Continued from where 18. Heat left off.

20. Demons

"Calm down!" Sokka exclaimed, then pointed his boomerang at the mask. He had managed to save it, somehow, by throwing it in one of the bushes outside their cabin as they were walking past it on their first day. Sokka counted himself extremely lucky on that point—he could have sworn one guard saw, then turned his head, but since the guard had a mask on, he never found out exactly who he was or what happened. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

The figure gracefully jumped down from the tree, landing on the balls of its feet. Katara couldn't help being slightly impressed. She didn't climb onto high places for the same reason—or rather, the opposite reason. If she did end up in a place that was taller than two of Hakodas stacked on top of one another, she closed her eyes and prayed her ankle wouldn't crunch when she landed. She carefully put a hand to her hidden waterskin and noticed that much of the group was doing the same.

"How did you find us?" she asked, as he wasn't answering any of Sokka's questions.

The figure crouched down and took something out of its pocket. It was a dagger, a very fine one with a shiny black handle and carved words on the side she couldn't quite make out in the semi-darkness. Sokka moved forward as if he meant to take the dagger or thought the mysterious being with the mask would lunge at them and plunge the knife into her chests. She tapped him back carefully. It wasn't as if she had the sense that he wouldn't hurt them—but she saw that he was writing carefully in the soft earth in neat handwriting.

My name is Lee. I am from the Earth House. I want to join you.

"Earth House?" Sokka frowned. "I don't think I remember you."

There are a million Lees.

"Point," Yue nodded, white strands falling from her elaborate hairstyle and sticking to her painted mask. She looked around at the crowd, each in the eyes. "Who can vouch for the honesty of Lee? Someone from the Earth House?"

The Earth Kingdom kids shuffled their feet. Katara held her breath, uncapping the cork, waiting.

Finally, a girl about Yue's age stood up, her brown hair in two braids handing over her shoulders. Her face was painted simply in light green with a swirl of tiny flowers, anemones, that her mother used to grow for business while living in their small village before traveling to Ba Sing Se. Katara vaguely knew her—Jin, a cheerful but timid girl who hid herself from the soldiers and teachers, fearful and shivering. She never talked about what happened to her after she was snatched from her mother on the road, and Katara never asked. It was something she never wanted Jin to talk about if it meant bring up the darkness of her past back. She was a pretty girl with bright eyes and an easy laugh in the Earth House, as Haru used to tell her, but around one Fire Nation person, she would freeze and sink away.

"I...I know him, Yue. I can vouch." Her voice was timid, and her eyes darted to the ground as she spoke, her hands trembling.

"Thank you, Jin." Katara smiled warmly, but Jin continued to stare at the dirt beneath her shabby shoes, her braids hiding her cheeks.

Lee stood up, sheathed his knife, and confidently walked forward.

Sokka still regarded him suspiciously. "Very well. Join us."

Lee seemed to blend right into their group as if he'd joined years ago and not just two nghts ago. He was silent and elusive, only answering simple questions. Katara watched him practice his broadswords, swinging with smooth elegance that made her wonder a lot of things. What did his family do? Were they swordsmiths? Did his father or brother teach him? How did he get captured? Where did he get those?

He scratched in lovely calligraphy, yet a hint of clumsiness to them, handling the writing implement—his dagger, a stick, or the end of a stone—with an easy air. Katara stared at him enviously. She barely knew how to write her own language, and the Fire Nation language was needlessly complicated and took yers to learn, but still not much progress for her. He must be from a good family, she decided. No peasant could learn how to write like that without proper schooling; they had to focus on hunting and cooking and cleaning and farming and survivial to even think about adding lovely flourishes as he did to their words. Katara's writing looked like picken scratch.

Not to mention the mask. It was a real mask, not a painted-on one like everyone's. Teo had told her it was an opera mask, and it was magnificent craftsmenship—no grain of wood was seen through the thick paint, the lines were perfectly clean, the wood seemed smooth and even shining in the moonlight, the shadows of the eyeholes expertly hid his eyes (but added no hinderance to his sight), and it simply looked real, as if a real monster had possessed the mask and was ready to snatch someone up on its fangs and carry them off.

His stealth was excellent, as sient as a pygmy puma, even with boots. Katara was dead sure that the clunky things would echo on wood for sure, but when they did their first raid together—he ran along the roof in soft, padding motions. It was amazing.

Everyone treated him with respect and awe, naturally. No one seemed to know who he was, despite that they pressed Jin for details, and those were small. They all looked up at him, peering up at him with round eyes, asking him to show them something. He even developed a nickname—the Blue Spirit, because a simple name like "Lee" didn't seem to fit with his appearance or...allure.

Sokka distrusted him, something he couldn't quite fit his finger on, though he allowed him to come along on raids. But he never let him sit on their meetings of planning an escape or such topics.

"Look, I don't know if it's the mask or the silence or the creepy silent-warrior thing he has going on," Sokka confided to Katara in the house when everyone had gone to sleep. "But something...I can't really pinpoint it, but I don't think we should fully let...Lee in."

"Maybe you're jealous?" Katara whispered back. "He is sort of a second leader. They come to him for advice."

Sokka shook his head. The covers rustled. "I'm not jealous."

Katara turned and pulled her blankets over her head. "Just sleep on it, Sokka. I think he's all right."

"You think just like them."

"Don't think about that, in terms of us and them. We can't be divided within our common goal." Katara sighed and rolled over again. "Sokka, just give him a chance. Let him into a few meetings. See how it goes. He doesn't ruin the raids or anything."

"Hm." Sokka groaned. "Maybe."

The Blue Spirit's mouth cannot be seen, but it twitches upward in a confident smirk.

He then turns away from the dark window and returns to his own room with silk sheets and gold embroidery.