Chapter 2: Stray Cat

The gold glinted in the sun each time Moro tossed it in her palm. She walked down the road, crunching on a piece of genomite while thinking about what to do with her spare cash. Old Man Mushi was an odd cat, but she wasn't about to complain about getting paid for a good honest game of pai-sho. Maybe if she was lucky he'd be serious about a rematch.

"Maybe Pao's place is still open…" she though out loud.

Pao ran a tea shop between a butcher and a pub, that combined with his decent but not amazing tea skills didn't bring him a lot of honest business, but he didn't call the guards when she walked in so Moro would always buy his tea.

"Hey! You there, girl! Stop!" she shot up when she saw the prissy fruit vendor from earlier, accompanied by two guards with really big swords on their belts.

They were looking right at her.

"That's her! She stole all my money!" the vendor squawked.

Crap.

The guards started stalking towards her, swords drawn, meaning business.

Moro gave them a smile before turning on her heel and running with every ounce of energy she had. The shouts of her pursuers went ignored as she turned a corner and climbed up to the rooftops again using the laundry lines.

She was glad she didn't stop running, because the guards had followed her up to the roofs. They were smart, but she knew the streets better than they did, so when she jumped from a roof into a nearby window and they tried to follow, they came up empty. Why? Because she had jumped to the window across the street.

A quartet of basket-weavers let out startled screams at her sudden presence, but Moro flicked a gold piece into the lap of the eldest woman there, blowing her a kiss and running out the front door.

That put her just outside of Pao's place, ironically enough, but she still heard shouting from the main road. She quickly ran inside and jumped over the counter, her mind racing too fast to notice the server boy flinch and get out of the way.

Moro scooched herself into the far corner behind the counter, positive she was out of sight despite the server boy staring at her like she was a rabid Hogmonkey that had also grown a second head.

She glanced up at him, not recognizing his face from Pao's before. His hair was short but spikey like he was growing it out, and was sporting a nasty looking burn scar over his left eye and most of that half of his face. They stared at each other for a few moments before Moro shot him a nervous smile, only to be met with a heavily confused scowl.

Heavy boots stomped into the shop and Moro crouched down even lower to the ground. "You there! Boy!" a guard barked. "A thief came through here, she's a young girl with different colored eyes, have you seen here?!"

His eyes briefly flicked back down to her; she had a finger pressed desperately against her lips, "Please?" she whispered, inaudible to the guards.

"She ran out the back."

The server boy stepped in front of her, the guards not seeing her as they shuffled out the back door. She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding when they were finally gone, peaking over the counter to make sure the coast was clear before she climbed back over the counter, letting her legs dangle off the edge.

"Thanks for that, you really saved my butt."

Maybe shooting finger-guns towards him wasn't the right call, because her thanks were met with a wicked glare. "Whatever…" was the only reply she got before he went back to putting clean teacups away.

Climbing down, she propped her chin on her elbows, not satisfied with that answer. "You new to the city?"

Again, she was met with a glare, this one harder and fierier, like it was taking all of his effort not to yell.

"I've never seen you before, so you've got to be…"

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" he growled, not hiding the annoyance plastered across his face.

Moro arched an eyebrow; this guy was a real ray of sunshine wasn't he? However, the harder he glared the more she wanted to laugh. Not at him, or to be mean, she mostly wanted to laugh because that would annoy him more. Moro weirdly wanted that. She stuck her tongue out at him while his back was turned,

"So mean… in that case I'll have a cup of oolong please!" she pushed a gold piece towards him, her smirk never fading even as his eye twitched with untapped anger.

As mad as he looked, he took the gold anyway and reached for a teapot on the stove behind him. Within seconds she wrapped her hands around a steaming cup of tea, not letting her smirk fall or her eyes turn away from him. She knew it irritated him, which made her want to annoy him even more.

"I'm surprised you wanted to work here, Pao isn't really known for having the best tea in town…" if Pao heard her say that he'd kick her out with a boot to the butt without an ounce of guilt. She took a sip and was genuinely surprised by how good it was.

