Water Lily in a Sea of Fire

Chapter 10: Home Again

"I'm so glad to be home with you."

Entering the palace gardens, they sat in the grass under a tree.

"Tell me about your trip," he said, anxious to hear about it. "Where'd you go?"

"All over. We traveled through the Earth Kingdom. I was Lin and the General was Xin."

The idea that they traveled under aliases in enemy territory made him smile and wish he could have been with them.

"First, we went to Kyoshi Island," she told him. "I got to meet the Kyoshi Warriors and I learned a lot about Avatar Kyoshi. Then we got to see an earthbending tournament called Earth Rumble in Gaoling. It was underground, and they competed trying to knock each other out of the ring. There was one guy called The Boulder, he was the champion. He managed to knock everyone else out of the ring, including The Big Bad Hippo and The Gopher."

Zuko was laughing trying to imagine it.

"We went to Omashu. The whole city's made of stone, and there are slides everywhere that deliver anything you can imagine."

"Can you ride them?" he asked.

"Except people," she said laughing. "They did look like they'd be fun to ride though. While we were there we met King Bumi."

"You met the king of Omashu?" There was a tone of awe in his voice.

She nodded. "He's...really unusual. At first he put us in prison."

His golden eyes grew wide. "You were in prison?" he asked.

"Yes, but he released us because the General won their Pai Sho game."

Zuko found that funny. "It's a good thing Uncle's good at Pai Sho."

"King Bumi is over a hundred years old, and he's one of the greatest earthbenders, but you'd never guess it by looking at him. He did some pretty amazing earthbending."

"Better than the guys at Earth Rumble?" he asked.

"Yes." She thought about it for a few seconds. "I would like to see King Bumi at Earth Rumble."

She smiled at him, and it made him feel warmer than the sun, and hearing about their trip made him wish he had been traveling with them instead of being stuck in the palace with his sister.

"We stayed in several Fire Nation colonies too," she said. "And we even got to attend a Fire Days Festival."

"What was that like?"

"They had fireworks and firebending shows just like the festivals here, but everyone wore masks. They also had Fire Nation food. That was the best part," she smiled. "Oh, we got to visit the Pohuai Stronghold."

"With the Yuyan Archers?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes. I even got to train with them. Colonel Shinu said I should consider joining them when I'm older."

"I always said you could be a Yuyan Archer."

She smiled as she remembered.

"Remember when we would set up targets in Uncle's yard and paint our faces to look like them?" he said. "Lu Ten would deepen his voice and command us like he was Colonel Shinu."

"That time he commanded you to shoot a mango out of the tree," she said. "Hiroki was so mad when it fell on his head a few days later when he was working in the garden."

They laughed at the memories, though they were bittersweet as they thought of Lu Ten.

"I really miss that," she said softly.