Responses to Reviews:
RonaldM40196867: Avatar already has quite a lot of martial arts, I don't know if it needs more.
Zigzagdoublezee: Considering the record of the Earth Kingdom military thus far, Jet branching off on his own seems like the correct decision. No more chariots charging tanks for him.
As Always, Please Review!
Zuko took the stairs three at a time as he descended back down to street level, a bleary-eyed Mai following him.
"What do you mean 'we have a job'?" She demanded. "Where did that come from?"
"I met someone I travelled here with," Zuko explained. "Turns out she's an actor, from the Fire Nation. There's an entire troupe of them."
"And she gave you a job," Mai repeated.
"Yes. At least, I think so."
"As an actor."
"No, backstage," Zuko told her. "Also, they know who we are."
"Everyone who travelled with you knows that now," Mai pointed out. "Do you know what happened to any of the others?"
Zuko shook his head.
"I think we just have to hope we never see them again," he said, thinking regretfully of Chen. "But this is a vast city, and never seeing them again could be quite easy."
"You saw the actors again."
"I wasn't trying to avoid them," Zuko led her out of the door and onto the street, spotting Fumika a short distance away. She waved to him, and then saw Mai. Her eyes widened, and she bowed, a gesture returned by Mai once the two of them reached her.
"Follow me," Fumika told them, and set off down the street. She looked over her shoulder at Mai.
"Nice to meet again under different circumstances," she observed. "Where you're not hunting us in the night."
"That was nothing personal," Mai replied, her voice impassive.
There was a beat of silence.
Then Fumika shrugged.
"No, I suppose not," she said. "It was him you wanted."
She gestured to Zuko, who coughed and changed the subject.
"What sorts of shows do you do?"
"Fire Nation masked theatre, mainly," Fumika said, "although it turns out people don't seem to want that any more."
Can't imagine why," Mai murmured.
"So Chikao and Riku have put their heads together to write our own original play. That's what we performed."
Zuko frowned.
"How much time did they spend on this play?"
"Not long," Fumika said easily. "It's still a first draft. It's not good, but it'll do until they can write something better. They're already hard at work."
She led them through a maze of streets until they came to another apartment block much like the one they lived in. Fumika stopped in front of it, then pushed the door open and headed inside. Mai and Zuko exchanged glances and followed her inside.
She led them up the stairs, until they emerged onto the second floor. Several doors stood in front of them, and one of them was completely failing to muffle the sound of shouting and loud voices.
"Wait here," Fumika told them, opening the door. "I'll explain the situation.
She closed the door behind her. A few seconds passed.
And then the shouting stopped.
"Was that them?" Mai asked. "They're very loud."
"You get used to it," Zuko told her.
Suddenly the door burst open, and the entire group of actors flooded out, surrounding them and speaking enthusiastically- all at once. Zuko found it very overwhelming.
One of them- Teruo, the only one who wasn't an actor, Zuko remembered- stepped forward out of the tumult.
"I hear you need a job," he said.
"Please?" Zuko asked. "Nobody else will employ us."
"Can you sing?"
"I'm not asking to be on stage-"
"Answer the question."
Zuko deflated.
"Not really, no."
"Can you dance?"
"Again-"
"Can you act?"
"I guess so," Zuko shrugged. "I've always been a fan of Love Amongst the Dragons."
"It's a good show," Teruo nodded approvingly. "But not one we'll be performing. Not here, and not now."
"Not even Love Amongst the Geckos any more," Makio said. Everyone else scowled at him.
Teruo turned to Chikao.
"So what do you think?"
"I don't see why not," Riku rumbled. "He did save us."
"He didn't ask you," Chikao scowled. He looked the two of them up and down.
"So you want to work backstage, do you?" He asked.
Zuko looked at Mai, and then nodded.
"Your job will be shifting furniture we need on and off-stage, maintaining the props table, painting backgrounds, and generally helping him," Chikao pointed at Teruo again. Then he turned back to them.
"Normally, there would be a strict and rigorous interview process, but you already proved yourself to us and I simply don't have time for it. You're in. Welcome to the group. The first show is tonight."
He gestured for them to enter the room.
"The play is called 'The lovers'," he said. "It's quite generic, but we thought we should get established bg appealing to the audience's patriotic instincts. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy has to go to war, it's a topical thing you see, girl follows boy, she saves him, he saves her, they both return home and get married."
He stopped for breath.
"Is it a comedy? A tragedy?" Zuko probed.
"It's a serious play," Chikao said pompously.
"So why was the audience laughing so much?" Daishi, the smallest member of the group, asked. Chikao glared at him.
"So the Fire Nation are the villains?" Mai narrowed her eyes as she considered what she had been told.
"No, it's set in the distant past. The villains aren't named." Sachiko told them. "We have big plans for our next show though."
"So what do we have to do?"
"Just follow my lead," Teruo said.
"We're performing at a local teahouse," Riku said. "We'll show you where it is. We perform while the patrons eat. We've still got a couple of hours to prepare before we need to be there though. Teruo will talk you through what you need to do, and then you'll have a cut of the profits afterwards."
He smiled.
"Welcome to the group, My Prince."
"Don't call me that," Zuko pointed at him.
"I'll try not to, My Prince."
Zuko glowered at him as he laughed, produced a couple of tattered looking booklets and handed it to them.
"Now, here are some scripts. Have a read through. And then we'll see what we need you to do."