This drabble was written on Storybender’s request. Enjoy!

Patience

He slipped over the wall, landing noiselessly on the fine grey gravel. He slithered through the inky dark, adjusting the broadswords on his back, making sure they were within easy reach. Though with enough patience, he wouldn’t need them.

A guard paced by, blissfully unaware of his black-clad form crouching in the shadow of the tower. He could have knocked him out, gagged him, and tied him up, or worse yet, slit his throat and let him die gurgling in the night. But this was an exercise in patience, he reminded himself. So he waited.

You are a ghost. You are a spirit. Drift on the wind. Be unseen.

He rested, holding his breath. The guard finally passed out of view and he deftly crept along the grass up to a shorter wall. With a quick series of jumps, he hopped over the wall and into the royal private gardens. Making sure no one was around, he grasped the clinging ivy and scaled up the castle wall, finding convenient hand and foot holds in the bricks.

Bad masonry — he smirked — makes it far too easy for assassins and thieves to get in.

He reached a balcony and landed softly on the flagstones. He peered through the glass door into the darkened room, feeling his heart beating madly in his chest.

This is it.

The door was unlocked, and he opened it, wincing at the slightest creak. The gossamer curtain fluttered as the cool night breeze swept into the room.

He adjusted his mask as he stepped up to the occupied bed. The man beneath the covers stirred.

In one terrifying sweep, the two broadswords emerged from their sheaths, a tooth-aching rasp of metal on metal tearing through the night. The bed’s occupant started, took one look at the horrific blue and white mask, and screamed like a girl.

“BOOGAH BOOGAH BOOGAH!” He howled, waving the swords menacingly over his head as the man in the bed continued to shriek. He laughed heartily and pranced out the window as the bedroom’s owner came to his senses.

“IROH, YOU CRETIN!” Ozai shouted, leaping to the balcony as he watched his brother’s lithe black-clad body steal away into the night, whooping in triumph.