You can find more of this on by Subscribe/Star (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted past Ch. 20 there. You can find the same on my new (via Discord per their ToS), under /WildErotica. The DISCORD is at h-t_t-p_s-:_/-/_discord-._g-g_/-N9yDASt6Cw (taking out hyphens and underscores, 'cause FFnet). If you prefer direct links, go to my Discord and follow the 'links in general' section to find the ones you want. All of my fics are well ahead of what I post here, often 10-30 chapters ahead.

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Enjoy!

Chap. 6

Of course Lin was drenched and smelly when he and the woman who led the way reached a much finer Traveler's Inn near the heart of Sianjian District. It was not some simple roadhouse, denoted by the fact that this particular inn had not just one but two signs. One had a fancy name, including a Kanji that Lin didn't even recognize, though he saw part of the word for Clay in there. The Finest Something-Clay House. The second sign, even larger, proclaimed the Inn 'the finest in northern Pingjing.

Of course the Kyoshi Warriors were staying in a much nicer place than the common soldiery. That was to be expected, they were not part of the regular military, and followed different rules. It was still a bit unfair, but Lin could do little more than sigh as he stepped up to the porch and the night guard lowered a heavy halberd across the gate. "No entry."

"What?" the woman leading him growled, "What do you mean no entry? I'm a paying customer."

"You can come in," the guard rumbled, flexing impressive musculature as he sent an appraising look at the woman, and a darker one at Lin, "but the peasant-soldier stays out. House Rules, no unclean come in."

"You can't... bend the rules? For me...?"

"'Fraid not, Miss," the guard said, blushing as the pretty young woman stepped up to him and placed a coy finger underneath his scraggly chin, "It's not worth my job."

"Aw... not even if we... had some fun?"

"Er... Well, that would..."

"I can just wait for them to come out," Lin sighed, "but I need to be back by muster."

"Nah, don't worry about that," the girl giggled, "I'm sure Mr. Big Strong Guard won't get in trouble. Besides, even if he wanted to, he's not going to see you, right? He'll be watching... me."

"Hey, you can't just-" the guard protested as the Kyoshi Warrior reached down and grabbed his crotch. "O- Oh... Oh, that's... um..."

Lin blinked, astounded. He'd never been touched by a woman, well, aside from Ty Lee, in such a sensual way. This guard, this nobody, probably even lower than him in many ways, was a lucky man!

"Don't think you can- d- distract me with your, uh... f- feminine... w-wa-ways, and I'll- ohfuck!"

Lin winced, his groin suddenly ached as the Kyoshi Warrior, the woman whose name he still didn't know, twisted, the hand gripping tightly enough to cause several threads of the guard's damp uniform to snap.

"Go on in, then," she chirped to Lin, "I've got his attention."

He swallowed, hesitated for a moment, then walked quickly past, his loins aching with sympathetic pain... but she was correct. The guard's eyes were bugged out, already turning red with pressure, and the rest of his face was scrunched up in visible agony... but he wasn't watching Lin as he moved by.

"Now, let's talk about how you treat the guests of a noble-woman, peasant-soldier or not," were the last words he heard from the Kyoshi Warrior as the door was pushed shut behind him.

Despite the early morning hour, the lobby was full of Kyoshi Warriors. They were not lounging about or relaxing. Instead, every one of the beautiful women- and they were indeed universally beautiful, he noticed not for the first time- were training in some way. Twelve were in a circle, six inside and six outside, working on sit-ups braced by their companions. Another seven were walking on their hands with varying degrees of success around the left side of the room, dodging expensive furniture and vases or other pieces of art that were thrown back and forth in ways that seemed designed to be both dangerous and stylistic by another half-dozen of the women. On the right half, the furniture was, he thought, probably where it had been left. An ostentatious fireplace was flanked by more subdued, tasteful couches with a fine tea service set out, and several more women were writing or reading from a variety of scrolls. Two were even painting, and in the far left corner, one was quietly practicing with a wooden flute.

