Capítulo 25: Circus girl

"Maa~ I knew the world hated my guts, but to be thrown so close to the colonies of the Fire Nation?" Michael dragged his hand through his hair, removing his bangs from his eyes to see how bad it was. "Well, I could have ended up in the Fire Lord's toilet, so I'll count myself lucky."

Michael stood on the edge of the forest, watching the people who freely entered and left the city. Each of them wore clothes in dark colors with red shades, so he had no doubt who exactly the city belonged to.

Fire Nation had enough colonies on Earth Kingdom territory to bother any reasonable person, so Michael wasn't surprised when he noticed the patrols of the Fire Nation soldiers. What surprised him was how calm the citizens were about the occupation, they didn't even throw hateful glances at the soldiers.

'Most likely it's all immigrants from Fire Ilands, I don't see anyone who looks like a resident of Earth Kingdom.' In fact, the city was bustling with activity, as if preparing for some kind of festival. From where Michael could see, the city was decorated much more than one would expect. This played into his hands, during the celebration he would have much less chance of catching the eyes of the soldiers.

"Wait, why exactly am I trying to hide? As far as I know, I have not been put on the wanted list yet, and I doubt that the Prince will share information about me openly. Although his crew might have said something about me…"

Shaking his head, Michael took a deep breath and walked towards the city. Right now, he could only use Waterbending, but that would be a bad idea in the territory of the Fire Nation. He planned to find a place to stay overnight and try to unblock his Airbending as soon as possible. Without half of his abilities, he felt naked.

The guards at the entrance were surprisingly chill, but Michael expected this to some extent. In civilian cities where there were no military facilities there was no special presence of the army. People around him looked at him cross because of his height and completely black clothes, but not because they thought he was a spy or worse.

Deciding to blend in with the crowd, Michael imperceptibly snatched something resembling a coat from a street stall and in one fluid movement threw it over his shoulders.

'I have clothes from Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, it remains to find something at the North Pole and in the Temple of Air where Steampunk people are.'

No one paid attention to him after that. He continued to walk through the busy streets and eavesdropped on people's conversations, trying to understand what exactly lowered the city into such a festive atmosphere.

"-resh fruits! Come buy!" Nothing interesting here.

"-you know that Azi broke up with-" The less heard, the better.

"-knew there was an animal in the world better than a horse." No- what? How does he knows about horses anyway?

"What's a horse?"

"Huh? I said something?" The man sounded very confused.

Deciding not to get into this can of worms, Michael accelerated his steps.

"-my cabbages! The best cabbages in the world!"

'Huh, he's here… I wonder how his cabbages'll die this time, usually the reason is the Avatar's actions.'

Michael walked down the street and did not notice how he kicked a small pebble. This pebble fell under the foot of a very fat gentleman who stumbled and lost his balance. Panicking, he grabbed the nearest thing to support himself, which unfortunately turned out to be a rope on which the flags that adorned the city hung. The hooks holding the rope were stuck into the building walls far too well, so instead of pulling them out of the stone, the man pulled the wall of one of the houses behind him.

Cabbage seller noticed a huge shadow that appeared behind him and looked in horror at the falling wall. Stones crashed to the ground and raised a cloud of dust, blocking people's line of sight. But when the dust fell, everyone could see that the cabbage seller was standing unscathed… his cabbages though? Not so much.

"MY CABBAGES!!!"

Michael looked at what was happening in shock, not even knowing how anyone could be more unfortunate than him. He quickly walked away from the old man, not trusting the universe not to pull off some other trick. Fortunately, this time he didn't kick a single pebble.

He began eavesdropping on people's conversations again, and this time he found the information he needed rather quickly. Oddly enough, he heard it from two loud children.

"Are you going to the traveling circus?! Man, I'm so jealous! I heard there are a lot of animals!" Obviously, this caught Michael's attention.

"Yes! My parents got us tickets in the upper box!"

Michael stopped next to the children, which attracted their attention. They looked up to see his face and reminded the teenager how small everyone is in this world. He noticed the obvious fear in their eyes, so he used his strongest weapon against fear. Politeness.

"I'm sorry to distract you from your conversation, but can you tell me where this circus you're talking about is?"

The children blinked in unison, which surprised Michael a little, but considering everything that had happened to him up to this point, he was not surprised at such trifles. The older looking boy pointed to the North.

