Water
Near Misses
After the whole mess with Jet, Sokka was trying his best to be considerate. Katara had just gotten her heart broken after all, and even though he had seen it coming all along, it would take a real jerk to rub her nose in it. Jet was an asshole, and Sokka refused to sink to his level. Cheering Katara up seemed like the good-brother thing to do.
For the first few days, doing the good-brother thing had been pretty simple. They stayed inland as much as possible, away from settlements and potential snooping eyes. In the middle of nowhere, doing the good-brother thing just meant that Sokka didn't complain as much as usual when Katara tried to foist off some of the chores on him. And he tried to be less grumpy when her waterbending practice went astray and splashed him in the face.
None of that was too inconvenient. But now, on the third day, they'd gone into a village again, and Sokka was beginning to wonder just how far the good-brother thing had to go. Katara had been getting over the slimy bastard for a few days now—that had to be enough. Right? How long was he supposed to keep trying to cheer her up?
Sokka had his limits. And the limit landed somewhere before being forced to hang out in a stuffy, heavily perfumed fortuneteller's house with a middle-aged con artist.
Katara wasn't stupid. She knew science, she had to know that all of this was just a trick to scam people out of their money. And yet she somehow seemed intent on believing the old lady with too much eyeshadow.
"Why, this is remarkable," the old bat said, leaning in closer and tilting Katara's chin upward. "Quite remarkable, my dear girl. I can read all the depths of eternity in your eyes. The vastness of the seas and the glow of all the celestial lights shine within."
Sokka rolled his eyes so hard that he could almost see the inside of his skull. "Or in other words," he hissed, making an exaggerated show of shielding his mouth, "Somebody's never seen blue eyes before."
Katara shot a withering look back over her shoulder, and Sokka threw up his hands.
"What? It's either that or she's trying to hit on you." He jabbed a finger at the older woman. "As Katara's older brother and the leader of this group, I'm drawing the line. And in case you're wondering, the line comes way before old lady scammers."
This time, the old lady looked offended.
Katara rolled her eyes. "Please ignore my brother, Aunt Wu. He's just being a jerk."
Sokka let out an affronted squawk. He was not being a jerk. In fact, he was trying very hard to do the opposite.
Aang, helpful as ever, looked up from the tray of snacks that the pigtail girl had brought him. "Yeah, Sokka. You really need to give this stuff a chance. You didn't believe in the spirits at Senlin and look how that turned out for us."
Spluttering, Sokka crossed his arms. "That—that's different, okay? Spirits or no spirits, nobody can tell the future. Especially not by staring into people's eyes and making up fancy nonsense about the color." He stuck his nose up in the air. "I happen to have blue eyes too, you know."
The old con artist gave a long sigh. "Blue they may be, but not the blue of the ocean's infinite depths. Moldy moonpeaches are blue as well."
Wait. Was that old bat saying that Sokka's eyes looked like rotten fruit? Because he knew for a fact that they didn't. He had very nice eyes. Gran-Gran always said so.
"In any case," the crazy conwoman continued, "You are correct, young man. A full reading requires more than a glimpse into the eyes. But the eyes contain the essence of the person. Together with the other signs, they paint a vision of the destiny that awaits." She looked down her nose at Sokka. "In your case, the eyes paint such a vivid image that no further reading is needed."
Aang popped a dainty pastry into his mouth. "Is that a good thing?"
The old bat gave Aang an equally disappointed look. "I believe no explanation is needed." With a flourish, she swooshed her wide sleeve through the air, spreading a fresh wave of suffocating perfume through the room, and rested a hand on Katara's shoulder. "Come, my dear. You, I believe, have a most interesting destiny in store."
"If she tries anything funny, just yell," Sokka shouted as the crazy woman swept Katara off down the hall. "Don't let her scam you!"
"I don't think it's a scam, Sokka." Aang offered part of a tart to Momo, who accepted it with surprising delicacy. "Aunt Wu seems nice, and she didn't even ask us for any money."
Sokka scowled even harder. "Just because the spirits are real and awful doesn't mean that anyone can tell the future. It's not scientific."