None of them, not even those reading, were more than half-dressed. Less dressed, in fact, than many had been around the campfire when he had first been shown the Dai Li's scrolls. Everything important was covered, but it was still more flesh than Lin was used to seeing on anyone, much less thirty or more stunning women all at the same time.

He felt his face flush, even as the heady aroma of womanhood filtered into his nostrils, along with soap and...

Yes, they had actual chamomile!

It grew in small quantities on one of the outskirt farms of Lin's village, imported from Youyu Province, nearly across the entire Earth Kingdom from Jiuquan or Anchang, where they were now, so he was quite familiar with the herbal scent of the flower, but for this many women to have access to it was astounding. It smelled delightful and relaxing, along with the heady musk of the sweat the more active Kyoshi Warriors were producing.

Of course, the moment he stepped inside, nearly every pair of eyes landed on him. Lin felt his face flush further. "Uh... H- Hello."

"Hi cutie," one of the other girls chirped from nearby. She had been reading, it looked like. A poem, perhaps? Something short, at any rate, less than sixty kanji filled the scroll. "You're Lin, right? The soldier-boy?"

"T- That's my name, yes."

"Cool, Mai's waiting for you in the back. Take the left door, and then at the end of the hall on the right."

The room got even quieter. Lin nodded, and glanced once more around as he walked through. He couldn't help it. He was still a walking bundle of nerves and anxiety as he walked through the room, though. It wasn't just the women watching him, some still standing on their hands, or who he was supposed to be meeting with. There was also the stress of the mission itself, and dealing with his still-new promotion and lot in life.

Worst of all was the Dai Li. He knew the Kyoshi Warriors, Ty Lee and Mai in particular, were hunting down their remnants, and that they were connected with the bandits he and his men had been sent to kill. Then he and his men had slept in a roadhouse known to have Dai Li connections? What were the odds of that? How could it even have happened?

Were Mai and Ty Lee going to interrogate him, torture him, kill him, just for bringing his men there? Had he compromised the larger mission, and thus put the entire Earth Kingdom at greater risk due to a simple mistake?

He had literally only known the roadhouse was there because it was the one inn he had ever been to in the city, and had only stayed there once, and been there a second time briefly before joining the Earth Kingdom Mustered Soldiery. How could he have been...

So stupid?

No, that was ridiculous. How could he have seen any clue, any connection? Blaming himself was neither effective nor correct. He was not to blame, it was an innocent coincidence. Yes... he would just have to hope the Kyoshi Warriors believed him. Because he knew he'd never stand a chance, otherwise.

None of that explained the quiet, muffled titters of the Kyoshi Warriors as he followed the first girl's instructions and stepped past the lobby into a long, wood-paneled hall.

It was, if anything, even more elegant than the lobby. This Inn was clearly one that catered to the wealthy merchant or noble class, and just the level of sound as his soldier's bare feet clomped down the immaculately-maintained, dark-stained hardwood floors made him wince. The smell of offal clung to him from the flooded streets, and he was painfully aware that he was literally tracking shite through the hall of the most extravagantly expensive establishment he might ever be in... after sneaking past the guard who had clearly been placed to prevent riff-raff from him from entering.

But there was no shout of alarm from the guard, and no one came to pester him or complain.

So what was he supposed to do? Any one of the woman-warriors outside could flatten him in martial combat, and he knew full well that they were well-trained against Benders of all sorts, and especially Earth Benders, not that he was a good one.

Resigned to his fate, Lin continued making his muddy, brown-tracked way down the hall to the last door on the right side, then knocked.

"Come on in," Ty Lee's voice chirped, sounding far too awake for the time of morning it was. Many soldiers got up early to train, and Lin was no exception, but he estimated it was still at least an hour until sunrise, but the cheerful girl sounded like she'd been up for at least an hour.

