Episode 1: A New Journey Begins

[moarhair]

Fei frowns when Khulan starts cleaning her like she's a toddler who'd smeared pureed vegetables all over her face. "Hey, stop! I'm not a child!" she says, not helping her case by fussing like said toddler. She stops when Khulan points out the green-eyed girl. Fei's eyes grow wide and her heart starts pounding. Her eyes start to search for escape routes, but then, she catches the girl's wink and knowing look.

 

She takes a steadying breath and looks at the girl, really looks at her. Unlike the other people in the village, she wasn't wearing fancy clothes. The cut of her garb was different, as was the way she'd done her hair. Besides, if she'd made them, why hadn,t she sounded the alarm? "I don't think she's from here..." Fei whispers back to Khulan.

 

Fei turns to the mayor and smiles apologetically. "I'm so sorry. Your pastries were so good, I made a right mess of myself. Please, let's keep it between us, cousin," she says, using the man's claim of familial ties as a smokescreen. "Give us a moment to get cleaned up and then we can finish the tour, okay? Thank you!" She grabs Khulan's hand and drags her away from the mayor and his entourage. As she passes Miyah, she gives her a meaningful look and tilts her head to signal her to follow.

 

Once the three girls have made it away from the locals, Fei wheels around to face Miyah. For a second, it looks like Fei might pounce on the green-eyed girl, but instead, she clasps her hands together like she's praying and bows deeply. "Please don't say anything! We don't want to hurt anyone or take anything important. We're just trying to get a bit of food for some refugees so they can make it to Ba Sing Se. They still have days of walking ahead of them. They have children and elders, they're all so thin, please, they won't make it without some food and these people clearly have enough if they're holding a festival, they can spare some..." The words spew out of Fei in a fast, uninterrupted flow, gradually growing weaker as she runs out of air. She takes a deep breath and claps her hands together. "Please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeeease!"

[Robodogg]

Before Khulan can even say anything, she's dragged off by her temporary sibling. Eye wide in shock for a short moment, she composes herself and trundles along dutifully behind. Fei clearly has a plan here, she knew what she's doing. Just leave it with her.

 

In the time she spends checking just how secure their little hiding place is, Fei is already starting. “You…” Khulan starts to say, but Fei overtakes her and just doesn't stop for breath. Well, the cat owl is out of the bag now. “…don’t need to tell her the whole plan," she sighs. "At least stick to not using our names, ‘Fuu’.”

 

Maybe it's for the better? It escalates any issues right now, when they can both afford to handle it, rather than waiting for them fester. “So," she says, crossing her arms and keeping her voice low. She drops all her noble pretence as she eyes up the stranger. "Are we going to have a problem?” This is saids in a tone that heavily implies 'Koko' is very willing and well able to deal with that problem, if it is one.

[Voldaren]

Having caught the attention of the two 'nobles', Miyah followed them surreptitiously into the deserted spot, eyes on a swivel in case things turned sour. Posting up against a wall, arms folded she cocked an inquiring eyebrow. The shift in demeanor of the two women was sudden and abrupt as all pretenses were dropped. As 'Fuu' started to plead their case an almost imperceptible shadow of sadness crossed Miyah's face as memories of the exodus from Tu Zin welled up unbidden. The weeks of hungry exhausting treks... The cocky facade slipped for an instant as her eyes softened at the refugee's plight, before she managed to slam the emotions back down. Her smirk returned as the other woman made her displeasure known.

"Good guard bad guard," she chuckled,"well I can't fault you for goin' with the classics..." She lifted herself off the wall, standing up with her hands raised in a placating gesture. "Relax princesses, I'm not gonna rat you out to Mayor Massive. Goodness knows he could use a bit less food, and gold... Nice lift by the way."  she nodded at 'Fuu'.