Aang shrugged. "Maybe not everything is science."
Sokka gaped. Traitor. Aang was supposed to be on his side. Well—he'd taken Katara's side a lot, but it ought to be Sokka's turn sooner or later. Their tiebreaker couldn't side with Katara every time.
"Just for that," he said, marching over to Aang's side, "I'm taking some of your snacks."
Pinky Pigtails wandered back into the room just in time to see Sokka making a grab for the snacks, and she made a string of terribly offended noises and wrestled the tray away from both of them.
Sokka crossed his arms and pouted. That settled it. After today, he was done going along with nonsense just to cheer Katara up. He was a good enough brother as it was. He didn't need to prove it by indulging all of Katara's silly whims. After today, he was going back to normal, loud, cynical Sokka.
"Uncle, I thought you said we were stopping here so you could meet with someone."
Uncle made a thoughtful little noise and stooped in front of the display case, rubbing his beard.
"Uncle. Answer me. Why are we shopping if your—well-informed friend is in this town?"
Another pensive sound, and Zuko groaned, letting his head loll backward. He should have known. Uncle had suggested that they stop in the little harbor town of Makapu so he could communicate with some old friend of his—someone who was apparently unconnected with the navy, and therefore not connected with Zhao, who had an unusual knack for acquiring information. Zuko had agreed. Makapu wasn't far off course, and they'd had no sightings of the Avatar in a few days, and no word of her location since Crescent Island. And the burn on his arm wasn't quite healed enough for firebending lessons yet—all things considered, wasting a single afternoon wasn't the end of the world. After all, it wasn't like Zuko had much else to do, and Uncle's acquaintances had tipped them off about the Avatar's visit to Kyoshi Island.
But Zuko's brain must have gotten addled somewhere along the way to think that this detour would be anything but a waste of time. This was just how Uncle worked. A perfectly reasonable-sounding plan would inevitably devolve into anything but in a matter of minutes.
"Is your friend even in this town?" It seemed unlikely. This was the Earth Kingdom, and although Makapu had its share of visits from Fire Nation patrols, being a coastal town, no one in their right mind would actually stay here. And despite Uncle's penchant for being too interested in the other nations, Zuko didn't think that he'd actually have friends in the Earth Kingdom.
Again, Uncle didn't reply.
"Uncle. We don't need any more trinkets. Besides, that thing looks like it's cursed." The grinning monkey figurine sent a chill up Zuko's spine. Eugh. The ruby eyes were bad enough, but the teeth belonged in someone's nightmares.
Uncle held it up by his face and mimicked its grin. "Don't like it?"
Rolling his eyes, Zuko shoved the figurine away. "Uncle, we can't keep wasting time. If your friend isn't in Makapu, we can just send a messenger hawk from the ship."
"No," Uncle placed the figurine back on the shelf and tapped its nose with a thick finger. "I keep close contact with my connections. Makapu is the place."
Zuko took the slowest breath he could manage to steady his temper. They were in the Earth Kingdom. Inadvertent firebending would be bad. Especially now, when he wasn't exactly ready to fight earthbenders, thanks to his injured arm.
"So why," he began, voice as even as possible, "are you looking at bronze monkey statues when we could be meeting with your friend?"
Uncle gave a blithe smile. "It isn't teatime yet." As if that explained everything, Uncle padded off down the row to inspect a shelf of flutes carved in the shape of feather-crested snakes.
"I'm really sorry about my brother, Aunt Wu." Katara ducked through the gauzy drapes and into the back room. "He's just—acting weirder than usual." At Aunt Wu's gesture, she perched on a cushion near the center of the room.
"Mmmm." Aunt Wu settled in across from her and took a moment to arrange the voluminous folds of her robe across her lap. "As is often the case with boys of a certain age. I don't need to do a reading to tell you to anticipate further strangeness from your brother."
Katara made a face. That was fair. Weirdness seemed to just be a brother thing. He'd been acting stranger than usual for the past few days, a little less sarcastic, and a little more—well, thoughtful wasn't the right word for it. Sokka seemed to think he was being thoughtful, but really, he was just being obnoxious in a new, unusual way.
