N: I do not, in general, write kid stories. My adult ratings are for a reason. My stories feature: violence (often graphic), Sexuality (almost always graphic), and worse. The villains in my stories are typically very villainous. The heroes are not always heroic- even if most of the time they are. Readers should expect a blanket trigger warning on everything I write. Themes of dubious- or non-consenting sex, domination, violence, gore, and character death- including major characters- exist in many of them. I do not condone such activities in real life, but unfortunately they are real in our world, and I don't feel that I could write fiction fairly without including them.
As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my Sub * Star (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 10 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a month or two, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story will be updated 'when I remember' (which is rarely). If you find you enjoy it, however, follow the links from my Discord (at the bottom). There's 10+ chapters posted elsewhere as I said, and a new one monthly.
And if you're just interested in discussing things with other readers, of course, you can go to my DISCORD here: /N9yDA8t6Cw
You can also read my ORIGINAL FICTION on Kindle. If you've got Kindle Unlimited, they're all free. Here's my author page, with links to everything published.
STORY NOTE: Yes, yes, this is actually an Avatar: The Last Airbender fic! Loosely, it is set 'sometime' after the first series ends. Toph (the youngest character eventually involved in 'situations' in this fic) will be 18. Extrapolate from there if you wish, I'm deliberately leaving the ages and timeline vague because it's just not that important, and fits in many times between Avatar and Korra. It is not related to Korra, and no character from that show will appear. When I get around to watching it (eventually) I may write in that version of the universe, but since I haven't yet... nope. Finally, while I'm quite happy to be writing in this 'verse again (please be aware my earlier works, the first fanfic I published well over a decade and a half ago, are NOT up to my current standards, though they are smutty), this is a commissioned piece. It will not deviate from what the person asking for it wants, unless that would be illegal in some way (it hasn't been). It may explore kinks and fetishes you aren't comfortable with. Topics of a mature nature. If that isn't your cup of tea, then... sorry. I'll warn you now: In short, that fetish is 'scents'. Specifically, body / fluid scents. Sweat, sexual fluids, etc. It isn't heavy, but it will be mentioned repeatedly as things heat up. Again, it isn't changing. I am open to helpful suggestions / plot ideas, but the premise or requests mentioned by the commissioner are and will remain the priority. Thank you for understanding. And enjoy the story! Comment, I love those! Unless you're telling me I'm an evil sinner. I already know, thanks. Quite self-aware. ;)
OH, and before I forget: I am using a map that I DID NOT CREATE for reference. This one: http ^ : ^ /^/ ^tiny^url ^. ^com^/ ^yn578sxc It was created by AbyssalMapper, and is AMAZING. All credit to them! Obviously, take out the extra spaces and mountains... you know, this symbol (^). I know it's called a Circumflex. (There's a 'flex'...)
The Tea in Ba Sing Se
An ATLA Comission
OC x Mai-centric, other characters included
Chap. 1
The battle was... worse than he had ever feared. Lin, Dukashi Lin according to his military identification papers, had never been in a battle before. He had seen them, been near them, seen their aftermath up close, but he had never been in one himself until that day.
It had not been a pleasant experience, to say the least.
He had been filled, at first, with the righteous fury of youth. The fury that the training camps of the Earth Kingdom 4th Regular Infantry Division had instilled in him. The absolute surety that what they were doing, what the Earth Kingdom, the leadership, the army, and thus himself, was right. Just, deserved, correct.
The first spray of blood across his face as one of his companions, a friend from the same class at the camps, cut down the nearest bandit had done it.
The surety, the cocksure attitude, the confidence, had been washed away in a red sea as the bandit, a pleading look on his eyes, fell to the ground with a long, unclean cut across his neck. Lin watched him die, all... what, four, five minutes of it? They looked at each other as the light slowly faded from his enemy's soft blue eyes. His own long, dark hair was back in a ponytail, but across the bandit, blood rained down from his own arterial spray.
There was a lot of blood in a human body, it turned out. The man was gone, the light in his eyes vanished, before the heart gave its last feeble, shuddering pump and the spray, faded to a burble, became an ooze instead.
He still hadn't moved, as the battle had gone on around him.
A battle, they called it.
A slaughter.
Their scouts, a band of all-women soldiers from Kyoshi Island, had reported the numbers fairly well according to Jo Gai, the Lieutenant in charge of their platoon of Birdfox Company. The numbers were accurate, their placement and position, and even the pickets, scant though they were, had all been reported well. They had even joined in the battle afterward, some twenty women in uniforms of green robes and wielding battle-reinforced fans, of all things, on top of a variety of other weapons.
