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Embers, chapter 3

(Oh my god it’s taken me an eternity to update this I’m so sorry)

Summary: Being the Chief of Police and protecting the Republic city, Lin Beifong has no time for the matters of the heart. But as the Equalist threat rises, so do her feelings for Kira, a once runaway street kid turned into a friend. But what exactly is Kira’s connection to the non-bending extremists, and what does it mean to their relationship? Femslash, Lin/OC

Rating: T

Words (in this chapter): 12.9k

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

CHAPTER THREE: Smoke

3 years ago

Darkness had fallen like a blanket over the Republic City, the clouds concealing the stars eliminating the little natural light. The police squad had to rely on various unnatural light sources, store signs and street lights namely, which were severely lacking around these blocks. It was a poor district, mainly used for either storage space or factories that produced smells foul enough to prevent building them on a better part of the city. The only people that lived there were the ones unable to afford avoiding the smog.

Not that the lack of light particularly bothered the squad, especially Lin. Carefully advancing along an alley, she imagined hearing something and raised her hand, bringing the rest of the squad to a halt, to stop the clattering of metal from their armor. She retracted the sole of her shoe and kicked the ground, searching the source of the sound with her seismic sense.

She was right. There was someone. Someone who was running fairly quickly, as if sensing the trap awaiting a couple blocks away.

Silently, Lin signaled half the squad to continue around the next corner and took the rest with her, turning back where they had come from. Their target was definitely aware of them now, because its speed just increased and Lin had some trouble spotting it, like it had spent half the time off the ground. They were only a small warehouse apart from it now, and she heard shouting from the distance but couldn't tell what was being said.

Lin pointed to the alley beside the warehouse. The men nodded and ran off towards the noise, leaving her to her own devices. Lin kept going until she arrived at the other end of the warehouse, the shouting growing in volume the closer she got to it, and she began to make out the words.

“Somebody grab her!”

“Huang, around the back...!”

“I told you, stop it and just listen!”

The first two voices belonged to her men, but the third one was new. It was a female voice, and sounded more irritated than panicked to be surrounded by several police officers.

Behind the warehouse there was a small square, littered by stacks of big wooden boxes and mostly incomplete construction site stands. The officers were all chasing a lone figure in dark clothing who kept, unbelievably, avoiding all of them simultaneously. The figure dropped, rolled, spun around and threw backflips with the same ease other people breathed with, treating the obstacles in her way like second ground; it was like a dance to which none of Lin's men knew the steps. It was an uncanny act and almost mesmerizing, if it hadn't been for the fact that they were supposed to have caught the shady character a few minutes ago.

Lin readied her cables, but didn't step out of the conventional shadow she was in. There was something wrong about this scene and it took her a moment to realize what it was. The figure wasn't attacking her officers, with or without bending, just dodging them. Surely it would have helped the escape to take down a few, but the figure seemed unwilling to hurt them. Lin watched as the culprit swung herself on top of the unstable construction platform which began to creak immediately. Three officers shot their cables at the figure at the same time the platform crumbled down, but the figure dug something from her pocket and threw it down. Sparkles and smoke filled the air, making it impossible to see what was happening, into or out of the smoke.

Lin emerged from the shadows, raising her arms. Waited. Listened. When a few fleeting seconds later a blurred figure flew out of the smoke field, soaring through the air like a human hawk, Lin shot.

Cables hit the figure and spun around her, cutting her flight as effectively as a stone wall. The bagged culprit hit the ground with a satisfying thud, crying out in pain. Lin walked up to the previously elusive figure as her men began to find their way out of the smoke and took hold of the hood over the figure's head, lifting her up to her knees.

“Alright,” Lin said coldly as she pulled the hood off. “Let's see who -”

There was a lot of blinking in that moment.

Lin's was astounded, mostly. While the face under the hood was a little different, enough of the features were similar for her to recognize it. On that face was a pair of distinctive golden eyes, blinking as they tried to focus their vision in the semi-darkness, and apparently succeeded in it since the face broke into a grin.

“Chief Beifong,” the young, strange-but-not woman said. “This certainly brings up memories.”

Lin sighed out a name that she hadn't had to voice for years. “Kira.”

***

They had chosen an old, abandoned storage building as their temporary base for the duration of the raids. It was quite small and still smelled of burnt rubber and gasoline, but at least it was mostly empty and had a good view around the surroundings. Two more officers were stationed inside, guarding and scoping while the rest of them roamed the streets.

Lin hauled Kira to the base personally, pulling her by the hood, at a brisk pace and perhaps unnecessary harshness that didn't leave much room for protests by her prisoner. Her mind was dark with unvoiced anger as she all but threw the girl into the room that she had just named the interrogation chamber, following in with three officers. There was a wooden box in the middle of the floor and Kira managed to maneuver herself into more or less sitting position on it. She gazed up at the chief, panting for air.

“Can you just – loosen these up a little bit?” Kira asked, squirming in the cables.

Lin huffed. “So you can try to escape?”

“There's like eight of you here, where am I gonna run?” Kira asked. “Please, I can't really breathe...”

Considering the display at the square, that wasn't such an infallible argument, but the last thing Lin wanted was to compliment the girl. So she unwound most of the cables, leaving only a short bit as handcuffs around the wrists just in case. Kira stood up, carefully enough not to alarm her, to flex her limbs and Lin allowed both of them a moment to catch their breaths, partially to prevent herself from acting on the ire and disappointment stewing inside her.

Still, even seething with anger, Lin couldn't help but noticed how much the girl had changed. Well, Kira was hardly a girl any longer; at some point during the three years when the Chief hadn't seen so much as a flash of her, the girl had disappeared. What stood before her now was a young woman only a couple inches or so shorter than her, still lithe and slender in built but more like an acrobat and less like an underfed rodent. There was grace in every movement that certainly had been missing before, like a foal that had grown into an adult horse and gained control of all its limbs.

Kira had certainly grown up. Too bad that it had been into an entirely wrong direction, on the inside.

And apparently Lin wasn't the only one who noticed. She caught officer Yuan with the corner of her eye; the man was just about visibly drooling, slowly scanning the subtle curves of Kira's new adult form.

“Yuan,” Lin barked. “Guard duty. Outside.”

The man jumped, the tips of his ears flushed scarlet and he turned on his heels, nearly running out of the room. Kira's eyes flashed with amusement as she sat back down.

“You're very calm, considering your predicament,” Lin remarked. If her feelings about it crept into her voice, she didn't care. “You're not fifteen anymore. You're going down for this for good. I really hoped you would do better than joining the Agni Kai Triad.”

“Wait,” Kira said, frowning. Then, out of the blue, she bursted laughing, waves of hair falling over her face. That was... an unexpected reaction, and did nothing to ease the ticking of the vein on Lin's temple. “That's what this is about? You think I'm in the Triad?”

“You were sneaking near their drug storage. You escaped the police.” Lin glanced at the young woman's gloved hand. “You're wearing a bracelet with the Triad's emblem on it. You were never a good liar but that isn't even trying.”

“But I'm not in the Triad! Well, I sort of am, but not really. I'm undercover.” Kira said that with bright eyes, without fidgeting. Lin frowned.

“For whom?”

“For you. You just... don't know that yet.”

The following silence was the personification of sardonic. Even Kira had the sense to realize how incredibly absurd her words had sounded. Lin crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Care to elaborate?” she asked dryly.

