Chapter Text
Two days passed before he found anyone else. Or, until they found him. A fleet of ships, decked in blue and full of warriors.
Warships. Dangerous.
He couldn’t bring himself to try to flee, though, so he didn’t. He sat and he waited. He sat and watched them draw nearer, watched as a stranger approached him.
Big. Commanding.
Dangerous.
The water tribe warrior approached him like he was a feral pygmy puma. He couldn’t even be indignant about it. He might as well have been a wild animal. All teeth and snarls and bone deep exhaustion.
He let himself be herded to a campsite and have his wounds treated. He let them give him food and he ate it without a word. He thought of turtleducks and silk robes, and promptly threw up everything he had eaten. He let them rub his back and try to soothe him.
He could hear their whispers.
“He’s the enemy!”
“He’s just a child!”
“What a terrible scar…”
“Who would do this?”
“Fire Nation.”
“They’re all evil!”
“ He is Fire Nation.”
“I know.”
Untrue, but perhaps not unfair.
Dangerous all the same.
They were water. He was fire- mostly, at least. Enough to burn.
Water doused fire. He couldn’t stay here.
He ate their food and slept in their furs and left with their coins. The moon watched his thievery, and he didn’t care at all.
He bought a mask at the first town he found. He would douse his own flame before anyone else could get to it. He put the mask on, and became nationless. Bound to no nation and nobody but himself, he was free.
Li bought the cheapest alcohol available as he settled into the rickety seat of the tavern. He needed it after that cursed fiasco. Damn those spirit-meddling kids.
He tapped his fingers against the grimy wooden tabletop. The burn of the alcohol was grounding, but not enough to soothe his agitation. He sighed irritably, glancing around the bar.
It was a seedy place, run down with the walls covered in wanted posters. It was full of sketchy characters and poorly concealed weapons. Exactly the kind of place he and his fellow bounty hunters frequented. There were a few familiar faces. Some of them he’d interacted with in the past, some he only knew from their posters. None of them were who he was hoping to see, though.
This was one of June's favourite taverns. Something about the bartender bartering in information, but Li rarely bothered with that. He avoided talking when he could, and most information could be found with sufficient sneaking and a bit of thievery anyway.
He got up to look at the bounty wall. He was going to go mad if he didn’t start stabbing something soon. Shifting in his seat, he took a moment to inspect the posters. Nothing caught his eye, but that wasn’t unusual. Due to the nature of his specialty, most people approached him with bounties.
He ought to return the upfront payment to that pai sho player, but he didn’t want to. What could that decrepit old man do to him, anyway? Throw his tiles at him? Yeah, he wasn’t a threat. Besides, he did get the avatar out of a very tough situation and left him the address of the pai sho parlor. Ugh, Li would be very annoyed if they went and collected his reward money.
He scowled into his drink. He set it down on the table and pulled his mask back over his face. This tavern sucked, and he broke into a fortress only to give up on bringing the child to an old man. Plus, June wasn’t even here. It was time to move on to something else.
Silently as always, he stood and began to make his way over to the exit. He hated crowded places like these.
He stepped outside, inhaling the sea tinged air. It always had a certain familiarity to it. He should head inland.
He didn’t, though.
Late that night, he found himself wide awake on the shore. Damned full moon. It always kept him up, ever since…
With every crashing wave, he could feel his anger coalesce. Crystalize, sharpen. He was mad. Mad at the spirits, mad at the avatar, mad at the fire nation and the earth nation. Mad at stupid Pai Sho players who always sat back waiting for the perfect moment instead of just doing something while they had the time. Mad at the memories Pai Sho brought up, formless as they were.
He was mad at himself. For a lot of reasons, but right now it was because he accidentally left his dagger back at the Avatar’s camp.
Unless they stole it, which was perhaps a bit cynical but not unrealistic. They stole
him
, who’s to say they’d care about stealing his dagger too? Besides, it’d be rather hypocritical of him to get on their case about stealing.
He walked back to where the campsite was. If he was lucky, it would be there. So, he wasn’t surprised that it was nowhere to be found. Bastard children, taking his dagger. Ingrates, they were.
He huffed a sigh and sat down on a rock. He couldn’t track their prints, because the air bison could fly. He was not about to go on a wild molegoose chase to track down a trio of children.
Though… He glanced down at his clothes, where some of Momo’s fur still clung to it. June did owe him a favour. He grinned beneath the mask.
