Don't own Avatar. I'm sick of saying that. :o/
Fluff, a little Zutara, and some interesting plot development. I tell you nothing of what I have planned. Bwahahaha
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"Come in!" His authoritative voice booms from behind the solid ice that acts as the door to his study.
Tentatively, I melt enough of the block to enter. Two guards positioned inside freeze the door back into place once I'm over the threshold. "Sir, we have reports from our naval patrols to the south."
"And?" Chief Hahn is obviously not in a mood for suspense today. He never really is in the mood for suspense.
"Well, the fleet reports that they spotted the airbender's bison leaving the Fire Nation three days ago. We are still awaiting further reports from the ships that were assigned to engage the girl, but there is no word of a Fire Navy escort." I try to hide the omissions I'm making in this report. To be honest, I don't feel like dealing with the chief's wrath today, and I know the full story would definitely incur the full force of it. Judging by the appraising glance he's giving me, however, I don't think I'm succeeding.
"You seem tense." He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. "You have anything else to report to me?"
"Umm, no sir." Dammit! Who says "umm" in that sentence? A liar, that's who! He knows. Why do I have to be the one reporting here? They don't pay me enough for this.
"You sure about that?" His eyes narrow. He's reading me. He sees the lack of eye contact. He sees the sweat on my brow before it's even there. He sees knees shake under the three layers of fur, and he knows. Oh yes, he knows.
"Well, sir. There are some reasons for concern regarding the information."
"Like what?" Stressing each word as though his tongue were the sharpest sword on the planet, and it was being held right up to my throat. Let me tell you, I felt that blade. I felt its cold steel edge against my larynx and it sent shivers down my spine. I'm huddled under three layers of thick fur in the middle of autumn and suddenly my whole body is raised in goose bumps. The light of a lantern on the table in front of him reflects in his blue eyes and the visage of an angry Agni is staring me in the face.
"Well, sir, we only have word of this from the scout ship. As you know, we usually receive secondary word from the crew still at sea via messenger hawks since we managed to breed them." I swallow and the spit seems stuck in my throat for at least five minutes - maybe an eternity – though I know it's really only a moment. It squeaks past the edge of the imaginary blade pressed against my throat and I continue. "Since from that distance the hawks will usually beat our scout ships here, there is reason to question the safety of the fleet."
"If there's no report of a Fire Navy escort, then why would our fleet be in danger from a teenage girl and her flying ball of fur?!" The sentence started softly with a great big crescendo and marked, staccato accents. It ended in a deafening fortissimo, clattering off the ice walls around us and echoing back as cacophony. I'm amazed when the ice doesn't crumble. From down the hall I can here a young child crying.
"Well, sir, we have two theories with regards to that. First is that an escort was there, but managed to stay out of sight until the scout ship broke pattern and headed back toward the local base located along the western coast of the Earth Kingdom. The other, slightly less believable, theory is that this girl is far more powerful that we thought."
"From the last reports she would've been defeated by one ship with an average captain leading it had it not been for her friend, Katara." This last word, the waterbender's name, sounds like a curse coming across his lips. "I find it hard to believe that she could have taken down ten ships on her own, or even with help for that matter."
"I have no definitive explanation at this time, sir. We have reports headed out to the base near by, and are asking for them to survey the areas around the Southern Air Temple for signs of a fight as that is believed to be their destination. It is feared that we will not hear anything further for a couple more days, sir. As soon as we get new intelligence on the issue it will be reported to you directly, as always." The sweat has finally appeared on my forehead and it trickles down, burning my eyes. Still, the sensation is not as uncomfortable as simply standing in front of a fuming mad dictator. Chief… I said Chief, right?
--
"Wait, what do you mean you don't eat meat? You're an Earth Bender, you've gotta eat meat! It's the natural order of things." Jung sat cross-legged on the dirt in front of the campfire, leaning over her knees, and staring at me in disbelief.
"Well, I spent most of my life as a nomad with my family. We didn't hunt, and we didn't really have any kind of income to buy the stuff."
