"Wow! You are a living Airbender with all the tattoos and everything!" exclaimed Ty Lee, who quickly approached Aang, circling his body as she examined him.
"Ty Lee, give him some personal space," Mai grabbed her friend's neck like a wild cat.
"But look at him, he's the AVATAR!" Ty Lee continued, causing Aang to look uncomfortably at Shisui, who was touching his nose's bridge.
"She's Ty Lee. She's very... cheerful. The one holding her by the neck is Mai. Don't think she's grumpy; she's just a little quieter," Shisui explained. Aang nodded, already knowing who they were, but the introduction had to happen.
"All I see is a weird girl and a dark makeup freak," a figure fell next to Aang, causing the ice platform to vibrate slightly.
"Sokka, don't be rude," an ice slide connected to the platform created by Shisui, and Katara slid down it before trying to pull her older brother's ear.
"But look at them, they're weird," Sokka complained before turning his attention to the others.
He looked at Azula, feeling a strange vibe in her as if a bird of prey was watching him menacingly from above. Sokka just shook his shoulders before turning his attention to Petra.
It was only a glimpse, but Sokka sensed that Petra was… heavy. But judging by her posture, she was obviously an Earthbender, so he gave her a nod before turning to look at Zuko.
Their gazes collided, each recognizing the martial arts vibe in the other. On Zuko's part, a hot, sharp impulse erupted from his body, colliding head-on with the impulse coming from Sokka... which was quite odd.
Sokka's impulse was like a whirlpool, similar to the whirlpools he had dealt with on those bad days at sea. Their impulses collided only once before they retreated into their bodies.
"We have to fight another day," Zuko said, causing Sokka to nod and wave the spear he rested on his shoulder.
"When this whole charade is over," Sokka replied before finally turning his gaze to Shisui, tensing his body just by looking at him.
"Why so serious?" Shisui asked, causing Sokka to sigh before relaxing his tension.
"You're more ordinary than they say you are," Sokka said, making Shisui smile.
"I'm just a waterbender," he said, causing Sokka to roll his eyes without a hint of embarrassment.
"You are the envy of many, many men! You don't understand why your friend here is the Avatar and you grew up with a prince, but deep down, every man in the world is jealous of you," Sokka said before his sister grabbed his ear.
"Stop talking nonsense," Katara growled, embarrassing Sokka.
"Looks like you're the weird one around here," Azula added, making the others laugh.
"But seriously, let's introduce ourselves," Shisui clapped his hands, bringing the meeting back to normal.
"Well, my name is Sokka, and this is my younger sister Katara, you should know that by now, right? She's a waterbender, of course, while I... am a non-bender," Sokka introduced himself, taking the opportunity to introduce her sister.
"As my brother said, I'm Katara and I'm a waterbender, nice to meet you, especially Sage Shisui, a friend of Aang's," Katara's words made Ty Lee smile as something occurred to her.
"Aren't you also a fan of Shisui? How strange to introduce him as a 'friend of', something new to note," Ty Lee said.
"You make it sound like everyone's very aware of me," Shisui complained, but Petra slapped him on the shoulder and nudged him.
"Obviously! You're too 'bright', so to speak. Have you seen how the waterbenders in the navy or military look at you?" asked Petra before she looked at Aang's small team.
"My name is Petra, Earthbender, inventor," Petra's introduction only made the others perk up to introduce themselves, while Shisui was deep in thought.
"Zuko, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation," at the mention of the title that followed his name, both Sokka and Katara shivered slightly.
"Yeah... hearing it said about you has a different effect," commented Sokka, who, though normal, subtly covered his sister's body with his own.
"We pretty much know our information already, don't we? I don't see why I need to introduce myself. My name is Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, betrothed to Shisui," Azula said the last part, puffing out her chest a bit as if to force herself on Katara, but the waterbender simply didn't understand the gesture.
"My name is Ty Lee, martial artist, your auras are nice," the always excited Ty Lee said, looking at Mai and encouraging her to introduce herself as well.
"Mai, Assassin," Mai said, causing Ty Lee to nod before hugging her friend.
"Great, you made new friends Mai, how nice~" Mai simply hit Ty Lee's head with a folding fan, causing Ty Lee to pull away from her and touch her head.
"I'm not an isolated or asocial person, stop treating me like a loner," Mai said, though this time she had a smile on her face as she saw her friend looking at her suspiciously.
"You're mean," Ty Lee muttered, before focusing on the Avatar Team's outfit again.
"You know, South Pole clothes are cool, could you get me some outfits?" Ty Lee walked over to Katara and pulled her toward their group of girls.
Before Sokka could react, Aang put his arm around Sokka's neck and pulled him toward Zuko and Shisui, who were talking.
"Do you think about the real influence you have?" asked Zuko, causing Shisui to nod.
"Yeah, I thought people just admired me, you know, but I never noticed those looks on some people before. I never thought about being a symbol or anything, the only thing I'm happy about is igniting the spark of a new cultural revolution, I also didn't know that people felt envy towards me," Shisui replied, seeing Sokka's bitter expression.
