Eclipse (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Chapter 14: To Ba Sing Se

(Author's note: I'm scheduling the next 15ish chapters to publish at a fixed time, chapters come out on Sunday 12:30pm EST every week unless my analytics say to do something different)

The road to Ba Sing Se alone and on foot was as boring as it was strenuous, but that was hardly one of her main concerns. According to her network, it seemed that the only way to get to Ba Sing Se by land was through Serpent's Pass, and she'd heard lots of things about that. Lots of bad things. There was an alternate route through Full Moon Bay, but it would require securing a passport. An Earth Kingdom passport at that, from what she heard. A difficult task indeed.

She moved to the side of the road and stopped walking altogether.

There were options, some better than the others. The easiest, but riskiest and most immoral thing to do would be to go to Full Moon Bay anyway and steal someone's passport to secure her spot on the ferry to Ba Sing Se. She wouldn't even consider bribing whoever was distributing tickets because it probably happened frequently enough, and she didn't have anything nearly appealing enough to use as a bribe in that situation. She could also try to buy someone's ticket from them, but she doubted that anyone would be willing to part with the ticket considering the fact that they would likely be unable to get another one. A forged passport might work if it was accurate enough, but she didn't know what the authentic article looked like well enough to confirm the accuracy of a fake.

She sighed. She could think of other options but they would be time consuming and required that luck be on her side. Like worming her way into the staff of some rich people who were fleeing to Ba Sing Se, or wooing some bachelor into marrying her and taking her along with them. Not ideal options in the slightest. Furthermore, she could always try to smuggle her way in or risk taking Serpent's Pass, but really, she might prefer to marry some bachelor if it came to a choice between marriage or Serpent's Pass.

And there she had it. Full Moon Bay it was then. She would just have to try her luck there and see what she could come up with.

·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.

Miyuki blinked. Hard.

Four tickets. Four tickets basically landed in her hands the moment she got to Full Moon Bay. "Hi, Miyuki! Bye, Miyuki!" was all she had heard in the Avatar's voice before the whirlwind of a boy had practically shoved four tickets in her hands and zoomed off. Four. She almost felt bad.

Almost.

She could turn a very tidy profit with three tickets to spare. She began to scan the crowd for anyone that looked desperate. Desperate and with enough funds to line her pockets. She saw a couple potential people already— a cabbage merchant, an aristocrat... Her eyes landed on a young man with an ostrich-horse helping an old woman sit down. His eyes met her's and she blinked back at him before he smiled. "It's a long way from the Water Tribes," he commented as he made his way over to her. "What brings you all the way here?"

She figured that he took an educated guess based on her clothes, so she only took note of her creeping suspicion for now. "What brings anyone towards Ba Sing Se?" she replied. "I'm just looking for a safe place to live."

"The Tribes aren't safe?" he asked.

"They're about as safe as anywhere else, I guess." She was beginning to feel that he had too many questions, so she explained, "My parents were merchants, so I ended up in the Earth Kingdom as a kid and have been here ever since." It technically wasn't a lie, but it also wasn't the truth.

"Must've been rough," he replied quietly.

"Everyone's got their share of troubles. This just happens to be mine," she replied with a shrug as she took stock of him. He was too tall and muscular to take on in close combat. It would be worse if he was an earthbender on top of that. "So what brings you to Ba Sing Se?" she asked, glancing at the old woman.