The room he entered was a simple foyer-like space, with a bench and a few bars or shelves for storing or hanging food, shoes, and accessories on or in. Ty Lee herself was throwing her own green robes over her shoulders, her face already painted, with her traditional hat sitting on the bench nearby. Once her second hand was through the sleeve, the woman tied it off quickly, with deft finger movements he could barely follow, then slid the hat over her head to hang down her back, the weight landing just at the top of her impressive cleavage.

"Heh, it's not polite to stare, you know," Ty Lee said with a giggle.

"S- Sorry," he blushed. What kind of idiot walked to his doom and then ogled at one of the people most likely to bring it? Him, apparently.

"I don't mind," she reminded him, then came close- too close- and whispered in his ear, "I actually kind of like it when you look."

She laughed softly as his face darkened further, but at least she pulled away. Not before groping him again, and smiling at the half-hardness she felt there. "I've still got it. Mai's in the back, I have to go help the girls train, so she'll be the one talking to you today."

He nodded. That was fair. His death would, at least, come from someone even more graceful, more beautiful, than the acrobat. Of course, he had no idea what it was that Ty Lee had, but a part of him still had to agree with her as she bounced past him and out the door he'd just come through in near-silence.

He... He had expected a room. An Inn room. A finely appointed one, but a place with perhaps a desk, a bed, a place to sleep.

Dukashi Lin did not expect to be ushered into the women's open-air bath.

With someone inside.

Twelve, perhaps fifteen chí ahead of him, stood Mai. The woman who had saved his life, handed him a promotion he didn't want, and changed the course of his life forever. The woman who had doomed him to a life of fear and intrigue far beyond what any normal soldier should ever have to endure.

She was a goddess made flesh.

And Dukashi Lin was not prone to hyperbole, not that he knew what the word meant.

Mai was tall, but at the moment he stood perhaps two feet taller, as she stood within the pool of the open-air bath, which came to just above her knees. Rain-water, a little softer than it had been even when he left the roadhouse he had spent most of the night in, still fell all around and on the woman, making her long, dark hair shake, and leaving a fine mist of exploding droplets that framed her pale skin with a halo of blurring from the six, or ten, or perhaps twenty- oh, who cared how many-lanterns that made her skin glow like fire itself in the early morning hour.

From the slender, toned muscle of her legs, up to the nearly-flat but gentle curve of her buttocks, the more gentle sway of her spine as she lifted one arm to run a cloth down the other, just the hint of one pert breast visible as she half-turned, sending ripples out through the water that diffused before reaching the edges of the bath thanks to the rain, he saw it all.

All the scars.

Most of them faint, but by the hundreds. Thin white lines, a few faint but red ones that showed more recent injuries, and a pair of deeper ones. One, a burn, the other, the familiar uneven line of a sword that didn't quite make a killing slice through her ribs.

"Ty Lee? Did you need something else? He'll be here soon."

Lin coughed. "Uh..."

Mai's head turned, and for a brief moment, beneath the smooth line of her bangs, he thought he saw the golden fires of the sun flashing in her eyes. Eyes that narrowed...

Then she turned back, facing the other way, and continued watching. "Oh, you're here already. Your feet stink."

"Sorry," he apologized for what already felt like the twentieth time that morning.

"It's fine, my parents will pay for the damage to the Inn if they have to. Why did you stay at that roadhouse?"

"I... It- was the only one I knew," he confessed, "I've, er, only been in this city once- no, twice. Once, we- my brothers and father- stayed at that Inn, and once we didn't because we couldn't afford the prices that day."

Mai nodded.

He felt... inadequate, in every way. She was so... so everything. Beautiful, graceful, intelligent, no doubt wealthy, the daughter of noblemen or merchants who could afford such a place, and the damage fees his presence would cause... Why was he blessed with just the sight of her bathing? Or was it a curse, meant to haunt his dreams (as it had already, before even this!)?

It had to be.

"It's a Dai Li hideout and gathering spot," Mai told him.