Lin had started moving, fighting, about two minutes after the first bandit he had seen killed died. It had been an arrow grazing his right shoulder armor that had jarred him into motion, reminded his brain that, even if it still wanted to stall out, to linger on the dead man rather than focus on the chaos and strife, he was a soldier, and in a battle.
No... no, a slaughter was definitely the right word.
There had been seventeen bandit fighters, four scouts, and five camp followers or civilians, including two children. None survived, all twenty-eight were killed, either in the battle or executed afterward.
It was efficient, the Lieutenant said. Easier to just mark them all down as enemy combatants who had been brave and fought to the last, than escort civilians and children- who might be hostile- back to safer territory, then find a way to keep them safe, healthy, and loyal when so much of the massive kingdom was in turmoil.
The Earth King was, after all, still missing. Local kings, elected leaders, tribal chieftains, or generals still held control over their local feifs, just as they did under the Earth King, but their central leadership and the figurehead of the largest, most populous, and most diverse country on the planet was missing. That sent ripples throughout the entire world.
Not killed, or kidnapped, but missing. No one knew where he was, because he had spirited himself away shortly after being rescued from the Dai Li plot by the Avatar himself.
These bandits weren't exactly a major threat to the kingdom. They were a small-time band held together by the threats and personal might of a local 'bandit lord' named Boshi. He was huge, muscular, and scarred from combat. He, alone, had fought with the discipline and skill of a trained soldier. Lin had seen that, at the end of the battle, for himself.
Lieutenant Jo Gai had ordered the men to surround him and burn the man's hut, the only actual structure at the center of the tented camp, to the ground with him inside it. Of course, Boshi had not taken that well, and had charged, flames running up and down his arms, sparks and ash flying from his twin, curved broadswords. Seven of Lin's companions, including the friend who had cut down the first bandit, died in seconds.
Jo Gai had been forced to fight himself, which was almost comical as, while the man was a competent leader, he was very much not used to or well suited for physical combat himself. He leaned more toward the... softer side, Lin supposed was a nice way to put it. Heavyset, with an appetite for food and wine that would be utterly incongruous with his placement as an officer in the Earth Kingdom's armies, if he were not skilled at actual leadership, and strangely capable of great bursts of strength and speed... when he was pushed.
Even so he sported a new scar on his cheek, one Boshi had given him mere moments before being cut down.
Lin, as he nursed his own minor wounds and finished his late evening meal, marveled at what had happened next. He could hear other soldiers laughing at seeing women dressed in robes, prepared for combat. Scouting seemed to be something they could do, but open battle?
If he were honest with himself, Lin could definitely see the skepticism, and why it had a place. Most of the Kyoshi Warriors were just... smaller, weaker, than their male soldiers. Obviously, that made them inferior as soldiers. At least, in the eyes of the soldiers themselves.
Now, Lin thought very differently.
Boshi had been in a tremendous fury, cutting down fighters left and right. Even one of the Kyoshi Warriors had been forced to retreat, struck by a blow across her arm that could still end in its amputation if he surgeon wasn't able to help the nerves and arteries reattach in time. Lieutenant Jo Gai had been struggling to even keep up, and Lin had been trying to fight his way closer past the last remnants of bandits when it happened.
Jo Gai had tripped, and stumbled, and his own weight was too off-balance to maintain. He fell, and Boshi had raised both hands, a triumphant look on his bloody, pock-marked face, the flames still burning on him, not that he seemed to notice or care. The weapons came down...
And they were parried by two fans.
A blur of green, tall, statuesque, that reminded him of the mythical Avatar Kyoshi, for whom both the island and the warriors took their name, dress, and fighting style.
The blur moved with elegance and grace that seemed astounding given just how tall she was. Lin was a bit bigger than average, lean and muscular both, from a lifetime of farmwork, exercise, and then soldiery. This woman, though she was definitely a woman, was only a few centimeters shorter than he was, more slender, almost lithe in build. Her face was painted, like all the Kyoshi Warriors' were. But unlike most he could still see in the smaller skirmishes that remained, she was unmarred by blood or injury.
A bandolier of knives, mostly empty, hung across both shoulders, but it was the fans in her hands that the woman wielded now. They struggled against Boshi's great might as the tall beauty stood beneath him, over the lieutenant. Jo Gai yelped out a quick 'thank you!' as he scrambled away and up to his feet, before ordering the men to help her.
Lin wanted to, but one of Boshi's own lieutenants was still fighting off both he and another soldier, his large shield more than up to the task of blocking both their spears no matter what they did, while his own sword held them off too.
