Work Text:
Completing his fourteenth circuit of the boudoir, Sokka wanders past the doorway and casts another quick glance down the hall—empty at last. With a self-indulgent roll of the eyes, he wheels around towards his partner at the center of the room.
“Alright, this whole thing seems pretty straightforward.”
Sometimes, a case is complicated by external circumstances (like when a canal flooded near the house where the Three Lee Murders took place, washing away critical evidence—along with a few severed limbs) but more often than not, it’s the people who make things messy. He’s worked in Ba Sing Se for long enough to know that the sudden disappearance of the Royal Treasurer’s niece mere days before her wedding would draw all sorts of attention, but Liewu’s nosy great-aunt has proven to be a real bugbear. If she’d still been lurking outside at the end of his fifteenth circuit, he would’ve had to confront her with his Wang Fire voice.
“I agree! As straightforward as can be!” His partner, who hasn’t spent any time at all inspecting the boudoir—not the wardrobe or the vanity or the scrolls and letters on the desk—appears to be grimacing, as far as Sokka can tell. But it’s very hard to tell while Ty Lee is still treating the bed like a circus trampoline, doing twists and flips and mid-air pirouettes as she bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces….
(…and once again leaves him pondering the wonders of physics. Someday, he plans to publish an article in the University of Ba Sing Se Journal of Natural Sciences on the elasticity and plasticity of the two most spectacular physiological phenomena he’s ever encountered. For now, though, he’s going to keep observing and collecting data.)
“That’s a first,” he quips, shaking himself out of his purely scientific musings. “Might as well break it to the family now, I suppose.”
“Oh no, we can’t give up yet! Liewu won’t even be eaten until tomorrow night!”
“Why don’t we—wait, what? Eaten?!”
“By the on’natarashi!”
Sokka drags in a long sigh and leans back against the vanity. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he watches Ty Lee perform an effortless midair somersault, her feet barely brushing the high canopy of the bed before landing on the mattress again to resume her bouncing.
For a few seconds, he really did think that they were on the same page. In all their time working together as private investigators, the two of them have never arrived at the same theory—and while there’s a first time for everything, that time isn’t today, apparently.
“Okay then…” he says, warily eyeing the pink blur, “…why don’t you give your ‘straightforward-as-can-be’ explanation for why Liewu went missing?”
“Sure!” She flips forward and rolls to the very edge of the bed, resting her chin in her hands with her feet dangling over her head. “It’s spirits, of course!”
With Ty Lee, it’s always spirits. Whether they’re working on a simple pickpocketing case, tracking a client’s suspicious spouse, or following a series of grisly murders, her first thought is always, ‘Spirits must be behind this!!!’ And, naturally, she shares that thought out loud.
(Sokka just wishes she weren’t right so often.)
“Don’t you think you’re being a little…superstitious?”
She springs off the bed and lands right in front of him, both hands planted on her hips.
“I’m not superstitious!” she proclaims, beaming brightly. “I’m superduperstitious!”
At that, he can’t help but crack a smile as well. Her catchphrase has definitely grown on him.
“Right—superduperstitious. So tell me about this…on’nata…whosie…whatsie…thing.”
“The on’natarashi!” Hunching forward, Ty Lee raises her hands above their head, fingers curled into claws; she bares her teeth, face warping into a feral, menacing snarl—but only menacing by her standards, which are pretty low. He doubts there’s anything Ty Lee could do to really make herself look scary, no matter how much effort she puts into it. “There are lots of weddings in the spring, so the on’natarashi is super duper active this time of year!”
“Well, Liewu’s wedding was supposed to be tomorrow. Is this spirit some kind of anti-matrimonialist?”
“Worse! Much worse!” Ty Lee takes an exaggerated step towards him, still attempting (in rather adorable fashion) to pose as a monster. “All the legends say the on’natarashi likes to steal pretty maidens just before they get married! Then, on their wedding night—or what would be their wedding night—he gobbles them up!”
Sokka, already tallying ten reasons why ‘all the legends’ are completely absurd, is so engrossed in his own self-assured skepticism that he doesn’t recognize the implication of Ty Lee’s crouching until she leaps forward.
