The Start of a Journey (Private)

Going around the stall, Nyx saw many type of foods. Fried rice, roasted pork and chicken, fried fish on a stick, fish soup, sweets and cakes, and other variety of food. Looking at all the different variety, it was hard for Nyx to decide which she should buy.

Then when they passed the stall that sold fried fish, Ai stared pawing her hand and mewling. Her eyes focused on the big fish in front of her eyes. Nyx chuckles and bought the fish, telling the stall Keeper to fry it medium rare. Ai was happy with her dish. After Nyx bought Ai her food, she sent it to the table, leaving Ai there to enjoy her food, because the Nekomata was getting grumpy. She knew that Ai can take care of herself, because even though Ai may seem cute, she's not all innocent. And if someone disturb her meal, well lets just saw he/ she wont walk away without a few injuries. After walking around for a while Nyx decided to buy fried rice and roasted pork. She looked toward Miu, "So have you decided what to buy yet? don't worry, you can take you time deciding." She also bought a glass of passion fruit with strawberry.

Miu had saw Nyx ordered a fried fish for Ai since Ai liked it and Nyan was also a cat she decided to order a same for that choosy little turtlecat. The delicious looking soup noodles a man ordered on the adjacent stall caught her attention while she was waiting for Nyan's lunch ready. "I think i want that soup," she told Nyx and walked over to face the owner of the stall. "Can i have the same bowl of noodles that guy just ordered, please?" the kind lady nodded, "you can wait in your seat, i'll serve it when it's done," she smiled. Miu thanked her and walked back to the previous stall to get her pet food. "It's three copper pieces," the plump man said held out the readied dish of fried fish, "you know you don't have to," Miu looked toward Nyx, "be too kind."

They went back to their table then. Miu saw Ai nibbling it's fish, interestingly, Nyan was looking at her dish. Amused she chuckled and placed the fried fish in front of Nyan, he sniffed and took the fish in large gulps. "Slow down you silly, you're gonna choke." Now all left was to wait for her own food. She looked at Nyx.

"So what's the plan?"

" I don't mind. I'm the one that invited you to eat with me." Nyx said, when Miu tried to refuse me to pay. When they reached the table where Nyan and Ai were waiting, Nyx saw Miu chuckling, probably amused by the way Nyan was looking at Ai food. Well the thought was proven right when Nyan started wolfing down his food after he sniffed it. 'It's nice to see there are others that think of their pets as friends and not as mere pets, animals you enslave.' Nyx thought after seeing Miu scolding Nyan with humour in her voice.

Then Miu asked the question on what's the plan. " Well, first we're going to enjoy our dinner. I think it's best to enjoy ourselves with each others company first, getting to know each other." She started, "And I have a few questions I would like to ask you. Firstly, how old are you? Are you travelling with anyone else? Other than Nyan of course. Then we'll continue from there. If you want to ask me anything just do so, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah! Great idea! Great idea!" was Miu's reaction toward a dinner afterwards, that meant more time spent to know about this mysterious girl sitting in front of her. Meanwhile the lady from the soup stall walked over to their table with a bowl in her hands, it was her soup noodles, she thought in certainty. "Four copper pieces," the lady said in a kind tone.

Miu slurped the noodles while contemplating on Nyx's questions about her just then. "My thirteenth birthday is next Tuesday. I'm not officially thirteen but i consider myself one 'cause i'm awesome!" she nodded to herself self-satisfactorily. Then she looked straight into Nyx's eyes, all the proudness were gone replaced with an expression of concern. Then she closed her eyes and sighed a third time, her voice was the tone of one's grandmother. "A long, long time ago, i was born at a very young age, in a city far, far away named the Northern Winds. Since i was a small kid," Miu showed the height with her hands, "I had this dream so big, made my mom cried."

Miu took out a piece of paper and her calligraphic brush, and some pigments she kept with her, she abstracted some water from her soup and proceeded drawing her story for better understanding. "I wanted to follow my daddy's footstep, but i had a better dream. I want to be a fearless dungeon explorer!" she made a sad face, "my friends there did not appreciate my beautiful drawings said they're all just my imaginations," Miu drew a match stick with a large circle on top of it, "so i decided to proof them wrong.With my own experience."

"Nyan is the only companion i had in the moment, i met people in cities but we didn't say much, they lived there so our meeting was brief." Miu looked at Nyan who looked back at her with big cyan eyes, "I met Nyan stealing my brush i chased her and i guess the bond just formed," she shrugged. "This is just one of the places i stumbled upon on my journey."

"So.. do you want to share your past?" It was unusual for Miu to smile kindly.

After contemplating what Miu said about herself, Nyx decided to tell her own story, since the other girl did the same. She knows how hard it was for Miu to tell her about her past, from the look on her face and the tone of voice she used. But that doesn't mean she's going to tell her whole past.

" Well, I come from the Northern Water tribe." Nyx started in a tone void of emotion, wearing a blank face. " I lost my mother when I was 8. She had a weak body as long as I can remember and fell ill from overworking. We were poor and couldn't pay for the medicine." She had a sad expression. Even if she didn't want to, talking about her always made her heart ache and furry to bubble up in the pit of her stomach. After a few seconds of composing herself, she continued. " In the end she left. After my mother was gone, I was adopted by my current father. But eve then I didn't like depending on others, especially strangers. So I learned what I could and vowed I would pay back my father and those that helped me. At the age 15, I left home to become independent and make a name of myself. Now, I'm a freelancer doing odd jobs and sometimes I would search for rare things."

