Thank you sooooooooooooooooooo much (big hug) to Iamthelorax. You are my first review EVER, love:)
And to any one else who reviewed between the time I write this and the time you read it -please do review it makes me happy and when happy I give out sweets and stories to any one who asks. Not that I can write spectacularly but I try. So enjoy
Pai Sho
It had begun with the Air Nomads over a hundred years ago, a game to help focus and patience. It could have been lost like so much of the Air Nomads culture was. Somehow it survived. No one is sure how but it came to the Earth Kingdom and spread almost its entire length. It was passed on from one person to the next often by the handing over of a tile. With one tile people would start and gain more till they themselves passed on one of their own, sometimes even the original. Pai Sho steadily made its way across the nations gathering support, tiles exchanging many different hands. Eventually the game reached the crowned prince of the Fire Nation himself. He was chatting with a friend.
The General or was it Admiral was spinning a Pai Sho tile in his fingers when he suddenly stopped and looked hard at Iroh. "Here, you should learn to play" he said passing the tile to Iroh who stared at the delicately painted piece of wood.
Weeks later Iroh was surprised to learn that his old friend had become a deserter and he wondered if he had been thinking about this while they were trivially discussing board games. Iroh decided to learn the game anyway, as it helped to relieve the boredom of putting siege to a city surrounded by a wall you could probably see from space.
Years later in his dank prison cell Iroh thought of just how useful learning Pai Sho had been. He stood up ad placed the tile, he had been mindlessly passing between his fingers, into his pocket. It was not the same tile given to him by his friend but a replacement, his nephew had thrown the original into a river in a fit of rage, something about pirates.
Pai Sho was a game of patience and strategy, a game where you waited until the right moment and then with one perfectly planned attack took out your enemy. It was about time, Iroh thought, that his little brother learned how to really play the game.
AN: Strawberry tea to anyone who can tell me
a) Who is Iroh's old friend? (Really obvious)
b) What else beside Pai Sho am I talking about?
And c) what tile was Iroh playing with? (If you answered the last one this one is easy)