"What, you live with royalty, your girlfriend is a princess, you're a powerful warrior, you have very good titles, aren't you something like a protagonist of those weird books? No, you are, there are strange books about you," Sokka pointed out, making Shisui feel a little embarrassed at this point.
"Those stories are the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, some of them are .... enlightening," Shisui replied, mumbling a bit as he remembered those weird fanfics about him.
People were so bored back then! Aside from working or having children, people didn't have much entertainment in their daily lives unless they had enough money to go to the circus or the theater.
So these cheap books became people's source of entertainment, fanfics of him, the Avatars, and even some of the more famous figures in history.
"Right, I never thought I'd be reading a story about Kyoshi 100 years later, why are so many people drawing Kyoshi's feet?" complained Aang, who, out of curiosity, explored the books available at the Southern Water Tribe and found all these... 'jewels' of art.
"There are strange people everywhere," Zuko said, trying to hold back laughter as he remembered something.
Weren't all these alternate stories about Avatars Aang stories? Noticing Zuko's restrained laughter, the others asked him why, and they all ended up laughing, while Aang looked quite angry.
"I have to do something! Shisui! They'll write about me if they find out about me!" Aang grabbed his head and started complaining about the possible nonsense they'd write about him.
"Who knows, they'll probably even make bad plays about your story, that would be fun to watch," Sokka said, not knowing that he had raised a big red flag that would come for him in the future.
"Anyway, did your side get the message from our fleet yet?" Zuko asked Sokka, who nodded.
"My father was nearby, so he was the one who received your messenger, although he was too provocative and arrogant as if he wanted to be beaten," Sokka replied, remembering the strange hearing that happened a few hours ago.
"Yes, one of the great plans of Vice Admiral Zhao, is to provoke a conflict between the two sides," Shisui said disdainfully.
"Just in case, my father 'invited' him to drink and several tribal women took turns having sex with him, an ancient technique to wear out unruly messengers so they won't cause trouble, but quite effective," Sokka said shamelessly, making Aang blush.
"Oh yeah, I've read about that, it seems all cultures have come to the same solution when dealing with messengers or ambassadors," Zuko laughed before choking up, all because he realized Aang.... had no people.
"Don't worry, even though I'm very, very angry about the death of my people... you had nothing to do with it, so take it easy. Though maybe if your father or grandfather gives me the chance, I'll end up debating with them," Aang said, waving his hand without much concern, though you could hear the sadness in his voice.
"Come on, man, the memory of your people lives on in you and those who know your culture. It doesn't solve it, but the Fire Nation has taken it upon itself to make more known about yours, at least they will live on in the memory," Shisui was more direct and touched Aang's shoulder, making Aang feel more cheerful.
"The only bad thing is that your people lived separated by gender, why the hell, didn't they like to fuck or what?" Sokka managed to change the sad subject to a more... juicy one, so to speak.
"Come to think of it, they were supposed to explain these things to me when I was an adult, but it wasn't always like that, you know? There were communities where men and women could live together, only the Temples had such rules," Aang realized this point, partially refuting Sokka's words.
"You do know that the most famous sexual compendium comes from the Airbenders, right?" said Aang, this time making Sokka blush a little and lower his head.
"Wait, at least you've read it, right? It's famous. No, did you even have a reason to read it?" Aang seemed to find something that excited him.
He was going to get even with Sokka! The boy had been a bit of a thorn in his side; yes, he was protective of his sister, but she did it too much and he just wanted to take her for a ride!
"Ah, you're a virgin," Shisui, who loved to make jokes, pointed out and joined Aang.
To rub salt in the wound, the girls in the distance burst out laughing, maybe because of their conversation, maybe because they heard the commotion on the boys' side, but the thing was, Sokka wished he was a Waterbender right now.
So he could open a crevice in a glacier and bury himself in it!
"Weren't you a pirate or something? I hear those guys are worse than lecherous sailors! " then Aang and Shisui started blurting out comments worthy of a 13-year-old teenager, throwing the whole meeting out of whack.
"Let's not talk about that, why are we always getting sidetracked, aren't we having this meeting to plan and discuss how to deal with Zhao, why are we talking about Avatar's virgin friend?" Zuko touched his forehead, feeling for the first time that he was the more mature one in the room.
"Except for a few points, we don't need to plan too much, in a way I agree with the idea that over-planning something would only make it unnecessarily complicated and prone to failure," Sokka was able to compose himself quickly as a pirate, so he answered one of Zuko's questions and ignored the rest.
"Okay, let's get serious..." Shisui said, holding back a laugh, but in the end, they just clarified something before getting down to bantering with each other.
Although strange, this first contact planted the seed of a friendship that turned out to be quite long.
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AN: Any mistakes is the effect of SCP-3449.... xD
A short chapter, before the true action!
Read my original novel, or I will die~!