“RAAAWWWWRRRR!!!”
“YEEP!”
Scrambling for purchase, he tries to grope for the edge of the vanity, but she puts her full body weight into the pounce and he nearly ends up with a handful of something else on his way to the floor.
“Oof!”
Whenever they manage to track her down—assuming his partner’s fantastical hypothesis is as ridiculous as it sounds—he’ll have to ask Liewu where she bought such a soft, cushy rug. But at the moment, with Ty Lee pinning him flat, pretending to gnaw on his forehead, he’s back to collecting data for his journal article.
“Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom! The on’na-Ty-rashi thinks you’re the tastiest snack in the whole world!”
“I mean, I do use soap made from seal blubber.”
“Yummy!”
Leaning back to rest her chin on clasped hands, Ty Lee lets out a contented sigh, evidently comfortable discussing their case while lying atop him. She’s never been into the concept of personal space.
(And Sokka would be lying if he complained.)
“You know, when my Gran-Gran was engaged to a guy she didn’t want to marry,” he says, “she left home and trekked all the way from one pole to another. So isn’t it just a little more likely that Liewu skipped town instead of being abducted by a maiden-eating demon?”
“Oh I don’t think so! She was set to marry the eligiblest bachelor in all of Ba Sing Se!” Booping his nose with her index finger, she hits him with a wink. “Present company excluded, of course!”
“Oh, uh…thanks!” he says hoarsely, perfectly aware of the dopey grin on his face; his own ‘present company’ makes bachelorhood seem like an unbelievably stupid proposition. “A lot of clothes are missing from her wardrobe, though. Think the on’natarashi ate those too?”
“Maybe! But it’s normal for a girl getting married to give away most her clothes to a younger relative since she’s gifted a lot of new ones after the wedding! I got this outfit from my cousin Izo, and once I get married (sooner rather than later, I hope!) it’ll go to my cousin Keisho!”
“They on your mom’s side of the family or your dad’s?”
“Mom’s. Why?”
“No reason.” Of Sokka’s considerable powers of deduction, very little is required to determine that clothes are not the only thing shared by the women on that side of Ty Lee’s family. “So Liewu might’ve given away some of her clothes—we can ask her mother about that—but I also heard back from the ferry station at Full Moon Bay this morning, and they confirmed they’re holding a ticket in her name for the day after the wedding. Can you explain that?”
“Sure I can! Did you ask if they’re holding a ticket for her fiancé too?”
“Why would he have a ticket? It’s not like they’d elope together just before they’re about to be married!”
“For their honeymoon, silly!” She flutters her feet and gives her eyebrows a wild wiggle. “I bet they’re catching a ship for Ember Island! I’d love to honeymoon on Ember Island! It’s so warm and sandy and romantic! Just imagine frolicking across the beaches with the love of your life and tumbling into the sand together and the ocean is all sparkly and pretty and there’s a beautiful sunset which is almost as pink as your new wife’s aura and she looks into your eyes and tells you—”
CLONK!
Swiveling his head to the side, Sokka looks up at the stooped old woman standing in the doorway, wrinkly enough to put seal jerky to shame.
“Have you two canoodling hooligans found my great-niece yet?” she huffs, giving the butt of her cane another clonk! against the floor. “She’s supposed to be married tomorrow! How are we supposed to have a wedding with no bride?”
“Don’t worry,” Sokka starts, glancing up to his partner, who doesn’t seem to have taken ‘canoodling hooligans’ as prompting to climb off him, “we’ve got a few leads, and I’m confident we’ll—”
“We’ll save her from the on’natarashi in time!” Ty Lee chirps. “We’re already working on a plan! The bestest plan ever!”
The crotchety old woman grunts, grumbles, and mumbles (in that order)—somewhere in there, he’s pretty sure he hears ‘head full of water’ and ‘Fire Nation nitwit’—but declines to reply as she trudges back down the hall with a long series of receding clonks!
“Soooooo…” he drawls, arching a brow, “…what plan were you referring to there?”
“The plan you’re going to come up with to stop the on’natarashi from eating Liewu before tomorrow night!”
