Chapter Text
The Foggy Swamp
Southern Earth Kingdom
Eighteen Years After the Death of Avatar Mara
It took only a few hours to get deep enough into the swamp that Catra could breath. If Glimmer decided to follow her, or any of the guards, they wouldn’t be able to track her down. The one and only advantage of this swamp. She hated this place, for a variety of reasons: The water of the place was stagnant, filthy, and omnipresent. The predators meant it was dangerous to sleep more than a few hours so she would be cranky. It was easy to get lost as the place seemed to move whilst she wasn’t looking and worst of all this place was closely tied to the spiritual realm, the one thing she couldn’t fight with her claws or Firebending.
She had stopped at her home only long enough to grab a bag of supplies, including some dried rations she stole from a shop on the way back and her mother’s staff. The long square length of wood was more trouble than it was worth to leave behind. The last time she had abandoned it, her mother had been displeased. She winced at the memory, before using the stick to shove aside some fish swimming in the swampy water and stepping through where it had been. She reached a dry patch of rock with branches all around.
A few bits of twig and bark, and she had a fire going. Removing her bag, she grabbed a small loaf of bread and some dried meat. It was a paltry little meal, but it was better than starving. At least it was dry on this rock, and warm. She finished the meal quickly and curled up under a branch. The night began to pass as she fell into a restless sleep. Waking every few hours to some strange noise.
The next morning, she huddled close and pulled out a small map of the Earth Kingdom, she had marked Gaoling, she could head either southwest, doubling back and skirting the edge of Gaoling again and making her way to Qinchao—there wasn’t any safe houses she was aware of in Qinchao but she could maybe charter a boat to the Southern Water Tribe and work from there, it was also less than a week's journey—or head southeast, completely ignoring Gaoling and crossing the heart of the swamp towards Tu Zin. She might be able to meet one of the others there—Grizzlor had set up around that area with a group of Daofei for raiding the Earth Kingdom’s caravans in his last message, but it might take her just shy of a month through the swamp and then mountains—both had their issues, both had benefits.
She chewed away on the dried meat and took a swig of her bottled supply of water, and kept staring at the map. Grizzlor was a brutal Earthbending giant of a man, but he had loyalty to the family beyond his loyalty to the Daofei he was manipulating. He may hate her guts, but he wouldn’t just kill her outright and might give her a job to earn some cash. A short stop before heading to Ba Sing Se at least. She packed her map and scuffed the fire. Making it as far as Tu Zin would mean hunting for food and scavenging.
The rest of the day was spent trying fruitlessly to stay dry and make her way as quickly as possible across the swamp to find somewhere else to rest. Often she would clamber up a tree to get high enough to look at the distant mountains, making sure she wasn’t going off course. Enough people had died lost in this swamp, she was determined never to be one of them.
Days passed as she made the long trudge, she was used to being alone, but always being on guard in a place that made her sick was a terrible decision, swamp water matted her fur, and she had to spend each evening picking flies and ticks out of her fur. It was on the third night that something went wrong.
She had just fallen asleep as the fire she had lit had begun to dim, when something caused her ears to twitch, it was almost silent. Slipping from the nearby water up onto her dry patch. She hadn’t even noticed it, she was so tired that she just wanted to sleep. The thing had crawled silently up to her prone form and only when it was close enough she could hear and feel its breathing did she snap awake.
The thing was wicked fast, biting down on her leg with enough force that she could feel the bone snap and blood came pouring out. The scream that tore out of her throat was answered by thousands of birds and insects that lived in the swamp. She flung out her clawed hand towards the attacker, an arc of fire emerging from her clawtips. The thing keened and still gripping her leg rolled towards the water. The force caused her leg to twist at an unnatural angle. The pain was intense, but a decade of combat training whilst in intense pain kicked in. She reached out and grabbed her mother’s staff and slammed the heavy wood down on the things snout. With her other leg, she kicked digging claws into its midsection.
With another burst of fire from the end of the staff, she finally got a look at the creature, it was long, sleek scales with long whiskers, a kindred spirit, a Catgator. This one was huge, nearly eight feet long with teeth still covered in her blood. She drove her foot upwards into its face, gouging out an eye. Its teeth retracted from her leg as she swung out with the staff again, aiming for the bloody hole her claws had made, with her free hand she desperately tried to scramble backwards.
