The madness continues... I'm updating every day, as I've mentioned before. Should be done by the end of the week.
In tangential response to a review (yay, reviews, how they make me happy) I personally have rationalized why Zuko is so quick to accept Liz, but I never state it explicitly. Liz, on the other hand, is just as confused as anyone else. First person narratives make controlling the flow of information quick and easy!
I hope the story continues to be interesting! Avatar still isn't mine, alas... actually, I wouldn't trust me with it, so that's probably a good thing.
~Taidine
Chapter Seven : Of Gryphons and Guilt
"Reality: That annoying thing that stands between me and happiness."
It is a very long, boring train ride down to the ferry. No one seemed much in the mood to talk, with the exception of Sean and Ty Lee, who seemed to have developed a deep rapport over the course of the last half hour. I was a little surprised the boy came with us. I mean, I know Ty Lee's pretty and all, but I would never have done something like that for a stranger (Zuko doesn't count). Sean shrugged it off, explaining he had been alone at the Museum anyway and the bones were getting boring. His parents must be a good deal more permissive than mine.
Time for another quick geography lesson. New York City has five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. When a person from out of town hears 'New York City,' they usually think of Manhattan. That's where the big tourist attractions are, for the most part: Time Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the Empire State Building. The other boroughs are not quite as intensely urban, and Staten Island comes near suburbia. It's to the south of the city, and the farther south you go once on the island, the more like New Jersey it becomes. On the South Shore, they're bulldozing swaths of forest to put up semis. On the North Shore, there are apartment buildings. In between it runs the gamut; there are some nice houses around, manors and the like built by rich city dwellers back when Staten Island was a vacation spot. There are also some really hideous strip malls and housing complexes.
I know all this because I used to have a friend who lived on Staten Island, somewhere in the middle, near the infamous Staten Island Dump (a really horrible landfill most of the city-dwellers make fun of, which can reputedly be seen from space, and which has been defunct for years – I hear rumors they want to turn it into a park). She moved to New Jersey, so I haven't been out here in a while. But I had extensive experience with the Staten Island Ferries, a set of big orange boats that go between Manhattan and Staten Island every half an hour, or every twenty minutes during rush hour. They take about that long to cross the harbor, passing the Statue of Liberty and Governer's Island; then everyone gets off, the commuters go home, and the tourists head around to get back on and go into the city again.
We caught a three-thirty boat out of the city; I found myself wondering how late I could stay out before my mother called my cell phone, demanding I be home five minutes ago. Ty Lee found an open space in the middle of one of the decks to put on an impromptu performance; Aang sat down to watch, or meditate, or something; and Sean pulled off his 'I love NY' cap and began passing it around. Zuko slouched up the stairs towards the top deck; with a furtive look at the rest of the gang, I followed.
Most of the seats on the boat are inside, but on this particular ferry there was a band of benches outside; by the time I made it up the stairs, the doors between the two sections were sliding shut behind the firebender. I hesitated a moment, then pushed them open.
Zuko had found a railing to lean on, and the brisk sea breeze ruffled his dark hair; he was staring off over the ocean in profile, so I couldn't quite see his scar. The scene was so reminiscent of the show, albeit with the ungainly ferry standing in for a ship of the Fire Nation navy, that I couldn't stop myself. I took two steps towards him. "Are you cold?"
He turned, golden eyes wide, and I glimpsed for a second that trembling vulnerability he usually kept so well hidden; then he recognized me, and his face darkened, expression locking up like a bank vault. "I thought you were…" he began, and turned back to the ocean, muttering. "Someone else."
I took another two steps and joined him at the railing. "Mai," I said. "Yeah, that was cruel of me." I don't think I sounded too apologetic, though.
He took a deep breath, let it out. "I know I'm doing the right thing," he said. "I know it's my destiny to help the Avatar. But I can't stop thinking of her. She got dragged into this mess because of me, and now I can't even find her, let alone help her."
"Oh, I think Mai can take care of herself," I said darkly.
"Not if she doesn't know who she is," said Zuko, easily matching me for deadpan seriousness. He stared out over the ocean for a moment longer, then announced to no one in particular, "I'm not going back without her."
"Don't worry, Aang and company are a compassionate bunch," I said, not as though it were a good thing. "They'll probably agree with you."
"I know, I know" said Zuko, sighing. "I'll tell them. Eventually."
"Attention all passengers. The ferry will be docking shortly," blared a voice from the strategically placed loudspeakers. "Please stay off all stairs, ramps, and landings until the ferry has come to a complete stop at the terminal…"
I turned my head quickly, looking away from Zuko, at the looming shape of the Staten Island ferry terminal. "We're docking," I said. "We should get back inside."