"But, you joined the Fire Nation armies in battle! They didn't feed you meat then?"
"They tried." I gag at the memory of it. "I took a couple bites once and felt a bit nauseous. After that, just stuck to fireflakes, fire whiskey and whatever fruits and salads I could find."
Apparently, I am only the second vegetarian she has ever met. The first, obviously, was an air nomad, and used that as his reasoning for not consuming the stuff. Myself, Da Shan, not eating meat for the sheer joy of not eating meat she can not fathom. How could anybody be given the opportunity to eat meat and pass it up? "You're weird, rock head."
I chuckled at the incessant chatter from the young tattooed girl. For three days now we have been camping in a small mountain range that provided cover for our group. I know the river that flows just to the east of us will empty out into a delta along the coast at a large city. They can't set foot there, but a small town just up stream from it will offer the shelter and supplies (and baths) we need. Earlier in the day, Jung and Zuko managed to hunt down a platypus bear, supplying enough meat for weeks worth of snacks once the strips are dried and properly salted, and a couple days worth of meals before the flanks go bad. I can't wait to be rid of the vial smell of the stuff.
"Aren't you an air nomad? I thought you guys were all vegetarians." I had always felt a special link with the former avatar due to that fact.
"Nah, that's just some old tradition that died out a hundred years ago. In fact, as of a few years ago, there's not an airbender on the planet that doesn't eat meat with every meal."
I couldn't help but double over with laughter, as Jung leaned back into the dirt enjoying the cheery, though slightly morbid and poignant, humor of her comments.
Katara and Prince Zuko (whom I have repeatedly been instructed to just call Zuko, but it still feels odd) sit across from us. Zuko is simply eavesdropping on the conversation while Katara busies herself with the cooking. The previous night I had cooked our meal, and Jung, who apparently was forced to cook a lot of vegetarian meals in the past, in spite of the pangs it caused her, took up the chore the night before that. Zuko flat out refuses to do the cooking tomorrow, but it's not like any of us would dare eat a dinner prepared by the Fire Prince anyways.
Noticing the lull in our conversation, the child of Agni takes it as a chance to speak up. "So, Da Shan, how far are we from this town?"
"We should be there by noon tomorrow. It's a short trek from here. After that it'll be about a two day journey to the spot where we're scheduled to meet up with Sokka and Suki unless we hear otherwise from them."
"Alright everybody, dinner's ready." Katara starts pulling off the cooking pots and distributing the lovely meal. My plate looks a little naked in comparison, but smells remarkably better without the large slab of flesh bleeding into my potatoes and rice.
--
Toph had just lied back down on the bed in her cell after going through her standard earthbending movements. After three and a half years of imprisonment in a cube of ice where she couldn't feel any response from the energy expended, she was starting to wonder if it was even worth it to go through the motions, but it was also the only exercise she got, so she had to at least pretend it was doing something. Even if all it did was allow her to keep her sanity it was doing something. The sounds of crunching snow outside her window piqued her interest and she listened while small footsteps made there way up, and then landed with a miniscule thud on the inside of her ice box.
"Hey there, soggy." She whispered without looking over. Honestly, what good would it do?
"How'd you know it was me?" The child made his way over to the woman and sat on the edge of her bed.
"Well, I don't get many visitors. Especially not through the window."
"Don't you have friends that come by and visit?"
"Not yet. I'm sure they're on their way, though." Toph reached out and mussed the boys hair. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?"
"I made you a present. I wanted to stop by and give it to you before sneaking back into the palace."
"You didn't tell me you live in the palace." Toph was truly curious about the boy's life. There wasn't much else going on in her own to be interested in. "And you didn't have to make me a present either."
"Yeah, actually, I'm kinda not allowed out of the palace. I'm afraid they wouldn't like it much if they knew I was sneaking out." The boy then reached into the pocket of his fur coat and pulled out a block of pure, clear ice. "And I really wanted to give you a present. You're the only friend I have. Isn't that what friends do for each other?"
