༉˚*ೃ ᵒ². 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐓𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄!

𝐈𝐓 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓 as most nightmares did: with fire.

          Not the kind of fire of life, or dragons, or anything beautiful and serene, but that of the Fire Nation—which was built with rage and cruelty and torment, the only truly impure form of bending. It had engulfed her world, raging at the edges, and then cleared away to reveal the flames lining Firelord Ozai's throne room, high and leaping, almost obscuring the Firelord completely from view. These fires were violent. Over the rest of the room they cast a threatening, orange glow. It seemed to capture her breath right in her chest.

          She was at a war meeting, though the voices of the councillors and commanders and generals around her seemed to speak words she couldn't understand. It was the first indicator that she was in a dream—Luli had only ever been to two or three council meetings, and even then, she'd known to keep her head bowed low and her mouth shut. Sitting here, now, Luli was thirteen, too. Dreams were funny, in that way.

          The Firelord was discussing war plans, strategy, Luli at her father's right-hand side, sitting all important. She was wearing red clothes, like everybody else in the room—from the top of her braids hung elegant red ribbons, grazing the edges of her face. Yet, Luli didn't feel safe. She'd never truly felt safe in the Fire Nation. It had always been sit proper, don't speak unless spoken to, keep your body tensed—you never know when there might be a blow coming your way. Here, in the heat of the Firelord's throne's flames, where she was sweating beads and keeping her hands clenched tightly at her side out of fear of doing something wrong, she felt as if she was stepping on glass.

          And she knew it was a dream, because so many little things were off. The war council's faces were a blur, something she couldn't quite picture. The tapestry on the walls were all wrong, and so was the fact that they were sitting at chairs rather than on cushions. She'd never worn ribbons to a war meeting. Nor could she make out a single word anyone was saying, though she thought their mouths might be moving. The shadows that Ozai's flames cast along the walls stared eerily at her, like the eyes of great dragons.

          There was a spot opposite her that shouldn't have been: an empty seat, like a black void, an abyss—and it was like the moment Luli noticed it, realised, everything else faded away. The councillors and generals around her faded, Firelord Ozai's throne was empty, the fire still burning bright, and immediately Luli just knew. It hit her like a strike to the gut. Only her father remained. His shadow was cast long across the floor. Luli knew this scene well. A wave of nauseated panic rolled over her. She knew how it ended—like something branded, at the back of her mind. The missing spot at the meeting—

          Luli dove for the exit, and her father's hands caught her arms—grip tight, unyielding, nearly bruising. "Father, don't!" He wrestled with her arms, holding her at bay and rendering her helpless. Vaguely, Luli knew this was a dream—she'd had it before, so many times—but it didn't stop her fighting, never did. Her father was all the world stronger than her. "They're going to hurt him!" He was stronger than she remembered, his firm scowl set harder and deeper than any before. It was his eyes that scared her the most, his eyes had always scared her, because they held no love and little fondness, and only duty. Now, they were like black pits. When Luli looked into them, she saw only void staring back. "They're going to hurt him! Let me go!"

          The young girl—she was still thirteen, slight and naive—broke away from his grip, bruises left on her wrist, and she shoved him away with her might. That was the only time she'd ever shoved her father. It seemed even her dream could get that right. But when she turned to run for the door, the floor of the war council room in front of her was gone, and a gaping, black abyss separated her from the exit. Her feet skidded to a stop in panic. For a very brief moment, Luli considered trying to jump for it. She knew she'd never make it—but she couldn't just not do anything.

          In a state of distress and her hair falling out of their braids, Luli turned wildly back towards her father, heart beating out of her chest, but her father was not there, and in his place was an ancient red dragon, older than Luli by what could have been a millennia. Its face was looming in front of hers, large and angular and majestic—Luli knew it well—scales a vibrant shade of crimson. Jaw open and long teeth bared, the dragon spoke without moving its mouth, voice a shockingly deep, low drawl, yet comforting at the same time, "Do what you must, daughter of Jie." Movement behind her turned Luli's head towards it, her body still conflicted, posed to run even without any floor.