He scoffed, "I didn't want to, it was my uncle's idea."

Almost on que, a familiar shapely old man came out from the back room. "I wish those guards had stayed for some tea."

Moro brightened instantly, "Hey! It's you! Good to see you again Gramps," the sourpuss with the spikey hair was ignored as Old Man Mushi gave her a genuine smile.

"Ah, Moro, eager for that rematch are we?" he chuckled, a hand on his stomach.

She smirked, leaning over the counter. "I've never lost a game of pai-sho before you came along, you know that?"

"You two have met?"

Sourpuss had his arms crossed and another scowl where his face used to be, and Moro briefly wondered if it was tiresome being so tightly wound all the time. Mushi placed a hand on his shoulder, "This young lady treated me to a lovely game earlier today, Moro, you haven't had the pleasure of meeting my nephew."

His eyes just narrowed in her direction, so like a mature adult she stuck her tongue out at him, but she's not without her manners, so she held her hand out for him to shake.

"Moro." When he gave her hand a disgusted glance she decided to further rub dirt in his eye, metaphorically that is. "You shake it." Adding insult to injury, she waved her arm up and down as if her hand was being shook.

He sneered and turned away, back to work to avoid talking to her most likely, but she was in too deep now. Without missing a beat, the passport from the back pocket of his robe was suddenly in her hand. No one had even seen her reach for him, but it was her specialty.

"Says here, your name is Lee." His spine straightened as he spun around to see her casually flipping through his passport. He furiously patted his pockets, only to indeed find them empty. "Oh! And you're a nonbender, like me!"

The sourpuss, Lee, practically threw himself over the counter, making a grab for his passport but being easily evaded by the odd-eyed girl. "Give that back!" after a few failed swipes she finally held it out for him to snatch and shove back in his pocket, his glare angrier than before, somehow. "You've had your tea, just get out!"

He actually chased her away from the counter, which made her laugh as she evaded him some more. Messing with someone hadn't been this fun in a while, Lee was so quick to anger that it was hilarious to find reactions from different buttons she could push.

"Fine, I'll just come back tomorrow." Lee actually growled, which made a cattish smirk bloom on her face. Moro gave Mushi a friendly wave, "See you Gramps," and some finger guns to the sourpuss, "Lee."

He threw a hand up, not to say goodbye but to dismiss her angrily as he stomped to the back room. Mushi watched him go and gave her a shrug, she laughed and left the shop.

Moro didn't like to befriend new locals very often, as you never wanted to make friends out of possible targets, but maybe for Grampa Mushi and Sourpuss Lee she'd make an exception. Something about them felt familiar; a warmth even in the boy's scowl that she'd never felt before.

A few days after that encounter Moro found herself back at Pao's, or rather, on Pao's roof waiting for Lee to come out so she could mess with him some more. She didn't even try to hide her smirk as she sat crouched like a cat waiting for the right moment to pounce.

But then, almost suddenly, Moro felt like someone was watching her.

No one was really around save for a few shopkeepers setting up for the day, but none of them had noticed her. Just then something shone in her eye, she blinked and tried to block whatever was reflecting it, but spotted someone out of the corner of her eye.

It was a boy, tall, with a wheat straw propped between his lips as he twirled a knife between his fingers. That must have been what was bouncing light back into her eyes. He wasn't by any means out of the ordinary for the Lower Ring, but the glare on his face said he was otherwise. It wasn't like Lee's annoyed scowl, no, this guy looked like the very sight of her made him boil over with pure unfiltered hatred.

Moro crouched down lower to the roof, suddenly wary.

Does he… know about me?

The guy sneered at her, grinding the straw in his teeth before turning and disappearing behind a building.

