Wandering Prince
Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko SI
11
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I stared out across the clearing at my opponent, assessing. Yue stood opposite me, water from the stream swirling around her through the air at the ready.
Green fire lit up in my hands and I stepped into the first movements of the standard firebender attack—launching fireballs at range to probe the enemy’s defense and distract them. Yue handled them easily, intercepting them all with a continuous stream of water, not moving from where she stood. A smile lit up her face and she gestured. One of the streamers grew colder and sharp ice daggers shot out at me.
I ran into the stream of attacks, dodging, ducking, and occasionally batting them aside as I closed the distance between us. The girl frowned as she saw she wasn’t getting through and increased the pace and density of her attack. I countered with a wave of fire, melting the icicles and creating a cloud of steam. I launched myself up and over the cloud as Yue shifted to octopus form, multiple water whips extending out, sweeping through the cloud and searching for me.
I fired off a quick series of jabs with my hands and feet as I descended, forcing her to look up. Yue’s eyes went wide and she brought up a shield of water, before freezing it into ice. Taking a deep breath, I charged a blast in my right hand as I fell the last few remaining feet. Exhaling sharply, I punched forward, twisting my fist as I did, willing the fire not to simply shoot out, but to spiral. Fire struck ice and, if it had been a normal fireball, it would have simply dissipated. Instead, when it hit, it dug in, burning through the surface before exploding, showering the area in ice shards.
Then, I was inside her guard. I was three hits into my combo and Yue was halfway to the ground before I realized she wasn’t fighting back, not doing anything but bringing up her arms to try to shield her face, which I’d already struck twice, before kicking her in the gut and folding her over.
“Okay, stop. Fight’s over!” I called as I fell to my knees beside her and rolled her over onto her back. “Come on, uncurl and breathe.”
“Hurts,” she whimpered, holding her nose with one hand and her stomach with the other.
“Yeah, and it’s gonna hurt less when you stop curling in on yourself,” I urged her, forcing her to straighten out and breathe. “Let me see it.”
I eased her hand away from her nose and winced. I’d gotten her good, it seemed. It wasn’t broken, but I’d smashed it to the side and it was bleeding profusely. Her cheek was also starting to swell. Sighing, grabbed her nose and straightened it, earning a squeal from the teary girl. I conjured green fire and held it to her face and, only a few moments later, she relaxed.
“I’m not cut out for this,” she sighed, rubbing her stomach tenderly.
“No, you just need to learn,” I countered, helping her to sit up. “You’re an amazing bender, Yue. You’re strong and you’ve got natural talent. I think the only person I’ve seen catch onto bending as quickly as you is my sister. The thing is, bending isn’t just about controlling an element and flinging it at your opponent, or using it to block their attacks. You need to move. It takes less energy to dodge an attack than block it, or even parry. You also have to be able to throw down with fists and feet when they get in too close to use your bending effectively. That’s the biggest part you’re lacking, and it’s why I did what I did. I wanted to show you what was going to happen, when someone got through your defenses. It hurt, right?”
“Mhmm,” she nodded, pouting at me.
“And if it wasn’t me doing it, but someone else? They wouldn’t have held back. As soon as you hit the ground, they’d have set you on fire and moved on.” Yue winced at that but nodded. “So. We know what we need to work on. You’re going to practice moving, with and without bending. Having chi means we’re faster, stronger, and can just do things that normal people can’t, even without using bending. You need to learn how to take advantage of that. I’ll give you the Yuyan crash course.”
“Eh?” she asked, blinking in confusion.
“Dear old dad liked to keep me away from home as much as possible and I figured I’d collect some useful skills, so one of my training trips was spending time training with a group of archers and assassins. They taught tracking, counter-tracking, hunting, shooting, survival, stealth, navigation, fast movement through any terrain—all without bending. We’ll be starting on that today, while we’re traveling.”
“And the other stuff?”
“We’ll take breaks for it,” I assured her. Taking her hands, I squeezed them. “I want you to be able to take care of yourself, so I can’t go easy on you. It’s gonna hurt, and it’s gonna suck.”
Yue hesitated, before nodding. “I understand.”
“Alright. Let’s begin,” I nodded, standing and pulling Yue to her feet.“Now?” she asked.