While they circled, he lost sight briefly of the fight with Boshi, but when they were in view again, things had changed drastically. Jo Gai had a weapon in hand again, three more soldiers were dead, and the bandit's leader had five bleeding slashes down one arm, and three on the other. All of them, he noticed, on the inside, as if the woman had somehow slipped beneath Boshi's twin blades, cut him repeatedly, and then just stepped out of his grasp when he yanked his arms away.
It was the only explanation he could think of, the only way that could have happened in what looked like such a one-sided fight.
Now the woman was circling, one fan broken but bloody on the ground, while her other was held up in a defensive posture. Four throwing knives were held in the other hand, between the gaps of each finger. Somehow, she had escaped apparent injury. At least, there was no blood thick on her robes, which also seemed uncut or damaged.
Boshi, on the other hand, seemed even more furious. It was a stark counterpoint to the tall woman's stoic, expressionless face that only seemed cold, uncaring, beneath the paint.
Her aloof demeanor captivated Lin, so much so that he was distracted as a sword-blade came whistling through the air towards his stomach.
He yelped too late, jumped backward too late, but he was also not fighting alone. His companion's spear swung upward, deflecting the blade away from his abdomen. It hurtled toward his arm now, threatening to sever it, and he was still too slow, the panicked, frantic chaos of the battle falling away into a split-second that seemed to stretch out for terrifying hours as the blade came closer.
He would be maimed. Mutilated, or possibly just bleed out there on the battlefield, far from any help.
Then another fan came from his left, opposite the blade. It spun in strange, off-weighted circles as it moved, still in slow motion. There was a clang, and then the sword coming for him was further up, and it whistled through just a few dark hairs as he ducked.
"Move faster, stupid," a too-cheerful, energetic voice called out, a single knuckle driving into the soft muscle below his left shoulder pad, stinging but not causing any real damage. Before he could react, dodge, attack, or do much of anything, he watched, dumbfounded, as the newcomer- another Kyoshi Warrior, though this particular one's uniform had been modified to reveal what seemed like as much skin as possible and still allow some protection from the armor- performed a hand-stand mid-battle, wrapped two meaty, deliciously thick thighs around the bandit's head, and drag herself upward to sit against his head. While the bandit staggered, she delivered no fewer than nine- that he could count, he might have missed as many as eight- lightning-fast taps to the poor man's undefended skin and head.
They weren't even hard, certainly not hard enough to do more than bruise. But on the last tap, the bandit suddenly stopped trying to pull the crazy woman off him, and dropped like a stone to the ground. The woman-warrior landed gracefully on her feet, seemingly uncaring that the man was able to look up her very wide-open skirt.
Oh, that was because he was clearly unconscious. Huh.
"You should really move faster, don't let Mai distract you too much, handsome!"
Then she was gone, a flying, cartwheeling kick smashing down the second to last bandit, before she pun and twirled, slapping two hands and a leg, the most brutal strikes she had made so far, against the last.
Then there was only Boshi and the stately, emotionless warrior-woman left.
The fight only lasted a moment longer. Boshi charged, enraged, both swords coming from opposite sides. High and low, cutting together to ruin her, destroy the woman utterly.
The woman who seemed completely disinterested, just as she had been for the entire battle.
Two steps before Boshi closed the distance, his swords already beginning to move, one of her narrow, made-up eyelashes raised impressively, while the other stayed still.
"Boring," the woman, Mai he supposed, said with a clear sigh in her voice. "No challenge at all."
It only served to make the man more angry, which Lin guessed was, possibly, her intent. If she really wasn't just bored. Because the warrior made no sign that she was in any danger of being sliced to pieces by the massive blows coming her way.
"Look ou-" he started to cry, reaching out a hand uselessly from twenty feet away. All around him, the wounded were being put down or cared for, depending on which side they were on. Death and fire was everywhere, the smell of smoke acrid and burning along with the copper-iron of freshly spilled blood.
He would never be able to help, but his arm moved on its own.
The woman somehow rolled her eyes. The swords were two feet from her.
One... it seemed inevitable now, she would not move, and thus would die.
Six inches... and she ducked, just a little, lowering herself on her knees. He could not see her tense beneath the robes of green. Four inches.
Three.
Boing.
Just a little, but like a spring her ankles, calves, and thighs flexed, and the woman sprung straight into the air. Two feet up. Two inches to go.
Three and a half feet up. One inch to go- she was already clearing the lower blade.
Contact!
Except... it wasn't.