          Upon the throne where had stood Firelord Ozai was a dragon of almost matching appearance and stature to the other, a deep shade of blue that would put waterbenders to shame, sliding forward. Their bodies had curled at either side of her, allowing no escape but for forward and back. Which other way could she turn—? "But are you ready to sacrifice the world for such a thing?" It was not a thing, it was him, and Luli couldn't just— how could she just—? "Would the earth burn beneath your feet if you ran to him? Would you still?" Of course. How was that a question? Of course she would— She always would— She had to—. No one else was going to do it for her. And Luli would rather throw herself off the lip of the Caldera than leave him all alone.

          The red dragon loomed in front of her face, jaws open so she stared into its dark throat, past sharp white teeth. "Are you truly?" Luli was not afraid of them. She had seen them much too many times to ever feel fear when looking into their multicoloured eyes. But the shake in her bones, and the sweat rolling off her, and the pounding of her heart—it wasn't for them.

          "I have to—" she managed out, her own voice surprisingly young in her ears. Even in her own body, in such a dream, it felt a shock to be thirteen again. She was ready to give up everything she was. But to cast the world into fire—? If Luli thought about it too much, she would burn up from the inside. All she knew now was the racing of her heart—its familiarity, because of course she had been here, in a way, before. "It's the only way—" because Luli was not going to let it happen—she wasn't—and when she turned back towards the War Room door, the path was laid back out in front of her, a treacherous bridge of stone surrounded by the deep abyss, and Luli began to run. It was one of those moments in a dream where your legs didn't get stuck as if running through water, where she could run just as fast as she could when she was awake. But it was the world around that fell into slow motion—light of fire flickering across the walls so sluggishly.

          And Luli knew. She was too late. She was always too late—she saw it, in the back of her eyes, heard it, was always hearing it, that scream— the crackling of flames, the gasp of the crowd— she knew just how the scene unfolded, the hands on her shoulders. And this time she wasn't there to see. She wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

          In the darkness of night, less than a few hours into her short sleep, Luli's eyes shot open. She did not awake screaming, or with a start, just lifted her eyelids like it was nothing out of the ordinary. The ground was hard and cold, but Luli was warm—the perks of being a firebender—and alone. Above her, the moon was risen high in her glory. Night had fallen over the world, leaving it soft and quiet. She felt very... vulnerable, suddenly, in this big, wide universe.

          Luli just turned over onto her other side, feeling completely and utterly alone in the world, and tried to fall back asleep.

༉*ೃ༄

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐃 never been kind to Luli. In fact, she'd always suspected they hated her. Perhaps La—and Tui too—were furious at the Fire Nation for what they'd done to the world and their people, and, in turn, with the flame inside her skin and her dark, fiery eyes, Luli was included in that mix. Perhaps she was just an awful sailor. Whenever she set her boat out onto the ocean—the master of terrible timing at sea, apparently—the waves seemed to kick up and try to swallow her. It was like just setting foot in the wretched water caused storms to whip to command. The ocean was no longer fragile tiny shells, drifting in the foam: out here, it was a great beast, and she was entirely defenceless against its anger.

          It was just her and her small sailboat, in the wide, open ocean—she could not imagine what great, dangerous and ancient creatures swum in the depths beneath, ready to snap her up—as it raged, trying to eat her. Such a monster the sea was, as she stood entirely at its mercy. If it wanted to drown her, there would be nothing she could do. Now, as her boat rocked and churned, throwing itself off course again and again as Luli tried her best to wrestle it back towards their destination, great waves smashed up over the sides of the deck and soaked her. Once, twice. Perhaps she should have napped longer and let the storm pass, but she'd set off as soon as her head was clear enough, unable to wrangle her patience any longer.

