Matchstick Wars

by Daezil

With the world teetering on the brink of another war and battered by threats from angry spirits one would hope for better than a cynical, apathetic, and untrained child for an avatar, least of all one born on the wrong side of the battle-lines. In fact, the only one more disappointed about the identity of the new avatar is the new avatar himself.

5. Spirit Tales

*Walks in over a month and a half late with Starbucks*

I totally have explanations for this update being so late. In fact, if you'd like, I could write you a ten-page essay about the things I've been doing instead of updating. I'm going to leave out the excruciating details though and simply go on the record saying: if you're thinking about balancing moving halfway across the world, cramming your schedule with as many intensive language courses as you can fit, writing for an original character tournament, maintaining a social life, learning how to do adult things in setting where you're functionally illiterate, AND keeping track of a fanfic that is quickly turning into a monster before your eyes...well, don't. Don't do it. Love yourself guys. Don't be like me.

That being said, this chapter was fun to write when it wasn't stressful, and it's my very first chapter posted from Japan! Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter Five: Spirit Tales

---

Two more days, Anyu told himself, just two more days.

It was more optimistic of an estimate than he usually indulged in. It would take at least another full day of solid driving with minimal refuel stops and no unforeseen setbacks and they would probably reach the port. From there it would be at least another day in the empire–depending on how long it took securing a ride to smuggle them into the Fire Nation and how much caution he put into finding said ride, it might take even longer. Then there would be the trouble of actually finding someone willing to meet with him and listen once they arrived in the Fire Nation.

A bump in the road sent a shoulder slamming into the back of his seat, jarring him.

Two days, Anyu vowed, eyes on the road. Then I can be done with this.

"Not to complain," Meiling complained from the back seat, "but how long until we stop again?"

Anyu considered ignoring her, as had been his policy for the first thirty miles they had driven a day and half ago. By now he wasn't stupid enough to think it would actually work.

"We just stopped to refuel." He said. So far short responses seemed to be the best way to discourage conversation, but she was getting bolder.

"That was, like, almost three hours ago!"

That long, really? Anyu eyed the needle on the fuel gage, disappointingly close to empty for his liking. They would have to stop again soon. He set his eyes back to the road. They could probably get another good hour down the road before then.

"Come on, I have to pee!" she whined.

Anyu pursed his lips, considering, then jerked the satomobile over to the side of the road, earning a squeal of surprise from both adolescents. "You have two minutes."

Meiling peeked out the window at the bushes on the side of the road skeptically, looking like she might protest, but then she shoved the back door open and swung out of the vehicle dejectedly.

"Please tell me there's a town nearby," the Avatar–Wei's voice came from directly behind him, sounding considerably more bored than his sister's. The kid had been a bit less obnoxious overall since they purchased some new clothes in the town before the last checkpoint.

"According to the map there's a place we can refuel maybe half an hour from here," Anyu admitted.

"I suppose there's no chance of us stopping for the night and actually sleeping in a bed."

Anyu felt a headache coming on. "Not unless you're that eager to get into another fight with the police." He didn't have to look back to see the eye-roll directed his way. He could hear the implied sass just fine. If anyone should be pissed it's me. I'm the one driving your sorry asses around and only sleeping a few hours a night. The things he did for the good of the world. Whatever cosmic being had decided to have him be the one to run into the avatar in the middle of enemy territory, he wanted to have words with them. He was a paid assassin–philanthropy was pretty far from his pay grade.

A moment later Meiling came back, slamming the door shut behind her, and they were on their way again.

Twentynine minutes and counting and Anyu was just starting to look for the turn off for the tiny village the map said should be around here when Meiling's head appeared over his shoulder, and he nearly swerved onto the other side of the road.

"Look, there's a place up there!" she all but shouted in his ear.

Sure enough off to the right there was a dusty two lane road and a rickety sign reading: Lao An, Population: 510. Pushing down his reluctance, Anyu turned them down the road, regretting every jolt on the uneven pavement and the way that encroaching branches and leaves swatted the sides of the satomobile. You would think these roads would be better kept, even if this place is in the middle of nowhere.

He realized why when they pulled out of the trees and found themselves parked on the edge of what could only be described as a wasteland. For miles and miles everywhere what logic said was supposed to be a quiet mining village was only rubble and ruin, buildings crumbling and missing roofs and walls, craters and seared holes haphazardly interrupting stores and houses. Further along the tree line showed damage to the forest too where trees had been toppled and burned.

In the back seat, one of the kids made a strange, half choked noise. At first Anyu figured it was Meiling, but a glance in the rearview mirror showed her to be observing in relative calm. Her brother was the one curled up in his seat looking like he was going to be sick all over the upholstery.

"What could have caused this?" Meiling breathed against the window, so quiet Anyu barely heard her.

Not a what, Anyu thought, putting the vehicle in reverse before either of them could get too good a look. Definitely a who.

He tried not to think too hard about whether or not he had been through here on his way into the inner parts of the Empire. It was been a couple of months since he last passed this way. Even if he did happen to recall, it wouldn't do any good either way.

Back on the main road his thoughts turned back to things he could do something about. If I could cut back on time spent sleeping, we might make it in half a day. Not a pleasant thought, but he had gone longer without sleep before, when need be. Yana probably won't be in the city, this time of year, but she might be able to put me in contact with someone. This is Avatar business, the White Lotus should jump all over it. Just bring the kids to the capital, and you're as good as a free man.

They were another fifteen minutes down the road when they started to hear an alarming grinding sound from under the hood. Anyu let up on the accelerator a bit. They made it another few yards before the vehicle started jolting and ground to a stop.

Anyu punched the accelerator a couple of times with nothing but a complaining clattering noise in response.

Oh, spirits, no! He pleaded, jumping out of the driver's seat and walking around to assess the damage. When he lifted the hood, smoke spewed from the machinery underneath.

"Get out," he told the faces staring at him from inside the satomobile with maybe just a little too much venom.

Well, Anyu, he told himself, that's what you get for being an optimist.

"Looks like we're walking."

---

If there was anything Nianzu hated more than dealing with the empress, it was dealing with civilians.

"Tell me again, when and where exactly was this boy you saw?" he said, words rolling past his lips for what was undoubtedly the tenth time that afternoon.

"It was yesterday, around breakfast," the man, broad shouldered, stiff faced, and obviously wanting to get back to the bag of potatoes he'd been unloading from his truck. "Came into town with a couple other people–we don't get many out-of-towners through here these days. Didn't stay long, just picked up some groceries over at Yuu's place."

"And you're sure he looked like this?" Nianzu shook the poster featuring the Yuan family's pictures, pointing to Wei's face.

The man didn't bother giving it much of a glance-over. He shrugged. "Could be. The kid looks familiar, but I wasn't exactly committing faces to memory, mind you. I don't recognize any of the others there, though my wife says there were a couple of other people that came through too."

"I see," Nianzu said, sensing that he had lost the man's interest for good. That was the problem with these country bumpkins–no respect for a man in uniform. "Thank you for your time. If you remember anything be sure to let us know."

The man let out a noncommittal grunt and continued unloading his truck.

Well, that was about as unhelpful as the past nine interviews, Nianzu mused as he walked back down the street towards his own vehicle.

It was safe to say that the search for the avatar was not going well. It had been almost a week since the empress had merrily kicked him out of the palace with a military issue satomobile, four military officers under his command, a communicator hooked up to the military's main communication's line for keeping posted and reporting in, and a death threat. So far the vehicle had turned out to be the most useful by far.

Nianzu didn't have much patience for young officers. Not that he didn't have the commanding experience–the campaign to unite the Earth Empire had given him plenty and more than he would ever care for. But now he was a general, and being handed a rag-tag assortment of young men who weren't really old enough to remember the true horrors of the reign of the last Earth Queen felt a lot more like babysitting than it did leading. Shamefully enough, he had been almost relieved when the two sergeants with them had turned up missing three days ago in one of the less friendly towns they had passed through. Small towns were a lot more hostile than Nianzu remembered from his campaigns, though granted that had been some fifteen years ago.

The two officers left were lazing against the side of their truck, obviously having turned in the towel with their own investigations long before he had. The closest to him leaned against the hood, flipping through a magazine that Nianzu didn't want to know the contents of and whistling in a way most unbefitting of men in dire straights such as they. He was one of those haughty types, top of his class and well aware of the fact. He had been one of the first of the newest round of mecha pilots to get his license and the first to lose said license. It was one thing to get your mecha unit hijacked–things happened, especially campaigning in some of these outer provinces closer to the boarder. Getting your mecha unit hijacked by a fifteen-year-old on the other hand was one way to find yourself on the military's shit list. The guy was just lucky that the empress had taken pity and given him the opportunity to earn his license back by helping to apprehend the very delinquent who had stolen it.

"Bohai," Nianzu snapped as he approached, and the young pilot straightened sharply, nearly dropping the volume in his hands.

"Sir!" he practically yelped.

