While she sat watching and eating the peach-like item (which
tasted like one as well), a small, furry creature happened along.  She'd
noticed several of these roaming the grounds while she'd been out
exploring; some sort of lemur, it appeared, mostly white with black
points, a little like a Siamese cat.  Unlike the others, which had paid
her little mind as they went about their business, this one came right
over and jumped up onto the bench next to her, regarding her
thoughtfully with large golden eyes.
        "Hello," said Anthy, smiling.
        "Rrktpk?" the lemur replied.
        "Would you like a whatever-this-is?" Anthy asked, offering the
creature the mystery fruit.  It appeared that he would, if the speed
with which he took and scarfed down the fruit was any indication.  Then,
evidently satisfied with this gesture, he scrambled up her sleeve to
perch on her shoulder, in a position not unlike that often assumed by
Nall.  She reached up and petted him absently, returning her attention
to the airbenders at work.
        A few minutes later, another young airbender arrived.  This one
was a teenage girl, thin and unfinished-looking in that way that some
teenagers are.  She was perched in a sort of baseball-catcher stance
atop a basketball-sized sphere of whirling air, off of which she sprang
as she arrived.  The air scooter dissipated with a gentle "pop!" as its
erstwhile rider alighted next to the bench where Anthy sat, feet
together, arms outstretched, like a gymnast dismounting from an
apparatus.  Standing, she was quite tall for her apparent age, which
Anthy would have put somewhere in her mid-teens.
        Apart from her unusual height and slenderness, which made her
limbs seem even more spindly than they really were, the most striking
thing about her was her hair.  She barely had any, as though she'd
shaved her head a month or so before, then thought better of it.  The
full length of the arrow tattoo on her head could still be seen through
the faint dark fuzz that was beginning to grow back, all the way to the
nape of her neck, where it disappeared into the collar of her yellow
shirt.  Her rolled-up sleeves revealed similar arrows on both arms,
ending on the backs of her hands.
        "Greetings, Lady Anthy!" she said cheerfully, bowing with a
grace that, like the nimbleness of her dismount from the air scoter, was
a bit at odds with the gawkiness of her appearance.  "Master Jinora
sends her compliments and asks that you lunch with her in her chambers,
if it's convenient."
        Anthy smiled slightly and got to her feet.  Her newly acquired
lemur friend remained at his post, taking a turn of his tail around her
neck for stability.
        "It would be my pleasure.  Please, lead on."
        "Right this way," said the girl, and they set off for the
temple.  "I'm Nyima, by the way.  It's an honor to meet you."
        "I'm pleased to meet you too, Nyima," said Anthy.  "Are you one
of the students here?"
        Nyima's cheeks went slightly red.  "Um... well, not any more, I
guess," she said.  Pointing to the tattoo on her head, she went on, "I
got my arrow a few weeks ago.  It's the last tattoo we Air Nomads get -
you have to be a master airbender to earn it.  So I guess I'm not really
a student any more, but I haven't figured out what I'm going to do next
yet... "  She shrugged.
        "You seem very young to have achieved so much," Anthy mused.
She sounded not skeptical, which Nyima might have expected, but rather
pleased on her behalf.
        "I'm sixteen," Nyima said.  "And a half.  Not the youngest
master ever, by a long shot - Aang the Elder was -twelve-, but then, he
was the Avatar - but, yeah... they say I'm kind of a prodigy."  She
shrugged again.  "I guess it's karma's way of paying me back for making
me ugly."
        "You're not ugly," Anthy objected.
        "You're very kind, Lady Anthy, but please," said Nyima wryly.
"I'm a stick figure.  All knees and elbows.  Nothing going on -here,-"
she said, smoothing her airbender's tunic over what Anthy had to concede
was not much of a chest, "nothing going on -here,-" and she did a
similar thing with her trousers at her very slim hips, "too much jaw,
too much nose."  Another shrug.  "You don't have to pretend.  I know I'm
not much to look at.  My sister's the pretty one in our generation."  A
little smirk touched her face then.  "But I'm better at airball!"
        "You're very graceful," Anthy persisted as they entered the
front hall of the Air Temple.  "You have a beautiful way of moving.  And
for what little it's worth, I don't think you're right about your face,
either."  She smiled.  "And you have an open, honest heart.  I promise
you, many people find that very attractive."
        "I have -no inside voice- is what I have," Nyima said, blushing
again.  "I'm sorry I just blurted all that out like that.  And I really
appreciate you trying to make me feel better.  But I know where I stand.
When you meet Lhakpa, you'll understand."  They reached the door at the
end of the hall, and before Anthy could say anything further, Nyima
rapped smartly on the jamb with the knuckles of her right hand and said,
"Master Jinora?  Your guest is here."