"Well…" Ju darted a hunted look around the tent.
The idea that had been born after their watch shift — when the girls had shared a little wine before bed to chase away the nighttime chill — no longer seemed nearly as brilliant.
"We were cold!" Dandan managed to blurt out.
"Right! Very, very cold!" the petite warrior hurried to support her, fully aware of how pathetic the excuse sounded. But not making excuses at all was far scarier.
"I see…" Suki said silkily, her stare becoming outright lethal.
"We just…" The girls unconsciously began backing away.
"Oh! We should make breakfast!" Ju suddenly seized upon a new distraction.
"Yes! We need to feed Chan, he'll definitely be starving!" Dandan tried to support the idea — and only made everything worse.
"Chan, huh?!" The commander's voice cracked like a whip.
For the proud and fearless Kyoshi Warriors, that became the final straw tipping the scales of nervous tension. The camp was immediately filled with two panicked feminine shrieks loud enough to make every single person present — aside from the Fire Herald, who was extremely occupied at that particular moment — turn toward the sound.
After that, events unfolded quickly, if predictably.
The "cunning infiltrators," in the finest traditions of people caught red-handed, executed a strategic retreat. Granted, it looked more like a disgraceful rout, but no matter what you called the maneuver, it succeeded.
Suki failed to immediately catch the fugitives and force them to accept their fate with dignity, and then the commander returned from his "inspection of strategically important facilities," causing judgment day to naturally postpone itself until a later date…
***
Commodore Chan
After finishing my business and washing up — very carefully, since water needed to be conserved. The owl in the library supposedly had some kind of reserves, but we had no idea how much or whether he intended to share them with us, so it was better to ration our own supplies cautiously — we headed off to breakfast, and afterward to the library.
The owl made an unforgettable impression on my companions, though the library itself did just as much. The bird, however, paid them little attention. He clearly wanted to fulfill his side of the bargain as quickly as possible and receive the promised payment. So after assigning each guest a fox-guide navigator, the bird dragged me off into a secluded corner furnished like some sort of "sultan's tent" — plush cushions, walls draped in fabric, and a low table laden with drinks and fruit.
"Good morning, Teacher," I finally managed to greet him once he released me.
"Why do you call me that, human?"
"Mmm, perhaps because you're teaching me?" I raised an eyebrow.
"That was our agreement. Afterward, you will pass your knowledge on to me."
"Heh. Just as a student learns from a teacher, a teacher also discovers something new from the student," I paraphrased a well-known philosophical concept slightly.
"Perhaps. Today I shall show you what I spoke of yesterday. Watch closely!"
The Spirit touched me with a wing, and—
Memories began surfacing in my mind.
No. Not mine. I was more like an observer watching events unfold from the outside. A scruffy young man with a beard trying to steal a pie from a market stall. The same young man learning from a dragon. Then that same figure again, now an old man breathing his last upon a battlefield soaked in blood.
More than anything, it felt like watching a movie with full sensory immersion — including even smells! Total virtual reality immersion, just without tactile sensations.
And it was priceless.
I saw how the energybenders trained and the techniques they used. I saw what the dragon taught Wan. I saw how Raava instructed him. And I knew I would never forget any of it.
The story of the first Avatar was followed by a "course" covering later eras, though nothing especially remarkable happened there. Everything repeated in cycles. A nation would rise, grow stronger, begin expanding… and then another Avatar would arrive and smash all those achievements back to square one — sometimes all the way into the Stone Age.
But this last time, something had gone wrong.
Still, the vividness of it all was incredible. It genuinely felt as though I had personally witnessed those events.
Indescribable.
And then, suddenly, it ended.
I found myself back in the library hall surrounded by cushions. Judging by the slight stiffness in my muscles, I'd been sitting there for at least three hours. But I wasn't feeling too terrible, so probably no more than five had passed since the "show" began.
"Hm…" The owl stared at me suspiciously. "Strange."
"Is something wrong?" Transferring a spirit's memories directly into someone's brain had to be delicate work. What if something had gone wrong and I was now completely screwed?
"Yes," Tong nodded. "How much do you remember?"
"Everything from humanity's first appearance and Wan's adventures all the way to Avatar Roku's death."
And I really did remember it all — every major event of the last ten thousand years. Not that there had been all that many of them, and I'd never had a poor memory to begin with, but this still felt excessive. I had the distinct sensation that if I concentrated a little, I could probably describe the exact shape of the clouds on the day the first Avatar finally kicked the bucket.
"You should only remember vague visions that would settle into your memory gradually over the course of the next month. And even then, properly consolidating them should have taken a week. How do you feel?" the bird asked gently.
(End of Chapter)
Even the smallest flame needs fuel to endure.
If you wish to see this story burn brighter, consider leaving a review, a comment, or offering your Power Stones.
🔥 Bonus chapter at 500 power stones.