The thing growled at her, before slinking backwards as she generated fire in her hand and used the staff to push herself upright. She threw a single blast of fire at it, and it retreated under the water. A sigh of relief escaped her, as the adrenaline began to wear off. Hands shaking, she reached for her bag, sopping wet where the thing had climbed over it. It took a few moments of digging to pull out the bandages that she had, they were ruined, swampy water soaking through them.
She would not let this beat her, she emptied her waterskin into a clay pot and lit a fire under it, she could fix this, she was trying desperately to stay awake as the water boiled. Clean the bandages, clean the wound, dress the wound. Try to eat something, climb up higher to get away from the danger, then she could sleep.
It seemed to take all night for the pot of clean water—the last of her drinking water—to begin to boil. With trembling hands, she scooped out a cup of the water and finally looked at her leg. It was agony, several deep cuts tore through the fur around her thigh down to the bone. She shouldn’t walk on it for weeks if not months. But tomorrow she would have to get up and keep moving, or she’d die. The pained yowl that escaped her as she poured the cup of boiling water over the wounded area echoed through the trees. Her vision blurred but she managed to rest the bandages in the half full pot of boiling water. Just for a few seconds, to get them clean, then with the ends of her claws, she picked them out. She could forget about climbing, just bandage the wound so she didn’t bleed to death.
She could be as loud as she wanted complaining, no one was here to save her or capture her, only the local wildlife, all of which wanted to eat her. She would deny them the satisfaction. She managed with chattering teeth—why was she suddenly freezing even next to the burning fire?—to pull the bandages tight against the wound, wrapping the whole length of cotton around the wound. Using half her supply—less than a week into her trip. She would have to be more careful going forward—plus nearly all of her food had run out. With only a few pitiful strips of dried meat and edible nuts left.
She would have to figure it out come the morning, she would take stock of her supplies, see how far she could walk with the stick as a crutch, and survive. That’s what she did, she survived. She couldn’t fight the blackness at the edge of her vision anymore. She lay down trying to suppress her instinct to curl up and let sleep take her.
If Glimmer could be honest, she hated this swamp, why Catra of all people would come to a damp, murky, insect filled nightmare was beyond her. It was a sensible move to throw people off her trail, purely because absolutely no one in their right minds would travel through it.
Both her and her new companion Bow had taken until morning to stock up on supplies and inform the Princess and her aunt where they were going. Her aunt had tried to forbid her, but this mission was too important, she knew Catra. She wouldn’t let her get hurt, not unless she got to be the one punching her stupid face.
Bow, it turns out, was a very good tracker, once he knew what to look for, though he did give her an incredulous look when she said to “look for about this big.” When he found them, he whistled under his breath. He hadn’t questioned her until their first night in, it was slow work. Find a tree, or bit of mud with a toe print, or a claw mark. Then search around to find another. Repeat that until they caught up with her or she escaped them.
It took them all day of slowly searching, sometimes they would get lucky, others they would have to double back on themselves to search a different path. Eventually as the sun set, Bow set camp whilst she Earthbent some cover from the damp and any rain. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes eating away at their rations.
“So,” the young Fire Nation soldier broke the silence, “how’d you know about the claws?”
She shrugged. “I saw the claw marks whatever it was had made in the walls.” It was an easy lie, she’d been lying about Catra since she’d first met the cat girl.
He stared at her, eyebrow quirking. “What, you think it was a spirit that tried to kill the Princess? Then, when it didn’t, manage to steal a message with the royal seal?” he chuckled as he finished. “I mean, I wouldn’t believe it, but clearly the assassin has some kind of animal with them.”
She stared at him, then took a bite of her meal, chewing angrily. Why did no one ever believe her? When she swallowed, she snarled out at him. “I know what I saw, Bow. I’m not some pampered Fire Nation Princess.”
He raised his hands placatingly. “No offense, Princess, just it’s a little hard to believe is all, spirits are…” he trailed off, they were in the foggy swamp, according to legends one the most spiritually active places in the world, he wouldn’t want to offend any of them. “So, why did you want to come? I chatted with your aunt at the dinner, she seems lovely.”
“Isn’t she a bit above your station? I thought you Fire Nation folks cared about that sort of stuff?”
“Agent to the Royal Family gives me some extra leeway when it comes to talking to nobility, plus I thought you Earthbenders said what’s on your mind regardless of rank?” he countered.
She shrugged. “I wanted to get away, a nice adventure to break the monotony. It would be a holiday, no more reading tax reports and handling crop yields and trade disputes.” He stared at her.
“You and I have very different ideas of what a holiday entails. A nice day at the beach is a holiday. Not mucking it through a swamp with knee deep foetid water and leeches as big as my arm.”