The young woman swallowed, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes for a moment. “Look,” she started, wiping hair from her face. “Some guys from the Triad had been pressuring me to join the gang forever. So finally I pretended to give in, both to get them off my back and gather intel from the inside. I've been at it for... six or seven months now.”

Lin frowned. “And you've never come forth... why, exactly?”

“Because for the longest time they wouldn't tell me anything. It's incredibly hard to get ahead in that organization if you're not a bender.” Kira sighed. “I didn't want to risk blowing my cover if I didn't have anything major to uncover. But I do now! They have a big shipment coming next week and most of the Triad's gonna be there. And they'll be needing every available pair of hands to handle it, so they have no choice but to let me know where it is. You can bust two thirds of the Triad in one coup!”

Lin tilted her head, still frowning. While the story sounded good – too good to be true – she had one big obstacle why she couldn't just believe Kira.

“Why would you do it?” Lin asked. “Why would you risk your life like that?”

“Because I owe you and I wanted to pay it back,” Kira replied quietly. “I told you I would.”

“That's the worst excuse ever!” exclaimed one of the officers, unable to contain his opinion anymore. “Chief, you can't possibly believe what this lying -”

Lin raised her hand, silencing the man. She stared deep into the golden eyes before her, boring through their unfaltering surface, trying to find a crack. Her mother had taught her how to tell if someone was lying; the tell was in their heartbeat, their breathing patterns. Being a police officer had taught her even further, catching the subtle cues of shifting eyes and fumbling fingers.

“I do,” Lin found herself saying, to her own astonishment. “I do believe her.”

A smile rose on Kira's lips, the first one Lin had witnessed that wasn't sarcastic or mischievous, just happy.

“But -” the man started again.

“Out! Both of you!” Lin ordered. She felt she couldn't deal with any more input at the moment.

Lin listened as two sets of footsteps left the room and the door creaked when it was closed, leaving her alone with the young woman. Kira still sat there, rather patiently, waiting for her to come up with some kind of a reaction. Lin walked over to the small, partially broken window and gazed out into the dark streets, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Weariness threatened to overtake her, the weight of all nightly patrols and raids suddenly weighing on her shoulders.

“I don't know what I should do with you anymore,” Lin sighed. “From all the insane, foolish ruses you have pulled...”

“Do I get a vote?” Kira asked, a grin audible in her voice. She stood up from the box and padded closer, leaning against the wall while staying carefully away from the line of sight, should someone see inside the room from the outside. “I know I should probably have told you earlier. And this is certainly not how I wanted you to find out -”

“You shouldn't have done this in the first place!” Lin snapped. “You can't just decide to go undercover by yourself! These things should be done by the book. You have endangered our entire operation -”

“How have I even affected the operation since nobody knows I'm -”

“- not to mention your own skin!” Lin continued. “I would never plant a civilian as a mole! Do you have any idea what those people will do to you if they find out?”

“That's why I haven't told anybody. Besides, as a non-bender, I'm not exactly what they consider a threat.” Kira paused to smirk. “Suckers.”

Lin huffed. “And say – just imagine, for a moment, that we go through with your half-assed plan. What will happen to you after that? Surely they're going to realize something is up when we bust their shipment.”

“They can't do much if they're in jail,” the young woman reasoned. “And the rest... well, they don't have to know it was me.”

Lin raised an eyebrow. “You've really thought this true, haven't you?”

Kira shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. “I'm usually don't do plans, but I tried this time.” She checked the shadows and rooftops outside before she rested her head against the window frame, the light of the unveiled moon painting her eyes almost silver. “Look, I get that you're mad at me and I won't blame you if you want to arrest me. But this is a really good opportunity and I think, if I know you at all, that you don't want to waste it either.”

Lin's brow furrowed, because as much as she hated to admit it, the girl was right. The woman, she corrected in her mind; she had a hard time letting go of the image of the moody, skinny thing that had once been. And while she would have preferred Kira not getting into trouble at all, it was better she got into trouble that was beneficial to society.

“Why are you so adamant about this raid?” Lin asked. “Besides thinking you owe me?”

“Honestly?” Kira said, the smirk on her face eerily familiar from years ago. “Because Spark likes to practice her aim by chucking fireballs at me, and I can't wait to see her face when you rush in and bust her ribs.”

***

Over a week passed without any kind of message after Lin had let Kira go, watching the young woman jump out of the window and disappear into the night, vanishing like a ghost before morning light. Her men still looked for hidden bases and storages belonging to the Triad, mostly to keep up the image of normal routine, although in reality they had a reserve of officers in all shifts in case the call came. Kira had said she would most likely be told only a few hours in advance, so the police would have very little time to gather their units and move out.

Doubt lingered inside Lin's mind every day that went by in silence. She feared that despite all her skill in lie detection, Kira had somehow managed to fool her; that either there was no shipment or her officers would be walking into a trap. It was a possibility, however distant, that her desire to believe that Kira wasn't like... that Kira was good, had clouded her judgement. But perhaps even more than that, Lin feared that there would come a morning when they would find Kira's corpse washed ashore, the word 'traitor' carved on its skin.

Lin told none of it to her officers. She waited in her office till late at night, staring at the phone on her desk, willing it to ring. She was so concentrated on the stubbornly mute object that she didn't notice the tapping against the window until it grew impatient, starting to knack against the frame. Startled, Lin's head turned towards the window and the reddish-brown bird of prey balancing on its sill. She opened the window and the bird flew in, landing gracefully on her desk and peering at her with piercing yellow eyes.

A messenger hawk. There was a numerous amount of them in the city, most of them as pets since the need for messaging had decreased in correlation with the increasing number of phones in households. But this one had a canister tied to its back, one it tried to shake off as if its feathers were tickling underneath. Lin cracked open the canister and rolled open the message inside while absently scratching the hawk's back.

She had never been more relieved because of a few hastily scribbled lines.

***

Kira wasn't too fond of being underground. Of course she had a vast field of experience in being underground in the meaning of all kinds of shady dealings, but the literary position of being below ground level gave her chills. The Triad's super-secret exchange point of cash and illegal substances, it turned out, was almost at the edge of the city and definitely under the city. It was a gigantic hall burrowed several dozen feet underground by what must have been days' work for the earthbenders hired from another Triad. A tunnel connected the burrow to the outside world and was guarded by a few of the same benders, who lifted up the concealing earth mass, let the automobiles in and then dropped the whole thing back, trees and all.

A small buzz of lightning shot where her feet had been half a second before Kira stepped backwards, sensing the hairs of her arms rising. It was such an automatic response she didn't even think about it anymore.

“Aren't you jumpy,” remarked the woman slogging towards her, little sparkles of electricity still buzzing between her fingers. She had a short, stocky frame, coppery skin and dark blue eyes, all of which screamed Water Tribe even though her Fire Nation side had won when it came to bending. “Waiting for something to fall on you?”

“Actually, yes,” Kira replied without sarcasm, eyeing the tree root sticking through the ceiling of the made-up hall. “Couldn't we get our shipments to the harbor or something, like normal criminals?”

Spark chuckled. There was always something very menacing about the raspy laughter dripping from her lips. “No, because the cops watch the harbor. But don't worry, pet, our badgers did a good job,” she assured. “Now stop daydreaming and move your ass, the shipment's coming any minute.”

Kira gritted her teeth, uncurling her hands that had turned into fists without conscious effort. “Yeah, because clearly I'm the one slacking off here,” she muttered, looking around the burrow at the various groups of thugs who were all very concentrated on wisecracking and smoking.