Nianzu mentally sighed. "Any news to report?"

"No, sir. Nothing beyond what we had already found out."

Fantastic. Nianzu turned to his only remaining underling who was actually seated in the back of their truck, whittling on a piece of wood with his military issued pocket knife.

Major Tengfei was a good enough officer–a bit on the thin side for an earthbender, but he made up for a lack of physical presence with a sharp mind and good observation skills, which spirits knew they could use right now. He was somewhere in his later twenties or early thirties but didn't look it quite yet, and he always had the same carefully blank expression on his face that was starting to give Nianzu the creeps. Nianzu had been admittedly confused when he found out that, unlike everyone else here, Tengfei had volunteered for the empress's little hunting squad. After a bit of digging he had found out that the man had a pair of elderly grandparents and some close cousins living in the Lower Ring…right along the path of where the avatar had taken his mecha joyride out of the city. Nianzu's confusion ended there, as did any casual ease he might have felt around the young officer–you always had to watch the intense types, never knew what they might do. As such, he didn't indulge conversation with the man very much if he could help it, which seemed to suit them both just fine.

"And you, Major?" he asked, more for procedure's sake than anything else at this point.

Tengfei shook his head, not even looking up from his whittling. "The locals didn't seem very inclined to speak with me."

Nianzu scratched had his beard thoughtfully. "I faced similar reception. It seems this province in general has been reluctant to cooperate."

"Yeah," Bohai said, looking too much like a kicked puppy for Nianzu's professional taste. "Some of the locals wouldn't even talk to me, and the old lady that runs the clinic over there said that they haven't had anyone come through here for six weeks before we showed up."

"Well, that's obviously a lie." Nianzu furrowed his brow distastefully at the thought. Back in his campaigning days no one would have dared lie to anyone wearing a uniform.

"Some of the people I talked to had similar stories," Tengfei admitted. "Others claimed that there were some people in town recently, but they all varied on how long it had been and what they looked like."

"Maybe they were confused?" Bohai suggested. "Everyone seems really busy around here, so maybe none of them can remember it quite right if they weren't paying attention."

"A town is visited by strangers for the first time in weeks and no one at all takes notice," Nianzu shook his head. "If this were big place like Omashu then I might believe it if no one remembered properly. But a small place like this? Gentlemen, I believe that we're being purposefully put off and mislead."

Bohai, for his part, looked absolutely affronted. "Why would they do that, though? I mean, we're working for the good of the empire!"

Tengfei paused for a moment mid whittle and shot the pilot an incredulous look. "Are you actually an idiot?"

Patience, Nianzu reminded himself. "I suppose you're one of those who's lived in Ba Sing Se your whole life." A nod. "Well, out here in the rest of the empire there aren't people like the Dai Li or large, well equipped police forces to keep the peace. These people aren't used to seeing us military types around unless there's a problem. People get nervous." Especially these older types who remembered all too much from the old days when the empire was fractured and they'd had to do to put it back together from the ground up.

"So they lie." Bohai said sourly.

"People are naturally inclined towards lying," Nianzu deadpanned. "Now if only we had a way of telling which of these upstanding citizens are telling us falsehoods and who actually knows what they're talking about."

Bohai laughed abruptly, slapping the hood of the truck. Nianzu and Tengfei stared at him.

"Something you'd care to share with us, pilot?" Nianzu asked, feeling a headache coming on. Or maybe it was just returning since he wasn't sure the one the empress had given him had ever fully gone away.

"Nah, it's just, that reminded me," he quirked a smile much too genuinely amused for a military man, and Nianzu resisted the urge to slap it off of his face. "While I was asking around at the grocer's if they had heard anything unusual from the neighboring towns this little kid complained that there was a witch living in the next village over."

"A witch," Nianzu repeated, truly at a loss for where his subordinate was going with this.

"Yeah, a witch," Bohai affirmed. "A witch who can read minds and knows if you're being dishonest. I thought the kid was just telling tales, but then one of the women in the shop said that she had heard the rumor too. Country folk and their wild imaginations!" Bohai chuckled again. "Wouldn't that be helpful, though? Having someone along who could read minds?"

"There's no such thing as witches," Nianzu felt it uncomfortably necessary to tell him. Then he thought over the information and frowned. There's no such thing as mind reading. If it was simply a matter of telling whether or not someone was being honest though…he had heard stories, some of them from the empress herself, about certain earthbenders who had the ability. Toph Beifong herself had been rumored to be one such person. It was possible…

"Which village was this?" he asked, and he knew almost immediately that he was going to regret this.

---

It was day six of being on the run, and Wei was sick to death of charming countryside towns. Especially when said town was about two miles off of the main road and, coincidentally, spitting distance from a military depot.

It had taken them a good hour of walking before they had found this place, and thank goodness the place had a decent service garage and someone willing to drive down the road and tow their satomobile. Wei knew he should probably be more invested in the conversation between Anyu and the mechanic, but right now all he could focus on were the wooden panels beneath his feet and trying really hard not to throw up.

Calm, calm, it had been his mantra for the last hour and a half.

"You look like complete shit," Meiling felt the need to inform him. He wanted to tell her to shut up, that she wasn't helping, but he was afraid that if he opened his mouth to talk he might actually puke all over the nice mechanic's floors, and then Anyu would probably make them go outside, and while the wooden bench in the shop wasn't the greatest place to hang out it was still somewhere to sit which was all he felt up to doing right now.

Silence lapsed between them, only broken by the soft conversation of the two adults in the room. It didn't last–of course it didn't.

Meiling let out that miffed little puff of air she always did. "Wow, you must really feel like shit too if you're not even going to comment."

Wei managed a groan that accomplished nothing accept for sounding completely pathetic.

"What even happened? You better not be developing motion sickness because if you do then our mecha fighting career is in jeopardy."

Our mecha fighting career? There was a problem with that phrase. Mainly the 'our' and the 'career' parts. Unless they could get their hands on another mecha unit and locate another open fighting ring in the Fire Nation, Wei was pretty sure that his fighting days were going to be put on a bit of a hold. Which, well, there went their main source of income.

"You're probably sick, with your luck," she was saying. "Trust you to catch the flu out of season."

Wei was building up the courage to say something when Anyu came storming over to them. There was no blood on his hands or the walls so Wei figured negotiations had gone okay, though the mile-long-stare that he had been wearing for most of the past day and a half appeared to be wavering in favor of something a lot more…angry.

"Come on," he said, nodding to the door. "Might as well get some lunch."

Meiling perked up at that. Wei's stomach churned uneasily and he kind of wanted to cry.

The town they were in (Hong Shan, Wei vaguely remembered from the street sign) did a fair amount of business for a mining town, so there were a couple of places to eat. They ended up at a stir-fry place just across the street where Wei managed to choke down some rice and pretend like the room wasn't spinning.

"So, what's the news?" Meiling asked finally when their plates were mostly empty. "Good, or bad?"

Anyu was staring out the window. He seemed to be in the habit of deliberately not looking at them, as if ignoring the fact that they existed would somehow make them just go away. Wei would have found it annoying if attracting his attention didn't scare him so much. It was bad enough that they were stuck traveling with a murderer babysitting them–if the guy didn't want to get chummy with them, well, that suited Wei just fine.

"The good news," Anyu managed eventually, just barely turning to face Meiling, "is that the mechanic here can fix the satomobile."

"That's great!" Meiling said. Wei could agree with that–walking was definitely not something he wanted to face the possibility of, especially out here in the outer provinces where towns were generally smaller and more scattered.

"The bad news is that to fix it he needs to order a part, and that's going to take a couple of days."

Wei slid down in his seat bonelessly. Stomach churning slightly less now that he had managed some food, he chanced opening his mouth. "We can't…acquire another satomobile?"

Anyu made direct eye contact with him for the first time in twenty-four hours and Wei sunk even lower in the booth. "In a town like this? No."

Meiling leaned in curiously. "Why not, though? I mean, it worked before–"

Anyu drew a hand over his face, looking annoyingly like someone trying to reason out philosophy to five-year-olds. "Look. I'm not going to ask how you two got as far as you did on your own. Obviously it worked out all right in the areas closer to the capitol–you probably weren't the only ones using less than honest means to get around.

"We're not near the capital anymore. People out here are a lot more stubborn and a lot less under control than your empress would probably like them to be. You saw that military outpost we passed on our way into town? No one out here likes the military getting involved in their business, which is probably the only thing that is keeping whatever authorities that are chasing you two lagging behind us. But the thing is, people out here don't see many strangers. We keep our heads down, keep the locals happy and uninterested in us, odds are no one's going to feel obliged to give out honest information when soldiers roll into town asking about us. We start stirring up trouble, steal from the locals? We're going to have an entire town out for our blood, and one tied to a military outpost at that."

Wei eyed some of the locals walking on the street through the window. "You make a bunch of townsfolk sound almost scary."

