Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. Belongs to Nickelodeon and Bryke.
Riza knew she would always forget something before travelling somewhere. When she was a child, it had been a scroll for a trip to Crescent Island. When she moved away at thirteen, it had been her favorite book. When she came to Chin City at eighteen, it had been the money her parents left behind. Each time she had been scolded and had to make do, like selling books to live in a bookshop for a few months. Fortunately, she woke up realizing it and rushed out into Chin City's dim morning.
"Come on, where is it?" Riza said in an alley. After pushing aside an old desk, she backed from the mess left behind by a scurrying pygmy puma. "Ugh, why did there have to be so much junk today?"
Despite asking, Riza knew the answer. The Chin City Chronicle was the epitome of the city's richer parts, leaving waste in its alley. Riza dealt with it all before. She could stand the stench running along the Chronicle's tall green walls; she could stand the dirty ground... if she could find her photos.
"Are you sure they're here?" Riza heard Mushi over the clanking cans and such.
"Oh, I'm sure," Riza said with enough experience and heard Mushi groan. "If you don't like it, you can go back to my place. You didn't have to come here."
"Bring it up with Rohan. He told me to follow you."
"I thought he was resting."
"He is," Mushi said. He eyed the trash in the Chin City Chronicle's literal shadow. "They threw out your desk? Couldn't they have given it to somebody else?"
Riza kicked the cursed thing off its uneven legs, popping open its cracked empty shelves. She took in Mushi's look of surprise before she said, "Come on, we're not done yet!"
Mushi asked, "Can't we just go inside and ask if they have the photos?"
"Believe me," said a newcomer in the alley's entrance, "that's the last thing she'll do."
Riza knew the gruff voice and the girth it came from too well. The man's size couldn't hide the morning crowd's passing glances or fancy clothes. Even then, his glare stood out the most from his equally fat head. Mushi sensibly and quietly left, and Riza faced the man who fired her.
The same man held up a large envelope first and sternly said, "All your stuff is in here. Your pay, too. There's some extra to cover for your rent, too."
Riza didn't take the envelope. "And what should I do with your sudden 'generosity?'" she asked.
"You leave. For good. Maybe some experience with the real world will do you some good."
"I'll have you know it's not the first time I've traveled. I can take care of myself."
Her boss snorted. "Yeah right. Kwei's talons Riza, you're nineteen–"
"Twenty."
"Whatever. What I told you is the same. You're causing problems for the company. All for some steam-brained chase for a rumor nobody knows about!"
"But it's real! If you just let me–"
Riza's boss stomped, and the alley trembled. "You said that ten times before! And do you know how many times the cops called me? Ten times! Wherever you go, you just cause problems. Well, no more. This time is the last."
"Hey, I didn't cause the fire–"
"Then, who? Those kids who can't bend? Riza, I can see your prints in any place, even if it's a fight at some warehouse!" Riza winced, wishing her boss hadn't learned of what happened last night. "We're the talk of the town as is, more than this Shroud everyone goes on about! You've given the company a bad reputation."
"Not like it had one, to begin–oof!" Riza said before grabbing the envelope shoved into her face.
"Take this trash and go. Never come back here."
Riza didn't see her boss leave. Left alone in the alley, she gripped the envelope, and her fingers wrinkled the papers and photos inside it. She would show the fat idiot and everyone else she was right. When she did, she would shove it in their faces. One day, she would.
For now, Riza left the alley. She eyed the Chin City Chronicle's sign, hoping to catch a sign of some colleague wishing her the best. Waiting for her instead was Mushi. "How much did you hear?" she asked.
"All of it," Mushi said, a little hesitant. "It… it was hard not to."
Riza stopped herself from yelling again. Too many people stared at her already. "Nothing to worry about. Stuff like this happens all the time," she lied with a forced smile. Her feet turned with her hand towards the street. "Come on. We've got a train to catch!"
Leaving Chin City hadn't taken Riza's mind off it, as she once hoped. After leaving the former apartment, the surrounding alleys and shops, the folks who ignored her, and more stretched every step into several minutes. The station, which Riza hadn't seen since first entering Chin City, didn't help.
It all settled in when the train came and went. Within the window by Riza's seat, the station grew smaller to reveal Chin City's richer district clashing with its poorer side. Eventually, it was a mere cluster of squares surrounded by the great green trees and plains. It left a pit in Riza's stomach, but she waved it off with any concern from Rohan and especially Mushi before barraging them with questions.
"Wait, you're twenty-seven?" Riza asked Rohan, whose laid-back head bounced on his seat. "But you look like you're my age. Must be some Airbending trick… What do you mean 'it's just vegetables?'"
As time passed, things like Rohan's favorite color and food–orange and salad, by the way–filled Riza's page. Mushi's age–seventeen–dotted one corner. Then again, Riza mostly asked Rohan to avoid Mushi's glances. Every denial was fake, certainly. The pity in his eyes, though? Riza couldn't tell.
Riza focused on Rohan's questions about their destination, which came into view shortly after she explained it. Fujira Town was a farming community, a speck of pit stop along the Earth Kingdoms' tracks. Instead of passing by it, Riza saw the speck stretch into a few dozen buildings placed over brown and green lots. The station on Fujira's outskirts, the closest one, was a dirty hovel on dirty ground.
