Avatar:Nyla
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Nyla was a shirshu who served as the mount and constant companion of the bounty hunter June. June acquired Nyla from her father when he received him as payment for a bounty he had collected while working for a rare animal collector. Nyla and June had been together for over seventeen years.[2]
History
In one of June's missions, Nyla tracked a bounty stowed away on Zuko's ship. He bit into the metal deck, tearing a large piece out to reveal the stowaway. Zuko hired June to track down the Avatar using the shirshu. When Zuko tracked and attacked Aang, Nyla fought Appa and paralyzed him with his tongue, although it took several hits to bring the flying bison down. Katara defeated Nyla by confusing him with perfume which she bent out of pots in the abbey. Nyla "blindly" lashed out and paralyzed Zuko and June successively before running wildly away.[1]
Months later, when Aang went missing, Zuko and Team Avatar traveled to the Earth Kingdom, where they found June in a tavern.[3] Outside, Nyla and Appa seemed to have befriended each other. Katara handed Aang's staff to June so the shirshu could sniff it. He turned in circles before covering his nose, unable to find Aang. Zuko decided to track down Iroh instead, and he handed June his uncle's sandal. Nyla sniffed it and led them to the walls of Ba Sing Se, where he and June departed from them.[4]
After the Hundred Year War, June and Nyla were hired again by Zuko, now Fire Lord, to track down Ursa, his long-lost mother. However, the search turned up no results.[5] Sometime later, they were hired by Keung, a crime boss and former Fire Nation military spy who held a grudge against Iroh. On his orders, they captured Iroh in Ba Sing Se and brought him to Daxia Harbor. On the way, Yuze's mercenaries ambushed them to collect a bounty for June, but Nyla and Iroh worked together to defeat the attackers. Upon arriving at Daxia Harbor, Nyla was not allowed to accompany June and Iroh and thus had to say at a pen at the town's outskirts. After delivering Iroh to Keung, June rode Nyla to visit Fan's farm where she had a change of heart, subsequently rescuing the older man. Afterward, Nyla assisted June in her new job as the Jasmine Dragon's tea discoverer, helping her procure rare and exotic teas around the world.[6]
Abilities
Nyla was quite strong, capable of easily smashing aside an adult human. He also had a high endurance, travelling difficult terrain over long distances without issue.[6] Like other shirshus, Nyla's tongue contained toxins that could temporarily paralyze humans, though the effect was less potent on large animals such as Appa.[1]
Scent tracking
Nyla was able to track scents that were hundreds of miles away. According to June, he could smell a rat a continent away. However, like other shirshus, both of his highly sensitive nose and sense of smell were part of his weakness as well, as shown when Katara managed to overwhelm and confuse Nyla by bending perfume from the pots, stirring in him a frenzied panic.[1] His tracking ability can be limited, as he was unable to pick up a specific target's scent. June explained that Nyla's target did not "exist" when he attempted to track down Aang's scent[4] and later Ursa's scent.[5]
Appearances
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Book One: Water (水)
Book Three: Fire (火)
Graphic novels
Trivia
- Nyla was named after a pet Rottweiler owned by Lisa Yang, a writer for the series.[7][8][9][10]
- Nyla appeared briefly in the animated short "School Time Shipping" along with a few other familiar creatures.
- Nyla has the same characteristics as Wildmutt from the series Ben 10, as both creatures rely on their sense of smell to navigate and are powerful enough to rip through metal to find their target. Additionally, they were both voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.
- In Netflix's live action Avatar: The Last Airbender, Nyla is depicted as a female shirshu.[11]
References
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See also
- Protected
- A to Z
- Animal characters
- Avatar: The Last Airbender characters
- Characters
- Earth Kingdom characters
- Graphic novel characters
- Fauna
- Hybridized creatures
- Minor characters (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
- Minor graphic novel characters (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
- The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer characters