But what I was thinking was, I asked if you were cold, not for your girlfriend woes. His golden eyes were soft when he talked about Mai, his expression relaxed, almost dreamy. She couldn't possibly have any idea, wherever and whoever she was, how much I envied her at that moment.
I had to put that aside, though, and try to concentrate on the Gryphon conundrum. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Staten Island is not encyclopedic enough that I knew where I could find the Gryphon; no sculptures or exhibits had immediately sprung to mind upon hearing the clues in the first place, and ideas continued to elude me as I walked back inside the boat and downstairs to where the rest of the gang was congregating. The Phoenix had said the orange boat would take us near, so I assumed it was somewhere on the North Shore, but that's a pretty big area to cover.
As the ferry boat was coming in to dock at the terminal, and our portion of Team Avatar regrouped – Zuko sulking, Aang looking serious, Ty Lee beaming and Sean splitting up the money he had collected between them – I happened to mention this.
"You couldn't have told us a little earlier?" Zuko growled. I think he was mad at me for stealing Mai's line, or listening to him rant, or something.
Help came from an unexpected quarter – Sean, shoving some change in the pocket of his jeans and flattening his bleach-blonde hair under his 'I love NY' cap. "Not a problem," he assured the team.
We all looked at him. "Hey, I can be helpful too. Check it. Google Earth." He was wearing a backpack, small and unnoticeable, and now he unslung it, dipping a hand in to produce a Sidekick. Of course. The internet. I had never owned a wi-fi connected gadget, and had never wanted to, so okay, kudos to Sean: he had thought of something that never would have occurred to me.
"Wow!" said Ty Lee gratuitously, and Sean gave her a little, flourishing bow. Hams, both of them.
We left the boat, swept along by the inexorable crowd, and found a quiet spot in the corner of the terminal. Sean accessed the internet while we all looked over his shoulders (or in my case, his head – yes, I am that tall, and he's not). "Okay. I'll zoom in as close as possible and scan the area around the ferry," he told us. The Sidekick was painfully slow.
"What if it's inside?" asked Aang. "The Pheonix and the Sphinx were."
"But the eagle wasn't," I pointed out. "It's better than nothing. If this doesn't work, we can try to 'places of knowledge' angle. There can't be that many of them on Staten Island…" It was an automatic jibe. Understand – people in the more urban boroughs are obligated to make fun of Staten Island.
"Got something!" Sean exclaimed. "Who's the master of the internet?"
"Um… isn't the internet kind of a collective?" asked Aang. Looked like he was still holding on to Michael's memories, but I didn't dare get my hopes up. He had only been with us for a day – a long, long day.
"Me!" said Sean, utterly failing to notice. "Look at this, would you?"
We looked.
"It's a smudge of some kind," said Zuko tentatively.
"It's a gryphon," said Sean. "Look, there's the head, there are the wings…" He traced the shape on his tiny screen with one finger. "Anyway, it's right next to a branch of the New York Public Library," he added, checking a minute display in one corner. "That must be it."
I guess the others had more or less filled him in on what was going on during the train and boat ride.
"Nice," Aang admitted.
"Thank you," said Sean, ducking his head. "So, what are we waiting for?"
"Ty Lee to get back from the bathroom," Zuko grumbled.
Oh. I knew it had been too quiet.
Ty Lee returned shortly, and we set out from the terminal, navigating via Sean's map. The library wasn't far away, two or three blocks uphill from the ferry terminal. I think I had been to it once or twice, during those Staten Island visits, and was more than a little disgruntled that I hadn't figured this out on my own – that it had taken this raw newcomer to locate the next guardian. Or maybe I was just irritated at Sean for being all lovey-dovey with Ty Lee. Most of the time, couples irk me.
Anyway, after hiking up a steep hill along a confusingly twisted street, we found ourselves in front of the library. The most famous New York Public Library is in Manhattan (of course); it has a vast marble staircase and a pair of lions flanking the doors. The St. George branch of the library, the one we had been sent to, was not nearly so grand: a long, low brick building with concrete steps up to the wooden double-doors and a handicap ramp. There was no Gryphon on the building, but a three-sixty degree turn quickly located the statues Sean had spotted on Google Earth – a single grotesque, part lion and part eagle, perched atop the roof of a crayon-red brick building across the street.
We looked both ways and crossed the street. "I guess I'm going up," said Aang, surveying the building, cockeyed. "Can someone call Katara and check up on her?"