She laughed. “Maybe I’m an outdoorsy girl, I love a long road and my own two feet.” She could keep this lie up. She didn’t hate being out in the open, but she preferred a nice seedy bar, not a swamp.
He laughed along with her. “Maybe I misjudged you, Princess.”
“Oh, what judgements did you make about me?”
He looked sheepishly around. “When you were at dinner, you were smart and funny, but I got the impression you were pampered. My aunt used to keep birds, managing the fire hawks that delivered messages, a few never made it far enough after hatching and she kept them in a silver cage. I always felt sorry for those birds. I assumed that you were like them. Trapped away and never able to spread your wings.” He smiled. “I’m glad I was wrong.”
“I’m full of surprises, get some sleep, Bow, I’ll take the first watch, or listen as the case may be.” He stared at her for a moment as if seeing her in a new light, before curling up and pulling a blanket over himself and rolling over. Like most soldiers Glimmer had known, he was out like a light, and very softly snoring away.
She wondered about him, the Fire Nation was militaristic and obsessed with pedigree and power, he was a non-bender. At least he had used a flint and tinder to start the fire, and he carried around a long, vicious-looking bow and quiver of arrows. How did a non-bender end up as bodyguard to the Princess? She knew the Princess was the eldest of two and next in line for the throne. She had other guards, and agents, but none she could afford to send away and trust to recover something so important that they authorised a mission that might anger the spirits.
He snored away quietly and she stared at him, then at the fire. As it dwindled, she added another branch to it. Let it burn away, she could follow Catra for a few days, then when they got close, dart ahead and convince her to hand over what she’d stolen. She had brought enough money to trade it over, a few hundred coins would feed her for a year.
Catching up to Catra was going to be the problem, the woman was agile enough that even at her quickest Glimmer had a hard time keeping up with her. She would just need to get close enough to get above her with plenty of dirt around, then she could talk to her with the home field advantage.
It was well past midnight, just before she woke Bow for his watch. When a bone chilling scream tore through the swamp. It echoed through the trees. Bow startled awake instantly, his hands automatically grabbed his bow, a string seemingly materialising in his hands. She recognised the voice. It could only be Catra’s.
The two of them grabbed their supplies and moved quickly, Earthbending the wall away. They began to rush, following the sound of the scream which faded quickly. Bow had grabbed a stick and lit it on the fire to give them some light to manoeuvre by.
It took far, far longer than Glimmer liked for them to find anything, but as the sun began to rise and break the mist clinging to the swamp’s floor, they finally spotted it. On a rock under the giant branch of a tree was a small campfire, smoldering away. Its last embers gone. As soon as she spotted it, she Earthbent the ground under her to launch her over to the campsite.
Gasping as she landed as the stench of iron overwhelmed her, the campfire was still burning its last few embers, a knocked over clay pot still held some drops of water within, and in a long trail running up from—or down too—the waters edge was a long trail of blood.
Bow arrived a few seconds later, whilst she had covered her mouth in shock and to try and hold her meal in, he set to analysing the ruined camp. His bow was unstrung and slid away when he realized there was no danger, and he leant down.
“Someone was taken from here,” he said after looking around the camp once. “Our target?”
She stared at the blood. Then, in a small voice, said, “It might be.” Then she processed what he had said. “What do you mean taken?” Catra getting attacked by one of the many predators out here seemed most likely to her. Dragged into the water and eaten, she was tough but not that tough. She’d hate to drown.
“Whoever it was,” he started, “got into a fight, a big one,” he gestured to the blood, “but they’re gone from here alive. I assume. There’s two blood smears, one leading from the rock to the water, and one leading from the edge of the rock to the camp, where it pools." The blood was still wet. “But they’re two different sources, it’s not a continuous smear.” That could be explained by a bunch of things. “Plus,” he said triumphantly, “whoever it was had a bag, with the stolen goods, and it’s missing. So, call me optimistic of not wanting to search the swamp, but I doubt they were sleeping with the bag strapped to them, so they survived and moved it.”
That…made some sense to Glimmer. “Okay then, so, how do we find them?”
His triumph seemed to deflate a little then. “Well, I hadn’t gotten that far yet, but if they're bleeding that much, they can’t have gotten far.”
Catra didn’t remember slipping into unconsciousness, she was fairly certain her last thoughts were if she went to sleep now that she might never wake up again, especially if the Catgator came back around. She must have been more exhausted than she thought, the loss of blood making her cold, she had curled up next to the fire for heat and tried to stay awake through the night.