"Look, you two won't get any trouble from me. I just want to offer a few suggestions, from one concerned philanthropic citizen to another. Next time you try something like this, make sure you aren't the center of attention. All the eyes in this village are on you now, so you better make sure you have a damn good excuse for disappearing."  Miyah started to walk away, but the image of an entire storehouse of food and valuables just waiting to be taken glimmered in her mind. Let's see if they'll bite. She turned back around, offering one last bit of advice.

"Have you planned how're getting the food out? 'Cause I'll be honest, you two don't look like you'll be able to carry much in those robes. But I'm sure you've got your people and pack animals ready to load up and take as much as you can right? What am I saying of course you do... You couldn't possibly plan to just do this by yourselves. You would have at least one, maybe two more people." she mused innocently. Shrugging her shoulders, she once more began to move away, bowing deeply. As she does so, Muiyah bends a small amount of earth into an imitation of one of 'Fuu's many bangles and bracelets.

"Farewell my ladies, good luck with convincing the town to leave you alone long enough to rob them blind." she remarked courteously and began to slowly walk away spinning the bangle on her finder. And now we wait...

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Voldaren (see edit history)

[moarhair]

Fei breathes a sigh of relief when the stranger says she won't rat them out, but her moment of solace is short lived. As the green-eyed girl lists the flaws in their plan, her heart sinks. They'd gained access, taken the keys, but they had too many eyes on them. How would they get the food out that way? 

 

"Wait!" Fei says as Miyah starts to walk away, her eyes drawn to the earthbended bangle. "We're not trying to rob them blind. We don't want them to starve this winter. We just need to get a bit of food for the refugees. A few days' worth, that's all, but..." she hesitates. She turns to look at Khulan. "We could use the help of someone who hasn't drawn as much attention. And she's a bender! We can be the distraction while she slips in to get what we need."

 

Fei had seen the look in the green-eyed girl's eyes when she'd told her about the refugees. She knew that kind of hunger, Fei was certain of it. "If you're willing to help," she says to the stranger.

[Robodogg]

Khulan tries to focus on not giving the earthbender anything more to go off than ‘bad guard’. She can live with ‘bad guard’. “They’re wary and suspicious of poor, desperate refugees. Not wealthy, capricious 'princesses’,” Khulan says, her ego utterly refusing to allow comment to be passed on her strategy without rebuttal.

 

But she was right, they were the talk of the village now for better or worse. And more hands do make for less work. When Fei turns to look at her, entreating that she consider this, Khulan sighs and starts running the scenarios through her mind like if she were seconds away from combat.

 

If we just allow the girl to leave, what will she do? She says she'll do nothing, but can she be trusted? Maybe, maybe not. Far too many possibilities, and not nearly a good enough read on her to guess otherwise. What if I threaten her to stay out of our way? She might force the issue, and there isn't time to fight a bender in the middle of this festival. Even if she backs off it might just be to expose us both later, out of spite.

 

So, how bad would cutting her in be? She's a cutpurse, probably, and a bender certainly. That's not terrible help, even if we need to pay her afterwards. Her bending alone will let us carry more for those refugees. And if she’s helping us she that's another pair of hands to help protect Fei. And what if the next village is like this too, and the relic has to be stolen? What if War Minister Qin’s project on the West Lake needs more than my name to get our friends out?

 

"Ugh," Khulan sighs, the decision having been made even if she didn't like it at all. “She's Fuu.” She nods to Fei. “I'm Koko.” She gives her own assumed name, waving her hand at their new partner in crime. “You can be Kyoshi for all I care." She looks around, a little anxious to get back to the Mayor as soon as possible. "Listen, if you take the key and we keep all eyes on us, can you actually get in the storehouse? Just a few days worth of food. Enough to get them safely to Ba Sing Se,” she repeats Fei’s words, just to be certain they're clear.

[Voldaren]

Miyah let out an award winning smile at the acceptance of her proposal. "Glad you two are as smart as you look"  she chirped. She nodded reassuringly at Koko's question. "A few days worth of food, got it. In and out, no one'll even notice I was there." She spit in her hand and held it out expectantly to be shaken.