"Sure," I volunteered. I had Kat's number in my contacts list; I scrolled down to it and hit 'send.' Aang took a few steps back on the sidewalk, rubbed his hands together, and looked around to see if there were any strangers watching. The sidewalk was clear, and I doubted it would be a problem anyway. People saw what they expected to see, after all.
"Okay," muttered the Avatar, took a bounding step forward, and sprang up to a low windowsill, spinning air behind him for lift. I imagine it would have been easier with his glider, but we didn't have that luxury. Two more deft leaps took him to the top of the building.
The phone rang twice before Katara picked up. "Hello? Liz?"
"Hey," I greeted dully. "We're on Staten Island, meeting the second guardian. How are you doing?"
"We've got him," said Katara. She didn't sound as excited as it seemed she should. "Toph's sure of it. We're heading down to meet you."
"Okay," I acknowledged.
Atop the building, Aang moved close to the Gryphon and bowed low, reaching into the pocket of his jeans for the pair of Amulet fragments he had already recovered. They shone dully, red and green mingling like a Christmas tree, and in their light, the stone Gryphon shook out its feathers.
"I'm about to lose service…" she said. I could hear subway-like sounds from around her, and then nothing. Frankly, if she was on a train, I'm surprised she got any reception at all.
I folded my cell phone and put it away. Aang and the Gryphon were conversing; they bowed again, and the gryphon folded itself back into its former, frozen position. Aang jumped off the edge of the roof, spreading his arms to increase air resistance and landing lightly on the sidewalk in front of us. "Oof. Kind of harder to bend here, isn't it?" he asked conversationally, rising and brushing himself off.
"So- where are we going next?" asked Ty Lee excitedly.
"Well, the Gryphon told me the next fragment is in the library – 'among the books.'" He mimicked a deep, sibilant voice as he quoted the Gryphon. "And the next guardian is the Kraken in… 'King's County, watching the sea lions.' By sea lions, does he mean actual sea lions, or is there some kind of weird sea lion around here?"
"They're like seals," I answered, wondering if this signified a lapse in Michael's knowledge or the beginning of the end of Aang's borrowed memories. I checked for cars again and lead the way across the street, back towards the library.
"King's county, sea lions," said Sean, flipping open the ubiquitous Sidekick. "Hm. Service isn't very good here." We strolled along the sidewalk, up the steps, and into the building in a big amorphous group.
"Don't bother," I answered flatly. "We're going to the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn."
They all stopped in the middle of the fiction second to look at me. "Okay, I'm stumped," said Aang. "How'd you figure that out?"
"King's County is an old name for Brooklyn," I explained. "That's where I live. My parents must have dragged me to the zoo a hundred times when I was younger, and trust me, it has sea lions. Now, where's the fragment?"
"Um…" Aang spun around slowly. "Upstairs? The Gryphon said something else… that each fragment is tied to one element." We headed for the stairs, walked slowly up them. "So – the Sphinx was earth, the Pheonix was fire. Then the Gryphon must be air… so we want to go up. Does that make sense?"
"Yes?" Ty Lee agreed.
We got upstairs, to the children's section. Aang made a beeline for the nonfiction section, and after a moment, I picked out a faint yellow glow – emanating, it soon became apparent, from behind the 500's. Books on weather. Clever. Sean pulled a couple of books out, Aang reached behind them and tapped the wall, which shimmered slightly and allowed his hand through. He produced a clear amber crystal, several shades paler then Zuko's eyes (he still wasn't looking at me, by the by, and I wondered absently what exactly I had done to upset him so); it went in his pocket with the other two fragments, and once again, anything utterly failed to happen.
I checked my cell phone impatiently. "People, the next ferry leaves in five minutes, and the fastest way to Brooklyn is through Manhattan," I drawled, letting none of my urgency show. "We should go."
"Come on, then!" exclaimed Ty Lee, and tore off, attracting some dirty looks from the librarians. Soon she was running down the hill outside, arms slightly extended, braid streaming behind her. The rest of the group charged after her, for the most part with somewhat more dignity.
Down the hill, across a busy street, past the bus pickups, and into the terminal; we put on a burst of speed and made it through the closing doors onto the ferry. "Phew," said Sean, wiping his arm across his forehead as we came to a panting halt on the deck of the boat.
"We should let Katara know not to get on a boat from Manhattan," said Aang anxiously, then brightened. "Hey, when you said sea lions were like seals, did you mean turtleseals or tigerseals?"
I talked about sea lions for a bit, we found some empty seats, and Ty Lee began walking down the aisle on her hands. Another boring boat ride, I thought.
It's always a stupid idea to make assumptions.