"The circus is outside the city on that side. They couldn't open here, something about lack of space."

Michael nodded and silently walked towards the circus, his thoughts returned to the conversation with the Nameless Goddess in his dream.

He didn't have any more dreams where he spoke to anyone, but he thought it was a good thing. As long as he's the only one in his head, Michael will be happy.

'What did she say? "you should visit the circus" and no context. Well, if this is the circus I'm thinking of, then I'll meet the bendy girl…' Michael froze in place and stared into nowhere. 'Why did it dawn on me just now that I'm going to meet one of my favorite characters. Didn't I have a crush on her?'

Hitting himself on the head with his staff, Michael got his brain back on track and continued walking towards the circus. He was completely unaware that somewhere in the sky, the Nameless Goddess cacled with glee when she saw where he was.

---

To tell the truth, Michael was a little impressed when he saw the circus tent. Just a little.

What he wasn't impressed about was the poor security. It was awfully easy for him to sneak in unnoticed, especially given how many holes there were in the "protection" of the tent. The dark red fabric with black looked beautiful and even a little menacing - that's probably why they added some gold - but when you can just lift the curtain and go inside... Well, that's why Michael didn't like those tents.

The only problem was that he had to enter from the side and was too close to the animal cages. That they chose to ignore him was a miracle, especially that parrot that looked more like a beaver. Michael learned that the birds didn't like him when he was in the Air Temple.

'Find a place where I can see the show and go unnoticed. I can steal the clothes of one of the staff, but then someone will definitely take me for a newbe and make me work. I won't buy into that cliché.'

Michael nodded to himself and tightened the strap on his bag. His steel staff gleamed too much in the dark, so he wrapped it in one of his thin black blankets.

'I'll fix that later.'

Yes, even his blankets were black. Most likely because Death gave them to him, but he couldn't be sure.

Staying in the shadows and away from the torches, Michael continued to explore the tent. It had been so long since he'd stalked in the shadows that he forgot how good it felt to slip under someone's nose and steal a couple of trinkets to soothe his soul. And there were a lot of trinkets in the circus.

Michael used to be called a magpie for his love of small things that looked pretty. He especially liked everything shiny. He wasn't called a dragon just because he didn't protect his collection as madly as one might expect. The very fact that he had stolen was important to him, but he usually kept almost nothing for himself.

Even he thought it was a little strange.

Michael took another turn and immediately went back into the shadows. He stumbled upon the artists' changing room and he definitely didn't need to go there.

Fortunately, this meant that the exit to the arena was close, so Michael remembered everything he knew about the structure of such tents and slipped under another curtain-

-only to come face to face with a girl with wide brown eyes.

They both blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what was going on. Michael mentally punched himself for getting lost in familiar sensations and forgetting to check the horizon, while the girl looked at him like he was the most interesting being in the universe - well, he kinda was, but thats besides the point.

"I didn't think anyone would try to sneak into our show from the changing rooms."

Michael could see her face from his position on the ground, the girl still didn't try to straighten up or move away from him. Pale skin, a slightly upturned nose, thin eyebrows, large brown eyes, a wide smile and a long pigtail hanging from her right shoulder.

"Anyone who tries to sneak from the main entrance must either be arrogant or an idiot. I'm neither." He shrugged.

Ty Lee - because who else could it be? - nodded and studied Michael's face too. He didn't look like any guy she'd seen before, but at the same time, he looked like everyone else. Aristocratic features, tanned skin and wavy black hair. It was unusual, especially when she noticed that his eyes were different colors.

"Yeah, that would be rather stupid." Suddenly she grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet with unexpected strength. Michael didn't even have time to squeak as he was already being pushed towards the stage. "Hide under the balcony, there'll be a pretty good view of the performance!"

Michael nodded silently, still trying to figure out how strong she was if she could lift him. Ty Lee gave him one last smile and turned around to leave. "And don't you dare run away right after the show! I still want to talk to you!"

And so Michael was left completely alone in front of the tent flap. Shaking his head, he sneaked inside and hid under the 'important people' balcony.

Again, somewhere in heaven, the Nameless Goddess laughed looking at the earth. Her prediction turned out to be true! 'I didn't even have to manipulate events to make them meet! …Much.'