"Now let us begin," Aunt Wu said, her voice going low and smoky. "Your hands."
Katara held them out. There had to be something good in there. Something interesting and fun. Maybe the person she would fall in love with, or children, or all the places she would travel. Something normal. She'd had enough of thinking about Avatar-y stuff recently, pretending at normalcy for a little while would be a welcome break. And after Jet, she could really use some kind of reassurance that she wasn't doomed to forever fall for the worst kinds of people.
Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Jet was the worst, but Haru was nice. She hadn't exactly fallen for Haru, but she'd liked him. A lot. Maybe she could have fallen for him if they'd had a little more time. She wouldn't be upset if he was her destiny.
Aunt Wu trailed a long fingernail across Katara's right palm. "A long, firm life line. Some early deviations from the dominant course, but a very strong path later in life."
Katara leaned forward to look, and she found herself smiling. That had to be good. A long, stable life sounded perfect to her.
"And here," Aunt Wu pointed to another line. "I see a great love for you. Passion and trust as deep as the seas themselves."
Her stomach fluttered. That was what she wanted to hear. "Can you see who it is? Can you tell me anything about him?"
Aunt Wu smiled. "I thought you might ask. I can't tell you his name, destiny doesn't speak quite that clearly, but I can tell you that—" She looked down, gaze tracing across Katara's left hand. Then she did a double take, and pulled Katara's hands closer to her face, squinting a little as she looked back and forth between the two. "Why, this is—this is remarkable. I've never seen anything like it."
Katara fidgeted. Even with Aunt Wu staring at her hands rather than her face, the intensity of the gaze was a bit uncomfortable. "Is that a good thing?"
"It's astounding. Though good or bad—I can't say for certain." Aunt Wu frowned, then looked up and stared into Katara's eyes. "Your hands do not tell of a single future."
"So—that's bad?" Katara guessed.
"It's like nothing I've ever heard of." Aunt Wu pointed at the lines in Katara's right palm. "Here are all the indications of a long life and a love to outlast the ages. But here—" She moved to the left hand. "Here, the signs point to a different fate entirely."
Katara stared at her left palm, searching for the differences Aunt Wu was talking about. Sure enough, the lines cut across both palms in a similar path, but while the creases in her right palm were mostly unbroken, the ones in her left were made up of shorter lines, running side-by-side, but never quite meeting or overlapping. The difference was practically invisible unless she looked for it, but now that she was looking, it was impossible not to see.
"It's almost as if two lives exist within you."
Oh. Right. The Avatar cycle. Past lives. That made sense. Katara was almost surprised that only two of them made an appearance.
"Can you tell which one is mine?"
Aunt Wu looked up, brow furrowed. "There are conflicting lives within you, but that is your only question?"
Katara shifted. Okay, that probably did sound a little suspicious. She gave her best nonchalant shrug. "Well, if there's somehow more than one life in me, one of them has to be mine, right?"
"I—I suppose so."
"So am I going to get married someday? Am I ever going to be good at fighting, or—"
Aunt Wu stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. "You don't seem surprised, dear."
Katara shrugged again. "I've never had my fortune read before. I don't really know what normally happens." It was true, strictly speaking. And having one normal, fun thing in her life really didn't seem like too much to ask. "Doesn't everyone want to know about the person they're going to fall in love with?"
"Yes, but there is not always a great love to speak of. And when the signs conflict—" Aunt Wu trailed off, studying her. Then after another moment, she released Katara's hands and turned toward the little fire in the center of the room. "There are other methods. Perhaps they will show a more definite picture."
After what felt like hours of watching Uncle browse the shelves—longer thanks to the way the scraggly man behind the counter watched him—Zuko had had enough. Watching Uncle browse the same shelves over and over, musing over the same pointless trinkets time and time again, was beginning to drive him mad. Uncle's shopping trips were bad enough when they didn'thave somewhere more important to be. At least then it was an aimless waste of time rather than deliberate stalling. At least then Zuko could find a scrap of amusement at the way a simple scowl could send a paranoid Earth Kingdom shopkeeper scuttling off to hide in a back room. Zuko never caused trouble—maybe a few insults here and there, maybe a shove if someone got in his way when he was in a particularly bad mood—but all of the normal shopkeepers were scared of him anyway.