“Now,” I confirmed, before I started adjusting the way she stood and held herself. “I can’t teach you the martial art your northern waterbenders use, because I don’t know it. What I can do is teach you how a firebender fights, and how to fight against it. We’ll try to adapt your bending as we go.”
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We took our time getting to the mountain range where the northern air temple was located. I used that time to try to cram as much training into Yue as I could. She endured it all without a word of complaint, thankfully.
When she fell or I knocked her down, she got back up and went right back to it. When I hit her, she quickly learned what she’d done wrong and corrected it, closing up gaps in her defenses. When she was tired and sore after a long day, she forced herself to do just a little more, go just a little further. Then, at night, she slipped out of our tent and practiced her waterbending by herself—learning how to create slides, steps, launch herself into the air or catch herself, even using water whips and octopus form to move herself around through the trees and over the ground at speed.
Eventually, however, we made it to the foot of the mountain where the northern air temple was situated. Looking up the mountain, I considered the trail as Yue hummed. Finally, sending me a mischievous grin, the girl took off running, launching herself from the snow with a pillar of ice. “Race you!”
Laughing, I followed after, jet-stepping and launching myself into the air after her. I hung back, watching Yue move as she demonstrated her new traversal skills.
Eventually, we broke through the clouds shrouding the top of the mountain and hiding the temple from below. People, mostly children, flew past on what looked like primitive hang gliders. Several of them pointed at me and there were sounds of alarm as they turned for the temple. Yue and I made it to a flat stone deck looking out over the mountains, where the kids on gliders had gone.
Touching down on the platform, we found abandoned gliders. An older man wearing a monocle, missing much of his hair, and his eyebrows looking freshly burned off hurriedly approached from inside the temple. “Please, wait! I promise, I have what you’re here for!”
I exchanged a confused look with Yue, before shrugging. “Alright?”
“Come, this way,” he gestured and ushered us through the temple. As we went, he began to ramble on about delays caused by working out some counter balance system.
Those few people we encountered scattered and hid as we passed. Beside me, Yue whispered, “What’s going on?”
“Not sure. Let’s find out.”
We were eventually led to a room guarded by a large door, locked by some sort of airflow mechanism. The older man pulled something from his pocket and dug a stone out of the wall, before slipping what looked like some kind of handle inside. He pulled it and the doors opened, revealing a room full of weapons, tools, and other things—with lots of Fire Nation flags hanging here and there.
Yue gasped quietly as we entered, her eyes going wide as she took it all in. I… was not shocked at all. I’d been having dreams about this place off and on since reaching the north pole and had remembered the situation from the show after the first one. I knew the old man and his people were refugees. He was an inventor and offered his services to the Fire Nation to keep them from destroying the temple. He would be the man responsible for air travel in this world, and much more. Such as tanks, just like the one sitting in the middle of the room that he was gushing over.
Grabbing the big doors, I pulled them closed behind us. Waiting for a lull in his rambling, one eventually came and I got his attention. “Listen, I think there’s been some kind of mistake?”
“A mistake? What do you mean? This is what you came here to get, isn’t it? I don’t, I don’t have anything else yet!”
“No, I mean, we’re not who you think we are,” I clarified.
“You’re not with the Fire Nation Army? You’re not working for War Minister Qin?” he asked, going wide eyed. I recognized the name as one of Ozai’s higher ranking men, this one in charge of technology and weapons development. “But, but the children saw you! You’re a firebender!”
“Yeah, I’m a firebender, but I’m not with the army. We uh, we just came here to see the temple,” I told him, Yue nodding beside me.
“I’m actually a waterbender,” she smiled, opening the water skin at her side and bending out some of the water to show off, before putting it back.
“Oh. Oh dear.” The old man placed a hand on the tank, looking a bit faint as he slowly collapsed to sit on the ground. “Oh dear.”
“So,” I began, gesturing at the tank. “Doing work for the Fire Nation?”
The old man winced. “You don’t understand!”
“Why don’t you explain it, then? How could you create weapons of war for them?” Yue demanded, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared.
“I did it to protect everyone!”
I listened with half an ear as the old man told pretty much exactly the tale I was expecting. As he did, I moved around the room, inspecting its contents. In the back, I found a large cloth with the Fire Nation symbol draped over what looked vaguely like a boat. A smile came to my lips as I realized it wasn’t a cloth or a boat, but a dirigible. An early one, but that was good enough.
