Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ When Ice and Lava Meet ❯ Simply Stolen ( Chapter 14 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
Disclaimer: I don’t own Avatar: The Last Air-bender, the very talented team of Mike and Brain own the show and characters. The rating maybe wrong but I did try to get it right.

By: year of the snake (at fanfiction) aka. crescentmoon (at mediaminer). And now Opal-Dreams on DeviantArt.


Chapter Fourteen

From the top of a building in the richer part of the shopping district Zuko watched his uncle and ‘Jen.’ walk down the street. They parted when ‘Jen’ stopped to look at a vender’s wares. She was looking at a clay pot, painted with Fire-Lilies. She spoke to the vender for a minute but didn’t buy the pot.
While ‘Jen’ talked, Iroh walked along alone. No one noticed him drop something discreetly in front of a silver shop. Zuko saw it though, a flash of sliver. ‘Where did uncle get silver?’ thought Zuko.
Then ‘Jen’ walked the same way Iroh did. She found the silver thing; Zuko couldn’t tell what it was. She took it into the silver shop and came out a few minutes later munching on a small flat cake.
When she was inside the silver shop ‘Jen’ told the people there that she had found the spoon outside the shop and asked them if they lost it. In return for her ‘honesty’ in returning it, they gave her a small flat cake of bread. So she accepted it. They wanted to give her tea too but she refused. She didn’t want to be surrounded by the glowing silver. It was very beautiful.
‘Jen’ still needed to find Toph because they had agreed to buy dinner at a cheap diner that night.
She found Toph because she heard a laugh that said, I-am-an-awesome-genius, which could only come from Toph. One might wonder why Toph was laughing in such a way, well so was Katara.
Katara went down an alleyway that was not very wide at all. Toph was sitting alone laughing. A huge smile graced her lips. “What’s so funny Mai Ling?” Katara asked incase someone overheard them.
“Oh Jen! You have good timing. Look what I just stole off some soldiers.”
There before Katara’s eyes was a poster of the Blind Bandit. It was a very good poster at that. The only real difference between what Toph looked like now and on the poster was that Toph didn’t have her bangs in her face now. She never did unless she was scamming.
“T..!” She almost yelled Toph’s name. She caught herself and whispered fiercely, “Mai Ling, do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Just having that poster is dangerous to both of us. And if someone sees you close to it, he may realize it’s you on it. You have to get rid of it. We’ll take it home and burn it. Give it to me.”
“No!”
“Toph!” she hissed. “If we’re caught with that we’ll both be put in jail.”
“I’m not burning it.” Before Katara could complain ‘Mai Ling’ said, “I’ll bury it, under someone’s house. How’s that?”
‘Jen’ sighed. “Fine. Do as you wish. Just put it away before someone notices us down here.” Jen stood up. “Let’s go get some dinner.”
Back when ‘Mai Ling’ was wandering around with Aang they had seen a group of soldiers.
“Hey Aang, what are those soldiers doing?”
“They’re looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“I’ll be right back.” He snuck over to see the picture on the poster. When he got back he said, “They’re looking for the Blind Bandit… She looks a lot like you. You could be twins.”
“Really?” Then looking down ‘Mai Ling’ said, “I guess that must be what happened to my cousin.”
“Your cousin?”
“Yeah. When I was a little girl I had a half Earth Kingdom cousin, she looked a lot like me. People said we looked a lot a like as kids. Perhaps we still do. They were disinherited because of the Earth Kingdom woman my uncle married.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because I was told never to speak of her. That branch of the family is in dishonor.” ‘Mai Ling’ lied.
“Oh.” Aang looked down.
“Aang, we must get that wanted poster from the soldiers. I could be arrested in her place.”
“Okay I’ll just…” He started to walk away in a manner that everyone who saw him would know he was trying to be sneaky.
‘Mai Ling’ grabbed his shoulder. “Twinkle-Toes how about you distract them and I’ll get it.”
“But how will you find it?”
“Don’t think on it Twinkles. I’ll manage.”
Aang looked at her worriedly. It was easy to tell that he was thinking ‘Am I going to get her put in jail?’
“Just go Twinkle-Toes. After I get the poster you are to go home. If they think you had anything to do with this then you would be in trouble too.”
“… Okay.” He turned back to the soldiers and started walking nervously over.
“Aang,” she called to him, “If you pull this off, I’ll be in your debt.”
“No, if we pull this off I think we’ll be even.” Then he ran over and sped his speech to an incomprehensible rush. He certainly got their attention. The soldiers tried to get him to talk in a way they could understand but it didn’t work.
While he was talking that way ‘Mai Ling’ walked behind the soldiers. Aang talked even faster and louder to make himself a bigger spectacle. His heart almost stopped when she was behind the soldier who had the paper. All he could think of was how he hoped she wouldn’t get caught. He prayed so fervently that he had no idea what was coming out of his mouth. But it was working whatever it was because the soldiers were focused on him.
‘Mai Ling’ got the paper without even a hint of someone noticing. Then she ducked into an alley.
Two seconds after she disappeared Aang said a hurried, “I got to go.” Then he ran away. He ran home, just as ‘Mai Ling’ had asked.
Toph who wasn’t really too far away smiled when she felt that the soldiers weren’t going after him. They were just confused at the strange kid. The soldiers simply scratched their heads and acted like the confused idiots they were.
Then she slipped away until she got to a safe distance. When she got there Toph just had to laugh. Her laugh led Katara to her.
Late that evening after listening to Zuko sneak back into their apartment Iroh blinked and thought of what that day’s adventure had taught him. While listening to Zuko bed down Iroh thought, ‘Maybe Mai Ling isn’t the Blind Bandit. Jen would have just said she’d pray about it if she was… But I am so certain that Mai Ling is an earth-bender, just as Jen is a water-bender. It’s in the way they walk. Every movement says what they are if you’ve trained yourself to see it. They must be hiding but it seems they’re not hiding Mai Ling’s thievery.’ Iroh’s thoughts paused at his next thought. ‘Then again maybe Jen doesn’t know. She’s not the type to approve of thievery. She’s not the type to harbor a criminal, blind or not. How can I know for sure? Is Mai Ling the Blind Bandit or is she a normal, yet earth-bending, blind girl?’ Iroh drifted to sleep before he could answer his own questions.

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Hi everyone! Don’t kill me; I am very sorry for the lateness of this chapter. Between getting sick, studying and my personal demons (called procrastination and writer’s block) among other things this chapter is very late. And I am very sorry. I will try to get the next chapter up within a month. But I can promise nothing, sorry.

Quick Fact: Aang believes ‘Mai Ling’ is a Fire Nation girl that is why Toph said her uncle was disowned for marrying an Earth Kingdom girl.

Thank you to all my reviewers, Kaydreams from fanfiction(.)net, Mannie258, phili91, zutararules777 and zutara-fan-forever from deviantART. Thank you everyone.


In other news I have two contests going one is just guessing how I would cast in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and the other is fanart/fanfiction fairytales. For more information either go to my deviantART journal pages or find my link on my profile (fanfiction{}net people). (Sorry to any who may be reading this on mediaminer but because I don’t know if you exist I’m not going to bother linking it. Sorry.)

Please read and review. Thank you. Goodbye.