As she took  the key and started to make her way out of the alley, she was struck by a thought and turned. "How many refugees are we talkin'? Cause I might need to grab an ostrich horse for the food if its more than 20. Just let me know where you want to meet up." With that, she struck her best Kyoshi pose, laughed to herself and walked out of the alley, making her way to the storehouse.

 

[Oceane]

Fang, the Razor

---

Fang grinned. "Name's Fang," she said, giving a bow that too strict and too mechanical to not betray her military upbringing. "I'm not from around here either." That was all she said about herself—everything was too complicated to even try to lie about it.

"Mooncake? Sure! I don't remember the last time I had any. After you, sir." Letting Teflek take the lead towards a stand, Fang asked a question, curious about these two refugees, "So, is this your last stop, or are you going somewhere else?"

[moarhair]

Fei spits in her hand and shakes Miyah's vigorously. "Nice to meet you and welcome aboard, uh... what do we call you?"

 

She hands over the keys without hesitation. The loss of their weight in her pocket was a relief. She frowns as she considers Miyah's question. "I'd say... about 50 people? Make sure you take dry food. Rice and beans, things like that. A few bags of those will go a long way."

 

Fei takes a moment to think over the logistics of moving enough food for all those people. "Could you earthbend them to the river and then put them in a small boat? We need to bring things across the river. There's this old, twisted willow a bit further downstream in a bend out of sight of the village. We saw it on our way in. We could meet up there to help you unload and carry it to the camp."

 

Once Miyah's gone, she turns to Khulan. "She seems nice. Anyway, we've been gone a while, let's go back to the mayor and keep him busy. Do I actually need to get cleaned up?" She asks, pivoting slightly from side-to-side so the other girl can get a good look at her.

[Robodogg]

Khulan just looks askance at the earthbender’s spit covered hand. There’s no way she’s touching that, even if it means starting a fight. In fact, a fight breaking out would be welcome over shaking that hand. So Fei grabbing it and sealing their deal is honestly a huge relief.

 

“Fuu, she's clearly Kyoshi. Don’t you see her makeup?” The droll remark is all she adds, letting Fei give out the details and just nodding along with her to confirm. Hopefully there were enough sacks of food to easily carry. Hopefully their rendezvous would remain out of sight. Hopefully this new partner-in-crime of theirs is reliable.

 

"I wouldn't say she's nice until she’s actually helped us with that food." Khulan cautions, though she does so while looking at Fei with a small smile. “You handled that very well, ‘sister’.” For appearances sake if nothing else, she dusts away a few specs of pastry as Fei pivots from side-to-side and then secrets the silk away in her blouse. "Ready? We need to start distracting the village."

 

“Oh cousin,” she calls, slipping on her mask of noble affectation again. “One thousand pardons, Mayor. You have such patience that we are so very undeserving of! Please forgive us.”

[Wondertain]

Yanmo grits his teeth at Fang's question.

"I think it's inevitable we have to leave. It's pretty clear we aren't welcome here. They care more about this stupid festival than making sure people don't starve in the-"

Yanmo catches himself and clears his throat. "Uh, sorry. It's bene a rough few weeks. Are you traveling, or... or running?"

[Oceane]

Fang, the Razor

---

Fang didn't quite know what to say to this—she was thankful Yanmo shifted the subject onto her instead. "I'm traveling," it wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't wrong either, "nowhere specific. Wherever the river takes me."

She trailed off, looking at the woman who just apologized to the Mayor. She frowned, thinking about whether somebody should address a Mayor with that much deference or not. Did it mean she was in his employ? She couldn't imagine the mere chief of a village was worthy of so much contrition, otherwise. "What makes you say it's clear you're not welcome?" she suddenly turned back her attention onto Yanmo, realizing she didn't quite get what he meant.