Snippet #1507772

The golden sun was beginning to cool into the afternoon.

Anita was beginning to get very impatient. She had never been the waiting type, her mind and body always itching for action. Her fire-bending teacher had always scolded her about her lack of patience. Thinking about her fire-bending teacher made the corners of her mouth droop. Anita missed him. Conrad had never hesitated to give her criticism, and although it had always set her teeth on edge, she recognised that she improved consistently because of his generous feedback. He had always been an amazing companion as well, and she thought him as a father figure, almost in replacement of the drunkard. But Conrad had passed away three years ago, from an incurable illness.

Anita shifted her body slightly, aching to stretch up after hours of crouching within the shadows, hidden. She longed to run into her freedom.... Well, why not now? A small part of her brain asked. The rational part of her reminded her of the original plan to stay hidden until night time. Too dangerous...

But she was sick and tired of waiting.

Anita poked her head out from the shadows, looking around. There were now less people wandering the streets, although the poster advertising her treachery was now hung up in various places.

She pulled up the hood of the travel cloak, covering her face in shadow. Crimson eyes shifting warily, she darted out onto the streets, keeping to the shadows of the buildings.

The progress was smooth, no one even giving her a single glance in her direction. Anita needed to get out of the Fire nation first; that was the safest option for now. But before that, she had to get a mount. She would get too tired if she had to travel on foot. Afterall, she had no idea where she was really going...

"One step at a time, Anita," she scolded herself.

She glanced around, and spied a nearby stable. She definitely didn't have enough money for a horse. So she was going to have to steal one.

Anita crept into the stables. There was no one about, except for a couple of stallions. Sighing with relief, she led a handsome horse out, asking the animal to cooperate with soft whispers. The stallion complied quietly, much to her relief.

She mounted on him easily, ignoring the fact that there was no saddle. She had rode bareback before; it had been part of her training in the military. She had complained endlessly when she had trained, but now she was glad she had paid attention when she learned. Still, it wasn't going to be the most comfortable ride.

Anita was just about the gently nudge the horse to a trot when a yell broke out from the stable.

"You! What do you think you're doing? THIEF!!!"

Swearing under her breath, Anita signalled her mount to a gallop.

"No! STOOOP!!! STOP THAT THIEF STEALING MY HORSE!"

Anita looked back and saw to her frustration that a couple of soldiers were following her. They must have had been on duty...

Cursing her damned luck, she pushed her mount harder, wanting to put more distance.

A fireball whizzed past her head and she blinked in surprise. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked back at her pursuers.

Another fireball narrowly missed her arm and she whipped her head around to focus on where she was going. She began to take any turns she could find, hoping to lose them. Right, left, right, right, left, right, right, right...

And still they followed, balls of hot fire crashing into the ground and onto the buildings nearby her.

"This is not gonna work," Anita though desperately, "I'm gonna have to take them down."

She took a turn down a dark alley and halted, quickly dismounting and waiting for her pursuers to catch up. She unsheathed her sword, setting up a trap. As soon as one of the soldiers took the turn, she leapt out from the shadows and stabbed him through the chest before he knew what was coming. The second soldier blasted fire at her, but she sidestepped it, using the momentum to attempt a strike at the opponent. The soldier yelped as her blade caught his shoulder, a stream of red flowing out. And a moment of distraction was all Anita needed- her blade found the mark on his neck.

Anita stared down at the corpses, her eyes hard. She knew she was lucky this time; these soldiers fought like new recruits, not trained very well nor very experienced. If they had been better trained, she might have had to fire-bend...

Shivering slightly, she quickly looted the corpses, removing some gold and placing it into her own pack. Then she quickly mounted and began to gallop off again before more trouble found her.

Nothing more bothered her and soon, she was out of the fire nation borders. Her body ached and her eyes drooped tiredly, but she kept her mount moving, wanting to put as much distance from the fire nation as possible. So she galloped on...