SNicole25: Nope!
Not-Gonna-Update: You're partially right! The Green Place is actually in reference to the new Mad Max movie.
Darth Nefurious: Eh, I don't know about that. I feel like anyone who has formal schooling would have heard about it, especially if they live in a city where architects are common.
AJPJweallluvJJ: Cool!
akegami hime chan: Kyu was meant to be extremely annoying, the epitome of a spoiled little brat. Oh gosh, poor Zuko is going to end up banging his head into a wall when these two meet.
VelmaInkley: I'm really glad that you're enjoying it! It's so hard not reveal everything all at once and to actually pace myself. I'm really glad I've (Finally) finished her introduction and can now move on.
LyricalJelly: Thank you so much!
Guest from June 16th: I wish there were more! I knew I had to do my own when realized that they were virtually non existent.
Guest from June 16th: I've finally updated!
Saber007: exactly! And the names were the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Green Place was in Mad Max: Fury Road.
When their sailers shot in on either side of the makeshift transport of the Avatar Lien barely waited long enough for them to slow decently before she had thrown herself onto the desert floor. She could see the Gaang struggling to get off of the magnetic rock without becoming buzzard wasp food.
Lien rolled into a stance that was most certainly not based from true Fire Bending. With her feet braced apart she threw her fist one way, then the other, sending lines of fire out 400 feet in either direction. She flipped her fists open so her palms were facing the sky before Lien pushed herself up, forcing her hands and the fire into the air until a wall of flames was erupting between the teenagers and their attackers.
The massive insect hybrids flew away as fast as they could, those that hadn't been burn to a crisp by her.
The young fire bender stood up, letting her arms drop to her side. Her head spun briefly from the sudden exertion and she swayed unsteadily for a moment before she managed to get her balance back. There were still stars in her vision when the Avatar and his friends stumbled into the sand, staring at her with wide eyes.
She didn't know why. Everyone else could do the same thing with earth.
Lien teetered forwards, toward the group, before a heavily bandaged hand steadied her shoulder. She straightened up and took a deep breath. Her vision returned.
"What are you doing here?" Katara asked, in the lead. Aang was flanking her, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. Toph stood facing the wrong direction while Sokka had a hand on the hilt of his boomerang.
"I came after you," she explained. "With help."
Her gesture enclosed all of the tribesmen that Sha-Mo had allowed them to bring along. Four sailers, nine people.
"Sand benders are the reason we're stuck out here," Aang snapped, glaring darkly at them all. Lien could feel the unease that wrapped around her people just as surely as their coverings.
"Yes," she agreed easily.
"That is why we came here," Sha-Mo stepped up by her, and walked past. "I am Sha-Mo, leader of the Gansu. My niece told me of the tracheary one of my people brought upon you," he was picking his words carefully, like a diplomat, "We've come to get you out of the desert, and on your way to Ba Sing Se."
"Why should we believe you?" Aang demanded, taking a threatening step forwards. If he heard Katara's objections he gave no sign of it. Lien's mouth twitched into a scowl.
"Why else would we be out here?" Shuya reasoned, "You are the Avatar, and we would all like to see you end this war. Even if some of us are less… far thinking, than others."
Lien could see Sha-Mo frown ever so slightly at the jab taken towards his son.
"It is the way of our people, to offer hospitality to those wronged by our fellows," her uncle said firmly. That only counted if they could prove they had been gypped.
Aang's mouth opened again before Lien cut him off.
"Stop being an idiot!" All eyes shot to her. "Your Bison is gone, and for that I am sorry, but you need to get a grip, Avatar. It's not just your heart, or your life that you have to worry about. You're responsible for what happens to the rest of the world, and you give a damn about any of the people in it, your friends included, you'll grieve and move on. He's not dead, he was sold to merchants going to the same city you are."
Breath caught and grey eyes grew wide.
"Appa's going to Ba Sing Se?" Aang stepped closer to her. Lien bit back a sigh.
"We talked to the benders who caught him. They sold him to the Beetle Headed Merchants, who were planning on trading him there," she explained simply. Ghashiun had told them everything after he was found guilty of his theft. They would deal with him on their own terms. Outsiders had no place in their justice.
"He's probably there already. Now do you want a ride out of here or what?"
It was Katara that broached the quiet on the sailer, sometimes after dark. They were stopped in the desert, near one of their hidden oasis'. It was made up of two small pools they called Tui and La, after the moon and ocean. A smattering of green, hardy bruch grew up around it, along with a solid shelter filled with dried provisions and barrels of water. The space was managed by the Gansu, a young woman named Sitora.
"How did you make that wall out of fire?" she asked, looking towards Lien. There were papers spread out all around them, maps and charts mostly. Some bending scrolls as well. The teenagers had tucked themselves between the pontoons of her mother's craft when they stopped, and now Aang sat on one while Toph lay in a crook, the opposite of the one Lien rested in. Sokka and Katara were in the middle of the sand, looking over their findings.
Lien cocked her head.
"All I did was the same thing all of my people can do. I just used a different element," she shrugged. That pretty much summed up all she knew. She had no formal firebending training at all.
"You must be a pretty good firebender then, right?" Katara pressed.
Lien narrowed her eyes. "I guess so. Why?" She couldn't be about to say what Lien thought she was.
"Maybe you could teach Aang a thing or two."
She was.
"Nope," Lien shook her head. "I'm not much a teacher. And besides, my firebending is mostly improv, or something I picked up from scrolls at the Library. The Avatar needs someone who knows the real stuff."
"Yeah, but everyone who does wants to kill us."
Lien couldn't argue with that. She scratched her bared cheek, over a scar that crossed it from years past.
"If you attack on the Day of Black Sun, firebending will be useless anyways. Just beat the Fire Lord and then learn," she didn't think she should be teaching anybody, let along the Avatar. And besides that, that would mean leaving the desert, her tribe, her mother.
"I think you should do it."
Speak of the devil.
Lien tilted her head back to see Shuya leaning over the platform set between the pontoons, her eyes locked on her daughter. She looked beautiful still, but there were lines drawn around her eyes and mouth that didn't have anything to do with laughter. She was tired.
"What? Lien stared up at her mother, surprised. Shuya smiled down at the teenager.
"I'm serious, Lien. The Avatar needs and teacher and you can give him the basics, if nothing else. And besides that, it will give you a chance to see the world beyond our borders. You've never seen it but there's so much more out there. Oceans, forests, plains. Places with water and green as far as the eye can see," Shuya painted a lovely picture.
Lien frowned up at her. "But I belong here, with the Gansu, with you."
Shuya shook her head and waved her hand, summoning Lien up so they could speak with just a little bit of privacy. The girl obeyed, hopping to her mother's side and facing the desert instead of inside of the circle they'd made with sailers, creating a protective barrier from sand storms.
"You've always been a wanderer," Shuya said quietly. "When you were young you barely bothered playing with the others you were so obsessed with knowing where everything was, how everything worked."
Lien flushed in surprise. She hadn't been trying to impress anyone. She had been afraid of dying again, in sand this time. Shuya kept going.
"You've been disappearing on your own for years, and no one knows where you go. This is just the same, a chance for you to explore and learn what you can't in the dunes. And when you're finished, if you still want to return to our cloth, then you will return. And I will be waiting for you," Shuya wrapped an arm around the girls shoulder. Lien leaned into it, tears pricking her eyes where they had no place. Gansu didn't cry. It was a waste of precious water.
"I will always return," she said quietly, so soft she thought the howl of coyote badgers would drown it out.
Shuya squeezed her shoulder.
"I know you will."
That night Lien dreamed of flying with winged bunny rabbits.