DEAR DICTATOR → zuko

╸fourteen : nari's promise

❝ nari's promise ❞

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          It's easy, Nari now knows, to sneak through the Northern Water Tribe when they're preparing for a large-scaled attack. Or, at least, it's not hard to sidle through icy passageways and duck below the sight of villagers in the dark of night, creeping her way into some strange spirit oasis where the air is blissfully warmer-- or that is what Nari has been told.

That must've been a lie-- spirits damn whoever told her such a falsity.

(It was Zuko).

At the entrance of the spirit oasis (quite the small door which might be impossible to squeeze through) stand two earth benders, a daring contrast of green to battle the cool blues and purples of the water tribes. They're painfully out of place, tall, brawny builds accentuated with thanks to the miniature door the two earth benders protect. They're quite... scruffy... too-- tousled hair is fluffed and thrown out of place, tan and freckled skin an evident tell that these two must work in the fields rather than resting in the riches of the indoors. Identical faces mouth words while arms fly through the air as if they were telling stories with their hands.

Nari scoffs, jabbing Zuko with her elbow before pointedly jutting her chin to the presumed twins' direction. "Get down," She hushes, squatting behind the cover of a rimy pot just outside the temple's doorway which they climbed rather than simply heading through. Zuko follows suit, crouching out of sight just parallel to her. "Everything here is made out of ice besides those clay roofing tiles," Though her eyes have been locked on Zuko since she directed the prince to hide, they now escape to the disarrange roofing of surrounding walls. "They're earth benders, we can take them easily-- got a game plan?"

Zuko nods, darkened eyes of honey scanning the area down-- there's about sixty feet of space between them and the other two earth benders, and the wall which they fail to guard perfectly, seeing as Nari and Zuko have already snuck in undetected. Zuko's entire face scrunches sharply as a plan strikes him, reading himself for action. "All we need to do is get through that little door. You get the girl-"

Nari interjects Zuko with a profound confusion, peaking her head from her hiding place to catch a better look of this misidentified person. "Girl? I thought that was a guy?" She lowers her brows, eyes thin like blades just to focus her sight. Under heavy inspection, Nari realizes that the earth bender is, in fact, a girl-- her dusty brown hair is cleanly chopped short with bangs that do her no justice, and the baggier men's pants don't help her appearance, either. "Oh..."

"Yeah," Zuko agrees, something within his tone plainly addressing the fact that he's trying to get back on track.

But Nari lets this hastiness fly right over her head. "Wait," She almost shouts, luckily maintaining a grasp on her volume as she snaps her fingers to a point, lips twisting at a mystery solved. "They had a fruit stand back at that dock, the one where I got my whip!"

Zuko snaps a palm to his forehead, face deflating like a popped balloon while suppressing a sigh. "You stole the whip, and that's irrelevant."

Nari smiles as her hand automatically reaches to her hip, gripping the handle of her weapon. "First off, it's second hand stealing. But I'd rather call it taking with force." She argues, gathering the whip from it's raveled up position before stretching it out. The cool leather brazes her already-chilled fingertips, the power of such raising to her face in a dangerous grin. She can easily take them down and tie them up with it, thus removing the whole 'guarded door' issue from their whole plan.