“Hey,” I called as he trailed off and Yue sighed, looking frustrated. “Does this work?”
The old man turned, saw what I was looking at, and sent me a quizzical look. “Do you even know what it is, young man?”
Probably better than you, I didn’t say, instead nodding. “A dirigible. A hot air balloon.”
He perked up at my words, while Yue looked confused. “A what?”
“You ever seen a lantern with an enclosed top lift into the air?”
“No, but I’ve heard there are such festivals held elsewhere. I’d like to see one,” she prompted hopefully, and I nodded.
“It works like that. Hot air expands and fills a balloon or other structure. The hot air is lighter than the cold air around it, since it’s taking up more space. This causes it to rise. It’s like… an air bubble coming up underwater,” I simplified, and Yue nodded.
The old man leapt to his feet at that, his eyes going wide. “You do understand! But I can’t get it to work. Once it goes up, it stays up, with no way to make it come down, without cutting off the fire. But then it gets too cold and falls too quickly, which could cause a deadly crash.”
“Yeah, it needs a vent on the top,” I nodded. “Preferably on the inside, so the internal pressure is prone to keeping it sealed and you have to pull against that, instead of trying to pull and keep it closed against pressure from the outside.”
His eyes went wide and he turned, running for the door. Pushing it open, he turned back to use. “Come with me!”
I shrugged and followed, Yue sending me a questioning look as we went. Quietly, she hissed, “Why are you helping him?! Those things will end up in the hands of the Fire Nation and be used against everyone!”
“Probably. Assuming they don’t leave, which they will if they have sense. I’ll try to talk him into heading deeper into the Earth Kingdom. But when the war is over? You’re looking at the future, Yue. Air travel,” I whispered back.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Yue stared at me, her mouth falling open. “You mean… like a boat? But in the air?”
“Exactly so,” I agreed.
Yue fell silent at that and we followed the old man to an elevator, then up to his office. He broke out some paper holding what looked like designs for the small airship we’d seen down below. Flipping to a new page, he quickly began a new sketch. “On the inside, you say?”
“Yeah. You make the cut smaller than the vent, or lid, or whatever you decide to use by like half—maybe even two thirds. That way, it doesn’t slip. Attach it to the inside somehow in a way that doesn’t damage the balloon material. Add a rope and pulley system that comes down into the basket for whoever’s flying it to control. And there you have it. You can control descent with the pull of a cord.”
“Brilliant,” the old man nodded.
“I’m Zuko, by the way. This is Yue. And you are?”
“Hm?” the old man asked, briefly looking up from his sketch, before laughing. “Oh! Bo! But feel free to call me ‘old man.’ Everyone else does,” he waved it off, before returning to his sketch.
“How are you powering the balloon?” I asked, taking the other sketches and flipping through them. “I saw an engine of some kind on that thing, so it’s obviously meant to be used by a non-bender.”
“Oh, coal, of course. But it will take anything that burns,” he answered absently.
“It looked heavy,” I mused. “Could ditch it if you had a firebender aboard.”
“Certainly,” Bo nodded. “But then no one who wasn’t a firebender could operate it. Nor could it be used overnight, without a second firebender to use in shifts.”
I frowned, but nodded. “Have you ever seen a bending powered boat engine?”
“I have,” the old man confirmed. “Why do you ask?”
“One of those, a water tank to provide fresh water, a series of copper coils to act as a condenser that it vents into to cool and return to water, a second tank to collect the return water and then feed back into the main tank. At altitude, or with the help of waterbender,” I gestured at Yue, “you could have a system with almost no loss of water.”
“But why—” he paused, then nodded, “Ah, yes. To drive propellers. But why not use the coal engine?”
“Does it produce the sort of RPM that one of the steam engines would?” I asked, and he hummed, considering.
“Perhaps not. But if it weren’t also being used to run a propeller, it could be made much more compact…”
Grinning, I asked, “What do you say? Want to try to modify a boat to test with?”
“Do you have one?” he asked, perking up in interest, and I nodded.
“I do. If you can provide a means of transportation.”
“We can arrange a wagon and something to pull it,” he nodded eagerly. Finishing the sketch, he turned it so I could see. “What do you think?”
I looked it over and nodded. “Looks good.” Considering him for a moment, I added, “You know you have to leave, right?”