          A wave crashed up and doused the firebender in water. "Agni," Luli swore, water and ocean salt dripping off her face and hair. "Thank you, La!" Another wave struck her in defiance, nearly throwing Luli's entire body off balance. Here, she was entirely out of her element. No solid ground beneath her feet and no warmth had always felt alien to Luli—nothing tying her to the earth or fire. If she fell into the ocean, she knew that it'd eat her up. But her acknowledgement of the ocean spirit didn't seem to quell its fury, and as her ship crashed over the heaving waves, she thought it was surely going to capsize. "I'm trying to help—!" argued Luli, as if the old spirits were actually listening or present at all, but another beating wave succeeded in crashing against her torso and sending her crashing onto her backside in her wooden ship, slipping painfully. "Spirits be damned." She was aching now, and her loss of grip on the rope meant that the sail was now flipping around wildly. Luli let out a kind of exaggerated growl as she lunged back for it, fingers tearing on rope.

          She'd come too far—been through too much—to just drown before even meeting the Avatar.

          Destiny swelled deep inside her chest, a stubbornness she got from her father—only, a different kind—and she'd wrangle with these ropes and sails until she died. If the ocean wanted her so bad, it'd have to try a lot damn harder. The Fire Nation girl wasn't about to surrender to something as vast and powerful as it so easily. And so, Luli raged through the storm—her luck as a firebender and hence flaming body heat the only thing keeping her from freezing in the open storm air. Rather than succumbing to fear, Luli clutched that destiny and stubbornness in her fingers, and refused to let go. La'll have to give me everything it's got, I won't bow down so easy. She was a small light in the dark storm, against rain and salt and waves, thunder cracking overhead in the distance. Vaguely, Luli wondered if she'd live long enough for that image one day to be painted in a children's book, that would be shared throughout the world.

          By the time the storm began to clear, she'd been on the water for an hour at least, and her hands were aching and torn to shreds at the fault of the ropes. Her clothes were stiff and soaked with salt and ocean water, her eyes burned from the sea spray and all she could taste was the ocean. She was starting to really hate it out here. But then the sun which had begun to rise spread its gentle colours of orange and red across the horizon—that familiar, warm sign of Agni's gaze over the world—and the storm was dying in its rage, and Luli thought, I'm really going to make it.

          "Thank you," breathed Luli as the waters began to grow calmer, and based on the position of the sun, she seemed to be travelling straight towards Kyoshi Island. If she made it all the way there—Luli would praise Tui and La forever. Just the sun above her and unobscured made her feel more comfortable. The dragons were the first firebenders, who taught warriors how to connect the fire of their souls with that of the sun, replicating the circle of energy and life. Like all the others who could bend fire, Luli had flame inside of her—and the night seemed to snuff it out, make her weaker and more vulnerable. When she saw the sun rising above her, she knew that Agni was watching, and that she wasn't alone in such a strange land.

          The water began to dry off her dewy skin, and she tied her looping braided hair into one large bun atop her head, to prevent any more salt from drying it out. A new confidence was dawning on her. Hot and rising like the sun. The rest of the water splattering her quickly evaporated with the quick fiery regulation of her body temperature—a pleasant warmth. And that excitement was bubbling up inside of her, now, as she corrected the sails and allowed the ship to whiz her along the surface of the flattening ocean. How many years had she dreamed of this? Since she was so very young. She couldn't pinpoint the exact age—growing up in the Fire Nation had been a painful and confusing experience—but she knew it was young, right by his side.

          She hadn't thought about him in a while. That was a lie, of course, because she dreamed of the Fire Nation often, but the thought hadn't risen to her mind outside of her sleep in months. Now, it was in the forefront of her mind. With her finally going to see the Avatar, how could it not? They'd both been set down that path together: for the better, or for the worst. The dream had only reminded her of such a thing.

          With the storm dissipated into early morning clouds, Luli felt safe to tie the ropes back against their post, knowing that it wouldn't now flip the boat, and she sunk to her knees against the wood, let her hands come rest against the floor like a kind of bow. Her tiredness was waning on exhaustion, but it was turning into something else, now.

          And ahead, after how many hours through the raging storm, Luli saw the Island of Kyoshi through the bright rays of sunlight threatening to blind her—like a beacon through a night. She couldn't help but grin.

