Here's another losing drabble contest entry. Yes, that is Pratchett influence you detect. The criteria was:

The Search for the Avatar: Tell me a story, set in the century when Aang was frozen, of someone(s) searching for the Avatar. We know that Zuko wasn't the first prince of the Fire Nation to hunt for Aang, but what about other people? Sozin? What about people outside the Fire Nation? The White Lotus? Bumi? Gyatso? The last, desperate Air Nomad survivors? Pathik? The Dai Li? Mad prophets? Ordinary people? In a hundred years there have to be a few good stories about people searching for -- but never finding -- the dead/missing/cowardly/newly reincarnated Avatar.

1. Timeline: All stories must take place AFTER Aang has run away from the Southern Air Temple but BEFORE he's woken up by Katara.
2. Hold the Aang, Please: While these drabbles will be *about* Aang/the Avatar, I would like them not to *star* Aang.
3. Grammar and Spelling

Also, before we begin, I just want to invite readers to go ahead and comment on any of the "Ember Island Lighthouse" stories, even if it's to criticize them. I like hearing reactions to my writing, regardless of the nature. Reviews have been very slow lately, but there's indications that people are still reading. Even if you want to say, "This is boring stuff with nothing to make it stand out," I still would like to hear from you.



Going on Holiday

Teenage girls were a rare sight on the busy dawn-soaked docks, especially swathed in orange robes, never mind the incongruous and haphazard crimson head-wraps.

The shorter of the two looked positively thrilled, spinning her gaze out at the shifty shops, dirty denizens, and broad boats. Her long brown hair spilled out from the back of her headscarf, and she clutched a tall walking stick with an intensity that suggested either a cool awareness of its presence in her hand or a very stressed forgetfulness for its existence.

The taller one, with only a few odd locks of her identically colored hair escaping its wrap, met every single one of the crowd's stares and invited them to fight with nothing more than eerie gray eyes and a hard scowl; this was obviously a person who didn't bother with trivial details like age, size, weight, training, and access to weapons when deciding to physically defend her honor (or whatever else she felt may have been challenged, such as taste in headwear). Despite her obvious disadvantages, the sailors and dockworkers let their own glances slide away from her, lest they provoke the thin girl unnecessarily.

No point in taking chances while in the Fire Nation, after all. Especially this early in the morning.

When it was clear that there wouldn't be any immediate interference, the taller one spoke. "Now we need to find a ride."

"Passage," the shorter girl chirped.

"What?"

"Passage, Norbu. When you're getting a boat, you say you're getting 'passage.' If we're going to do this, we should do it right. You don't say 'ride' with boats. That's 'land-lover' talk."

"And what's wrong with loving the land?" Norbu scoffed. "Without the ground we'd all fall down into space. I think that's worth a little appreciation. Not," she added dismissively, "that I'm saying I love any ground. I prefer skies, naturally, but I have a good working partnership with earth. Water ain't done anything to me, either. And don't you sigh at me, Dmag!"

"I wasn't sighing," the short girl, Dmag, lied. "I was breathing the salty sea air. Sailors are always going on about that, too."

"Hm," sniffed Norbu. "Don't see why they need to go throwing spices in perfectly good air."

"We should get on with finding passage. We don't want to stay in one place too long. Oh, and Norbu?"

"Hm?"

"I think I'll do the talking. No need for you to bother."

"Hm."

The two girls scurried/marched (or marched/scurried, depending on which one any observers considered to be in charge) along the docks. At every ship, they would stop, stare at the vessel, and then move their scrutiny to the men working on and around it. The stares were rather unsettling. Dmag's was like a piper on a beach. It would lightly rush around in a pattern that could only make sense to a bird with a tiny brain, and then retreat in a panic when the tide of returned interest came in, coming back as soon as the sand was dry again like nothing had happened. Norbu's gaze, on the other hand, was made of refined metal. It was hard, unpleasantly reflective, and far heavier than it had any right to be. Fortunately, Norbu didn't find the individual people in front of her terribly important, preferring to take in the whole scene at once and so inadvertently sparing the sailors an only slightly metaphorical closer encounter with an anvil (or anchor, if a more seaside comparison is preferred).

"Not this one," Norbu declared.

"Why not? It seems like a nice, busy ship to me."

"Not this one. It smells funny."

Dmag hesitated before stating the obvious. "I expect that's a result of all the dead fish they're unloading."