The corner of Anyu's lip twitched lightly, like it wanted to sneer but didn't have the energy. "You city kids are more sheltered than you think you are."

Meiling looked absolutely offended. Wei just rolled his eyes. "Oh I just bet."

Anyu seemed to have gotten over his chattiness, and Meiling didn't seem willing to pick it up from there like she usually did and was content leaning back in the booth, swinging her legs under the table. Wei went back to looking out the window, trying to ignore the remaining pangs in his stomach.

"You shouldn't be so quick to resort to stealing," Anyu said out of the blue.

Wei started and banged his forehead on the windowpane. "What?"

"You shouldn't be so eager to steal from people," he repeated. He wasn't making direct eye contact anymore, instead having settled his gaze level with Wei's forehead, attentive but still reluctant to acknowledge him fully.

"Seriously?" Wei heard himself saying. "This from the guy who we met in prison?"

Anyu didn't back down. "I'm not saying I'm a role model–I didn't exactly sign up to play responsible adult figure here. I don't know what your collective history is–let's keep it that way. What I'm saying is, kids your age shouldn't be looking to start fights and be criminals."

Despite the twisty feeling still lingering in his stomach, Wei managed a smirk. "Is that the sort of advice you would have paid attention to when you were our age?"

Anyu's eyes narrowed, and his eyes wandered around the restaurant, finding the only other occupant, the stewardess, manning the counter well out of earshot. "No. But I'm not the avatar."

Wei felt his fingernails dig into his palms. "I see." Meiling's hand was on his arm before he could even think about moving. Not that he was thinking about it with how awful sudden movements had been making him feel.

"Hey, it looks like there's a motel across the way over there," Meiling said, leaning over to point out the window and cutting between their confrontation. "You know, since we're going to be here a while."

---

Upon inquiry all but one of the motel's rooms were vacant, and the bent-shouldered old man who owned the place offered them a cheap rate for however long they needed.

"Not many folks coming through here these days," he said cheerfully as he handed over the room key. "Especially not since…" his eyes lost some of their shine. His smile stayed firmly in place. "Well, anyway, you're in the second room facing the road, but you can always switch if traffic noise bothers you."

Anyu took the key without much comment. Meiling, though, had obviously had her interest piqued.

"Since what?" she asked.

The motel owner rubbed the bald patch on the back of his head. "Ah, well now, I wouldn't want to bother you nice folks with silly local troubles."

That didn't sound good. "Local troubles?" Wei chipped in.

"Well, some folks around here are just a little stirred up lately–people like to talk and gossip, you know. Lately we're got a batch of rumors going around that the local spirits have gotten stirred up about something."

"Spirits," Wei said. His stomach dropped again.

"Just people getting excited over nothing, I'm sure," the man said, smiling wide enough to show his gums. "We don't get much action in these parts."

Anyu paused mid-step already on his way to the door. "…No," he said, "I wouldn't think you would."

The elderly man's smile froze on his face. "Y'all just let us know if you need anything."

Wei shared a raised brow look with Meiling on their way to the door, but she looked just as lost as he did.

Their room wasn't much; there was a sitting area sporting a fold-up futon (brought in by the owner's wife), some chairs and small table, small kitchen in the corner, and a door close to the kitchen leading to a closet sized bathroom. The far side of the room was partitioned off by a screen and held two twin-sized beds. Anyu took one look at the accommodation and staked his claim on the futon.

There was a radio on one of the side tables that worked well enough, so they spent most of the evening listening to the news and then some crime drama that came on after. There wasn't much conversation, not that Wei minded the silence.

Wei didn't remember what a luxury sleeping on a mattress was until he lied down in one of the beds and nearly wept. It was a pretty crappy mattress–stiff and obviously well used, but it was something that wasn't the floor or the backseat of a satomobile, and he didn't have to share, which made it almost perfect. If it weren't for the fact that his stomachache had left a headache in its place after it finally left he probably would have been able to fall asleep the moment he settled under the covers.

After he had rolled over in bed for what had to be the hundredth time in an hour, Meiling rolled over in her bed to face him. "Still feeling bad?"

He worried for half a moment about disturbing Anyu, but from the sounds of deep steady breaths and the occasional light snore from the other side of the screen, the guy was already out. Well, that was one point deducted from the 'constantly vigilant, inhuman predator' bounty-hunter image.

Wei sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. I don't get it. It doesn't feel like I'm sick. I just feel…off balance. Also like someone dropped a brick on my head."

Meiling hummed thoughtfully. "It started when we pulled over at that place up the road, right?"

"Yeah," Wei said. "Why?"

"That place was weird."

A dark laugh escaped his lips. "Yeah…fresh ruins in the middle of the empire are generally uncommon." He really didn't have good feelings about what could have caused them. He'd be glad when they had put more than a couple of miles between them and that place.

"…Don't tell me you didn't feel it."

His canine dug sharply into his lip, purely on impulse. He really needed to stop doing that if he wanted to not have a perpetually bloody lip. "…No one else brought it up. I wasn't sure you had noticed." Noticed how the moment they had driven up to the ruined village everything had gone cold and the air had gotten thick with…with something, static or ozone maybe.

"It didn't make you sick though," Wei said, words coming out a bit more accusing than he had intended them to.

Meiling made that humming sound again. "Maybe I didn't get the full effect that you did. I mean, for me the atmosphere just felt kind of heavy, like there was a storm overhead, and I felt a little twitchy."

"I felt all that too," Wei admitted. "I felt sick to my stomach, though, like someone had sucker punched me in the gut. And there was this…prickly feeling I got, like stuff was crawling over my skin." He rolled over to press his face into his pillow and groan in frustration. "That's just not fair."

"It could make sense, though, right?" Meiling said. "That guy said that the spirits around here had been acting weird. And, I mean. You're the avatar. Aren't you supposed to be more spiritually sensitive by default?"

Wei remembered spirits on a rooftop and a cold, angry aura that had, in a way, started this whole mess. He nodded thoughtfully, but the motion was likely lost on her. "I mean, yeah. And, well, Mom always said that we attracted spirits like mothflies to a flame when we were little–both of us, so maybe you're spiritually sensitive too and that's why you noticed something was up but our beloved escort didn't seem bothered."

Another thoughtful hum. "So whatever weird spirit stuff is going down around here…that place–Lao An?–that's probably the cause of it." The springs on her mattress creaked sharply as she shot up in bed. "It's like one of those mystery novels you're always reading!"

Wei's headache flared in a particularly vicious throb. He had a bad feeling he knew where she was taking this conversation. "No."

"We should investigate!"

"Meiling, no! No, no, noooo." This was why he had been so glad to finally have his own room at home.

More creaking. Was she bouncing in her bed? "Come on, spoil sport! We're stuck here for a few days anyway!"

"As much as I hate to agree with our resident bounty hunter, I think I'd rather not stir up trouble in a strange town with law enforcement so close."

And there was the annoyed puff again. He wasn't going to be getting sleep anytime soon. "We won't cause trouble–just do some investigating. What's the point of being the avatar if you can't take care of some spirit shenanigans? I bet if we could figure out what's going on the towns people would be really grateful, too!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I had already made it clear I'm not up for the whole avatar shtick. Must have been my imagination. My bad."

He didn't need to see Meiling's disappointed scowl to know it was there. "Yeah, you really are sorry. Wei, come on!"

The throbbing in his head was rapidly increasing tempo. "I told you when you wanted to come along, Mei–this isn't supposed to be fun. Why–" Something clenched in his chest as he thought over the smiles on his sister's face from the past week, the carefree humming and chatting when all he could think about was getting to the next town and how far they could stretch their money before they had a problem. And yeah, most of that was just Meiling being Meiling, but even for her…something was just not setting right with him. "Why are you so eager to play this off as a vacation, huh? How can you be so damn chipper about all this?"

The creaking on the other side of the room stopped. There was a heavy whump, a moment later, probably Meiling flopping back on the mattress finally. After a couple of moments he started to think she was ignoring him and felt a pinch of irritation.

"Dad asked me about the mecha fighting thing," she said out of the blue, "you know, while you were out cold."

"Oh," Wei said, not really sure how that was supposed to answer his question.

"So, I told him. Well, okay, he got the skimmed-over version. He wasn't happy. Couldn't believe we'd do something so 'reckless' and 'irresponsible' and gave this whole big speech about how engaging in illegal sport was bad and all that stuff. He said he couldn't believe you'd use your 'natural given talent' for something like that and that I had encouraged you."

Wei winced. He opened his mouth to say something that probably would have been bitingly sarcastic, but Meiling kept talking.

"Afterwards, Mom pulled me aside. D'you know what she said?"

"What?" Wei asked, because it was clear that was what she expected of him.

"She said 'Mei, it's all well and good that's you're smart and talented, but you really should be focusing your energy on other areas. I'm worried that you're spending all your time and effort on these hobbies of yours in these years when you should be refining yourself.'" A shaky laugh burst from her lips. It made Wei's skin crawl. "I spent two years designing and building a fully functional mecha unit, Wei. Two years! I finished building a mecha at fourteen! A waste of time, apparently. I have more important things to be focusing on, apparently."

