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A minor celebrity has just arrived in Republic City.
He styles himself Delightful Jun, and if he has a last name, no one's ever managed to find it. Reports of his age vary, but you'll usually find it quoted between thirty-five and forty in recent years. His press interviews are rare, unscripted, occasionally contradictory, and inevitably surprising.
As for what he's famous for: he is a firebender, the producer and performer of a multimedia stage show that defies description. Delightful Jun's Palace of Fiery Delights combines music, lights, dancing, sleight of hand, a certain amount of acrobatics, flamboyant costumes, and of course, creatively applied and exquisitely controlled firebending. The show is never the same twice. Audience members are permitted and even encouraged to bring recording devices, but cautioned that if they do, they might be so busy getting it all on tape that they miss half the fun.
He has been known to remove all his clothes onstage; he has been known to take audience volunteers for various occasionally hazardous tricks; unsubstantiated rumours claim that he might have combined those two things, but no one's ever coughed up a video, so the rumours are generally discredited. He has been known to set off small explosives. He has been known to breathe rolling tongues of flame over the heads of the audience. When he booked an outdoor venue for six weeks in Chin Village, he concluded his final show by setting off a row of fireworks that wrote 'Delightful Jun' in the sky stroke by stroke. The headlines the next morning read, 'Delightful Jun Autographs Sky', and he cheerfully stole the turn of phrase for use in his own posters and advertisements.
One of his best-known signature moves is an elaborate, graceful bow ending in a sweep of his arms that gives him momentary wings of fire. It appears in countless photos, and it's how he ends his show every night for his first week in Republic City.
fiery-delights
listenandwait
There is a woman about a decade his junior, with assorted semiprecious stones tied in her hair and wrapped around her wrists, in the front row. She is attentive, but more thoughtful than awed.
She sticks around after the bit with the wings.
She sticks around after the bit with the wings.
fiery-delights
A lot of people do. He's not quite so famous yet that the number of fans who want to talk to him after a show is insupportable, and he makes time to give each one a few words and a smile before he leaves.
fiery-delights
"I might," he says, flashing a grin. "Depends entirely on the student."
listenandwait
"Because," says the audience member, and her hair rearranges itself with the aid of its weights, "my student is going to be done with me sooner than anyone but me expects."
fiery-delights
"Hm." He smiles. "Then if I'm still here, send her to me, and we'll see what we think of each other."
fiery-delights
He shrugs. "Then you can still send her to me, if she wants to go. I'm not that hard to find."
fiery-delights
"Any particular reason why you're asking me, out of all the firebenders in Republic City?"
listenandwait
"All the firebenders in Republic City teach an archaic combat style. It won't suit her, not as a focus," shrugs the earthbender. "She uses air to move, water to heal, earth to build - if all her next teacher thinks fire is good for is destroying she'll set herself against it. You can make it look," she shrugs again, "pretty."
fiery-delights
"Fire is pretty," he says. "And dangerous. But that's part of its charm."
listenandwait
"If she finds it charming, she'll do your job for you. The nuns taking 'charge' of her education think she'll need a year or two with my tutelage because she's an 'air Avatar' and mine is the opposed element, but they're wrong. She learns - things that are useful to her, anyway - like she's remembering from yesterday and not decades ago."
listenandwait
"You should. Of course, if she doesn't find you charming, she'll drop you like a ratscorpion and find her own teacher. I almost lost her after two days before I figured her out."
listenandwait
"I'll bring her by one of your shows when she's getting antsy with my lessons and send her along to you after. It's possible that if I wish to surprise her about the purpose of the outing I will have to buy a ticket for her boyfriend too."
fiery-delights
She was the last person to approach him; they're alone in front of the stage.
"Then I look forward to seeing them," he says, and bows prettily, and twirls away.
"Then I look forward to seeing them," he says, and bows prettily, and twirls away.
listenandwait
Off the earthbender skates.
She is back six weeks later with company, to "celebrate Beila's progress".
She is back six weeks later with company, to "celebrate Beila's progress".