A hand gripped her face by her chin. Apparently Kira hadn't been muttering quietly enough, because Spark had grabbed her as she walked by and turned her head forcefully. Kira frowned, with no choice but to look at the crime lieutenant.

“Didn't I tell you something about mouthing off to me?” the woman asked, her fingers digging into Kira's cheeks.

Kira took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“What was it?”

Another deep breath. “Don't do it,” Kira replied, dropping her gaze down. “I'm sorry.”

Spark studied her for a while, determining whether she'd accept the obviously grudgingly given answer or not. Finally, after an outstretched moment when the woman's fingers begun to heat on Kira's skin, she let go and patted her cheek.

“Good girl,” Spark praised, a lopsided grin on her lips. “Now go earn your meal before I change my mind.”

Kira scurried off, idly rubbing the shivers off from her shoulders. The only thing she hated more about Spark than her constants threats was their ability to actually intimidate her. She couldn't wait for Chief Beifong and the rest of the police squad to bust in and tear the place down.

If they did, that was. She hadn't seen a sign of them – although that was the whole point and very definition of ambush – and was beginning to doubt if the Chief had actually got her note.

The trucks arrived, rolling down the soft floor of the tunnel. Kira rolled up her sleeves as she watched in the corner of her eye when Spark approached one of the drivers. Several Triad members followed their lieutenant with suitcases undoubtedly full of cold, hard cash. Then Spark gestured rather harshly to the loitering groups and they begun to scuff towards the trucks, Kira among the masses. She took hold of the cardboard box that someone put in her hands and glowered at the guy that bumped into her shoulder quite intentionally.

It happened so suddenly and quietly, with such ease that nobody frankly noticed when four holes opened into the walls of the burrowed hall, one at each corner. Their attention was only caught by the clank of metal when dozens of police officers marched out, led by a woman with black armor and silver hair.

“Everybody freeze! You're all under arrest for smuggling illegal substances!” Lin Beifong's voice echoed in the hall like its earthy walls had been turned to marble. There were less police officers than there were criminals present, but that didn't seem to bother the woman; if one had opened a dictionary at the word 'authority', it would have had Chief Beifong's picture in it, in this moment. Kira fought the impulse to grin like a madman and utterly blow her cover. That woman was freaking magnificent.

Predictably, most of the Triad members didn't freeze. They put down, or downright dropped, the boxes in their hands and slowly retreated towards the center of the space. Which Kira thought was a pretty stupid move, getting surrounded like that, but she followed their initiative.

The fight broke like a tidal wave, triggered by a single guy running off towards a police officer, which inspired everyone else to do the same. Boulders and flames soared through the air, warded off by metal cables. Kira fell back on purpose, watching the mayhem, occasionally dodging an odd flying object. She was beginning to believe the police had been informed of her since practically none of them targeted her – or maybe they just didn't deem her that dangerous because she wasn't bending at them – when cold, ungiving wires suddenly closed in around her. Her shoulder stung, struck by a sharp rock as she hit the ground hard, swept off her feet.

“You bloody jerk!” Kira shouted to the police officer who had, apparently, not got the memo. She didn't even have to act particularly hard.

Out of the blue, the policeman froze as if actually stunned by her words. Or, more likely, the electricity that still buzzed around Spark's hand when the man fell down, revealing the firebender standing behind him.

“Get up, we're leaving!” Spark said as she gripped Kira's arm, pulling her halfway up and starting to drag her towards a van.

“But -” Kira tried to scramble on her feet while simultaneously yanking off the cable. She looked around the burrow; the battle was still very much raging on, not for the lack of skill on the polices' part but the sheer number of the Triad members. Her heels dug into the earth in a vain attempt to stop the other woman dragging her along like a rag doll, as her mind raced to find words that wouldn't entirely compromise her position. “We can't just leave, there's too -”

“Yeah, we can,” Spark announced, took hold of Kira's neck and hurled her into the van with three other Triad thugs already in it, one in the front behind the steering wheel.

“And how the heck do you propose we manage that?” Kira yelled, watching as several police officers closed in around their presumed escape van.

Spark smirked before she turned her back towards the van and raised both her hands high into the air. Lightning gathered like an indoor storm into a big, roaring cloud before it shot upwards to the ceiling. The entire cave shook, as if hit by an earthquake, knocking almost everyone off their feet. But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part were the rocks and chunks of earth that started to fall down from the ceiling.

“Are you crazy?! This whole place is gonna cave in!” Kira shouted.

“That's the plan, pet”, Spark grinned, jumped into the van and slammed the doors shut. She banged on the wall and shouted to the driver. “What are you waiting for? Drive, while you still can!”

***

Even through the soles of her shoes, Lin felt the vibrations in the earth before anything visible happened. Almost forgetting about the random firebender thug she had just thrown to the ground, she turned her head in time to see the Triad's lieutenant, a very Water Tribe looking woman who must have been Spark, stand next to a van with her arms raised towards the ceiling. The ceiling that was starting to crumble down before her very eyes. Lin's eyes widened.

“Earthbenders!” she called, a second before the first rock fell down, as she fell into horse stance and turned her palms upward. By her command, she was joined by her earthbending officers and, surprisingly, some of the Triad thugs. Although it was probably not that surprising – they seemed just as scared as everyone else, and Lin gathered being buried alive hadn't been in their plans either.

As huge chunk of mud and stone came tumbling down nearby. Lin moved her arm up, a deep frown of concentration on her forehead, as she forced its movement to a halt a couple feet before it would have crushed a non-bending police officer and two Triad members. She saw the flicker of movement in the corner of her eye as the firebender she'd been fighting lit up a flame. The man smiled smugly, but then gazed around and seemed to come to a different conclusion, as his fire died out and he stepped back rather sheepishly.

While she stopped and sent back up several more chunks of earth, Lin searched the van again just as its engine roared to life. Her mind was racing, debating whether she should keep stabilizing the cave or stop the van before its notorious passenger could escape. Then Kira's head stuck out of the van's window, her expression stricken with panic, and Lin's decision was quickly made her. She would not risk both losing the crime lieutenant and her informer, especially since there was no telling what would happen to the latter. If Kira was in the van because she had been caught, if they would hurt her...

“Saikhan!” Lin shouted, looking over her shoulder. “You're in charge, I'm going after them!”

Saikhan nodded, but then added, “By yourself?”

“I think I can handle a couple of firebending thugs”, Lin muttered under her breath. The situation was mostly in control, anyway; the earthbenders had managed to patch up most of the ceiling, and they had already been winning before the collapse. Now it was just the matter of rounding up the remaining Triad members, which her officers should be able to manage without her.

The van had taken off, climbing up the uneven floor towards the exit. They apparently had snagged at least one earthbender with them, because the earth mass was rising as they approached it. That sent another, smaller quake through the cave, and Lin decided that stopping them with bending was not safe under the circumstances. She also regretted the fact that the police had had to leave their vehicles some distance away to keep their presence hidden. Fortunately, there was a motley collection of automobiles and motorcycles courtesy of the Triad. Lin took the first bike she came upon, started it with a makeshift key she metalbent, and sped after the van.

A few seconds after the earth mass had dropped back down, a small hole blew up in the middle of it, through which Lin and her motorcycle shot to the gravelly road. Clouds had gathered up above, painting the already dark night sky pitch black, and rain had started to fall. Only lightly, but every tiny water drop felt like a needle against Lin's exposed face as she picked up the speed. She could just about spot the van's lights on the road ahead, if she looked very closely.