She awoke in a floral smelling room, bedding of rough wool was bundled around her as she lay on a bed made up of vines, her leg was raised up in vines and was wrapped in leaves which emanated a foul smell. Her nose twitched, the room was clearly made out of thick branches and vines, supported with the odd bit of stonework. It was homely, with discarded clothes, pots and pans, and flowers growing on every exposed surface. She was up high, on a second floor most likely, she could see twisting vines that made up some sort of staircase. Her bag, the staff, and her clothes were nestled into the trunk of the tree, just out of arms reach, someone had undressed her and put her in simple looking cloth clothing. A figure was bustling around on the ground floor, making a lot of noise and humming to themself.
As she tried to move, a woman's voice shouted up at her. “Stay very still, unless you want old Razz to hold you still.” An incredibly short woman bustled up the makeshift stairs, in her hands was a large mug filled with steaming liquid. Her hair was somehow wilder than Catra’s own, with several twigs and leaves caught within it. She wore thick wire framed spectacles and was hunched over making her already short appearance even smaller. “You were already halfway to dead when she brought you in, C’yra. You’ve got to be more careful. Old Razz can’t keep mending your twisted legs and broken arms.”
The woman, Razz. Gestured and the vine she was resting on raised up so she was sitting. Then the woman thrust the steaming clay mug into her hands. Out of sheer shock, she grabbed it, warmth spread down her fingers almost instantly. She stared at it, loose leaves floated within but the smell was sweet.
“Gah, you’re always so suspicious, C’yra. It’s good for you, you need the water and something to dull the pain. Drink up.” The woman was fussing around near her leg, peeling back the bandages, it looked far less injured than it had been when Catra had first clawed her way away from that thing.
“Where am I?” Her voice was hoarse and she had to cough a little. Instinctively, she went to take a sip of the drink before stopping herself. “Who are you? Who’s C’yra?”
The woman was suddenly up close to her face and grabbed her chin with one surprisingly strong hand, with the other she pinched one of Catra’s eyes open. “You didn’t hit your head, did you?” When Catra shook her head slightly, the strange woman let go. “You ask silly questions, C’yra. You’re in my home, it seems you had a nasty run in with one of the Catgators. They can get nasty out in the swamp.” She didn’t answer the question of who she was. “But Madame Razz will fix you right up, and then when Mara gets back, she’ll help you get back out to the big city.”
Mara? Avatar Mara? The woman had been dead for nearly two decades, then again, this woman looked to be a hundred or more. Perhaps she did know Mara and her mind’s going. She went to shift to stand only for pain to shoot up her leg. Hissing, she fell back against the bedding. Razz frowned at her and said in a firm tone, “Drink!” She then turned away. “You’ll be well enough to run away again in a few days, C’yra. Until then, drink up and rest.”
Her first instinct was to argue, but the pain in her leg kept her from moving. She slowly sipped at the tea, which was earthy and laced with some kind of honey to give it a rich sweetness. It was strangely soothing, as she drank, the pain in her leg began to dim from a knife jammed into her thigh to a dull ache.
She closed her eyes and tried to think, she couldn’t have been taken far, someone had to carry her and her supplies, she doubted it was Razz, the woman had surprising strength but not enough to carry her any distance. She might be a Bender and had moved her like that, but this building was all plants, no earth, and she didn’t feel muddy. Unleash she’d bought her here and then bathed her whilst she was unconscious, which, ew.
She chanced another look at her leg, it was bad but nowhere near as damaged as it had been before she’d collapsed, she remembered how deep the bite was, her leg had been nearly torn off, instead it looked deep but not like she was going to lose it, unless it got infected. The crazy lady was right, she’d need a few days if not weeks to recover. Which meant being stuck somewhere she didn’t know. With a woman who kept calling her the wrong name. She hadn’t even told Razz her actual name.
Staring at the ceiling, she tried to plan, if she could figure out where this was. She could maybe borrow some supplies, then try and keep going once she was back on her feet. Leave a few of the coins Glimmer so gracefully donated as payment then try and keep going. Catch up with Grizzlor and try and find some way to stay ahead of Earth Kingdom justice until she made it to Ba Sing Se, hopefully this place was far enough out of the way that the heat on her would die down before she made it to the city.