And most of the time, that worked in his favor. Nobody wanted to trifle with a firebender, much less one as ferocious-looking as Zuko. But he had figured out quickly that these weren't normal shopkeepers. Smugglers, at best. Or pirates.
Zuko didn't care about that. Worrying about piracy wasn't his job. But the way the man at the counter kept staring at Zuko was getting on his nerves, and pirates, in general, were less afraid of firebenders than the rest of the Earth Kingdom. And although Zuko wasn't in the best condition to fight with his left arm still bandaged and aching, between the pirate's stare, and Uncle's fussing about this trinket or that, and the few crewmen who'd come with them to Makapu just hovering nearby, Zuko's irritation was mounting.
He had to get out. Let Uncle gawk at trinkets all he wanted, Zuko was creeping nearer and nearer to an eruption by the minute.
"I'm going to get some fresh air."
Uncle looked up, somehow managing an expression of surprise. "So soon?"
Zuko's eye twitched. "Just—just remember that anything you buy has to fit in your cabin. I don't want your ridiculous figurines cluttering up the rest of the ship, understood?" Before Uncle could say anything else, Zuko marched away.
He made it almost to shore before he noticed footsteps coming after him. For a second, he hoped that it was Uncle, finally ready to meet with his oh-so-important friend, ready to get out of this stupid little Earth Kingdom town to develop the next phase of their plans. Ready to be sensible for once.
But of course, Uncle wasn't sensible. And it wasn't Uncle following him.
Zuko stopped in his tracks, arms folded, and glared. "I don't need a babysitter."
Taro shrugged. "General Iroh's orders. Makapu is supposed to be peaceful, but after the—excitement at Crescent Island, he wanted to avoid any unnecessary risks."
Zuko gaped. "He's worried about me taking unnecessary risks when he's spent hours in there?" Browsing shelves in a pirate ship had to be riskier than wandering through a town full of peasants who didn't know the first thing about combat. If any trouble came up in the village, Zuko could fight and win singlehanded. He was less optimistic about his chances against a pirate. Or at least his chances in bending combat against a pirate. If he had his swords, it would be a different matter entirely.
He shoved past Taro. "It's a village. I can take care of myself."
Taro caught up with him in a few strides. "Apologies, sir. I have to follow you."
"Right." Sarcasm hung heavy from Zuko's voice, but it wasn't worth arguing. The men respected Uncle far more than they would ever respect Zuko. Shaking his head, he turned down the street. "Any idea where I can find my uncle's mysterious connection in this little—" A merchant's cart pushed past, nearly running over his toes, and Zuko stopped short. Practically snarling at the peasant pushing the cart, he finished, "—this little hole pretending to be a town?"
"Uh—" Taro gave the merchant an appeasing look. "Does General Iroh know someone in Makapu?"
With an eyeroll, Zuko shoved past the cart and kept stomping down the street. "Typical. Why would anyone know anything useful?"
Not that there was anything unusual about that. Nobody was ever helpful. Not where Zuko was concerned.
He did his best to ditch Taro. Zuko didn't need anyone to look after him, and he was better at sneaking around to find information when he was alone. And thankfully, the villagers seemed utterly unconcerned by Zuko's presence. It was like they knew of firebenders only as a distant concept and saw no cause for concern when two of them went prowling through their streets.
Or maybe they were too stupid to recognize the uniforms. Considering the snatches of conversation he caught about a fortuneteller and her infallible predictions, that seemed possible too.
Zuko ducked in and out of clusters of people, around corners, and into alleyways without any signal to Taro. Zuko wove his way around the whole village that way, and he still didn't see anyone who looked promising as Uncle's mysterious acquaintance. Not that he really knew what to look for. Knowing Uncle, it would be someone odd, but in this town, everyone seemed odd. Finding one person who stood out from the rest was difficult.
"Find what you're looking for, sir?" Taro asked when Zuko finally stopped.
