The Legend of Percy: Book 1 - Finding Purpose

20. Percy's Tales (Finally Getting Jin a Date)

Percy and Jin had been going to the tea shop every day. Thankfully she'd gotten over the scars, especially once he'd explained some of them, but she was very understanding and sympathetic.

He was still rather self-conscious about them, that wasn't going to change anytime soon though.

Over the days since the fight between Zuko and Jet, Percy had felt the presence of the Dai Li around him and the house. They hadn't done anything yet, so he knew they were just watching him. It wasn't a comforting feeling, though he couldn't do too much about it. Percy also knew that letting them think they didn't know he knew was a way to give himself the upper hand.

Life in Ba Sing Se was never boring, he'd give the city that. Similarly to New York, there always seemed to be something random occurring.

One morning he woke up, later than usual, to animals jumping around the place. Apparently, there had been either animals breaking out of the zoo, or some spirits had decided to punish them, depending on which type of person he asked.

He heard a stampede of animals coming his way and calmly ducked into a side street. Only to see someone, that looked suspiciously similar to a certain airbender he knew, come flying past him. Aang was followed by said stampede, kicking up large amounts of dust in its wake on their way to the Inner Wall. Percy didn't hear of any ostrich horses being involved, but he didn't need that, nor to be a genius, to figure out what the animals were thinking. What in the Circle of Life shenanigans is this?

Deciding to move past his odd moment for the day, Percy joined up with Jin at her favourite tea boy, I mean shop.

When he entered though, he saw the wary glances he was receiving from the Fire Prince. Percy looked over to Jin and saw her sipping her tea, none the wiser. It wasn't her fault, she didn't know that those two were jumpy because they were Fire Nation royalty. It wasn't unusual, as they'd come in often enough for the wary glances to be commonplace. But the girl still sat, blissfully unaware of the suspicions she was arousing. Ah, young love. Since when did I become like this?

Nevertheless, Percy sat and told Jin about the animal stampede, or at least his dramatized version that may have had him heroically fight off thousands of animals. Granted, he said it sarcastically enough, and she laughed in response, that he knew she didn't take any of it seriously. But it was still fun to be able to joke around like that with a friend.

That's definitely what Jin was to him and Percy was so happy to have found someone like her. She was strong, confident and not afraid to speak her mind back to him. It was easily the best part of his time in Ba Sing Se, her company. He felt the beginnings of sibling companionship but didn't want to push anything too quickly.

Speaking one's mind was rare in the city. Although Jin did it, it was clear that no one ever spoke of happenings outside the walls, specifically the War. Percy suspected that had something to do with the Dai Li, who so readily silenced someone like Jet that quickly. He was sure that the boy would've been back almost immediately to claim that they were firebenders again, unless they still held him or did something else.

There wasn't too much he could do about it though, not with the Dai Li watching his every move.

Percy saw Zuko move to Iroh. It seemed they'd pushed the patience of the young firebender enough to arouse too much suspicion.

"Hey, Jin." She turned to him, missing the blatantly obvious staring of Iroh. Could they be any more obvious? "How about you just go up and ask him out?" It might help their situation a bit, not to mention Jin. She blushed a bit.

"Really?"

"Yeah, just be yourself." Percy said with a smile. "I know you, he'll like you."

She nodded in reply, seeming to gain a hardened resolve that she hadn't previously.