Wei stared at the ceiling, willing the blankets to swallow him up. "Disappointment", she had whispered so many weeks ago, when she thought he wouldn't hear. "That's always been my job."

Her bitter laugh trailed off into a frustrated sigh. "Never mind," she said. "You wouldn't get it."

No, I don't, he thought. He really didn't want to get it. He hoped he never would.

"Goodnight, dummy," Meiling said. It was a long time yet before either of them slept.

---

The next morning, Wei woke from a light and uneasy sleep to find that he was the only one awake, surprisingly enough. While he was used to Meiling sleeping most of the morning away when she could get away with it, he had had yet to catch Anyu in the act and was almost unnerved to walk into the main part of the room and find him still passed out on the futon. Whatever eerie peace might have been invoked by the scene was abruptly broken by the man's ear-bleeding snore that tore through the room. It only served to further undermined the cool, stealthy image that Wei had been building up of the guy in his head.

A look out the window revealed that the first couple of pale rays of sunlight were only just beginning to creep above the horizon. No wonder no one else was up yet. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly and made for the bathroom, figuring that, as long as they were stuck here he could make use of finally having a place to wash up.

He showered quickly on autopilot, falling into his usual school morning routine despite almost two months of neglect without even realizing it. Then he considered the aches in his back left over from sleeping in a satomobile for the past several days and the fact that he had fuck-all to do today anyway and decided to run a warm bath. He somehow ended up running the water hotter than usual without registering it and nearly scalded himself when he settled into the tub. But the heat felt nicer than anything he had felt for the past week, and the steam building up in the room made him feel cozy somehow.

About ten minutes into a good soak with no motivation to abandon it anytime soon, Wei ran his hands over the surface of the water thoughtfully, wondering at the soft tug of resistance from the water at his fingertips. It felt a little more insistent than he was used to, though maybe that was just him overthinking it since he had finally puzzled out how to coax little bits of water to move with his hands the other day when he had fallen in the stream.

Sinking back into the water until his face was barely above the surface Wei lifted his hand slowly, a grin spreading itself across his lips unbidden when a couple of water droplets followed his palm into the air.

Anyu's probably right, Wei thought, this is really pathetic. But it was waterbending, pathetic or not.

He carefully moved his hand through the air for a while, watching the little water drops float around to chase it while he concentrated on keeping them from falling back into the tub. He wasn't so sure why he was so enraptured to be honest. Earthbending had never been like this–fresh and new and exciting despite his better judgment. Earthbending had been a lot of panic and breaking things and careful, quiet explorations when no one was around to notice when he screwed up too badly. Firebending so far had been pretty similar to that, though with even more panic and more pretending like it didn't exist in place of experimentation, despite Meiling's best efforts.

This was…different somehow. Safer than bending usually felt–he wasn't going to crush someone's foot or set anything on fire if he screwed up. Water wasn't loud or showy in the way earth and fire wanted to be, and it seemed to actually want to move with his actions, once he finally figured out how to reach out to it. This was something he could do without drawing too much attention and without worrying about anyone getting hurt or upset.

The bathwater had long gone cold before Wei finally pushed himself out of the tub and toweled himself off. He was still lingering, taking his time drying off when sounds from outside drew his attention.

Anyu had disappeared from the futon when he walked out into the main room and was standing leaning against the doorframe, watching whatever commotion was going on from the window by the door. The look he shot him when they tiptoed over to join him was surprisingly tolerant, especially for how early it was. The only other acknowledgement he gave was to raise a finger to his lips and turn back to watching out the window.

There was a cop standing in the middle of the main road outside the town hall talking with an older gentleman who was dressed well enough that he might have been the mayor and some other guy who was a bit younger and more shabbily dressed. The officer was tall and bent-shouldered in a way that was half weary, half bored and suggested that he was probably the only police officer in town. On both sides of the road, people were starting together, pausing in their daily business and failing at casualty badly enough to make it obvious that they'd come from all corners of town to gawk at whatever business was going on.

"Something happened last night," Meiling's voice said right behind him, and Wei jumped. She rudely ignored the sour look he shot her in favor of shoving up next to him to stare out the window too. "I heard something out there last night, like someone running by really fast, being chased."

"Did you actually see anything, though?" Wei asked. Running feet made him think thieves. The last thing they needed was to be stolen from.

Meiling quirked a sour look right back at him. "I was half asleep–why would I get out of bed for something like that?"

Survival instincts? Wei wondered. He knew he sure wasn't sleeping as deeply as he had used to before they went on the run

Some other people had been called over to talk with the cop and the mayor, their voices carrying a bit better.

"…on the residential street this time, right outside my house!" the shabbily dressed man was saying. "If my wife hadn't woken up it might have spread to the house and everything would have gone up!"

"…The third incident this week!" a slight of form woman was saying. "I'm starting to wonder if the streets are safe at night!"

"Before this it was mostly harmless, but now…"

"No doubt it's arson. Not denying it now!"

Wei didn't like the sounds of any of that. "A fire in town?" One either deliberately set or at least believed to be so.

"Several fires, from the sounds of it," Meiling said thoughtfully. "Who's doing it, you think? What does it mean."

The view from the window was suddenly cut off sharply as Anyu yanked the curtains closed. A pronounced crease had appeared on his forehead that made it look like he was either contemplating something deeply or trying not to punch a wall.

"For the three of us," he said firmly, "it doesn't mean anything. We're not getting involved."

"But what if the arsonist sets fire to the motel?" Meiling wondered, getting that thoughtfully belligerent look on her face. "Wouldn't it be our problem then? Shouldn't we at least be aware of any potential dangers?"

Anyu didn't look at all moved. "We're only in town for a couple of days. Lay low. Don't draw attention to yourselves, and we won't have a problem."

"But that's boring!" Meiling huffed. "What else are we supposed to do for that long?"

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Anyu said, shrugging on his jacket. "Now, I'm going to go find food. You two stay here." He paused at the door, eying them both doubtfully. "Think you can stay out of trouble that long?"

"Uh, yeah." Meiling obviously didn't appreciate the skepticism in his voice. "I think we can manage."

He still looked doubtful, but he walked out the door anyway. The second the door closed behind him, Wei raised an eyebrow at his sister.

"You're going to go stick your nose in things, aren't you."

Meiling quirked a smile before turning to whip the curtains open again in time to watch Anyu walk down the street past the crowd. "You know me so well."

Wei took a deep breath in. Held it. Released it. Steeled himself. "You know, as much as I hate to agree with Mr. Murder-Fists, I kind of have to agree with him here."

Her head whipped around so fast one of her braids nearly whacked her nose. "Seriously? Not you too! We're here for days. We won't stir anything up, I just want to do some investigating!"

Wei winced internally at the thought. Sure we won't. Because our luck is always so stable. "Maybe we could, I don't know, take these days to actually lay low. Rest. That sort of thing."

Meiling gave him a hard look. "Do you want to spend the entire time laying low in the motel room? Resting?"

Fuck no. Just the thought of that much idleness made his fingers itch. Though the thought of having a little bit of down time to read sounded nice–just not, like, days worth of it. Especially not trapped in the same space as Meiling and a newly acquainted bounty hunter.

"No," he said carefully, because spirits knew that girl could detect weakness a mile away. "I'd just rather not spend it inside another prison cell either."

She shook her head sadly at him. "You're so paranoid, I swear."

…We're literally on the run from the police and I'm paranoid? Before he could think of a properly sarcastic response she had already turned and was heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Wei demanded. Well, less demanded, more indignantly squeaked if he was being honest with himself.

"Chill, I'm not going to start a riot," she said, "I'm just going to the front desk area to poke around for a bit. Anyu won't be back for a while–stay here and stew if you want."

He told himself he wouldn't follow her this time. If she wanted to stick her nose in things and get them in trouble, he wouldn't have any part of it. He told himself all the way out the door.

Surprisingly enough, the motel owner that had checked them in the other day wasn't at the desk when they got there. Instead he had been replaced with a slightly younger, more weathered looking man with graying hair that kept glancing at the front door nervously, as if expecting someone to come charging through. When they entered, he just about jumped a foot in the air.

"How can I help you?" asked, regaining his composure quickly.

"Oh, we're just kind of wandering around," Meiling said, waving her hand dismissively. "We were going to go for a walk, but it looks like there's some commotion outside."

The man gave her an indulging, if not slightly strained smile. "Ah yes, sure does look that way." A carefully evasive answer.

"I hope it's nothing too troublesome," Meiling continued, and never let it be said that she wasn't committed to her antics. When the man didn't respond readily, she added, "I thought I heard someone mention a fire."

The man's face went troubled. "Yes, unfortunately we've had a rash of fires lately. It's been a bit dryer than usual this summer, and some think it's making fires more likely to catch."