Bo sighed, suddenly looking much older and more worn down. “We have made this place our home.”
“And you’re being threatened into creating weapons for the Fire Nation,” I countered, and he nodded. “You can rebuild. You can go somewhere quiet and hide. Or go to somewhere like Omashu or Gaoling and get someone to fund your efforts there. Pretty sure King Bumi would gladly agree to settle you and pay for whatever you needed.”
“But how do we escape the Fire Nation army?”
I reached down and tapped the design he was working on. “Build a bigger one. You said it’s Qin giving you trouble? I know the guy. He’s a coward, but the man’s intelligent. Tell him you’ve got something big in the works and he may even provide you supplies to build it himself.”
“He has before,” Bo nodded. “Very well. We’ll try.”
“Just wait until we’re gone before making a run for it.”
“Of course,” the old man nodded. “Now, let’s see about getting that boat…”
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With access to materials and the mad scientist that was Bo, we had redesigned my little boat into a sleek airship capable of making air or water landings, cutting down the weight significantly while still retaining functionality. The mast and rigging were removed entirely for the moment. The cabin on top had to go to make room for the balloon and rigging to hold it in place and keep it balanced when it was inflated. I’d also cut off the pontoons that made it a trimaran for the moment. I’d also had to remove the engines and linkage for us to work on it.
What we’d done instead was hammer out support struts and weld them into the hull, and now I was welding on a much thinner skin over the top of that to make a cabin that ran almost the entire length of the boat. We’d be able to stand inside, but we might have to stoop. I would be adding view ports along the sides and at the front so we could see out or close them up, like the old cabin. I’d left a spot at the back open for a coal box and the main coal fired heater to blow hot air and keep the balloon filled with pipes that ran along the inside of the cabin on the ceiling to double as a source of heat at altitude, but we would be adding a second, bending powered heater in line with that to do the same thing.
When we put the engine back in, it would be linked to a lever that would switch it over between either the screws for when it was in the water, or to a propeller mounted on the roof, under the balloon, inside a protective enclosure much like a fan boat—with a set of rudders to control the craft’s direction. I’d be mounting a water tank on either side of the outside of the hull, then putting a set of much smaller pontoons back on the sides, closer than the originals to give it a more narrow profile, so it would be stable on land and not tip over.
The balloon would be mounted on top with a case below it to roll it up and latch it in place when it wasn’t in use. That was where the mast would come back in—resting under the balloon normally, until it was needed. If we needed to, we could land in water, roll up the balloon and keep it hidden in its enclosed case, and raise the mast to look like a normal ship. The propeller could be detached and reattached without tools and stored in the cabin if need be, and with the pulling of a few levers, the redesigned coal furnace could be used as a boiler to power the props.
There was, of course, the problem of visibility. Unless we were very high up or hiding in the clouds, we’d be highly visible from the ground. So, I set out to mitigate that problem the tried and true way they did on Earth. I’d be painting the underside and sides of the boat sky blue and the top gray, while the balloon was made from blue and white cloth. It wasn’t going to be perfect, but it would at least reduce visibility from the ground somewhat.
“Zuko, I’m worried.”
I paused in making a new weld on the hull of the boat to look at Yue. “What about?”
“Can we really just leave these people to escape the Fire Nation on their own? And what about once they’re away? Their fuel will only last so long, and then they’ll be vulnerable.”
I considered her question for a moment before asking, “What do you suggest?”
Yue sent me a smile. “I’ve been studying the map. If we can make it back to Chenbao, we can destroy the flying machine so it can’t be used by the Fire Nation. After that, they can board a ship and then take the river inland, then back out to sea, around the coast, and eventually make land and take the relatively short trek across land to Omashu.”
“So, you want to escort them back to Chenbao and destroy the war balloon?”
“If that’s okay? We don’t have to take them the rest of the way. Just away from here.”
Humming, I reviewed my mental map, before nodding. “Sure. I’m fine with that.”
“Really?!” Yue asked, and I sent her a smile.
“Sure.”
She beamed, moving closer and wrapping me in a hug, before kissing my cheek. “Thank you!”
“It’s not a big deal,” I chuckled.