          That flare of hope inside her—blooming like a fire lily, or a lit flame—quenching all her fears. She was going to meet the Avatar. She wondered what the old man would teach her—what wonders of knowledge—and how, in turn, she could help him. If he had already mastered firebending in his time of hiding, she could surely advise him of the ways of the Fire Nation, on how to take down Firelord Ozai and where the secret passages in the Royal Palace were. It would be daunting, of course, speaking to a hundred-year-old Master of all elements and the final Air Nomad, but with a bit of courage, Luli knew she could manage. She wondered if he would have a beard, like the paintings of Avatar Roku, or be bald and wrinkled like the statues of monks she'd seen in the Southern Air Temple. The nerves weren't nearly enough to taper her excitement.

          Just there, ahead of her, spread the bay of Kyoshi Island: spread out like a crescent moon, Tui herself. Luli perched on the very bow of her ship, her hold on a rope the only thing keeping her from plummeting face-first into the cold ocean, as it skidded along the flat water. She could feel destiny setting itself into her bones. Elephant koi leapt out of the water by her as she entered the outer ring of the bay, their orange and pearl scales shimmering in early sunlight. The teeth-revealing grin on Luli's face couldn't be wiped off. In the sun, her usually crisp, dark eyes had turned a shade of molten gold—sweet honey amber.

          The bay was sweet and flat, warm-looking and tender, like soft silk. And the soft hills rose over the small island in gentle slopes—perhaps moulded by the hands of Kyoshi herself. The sky here was a sweet shade of blue, the colour of koiwhales and the colourful theatre masks they sold in the market district of the Caldera. Luli was so happy that she could dream up a dozen poetic comparisons right now. And as the firebender watched the bay of Kyoshi Island grow closer and closer in her view, so near the shore she swore she could almost feel the sand, she almost missed out of the corner of her eye a glimpse of movement. A dark, amphibious sail, gliding up through the water on her right, and then disappearing into the depths once again. Luli turned instantly towards where the fin had vanished, eyes wide and hand still gripping the rope. That wasn't an elephant koi.

          As quickly as the thought came to her, something struck the underside of her boat hard and sent the entire ship rocking, throwing Luli back against the floor. In the periphery of her wide-eyed vision, Luli caught sight of a giant, coiling serpent's tail. Oh—.

          Then the ship was no longer on the water. Her stomach gave a great lurch as her boat was flung upwards into the air, pinning her against the wood floor as the sky seemed to swim closer in her vision, clouds too, wind rushed past her face and the ship was truly airborne. Up and up they lifted, until gravity decided to come back into play, and in the wild moment that was the past five seconds, Luli felt the difference as the ship began to slow in its ascent, succumb to the laws of physics, and, well she didn't quite slow at the same rate. Luli was lighter, you see. It meant that, then—the spirits really did hate her—she was no longer on the surface of the boat, propelled forward by the motion, ocean and sand spread out beneath her legs.

          Luli felt herself in the air. Being in the air was a strange sensation—because Luli wasn't a damn Air Nomad and humans were made to stay on the ground, spirits-damned—and one that she was hardly used to, as her stomach dropped and her hair flew up, and then she was plummeting back down towards the earth, just that second of hovering. Her arms wheeled as if she could slow herself, and her legs kicked out without her realising. "AIE!" If the airbending Avatar was supposed to catch her, well, he did a pretty terrible job. She slammed into the sandy shore face-first, the heavy sand dunes cushioning her from any damage, sand pluming up around her in a great cloud—legs flying up from the impact with her front half and nearly going up over her head. For a very long second, the girl just lay there, until she felt her soul come back to her.

          Luli lifted her head—face smothered with salt and sand that stuck her hair up in strange angles—and, with an expression of faint dismay, glanced behind her and up. Just in time to see her small, handy ship careening majestically through the air before smashing unceremoniously into pieces against the watery surface of the bay. Splinters of wood shot through the air, and long planks flipped until all that was left was a few, sad pieces floating on the water. She pouted, one arm still deep in sand, "Aw... my boat."