Momo: 2
Blue Spirit: 1
Of course, he did have to find June first…
Momo: 2
Blue Spirit: 0.5
He sighed, crossing his arms and leaning back. She wasn’t at her usual haunt, so where else could she be? He looked to the sky, noting that it was nearing morning. He had enough time to return to that tavern by sunrise, where he might find June. He got to his feet. If nothing else, he could always ask if anyone else had seen her.
With that thought in mind, he began his trek back to the tavern.
Only to be intercepted by the devil he spoke of about halfway.
“Hey Blue!”
He turned to her voice, seeing June and her infamous shirshu bounding up to him. He smiled underneath the mask and gave a lazy wave.
When they got close enough, she hopped off her mount and put her hands on her hips. Li pet Nyla, as he always did.
“Blue, tell me, what possible business did you have breaking into Pohai?”
Her words were stern but her brow was quirked in amusement.
Li, however, didn’t feel particularly amused at the mention of that spirit-cursed fiasco that he didn’t even get properly paid for. He sighed heavily.
June seemed to sense that a long, rambling story was incoming and she sat down on a nearby rock. She crossed her legs and tilted her head, waving her hand in a ‘go on’ motion.
Li sat beside her, still petting Nyla.
“A weird Pai Sho player asked me to bring some bald kid to safety. Said bald kid got kidnapped by the YuYan Archers and brought to the stronghold. Which, they were way less cool than I thought. Seriously, I think I saw one of them get their foot caught on a root at some point. And they didn’t even hit us, thought that might have been intentional-”
Upon seeing the rather amused look on June’s face, Li coughed and tried to get back on track with his story.
“So I followed them to the stronghold- which was absurdly easy, by the way- and broke in to get the kid. Which was also confusingly easy. I mean seriously, I thought that the fortress was supposed to be absolutely impregnable and that the archers were unbeatable-” he once again saw the look on June’s face- “but anyway, I got the bald kid out and guess what.”
“He was the Avatar?”
“He was the- wait, how did you guess that?!”
She looked thoroughly unimpressed.
“How many bald children are there that would have the YuYan sent after them and brought to such an infamous stronghold?”
Sheepishly, Li ducked his head. She didn’t have to make it sound so obvious.
“Anyway… After all of that, Aang brought me back to meet his companions, where… um, a lot happened I guess, but basically the water tribe boy hit me with a boomerang and then they kidnapped me to try to convince me to join their motley band of misfits. And I got bested by a winged lemur… twice.”
June blinked. Once, twice. She shook her head with a laugh.
“You always have the craziest stories.”
Li shrugged.
“Comes with the profession, I guess… oh, also, I abandoned them before I could collect my reward money and I forgot my dagger so I’m cashing in on the favour you owe me to track them down.”
June grinned, “now that’s what I like to hear! You have something of theirs, I assume?”
He took a few undignified seconds to gather some of momo’s fur and held it out to Nyla, who sniffed it immediately. June hopped onto her stead and Li followed a second after.
Nyla, ever faithful, began racing towards the targets. Finally, he could take it easy.
June leaned back to whisper to Li.
“Oh, you thought you got out of me teasing you for this disaster?”
… No rest for the wicked.
…
Li had expected them to arrive at some kooky fortune teller town, so he was pleasantly surprised to come to an abbey instead. He hopped off the shirshu and looked around, scanning the area for any sign of the trio.
Nearly a full day had passed during their travels, so it was rather dark. Thankfully, the abbey was well lit. Not so thankfully, instead of seeing the rather hard-to-miss air bison he saw a wooden ship with blue sails. Nevermind, this was not a pleasant surprise at all.
He turned to June.
“Let me back on, I’m not doing this.”
June smirked as she grabbed the reins with one hand and waved goodbye with the other, “tell me all about it when I see you next! Have fun!”
Her and Nyla bounded off into the distance.
Typical Li luck.
He sighed with the weariness of a man who slept for 100 years.
Speaking of someone who slept for 100 years… he looked around and saw some traces of their presence. Namely, fur. That bison shed like nobodies’ business.
Despite that, though, there wasn’t much else to go off of. He’d probably have to walk around and look a bit more in depth. Ugh.
He strode forward, head up high as he surveyed the surrounding area. There was nothing of note. Barrels of something, he wasn’t sure what, lined the walls. No people about- almost like they were hiding from him.
Well, he was a wanted criminal, so it wouldn’t be too shocking if the nuns were hiding while waiting for security to-
Momo: 2
Blue Spirit: 0.5
Boomerang: 2