After Riza hopped off the train, her nose flared from the smelly pile she almost stepped in. She masked her distaste and asked her disembarking companions, "Well, ahem, here we are. Thoughts?"
"The boat had a better smell," Mushi grumbled with a hand over his nose.
Riza led on without understanding a word. Taking a few grassy patches helped her, Rohan, and Mushi's shoes to stay clean. There were more droppings, even when the mud and dirt had been flattened into a bridled path. Down the path, a damp aroma intermixed with the hot noon sun, as well as squeals and grunts of animals and farmers. Both worked in the brown paddy fields on one side of the road or in the withering grass on the other side. Murmurs from the farmers were less than flattering when they saw three newcomers passing through their road.
Riza ignored them all as best as she could. Her eyes caught a few houses lying on the edges of the fields. One of them had a lead on the Shroud and her group. Riza hoped, anyway.
"How much farther is this place, exactly?" Rohan asked.
Riza paused mid-step to compare the photo in her hand with the surrounding hills and houses atop them. "I think it's that house over there," she said. Her finger drifted to the side. "Or that one."
Mushi groaned through his pinched nose. "Don't you know where your own contact is?"
"Hey, I only ever corresponded with the guy, not that you'd know what 'corresponds' means. Besides, how do you expect to find him?"
"I don't know. Ask the farmers for directions?" Mushi said, to which Riza had no retort.
Wanting to avoid Mushi's eyes too, Riza gave a name and the photo of her destination to two farmers closest to the road. Though they didn't know, they shouted at another farmer working further in the fields. When the other farmer didn't know, they called on another in the dead grass who did know.
After giving her thanks, Riza sped off from the ongoing shouting match in the fields. Rohan and Mushi's steps fell behind, going down the road and running up with hers towards a brown-roofed wooden house on a dry hill. "Hey Nuju, you in there?" Riza called after stepping on the porch.
A man and his messy black hair popped through the creaking door. "Yeah, whaddya want?" he shouted before blinking away the rude glare from his eyes. "Oh sorry, Riza! I thought another farmer came here again. Are these two the friends you talked about?"
A nod later, Riza and everyone went inside. Despite Nuju being forty, his baggy clothes swayed from his youthful sprint across the wooden tiles. "Sorry for the mess. Been a while since I had guests," Nuju said and kicked away some half-written papers on the floor. "Welcome to Nuju's Know-Hows, where you can shop for what you need to know!"
"This is a shop?" Mushi asked.
Riza, for once, agreed after she saw the mess filling the supposedly main room's wide space. She also agreed with Rohan's words to a grunting Mushi, "You must admit, you don't have to hold your nose in here as much as outside. Now, I believe Mr. Nuju has something for us?"
"Ah yes! I have it around here!" Nuju said. He went on while sifting through the papers on the room's only table. "Y'know, your message surprised me. Riza must've told you, I usually mail info over to–not this one–Chin City. Crop growth and like. I also caught on–not that one or that–some juicy rumors for the papers, and Riza here caught onto my talents. Sorry to hear you got fired, by the way."
"Rumors like?" Rohan asked.
Riza answered him quickly and dismissively, "Politics, gang wars in Republic City–stuff folks on the edge don't get. So, Nuju, what are farmers bothering you for?"
"Just some missin' animals. I keep sayin' to wait for the auction to get more livestock, but the folks keep coming," Nuju grumbled as he stood. "Sorry, ain't your problem. Here's your paper–"
A pair of talons swooped away with said paper. "Hey!" Riza shouted at the green sparrowkeet in the air. "That's mine! Give it back or I'll–"
Nuju clicked and whistled, and the sparrowkeet flew onto his hand. "Kula, that ain't nice. Gimme," he scolded then turned to Riza. "So sorry."
Riza's fingers now grasped at the paper–and the few tears in it. "I dunno if sorry will cover this."
"Don't worry, I'll shave a bit off the price. Save's you money, don't it? You got money, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I do. It's around… here?"
Riza stopped when she found nothing. She searched her bag again then her envelope. She had her photos and notes. No money. Riza knew she had it when she paid the rent and at…
… the station, where she left it on the ticket booth.
A second later, Riza said, "Yeah, 'bout that. I, uh, used my money on the train ticket."
Nuju's frown matched his pet's curved beak. "C'mon Riza, I worked hard to get that information. Plus, this is a business."
"So are train rides, and their prices have gone up!" Riza's pathetic excuse didn't keep Nuju from pressing the issue. Mushi and Rohan couldn't compensate for the important and expensive information, having paid for treats on the train. "Look, Nuju," Riza said, "you mentioned the farmers. Let me look into it. Good enough, right?"
"Yeah, but you sure?" Nuju said and hesitated despite Riza's nod. "Well, you ain't gonna like it."
AN: Basically, just a little preview for the next chapter in my fic, Avatar: Tales of Mushi. Don't know when I'll put it up, but hopefully it would be worth it. Until then, take care.
Raika out.