Avatar: The Last Airbender

The Path of the Ronin

Chapter 2: The Meeting

Tsuriai pressed onward. As he neared the hill, he found out that it was a very small hill, with a door, a chimney, and two small windows. The hill was rounded at the top, with a healthy plot of emerald green grass situated on top.

He stopped, wondering if this was it. As he stopped moving, he heard water some distance to the west. He knew it couldn't be the ocean; his father had taught him to have a good sense of direction and location. He kept a map of the northern Earth Kingdom with him for reference, but all he had to do was look once; he knew exactly how far he traveled each day.

So he walked to the door, which had a note scribbled on it saying, "Alex off for a time; gone hunting."

This just kept on making less and less sense. Who was the note to? How many people could there really be around here? Well, just for measures, he knocked anyway.

There was no answer; so he decided to add to the note (using very careful firebending technique) an additional note, "My name is Tsuriai; I stopped by earlier; will stop by again in a few hours, looking for a place to resupply."

Carefully cooling the note so it would not burn off, he walked towards the sound of the water.

The source of the sound was a good-sized waterfall; it emptied into a large pool which trickled down a stream further north, probably emptying into the ocean.

He knew it was fresh water, but because he had a bad experience with river water, he decided to take the precaution and clean it using firebending. This process was simpler than with salt water, as it was just to kill impurities. He re-chilled the water and put it into his bottle.

Tsuriai decided to take this chance to experiment with his abilities. As he was far away from any wildlife that he knew of, he would try his concussion effect out.

Gathering about a gallon of water in one hand, and as massive a fireball as he could create in the other, he threw them both off together about 50 feet away. When they collided, there was such a huge concussion he was still knocked back into the pool of water. It was very cold.

He stepped out and quickly dried himself out with firebending. Looking at the spot where he had created the explosion, he noticed that, predictably, there was a small crater in the ground. He braced himself this time for another try.

However, as he got both the fire and the water ready, he noticed a huge amount of dust rising from the ground, as if from a very fast animal. It was coming towards him. Fast.

Alarmed, he braced for the concussion as now he had a target. He waited for it to come closer, but it stopped about 100 feet away. The dust settled instantly. It was a girl!

"Hey! Don't attack me! I just want to talk to you!" She yelled.

Tsuriai hesitated, and then dropped the water and extinguished the flame. "Okay. Come closer so we don't have to yell!"

As she came, he noticed that she was very pretty. Her hair was as auburn as the aura of the setting sun, her eyes green as emeralds, and her skin had a healthy tan, but it was rather dirty.

She approached him and smiled. Hi! Are you…Soor-aye-ee? Am I pronouncing it right?"

Tsuriai smiled. "It's pronounced soo-ree-eye. And yes, I am he. Are you Alex?"

She shook her head. "No, that's not me. I'm Alera. He's the only other sandbender we have, though. All the others live in the desert. There are quite a few, but they aren't all in one place. They travel a lot."

Tsuriai cried, "You're a sandbender? I've never met one before! I…wait, did you say we?"

"Yep," she nodded. "There are currently only nine of us, as opposed to the twelve that we had hoped for, but all the same we are known as the Guild of Ronin."