Zuko glared back over his shoulder. "No. Does it look like I found anything?"
Just then, a flash of blue—brighter than the rest of the villagers' outfits—caught his eye. Zuko whipped his head around to follow it, and there was a blur of blue and brown again, then it was gone before his eyes could focus.
His stomach dropped. The Avatar.
Though he'd lost sight of her, he took off through the crowd. Or he tried to. Moving through a crowd of villagers who weren't particularly intimidated by him was difficult. He caught another glimpse of the blue to the right—he veered toward it and bumped head-on into a stout old man.
Zuko cursed under his breath and swerved around the old man. He had to keep going. The girl—if it was her—couldn't get away.
He moved as quickly as he could, ramming shoulders with villagers and nearly tripping over children, but by the time he reached the place where he'd first spotted her, the Avatar was gone. Heart pounding, he whipped his head around to scan the street again, then the next, then the alley, then the road leading back to the harbor.
Nothing. She must have turned off from the main street, or gone into one of the shops, or simply gone too far for him to see. The only thing he was fairly confident about was that she hadn't seen him.
If it was the Avatar. Zuko hadn't gotten a good look at her—he was never that lucky—but he couldn't shake off the strange, nebulous feeling that he was close.
By the time Taro made his way through the crowd, looking puzzled and irritated, Zuko was partway down the road to the harbor again, searching around every corner and down every alley for another glimpse of her. But no matter where he looked, there was no sign.
Ignoring all of Taro's questions, Zuko stomped the rest of the way down to the docks and into the pirates' trinket shop. If he couldn't find the Avatar right now—much as he wanted to bring out the komodo rhinos and search the village, even he knew that was a bad idea in a village this busy—he was going to get all the information he could find. Maybe Uncle's connection had even seen the Avatar. Maybe they could even get enough information to track her down tonight. All he had to do was get Uncle out of the shop. And knowing his luck, Uncle would still be inside, holding a staring contest with that stupid red-eyed monkey statue, or gossiping with the pirate—smuggler—whatever he was—behind the counter.
Sure enough, the moment Zuko's eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of the shop again, Uncle looked up toward the door and gave a cheerful wave. Great. He was gossiping and staring at the monkey statue.
"Finish up," Zuko ordered. "You've wasted enough time already."
He shoved past Uncle, setting off in a circuit around the perimeter of the shop. It would take Uncle a few minutes at least to make whatever purchases he had decided on, and in the meantime, Zuko had no interest in listening to the old man's gossip.
Near the back of the shop, a pale blue circle caught his eye, and he looked down at the shelf to find a scroll with ornate carvings on either end of the blue ivory spool. He knew that design. It was the mark of the Northern Water Tribe. More importantly, it was the same symbol that was carved into the Avatar's necklace, tucked in the bottom of a trunk in Zuko's cabin for safekeeping. He picked up the scroll and unfurled the first few inches, just enough to see illustrations of bending forms. His forehead creased. Maybe. Maybe if he was lucky, he could bait her somehow. If the necklace meant something to the girl, then maybe the scroll would tempt her too.
"It is teatime, Prince Zuko! We must not keep my dear friend waiting," Uncle called toward the back of the shop.
Finally. Zuko rolled the scroll back up and set it back on the shelf. He'd come back for it later. Sometime when delaying an extra second or two wouldn't give Uncle an excuse to prolong their stay another hour.
But it could work. If he could get his hands on the scroll, the Avatar would be as good as caught.
When Aunt Wu had tried three other methods of divination and had given Katara three more entirely distinct predictions, Katara finally thanked Aunt Wu and saw herself out. She still believed in fortunetelling, but it lost most of its appeal when she had to sort out her own destiny from centuries of past lives. Maybe future lives too. Maybe Aunt Wu was a powerful enough fortuneteller that some of the destinies she foresaw actually belonged to Katara's successors.
If that were the case, she reasoned, there wasn't too much reason to be upset. The fact that there would be more Avatars in the future had to be a good thing.