The thugs kept to the edge of the city, away from traffic and street lights. The road under the wheels changed from gravel to asphalt and back again, a dull choir of noise in Lin's ears as she leaned down, shielding her eyes with one hand and directing the bike with another. A couple of fire balls shot through the van's back windows to her direction, but they were too far away to hit her. She, on the other hand, was steadily gaining on them, and would soon be within the distance to -

As the van turned around corner, losing several feet of its head start in the process, Lin got her chance. She reached her hand towards the van and bent – not the van, because it could damage engine and blow the whole thing up. Instead she bent the road before the van, raising a steep ramp out of it. The vehicle flew through the air gloriously and landed right at the spot where Lin had raised a pillar that knocked it over, crashing it on its side on the ground.

A tiny, self-satisfied smile on her lips, Lin braked, stopped the bike without any hurry and parked it a small distance away. She had ample time to walk closer to the van before its contents got themselves together and spilled out of the vehicle, some of them holding their heads but otherwise in one piece. She was glad to notice that despite some disorientation, Kira seemed fine. The young woman flashed her a quick, discreet smile before she was pushed aside by Spark.

The crime lieutenant seemed mostly furious. She had a nasty gash on her forehead that she didn't even appear to notice as she stepped closer. The rest of the thugs gathered in a half-circle around her, unable to quite decide whether they should be concerned about one cop versus five of them. Lin crossed her arms, the corner of her mouth turning into a cool, amused smirk. Whether they knew it or not, they should definitely be concerned.

As if on cue, the sky rumbled and the light drizzle became a crushing downpour.

“As I already stated, you are all under arrest”, Lin spoke. “You better surrender now and not add resisting an officer to your charges.”

Their leader laughed. It was the low, raspy laugh of someone who had smoked way too many cigarettes. Her eyes, blue as they were, seemed to crackle an inner fire.

“You're awfully confident, Chief, coming here and threatening us all by yourself”, Spark remarked. “Not a least bit of concerned that my gang will burn you to the ground?”

“I wouldn't trust too much on the loyalty of your gang, especially after you almost buried most of them alive”, Lin shot back.

Spark shrugged without an ounce of remorse. “You know what they say about omelets and eggs”, she said. “Alright, enough standing around – waste her, so we can get moving!”

“Um, Spark?” spoke Kira, whose gaze had been shooting from Lin to Spark and back for the duration of the exchange. “I'm not so sure this is a good idea, maybe we should -”

“Shut up!” Spark turned her attention away from Lin to backhand Kira straight across her face. The young woman stumbled backwards, holding her cheek and glowering at the firebender, but didn't say another word. “If I want your opinion, I ask for it.”

Lin's hands curled into fists. Kira's words from before echoed in her head – Spark likes to practice her aim by chucking fireballs at me – and made her wonder what else Spark had inflicted on the young woman. Kira seemed honestly afraid of the firebender, the same Kira that hadn't had the smarts to even be afraid of Lin since that one time when she was twelve. Without much conscious effort, Lin drew a hefty rock from the makeshift ramp. The thugs' chance of peaceful arrest had clearly passed.

Spark had good reflexes, that much had to be admitted – she managed to dodge the rock before it hit her, instead connecting to the van before her. After Lin had fired that first shot, the Triad thugs made their minds and lunged at her all at one. As her metal cables weren't very useful to block fireballs, Lin stepped out of their way and sent a wire towards one of the three firebenders, who didn't have such good reflexes and stumbled to the ground neatly wrapped up. The earthbender of the group dug up a square foot of pavement and ground and threw it towards the police officer. Lin caught it in midair, raised an eyebrow and flicked her fingers. The thug made an expression best described as 'oh, shit' before his ammo came rushing back towards him and buried him underneath.

Again, fire came flying at her, from two directions at the same time. Lin bent the earth beneath her feet and used it as a catapult to jump high into the air; the fireballs collided with each other and the resulting explosion fizzled in the heavy rain, saturating the scene with thick mist. Lin used the couple free seconds she had to make a quick assessment of the situation. The two thugs she had beaten were still out, only the unknown firebender and Spark were left. Kira had disappeared from sight, which was probably a good thing, as Lin would rather have the young woman didn't get any more injured in the hustle.

Lin landed squarely on her feet, a small distance away from the nameless firebender. As he sprung towards her, flame flaring up around his fist, she swung her arm in an upwards motion. The man ran straight into the pillar that had risen out of the earth, his head making a loud thunk as it hit the vertically placed pavement. It almost made Lin roll her eyes; that was such an obvious move, really, how thick could these thugs be?

“Looks like its just you and me”, a voice spoke behind her. Calmly, Lin turned around, facing the bronze-skinned firebender.

“Looks like it”, she responded as her fingers twitched subtly, drawing out the metal cables. “Are you sure you don't want to surrender?”

Spark chuckled, as if she was winning, as if her comrades hadn't been cut down one by one like grass. Lin was beginning to understand what Kira found so intimidating about this woman, but had no time to contemplate it before a wall of fire came speeding towards her. She tore off the surface of the street and held it like a shield, pushing against the fire until the rain drowned it out.

Judging by the firebender's arrogance, Lin really had expected the rest of the battle to take longer than it did. But only after a short exchange of fire and rock, she had wrapped a cable tightly around the other woman's torso and forced her on her knees. Spark's breath was wheezing from the lack of air, but still she laughed.

“What's so funny?” Lin huffed.

“You earthbenders”, Spark rasped. “So predictable.”

Lin saw the blue flicker between the crime lieutenant's fingers and had a fraction of a second to consider that maybe this had been a bad idea. And then Spark wrapped her hand around the cable, and over a hundred volts of electricity shot towards Lin.

There was nothing she could do; the lightning traveled too fast along the cable, attacking her in all her wet clothing and metal armor like a ravenous beast, biting into her flesh. Lin opened her mouth as if to scream, but no sound came out, her body too paralyzed to produce any. She barely registered as Spark got on her feet, never detaching her hand from the cable. The firebender could hold her right there, in that small spot of voltage that kept her own hand at the let-go threshold, glued to the cable. The world flashed before her eyes, at one moment she could see every rain drop in slow motion before the next when she saw nothing but a white light.

Someone shouted – that was the last thing Lin registered before all the light faded away, and she fell down.

***

“Stop it!”

The small swishing of metal through the air didn’t even carry over the loud crackle of lightning. Therefore the firebender didn’t notice until a sharp pain bit into her arm and broke her concentration. As the lightning died out, such deadly, loaded silence descended that one hardly noticed the steady beating of rain or the thump when Chief Beifong’s limp body fell to the ground.

Slowly, Spark’s gaze lowered to the throwing knife sticking out of her flesh. An incredulous smile spread on her lips as she uttered a short, raspy laugh.

“Let it go,” Kira said. “Let it go and leave now and you won’t find the next one between your eyes.”

The crime lieutenant… actually laughed as she grasped the knife in her arm and pulled it out, not even twitching from pain or the stream of blood that burst out. Her blue eyes flashed as she looked up to the younger woman standing some distance away, another knife perched between her fingers.

“Really? You’re going to kill me with those?” Spark asked, still looking terrifyingly amused at the turn of events.

“If you’re smart, I won’t have to,” Kira replied, hoping that her voice wasn’t really shaking as much as it did in her own ears. She kept absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe, because she feared any movement would give away the tremble in her hands.

Again Spark laughed as she tossed the knife away and pressed her hand over the wound. “You know, I can’t say I’m too surprised,” she said. “There’s always been something fishy about you. But blowing your cover now, because of one copper… that’s just dumb, pet.”