" I met Ai when I was 9 years old. She was injured and I decided to take care of her. She's been with me ever since, as my companion and best friend." She looked towards Ai sitting on her lap, sleeping. After Ai ate she fell asleep. Nyx scratched behind one of Ai's her getting a purr in return. Smiling she looked back towards Miu.

Nyx stayed silent for a while, thinking about what she herself said. Then she started again, " So you're from the Northern winds. Then I was wondering if you could help me on something I'm searching for. It's not for a job, but for my own personal interest. You see I found this scroll," Then Nyx proceeded in telling Miu about the scroll and what little information she found about it.

"So any ideas?" She asked.

Miu stood up and shot out her hand over the table, she touched the back of Nyx's hand on the table, "Nyx, i'm sorry." She soon switched her attention toward the scroll Nyx was talking about, "You found a scroll in a sort of dungeon-room? I've never heard of it," she raised an eyebrow. "I missed a secret dungeon in the Northern Winds? My own hometown?" she questioned herself sarcastically, "in this case, i failed as a dungeon-explorer-to-be." she sat back down and splattered her arms on the table, face an inch away from her soup. an air of depression surrounding her.

A sudden thought hit her, she jolted upright. "Hey, if it's treasure, we could share the prize, you, me, halve." she stretched her face into a gleeful smile. "Just i don't have and don't care about weapons, they're heavy things," she glanced at her glider staff. "I want to be fast they'll just slow be down." Her excited face betrayed her refusal, "but, this is an interesting topic. Maybe i could help you with it, it could be the biggest adventure i have yet to come across. You know, our monks tend to keep things that look like puzzle games and soon leave them rot in dust. Monks and their Alzheimer." Miu rolled her eyes dramatically. "Care to show that puzzle game of yours? 'Cause what the monks usually keep are originals."

"And it is said that the only copies are kept in the legendary spirit library." Miu added.

Nyx just smiled at Miu's reaction to her story and her smiled widened when Miu became interested with the scroll. Nyx laugh out loud, liking the other girl more and more. " Sure, I'm happy that you got interested with the scroll. And I would love for you to accompany me on my journey." Nyx took out the scroll. " And I don't think it will be completely useless to you. We may be able to improve your glider staff." Spreading out the scroll, " The potion will improve a weapon. Even though it can make the weapon sturdier, it also make it lighter for swift movement."

Nyx was getting excited that she could share her find with someone. " Well the first ingredient for the potion is this flower that looks like a fire lily but then there are stripes at the sides, so I don't think it's a fire lily. And since the drawings are in black and white, so i don't know what to find. The writhing on the scroll is quite damaged so it's hard to make out anything from it. Then the next ingredient is a piece of wood with a nine edged leaf. The next one is a falling rock. Then a yin and yang sign with water. Lastly it's the dragon with a  picture of the sun, the rays going through the dragon. I don't know what these picture may mean. Have any ideas?"

Miu took the scroll for a closer look, "that's weird, i've never seen these kind of things before.." She put the scroll down to make a brief eye contact with the opposite Nyx, "i know you wouldn't like your scroll to be too exposed but we should get more help." She thought for a while until a brilliant idea hit her mind, "I know! I can redraw the ingredients one by one so we could show them to someone without using the scroll! I'm a genius, hehe.." her fingers touching her chin as she snickered absent-mindedly to herself, "but we should shove just a single of the ingredients to their faces so that they won't get the hint of it."

After taking her last slurp of noodles, she pushed the noodleless bowl aside. Using the soup in the bowl as her water source and the ink she brought, she started her painting of the ingredient, one at a time, on new sheets of papers she produced from her backpack. It wasn't identical but it was better than nothing.

Lifting her last stroke she scanned their table of animals and her recently met companion, "Are you done with your eating? 'Cause we're heading back to the University hopefully the container of knowledge of entire Ba Sing Se! I know you've done your research, Nyx, but now we'll do even better-- We'll ask. With the aid of my brand new drawings!" Miu flipped the five sheets of paper proud of herself. "If you're not finished with your food, don't worry just slow down, we still have an entire afternoon, and hopefully a bright future before us. There is always a tomorrow. Haha."

" That's a great idea." Nyx's replied to Miu's suggestion, a smile on her face. The outgoing and straight forward nature of the rainbow haired girl was becoming contagious.

After watching Miu redraw the pictures, Miu said we're going to ask around at Ba Sing Se University. Well, it was a better idea than nothing. She haven't asked before since when she tried to do that at the beginning of her journey, scholars would become too curious and wont mind their own business. If she asked merchants then they will want part of the treasure or money for the information. If they asked for money within the right price it was fine, but most of the time the price was ridiculous.

" No, I think we're done. And thanks. Let work together from now on." Nyx said, smiling tenderly at the other girl. It's been a long time since she had companions on her journey that are human, and she's looking forward to what adventures they may face together.

" So to the University first?" Nyx stood up, swinging her knapsack over her shoulder. She picked up Ai with one hand and the Nekomata moved to hang on Nyx's shoulder.

Upon hearing Nyx's reply, Miu jumped up from her seat, "Great! then what are we waiting for?" The briliant smile she made was nearly blinding. She placed her thumb and index finger on her lips and blew a shrill whistle, which got a full attention from the turtlecat that was too busy licking his plate. Nyan took a last glance at his plate and jumped onto her shoulder. "All ready." she checked their table one last time.

Miu put her sheets of drawings back into her backpack and ran out to the streets, she knew well Nyx was close behind. She stopped at the entrance to wait for Nyx then held out her hand and grabbed the other's hand once she was out. Miu made a slow dash toward the direction of the only  and most famous University in Ba Sing Se. "Then let's complete this task before sundown," she said happily to their party.