Thirty-nine

A few minutes later, the seven of them – Joon, the shirshu, Uncle, Zuko, Maya, Katara, and Sokka – all burst through the doors of the abbey once again. All the women screamed and scattered, some hiding behind the odd, giant vase-looking things all around the courtyard. Briefly, Maya wondered what they were, until Zuko interrupted her thoughts.

"What's it doing? It's just going in a circle!"

Maya focused on their current situation, and realized that, in fact, the shirshu was going around in a circle. "What –

But she never had time to finish her question. Suddenly, something came flying straight at them from above. Maya jerked her head up to look and knew that it was Aang. The shirshu was frightened by this sudden assault, at the same time that it realized that this whatever-it-was had the scent it was after. It reared up to continue tracking Aang, but it was caught off balance and fell over with a cry of a surprise.

Everyone on its back was scattered. Slowly, Maya picked herself up and checked to make sure that everyone was all right. She heard Katara say, "Aang!"

In a moment, Joon was standing. She cracked her whip and said, "Up!"

With another odd cry, the shirshu flipped onto its feet and allowed the black-haired woman to climb onto its back. But before the shirshu could take a step, suddenly something very big and furry slammed into its side.

With a hidden smile, Maya silently cheered. Yes! Giant Fluff-monster 1. Nyla 0.

But then, she sighed. Now Zuko was having an angry staring contest with Aang, his fists full of flame. Quickly, she got out of the way as they began their duel. Zuko sent his signature fireball straight for the Avatar, who easily dodged it. Aang began using his glider to sent walls of wind at Zuko. After a minute, Zuko got close enough to kick the glider out of his hands. Now they were locked in close combat. It was hard for Maya to follow every move, but at some point she knew that they had both tried to bend at each other at the exact same time, which had caused an explosion.

Maya gasped as she saw Zuko's body fly through the air, landing with a loud crunch on top of one of the roofs in the courtyard. His body was smoking.

Oh shit, she thought. "Zuko!" She started running towards him, thinking for one awful moment of the worst. But in another few seconds, to her utter relief, she saw him get up. He held his head in his hands for a moment, but after that he seemed relatively okay.

Maya watched as he jumped from roof to roof to get to the one where Aang was. The Avatar was still out of it. Zuko began running along the rooftop at him, with a line of fire following behind him in his hand. Just as she shot the fire at him, Aang came to his senses and airbended over the top of Zuko's head.

"Yes!" Maya said to herself. Then a moment later, she muttered, "So, who's side am I on, anyways?"

After that, it was hard to follow again. At some point, they made it off the roof and started fighting over the top of a well, which Maya thought was extremely reckless. What if one of them fell in. Then again, pretty much anything they ever did was reckless.

"You've got something I want!" Aang shouted at Zuko.

Maya looked more closely at Zuko to see what Aang could be talking about. There! Dangling from his sleeve was some sort of… blue thing. Oh! she thought to herself. Katara's necklace!

Another few blows were exchanged, until Aang did a backflip and shoved Zuko away at the same time, grabbing the necklace off of his foot, which he had somehow managed to snag on it. This made Maya extremely impressed. A second later, Aang disappeared down the well.

Zuko stood up and went over to the edge. For a second, Maya thought maybe he was going to jump in after Aang, but then he raised his fist and sent a fireball down the well instead. In another heartbeat, there was a giant wall of water shooting up out of the well that shot Zuko up into the air.

Aang also came up out of the well, landing gracefully on the ground as water droplets rained down around him. It was all quite heroic looking – that is – until Zuko landed on his face with another crunch. Maya made a sound of pain and flinched, wondering how the fuck Zuko wasn't dead and/or maimed yet.

Zuko lifted himself up yet again and sent a few wild shots at Aang, before suddenly the Giant Fluff-Monster was up in his face. Zuko, to Maya's relief, knew better than to mess with a giant two-ton angry fluffy monster, and backed away.

Then, the sound of a whip sliced through the air, and the shirshu, whom Maya had almost forgotten about, lashed its tongue out at the fluff-monster. At first, it didn't seem to affect him much, but then Joon cracked her whip again and the tongue lashed and lashed. Finally, the fluffy creature was subdued, and fell onto its side with a loud grunt. Maya felt kind of bad for it. But she didn't have much time to think about that because now Aang was trapped up against the wall, simultaneously dodging Zuko's fire blasts and the shirshu's tongue-whip.

And then, if this whole situation wasn't weird enough, suddenly, there was a giant wave of water floating over all of their heads. Maya looked up slowly, just in time to squeeze her eyes shut as she was doused in perfume. She coughed. "What the –

And then the shirshu went totally insane and started randomly whipping its tongue out at people before leaping over one of the courtyard walls and running away. Luckily, Maya hadn't been hit. Zuko, Uncle, and Joon were now all laying on the ground. Joon was laying on top of Uncle.

Zuko opened his eyes. "Uncle?" he said. "I didn't see you get hit with the tongue."

Uncle lifted a finger to his lips and said, "Shh," and then went back to pretending to be paralyzed.

Joon's eyes snapped open a moment later, and she looked royally pissed.

Maya laughed. "This is really weird. What the fuck just happened anyways?"

"I don't know!" Zuko said angrily. "I was too busy trying to regain my honor, in case you didn't notice. Or were you too busy standing around doing nothing?"

"Hey!" Maya said. "Uncle didn't do anything either!"

"Whatever."

Maya turned away, not ready to pick another fight with Zuko just yet. Because of this, she was the only one to see the Avatar and his friends fly off on their fluff-monster. She sighed. "There goes your honor, Zuko."

"Ugh. Shut up, Maya!"

She laughed. "Come on. I'll help you up."