Kira’s mouth formed a tight line as her knuckles turned white. “I’m only gonna say this one more time. Leave. Now,” she spoke between her gritted teeth. She knew it was a longshot that Spark would ever be intimidated by someone like her. But Chief Beifong was still lying on the ground, terrifyingly still, so she prayed that a miracle would happen and Spark would just leave. It was better option than -

“And if I won’t? You’d really fight me, because of her?”

Kira swallowed, glanced at the woman on the ground – and despite her heart racing in her chest erratically like the thunder above, the answer was clear as day to her. “Yes.”

Something in Spark's eyed flashed. She shook her head as she raised her uninjured hand, flames lighting up on her palm as if by the flick of a switch. “I see you made your bed. Now lie in it.”

The fire erupted to Kira’s direction like a huge, roaring dragon. Knowing to expect it, she dodged with relative ease and the fire sizzled angrily as it hit the pavement instead, extinguished by the downpour. As soon as her feet hit ground again, she waved her arm in an arch and threw the throwing dagger at the firebender that had yet to move from her place. Not pausing to wait for the hit or miss, Kira chucked the rest of her knives, her hand moving in a blur.

Spark didn’t dodge; she didn’t bother to. Instead she raised her arm as if it was holding a shield and a high, V-shaped wall of fire appeared out of thin air. The pressure or the heat was so strong that it pushed the blades off their course, sending them twirling into the darkness.

Kira gulped. She hadn’t even known someone could do that. However, she wasn’t left with much time to ponder how screwed she was as another burst of flame shot at her.

“You thought you could betray the Agni Kai – and ride off into the sunset – with your copper pal!” Spark shouted, emphasizing her words with fireballs so hot they burnt blue at the center. Unlike the first one, these hit much closer to their target, so close that Kira could smell the bitter scent of burning hair and realized she had lost the end of her ponytail. “Did you forget what we do to traitors?”

Perspiration was rising on Kira’s skin, not so much out of exertion as from the heat that seemed to graze closer and closer every time. The downside to being accustomed to being used as target practice was the fact that Spark had a frighteningly good guess about where Kira was about to move next. The last burst wasn’t even shot her, it erupted up from the spot where she was going to land, and it was too late to redirect in midair. The explosion sent her back flying, and it was only after she had landed on her hands and feet – on pure luck, rather than skill – that she noticed her jacket had burnt into her shoulder. She cried out at the sharp pain that pulsed through her flesh as the fabric tugged her skin with the smallest movement. She was lucky, in a way, that the pouring rain was there to put out the fire.

“You really thought you could fight me and win?” Spark asked. “You are a worthless, non-bending street rat and you wasted your only chance of ever becoming anything else!”

Kira gritted her teeth, swallowing down a response that would just incite Spark to further violence, when she spotted a glimmer on the ground in the corner of her eye. As she evaded the next fireball, she picked up the knife and threw it blindly. It drowned into a burst of fire, but that didn’t matter; what mattered was the split-second window that it gave her as the firebender was distracted.

Kira sprang towards the other woman, yelling from the bottom of her lungs, mostly to convince herself that she wasn’t terrified to her core as her fist connected with Spark’s cheek. She managed to bury her knee into Spark’s stomach before the crime lieutenant caught up with the change of pace and blocked her next strike. But that didn’t matter, as long as she stayed within arm’s reach, Spark couldn’t control the game with her bending. They lashed out at each other, fueled by rage rather than any actual strategy. Kira had a slight advantage, as she was faster and much better at dodging, but that didn't help when Spark grabbed her with both hands and threw her down on the pavement. Grimacing at the pain that shot through her ankle, Kira swiped the firebender off her feet and hurried to get herself back up before -

Before Spark could jump up, kick her square in the stomach and send her tumbling backwards, air escaping from her lungs.

“Enough!” the firebender shouted, took a step forward and pointed two fingers at her.

Considering how many unpleasant people she knew, Kira had only been electrocuted a few times before, and every time she forgot how much it hurt. Boiling water coursed underneath her skin, drawing every muscle in her body so tight she was sure they would snap, one by one. Suspended on her feet, she couldn’t fight back the scream that tore itself out of her like it was escaping for dear life.

When Spark stopped, after what felt like hours, the same muscles that had been tense before were now utterly limp. Kira dropped down, hardly noticing the added pain of her temple hitting the pavement. Her heart was beating what felt like a thousand times per minute and her vision was dotted by tiny white stars. Spark’s footsteps sounded like they were coming from miles away, even when Kira saw her sandals stop right beside her.

“You stupid girl,” Spark sneered before she swung her foot and buried her toes into Kira’s gut. Kira had no energy to utter more than a strangled whine, no strength to fight back when the firebender picked her up with one hand like she was a rag doll. But in the confines of her tortured body, her mind was racketing like a panicked little bird trying to find its way out of a cage. As her feet rose off the ground, she tried to claw at the arm hoisting her up, but the thick leather covering prevented her from doing any damage.

“You’re still trying to fight? Don’t you get it?” Spark spat. She raised her injured arm, despite it still bleeding profusely, and fire lighted around her fist. “You lost, Kira. You don’t have any more cards up your sleeves.”

Kira closed her eyes, feeling the heat of the flame on her face. An endless string of prayers ran through her mind, hoping for a miracle, because the only weapon she had left was something she didn’t want to use. But then she cracked her eyes open and saw the woman lying on the ground in the distance, and she whispered her apologies to any spirit possible hanging around at hearing distance. Her jaw clenched and her eyes burning with defiance, her lips parted and grasped for sounds, but her throat was too hoarse and Spark was holding on to her clothing too tightly.

“What did you say?” the firebender asked, bringing her closer to her face.

“I said,” Kira whispered, “that I’ve still got one.”

It came so easy to her, the precision of it, etched deep into her muscle memory. Her fingers and knuckles dug twice into Spark’s shoulder, once above and below the collarbones, the last one in the middle of her chest. As Spark’s grasp on her clothes loosened, Kira used her last bout of strength to jump up and vault herself over the other woman, landing behind her and wasting no time to distribute a similar maneuver symmetrically on her both knees.

Spark fell down as her knees gave out, her blue eyes widening in shock as she stared at her hand, the tendons on the back of it tensing in useless effort.

“You... you know chi-blocking?” the firebender asked, incredulous. “But you’ve never…”

Kira smiled joylessly. “Hanging out with people like you, one needs a few aces up the sleeve.”

Spark’s face twisted in anger as she raised her still functioning, albeit bleeding arm. The fire on her palm died out as soon as it was born when Kira spun around and kicked her on the side of the head. With an unceremonious thump, the firebender hit the ground and stayed there.

Kira was breathing heavily, trembling from head to toe – from pain, exhaustion, remnants of fear and the terrifying surge of power from such little movements. Noticing her still pointed fingers, she shook her hand in nigh disgust. Overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, it took a few seconds for her to remember why she had done it in the first place. Gasping, she turned around and searched for Chief Beifong. The woman was still unconscious. Pale. Immobile.

Lin.

Ignoring her own beat-up state and the sting in her ankle, Kira sprinted over to woman. She hastily shed the jacket clinging onto her skin, dropped on her knees and carefully shook the armored shoulder.

“Chief Beifong?” There was no answer; the Chief's eyelids didn't even twitch. Kira swallowed down the ice cold clump that began to gather in her throat as she pressed her palm against the woman's chest and couldn't find a heartbeat through the armor.

“Lin?” she called, her voice cracking. “Please...”