"Well, I don't like it. And if they're fish-men, they probably aren't going all the way to the Earth Kingdom, anyway."

"You could have just said that."

"You could have realized it yourself and saved me the time."

Dmag nodded. "That's true. Good thing we're not in a rush."

Norbu gave her a dirty look.

They moved on to the next ship, which was loading up supplies for a long voyage and worked metal goods. Norbu crossed her arms. "This one might work."

Dmag grinned. "I agree." She winked suggestively at a sailor who was carrying a barrel onto the ship and leaned evocatively against her staff. The man, at least double the girl's age, grimaced.

"Dmag, what are you doing?"

"Well, we don't have much money, so I figured out I'd get us a discount on the passage."

Norbu resisted the urge to smack both her own and her companion's foreheads. "Did any of those pirate stories you like so much talk about the dangers of flirting with men who've been out to see for weeks with no women around?"

"Hm, not unless you're talking about the parts where they walk the girlie off the plank and the hero has to swing on a rope and save her from a dunkin'."

"Let's pick another ship."

Dmag waved a farewell at the sailor, who was trying very hard not to notice. "Okay. But you're saying that mostly because metal goods means they're likely heading to the Water Tribe, and not because you're afraid of men, right?"

A pause. "'xactly."

The third ship was, as mandated by tradition, just right. It was a large cargo ship, crewed by both men and women, and was carrying exports of silk goods to the Earth Kingdom. Norbu and Dmag found the captain directing the loading of foodstuffs from the dock. They stopped in front of him and stared until he reacted. "Um, g'day, ladies. Can I help you?"

Dmag started to speak, but Norbu cut her off. "This your boat?"

"The Summer's Breath is the worthy vessel, and I am Captain-"

"Fine," Norbu cut him off. "We'll take a ride."

There was a polite silence. "Your pardon?"

Dmag masterfully employed an ancient hip-bump technique to push the taller girl aside and took over the conversation. "We're seeking passage to the Earth Kingdom. We can do some paying, of course, and I can guarantee we'd be very valuable passengers..." She winked at the captain and smiled coquettishly.

He swallowed rather croak-ettishly.

Norbu swatted the shorter girl on the side of the head, nearly knocking her head-scarf loose. Dmag gasped and quickly grabbed for it before it could slide off her forehead. Norbu took the opportunity to interject. "Yes, very valuable. We're... uh... witches, you see."

The captain blinked. "Witches."

"Yes." Norbu stood at her full height. "We tell fortunes, submit requests for good weather for folk, do cheap coin tricks, teach martial arts-based exercise classes. You know, witch stuff."

The captain considered that. "And this is a good thing for me?"

"'f course."

Dmag, her headwear back in place, batted her eyes and smiled. "We could bring you pleasant weather and favorable winds for the voyage."

Norbu nodded. "And we wouldn't be cursing you or your vessel with any hexes, either."

That settled that matter. On the subject of sleeping arrangements, the captain was less willing to negotiate generously, until Norbu escalated her scowl into a full-on Evil Eye that had the man seeing storm clouds in his future. He gave the girls his own cabin.

In the solitude of the rather nicely appointed room, the two girls removed their head-wraps and shook their hair free. A vivid blue arrow was visible the front of Norbu's scalp, which was shaved smooth. Dmag's head was similarly half-bare, but her own skin was unmarked. Their dark brown hair looked even more alike when uncovered.

"Well, that's been settled. We're away." Norbu sat on the bed and let out a deep breath.

Dmag gave the other girl an evaluating look. "You could have been a bit nicer to everyone out there. People out in the real world like their girls clever and flirtatious. Not cranky."

Norbu didn't return her friend's gaze. "Cranky? Yes, I suppose I might be." She closed her eyes. "In the last week, I've only seen my people, 'cept for you of course not discounting our friendship but you can be annoying sometimes but anyway... I saw my people wiped out by soldiers I didn't even know were our enemies, I escaped only because our Sky Bison sacrificed themselves while we ran away, and now we're smuggling ourselves across the ocean to see if there are any Nomads left and then hide away forever." Norbu's eyes flicked open, and she gave Dmag the full power of her disconcerting stare, a stare that hadn t existed a week ago. "And we don't even know why this is all happening. Yes, I expect I'm a bit cranky."

Dmag laid her staff, a cheap replacement for the old glider that she used to enjoy so much, beside the bed and sat down next to her friend. They simply sat together for a long while.

The winds favored their voyage.

END