          "Excuse me," cut in a young voice behind her, a boy, "was that you who just flew through the air?" Luli—still looking a mess, with her face sheeted by sand and her hair, clumped and sticking with the same, pointed in all directions—tilted her head back on her neck from where she was knelt in the ground, looking up. For a mere second, she was disorientated, looking at the short bald kid upside-down. Spirits-damned, what's a bald kid doing on Kyoshi? But then she realised that the reason he was bald was because he had a bright blue arrow tattooed on his forehead—stark against the rest of his features. And that, really, only meant one thing.

         "Holy—"

         "Because you know that that's supposed to be my thing, right?" He was grinning down at her from her upside-down view, his brown eyes crinkled with his wide smile.

          Luli quickly turned herself over and rightened herself the right way, legs sprawled in the sand and completely covering her green Earth Kingdom uniform. "You're the Avatar," she breathed, that aura of awe in her voice. She was quite literally sitting in the presence of the only Master of all elements in the world—and she was covered with sand with her hair sticking up at all angles. The spirits really embarrassed her this time. Luckily, she was in much too much wonder to feel the pang of humiliation too badly. Then, Luli quickly analysed him with her eyes, and her expression became more and more... thrown off. "You're like... eleven."

          "Twelve, actually," grinned the Avatar. Behind his back was tucked some kind of staff—Luli could only imagine what it could do. The perfect tool for all the elements. The kid just beamed at her.

          "Twelve, huh?" But that couldn't be. As part of the Avatar cycle, and him being an Air Nomad, he must have been the same Avatar that had disappeared one-hundred years ago, unless four Avatars had died unknowingly between then and now. But he couldn't possibly be twelve. That didn't make any sense. She'd been expecting an ancient Master, an all-knowing wise monk, not a kid who hadn't even hit puberty yet. "Um, how?" Luli took the time to brush the sand off her face and shake out her hair, trying to restore the tangled braids to their usual looping formation, but they were dried with salt.

          The Avatar—whose name Luli didn't even know yet—shrugged heavily, and this was not the kind of meeting Luli had prepared for when she'd started out on her journey. "I was stuck in an iceberg for a hundred years." Huh. At this point, her plan for how exactly she was going to introduce herself to the Avatar for the first time had been completely thrown off: first, she'd been tossed by the serpent-creature and was covered in sand; and second, he wasn't a hundred-year-old man, but rather a kid of twelve. All the plans she'd had about what she'd say upon their introduction, how she would bow and humble herself and offer her teachings of firebending to him had totally gone out the window, because, well, this wasn't exactly how she'd expected it to go at all.

          Also, Luli didn't exactly know how to respond to his past comment. Cool, glad you're back? No! Stupid! "Well, I've— uh... I've come to help you on your Avatar journey," explained Luli, brushing the rest of the sand off her uniform. It was green, sewn in typical Earth Kingdom fashion, and its kind had gotten away with hiding her for years now. Firebenders weren't exactly welcomed anywhere except for their own nation, and Luli had never wanted to frighten anyone. "I'm Luli." She gave him a quick, pretty smile, and it was only her dark-fiery eyes that would have ever given the disguise away. Her bag of things—luckily protected by the large dune of sand that had cushioned her fall, and all intact—she scooped carefully off the ground.

          "I'm Aang!" He flipped his staff around excitedly, a good foot shorter than her. She hoped he at least had a boat—because hers was totally obliterated and there was no other way of her getting of this island. "Are you from the Earth Kingdom?!" There was something odd about hearing such pep in the Avatar's voice. Wasn't he supposed to be teaching the world about peace and servitude, or something?

          "Uh—"

          "I've got friends from all over Earth Kingdom! That's great!" His eyes were sparkling—and he rocked forward, eyes widening as he peered up at her excitedly. "Woah, are you an earthbender?" She hadn't thought she'd be dealing with a kid on this trip, and she turned as he circled her eagerly, clearing containing about double the amount of energy.

          Luli hesitated in her answer for a second far too long, before replying a steady, "No," prepared to elaborate further, before the kid interrupted her once again.

          "That's okay, Sokka's not a bender either, but he's still coming with us." A single of her brows furrowed. Luli only had the split second to wonder who Sokka was and just how many people the Avatar had picked up on his travels, when movement from the island's tree-line drew her attention. And from the shadows emerged a group of five or six girls, dressed and painted like the Avatar Kyoshi, their iron fans held offensively towards her. Amongst them were a young Water Tribe boy and girl, dressed in blue and watching the scene suspiciously.