He coughed, "I- yes. Someone- the woman who came to fetch me- told me that."

"Yugao," Mai said simply.

He coughed, "Er, y- yes, her. I suppose."

The beauty in the bath nodded, then switched the cloth to wash her other arm, apparently unconcerned with his presence despite her complete state of undress. He could even see her clothes stacked neatly, both the ones she had probably slept in and a newer set of Kyoshi Warrior garments, on a bench to the side along with- fuck, did she have five bandoleers full of knives hidden on her?

"We think it's the innkeeper, but we don't know for sure. We only found out about it last night. Your men can't stay there if we return this way. If they do, we'll have to silence them."

Lin swallowed, "I... wh- what?"
"Kill them," Mai clarified, glancing once over shoulder as she said it, the same stark, neutral expression she seemed to always wear adorning her. "We can't afford for them to get back to someone else and report if they've been compromised."

A louder gulp followed, "I- I see."

Mai shrugged and went back to her washing, "Perhaps. Your village, it's in the Dukashi Prefecture, just north of here, yes?"

She had asked a question, but Lin knew full well there was no doubt in Mai's mind about it.
"Y-Yes, ma'am."

The word he had actually used, Tàitai, made Mai actually flinch, the first true break in her veneer that Lin didn't think he had imagined. "Do not call me that," Mai commanded, her voice somehow more flat, expressionless than normal... yet it carried more weight, too.

"S- Sorry, ma- er... Miss? Xiaˇo jiӗ?"

"Or that," she replied, though Lin thought he saw the corner of one of her mouth twitch up for a moment. No... he must have been imagining it. "You can call me Mai, or nothing at all."

"A- Alright, M-Mai."

It seemed like sacrilege, to call the woman before him, so confident, so sure, so amazing, by her given name. But she had told him to, and he could do no less, even if it was blasphemy.

... Was he putting her on a pedestal? Probably, but Lin couldn't help it.

"I'm not more than a year or two older than you," Mai told him with a frown, "and no, I'm not married, and no, I'm not a young lady, either. Just Mai is fine. I'm going to keep calling you Lin, if I refer to you by name at all. It's probably safer for you if I don't."

He swallowed. If the Dai Li truly did have ears everywhere, she was probably right. Was that why she was meeting with him here, now? Did she think the sanctity of the bath would protect her?

Maybe it would. It wasn't like he was an expert in the Earth Kingdom's bogey-men. Not like Mai and Ty Lee seemed to be. "R- Right."

Mai turned half-way, gifting him with her slim but not too-skinny body in profile as she dropped the cloth in the water and bent to scoop up a little more bathwater, adding it to the liquid already running down her silky black hair as she looked toward the sky, letting the rain pelt her face with the faintest ghost of pleasure tracing across the side of her face he could see.

Her nipples were hard, dark, larger than her areolae, but that had to have just been the cold of the rain, right? He couldn't quite see anything between her legs, not that he was looking, because he was a gentleman, and this wondrous creature was so far above him that he couldn't dare deign to.

Then she turned away, and his mind started again, slowly. It was delayed, perhaps, by the (deliberate?) flex of her buttocks that gave them just a bit more definition, before she sank into the steaming, hissing water to her shoulders, and moved sideways to sit on one of the underwater benches. "There are several people in and around your village we will have to question. People you will know, people you might call family. I hope you are prepared. It may not be pretty."

"I- I will do my duty," he said quietly, his mind suddenly scrambling from his indecent, lewd thoughts about the pure goddess before him, to wrap themselves around just what 'questioning' his family and old acquaintances might mean.

The look Mai gave him over her shoulder once more as she reached back to pull her hair around her shoulder before starting to run a fancy ivory comb through it she surely hadn't had a moment before was almost sympathetic. "The worst case scenario is we have to... erase the village."

He swallowed, then nodded, "I- I presume that means me, too."