“Oh! There is one more small thing.” I raised an eyebrow in question and she began explaining. “I’ve been speaking with the children and getting to know them. Doing some healing here and there as needed, for some issues that have been lingering a while.” When I nodded, she asked, “Have you met Bo’s son, Teo?”
“Which one is that?”
“The one in the chair.”
I snapped my fingers. “Oh, right! Yeah. Good kid. Smart. He likes to come by and help out.” Yue stared at me, expectantly. I smiled back, waiting. I knew what she wanted to ask, I just wanted to make her say it.
Huffing, Yue glared at me, realizing I was pushing her buttons. “Could you heal him?”
“Sure. He hasn’t asked me about it though, and it’d sound weird if I offered…”
Yue rolled her eyes. “I’ve examined him already and it looks like you only need to heal one area. His spine, in the lower back area.”
“Well, if you want to go get him, I can do it now,” I offered, and she nodded, before hurrying out of the room.
I went back to making welds and, a few minutes later, I heard the sound of footsteps and wheels approaching. “Hey, Zuko,” the young boy called as he stopped nearby. “Yue said you could um, maybe… fix my back?”
Sliding down off the boat, I wiped my hands off on my pants. “Is that what you want?”
“Haha yeah! I mean, who would say no to being able to walk again?!” the boy laughed, like I’d asked the dumbest question he’d ever heard.
“Well, some people are stubborn like that,” I shrugged. “Alright, Yue, can you help me get him up?”
The waterbender nodded and together, we pulled him out of the chair and laid him out on his stomach. I reached down and pulled his shirt up and asked, “So, where am I aiming?”
“Here,” Yue pointed to the boy’s lower back, just above the hips.
“Is it gonna hurt?” Teo asked as I laid my hand on his back and conjured fire.
“Well, I suppose we’ll see. I’ve done a few limb replacements and other things,” I spoke, distracting him as I felt the fire working away at him. Yue’s hand rested beside mine and, after a few moments, she nodded. Rolling the boy over onto his front, I asked, “How about you tell me? Does this hurt?”
I reached down and smacked him just above the knee with the knuckle of my middle finger. Teo’s entire leg jumped and yelped. “Ow!” The boy blinked, then his eyes went wide. “I felt that! And my leg moved!”
“Let’s try the other one,” I chuckled and smacked him again, to the same knee-jerk response—though this time he didn’t cry out, and instead started laughing.
“Oh man, this is great! Wait until dad sees this! Can you help me stand?”
“Ah, about that,” I hedged. “Your legs have atrophied. Technically there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s just like you’ve done nothing but sit on your butt for years and not use them.”
“…But I have just sat on my butt and not used them,” he pointed out, and I nodded as I motioned to Yue and we helped him back into his chair.
“Exactly. Not broken, so I can’t heal it. Which means you get to do it the long way. Good old fashioned hard work. First working to stand, then to walk, one step at a time. But if you keep at it, in a couple of months you should be able to walk normally. Six months to a year, at a guess, you’ll be able to run around like any kid your age. I’ll show you some exercises to work your legs to get you ready for it.”
If something wasn’t broken, I couldn’t fix it. As far as limitations on the green fire went, it made sense. Not being able to heal anything spiritual was the other big one we’d found so far. Ty Lee had demonstrated her chi blocking before, once upon a time when I was hanging out with her, Mai, and Azula. At a guess, it wouldn’t heal that since it was a blockage, not damage, and entirely spiritual. I was still discovering the limits though, and it was a learning process. Given who my sister and father were, I was keen to find out whether it could fix madness, just in case—but I’d yet to run across anyone to test it on. I was of two minds on it. If the problem was entirely biological, maybe. If the problem was mental, that is if I tried to, say, cure Ozai of his raging narcissism, I doubted it would work. And of course, if there was some sort of spiritual malady, I was shit out of luck.
The boy reached up and wiped at his eyes as he sent me a huge smile. “I don’t know what to say—”
“Don’t get all emotional,” I chuckled, patting his shoulder. “Come on. How about we go give your dad the good news?”
“Y-yeah,” Teo nodded, clearing his throat as he started using his sleeves to wipe his face.
Beside me, Yue beamed a happy smile. Her hip bumped into mine and she pulled me into a side on hug as we walked and I pushed the kid’s chair. “We should do more things like this. It feels good, being able to help people.”
“When we can, safely,” I allowed.