Kira leaned closer to Chief's pale face, her fingers digging under the collar. She had never felt such relief in her life as when her fingertips found a pulse and she felt the woman's breath, shallow and slow as it was, against her face. It was the final straw that collapsed her. She buried her head against the older woman's neck, breathing in the scent of jasmine and steel, water that had nothing to do with the rain running down her cheeks for the cheer joy that they were both alive.

Kira didn't know how long she sat there, in the empty street, cradling the Chief of Police of the Republic City in her arms. It could have been half a minute, or five hours. But she was roused from her bubble by the sound of loud, off-key roaring of engines that had recently began to appear in her nightmares. She lifted up her head and narrowed her eyes, spotting a few set of yellow lights in the distance.

“Oh crap”, she muttered. She shook Chief Beifong gently, but didn't manage to produce more than an incoherent groan out of the woman. Gritting her teeth, Kira banished the exhaustion and the pain that was suddenly everywhere from her body, and prepared to do the only thing she could think of.

***

Consciousness crept back into Lin’s head slowly, reluctantly as if it was wading through thick mud. Along with it came the smell of… not wet earth and burning flesh, like she had expected. No, the air around her was warm and dry and smelled of some kind of sweet, spicy incense of all things. Suppressing a frown, Lin lied still and kept her eyes closed, pretending to any possible observers that she was still knocked out. She concentrated on her surroundings, but could sense no rocks or mud, and very little metal scattered here and there. The surface she lied on was quite hard, but smooth. Alarmingly, she noticed she was lacking her armor and boots, but at least she still had the rest of her clothes on, so the situation could have been worse.

There was a sound somewhere to her right. Reflexively, even though the movement awoke a dull ache in her limb, Lin flicked her wrist and summoned the closest metallic object towards the source.

“Whoa,” said whoever the object was pointing at. “Okay, Lin, calm down. It's over – we're fine – there's no danger, just calm down, okay?”

Lin’s hand stilled after the recognition hit her. She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly; the room wasn’t that bright, but it took a while for the shapeless blobs in her field of vision to gain a recognizable form. When they did, she saw Kira sitting cross-legged in a chair, staring wide-eyed at the letter opener hovering a few inches from her eyeball.

“What –“ Lin began. Her voice caught in her raw, dry throat and she tasted a hint of iron in her mouth. She tried to raise her head, but was immediately shot down by a jolt of pain in her back. “What happened? Where are we? ...Am I dead?”

“Oh come on, my apartment’s not that messy,” Kira chuckled and leaned backwards, away from the knife. “Um, do you think you could -?”

Lin let her hand drop down and the letter opener followed, hitting the floor with a quiet clank. While her arm was hurting, her fingertips felt strangely numb. Flexing her fingers, she looked at the young woman with a frown. Kira looked annoyingly comfortable just lounging there while Lin’s still fuzzy head was swirling with questions. “Why am I in your apartment?”

“Well.” Kira sipped something, tea judging by the scent, from the mug in her hands. “After I got Spark off your back, you still wouldn’t wake up, and more cars were coming. I didn’t want to risk driving through the entire city to the Police Station in case some Triad thugs caught us on the way, so I brought you to a closer safe place.”

While Lin processed the information, Kira got up from her seat and padded somewhere beyond her head, out of sight. Lin tried to see where she went, but another jolt of pain in her neck as she tried to move it kept her point of view quite limited, so she gazed around at what she could see from the floor level. Wooden floor, wooden ceiling and a wooden shelf stacked with miscellaneous items, candles in various shapes and sizes scattered everywhere. The room looked like a bonfire waiting to happen instead of a safe place.

“Wait,” Lin said as the thought occurred to her. “How did you get Spark off my back?”

Not far away, Kira uttered a short laugh. “Unlike you persistently seem to believe, I’m not entirely helpless,” she replied.

Lin frowned and bit back an instinctive scathing remark, because the fact that she was still alive made arguing virtually impossible. She rubbed her forehead and felt a strange gooey sensation on her fingertips. Raising her hand painstakingly, she examined the sticky substance in the candlelight; it looked vaguely greenish and translucent with some darker smidgens, like seaweed, here and there.

“Kira?” she called, her voice laced with alarm and exponentially increasing ire. “What's on my face?”

“Oh, that? It’s a balm that heals burns. Really good stuff, I buy it in bulk from a Water Tribe healer,” Kira replied amidst the sound of clinking dishes. “Your skin looked pretty bad, so I applied it wherever I could reach without you wanting to kill me after you woke up.”

Lin huffed. Kira’s footsteps returned, and the young woman kneeled down on the floor beside her, holding another steaming mug in her hands, though this had a different scent to it, more bitter. It was only then that Lin noticed the bandage around her ankle, several small gashes on her skin and the same gooey liquid covering the angry red spot on her shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” Kira said and shook her head, following her gaze. “Lucky for you, healing burns is something I’ve gotten really good at. Here, drink this. It’ll speed up you recovery.”

Lin eyed the mug suspiciously, but eventually decided that if it were part of some plot to murder her, it was a little too elaborate. She managed to drag herself into a slightly more vertical position despite the ache in her limbs and gulped down the hot, bitter drink, with some assistance from the other woman because her hands kept shaking. Lin hated it, being in such a weak state, but at least Kira was smart enough to keep any witty remarks to herself.

“Thank you,” Lin muttered as she finished the drink. Digging her fingers into the futon, she started to push herself more upright through the pain and the fatigue, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Kira asked.

“Where do you think I'm going?” Lin spat. “I have to get back to the station, it’s an utter chaos in there after this operation and –“

“And you’re still off shape, in the middle of the night in a bad neighborhood,” Kira interrupted. “With some Triad thugs probably lurking around. So, not a good idea.”

“I’m not going to just lie here and –“

“Yes you are. Especially after that little potion kicks in, you’ll be blacked out for a few hours.”

Lin’s hands turned into fists as she stared at the empty cup on the floor. “I’m going to kill you,” she muttered. “You made me drink that on purpose!”

“With the purpose of getting you better, yeah. With the added benefit of keeping you off the streets half-conscious,” Kira pointed out. “Look, I’m sure your officers can manage a few hours without you. You really need to lie down and rest.”

A long list of curses ran through Lin’s head, but as reluctant as she was to admit it, the young woman was right; she could already feel the irresistible blanket of sleep settling on her body. She let her head drop back on the pillow and sighed in frustration. She would deal with the issue of being unknowingly drugged against her will in the morning.

“I need to contact them, at least,” she grumbled.

“I don’t have a phone,” Kira said. “But I do have a messenger hawk, will that do?”

Lin nodded. Kira got up again and searched around for a minute before returning with a paper pad and a pen. Lin scribbled down a short account of the situation, namely that she was alive and well and would return first thing in the morning.

“You didn’t quite think this through,” she mentioned as finished the last letter, ripped off the paper and handed it to the younger woman. The numbness in the tip of her fingers had returned, whether it was a positive turn or not.

“What do you mean?” Kira asked, puzzled.

“Well, what happens if some Triad members do find us and I’m still unconscious?”

Kira smiled and shook her head as she rolled the paper into a small bundle. “Go to sleep, Lin,” she said and, with uncharacteristic gentleness, wiped off a strand of hair that had glued onto Lin’s forehead. Lin might have objected to it or the sudden, unauthorized use of her first name, but she was too tired. Besides, that simple gesture felt oddly comforting. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

“I feel better already,” Lin muttered dryly. She drifted off to sleep with Kira’s laughter, like the chime of a dozen little bells, echoing in her mind.

