"Well, the comet is a large object that moves around our world in a hundred-year-cycle. The Fire Nation named it Sozin's Comet a hundred years ago. Before then, I imagine it was something like the Great Comet or Ball of Fire.
It circles this planet in an ellipse and comes close enough to lend firebenders incredible power whenever it does. If we don't counterattack by the time it's here, the war is over, one way or another."
...
"Planet…" Gorou murmurs even as his face takes on a far darker expression than before my explanation.
"How do you know about that?" Mai questions. It's as though she believes anyone who isn't from the Fire Nation is an uneducated lout.
"The Northern Watertribe hasn't forgotten how all of this began, you know? The genocide of the airbenders was only possible with this power on hand. Then again, I do think the monks were trapped inside their temples somehow, or some would have escaped. But we haven't been there to investigate. Maybe Aang can tell me more when I next see him. Or perhaps an agent of the White Lotus."
I may have said this in such a casual manner, but seeing her, as she sits there, fully believing, after everything that happened, that the Fire Nation is in the right, I am getting angry.
"You are aware of who started this, aren't you?" I question, voice cutting. "You must know that all of this began with one man's desire to expand his realm."
"The air nomads were going to attack the Fire Nation. That's why we had to strike first," she replies calmly, as though she were telling the absolute truth.
I open my mouth to make her see how wrong she is to believe in what she has said, but Gorou speaks first. "Now, I've not been formally educated, or at all really, but even I know that's a lie. Now would someone tell me what the White Lotus is?"
Ah. Whoops.
"So… there's this secret organisation of masters of their art from all corners of the world who call themselves the White Lotus. Don't tell anyone."
Silence greets this. Mai looks to be doubting both the validity of that statement, as well as my last vestiges of sanity. Gorou is wearing a funny half-smile that can't decide between malice and disbelief. Haruto seems uncertain, as he does about anything and the brat begins to snicker. Loudly.
Well, if that's how he decides to call attention to himself, so be it.
"How would you have gotten out of that one, then?"
He begins to laugh in earnest. Mocking laughter from a toddler is somehow so much worse than the usual kind. Reincarnated or not, to be the subject of a baby's ridicule is almost too much for even me.
Then again… what do normal babies laugh at?
It seems I won't ever find out.
What I will find out, within the next hour, is what the brat wants for his future and whether I should consider him when I deal with Mai. Speaking of, she is staring with an intensity that borders on Gorou's. Lovely.
With a sigh, I hook two fingers into the brat's collar, and lift him so that we may have a private conversation a few feet along the shore.
"Where are you going?" Mai asks, suspicious as ever.
"To have a conversation," I tell her sharply before raising a dome of ice around the brat and myself with a flick of the wrist.
"Now," I say, setting the reincarnated toddler on his feet. "What do I do with you?"
He huffs. "You do nothing," he says, with a lisp that would be endearing to anyone not in the know. A dull thud indicates Mai's first attempt at breaking through the ice. I decide to let her.
"Alright, then. So you'll quietly join your sister in returning to the Fire Nation?" I crouch before him.
His large eyes slide away, only to encounter his mirror image in the glacial dome. He frowns, and it looks more like a pout than the displeased expression of a controlled adult. He really is far too adorable to pull that off. Unlike me.
When he looks back at me, and sees a frown of my own on my face, he scowls.
Far too cute. But. Adult conversation. Remain professional.
"Is that a no?" I ask, clarifying. Another thud reminds me of Mai. It might be fun to see what she does when she breaks through. She might attempt to kill me.
He crosses his arms over his small chest. "Who says she's going back?"
I lean forward, bringing our faces close. "You did hear our earlier conversation, didn't you?"
Another huff. "That doesn't mean anything. It's not like Mai would be forgiven so easily for not murdering you in your sleep, as far as the princess is concerned."
That lisp needs to go if he ever wants to be treated seriously. It is very odd to have to treat him as an adult when he looks like this. And, who knows, perhaps my childish behaviour when I was his age was also due to the fact that I was in a child's body. Then again, it was expected of me and people tend to behave in accordance to the expectations the people surrounding them have of them.
"So then, if not the Fire Nation, where will she go?"
He remains silent. Perhaps he hasn't thought about it too much. The fact that he is a toddler doesn't allow him much alone time. And so, no time to actually think things through properly. To be constantly watched… I didn't enjoy it the first time around. Which was why I went out and pranked the elders. After a time, my mother would treat my disappearances with a roll of her eyes. We thought we were safe inside the city.
We were, to a point.
"I intend to go to Ba Sing Se. Do you want me to take you with me, should your sister decide not to accompany me?" That city however, is not safe for anyone inside of it. To think that refugees enter it with such high hopes, and only under the condition of their compliance and wilful ignorance to they receive what they came for.
"Why?" his tone is that of a person sceptical of your motives. Understandable. We don't know each other. Not really.
"Isn't it obvious?" it should be. I would've thought it was.
"I need you to say it."
With a sigh, I heed his demand. "I've never met another knowingly reincarnated person before. You're the only one who would not think me insane, if I spoke about where I come from. I imagine you desire the same. To be understood."
He huffs once more, but looks far less uncertain. "Fine. But you won't have to kidnap me."
"How do you know?"
"I'll make her go," he says it with conviction, as though it weren't a problem. With the way Mai has been hacking against the ice, he might be right.
I decide not to ask how. "Alright."
"By the way," he says, voice sweet, "What's your name?"
The question forces the air from my lungs. Wide-eyed, I turn to look at him fully again. "I used to be called William."
He chuckles. "Peter."
I offer my hand, "Good to meet you."
His small, pudgy fingers wrap around two of mine and we shake. "I'll say."
Which is when Mai's metal stilettos finally break through the ice.
"You!" she shouts, pointing at me.
"Me," I repeat and let go of her little brother's hand.
"An' me," Peter says, as though to state all the facts. Not, that we're doing that.
Mai staggers close and fists the front of my tunic harshly, making me stand.
"You need to stop!" she shouts, "All of this is your fault! Yours and you only keep making it worse! With your plans! And bending! And taking control of Tom-Tom's life!"
She releases me and looks at her brother, shoulders slumping and defeated all of a sudden without my interference. "And you… I don't even know who you are anymore."
Peter looks hurt then, just for a moment before he clears his expression of it.
"I'm your brother," he says slowly, lisped words winding themselves out of his mouth with the voice of a child in the disconcerting manner of an adult, "And I was born with another set of memories."
Silence.
...
Don't forget to throw some power stones :)
...
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