Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ When Ice and Lava Meet ❯ A Subtle Smear of Red Paint ( Chapter 17 )

[ 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 Seventeen
 
Just as the cuff was about to brush the Painted Lady’s arm and lock her away the Blue Spirit jumped between the women. The handcuffs went flying as he had rammed them with his body.
For the first time that evening Hasa got a good look at the Blue Spirit. The eyes were deep, soulless, and black from the one corner to the other. Hasa felt a thrill of fear jolt her entire form. She dropped back falling to the ground.
The Blue Spirit dashed on and the Painted Lady followed him. They sprinted from one wealthy person’s yard to another. A long chase commenced the Blue Spirit couldn’t run fast enough to lose the Painted Lady. Yet the Painted Lady wasn’t quick enough to catch up with him.
Suddenly the Blue Spirit found he was no longer being followed. He sighed and jumped atop a small hut that was the top level of a food storage for whomever this land belonged.
Turning the Blue Spirit looked behind him for the Painted Lady one last time. She wasn’t there. ‘I lost her, finally.’ He turned around. He turned around smoothly on the flat roof that was tiled in a nice solid fashion. He was happy until he saw something he didn‘t expect.
The Painted Lady caught up to the Blue Spirit on the rooftop of a short flat roof, the roof of a cold food storage shed. “Hold it.” she whispered at him as she stood in his way. The wall he meant to escape over behind her. Her veil and some of her hair blew in front of her. “I always repay my debts as soon as possible.”
It was dark. It grew darker as clouds floated purposelessly between the earth and the moon. They were thin, wispy clouds that were something like a feather parasol, blocking little light.
“What?”
“You helped me, and I will repay you for it now.” She lifted her hands towards his mask but he backed away and the Blue Spirit said a hurried and clenched, “No!”
“Worry not. I promise” she stepped towards him as she spoke. She reached up again and grasped his mask without ensuing a reaction aside from stopping his breathing. The Painted Lady pushed his mask straight up so the farthest down it covered was his nose. He breathed out as she breathed in.
Air no longer covered his lips because her lips replaced it. It was a chase kiss, it was a brief kiss. It left a subtle smear of red paint on his lips. When he opened his eyes they instantly watered from a smell that wafted from the girl before him. The special paint she used was doing its job.
The Painted Lady leaned in more and whispered in his scarred and covered ear, “That is only part of my gratitude to you; I will also keep secret your humanity, young human boy.” With that the spirit woman slid back and then hopped over the wall behind her. She left his mask for him to pull back into place. His right hand was surprisingly empty. The sneaky Painted Lady had taken the long bejeweled strip of gold from his hand.
The man with only half of his face covered by the Blue Spirit mask knelled to the ground because of the wave of anger that overcame him. He gripped the tiles just inches from his knee. He took two complete pieces of the large tile and the wood beam beneath them from their places, with just his right hand. And then he brought the pieces that now were glowing a very light blue, a spiritual blue to his chest. His anger was gone and the light blue began to swirl lightly from the piece of roof he held. Strands of this blue fog flowed down around his hips, then waist, wrapping next around his bulky chest, dancing just above the large blue hands and golden claws that sprouted from them. Then it traversed his broad shoulders. Following that it slithered up more, around his neck. From the back of his head it twisted its way to below his blue nose and he breathed it in, his eyes were shut. So the human didn’t yet notice the changes in himself. His blue mouth smiled wistfully and his white rimmed eyes opened. Once revealed, if anyone was there to witness it, the golden irises were haloed by bright blue as were the pupils. The demon faced spirit whipped the dark fabric from off the back of his head. The hair that was black before that fabric was placed on it was much the same, but now it outlined with a shimmering blue, a darker blue than his skin. The hair wanted to grow but without warning the transformation the human host went through was not only halted but reversed. The reversal caused him to shake slightly.