Toph couldn't help it. She smiled, and it was authentic, but she also let a tear drop from her blind left eye. She fought against it, but to no avail. She reached out her hand and accepted the proffered gift. A block of ice. Great. The sarcastic, cynical voice in her head, the one she didn't share with the boy that sat on her bed, screamed yay! Ice! Just what I always wanted! The kinder, gentler voice from her mouth, the one that she had managed to hone from a few years of parenting, said something quite different. "Thanks. Umm, what is it?" Nobody said she honed it to perfection.
"Oh yeah. I forgot you can't see. Well, it's a piece of ice in the shape of a heart." Toph felt around at the almost smooth edges to try and get an idea of how it looked. "It's not quite right, but I'm getting better."
"No, it's perfect. Thank you." This time the gratitude was a bit more authentic.
"So, why don't your friends visit you?"
Toph's smile faded fast. "It's a long story. On the bright side it can easily be split into a few pieces. Would you like to hear it?"
"I'd love to, Toph. I'm not sure how much time I have, though."
"Well, let's break it up for you then. I'll tell you the first chapter of the story of my friends and our journey tonight. It starts in a small town called Gaoling, where I used to live with my parents until I was twelve, and ends in the catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. I have to warn you, though. The first chapter doesn't end well."
"But, it gets better, right?"
"Well, the second chapter ends on the day the moon blocked out the sun, but it doesn't end well either. I promise, though, there's a happy ending. There's always a happy ending."
With that, Toph began the tale of her travels with an idiot that turned out to be a genius, an overbearing mother that had never given birth and an airhead that would save the world. In other words, she began the story of Snoozles, Sugar Queen and Twinkle Toes.
--
Jung was finding it difficult to sleep. She tried hard, lying in her sleeping bag, huddled close to the fire, eyes shut tight against the light. Sleep, however, just refused to come over her. Zuko and Katara sat on the other side of the fire, still awake, in a markedly uncomfortable silence. Katara would occasionally open her mouth and take a quick breath of air, about to speak, but inevitably second guess herself. At long last, both of them convinced that the teenagers were fast asleep, Zuko softly began conversation. "What's wrong with us, Katara?"
Katara was taken aback by the bluntness of the question. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Whenever we're apart we can't wait to see each other again. Every letter we send to each other we spill our hearts onto the page and we're fine with that. Then, we get together, and…"
"I screw it all up in an instant?"
"Well, I was going to say 'we'… or maybe 'I'… but yeah, that's the general idea."
"I don't know. When Aang and Toph were around it seemed so different." Katara reached up to "scratch" at her eye. "Aang would try to calm us down and get us to see it differently."
Zuko let out a half-hearted chuckle. "And if that didn't work Toph would yell at us until we saw the whole ordeal her way."
"You know," Katara started and looked over at Zuko. The scarred side of his face was towards her, and she thought about reaching up to touch it for a second. Zuko turned to look her in the eyes as she continued. "We could try to be more like them, sometimes, you know? We might be able to learn to compromise. Work together in ways that don't necessarily involve beating up the bad guy." The waterbender's right hand fell over her knee, resting in the space between the two.
"I'd be willing to try if you do." Zuko briefly squeezed his friend's hand before pulling his hand back to his lap. "But, don't tell the little airhead over there about our deal. We'd never hear the end of it."
"Deal."
Neither bender noticed as Jung's face curled into a familiar grin. For a moment, she was glad sleep refused to take her. The moment was short lived, however, as that is when they first felt the earth beneath them begin to shake.
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Did I just leave you with a cliffhanger? I NEVER do that, do I? Well, first time for everything I guess. Suffer, kiddies.
And, you know, I hate saying it, but I've noticed a few more people reading my stories, but still just the same two or three lovely, wonderful people leaving notes (3 you guys: Liooness, Sokkas Instincts 2, Avatar Airis). But, please, may I have some more? Even if you only read because you're curious as to how bad the new chapter sucks, tell me.