Somehow, the upper blade passed through where Mai's neck had been, then her torso, then her leg, and... touched only air.
Boshi flinched, the blades held forward across each other like a horizontal X, his body fully extended into the double-sweeping, lunging cut.
Sweat and blood and ash tinged off his burned arms, which still carried flickers of flame. Oh- that was oil! He had let it burn on purpose!
Tap.
With the sound of, as far as Lin could tell, a fly landing on paper, Mai alighted on two toes on the end of one sword.
Boshi's considerable strength barely wavered as he looked up at the green-clad goddess, who stood on his weapon looking down at him without even disdain. Just... Boredom.
"Useless. I shouldn't even tell you to look up, you pathetic excuse for a warrior. Your mother should've been drowned at birth before she even thought of conceiving you."
It was a terrible insult, and Boshi's rage grew further still- but he did look up, past the statue-like visage.
Lin saw his eyes widen, but could not see through the smoke what he was looking at.
He did see, and hear, the groan of metal as the woman's weight started to bend the steel she stood on.
The blade snapped an instant later as she bounded off, flipping gracefully backward through the air to land in a casual position, one hand raised as if she were examining her artfully painted fingernails. The blade hit the churned, bloody earth with a twin thump, at the exact instant one of the woman's throwing knives speared down from the heavens as if the very gods themselves had cast judgment on Boshi.
It buried itself handle-deep in his left eye, and the so called Bandit Lord fell to the earth in a crumpled heap, only one and a half swords left.
"You can finish him off," she said to no one in particular, and turned around to start walking away. "Are you coming, Ty Lee?"
"Sure!" the chipper girl who had saved Lin's life moments before called back, "This was almost fun!"
"If you say so..."
There were a hundred soldiers that had come against this group of twenty-eight bandits. Six were dead, five more wounded with more than a scratch. It was not a good showing... but it wasn't terrible, either. Boshi, at least, had been a renowned and infamous threat, a killer of men. Now he was dead. Or near enough, anyway. He still moved... but no other soldiers went to finish him. As the tall, statuesque beauty and her curvy, gorgeous companion joined several other green-clad women in celebration of a job well done, Lin looked to Jo Gai. "Lieutenant?"
The portly officer was gasping for air, run ragged by the combat he was so unused to. "G- Go ahead, Corporal. Sergeant Lin, I mean. You can- have- the honors."
Lin's eyes widened. "S- Sergeant, Sir?"
Jo Gai shrugged as he stood, gesturing off to the east. "Sergeant Dan Yu is dead. You're Corporal Chonji's senior, so... I'll have to file paperwork as part of the battle report, but the position is yours. Besides, you did alright, for your first battle."
It wasn't necessarily high praise, and Lin doubted it. He was... well, mortified, guilty, and a hundred other emotions about how he had frozen at the start of the battle, and how it had taken two men just to stall one of the last bandits. He wasn't embarrassed about having been saved by a woman, though.
No... Those two, they were something else. War-priestesses, maybe, blessed by the Gods and Ancestors, and maybe Kyoshi herself, for all he knew. The stories said that the current Avatar was friends with some of them, at any rate, so maybe it was true.
He wasn't ashamed of that. Maybe that he had needed to be rescued in the first place, but it was his first battle. He was a veteran, now. Sort of, at least. He'd even... killed two men. "S- Sir, yes sir."
It was an automatic response. He didn't want to finish off Boshi. He hadn't earned the recognition that would follow.
The Kyoshi Warriors had done so much, though. Scouting and recon, and then front-line fighting, something none of them had expected. And those two! Ty Lee and Mai, they had called each other, had... they had just destroyed several of the best fighters, including the monstrous Boshi.
They deserved the credit. Not him.
"Go on, Sergeant," Jo Gai prompted after he had caught his breath a bit more, "It's politics. The Council won't stand for a Kyoshi getting the credit, so it may as well be one of our boys, and you did pretty well. If you don't want blood on your hands... well, it's a little late for that."
"N- No," Lin muttered, looking down at his spear, which was still dripping, running crimson with his first two kills. "I'll do it, sir. I... thank you for the honor."
"Thank you," Jo Gai shot back with a salute, "I didn't need the accolades."
Lin nodded once, then stepped forward, acutely aware that the eyes of more than thirty soldiers, all those close enough to see it, were on him.
Boshi rolled onto his back as Lin approached, his one remaining eye staring wildly at his tear- and blood-stained face. "A whelp... like you...? Fuck that..." The man's voice was hoarse, ragged, and Lin only then saw another knife buried hilt-deep just below his clavicle on the left side. Not a fatal wound, probably, but close enough to an artery that if he moved wrong it could kill him.