She made her way back to the sitting room, and Aang went to the back for his reading. For a second, Katara thought about waiting with Sokka, but he was in a bad mood. He grumbled something about Aunt Wu's apprentice taking away his snacks and looked ready to launch into a rant about how terrible and unscientific fortunetelling was. Katara didn't care to listen. And she cared even less to hear the inevitable gloating when he found out how uncertain Aunt Wu's predictions were.
Instead, she grabbed Momo off the cushion beside Sokka and announced that she was going for a walk. There was plenty of village to explore, and it had to be better than indulging Sokka's grumpiness. She'd get plenty of it when they were all stuck in Appa's saddle again.
Momo clambered out of her arms and perched on her shoulder as Katara wandered through the marketplace, down side streets, and along the edge of the village toward the harbor. It was nice to have a break. She'd been stuck with the boys constantly since they left Jet's forest behind, and as much as she loved them both, their belching contests were getting old very quickly. The busy streets near the center of town and the pretty, forested paths along its edges made for a pleasant change.
She emerged into the bustle near the harbor and turned north, back in the direction of Aunt Wu's house.
"Come in, come in!" A wiry man with a thin mustache and a patchy beard made great sweeping gestures with both arms from the ramp of one of the boats. "Come see the best deals on exotic curios this side of Ba Sing Se! We've got jewels, we've got decorations, we've got weapons and ancient texts. Anything and everything you could possibly want from any of the great nations, all at low, low prices!"
Katara kept walking. Sokka could call Aunt Wu's predictions a scam all he wanted, but Aunt Wu didn't charge for her services, and Katara was smart enough to know that they didn't have enough money for whatever this guy was selling. She was tempted to drag Sokka down here later just to prove a point. It didn't count as a scam unless somebody was benefitting from the arrangement. And if anything, Aunt Wu had lost money from their visit. Katara knew firsthand how much Sokka could eat. Their visit had probably cost Aunt Wu three days' worth of food.
"Ah, young lady!" The man's voice was unpleasantly high and nasal. "A daughter of the Water Tribes in a foreign land. So far from home, you must long for a glimpse of the mystical land of ice and snow from whence you came."
She wrinkled her nose. Was it that obvious that she was Water Tribe?
"No thanks, my brother's enough of a reminder."
The man leaned over the rail toward her. "Centuries of history lost in your homeland. But you may see that all is not lost forever! Come inside and you'll be delighted by what you find!"
Katara stopped and narrowed her eyes. The man looked even scragglier up close, and there was something about the boat that felt—odd to her. But then a cluster of villagers climbed up the ramp, chattering amongst themselves. It couldn't be too bad if the villagers weren't concerned about the place.
"What do you think, Momo?"
The lemur blinked his bulbous green eyes at her and chittered.
"Good enough for me." She climbed up the ramp after the group of villagers.
The shop was dim, lit by a row of mismatched ornamental lamps along one wall. And the shelves were packed. There were figurines and ornate platters and serving spoons inlaid with gemstones. Down another row, there was a rack filled with musical instruments carved to look like animals and another with assorted weapons. She paused by that one long enough to recognize a few bone blades and sharktooth spears from the Water Tribes.
For a second, she thought about buying one of the smaller knives for herself—it might be nice to have a weapon of her own, and she would prefer one from her own tribe, if possible. But they had plenty of Sokka's weapons already packed in Appa's saddle, and their money—from both Gran-Gran and King Bumi—was dwindling faster than she and Sokka had hoped.
So she moved on down the row, stopping occasionally to inspect an interesting figurine or a grotesque mask—she had no idea whether the scary orange face with exaggerated square teeth and hollow, green-rimmed eyes was Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation, but either way, she was grateful that it wasn't something her tribe would have made.
Then she reached the scrolls, and one on a blue ivory spool caught her eye. She didn't need to open it to know that it was a waterbending scroll, but she unfurled the first few inches. The scroll was tough but soft—cured sealskin, she guessed—and the illustrations were crisp and elegant. After so many weeks of working with her own hand-copied scroll, an original waterbending scroll was such a beautiful sight that she felt a little breathless. She had to have it.
Katara marched straight to the counter, scroll in hand. "How much for this scroll?"
The big man behind the counter looked up. "Not for sale."
