Wandering Firebender

Seventy Four: True Heart

Cindra made her way to the steering area of the airship where Elio was. When she came in, she found him standing by the door watching the crew fly the airship. He stood there with his back straight and his arms folded.

"Hey, Elio. We about to land?" She asked as she walked up and stood next to him.

"Yep." He answered shortly with a little nod of his head.

"Okay...what's the situation?" She asked, looking at him.

"Not sure, actually. A Fire Nation colony on the edge of the Earth Kingdom sent a black ribbon distress message, but it was extremely brief. All it said was 'send help', basically. So we're investigating." He explained.

"Oh wow. Okay...how are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm fine." He answered.

"Are you?" She asked, looking at him again. Elio glanced at her and looked forward again.

"I don't wanna talk about it right now. It's done and over with. I'd like to keep it that way." He said with a little sigh. Cindra nodded in understanding, reaching over and rubbing her hand on his arm.

"Okay. Well, you know I'm here for you either way." She said. She started to turn to leave, but Elio turned towards her and stopped her by sliding his hand down her arm and taking her hand for a moment.

"Cindra." He let go of her hand and let it fall back to her side.

"Y-Yes?"

"Thanks for being here for me...we'll be landing soon. Can you let the others know to be ready?" He requested. Cindra nodded and turned away to hide her blushing.

"Yep! I'll go tell them right now." She said before quickly leaving the room.

Elio closed the door behind her, letting out another little sigh before turning back towards the other members of the crew. Maybe later he would consider talking to Cindra about what he was thinking, but for now, he just wanted to stay focused on the mission...

As soon as Elio's airship came in for a landing by the Fire Nation colony, they could see people coming out of the town and running out to meet them. Elio put on his uniform and came out of the airship with his staff in hand and his friends in tow behind him.

"Please, are you the ones here to help us?" One of the men of the group asked. It appeared that a few families had come out to greet Elio and the others; there were women and children among them too.

"Yes. My name is Captain Elio. I was sent here by Fire Lord Zuko to hear about what's going on with you. Why did you send out a distress message?" He asked.

"Our town is being attacked by some crazy spirit," One of the women answered. "It comes every night and wrecks our homes and our shops! Please, you have to help us get it out of here!" She begged. Everyone in the crowd spoke up in agreement.

"Okay, okay. Everyone calm down. We will look into this. Please, allow me to discuss this with my team and we'll figure out what to do." He instructed them. Everyone in the crowd all looked at each other with much hesitation and doubt before dispersing and going back into town.

"If it truly is a creature of the Spirit World attacking this town, we may be out of our depth here, Elio." Alger pointed out.

"Yeah. Isn't dealing with the Spirit World, like, the Avatar's job?" Sri added.

"We don't even know if it's a spirit," Delun pointed out. "It could just be some bandits in disguise or something like that. We don't need the Avatar to deal with that."

"That's just speculation." Alger argued.

"You're right. We don't actually know what we're dealing with. So until we get a better sense of the threat, I'll write a message to Fire Lord Zuko about what the townsfolk are saying. When night comes, we'll face this thing ourselves and take it from there.