Mai shook her head, "No, we're reasonably sure you aren't one of them or their agents. If you were a sleeper agent, it's likely they would have already triggered you to get closer to us. The Dai Li are cunning, but they are not infallible, and they are frequently impatient without their old leadership. But that is also the worst case. We are not murderers, we will only... deal with those we must. The mission must come first, you understand? The entire Earth Kingdom is at stake. Even the world. One village, a hundred small villages, are a small price to pay compared to the larger whole."

Lin swallowed. "H- How many cities...? How many people?"

Mai actually did smile then, a weak, faltering thing that lasted just long enough for him to really believe he'd seen it. "Many. I haven't been to more than half, but... Pingjing is a small one."

"S- Small?"

Mai nodded, this time the smile returned stronger and lasted several seconds as she continued combing her long, luxurious hair, "Indeed. It only has nine districts. Gaoling has two hundred and twenty."

"T- O- Oh. That's... a lot."

Mai shrugged, "The Earth Kingdom is very large, larger than all three other kingdoms combined several times over. Ba Sing Se, the capital, contains five entire Provinces, and the smallest is the same size as Jiuquan. There are several hundred cities in the Earth Kingdom, and about... I think two dozen more in the Fire Nation, six in the Water Tribes, with five of them in the North, and of course the four great Air Temples. Most are not populated right now, but... the Avatar is supposed to be working on it."

Lin gasped, his mind struggling to comprehend what Mai had just told him. His village was a tiny fraction of the size of Qiuquan. Pingjin was twenty-five times larger, and then some. And it was a small city? Out of several hundred...? "Just how big is the world...?"

Mai's smile faltered at his question, and she turned back away. "Very. You might see some of it, some day. If you live long enough. Once we're done with the task here, and the bandits are wiped out, we have to find more documents. We're getting closer to the real leadership, but we haven't found them all yet."
"I... I see."

Mai turned once more in the water, and Lin cursed himself for wishing the water didn't cover quite so much of the slight curve of her perky breasts as she faced him fully. It was the first time he had seen her completely without makeup, and he found himself enraptured by her angular, almost severe yet still perfect features, the narrow cast to her eyes that still seemed to shine with golden light despite the cloud cover. "That will dictate where we go next."

"Alright." What else was he to say? He would be going back to Qiuquan Fort, along with his men, and they would part ways unless, somehow, the Dai Li leadership was holed up in his home Province. Even then, he would probably be left out of it. He wasn't important enough for a history-making strike like that, and he didn't want to be. No, that was the sort of thing best left to a hero, not a farm-boy.

Mai nodded, then looked him up and down with a more appraising eye than he had seen on, well, anyone. "You'll do if we get you cleaned up. Yugao can take you to a place, or do it herself. There's a tailor down the road."

"M- My men...?"

"Ty Lee is already on her way there, probably," Mai shrugged, then stood, spinning as she did so he saw nothing. It still made his face heat once more. "Get a bath, get shaved, get a better tailored officer's uniform... Lieutenant."

"L- L-Lieutenant?"

May nodded again as she stepped out of the bath to his right, presenting the same profile but a little more view of her legs as she headed for her clothes, "Yes. As a Zhōngwèi, you will have more access to information, and you will be better able to cow the locals into submission if it is necessary. Besides, Jo Gai speaks highly of you, and I've seen how you treated your men over the last two days."

"T- Two days?"

As Mai draped an outer robe over her still-dripping form she turned to look at him, "Yes, we've been following you almost since you left the last camp."

He spluttered. "Are you ghosts...?"

"Not exactly," Mai said with another faint smile, then turned away once more to pick at the various parts of her Kyoshi Warrior uniform. "You should go out to the others, they'll start to wonder if you're in here too long. And... try not to blush like a stammering idiot when you go out. But don't let them trick you into admitting you did more than see me like this, either."

"Y- Yes, ma- er, Mai."

Her glare, at least, as fast as it was, softened as he corrected himself. "Go. I need to dress."