Meiling leaned against the counter, feigning interest in a rack of tacky key-chains. "Hmm, really? What do you think?"

The man took a half step back from the counter, eyes darting nervously to the door again. Definitely suspicious, Wei couldn't help but observe. "Me?"

"Well, you said 'some people' which implies not everyone." Meiling continued, running her fingers over one of the metal rings. She was being so careful to sound bored, and with the uncomfortable look written on the desk attendant's face, it was undoubtedly a good call. Why is he so nervous?

"All those people out there seem pretty worked up for a just a dry spell," Wei couldn't help piping in, and damn Meiling for getting him interested. He stood a bit further away from the counter in a way he hoped looked appropriately disinterested.

A beat of quiet–the man seemed to be debating something internally. His lips parted, hesitating for a moment longer. Then: "There's been some talk around town lately; you know how things are. People are just a bit stirred up is all. It's probably nothing."

You don't seem so sure about that. "What kind of talk?"

He hesitated again, and Wei was beginning to wonder if maybe they'd harassed the man beyond his usefulness when the door flew open and a woman came bustling inside, disturbing whatever tense atmosphere they'd had building.

"Huang!" she said, stopping just inside the door to lean against the frame. "Thank goodness! I'd heard…I wanted to make sure you were alright."

The man, Huang, gave another strained little smile. "Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

Why indeed? No, they were supposed to be staying out of this. Out of the corner of his eye, Meiling smirked at him.

The woman's eyebrows pinched together curiously, and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but then her eyes landed on him and Meiling. "Who're the kids?"

"Just some out-of-towners stuck while their ride's getting fixed." Huang said, waving his hand dismissively. The sounds of shouting outside picked up for a moment, before dying down again, and he winced. "They sound pretty stirred up."

The woman shook her head scornfully. "Everyone's getting worked up again. Look, you ought not miss the next town meeting. I know you're busy helping Fu out, but we could really use someone with a level head on their shoulders and some perspective–"

The conversation outside swelled louder again, this time clear enough to be well understood, "–and I know what I saw! I'm not the only one either! This aint no spirit we're dealing with here!"

Without thinking, Wei's feet carried him closer to the open door, Meiling drifting a few steps closer as well. Huang stayed resolutely behind the counter, but his attention was on the street outside.

"I saw it too!" Another voice shouted, followed by a couple other assenting calls. "That weren't no local spirit, and it weren't a person neither!"

More whispers, a swell of agitation through the gathered people. Wei couldn't see if the cop from earlier was still out there. He wasn't sure whether or not police presence would have made much of a difference and the thought was not at all comforting.

"You're full of buffaloyak shit, Kang!" Someone in the crowd called. "It was just a summer fire–"

There was a slamming sound–like someone stomping their foot against the pavement–and a slight tremor that had earthbender written all over it. Angry earthbenders–just what they needed.

"I'll tell you what it was!" the angry guy, Kang, spat. "It was a ghost!"

Another murmuring through the crowd, agitation and nervousness spreading like a plague through the gathered bodies. Apparently the cop was still around, because he stepped into view on the street, calling for a return to order. Wei didn't hear what he said. He didn't really care to listen anymore. He had a bad feeling about this.

"You see," the woman in the doorway hissed at Huang. "This is madness! Someone needs to talk some sense into them, and they're only going to listen if it's some who was there in L–"

"Alright!" Huang cut in, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Alright, I'll…whenever the next meeting is, if it's still a problem, I'll say something."

"That's all I ask," she said, looking a good deal less pinched about the eyebrows. She had barely stepped back through the door when Meiling was by Wei's side, prodding him back towards the door themselves.

"So, a local ghost problem," she mused as they skirted the edges of the crowd to creep back to their room before Anyu could show back up. "You've got to admit, that sounds interesting!"

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Wei said. He shouldn't need to tell Meiling that, but he felt it needed to be said here, just on principle. Spirits were an undeniable fact. They were mysterious, sure, and often times downright creepy, but they were indisputably real. Ghosts, on the other hand…ghosts were the stuff of folklore. No one had ever actually met a ghost, even after the opening of the spirit portals. Well, at least, no one who wasn't a complete liar or on some strong stuff at the time.

"Hmm," Meiling hummed back. "So you say, but–"

Oh, no, they were not playing this game. "No 'but', Mei, you know as well as I do! Whatever's causing trouble here, it's not a ghost."

"Alright," she said as they finally stepped back into the quiet of their room. "What then? You're curious, don't pretend like you're not!"

"Fine, I'm curious," the words tasted bitter on his tongue, but there were bigger priorities here, like getting that mischievous gleam out of Meiling's eye before it hurt someone (probably him). "But we need to lie low, Mei! Say it is something other than a normal arsonist or summer heat–how would we even investigate without people noticing?"

Meiling scratched her chin thoughtfully. It was a very dangerous thoughtfully. It was the type of thoughtfully that ended in putting spiderwasps in the neighbor's mailbox.

"So it can't be a ghost." She conceded. "You've gotta admit, though, this sounds like spirit shenanigans."

Wei had a bad feeling he knew where this was going. "Mei…"

"The best way to learn about the local spirits is to talk to spirits."

"Mei, no, I don't think…"

"And the best way to talk to spirits–"

"Mei, this isn't–"

"Is to go where there's a lot of spirit energy."

That nauseas feeling was coming back again. "I swear, Meiling, if you're about to suggest what I think–"

But Meiling wasn't paying attention to Wei. Caught up in her own excitement, she bounced on the balls of her feet and stabbed her finger into the air. "And it just so happens that we know a place with a shit ton of spirit energy!"

…Of course. Why should I have expected anything different?

---

In retrospect, Sang probably should have expected something like this to happen. Things had been going so well lately–the school had been attracting more students than it ever had since Grandfather had passed, and pleasurable weather had left everyone in An Zun in a good enough mood that it was almost bearable to walk around the market on most days. Even the usual scornful stares and whispers were unusually subdued and quiet, as if people were finally learning to get over themselves. Things were almost…pleasant.

She should have known. Good things never lasted.

Talk started up the moment the three strangers rolled into town a little past noon. The only reason she didn't catch wind of it was because she was in the practice yard at their tiny bending school, telling Jang Lu for the fifth time that he needed to stand with his feet wider apart if he didn't want to get knocked flat off his feet by the other boys. She was just starting to piece together another grand rendition of the 'you can't expect to improve your earthbending if you're not willing to improve your stance' lecture when Biyu bolted through the gate, face flushed with excitement.

"Saaaang!" she called, and Sang would forever marvel at the lung capacities of seven-year-olds.

"I'm right here, sweetie," Sang said, and it looked like that lecture would be put on hold for now. "There's no need to shout."

Biyu bounced up and down on her feet, paying no mind to the reprimand. "There're some people outside that want to talk to you!"

Strangers? They knew everyone in the village by name, and Biyu wasn't likely to get so excited for familiar faces. "Tell them I'll be around shortly."

She took perhaps a little more time than was necessary getting the students set in their repetitions and occupied enough that no one was likely to cause any trouble within the next five minutes. Hopefully this interruption wouldn't take longer than that.

New neighbors? she wondered as she ducked through the gate. No, there's been no property sold, and we would have heard if anyone's family was coming to visit. Maybe they had come to observe the school? It didn't happen often anymore, but Grandfather's earthbending style had gained some popularity back in his day, back when backwoods towns might still garner attention once in a blue moon. If not that then why on earth would strangers come calling here?

She rounded the corner into the front yard and registered military insignias and stature in a half-second. It was almost long enough to turn on her heels and retreat back down the side yard before being seen, but only almost. Soldiers. She thought, heart suddenly beating uncomfortably hard. There are soldiers here.

There were three of them, two fairly young–probably not much older than herself–lead by an older gentleman that reeked of seasoned violence.

I don't like this. Sang thought. I don't like this one bit. It was a petty thought, born of years of petty company, and in any case irrelevant to the current situation.

"Ah, there you are, Sang," Grandmother said, catching sight of her faster than anyone else. She was standing on the doorstep to the house, hands folded in her sleeves where the military men wouldn't see them shaking. Biyu was dutifully standing next to her, all the seriousness a child could muster gathered on her face, but the way she bounded on the balls of her feet belied how impatient she was to be off chasing bugs in the flowerbeds again. Sang had half a mind to dismiss her inside with the uncomfortable feeling growing in the pit of her stomach, but Grandmother wouldn't approve of the rudeness.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Sang said, bowing to Grandmother and then to the soldiers (the wrong order of formality, she knew, but the soldiers would likely think it just the backwardsness of country folk).