Lin paused. He could step on the blade, claim that it was the tall warrior-woman's attack that had killed the bandit leader.
Damned politics.
The spear came up, and before Boshi's struggling, scrabbling fingers could close around the handle of his discarded sword, the spear came down into the center of the huge man's throat.
The body jerked once, then went still.
That had been... what... five hours ago, now?
The worst of the wounded had been triaged, cared for, or worked on by the platoon's chirurgeon, or sent off to get better care in Qiquan City, the nearest population center. His junior Corporal- his only Corporal now, he supposed, a young man named Chonji, had reported that their unit had been particularly lucky. No dead, one severe casualty, and six minor injuries were all they had. Two of those injuries were Lin's own. He, like most of the walking wounded, had waited more or less patiently while the more important matters were dealt with. In the end, he had poured some of the Lieutenant's whiskey over the gash on his arm and the shallow cut on his left thigh, then bandaged them past the hiss of pain on his own.
Then he, and three other Sergeants, one of which was just as newly promoted as he was, had helped Lieutenant Jo Gai with his paperwork, the after-action report. It... was boring. Tedious. Horrifying.
They had written down every death and casualty on the enemy side as a combatant, under orders. Lin had done his duty, hating every moment of it.
But he understood morale, and the cost of war better than most. He had been poor from birth, and had joined the military as a way out of that cycle of poverty. It helped that he could send just a little money home to help his parents, but... it was more that he wasn't another mouth to feed, even if he was young and healthy. His brothers could do the work without him, though. These bandits had been preying on people like his family, who worked hard for next to nothing.
True, there were probably innocents... but a message had to be sent. So he would do his duty, and keep up the morale of his men.
His men. Ridiculous. He was no officer. He was a farmer.
Except now, apparently, he was, exactly that. True, an enlisted soldier, but an officer nonetheless. In charge, with men under his direct command. More than just a squad here and there, but an entire unit. Half of a platoon.
It was insane, and also real, though the reality of it seemed utterly surreal at the same time.
As surreal as the goddess who walked among them.
While his men, their men, celebrated the victory and bandaged their wounds with a bit too much hearty field-beer and an extra ration from the food caravan, they had catcalled and tried to embarrass the Kyoshi Warriors for 'playing soldier' and 'trying to be men'.
Of course, this disrespect came at the same time the soldiery were trying to woo the women, who 'everyone knew' had all taken vows of chastity.
Then there were those who had actually seen one of the women fight. It was a small fraction of the regulars, but they were silent, or actually said quiet things to shut the rest up. It didn't do much, but Lin didn't care. He was one of those who supported them.
One had saved his life, and one had saved Lieutenant Jo Gai's.
They were amazing.
Above almost all of them was the curvy, gorgeous, flexible woman who had charged into battle unarmed and taken down three soldiers in as many heartbeats, in a flurry of acrobatics and precise strikes.
Then there was her.
The stunning, stoic figure that Lin was sure would haunt his dreams for the remainder of his days. The Avatar Herself, maybe, returned from the dead. Hadn't Kyoshi been abnormally tall for a woman, taller than most men? This... Mai, she wasn't that tall, but she towered above most of the other women, and even several of the city-bred soldiers.
The sight of her graceful movements, unhurried and unrushed even though she faced the most dangerous foe by herself, captivated him even hours later.
Her cool gaze in his direction, just once, at the end of the battle... "You can finish him off," she had said. To no one in particular... but she had looked at him. Had Jo Gai seen the same look? Was that why he was being given the accolades, undeserved?
Had the woman saved his life, and so he felt he owed her?
Or... was there something else going on?
He did not have much more time to ponder, because at that moment, a pair of very soft breasts- the softest he had ever felt in his young life- wrapped themselves around the back of his neck. Then his half-finished dinner was pulled from his hand and set aside while he tried to figure out if he was under attack or not.
Before he could, the same breasts slid around his neck, only separating at the front as the curvy brunette who had saved his life melted into his lap, now in very much the opposite of a dress uniform. All around him, conversation and laughter fell away as the soldiers looked in his direction. She was, at least, dressed... if a chest-wrap and loincloth could be called 'dressed'. The essential bits were covered, anyway.
But the woman, Ty Lee he thought, no longer had her makeup on. She's pretty, he had just enough time to realize, before the woman asked a question that dragged all the rest of his thought to a screeching halt. "So, handsome, what are you doing tonight? Want to join us in our tents?"