She sighed, tension leaving her body now that he was gone. What a weirdo…

The creepy stranger was soon forgotten as she spotted Lee coming out the back door of the tea shop, something tucked tight against his side as he approached the dumpster.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Moro pounced from the roof and tackled him to the ground, the poor guy releasing a cross between a grunt and a squeak as his back hit the pavement. His golden eyes were blown wide and he was gasping for air as he tried to process the attack from above as Moro sat on top of him laughing her head off.

"You should have seen your face!" she held her stomach while he just stared at her like she was crazy. The thing he'd been trying to hide was flung out of his hands when he fell, and the blue color caught Moro's attention. It was a mask. "Hey, what's this?"

Just as Lee regained his bearings, she was already up with the mask in her hands. "Hey!" he barked, swiping for it, but she dodged and jumped on top of a delivery crate out of his reach.

She turned the mask over in her hands, tracing the fangs and horns on the blue demon's ivory face. What would anyone want with an ugly thing like that? Then again, she didn't know Lee very well yet, maybe he was an actor or something?

"Spooky… where'd you snag this?" she turned back to him, but he had climbed up when she wasn't looking, snatching the mask back and shoving her face away.

"None of your business!" he snapped, "Don't you have other people you should be bothering?!"

He climbed down from the crate, leaving her on top. She rolled onto her stomach, smirking down at him as he glared back. "Yeah, but nothing's as fun as hanging out with you, Sourpuss."

She stuck her tongue out, taking pride in the way he clenched his fists and looked like he was desperately trying not to lose his cool.

"That's not my name, and we're not hanging out because we are not friends!" he got up in her face, growling to emphasize his point, but Moro just poked him in the crease between his eyebrows.

"Not yet."

Gold locked with blue and yellow, Moro not cracking under his anger and Lee looking at her like he was incredibly frustrated from trying to figure her out.

He scoffed, "You don't know anything about me."

She scoffed right back, "That's the point of being friends dummy." Moro gave his arm a shove, laughing when he pushed her away, "I gotta go anyway… too many people that need to be bothered today." She smirked when he rolled his eyes.

"Great, maybe then you won't bother me." He clipped, already picking up the mask and going back inside.

Moro smiled, keeping to herself that she would come back tomorrow. It was getting close to midday, so she might as well set up her pai-sho board at the market before it got too crowded. She ducked into an alley that would get her home quicker to grab her board, when someone grabbed her by the arm and slammed her against a wall, pinning her there with their entire body weight.

It was the weirdo that was watching her earlier, his eyes not only blazing with fury but white and deranged up close.

"You should stay away from them, they're dangerous!" he kept his voice low, Moro trying to yank her arm out of his hold, but he held tight.

She quickly glanced to her left, freedom in the form of the market street only a few feet away. "W-what?" maybe keeping him talking would give her an opening to leave.

He grabbed her other arm, effectively trapping her. "The boy and the old man! They're firebenders! They would kill you if given the chance, I'm telling you for your own safety!"

Moro's eyes widened, now feeling much more scared. Lee and Mushi? Firebenders? They were…

Like me?

"Jet!"

A voice called out and the guy briefly looked away from her, giving her the opening she was looking for. She grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and promptly threw it into his eyes, pushing him down as hard as she could and running towards the market street while he struggled.

Moro didn't stop running until she was two streets away from the alley, lungs burnings and legs trembling.

She'd never felt so afraid, wrapping her arms around herself as she leaned against a wall.

Who was that guy?!

He wasn't with the Dai Li, or was he? Were they imploring more subtly ways to hunt down benders in the Lower Ring? Was that why she'd never seen that guy before? What was his name… Jet?

Her hands couldn't stop shaking, no matter how hard she clenched her fists.

Lee and Old Man Mushi… were they really firebenders?

OOOOOh things are heating up! Pun intended! And no, Jet doesn't know Moro is a firebender, but with how much she's been conditioned to fear anyone even suspecting she can firebend you can't blame her for being paranoid. She hears firebender and she runs. This will also not be the only time Moro runs into Jet so stay tuned! Ciao!