"How may we help you?" she asked the eldest soldier, the picture of polite and respectful. His insignia labeled him a general, if Father's old lessons were remembered correctly. The vibrations at his feet spelled his beating heart's steady rhythm–calm as a rock, like someone who was much too used to standing at the top of things and looking downwards. "As I'm sure my Grandmother has told you already we are but humble people, but what is ours is at your disposal, General…"

"Nianzu," the general said, eyeing Sang up and down as if she were an ostrichhorse he was looking to purchase. It sent chills down her spine. One of the younger soldiers, the broader of the two smiled down at Biyu and crouched down on her level to talk with her quietly. That wasn't giving her any good feelings either. "Yes, well, it's a bit of a silly thing, actually. You see, me and my men are currently in pursuit of a dangerous criminal under the Empress's orders. We have reason to believe he might have passed through this area, but we've had some unfortunately luck gathering information."

His heartbeat held steady through the explanation. Sang felt her eyebrow furrow through years of well-trained manners. "And you worry he's come here? I assure you, there have been no strangers through here recently–you can ask anyone in town." From the subtly pinched look on Grandmother's face she had already told him as much.

"No, we're fairly confident that he hasn't come through here," the general assured her. "Actually, we've come to talk with you Miss Sang."

As if to emphasize the unpleasant shock that the words sent through her, there was a shout and horrendous crashing sound from the backyard. Beneath the polite mask, Sang flinched. Probably some of the boys fighting again. Grandmother muttered an apology under her breath and shuffled towards the back, leaving her for all intents and purposes alone with the soldiers. With her gone, Biyu started rocking on her feet all the harder, clearly wanting to be dismissed. General Nianzu didn't look too keen on having her present either, from the way he was side-eyeing her distastefully. Probably not a fan of children, then, or maybe not a fan of how one of his soldiers had decided to indulge her by picking a dandelion from beside the path for her to play with.

"Biyu," Sang said carefully, "Why don't you show the nice soldier the front garden while we talk?"

Biyu glanced up from the dandelion eagerly, childish relief clear on her face. " 'Kay!"

Once she had dragged the soldier just out of earshot, Sang turned back to General Nianzu, nearly sighing with her own relief. She wasn't eager to have Biyu playing with a soldier, but the two were still close enough to watch without her having to worry about childish ears hearing their conversation. "You'd like my help? Whatever for?"

"I was wondering if you might indulge me in some curiosity," he said. Over in the garden, Biyu gave a delighted laugh. He glanced to the side at the sound, watching. "It seems those two are having fun. What do you say we play a game as well?"

A game? Curious and curiouser. "Al…Alright?" She agreed, because one simply didn't turn down a military man. Especially not one on a mission from the empress herself. "What kind of game?"

"It's very simple," General Nianzu said. "I will tell you some statements, and then I'll ask you some questions."

"Okay," Sang said. It sounded innocent enough, which definitely meant there had to be something more complicated going on here.

"Very well," the general said, "Let's begin. My men and I come from Ba Sing Se. Three weeks ago the empress gave us our orders and we've been on the road ever since. My subordinate here is Tengfei, and the one playing with your…"

"Sister," Sang supplied.

"And the one entertaining your sister is Bohai." He paused, as if to let her take in the information. "Which statement was a lie?"

Oh, she thought, watching the expectant look behind his expression. I see. She pretended to look thoughtful, cursing nosy neighbors and loose tongues. Probably best to play along. If they had come here for rumors then they would expect her to live up to them to at least a certain degree. "The second statement, I suppose."

A pleased crinkled around his eyes, carefully masked. "How do you figure?"

She forced a girlish smile. "Well, surely three professionals such as yourselves wouldn't need whole three weeks to hunt down a criminal." Your heart was flitting like a mothwasp.

"Good reasoning," he said. He didn't look so pleased anymore."How about a second round?"

"Alright, I suppose," Sang said, knowing good and well that there wasn't much of a choice here.

"The man we're looking for is wanted for widespread destruction and causing panic in the Lower Ring. We believe him to be traveling with a group of people. He is a very dangerous bender."

The second statement; his heart jumped there again. But there had been a strange flutter at the beginning of the first statement as well. Was he speaking in half-truths, or was he upset about something?

"The second statement again." Just play the game. They can't prove anything; let them think me a clever fool and nothing else. Let them see basic reasoning skills behind a backwater superstition and think themselves smart.

"You don't seem so sure," the general said, looking strangely smug. Damn me and my readable face.

"It's a harder choice," she said. "In any case, wouldn't it be easy to find him if he were in a group of people? I wouldn't think you'd have so many problems if he were to make himself so noticeable."

"A fair point, and a correct answer. How about one more go?" He didn't wait for her to give permission this time. "There are quite a few rumors floating around about you, Miss Sang. I've heard you're an earthbending instructor. I found that a bit strange–you're very young–but, you know, now that I've met you I think I can believe it. You're reading my heartbeat, to tell when I'm lying, aren't you Miss Sang."

Not a single lie, she barely registered past the pounding of her own heart. General Nianzu's was steady as a mountain, and just as unyielding. What to say? She thought. She was thinking about it too long. The general just stared at her smugly. Well. It appeared she had been officially found out.

"You look so panicked," he said. Do I? Her hand came up to fidget with her glasses without thinking. She supposed it made sense–she certainly felt like she was panicking. "Don't be. I've come to ask you a favor, one that would, of course, promote the welfare of the empire."

The empire's welfare, huh? It brought up memories of shaken cities, soldiers in the streets, Mom and Dad's shouting over the dinner table about wars and change. It certainly wasn't making her feel any less panicked.

"As I've stated, me and my men are on the hunt for a dangerous criminal. We've faced certain difficulties receiving straight answers regarding sightings and relevant information for his whereabouts, and having a person with skills such as yours would be an incredible asset."

One does not simply turn down a military man, that didn't stop her mind from racing to try and find a way. Grandmother hadn't returned from the back. Biyu was still chatting away in the garden.

"I…I'm honored by your request, General," she finally managed. "But I'm afraid I don't quite know what you're talking about. In any case, I'd be more than happy to assist you where I can, but I'm not sure it would be possible for me to be away for very long. There's no one else to run the school, you see, or to assist my Grandmother in my absence." There was in fact a man a town over–a former student of Grandfather's–who came by once a week to assist with earthbending lessons and anything else they might need, but the officers didn't need to know that.

General Nianzu's pleasantly neutral expression grew hard. "Miss Sang," he said, his voice dropping low and dangerous. "I think we both know quite well by now that I'm not the only liar here."

Definitely caught. Maybe if he was mad enough he might leave her here, even if she didn't go unpunished for lying to an officer. She didn't worry much what they might do to her, but if they did anything to Grandmother or Biyu in retribution…

As if reading her thoughts, Nianzu's eyes slid across the garden to Biyu again, before glancing back to her, considering.

"And I think we both know that that girl isn't your sister."

Any grain of hope she had been clinging to dropped out of her chest. How can he tell? More rumors in the village, maybe, though usually the townsfolk didn't air their dirty laundry to strangers. It wasn't really so hard a thing for shrewd eyes to notice, she knew–Biyu had never favored Sang's grandparents or her parents for that matter. She resembled Sang a bit more, but her brown eyes had to come from somewhere.

In any case, if General Nianzu had had any doubt, examining the look on her face surely erased them.

"We'll wait half an hour," he said with the air of a man who fully expected to be obeyed. "You have until then to gather your things. Pack lightly–we'll be on the move a lot." She couldn't help it, her eyes flew to the garden again, to Biyu and the young soldier she was playing with. He noticed. Of course he noticed.

General Nianzu gave her a considering look, and he smiled for the first time since they had started talking. It was not a kind smile.

"Go fetch your daughter. She'll be joining us too."

---

"I don't see why you feel the need to drag me along for this shit," Wei muttered under his breath when that night saw them walking down a deserted road rather than tucked away in bed like any sane person. The night air was suffocating–heavy and humid after a clear afternoon had given way to an evening of rain-showers and thunderheads, making him feel like he was sucking in water with every breath. So much for Huang's claim to summer dryness; it looked like they could cross drought off of their list of potential sane causes.

Sneaking out hadn't been easy. Anyu wasn't an idiot, and he clearly suspected that the two of them were going to try and pull something. They had had to wait until long after midnight for him to finally fall asleep, and even then Wei had insisted they make their exit through the window rather than chance Anyu waking up to the creaking of the door. Wei was still certain in some dark corner of his mind that the bounty hunter was going to wake up any minute, find them gone, and come hunt them down like animals…

Okay, so maybe he was getting a little bit paranoid. It certainly didn't help that the last time it had rained there had been murder involved.

To make matters worse, the downpours from earlier had turned most of the ground on the side of the road to a thick mud that sucked at Wei's boots with each step, making a loud squelching noise that was making it very hard to be as sneaky as late-night escapades were supposed to be. Meiling was still an obnoxiously good mood, hopping from puddle to puddle as if they were five-year-olds on a stroll in the park.

They had slogged their way back to the turn-off for Lao An when Meiling bounced into a puddle at the wrong angle, sending her feet skittering out from under her. In her panic, she grabbed ahold of Wei's shoulder to balance herself and instead pulled them both to the ground in a wet, muddy mess of limbs.

