Guard duty for the princess is always just a few hours of relaxation for me. She does her thing, ignoring me, mostly, and I get to people- or cloud watch. On particularly slow days, I practise a bit of surreptitious bending.
It's astonishing with how much I can get away, so long as there's someone to take the blame.
On this day, she's elected to visit the watchtower to the east. It's one of her favourite spots to go and be silent. It overlooks the ocean, the city itself, and the surrounding tundra. A view that can inspire awe, and fear. It reminds me of the strength of these people of ours, living here. The strength of those without bending to help them along. I imagine Yue feels similarly.
I can't remember her ever having set foot beyond that tower. Not, while I was her guard, in any case. It's safe to say that if she had gone, I would have gone with her.
I'm not sure if she's never asked, or if her father says it's too dangerous. I only ever leave the city once a month. Usually, if anyone does, it's for patrolling, or the odd trip to gather herbs for Yugoda. The latter tends to end up being me, because an experienced bender with a bit of knowledge in which herbs to bring back tends to be far more efficient than sending someone who has no clue, or for the old woman to go herself. She's not the youngest any more, but I have no idea if she's got anyone in line to be her successor.
If one doesn't know how to read the landscape, one could quite easily drown in an icy lake when the ice breaks. Some unfortunate souls have died that way, before it was made mandatory to always have a bender with you outside the city walls. Annoying for some, but safer overall. I don't mind a bit of danger, but if things go… north up there, I'd be very glad for a knowledgeable companion.
In the end it might have to be me who shows Yugoda's successor the ropes outside the city walls. I won't mind, if she turns out to be good company.
Pakku used to take me out into the wastes to learn to understand bending better. To see what it means to wield that power. What nature does with it, and what we do with it. How our best results are achieved in tandem. He showed me how waterbenders survived before banding together and erecting this city with its palace and its waterways. I was fascinated, and it was one of those rare occurrences where I could not keep my questions to myself and the most opportune times to get answers.
There were times when settlements bent themselves some shallow canals to keep up trade and exchange. Sometimes sealions would wander in there, and disturb the small canoes on their way down.
The princess and I take her small gondola along the city canals. They were made largely because of defensive structures and pathways for the ice of the city's buildings to melt into in the summer until a bender can renew the coating. Not many have the privilege making use of the canals. It would be chaos if everyone did, and really only supply transports have permanent permission to use the waterways. If everyone took their own private boat everywhere, no one would get anywhere. Secondly, you need a bender to take you where you want to go.
The Northern Watertribe holds a bit of disdain for those who use rudders inside the city. Or at all, really.
We may currently be governed by a non-bender, but most of the power lies with the benders. And so, their views – our views, I suppose – are the ones that guide the law and constitute the rules of society.
Yue's and my journey is marked by the odd wave from the sidewalk that I return, and her stoic indifference. There are more people around than usual.
As I propel the little gondola forward, I once again feel nostalgic as we pass the spot where I dumped her in the canal seven years ago.
"Stop laughing," she demands, never turning her head.
"Yes, princess." I don't bother denying it, even though I haven't made a sound. She, in turn, doesn't comment on my drawn-out tone, like she used to.
We've trained each other well over the years.
Moving around a bend in the canal, we spot the reason for the increase of people along the pavements on either side of the canal. A humongous white-furred animal with people on it is making its way along the canal, sending out ripples with each movement of limbs the size of two of me, hugging.
I've never seen a flying bison before, except for in paintings or a cartoon series a lifetime ago. Appa is large. If he weren't wading in water that must be freezing his huge toes off, he'd stand at twice my height.
The Avatar, sitting cross-legged on his head looks… young. A child with an arrow tattooed on his forehead, mouth stretched wide in a grin that spans his entire face. His eyes flit about, trying to take everything in at once.
Our gazes meet, for a moment, and I send him a wink as we pass. It visibly delights him, and I go about my task with a bit more cheer. Too much, if Yue's irritated huff is any indication. Well, she wouldn't be Yue if she didn't find me irritating, and it wouldn't be a day of guard-duty if my mood didn't change.
As we pass Appa's tail, needing three lengths of the boat to move past him and a bit of concentration to keep the small boat steady in the waves his large body sends out, I hear a girl's voice say: "This place is beautiful," and a boy's: "Yeah, she is," as he stares after an unmoving, stoic Yue.
I decide not to tease her too badly. She heard him as well and a bit of flattery can only be good for her. Not, that she's not getting compliments left and right. But by now they're mostly social courtesy, just like people tend to tell me about my own achievements.
"Want to turn around and greet the Avatar?" I drawl, even as we continue to move downstream.
"No," she decides, "I will only stand around looking pretty at the palace. I can do the same where I have chosen to go."
Okay, then. She always sounds a bit stuck-up, when she says something like that. After all, this is her personal chance to meet the Avatar, speak to him and make an impression.
But it's actually that she takes her freedom where she can.
As our princess, she has many rules and traditions to follow. It could be worse. It could also be better.
We leave the city behind, and enter the stretch of water between the wall and the buildings that serves as a second line of defence. A small burst of speed lifts the front of the boat slightly, and one of the princess' hands grips the edge lightly. I know it both annoys and excites her, whenever I do this.
Living her sheltered life, getting into a boat with me is the most danger she subjects herself to. I enjoy the short moment of fun with a smile.
It's these small things, in addition to her father's friendship with me that have her tolerate my placement on her guard rotation.
Must be hard, when your status as princess prevents the people you spend most of your time with from treating you like a person. She is to an extent, even in my eyes, the princess and not simply Yue. After all, I'm literally her guard. It's a bit hard to forget why we spend time in each other's vicinity when she'd much rather enjoy strangling me for the fun of it.
Arriving at the stretch of wall that we typically tie our boats to, because this is where it's been smoothed down to what could double as a mirror from frequent a- and descents, we exit the gondola and, as always, she ignores my helping hand. I fasten the boat next to the other one already there to a hook in the wall that some friendly bender left behind. Then I form the platform that will serve as our elevator with a gesture.
She steps onto it as closely to the wall as she dares. She's got a bit of a fear of heights, our dear Yue, and instead of doing the kind thing and forming a banister, I let her sweat. It's mostly teasing, but I do take a bit of joy in causing her discomfort. The pinched look of her face is always delightful.
Besides, she and I both know that if anyone can catch her falling down alongside this wall, it's me. Katsuo, one of Pakku's other students and I used to challenge each other to wall-surfing. I was the winner more often than not, which prompted him to improve, and challenge me over and over. Stubborn bugger, that one.
Yue used to be a frequent spectator, along with the rest of the city. It was a big event each time. We stopped when Katsuo became a master. Too undignified for him to challenge someone who was still a student.
And by the time I became one myself a few months later, we didn't really see each other anymore. His places to haunt are the upper ring, and the sons and daughters of councilmembers. Mine are the marketplace, the palace and the wall. At night, it's the bars, and there we give each other nods, and move on to our respective circles.
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Don't forget to throw some power stones :)
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