There stood Zuko his mask now completely covering his face and his hood pulled down, with a piece of the roof he was standing on in his hand. He looked down and saw that the piece came from right where one of the Painted Lady’s feet had been when she kissed him.
Dropping the tile and wood in utter shock he noticed that beneath the dust of tile powder was bright red smudged on his black glove. Moving back his mask he lifted his hand and smelt again that smell that stung his eyes when she kissed him. The memory that smell instigated caused his heart to pound so as to fill his cheeks and neck with the hot substance. ‘A spirit kissed me!’ he thought. Looking at his glove again he added, ‘And I kissed her back… Her paint is on my fingers’
He found a stream to wash his glove in before heading back to the small, rundown apartment that he shared with his uncle.
Meanwhile just after she landed on the other side of the wall the Painted Lady collapsed to her knees and then to the ground. She panted there for a moment before the earth gently slid her down into a cavern.
The Blind Bandit who had sensed just minutes earlier that she would be needed rushed down the long tunnel she had just made. Something was wrong. She had felt it. Her friend’s heart was too big to be her own; it was too big to be even The Hippo’s massive heart. She moved as fast as her earth-bending could propel her.
If she could see Toph would have seen the Painted Lady’s hair now had a shimmering red outline even in this lightless place. That her irises were outlined with gold, the same went for her pupils. And when she coughed a small puff of gold fire puffed out.
Toph hesitated. Just as she was about to touch her friend’s back all felt normal with her again. She was Katara again, her heart was the right size and she no longer shook with the force of each beat. Katara stood shakily and said to Toph, “I don’t think I’ll be able to deliver this tonight.”
‘What happened..?’ Toph wondered still shaken.
It took almost a fourth of an hour for Toph to be released from her shaken state enough to have any thought of what to do now. Katara was slumped on the tunnel floor nearby, just breathing, not asleep but not really in the tunnel with the Blind Bandit either.
Toph took the liberty of delivering the necklace on herself. When they got where it belonged she walked up the sensible stone steps and placed the necklace on the doorstep.
Then she guided Katara, in her Painted Lady, garb home. They were silent the whole time.
“Okay,” Toph snapped tired of the odd silence, “What’s up?”
Eyes wide with innocent shock and heart running a marathon, Katara spoke. “I-I think I kissed the Blue Spirit”
Toph’s lower jaw would have hit the floor if it wasn’t firmly attached to her upper jaw. ‘Just what does one say to that?’ “W-What are you getting so worked up for? I-It was just a k-kiss right?”
“You don’t understand Toph; I just kissed a complete stranger.”
“So what. What does it matter if he’s a stranger?
“You’re kidding me right? It matters because… um… It’s hard to explain… I’ve got it. Ladies don’t just go kissing random strangers.”
They got to their apartment. Toph still wasn’t sure what to say. So she just let Katara drift off.
Something in the night air kept Toph awake. Soon she walked back outside. The chill air wrapped around her as if I was trying to draw her to the outskirts of town. She allowed it to brush futilely through her hair. Then she turned and went back inside.
When she got inside she notice one cheek was much cooler than the other. Her hand rested on that cheek and she heard Katara shift in her sleep.
“Ladies don’t go kissing random men… Remember that Toph. That is why Lilly is in trouble now.” Toph could recall her mother’s voice warning her as a child. ‘Random men… Mom would definitely think of Aang as a ‘random man’.’ Although Toph thought that she just smiled. Then she went to her own sleeping spot and dreamed dreams of badger-moles turning into ladies and kissing the wolf-bats who turned into men.
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Hey, everyone! I told you I’d get this one out soon! And look I did! I love this chapter! It was so fun to write! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
A special thanks to all my reviewers, Annika-Kisha, firemaster298, Bambi428, and tmmdeathwish at DeviantART. Thanks so much. You folks are the reason this one is out so soon. =D Reviews are what make my day! Nothing is a shot of happiness like getting a review.
Thanks to everyone who read this chapter, I hope you read the next chapter.
Quick Fact: Most of this chapter was actually written before the one before it.

Goodbye. See you for the next chapter! =D