"Hey! Be more careful!" Wei hissed, wringing at his clothes hopelessly. They were going to need washing, and when you only had one other set of clothes to your name that could be a lot of trouble to go through. He hoped Anyu didn't notice and say anything about the mud stains tomorrow.

Meiling didn't even bother with brushing herself off and lifted her face to the sky. A beam of moonlight hit her through the trees on the side of the road at just the right angle to see a strange little smile lighting on her lips.

"What?" Wei asked warily. After their talk from last night he was finding himself a bit wary of her smiles and laughter, a little bit less trusting for them to be as carefree as she made them seem.

"Oh, nothing," she said, brushing him off to continue skipping through the mud. "I was just thinking…it's nostalgic, isn't it? Sneaking out in the middle of the night."

"Well, yeah, I guess. Now that you mention it." Truth be told he hadn't spared much extra thought for sneaking out tonight. After so long doing it behind their parents' backs it seemed like just another matter of business, like doing laundry or walking to school during the week. It felt…oddly comfortable, compared to all the other sneaking they had done this week. "If only there was a mecha fight at the end of this to blow off some steam."

Meiling chuckled, twirling in a circle so that her sodden skirt billowed out around her, spraying the undergrowth. And, well, why not. It wasn't like there would be any vehicles coming this way to catch them.

The village came into view faster than Wei anticipated, and he felt the drop in the pit of his stomach the moment they set foot past the gate. By moonlight, the place looked even more deserted than it had before, dead and pale as a corpse. The charged feeling in the air was even worse now that they weren't sitting in the back of a satomobile with a layer of metal between them and…whatever it was that was going on here.

"Feeling okay?" Meiling asked as they stepped into the ruins, shooting him a genuinely concerned look.

Wei swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to nod. A feeling like pins and needles had started along his arms, and he was already starting to feel sick to his stomach again, but it wasn't unbearable, and truth be told it wasn't so bad as last time. Maybe it was one of those things that just took getting used to. Just keep walking. We shouldn't be here that long.

Night cast everything in a spookier light than sunlight had, and barely a few meters in Wei was already starting to feel like they were in one of the bad horror movers Cheng used to take them to go see, back before he was too good for that sort of thing.

At first, everything seemed weirdly silent, which only added to the eeriness of the whole place. Then, he noticed soft sounds on the edges of his hearing–flickering, buzzing sounds, some close and high pitched with curiosity, some barely registering, far away before cutting out completely. He cast a glance at Meiling, but she didn't seem to be bothered–if she noticed, she was ignoring it quite well. He almost asked if she heard it too, but then considered that he might not want to know the answer.

That cold, oppressive feeling remembered from a rooftop in Ba Sing Se hit like a bucket of ice water once they passed the crumbling remains of a stone block that might have once supported a statue and entered what looked like it could have passed as some sort of central plaza at one point. There was a staticky feeling in the atmosphere again as well, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"What exactly are we supposed to be doing here, anyway?" Wei asked in a whisper (it seemed appropriate) when Meiling took a seat on the edge of the ruined stone block. He only took a half second to deliberate and take a seat next to her–cold stone beat wet ground any day.

"I don't know," she admitted, tugging her braid. "Communicate with the spirits somehow, I guess. You're the avatar–if anyone can make it work, I guess it should be you." There was a twist to her mouth that me could barely make out in the moonlight that made him almost certain she was mocking him.

"Oh, sure," he grumbled, "I'll just chat it up with the next spirit to pass by. Plenty of friendly takers, as you can see." He stretch his hand towards to deserted ruins in front of them, to emphasize its emptiness. Meiling gave him that irritated huff and turned away.

Truth be told–and he was pretty sure by this point that Meiling couldn't tell–the dead village wasn't feeling very dead anymore. The periodic flickers of sound were becoming more frequent, like things moving around them in the darkness. Occasionally he thought he saw things, too, in his peripheral vision–shadows that moved or changed shape, tiny sparks of gold floating through the dark. Flickering, barely-there forms gathering curiously that were never actually there if he turned his head to look. None of it was doing anything to fix the twisting feeling in his gut or to make him any more happy with this decision to come here.

"Didn't you go through spirit training or something at the palace?" Meiling wondered, leaning back until she was lying across the stone block. The sight of it made Wei uncomfortable–the stone under his hands was cold, cold, much too cold for summer, and it seemed to give off an ominous presence, like a sickly, living thing.

(That was ridiculous, he told himself, it was just a rock. Rocks weren't alive–when you touched them, they didn't touch you back. Not even as an earthbender. Not even as the avatar.)

"It was mostly just theory," Wei said, willing the quivering not to show in his voice. "Information on what we know about spirits from thousands of years of observations. I don't know why Master Liao even bothered–only the last fifteen years of study really matter anyway."

Was that something moving off to the right there? No, nothing again when he turned to look. Hopping hogmonkeys, he hated this place.

"Isn't there anything that might help?" Meiling asked. She was still lying on the rock, calm as a summer evening, somehow. It wasn't fair. "Something to draw them out? Meditation?"

"Meditation might be worth a shot." He didn't have the nerve to admit how much he sucked at it. He didn't want to think about what 'something to draw them out' might entail. Sucking in a breath, he scooted himself backwards until he was sitting cross-legged on the stone block. He did his best to ignore the cold feeling climbing from its cold surface and soaking into his clothes. The sooner you do this, the sooner Meiling will give up and agree to go back.

Deep breathing didn't come very easily, but it did come, and it didn't take quite as long this time to slip into a rhythm. Breath in. Ignore the buzzing sounds itching at his ears. Breath out. Don't think about the things seen on the edges of his vision. In again. Calm, there was nothing sneaking up on him. And out. Don't think. Not at all.

There were no apparent changes around him. Maybe addressing the spirits might help? It hadn't really worked last time, though it had gotten him a weird Avatar-memory-dream out of the deal. It beat listening to the creepy sounds on the edge of his hearing on any case.

"Oh Spirits of Lao An," he said in a low monotone, mostly just to sound more like he knew what he was doing in front of Meiling. "We ask that you appear before us!"

Nothing new. Not even cricketbeetles chirping to humor him. Great.

"Please, oh spirits," he tried again, concentrating so hard that he could feel a migraine growing in his temples, "come and speak with us."

More quiet–even the background sounds were growing more faint. Great, now they're just flat out ignoring me.

There was a soft shush of fabric as Meiling sat up next to him. "Maybe we're going about it the wrong way," she whispered.

"What do you mean?" Wei asked, feeling just a little miffed. After all, he was the one who had gone through buffaloyak shit spirit training, and she had been the one to point out that he was the more qualified one here.

"Anyu said people in these small towns aren't usually comfortable with strangers," she said. "Maybe the spirits aren't either."

That was a…strange idea, though it did make a certain amount of sense. Spirits tended to grow attached to the places that they inhabited, if they stayed there long enough. The behaviors of the spirits affected their human neighbors, and vice versa.

"How do you suggest talking to them, then?" Wei asked. "I'm not exactly the best at getting people I know to like me."

Meiling chuckled lightly. "Yeah, you suck at socializing. I don't know, just explain why we're here. Be honest. Let them know we're trying to help."

Trying to help. Is that what they were doing here? And here he had thought they were just poking around for their own curiosity. Sorting out spirit matters sounded much too close to Official Avatar Duties for comfort right now. He had told Meiling that…and yet here they were in Lao An, exactly where he didn't want to be.

Wei pushed the thought away for now–he'd get mad at Meiling about it later. Instead, he wracked his mind for inspiration. Spirits were more complicated than people in a lot of ways–they were hard to understand when they communicated and often temperamental and flighty. But one thing they had going for them–one this Wei had going in his favor–was that they were straightforward.

Just be honest, Meiling had said. Right. He could do honest.

"Oh Spirits," Wei tried again. "We're travelers passing through and sensed the wrongness of this place. Please, tell us what's wrong. What happened here?"

The barely-there sounds increased in volume a bit, humming with interest. Slowly, they grew louder, and Wei felt a presence, something in the clearing with them. Meiling's breathing was still steady and bored–unaware, so nothing corporeal had appeared then. Something was definitely interested though.

"We're just trying to figure out what's wrong here," he continued, "Why is Hong Shan being targeted? Did the people do something to you?"

The presence drew closer, dragging with it a heavy, staticky feeling that crackled through the air and made Wei's stomach flip. Next to him, Meiling went ridged, her breath hitched. "Wei," she breathed.

Wei didn't open his eyes. He didn't want to break his connection with whatever had obviously just shown up with them in the mortal plain. This was an awful, awful idea. But he had a feeling if he didn't see it through now they were going to be even more screwed.

"Tell us what happened here." There was no sound of footsteps to alert him of the spirit moving towards them, just the feeling of the atmosphere growing heavy and thick. It was crushing, like the air being sucked out of his lungs. His heart pounded in his chest, hard enough that he thought it likely to beat right out of his chest.

