"Oh! Mom's pastries! Thank you, Master Chan!"
So that's what had been inside. Yeah… after a week they'd naturally dried out a bit, but I doubted that would matter much to the girl.
"You can drop the 'Master.' I'm not that much older than you, and I'm not here on any official visit. This is more of a stopover than anything else."
"Ah, I see. That's a shame. Oh! Then you must be chasing after the Avatar?" So much enthusiasm. Though honestly, why wouldn't there be? She'd just received news from her parents, and her friends all looked pretty excited too.
"You know about him too?"
"Of course I do! He was here four days ago!" That nearly made me miss a step.
"Start talking!"
"There's not actually that much to tell," the girl sighed. "A bald boy with arrow tattoos on his head and arms flew in. Traveling with him were a boy and a girl around our age—maybe a little older than me, but younger than you. Judging by their clothes and weapons, they were from the Water Tribe. Their transportation was this enormous six-legged flying bison with a tail like a duck-bear's."
She paused for breath before continuing.
"The Kyoshi Warriors spotted them while patrolling the island and," here the girl flashed a mischievous grin "taking prior experience into account, very politely asked who they were and what they wanted on neutral territory. So this Aang explained that he was an airbender and the Avatar."
"And then?"
"Then…" Kori sighed again. "Then he noticed the Fire Nation flag over one of the houses, learned about our representation on the island, and relocated deeper into the forest at the advice of his companion… Sokka, I think that was his name."
"You tried to capture him?"
"No," Kori shook her head. "We didn't get the chance. The girls explained that Kyoshi was neutral territory, after which the boys decided that openly capturing enemies on neutral ground in broad daylight was bad manners… But at night, when nobody's looking…"
Yeah… I really was influencing people badly.
And that was a good thing.
"Unfortunately, our attempt wasn't successful. He just blew us all into the water. By the time we swam back, stopped coughing up seawater, and returned to the spot, the Avatar and his companions had already vanished without a trace. A full report on the incident was drafted and sent to Lord Ozai's office." The girl sighed once more. "We failed, didn't we?"
"Not at all. You did everything correctly. As for not managing to capture him…" I shrugged. "If even General Iroh, Prince Zuko, and an entire raider packed full of firebenders couldn't do it, then it's fair to conclude that the Avatar is a formidable opponent and not someone easily defeated."
"But he looked like some twelve-year-old kid!"
"Appearances can be deceiving. Technically, he's over a hundred years old." We would tactfully omit the detail that he'd spent most of that century in magical cryogenic sleep. No need to upset the girl with the fact that she'd gotten flattened by someone younger than her. And honestly, trained or not, the Avatar possessed a downright absurd amount of raw power.
"That little bastard!"
After that, the conversation about the last airbender naturally drifted to other topics. (Though I had my doubts about that title. Just because you couldn't find an airbender didn't necessarily mean none existed anymore.) Kori had plenty to talk about besides news of Aang, and she was more than happy to hear stories about home as well — she'd already begun missing both her homeland and her parents.
***
The interesting developments did not end there. A few hours later, around noon, the lookouts spotted yet another Fire Nation ship — this time a small raider racing at full speed toward the bay that the sea serpent had claimed as its favorite haunt…
"All right, petty officer, take the launch and guide those suicidal fools into the harbor," I called to the nearest noncom.
"Yes, sir!" the sailor dashed off to carry out the order.
"Hm… who could that be?" Suki, having finally escaped from her friends, narrowed her eyes at the approaching vessel. The girl was an orphan, so there had been no relatives for her to fend off, and once everyone else had been "snatched up" by parents, uncles, and aunts, the warrior had returned to me, albeit looking a bit melancholy.
"No idea. Maybe one of Сommodore Zhao's scouts decided to verify the reports they received," I shrugged.
"Сommodore Zhao?" Suki wrinkled her brow in an oddly adorable way. "Could that cause problems for us?"
"I don't know. On the one hand, our assignments are different, so there's not much for us to fight over. On the other… people say he's a fairly unpleasant individual. Very ambitious, with powerful connections at the very top."
"Well, the same could be said about you," the warrior snorted.
"Hey, I'm a pleasant individual!" I objected to such vile slander.
"Tell that to the colonel," the lady of my heart continued defending her position, "and to those bandits, and the pirates, and…"
"I get it," I cut her off dryly. "Fine. He's a more unpleasant individual than I am."
"Oh! That's quite an achievement," she said with utterly genuine respect.
"Yeah… and to think, you used to be such a sweet, kind, innocent girl…"
"And then you came along and corrupted me in every possible sense," yeah, Suki, clearly invigorated by returning home, was very much on a roll today.
(End of Chapter)
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