          The leader of the Kyoshi girls spoke to her, "Don't move." Luli, very smartly, complied to that message, raising her arms in a light surrender. She could let Aang do the talking. "How did you find this island?" the leader directed towards Luli, her painted brows set defensively. Considering Kyoshi Island had mostly stayed out of the war this far, the suspicion wasn't really unexpected. "Who are you?"

          And talk Aang did. As the others stared at him, moving their way, Aang grinned wider than she'd ever seen, and addressed his friends with a cheerful, energetic spiel, "Guys, this is Luli! She's my new friend from the inland Earth Kingdom." The Avatar beamed brightly, clinging to her arm like they were lifelong buddies, prepared to vouch for her just like that. Something about it gave Luli's heart a painful tug. Guilt, about her lies. It must be nice to be so naive. Luli felt nearly jealous. Hers had been stripped away so young.

          It didn't seem like his companions were having it. "Your what now?" The Water Tribe girl asked, her arms firmly crossed as she stared the older Luli down with sharp blue eyes.

          "You just met this girl!" exclaimed the other Water Tribe boy, marching over to them as he waved his hand around. "I bet you don't even know what part of the Earth Kingdom she's from." He had a fair point—and their presence made Luli immediately much more hesitant to tell the Avatar the truth about who she was. Though she wasn't learned enough to distinguish the pair's traditional clothing from the Northern or Southern Water Tribes, Luli was well aware that the Fire Nation had inflicted terrible pain on both.

          "A village outside Gaoling," Luli supplied helpfully—her go-to excuse for situations like this, there were so many burned towns in the Earth Kingdom countryside that she could have been a refugee from just about anywhere. But Luli felt as if she was making a kind of mockery of them by using their likes. She clenched her fist lightly at her side. "I've... I've come to help Aang with his journey."

          The Water Tribe boy had reached her now, was peering at her scrutinisingly, right in her face with his eyes narrowed sharply. It was a bit hard for him to be intimidating, a few inches shorter than her, but Luli shrunk back regardless. "And are you an earthbender?" he asked sceptically, like he was ready to turn her away and be done with it if she wasn't. He looked like he couldn't have been too much younger than her, a year at most, and Luli knew he had every right to be distrustful. In fact, she was kind of giving them every reason to be. They were right, after all.

          Luli sensed the hostility in his tone. It flared something defensive up inside of her, nose scrunching and brows stitching downwards as she leaned forward and stood her ground. "Are you?" jabbed back Luli, because she could only assume he was Sokka, and Aang had mentioned something like that just minutes ago. His face grew pinched.

          "Well— no—!" he spluttered, "But that doesn't matter!"

          Her own face scrunched. "So why does it matter for me?" He couldn't seem to find an answer for that, and Luli's brow twitched. He wanted to fight, huh?

          The Water Tribe kid seemed to be struggling with coming up with an answer, spluttering as she stared him down seriously. "Y— you're a girl!" was what Sokka finally exclaimed as he threw his hands out to gesture wildly at her.

          For a moment, she saw red. "I'm a girl?" Luli seethed. Danger! her face was warning, the stitched, furious brows and tight, downturned mouth, divot between her eyebrows deep. She was used to the men from the Fire Nation underestimating her because of her gender, but never would she have expected it to come from a companion of the Avatar.

          "Oh, yeah, she's a girl?" added the Water Tribe girl with a similar expression to Luli, her hands planted sharply on her hips. It seemed like now they were on the same side here—each looking positively murderous.

          The boy tossed his hands to the air. "I mean, come on!" The Water Tribe girl appeared like she was about to personally put the boy on his ass, and Luli would have only been a second after her.

