade. Various acrobats and dancers were displaying their abilities to the crowd, who cheered happily. Katara ducked amidst the crowd when Toph and her Royal Guard walked in front of the people, frowning at them.
But the main attraction of the parade was a large, ridiculously decorated horse, over which a young girl was sitting.
Her dress was simple, in tones of dark red and black, matching her attitude towards the whole parade thing. She looked like she was going to die of boredom, her grey eyes rolling upwards in annoyance every minute or so, and she sighed every time somebody shouted a compliment at her.
Katara supposed the girl was pretty in her own way, her black hair arranged in two large buns over her head, but she didn't like the girl's attitude.
If she didn't want to be here, as her face clearly showed, then what was she doing here?
A spokesman voiced the answer: "Open way to Princess Mai from Omashu!"
Katara didn't need to hear the commentary from the people around her to understand.
"On her way to the palace, I suppose."
"Another suitoress for the Prince."
Katara suddenly felt something tug at her legs, and, startled, she saw the little girl from before, run forward across the crowd and into the street. Her brother ran after her, but they both shrunk in fright when the Princess's horse stopped right in front of them.
The Princess rolled her eyes again, but the spokesman drew a whip out of nowhere.
"Out of the Princess' way, filthy brat!"
Katara found herself jumping forward in defense of the children, and she caught the whip in her wrist, as the little kids scurried away.
"Hey! If I were as rich as her, I could afford some manners!"
The spokesman glared at her furiously. "I'll teach you some manners!"
But the Princess interrupted the scene, with a bored tone. "Leave it, this peasant isn't worth your breath."
Katara's jaw dropped in outrage as Princess Mai's horse passed before her. And then, looking at Momo, who had just appeared out of nowhere and perched himself on her shoulder, she pointed her thumb at the horrible Princess.
"Look at that Momo, it's not every day you see a cow riding a horse."
A sudden silence befell the entire parade, and the spokesman seemed so furious he couldn't even move. But the Princess did turn her horse around, and approached the enraged Katara.
"You are a worthless peasant. You were born a street rat, you will die a street rat, and only your fleas will mourn you," she delivered, her tone soft as it was hurtful.
Katara felt her eyes sting with tears of outrage, but before she could take her anger out on the Princess, she strut across the Palace doors and they slammed in Katara's face.
"I'm not worthless, and I don't have fleas!" she screamed at the closed doors, only to scratch a flea bite on her arm a second later.
She stared into her hands, and down her body, noticing that the red clothes she always wore were ragged, and old. Her mother's necklace was about to break from everyday use, and she was pretty sure she smelled, and not just a little. She sighed in defeat.
"C'mon Momo, let's go home."
Slowly, she made her way home, Momo in tow. As soon as they entered the partially destroyed apartment they called home, Momo chirped happily, flying to his pillow and curling over it, ready to call it a day and sleep it off.
Katara smiled tiredly at him as she covered him with a worn out piece of cloth. She looked at her own bed, a dirty sheet tossed over a bunch of straw that lately had become so thin she could feel the ground at her back.
"Riff raff, street rat, I don't buy that. If only they'd look closer, would they see a poor girl? No siree. They'd find out, there's so much more to me."
With a sigh, she decided against going to sleep immediately, and devoted her time instead to do her favorite thing: open the "curtains" and stare at the Palace, glimmering under the evening sun.
She hugged her legs, a dreamy, faraway expression on her eyes.
"Someday, Momo, things are gonna change. We'll be rich, live in a palace, and never have any problems at all."