Her jaw dropped. "Excuse me? This is supposed to be a shop. The things in here are supposed to be for sale."
"Not when I already have a buyer for the item." The man and his iguana parrot both stared her down. "Not unless I can get a better price."
Her grip on the scroll tightened. "How much?"
"Two hundred gold pieces."
"That's—that's insane! This scroll belongs to my people." She narrowed her eyes. Now that she thought about it, it was strange to find a waterbending scroll—and Water Tribe weapons—here. "How did you even get it in the first place?"
The man smirked and shook his head. "That's my concern, not yours. The price is two hundred gold pieces."
Katara felt the coin pouch fastened at her belt. They hadn't even had that much money after leaving Omashu. King Bumi had been generous, but not two hundred gold pieces generous.
"Or," the man added, "A barter. I could get a fair price for the lemur near Ba Sing Se. Call the lemur fifty gold pieces, and—"
"You can't have Momo!" Katara snatched Momo off of her shoulder and held him tight against her chest. The man behind the counter looked like he might grab Momo and stuff him in a cage if Katara hesitated even an instant. Not that she had enough money to make up the difference anyway.
"Then—" The man reached across the counter and yanked the scroll out of her hand. "The scroll isn't for sale either. Come back with two hundred gold or forget about the scroll."
Katara glared up at the man. He was bigger than her and muscular and mean-looking, but she was still tempted to hurl a bunch of water straight into his face, grab the scroll, and run as fast as she could. Maybe she would if she had a good way to distract him. But all she had was Momo, and the man wanted to take Momo. Using the lemur as a distraction was probably not her best idea. So instead, she just glowered, memorizing every detail of the man's face that she could. Boxy jaw, beady green eyes, slate-gray hair, and a big, black hat.
"Get out of my shop if you don't have any money, kid. I'm not running a museum."
Of course not. He was just stealing things from the other nations and charging ridiculous amounts of money for the rightful owners to get their belongings back. This man was a thief. A pirate. She scowled even harder.
The pirate stared back for a long, uncomfortable moment, then gave a loud whistle.
At the doorway, the scraggly man from the deck poked his head in.
"Get rid of the girl," the big pirate ordered his scraggly friend. "She doesn't have any money."
Before Katara could protest, the scraggly man had grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her outside.
"Hey!" She wrenched her arm free, and Momo leapt from her arms up onto her head to screech at the scraggly pirate. "You could have asked."
"You could have mentioned that you didn't have any money." Big, wiry hands closed around her shoulders and propelled her down the ramp. "Have a good day! Come back when you can afford to buy something."
Katara began another retort, but before the words could reach her lips, she saw a blur of red at the southern end of the harbor and turned toward it. Zuko. And two other men with him—a second Fire Nation soldier, and the old man she'd seen on Zuko's ship at the South Pole.
With a squeak, she scurried back behind a pile of crates and peeked out at them again. None of the three firebenders looked her way, and they were walking south, toward the far end of the harbor.
Her breath caught in her throat when Zuko's head turned, and she ducked down again, pulling Momo out of sight with her. She hadn't seen Zuko's ship anywhere when they landed last night, and as far as she could see now, it wasn't docked in the harbor. That had to mean that Zuko had arrived just this morning, possibly by land, or his ship was docked outside of town, or it was anchored somewhere offshore. No matter what the case, he had gotten too close too fast. If he could sneak up on her here, he could appear anywhere. And if Zuko ever managed to spot Katara without her realizing, there would be almost nothing she could do.
She needed to learn all the waterbending she possibly could. She needed to be able to fight Zuko off if he ever got close to catching her. What she was learning from her own hand-copied scroll wasn't enough.
She needed the pirates' waterbending scroll.
Author's Note:
Hi, I know nothing about fortunetelling and I did exactly zero research on fortunetelling while writing this, so... yeah. I'm definitely just making stuff up in that part.
I'm so, so, so excited for the next chapter that I can't remember what else I wanted to talk about for this one. So until next week, I guess! In the meantime, feel free to visit my Tumblr (soopersara), and reviews are always very much appreciated!
