Yes this took me a fuckload of time. I apologize wholeheartedly but I wanted Legend of Korra to finish so I could stop being so damn behind on everything...

I don't own Legend of Korra (If I did, there'd be a very important change to the finale) but I do love it.

"And I thought the time with the imported Penguin Meat was a close one ..." Skoochy thought as he evaded the grounds. It was bad enough that those two girls saw him, but if anyone else had, he probably would've spent the night in the slammer. And all that food would'a been wasted on Tack. He thought back over to the girl who came later. She seemed a little younger, maybe Pavo's age. She looked kinda like the other girl, but Skoochy really didn't care at this point. He was just glad her loud mouth was a distraction for him to escape.

It didn't take long for Skoochy to get at least a little tired. Yes he'd ran before, and had been in worse situations where he needed to run harder, but in this case, he could afford a five minute sit. It was then when he looked down at his hands, and how one of them had something clinging by the brink. The book. How did he not notice he had it still? He swore he dropped it when he started running. "What makes you so special again?" He said, looking down at the cover. It was just as old and crinkled as he thought it looked from the short distance. However, he was able to read the whole title instead of the first letter.

"Love Amongst the Dragons" He said. The dragon part sounded somewhat interesting so far. He kept looking, seeing anything that could interest him and finding a reason to honor his promise. The illustration had two dragons making some kind of back to back heart or something romantically dumb like that, not to mention he barely could make out the caption at the bottom of the illustration. "It is said that the only thing to connect those, come in small few. Life, Death, Emotions, and the Spirits we are born with. These spirits form bonds that last the test of them." Great. Nothing interesting at all. Except for the death and spirits. Spirits could cause some damage, if some of the things he heard were true. If that was the only thing that was keeping his interest, he didn't know what else about it was worth keeping that end of the bargain.

Skoochy groaned, putting the book back in his vest pocket and making his way to the station. It wasn't about the book. It wouldn't have made a difference if the book was a glove or a piece of chicken. Unless it was Yuan, Skoochy would keep things safe. It was just the way his word was kept. By the smell of food, Skoochy could tell he was close to the rest of the guys. So he straightened his appearance some. In normal circumstances, he'd roughen it up to make him look like he was in a huge fight, but this was a special case. After all, his opponent was a girl.

"Hey Skoochy!" Pavo recognized him as he made his way to the fire and the meat that was roasting over it. "What happened to you man?" he asked.

Skoochy would have answered him, but of course, Tack opened his mouth. "Yeah, I thought you were gonna be all, I can take care of a prissy little panda lily myself" This stirred up some chuckles, as well as some inspection of Skoochy's appearance from the younger kids..

"Looks like the panda lily got in a few jabs."

"More than a few!"

"Shut up before your face looks like the inside of a Rabaroo." Skoochy knew that the threat didn't make a lick of sense, but it made the younger kids shut up.

"Who was that girl anyway?" Pavo was the first to ask anything after that.

"Beats me kid." And technically, that was the truth. The last thing Skoochy remembered about her was really close to the first thing. She came in an instant, and was gone just as quickly. Too bad. He was going to offer her her book back if she told him her name.

He got it anyway.

Jinora.

Now that wasn't a name he heard every day. Something told him that she was either an only child, or the oldest. Maybe the latter, because the girl who came and got her looked like family. Jinora wasn't one of those names people threw away, especially in a place like Republic City. This was a place where names got you everywhere. Names, and turf but mostly names. Besides, from things Skoochy heard from that hobo with the really nice bush in the park, no way a pretty face like that couldn't come with an ugly name. Wait, did he just think she was cute?

"She was kinda cute Skooch'. Hope you didn't have your eye on her or something" Tack confirmed what he was just questioning, and pissing him off at the same time.

Another boy started howling. "Yeah right. Like a princess like that would wanna deal with our man Skooch." That particular comment made Skoochy think back to their conversation from earlier.

"Even so, it's not like he showers us in stuff." That was the line Skoochy probably remembered the most out of that whole thing. It wasn't necessarily what she said, but the way she said it. She looked sick. Real sick. Like the kind of sick one would get after seeing a member of the Agni Kai Triad fish intestines out of a guy they just burnt to a crisp. Skoochy personally hadn't seen something like that before, no, but he heard stuff. The kind of stuff that one only could have said if they had seen it. And hearing stuff was better than not having anything on it at all. Especially for a man who wanted his information.

"It's not like she'd deal with Tack's ugly mu-"

"She's not a princess!" Skoochy said with much more bite than needed for a comment like that. The guys were quiet for a second, and Skoochy immediately wanted to take back what he said.

"... Where'd that come from Skooch?" The howling boy from earlier said.

If only Skoochy could answer that for himself. "I dunno..." In a weird way, it was like he was trying to defend her. But why? Skoochy didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't help it. She did something to him. She beat him - got a lucky few shots - in a fight between them and still Skoochy wanted to defend her? A girl who could clearly defend herself. This was bad. Real bad. Skoochy immediately put his attention on the fire. Surely enough, the Komodo Rhino sausages were able to get rid of those thoughts. And those weren't the only things warming up. Someone managed to get some decent sized fish and something from one of the water tribes. Tiger Seal probably. It smelled amazing, whatever it was.

"I just remembered who she was! She's the Avatar's granddaughter" Pavo said, overly excited for his newfound discovery. But it did peak everybody's - including Skoochy's - interest.

"The Avatar's a teenager, stupid" And the Howling boy - who's real name was actually Luó now that Skoochy was able to remember it - said. Clearly he went against his name, for he wasn't that smart.

Tack brought himself into the conversation. "No the one before her. The one who's got the huge statue on Aang Memorial Island" And this didn't piss off Skoochy. He wondered what it would be like sitting on that bald marble head. It was probably fun. He should try it some time.

"So the guy who pretty much made Republic City." Luó finally understood.

"So that explains her being an airbender" Skoochy mumbled. Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed.

"What was that?" And by Luó none the less.

Skoochy shrugged it off. "Nothin you need to know about. Now let's eat." He said, grabbing some of the sausage. He didn't care how long it had been on the fire while he was there. It probably had all that time to cook on its own while he was gone. The rest of the boys started eating too.

That entire collection of food, a few betting games and some urban legends later, most of the boys were asleep. But Skoochy was left looking up at the sky. Well more at the flame that came out of Zuko's Statue. He stared at that thing until his eyelids and body couldn't handle it anymore, and he went to sleep - that book still in his pocket. Keeping his word was going to be an interesting challenge. But who could ever think Skoochy was boring?

The chinese character for Luó is supposed to mean smart or clever I think. Oh well. Could this have been shorter? Yes, but that wouldn't be fair to you guys!

So R & R . You don't have to, but it'd be a happy clam if you were. Plus you guys wanna know what happens, Ne?