Not everyone was going to be okay with a firebender from the Fire Nation running around in their country, even if that person was some kind of wandering healer. I had a feeling most of the Earth Kingdom might take exception. And, well… while we had about two years before I needed to be at the south pole, I didn’t want to get bogged down healing every scrape and boo-boo between here and the south, as getting absolutely mobbed with people begging to be healed was the other potential outcome.
I wanted to help people, yes. Absolutely. And it’s not like I’d let someone die to keep my secret. But at the same time, I had to take a wider view on things than trying to fix the world one cut or skint knee at a time. It was basic triage. You don’t tend to a cut before a stab, unless it’s nicked an artery. You don’t try to tend to a stab before dealing with the person holding the knife, who did the stabbing in the first place. Which circled back to something I’d been thinking on for a while now. Aang needed to be taken off ice and Ozai needed to go, ASAP. We could deal with everything else after that.
Turning my attention back to Teo, I asked, “Is everyone ready for the move?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, sounding grateful to be given something else to think about. “They know to pack light. Dad’s almost finished with the other, what’d you call it? Dirt ridge able?”
“Dirigible. And that’s good to hear. I should have the modifications made to mine some time tomorrow. If we take a day to do quick testing, then we should be able to leave night after tomorrow.”
“I’ll let everyone know, after we talk to dad,” the boy nodded.
Needles to say, Teo’s dad was beyond happy. The man broke into tears and hugged his boy when Teo showed off his ability to move his feet what little bit he could at the moment. Yue and I left them to their moment and headed back to the open courtyard so I could get back to work.
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“Okay. Here we go,” I murmured, firing up the coal engine.
Yue helped me hold the balloon’s mouth in place for long enough for it to start filling and hold itself up, then we slid back down the hull to the back of the ship. Dropping from the roof onto the deck, we waited as the balloon filled. I made a few last checks, making sure the new built in compass was moving as it should and the drive shaft for the main engine was switched over to the propeller.
After only a minute or two, the ship lifted up and stopped as it hit the end of the mooring lines keeping it in place. I gave it another minute before nodding to Yue and we pulled the knots holding the ship down loose. The ship rose quickly and I fired up the engine, bringing it about with the wheel we’d added for that purpose. A check of the lever controlling the rope connected to the vent slowed the ship’s ascent, before I opened it up enough for us to drop a few feet, then adjusted it until I got at the altitude I wanted to clear the temple.
“Look, there are the others,” Yue pointed off to port and I nodded, turning that direction and throttling up on the engine, sending us that direction before cutting thrust as we got closer, not wanting to cause an accident right out of the gate. A lamp light flashed three times from the other ship. “That’s the signal.”
“Alright, take the wheel,” I instructed her, and Yue took my place.
Grabbing onto the tow line we’d made, I checked that it was secure before going overboard as the other ship came to level. A few blasts of jet-stepping got me onto the other ship’s deck and they quickly tied the line off to the prow.
Turning to Bo, I reminded him, “Match altitude and once we’re clear of the temple, we’ll maintain that until we get outside Chenbao. If we start to go down for any reason, cut us loose. Likewise, if you start dropping, I’ll cut you loose and try to come help.”
“Right, right,” the old man nodded. Casting a glance back at the temple, he sighed. “It’s just a shame to leave it all behind.”
“You did get your notes and burn everything you weren’t taking, didn’t you?” I asked, just to be sure. I had copied everything he had into my journal for later study, but I wanted to make sure there was nothing left behind for Qin to find.
The old man nodded. “I did. I have everything here,” he confirmed, patting the leather satchel at his side.
Looking back over to my ship, I saw we had come up level. “Okay, I’m going back over. I’ll ease her up on the throttle. Signal if something’s wrong.”
With that, I crossed back over to land beside Yue, who quickly moved aside as I took my seat. Giving the engine a little more fire, I slowly throttled up. The ship moved forward and jerked slightly when it hit the end of the slack between our two vessels. Yue didn’t say anything about a signal, so I increased speed and turned us northwest.
“It’s amazing,” Yue breathed, looking out over the sea of clouds beneath us, lit up by the moon and stars above. She clung tightly to my arm at my side, head turning this way and that to try to take in everything. “Like something out of a fairytale.”
“It is something to behold,” I agreed, turning to send her a smile, enjoying the way her face lit up in joy.