***

The next time Lin awoke, her surroundings were considerably brighter, the smell of incense had faded and most of the candles had either burnt out or been put out. The sounds of the city carried over to the apartment from some distance away and she could hear something bubbling, but other than that, it was quiet. Experimentally, she tried to lift herself up to her elbows again and was surprised by the lack of pain. Other than stiffness that could have been just the result of laying still for several hours, she felt... fine.

Gingerly, Lin stood up from the futon and stretched her arms as she looked around. Kira herself was absent at the moment and the doors to the balcony were open, but the front door was still closed, so she didn't worry about it yet. Kira's apartment, it seemed, consisted of one room divided by a table to a kitchen and a living space. There were cracks in the bland concrete walls and the furniture was quite scarce, which might partially explain the clothes and other things scattered pretty much everywhere. To Lin's relief, she spotted her armor laid neatly on an armchair. She considered putting it on right way, but then remembered the green goo still covering her skin.

The bathroom was easy to find, as there was only one other door. It was so small that Lin almost tripped on the toilet before she found the light switch and pulled at it. The light bulb flickered on and revealed a bathroom that was not in any better condition than the apartment, but there was a sink and a mirror and that was all she needed. After some useless effort to get hot water out of the faucet, Lin settled on scrubbing the goo off with cold water and some soap. Her skin was still slightly numb, but the feeling returned as she rubbed vigorously. Leaning closer to the mirror, she inspected her face and was amazed to find no signs that somebody had tried to fry her inside her armor not that long ago. She did find a few small lines around her eyes that she wasn't particularly fond of, but there wasn't a miracle cream to erase those.

Lin stepped out of the bathroom, tapping her wet face and neck with a clean towel she had found in the cupboard under the sink. If the time in the clock on the wall was correct, it was still very early in the morning. There was still no Kira, and Lin was starting to feel like an intruder alone in another person's home, but it did leave her with more time to look around. Everything from the drapery and tablecloth to the shabby carpet on the floor ranged from deep red and orange to bright yellow. At first, Lin had attributed the prominent coloration to the sunlight shining in, but now realized that wasn't the case. For such a small space, there were also a lot of decorations: paper lanterns, tapestries, censers, even more candles, several different kinds of knives, those little carved dragon statues that one could buy from the marketplace for fifteen or twenty yuans. In short, the whole place was like one big shrine to Fire Nation, by someone who was either a big fan... or terribly homesick.

Without no-one to see as her expression fell, Lin swallowed as she took a couple of steps forward, now feeling even more like an intruder. Her eyes hit one particular photograph in a golden frame on the shelf and, despite feeling like a little kid snooping, Lin's curiosity got the better of her and she picked it up.

The photograph was old, worn out and sepia-toned. Thin cracks went both ways across it, like it had been folded in someone's pocket for a while before being framed. It was a simple portrait of three people, taken with a garden on the background. One was a woman with narrow face and long, straight, dark hair in elaborate bun, dressed in robes. She looked... familiar, somehow, despite the fact that Lin was certain she had never seen her before. She had two children in her lap, seven or eight years old, a boy and a girl, although it was hard to tell because they looked very similar. The girl had her arm wrapped around the boy; she was either hugging him or shoving him, in either case the boy didn't look too happy about it. But two out of three were smiling radiantly, and all three of them had light, shining eyes which – Lin would have now bet – had to be golden in real life. She traced the face of the little girl with her finger over the glass, frowning deeply, until her eyes widened and her lips parted in a silent gasp.

Suddenly, a scraping noise came from above. Lin hastily put the photograph back on the shelf, half a second before a pair of feet and then the rest of the young woman descended softly on the balcony from the rooftop.

“Morning, sunshine,” Kira greeted, smiling pertly as she saw Lin up and standing. “How are you feeling?”

The beginning of a long and angry rant about drugging her without her permission had began to form on Lin's tongue. But seeing the shadows under Kira's eyes and the way the young woman was holding her left side as she lowered her arm, combined with the secrets revealed to her by the apartment, was like a needle that popped the balloon of her agitation.

“I... Very well, actually,” Lin said, clearing her throat. “Where were you?”

“Doing a little recon, you know, just making sure we're safe,” Kira said nonchalantly as she walked around the table to the kitchen and peeked under the lid of one of the pots. “Do you want breakfast? I have coffee and bread and I reheated some chicken chili soup. Don't worry, I went really easy with the chili.”

“Uh... sure,” Lin replied a little hesitantly. She was still mad and had lost her footing by choosing not to express it, but now that the matter of food had been mentioned, her stomach decided to inform her of its more urgent concern by rumbling out loud. A very vivid memory of tasting Kira's cookings still haunted her, but she figured that after everything that had taken place in the past twelve hours, a bowl of soup couldn't possibly kill her. “Did your messenger hawk return yet?”

“Oh, yeah. The message is somewhere on the table,” Kira replied, gesturing vaguely behind herself. “How do you want your coffee?”

Lin folded the towel over her shoulder and walked over to the table. After a bit of searching, she found a small scroll halfway buried under a tea cup. “Milk, no sugar,” she muttered as she rolled open the scroll and her eyes scanned over the letter. Kira soon came over with two big coffee cups, setting one of them before her on the table before she returned to the stove.

“So, anything interesting in there?” the young woman asked as she rummaged through the cupboards that seemed to be in no lesser state of disorder than the rest of the apartment.

Lin sipped the hot coffee, considering how much of the information she should disclose to the other woman. “They seem to have everything in order. Virtually all the other Triad members present were caught. That's good, that's a significant number of less thugs on the streets,” she mused. Her eyes fell to another paragraph and she paused for a moment, hesitating, before she continued. “The one they call Spark is in a coma in the hospital. Blunt force trauma to the head. They're not sure if she'll wake up at all.”

She lifted her gaze, watching Kira's reaction. The young woman's hands on the spoon halted and her whole body froze for a second, before she shrugged and continued stirring the soup.

“She was going to kill you. She almost did”, Kira said quietly. “I had to take her out. I wasn't going to... I didn't think... But I didn't exactly have time to stick around and see how she was doing.” She took the big spoon out of the soup and wiped it on the edge of the pot; there was something very deliberate in all her movements. “Am I in trouble?”

Lin shook her head. “No, you're not.”

She rolled the scroll closed and stuffed it in her pocket. A heavy silence had set in the apartment, broken only by the clinking of tableware as Kira set up breakfast on a tray. Deciding that a change of subject was in order, Lin spoke again.

“So, how long have you been living here?”

“A little over a year,” Kira replied and her posture relaxed visibly. “The woman who has a teashop on the first floor owns the building. She lets me live here in exchange of me helping her out with the shop a couple days a week.”

“That's nice of her,” Lin remarked. “Even though this place could use a little renovation.”

“It's really ramshackle, I know,” Kira replied as she gathered the tray and her coffee mug in her hands. She managed to balance everything in her hands as she tiptoed around the table, towards the balcony. “But the view is pretty great.”

Lin followed her out to the balcony, quickly noticing that Kira was right. The building must have been quite high, because the view panned over most of the city. The Harmony Tower stood out in the distance and the Pro-Bending Arena peeked between the taller buildings, its walls shining so brightly it almost looked like it was radiating its own light. In the background of all that the sea sparkled in all hues of red and gold of the rising sun.