"Wei," Meiling hissed, sounding more panicked than he'd heard in a long time.

"Please!" Wei all but shouted, all too aware of the waves of anger rolling off of the being form moving towards them and terrified at what a spirit that pissed off might do. "I'm the avatar! I can help!"

The presence crashing towards them stopped right in front of him, halting abruptly. I can help. He wasn't sure how big a lie that was. He wasn't sure of anything at this point except for his still pounding heart. Against all better judgment, he cracked open his eyes, and Wei Yuan found himself staring down a monster. The spirit in front of him was similar to the small one he had seen back in Ba Sing Se, only about a billion times worse. Glowing red eyes that trapped him in their gaze, sending every primal fear of predation shivering down his spine. A cold feeling that sapped all the warmth in his body away. It's massive form–taller than some of the buildings here had probably been–seemed to shift endlessly, changing shapes as if it couldn't decide on which one to take. With each quivering of its body, golden sparks leaped from its pitch black from, floating in the air like fireflies before fading away into the night. Much like the sounds on the edge of his hearing, the monstrous spirit emitted a buzzing noise, high pitched and angry, like it was growling at him.

Meiling was shaking next to him. Wei was shaking. The monstrous spirit was shaking, but it didn't move from where it stood, nearly nose-to-nose with Wei.

"Please," he breathed with what felt like it very well might be his last breath.

Still staring at him with those haunting eyes, the spirit edged its head forward, and a shape that might have passed for its nose brushed against Wei's forehead. At this barest of contact, the night twisted away in a burst of light, and feelings not his own spilled into his mind, raw and overflowing:

[Confusion, pain, fear, weakness clinging at the limbs, can't move, can't breath, can't become, cold–so cold, even the earth has turned against us–]

Wei fell back away from the awful touch, gasping for breath. The ruined village spun around him dangerously. He struggled to not scoot back away from the spirit in front of him whose gaze suddenly seemed less furious and more desperate.

"You're sick," he gasped. "That's is, isn't it? You're all sick!"

A staticky hum. He almost regretted asking with the way it stung his ears.

"Sick?" Meiling echoed, voice barely audible. Here eyes were locked on the spirit in front of them, wide as saucers. "An illness did that?"

"How?" Wei bit out. "How do spirits even get sick? And what does this have to do with the one attacking Hong Shan?" The dark form dipped towards him again, and he forced himself not to flinch when the icy touch met his forehead again. This time it was less a rush of alien thoughts and more a series of images before his eyes: a flash of light again, this time more sharp, defined–the outline of a town in a blinding pink glow, screams–terrible screams, a flicker of fire, a pair of golden rings, and then nothing. Wei was left blinking in the night again, thankful that he was sitting down and didn't have far to fall when he slumped backwards.

"Sweet Spirits of the earth," he managed under his breath. Was that what passed for a coherent explanation in spirit-talk? I knew I didn't want to deal with this shit.

Meiling's face appeared above him. Wei was never so glad to see a human face in his entire life. "You saw something," she said, her voice barely audible and yet much too loud. "What did you see?"

The spirit was still watching, red eyes angry, angry, angry, and full of pain.

"Avatar!" It was a strange sound as was the case with the voices of most spirits, and Wei couldn't quite decide if it was a plea or an accusation. He wasn't sure which was word shivered through the air and shook him to his core. Meiling slammed her hands over her ears, so he guessed he wasn't the only one hearing things anymore.

He opened his mouth to say something–he wasn't sure what. 'I'm sorry'? He certainly did feel sorry for the thing standing in front of him, but 'sorry' wasn't really worth much. 'I can help' would have been nice, but Wei really wasn't sure he could help. Certainly not with the little knowledge he had now and only a couple of days to work with. In any case, he wasn't sure he wanted to help, afraid that if he stuck his nose deep enough into this mess he might get sucked into something much deeper than he'd bargained for.

As Wei sat there at a loss for words, the decaying spirit–for that's what it was he had felt from it, he realized, decay–flickered like a dying light and then, in a shower of golden sparks, disappeared, leaving a cold and sinister feeling in its wake.

The utter silence that was left behind was deafening. Even the background spirit noises from before were gone now–the Yuans were completely alone in the ruined town with nothing but their own individual thoughts. Eventually, the pounding of his heart slowed and the rush of adrenaline it had brought dulled into a useless shakiness in his fingers. He didn't feel very steady, but he abandoned their perch to stand on his own two feet, eager to be gone from this horrible place.

Meiling moved to stand next to him, not quite steady on her own feet. "Well," she said, planting her fists on her hips confidently, even though her voice didn't match it. "I…I have no idea what just happened. B-But. Well…good job, Mr. Spirit Bridge, I guess."

Good job. Wei thought sardonically. He wanted to yell at her. He wanted to yell at something. He wanted to run very fast and very far away from this place.

Instead he slumped forward and emptied the contents of his stomach all over the ruined road, the chill and oppressive presence in the air finally too much. Meiling stood by his side and rubbed soothing circles on his back for a while until his stomach stopped trying to turn itself inside-out and they could move forward again.

---

Meiling had to all but drag him back to Hong Shan. It wasn't the most dignified of transportation methods. It certainly didn't feel very Avatar-like, and for that it felt all the more reassuring to have a shoulder to lean on. They had just stepped back onto town property and were wondering down some inconspicuous back roads when a faint pre-dawn glow started up on the horizon. Sun-up wasn't long off now. They'd be lucky if they got in before Anyu woke up.

"Hmm, the nostalgia just keeps on rolling, doesn't it?" Meiling hummed as she half dragged him down an ally.

Wei groaned in response. He couldn't mange anything else at this point.

"We're wandering home through the alleys at night," she mused. "My unfortunate brother has had a very avatar-ly experience and suffered a case of having an incredibly weak stomach." He let the comment slide, but filed it away for later complaint. "Now I'm dragging him home early in the morning before our over-bearing authority figure can wake up and realize we were up to shenanigans. If only we had money in our pockets like last time…" He let her ramble on softly as they walked. He was much too tired to keep up his end, but the familiar voice was comforting after having spirit voices and thoughts shoved in his head.

And for all that I still have no idea what it was trying to show me. The pink glow had seemed familiar–maybe once he'd had some sleep he'd be able to place where he'd seen it before. How he was supposed to string everything else together was anyone's guess. Spirits don't think like humans do, one of Master Liao's books had mentioned. That's why there was the avatar to act as a go-between, to settled disputes before things could get messy. Lovely. If Wei hadn't been sure that avoidance was the best option before, he sure as fuck was now.

He barely noticed the flickering of orange light around the next bend before they turned. Meiling was too caught up in her talking. He barely had enough time to be curious before he took in the scene.

There was another fire: that was the first thing that registered in his brain. They were looking over the fence into someone's backyard where a chickenpig coop was ablaze, sending the animals scurrying in a flurry of panicked oinks. There was something perched on the fence-post in a low crouch, observing the yard below lazily. Wei's sharp intake of breath altered it to their presence, and a pair of eyes, lit up by the firelight turned to look at them, startled.

A pair of golden rings, the image flashed before his mind's eye again, mirroring what he saw in front of him. Not rings, he realized as he stared and rich golden watched back. Golden eyes.

Golden eyes that were very noticeably human. The glow from the fire wasn't the easiest to see by, but now that his eyes were adjusting he could see the form just clearly enough; a human girl–a child who couldn't have been more than ten–balanced on the fencepost, mouth slightly agape in surprise.

"Hey!" Meiling said, all but dropping Wei off of her shoulder. At the sound, the girl tensed and shifted as if to make a run for it. "Wait! We just want to talk to–" Too late. In the same moment Meiling stretched out a hand toward the strange child, she took a flying leap off of the fence into the alley below, landing lightly on bare feet before taking off at a run.

"That's no spirit!" Wei gasped as they scrambled after her. Despite how truly like shit he felt, he almost laughed. Was it all really so easy? Could this really just be a case of arson?

They all skidded onto a back road right as the first true rays of sunrise peeked about the rooftops. The girl came out just a little ahead of them and seemed to notice the light out of the corner of her eye. With a heavy scowl, she straightened–was she going to stop? Give herself up?

No, before either of them could lay hands on her, the girl's form flickered, not unlike the infected spirit in Lao An, and in a burst of golden sparks she was gone.

Wei leaned against a building for support, staring dumbly at the spot where the girl had disappeared.

"Okay," Meiling said, looking like she couldn't decide if they'd just uncovered a viperbat nest or won the lottery. Wei wanted to be sick again. "Maybe not a spirit. Definitely not a human."

---

So, as already stated, life's been pretty crazy for me lately, but things should be settling down (keyword being should). With the trouble I've been having, I'm not sure if aiming for an update every month will be practical while I'm here in Japan, but I'll be doing my best to get chapters out as quickly as I can without sacrificing quality or sanity.