“How about a plan to find her and convince her to come back and get married—so, you know, we can actually do our jobs and get paid?”
“But we won’t get paid if the on’natarashi gobbles her up! And I promise it won’t be as cute and funny as the on’na-Ty-rashi nomming on you! There’ll be blood and guts and gore and entrails and innards and all that horrible nasty awful terrible stuff!”
“Okay, okay…I get your point.” Scratching his head, Sokka lets his shoulders go slack, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “If her mom says that she gave some clothes away, and if the ferry station has a ticket for her fiancé, then we’ll work on a plan to save her from the on’natarashi. How we’re supposed to do that, though, I have no idea…I mean, what else do you know about it? What’s the on’natarashi look like?”
“Big and scary and terrible! Like a tigerdillo and a crocadingo had an evil baby!”
“Well…I’m not sure what to do with that information. Does it have a lair?”
“In the Spirit World!”
“Can’t say that helps us either. Any weaknesses?”
“Just a taste for pretty maidens!”
“That counts as a weakness? Hmmm…alright, I can work with that…I guess if…there’s a good chance…but only so long as we…”
“Oh yay! I can tell you’re coming up with one of your super duper amazing Sokka Plans! I’ll be super duper quiet and super duper patient while you’re thinking…” She holds her breath for precisely four seconds. “…okay never mind please please please tell me!!!”
Stroking his chin, he gives her a sly, crooked smile. There’s no way it’ll actually come to this, but he knows she’ll love the idea, at least.
“We’re going to need a decoy bride—one so tasty the on’natarashi won’t be able to pass her up, so he’ll go after her instead of spending the night eating Liewu.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh! I know where we can find a decoy bride! And a decoy groom!”
🔎
Huffing and puffing, nearly out of breath, Sokka takes a wide left turn out of the alleyway and onto the street, hip clipping a cabbage cart as he moves his legs as fast as they’ll carry him—
—carry him and Ty Lee.
“Faster! Faster! FASTER!”
The lanterns on either side of the road flicker and go out as the on’natarashi draws near—but just a few blocks away, he can see light in the windows of the Jasmine Dragon. If there’s one man in the city who can save them from the yellow-eyed nightmare hot on their heels, he’s inside brewing tea and playing Pai Sho.
Behind them, Sokka hears the skittering of long claws against cobblestone, then the crash of splintering wood as the demon collides with the cart slightly more violently than he did.
“YEEK!” Ty Lee shrieks, climbing higher until she has her arms wrapped around his head. “The on’natarashi is right there! And holy flameo does he look hungry!”
“Hold on! We’ve got a straight shot to the teashop!”
“I am holding on! I’m holding on like my life depends on it—because it does depend on it!”
On second thought, Sokka wishes she would hold on a little less. With the way she’s sitting up as he carries her bridal-style, there’s never been a better opportunity to collect data for his journal article—unfortunately, all the bouncing (…and bouncing and bouncing and bouncing…) right in front of his face isn’t make it easier to see the street ahead, nor is it helping their chances of survival.
Still, he’s not complaining.
“You gotta run faster, Sokka! Faster! The on’natarashi is gonna gobble us up!”
“Hey, I’m running for both of us!” he wheezes. “If you want me to put you down, just say so! Pretty sure that thing would only maul me. It’s you he wants to eat!”
“Please don’t! You know I can’t run in this dress!”
He knows. He knows because his plan to arrange a fake wedding and draw the on’natarashi’s attention with a fake bride required Ty Lee to wear a fake wedding dress—and what a fake wedding dress she picked: flattering enough to make him wish it wasn’t a fake wedding, but much too snug to run in.
“Almost to the Jasmine Dragon…I can see Iroh inside…”
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” she squeals, looking over his shoulder. “YEEK! I never thought our wedding night would go like this!”
Sokka mounts the stairs, taking two at a time as he bolts for the front door—while hearing the slobbering, gnashing maw of the on’natarashi close behind them. “Wait…how often do you imagine our wedding night…?”
“All the time! And after this, I think you owe me a real one!”
Throwing his shoulder into the door, Sokka silently concedes that Ty Lee is right.
He just wishes she weren’t right so often.