Razz came back upstairs carrying a wooden tray of food, a large pie filled with nuts and berries dominated the center of the meal, as well as some large fruits, and a cut of meat that she didn’t recognise. “Eat up, C’yra, you’ll need your strength.” The woman lay the tray down across her lap, then went over to examine the leg. Her stomach rumbled as she picked up the hunk of meat, gave it a sniff, then began to eat.
Something cold pressed down on her leg and she shivered, nearly knocking the tray over, her eyes flicked from the meal over to the woman, whose hands were coated in crystal clear water and were pressed over the wound. She could feel the unpleasant sensation of ice cold and her flesh knitting itself back together.
“You’re a healer?” she asked. The woman scoffed slightly and kept what she was doing.
“Of course I am, C’yra. Ask questions you already know the answers to. Keep eating, you need to recover,” the woman grumbled under her breath. Then she looked up, the water dropping away into a bucket on the floor. “Don’t worry, dearie, Mara will be back soon.”
It was one thing to know that the assassin was alive, and being assisted, it was another to actually follow them. The Earth Princess, Glimmer, seemed to know way more than she was letting on. She could keep her secrets, as long as it didn’t interfere with the mission.
He was exhausted, sleep interrupted by the screaming, now it was hours of trudging through a mire infested swamp, the air was humid and draining. He was getting soft, back at the academy, he had trained way harder than this in worse conditions. It was needed to stay at the top of his class.
Tracking someone by blood splatters and deeper footprints in the mud was difficult enough, luckily, if he needed a minute to look it over, Glimmer would shift her feet and the mud with the odd looking boots would harden into rough stone, just enough that he could examine the direction and not worry that anything would disturb it. He had to admit, the Princess surprised him, she was funny, charming, righteously angry, and a hell of an Earthbender. She moved unlike anyone else he had ever seen in the Earth Kingdom. Light on her feet until the moment she needed to move the earth and suddenly her stance was as solid as a boulder.
The two of them sat against a tree and ate a quick meal of dried fruits and hard tac, he was used to such rations but was still surprised at Glimmer's lack of complaints, they would eat a quick meal, rest their legs for a minute, then press on. The longer they spent in this swamp, the more chance they would be attacked by whatever got to the assassin last night, or the mysterious spirit the Glimmer claimed to have seen, or they would get infected by one of the many diseases in this nasty place. In any event, find the assassin, recover the stolen document, bring them back for questioning if possible, kill them if not. Then get back to Gaoling and hope the escort had not moved on. The plan was to go to Ba Sing Se to speak to the Earth King. If this took a few more days, he might have to meet them there, which would mean a long walk across the Earth Kingdom alone. Maybe he could convince Glimmer to travel with him the rest of the way.
His day dream was interrupted by the sound of a branch snapping, both of them twisted towards the sound. His hands instinctively reaching for the bow strapped across his back, Glimmer was first, she seemed to always want to be in the action. She leapt around the corner of the tree. Hands raised, only for her eyes to go wide and she threw her arms up, a wall of hardened mud rose in front of her as a vine as thick as his forearm slammed into the temporary barricade.
The mud splattered everywhere and the vine connected with Glimmer, its force massively reduced so that it only knocked her off her feet and into the mud. Bow rounded the corner a second later, a huge creature covered in moss, its arms appeared to be vines connected to the torso and its face was a mask made of wood. It reminded Bow of one of the old spirits of the forest near his home. Lance always warned him about going out into the deep parts of those old woods for fear of spirits exactly like this. Despite knowing it was likely pointless, he knocked an arrow and let it loose at the mask.
The arrow stuck into the wood, which was weird, if it was a spirit, it should have passed through it harmlessly. The thing turned its attention toward him, slowly shifting. He ducked back behind the tree. As another vine shot out at where he just stood. He watched as it pulled back, then he started to clamber up the bark of the tree, if he could get above it he may be able to get a clean shot.
The thing lumbered slowly and noiselessly forward, as he clambered, he went to reach for a branch only for a hand to grab his wrist and pull him up onto the high branch. Glimmer stood above him, she had somehow gone from falling in the mud to high in the treeline. The thing moved slowly around the tree looking for either of them. Its head moved slowly back and forth.
He whispered over to Glimmer, “I think it’s lost us.” The thing shifted again, and he spotted a small seam running down its back, like the vines were overlapping something at the core of the creature. Like its heart. He knocked an arrow, he would only get one chance at this.
He exhaled and let the arrow fly, it was a clean shot aimed right at the smallest gap through which he could see light blonde, like a flower rather than the mossy green. The arrow flew through the air in seemingly slow motion, A whip of water snatched it out of the air and threw it to one side.