“Top floor has its perks, despite the fact that every time there's a storm, I have to fear the floor will crumble down,” Kira said as she set the breakfast tray on the railing of the balcony and took one of the steaming bowls of soup, leaning against the railing. Lin joined her, resting her elbows on the railing on the other side of the tray and took another sip of coffee.

“So it seems,” Lin said, gazing out to the waking city. Even though it was early, the noise from car engines and vendors shouting at street corners had risen together with the sun, echoing in the stone walls like a heartbeat. But the noise was muted after climbing up to the balcony, melting into an almost pleasant buzz. After last night, that moment seemed like another world. Lin gave herself permission to enjoy that serenity, closing her eyes and letting the breeze caress her face.

Eventually, deciding she could no longer avoid it, Lin eyed the soup on the tray suspiciously, until she braced herself and picked a single piece of bread. She dipped the bread in the soup, took a deep breath and bit off a piece. It was... actually really good. Hot and spicy, but not too spicy, just enough to stimulate the palate without burning it up.

Having noticed the surprise in her expression, Kira chuckled. “What did I tell you? I've toned it down a lot over the years since it turns out nobody born outside of Fire Nation could eat my cookings.”

Lin huffed, but this time she took the whole bowl and started eating with a spoon. “So,” she said in between mouthfuls, “what have you been doing since turning sixteen?”

Kira raised her eyebrows, looking slightly suspicious. “Am I being interrogated? Should I call a lawyer?”

Lin's mouth tugged. “I'm not in uniform right now, am I?” she said. “It's off the record. I'm just curious to know what you've been up to, besides infiltrating Triads.”

“Besides infiltrating Triads? Well,” Kira started. “I've been in this fire art group for a while, called the Firebirds. We do all kinds of stunts, circus tricks, acrobatics, dancing, you name it, involving fire in one form or another. But that doesn't pay a living wage, it's more like a hobby, so I've been doing all kinds of odd jobs. Legal odd jobs,” she added with emphasis. “Cleaning, waiting tables, bar tending... I even sold vegetables at the marketplace at one point, but I had to wake up dreadfully early for that. Nothing fancy, but it gets food on the table. Besides, after hanging out with those Triad thugs for half a year, I'm just relieved I didn't end up living like that.”

“I'm glad of that too,” Lin said, smiling. She stared at Kira's face, following all the scrapes and bruises on her skin covered with a slightly different colored goo, and took a deep breath. Expressing the kind of things she was about to say now had never been her strong point. “Kira, I... suppose I need to thank you. For what you did last night.”

“It's not like I could just leave you there,” Kira said, shrugging as if it was no big deal. “Besides, I know you would had done the same for me.”

“Of course I would, it's my duty,” Lin said. “But I didn't take you for the knight in shining armor type.”

“Well, you know, armor is heavy and my ostrich horse gets stuck in doorframes, so I don't usually take him along,” Kira grinned.

Lin uttered a laugh, but her brow furrowed, as she was not ready to let this go. “I still don't quite understand why you went through all the trouble with this insane, foolhardy set-up. You didn't owe me risking your life like that, not last night or all the months before.”

“No, I really did,” Kira said quietly. She hung her head, gazing down to the ground below as her fingertips tapped in inconsistent rhythm against the coffee cup. “The thing is... for a really long time, nobody thought I had any value. Nobody thought I was capable of being anything more than a thieving street rat. Not even me. But you did.”

She raised her gaze back to Lin's, and her eyes were glimmering in the hundred shades of the morning sun.

“You have no idea how much that means to me,” she whispered.

Lin opened her mouth and then closed it, not quite knowing what to say. She stared back into Kira's eyes and suddenly, the picture of the smiling, mischievous little girl in the photograph flashed inside her mind. Something stung in her chest, as if someone was threading a needle through her heart. A thousand questions filled her head: What had happened to the woman and the boy in the photograph? Why had Kira come to the Republic City? Why was she still here, seeing as she missed her homeland so much?

And what was it about this one young woman that made Lin care so much about her fate, anyway?

Lin didn't get the answer for any of her questions because a red and brown blur cut short her train of thought by flying inches away from her face. Kira's head snapped back as well, following the bird of prey as it dove inside the apartment, dangling a pigeonrat from its beak.

“Ryu, no – damn it, you are not eating that inside the house!” Kira yelled as she ran off to chase the messenger hawk. “I'm not scrubbing blood off the carpet again! Bad bird, bad!”

Lin shook her head, partially at the antics of the bird and partially to banish all those strange thoughts from her head. Getting electrocuted and then made drink who-knew-what had obviously done quite a number on her. Pushing the questions that were really none of her business to the back of her mind, Lin picked up the breakfast tray, as Kira was busy dealing with her stubborn pet bird, and carried it back inside.

“Thank you for the breakfast,” she said quite formally, trying to establish some sort of protocol to the situation that had been treading to strange, unfamiliar territory. “I’ll be heading back to the headquarters now.”

“Oh, okay,” Kira replied distractedly as she tried to pry off the dead pigeonrat from the hawk’s beak. Succeeding in her task, she dropped the carcass on a plate and carried it over to the balcony, where the obviously irate bird followed. “I stashed the bike behind some trashcans down in the alley. Don’t be surprised if someone’s found it and sold it for parts, though.”

Lin raised an eyebrow at the notion, but didn’t say anything – considering the neighborhood, that wouldn’t be surprising. Standing in front of the armchair with her armor on it, she spread her arms and flicked her wrists. The uniform flew across the air and landed neatly on her shoulders.

“Now I’m jealous,” Kira remarked as she returned. “It takes way longer for me to get dressed in the morning.”

The corner of Lin’s mouth tugged. She made sure that the belt snapped shut before turning around to face the young woman who was leaning against the shelf, trying to suppress a gigantic yawn. “Will be you alright?” Lin asked, concern lining her face.

Kira shrugged and waved her hand. “The remaining Triad’s too devastated to miss one pack mule, and the only one who knows I ratted them out is presently out of the game. Besides, I’m… dodgy,” she grinned. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve noticed,” Lin said dryly. She tugged at the sleeve of her uniform, making sure she was looking relatively presentable. “Now, I should probably tell you yet again that you better stay out of my sight, but…” She paused, briefly wondering what made the thought of saying permanently goodbye to this woman so hard to imagine. Probably because it had proven so bloody impossible. “I’ve given up hope you won’t end up in some mess I have to pull you out of.”

Kira laughed. “Speaking of which…” She stood on her tiptoes to reach to the top of the shelf, grabbing a censer and a jingly scarf before she found what she was looking for: a brochure, in red and yellow like the rest of the apartment. “The Firebirds are having a few shows next week. I’m going to be performing gymnastic on a trapeze over a flaming net. If you’re not doing anything, you might want to come see if I'll manage to not fall to my death.”

Lin’s brows furrowed. “You have a strange predisposition to risking your life.”

Kira shrugged. “Maybe I just like living a little dangerously.”

“I can see that.”

“Says the Chief of Police of the Republic City.”

“Point taken,” Lin admitted reluctantly. She then took the brochure the young woman was holding and eyed over the times. “I might be free on Thursday.”

“Great.” Kira’s face broke into a wide, unabashed smile. Unlike the impish grins that usually frequented her lips, this was a genuine expression of joy, blinding as the light of day to a surfacing badgermole. “I’ll see you then.”

Lin blinked repeatedly, before she cleared her throat and folded the brochure in her pocket. “See you,” she replied. Despite herself, the young woman's smile was incredibly infectious, and Lin couldn't help but return it. Evidently, erasing Kira from her life completely was a task easier said than done. But perhaps, it was something she could live with.

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