          It took a lot to let herself exhale through her nose and drop his previous comments, or it was probably going to end up with him being punched in the face. Though she couldn't decide if it would be her or his other Water Tribe companion, who looked like she was about to blow something. Instead, Luli turned to a more reasonable approach, glancing from the two Water Tribe kids, and the young Avatar. Her eyes were gentle, losing the twitch in her brow. "I've been looking for the Avatar for years." She hadn't expected meeting him to be this hard—Luli hadn't actually considered that he'd have companions with him, which was a stupid assumption. And she didn't want to lie about who she was, but she also knew that they'd probably turn her away if they knew she was a firebender. Her kind didn't exactly have a good reputation. Luli toyed nervously with her braids. "I just want to help him."

         "See?" Aang held his hands out to her in a grin. "She seems trustworthy, guys!"

          Sokka was still huffing under his breath, and the edge of Luli's mouth twitched. He had a thing or two coming, if he thought like that. Luli wasn't sure what the North or South Pole were like in regards to such belief, but sooner or later, the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation would wack some sense into that boy. Any girl in either of those countries could handle themselves just fine. His companion also seemed to drop her seething for a moment, just enough to look hesitant. "I don't know, Aang..." murmured the Water Tribe girl, her blue eyes soft and flicking between Aang and Luli, and her lips pulled into a kind of downturned pout. There was a worried twist to her tone.

          "I know all my way around the world," supplied Luli, fiddling with her necklace. It was a habit whenever she felt the stress of nerves—one of her few items of comfort. "I can lead you guys anywhere. I know where to find the best earthbenders, and... firebending teachers, and whatever you need to become the best Avatar you can." She scrambled to find another selling point, her eyes lighting up hopefully. "And I know all the best tea shops!"

          Aang seemed delighted at the mention of tea. "See?! Tea!" Neither of the Water Tribe kids looked convinced, so Luli just stood there awkwardly.

          "You trust this girl, Aang?" the leader of the girls dressed like Kyoshi asked, her gold fans still pressed out in front of her. Her eyes were a soft grey shade, amongst all the white and red paint, and green cloth.

          The Avatar nodded eagerly, still clung to Luli's arm—who was blinking down at him in vague shock. She wasn't used to such sudden intimacy. "Yeah. Her boat got smashed up by the Unagi."

          From the edge of the beach, the same girl spoke—Luli thought they were called something along the lines of The Warriors of Kyoshi, she'd read about how the Avatar had trained wives and fisherwoman of her island in the art of Tessenjutsu, and hence earned her own set of dedicated followers—and lowered her fans, "Ha. Yeah, the Unagi tends to do that." There was the faint hint of a smile on her red lips, and the rest of her girls lowered their fans the same. Despite her expression, she wore the same hint of hesitance as the Water Tribe girl, though it was slowly ebbing. Luli did look like just another Earth Kingdom citizen, after all. "If the Avatar trusts her, she can stay."

          Luli's heart gave a great kind of hopeful lurch. For a moment, she'd thought that her three years of betrayal and searching had been for nothing. If Luli had been turned away, what would she have done? Returned home? It was such a silly, astounding thought that the very idea floored her. And yet, it didn't mean she was yet out of the clear. "Hmm," said the Water Tribe boy suspiciously, inspecting her with narrowed eyes and a pouted mouth, though she doubted he would be able to get anything out of her.

          Aang pulled at her arm, dragging Luli—her pack still looped through her arm—over the sand towards the warriors and the tree-line. "Come on, then!" She couldn't believe the Avatar was pulling her along. Or that he was twelve. The Water Tribe girl broke into a small smile as he neared with Luli in tow, and for some reason it made Luli's heart drop into her stomach. It was only a matter of time before the found out about Luli's truth—and though it was the entire reason she'd travelled so far, there was no way that she could tell them now. Not with two members of the Water Tribe, whose nation Luli's own had damaged so much, watching her every move. And she knew that when they did find out, perhaps all her journey had been for nothing.

          She could only hope to gain their trust before then.

༉*ೃ༄

i love the gaang so much, bye

,, heh, found family makes me tearbend,, i'm so excited to be finally posting this fic. it's a long one :)

the next chapters will be shorter! the writer in me just can't stop. also, this book will be updated every monday (at 10am ACST)!

word count: 6,040

28.09.2020.