He followed the path of the whip, a woman stood on one of the lower branches staring up at the two of them, her hands were raised and nearly a dozen thin tendrils of water emerged from the swamp below. Her hair was the colour of wheat and her skin was pale, she was wearing a slightly ragged looking shirt of Earth Kingdom green and tight trousers that she had clearly made herself, she was smirking in the way he recognised from truly crazed soldiers who were just itching for a fight.
She laughed and the thing on the ground turned to look up at them, ignoring her completely. It went to lunge against the tree, when the woman whistled, turning her head down to look at the monster then said quite clearly, “Perfuma, leave them, I want to talk.”
The thing backed off a step and she turned her head back up. “Who are you? What are you doing in the swamp?”
Glimmer answered before he could. “We’re hunting a fugitive, they stole some important items from my family and fled here. We’ve been tracking them.” Bow nodded along.
The woman looked conflicted for a moment. “What do they look like? It’s rare we get strangers coming this far into our territory.”
Bow answered this time. “We don’t know, they were wearing a hooded cloak, but whoever they are, they stole a lot of important items, and they were bleeding. That’s how we’ve been tracking them for the last few hours.”
The woman lowered her arms, then a soft voice emerged from the huge plant thing. “Adora, you can’t seriously be considering this.”
The woman, Adora, hopped fluidly down to the ground. Standing barely waist high to the thing which she called Perfuma. She glared at the huge thing like Bow used to do at his older brother. “Yes, Perfuma, first Catra turns up here now these two. If that isn’t the universe sending me a sign like you always say, then I don’t know what is. I’ll hear them out, we can have a meal, then if they want to cause trouble we’ll toss them out.”
The vine figure turned its head down to look at her, before splitting open like a ripe fruit, a woman of a similar age to the other stepped out of the vines, she was wearing far less than Adora, clothes made of plant leaves tied together with vines. She pointed a finger in the other girl's face. “Spirits, Adora, one pretty girl nearly dies near our village and you get into your head about running away again. Who knows if these two are safe.”
Bow and Glimmer looked at each other then shrugged, the two of them began to climb down the tree as Adora and Perfuma argued. When they got to the bottom, he nearly sagged from exhaustion. The two Waterbenders had finished whatever argument they were having and looked them over. Eventually, Adora reached out a hand.
“I’m Adora, the grumpy one is Perfuma, she’s annoyed because you interrupted her morning tea.”
“No, Adora, you interrupted my morning tea shouting about outsiders.”
Adora shrugged. “Well, you can go and do that now,” she turned back to the pair of them. “You are?”
Glimmer stepped forward. “He’s Bow, I don’t know if he has a surname, I’m Glimmer Moon.” The woman stared at her before smiling broadly. “You said there was another outsider, Catra?”
“Glimmer Moon, as in the Brightmoon Earthbending prodigy? Daughter of Micah Moon?” she asked excitedly.
“You’ve heard of me?” Glimmer’s voice was quiet, he knew the name Micah Moon, one of Avatar Mara’s Earthbending Mentor, He disappeared for a few years, then turned up again, retired from fighting and settled down in Brightmoon to take over the family business.
“Of course I have, Razz talks about you, and the citizens of Omashu still talk about the feats you pulled off when trying to talk to the king.” She seemed to be breathless for a moment before continuing. “This is perfect, you can teach me, and Catra can teach me. I saw her Firebending. That’s two down.”
Both of them stared at her and Perfuma shouted, “Adora, don’t go asking random people to teach you!”
Glimmer’s voice was low when she said, “I can teach you what?”
Adora’s smile broadened. “Earthbending of course.”
Bow frowned at Adora before saying, “But you’re a Waterbender?”
“Yeah, for now, I just need a couple of good teachers, and no one in Omashu would come and stay, and Razz wouldn’t let me leave until I was old enough. But this is perfect.”
“If you’re a Waterbender,” Glimmer said, “you can’t learn to be an Earthbender. It’s not possible.”
“Of course it is, I’ve only managed pebbles before, but I can definitely do it. Razz told me when I was young.” Adora kept smiling.
“You can’t be serious?” both of them said, a second later Perfuma repeated it but her tone was that of someone caught in a lie.
“I’m always serious, I’m not yet good at it but…” she took a deep breath and widened her stance, a few loose stones collected and floated off the ground. Glimmer’s mouth was wide open, and Bow was in a similar state of shock.
“I’m the Avatar.”