Tenoko thought back a little as she let Hinh absorb the things she had just told her. The way she had told her life’s tale almost made it seem like a sob story, but that was why the waterbender had made sure to throw in the good memories as well as the bad. That was how life was, really. There were good times, and there were bad times. There were emotional ups and downs, and there were times when she wished time would just stop and let her stay where she was. Conversely, there were times when she wished everything would just end as her world crumbled around her. As of recently, she had been having more instanes of the former. She hadn’t wished she was dead for a long time now. There had been times where she felt unworthy to be alive when the rest of her family was dead, but she never wished she could die. Instead, she sometimes wished that her family could be brought back, even though she knew that was not possible.

"I am very sorry to hear about all that. You bear a heavier burden than I previously thought." Hinh said very politely, still walking forward. "You are a very tough woman, undergoing all this and withstanding the... consequences I suppose ?”

Tenoko nodded as she too continued walking forward.
“My life has had its hard points,” she stated, “but it has also had its glorious times. Looking back at the losses I’ve suffered, I am not angry for the losses themselves. Instead, I cherish the moments that I was able to share with my loved ones. The healing ritual—or whatever it was that it was called… I’m sorry I cannot remember its name… anyways, it helped a lot. I’ve felt more attached to their spirits since then. I feel a lot more content doing what I am doing now, knowing that they are still out there, and that they still love me the way I love them. I cannot say there are not times when I wish they were here with me, but I cannot dwell on their loss, or I myself will remain miserable. I want my family, as well as the people I meet to know me for who I really am. I don’t want them knowing me as someone who sobs consistently over her losses. Granted, I am not immune to human emotions, but I try to remain happy. I know I will see them again someday.”

Tenoko smiled. “thank you again for listening to me ramble,” she added, “having a friend always does good to boost my spirits. Everyone has a tale to tell, and you can never really know someone until you’ve met them, don’t you think?”

That was Tenoko’s philosophy anyways.
~Tenoko~

Hao patted Jakku on the head, ruffling his forest green feathers a bit. The ostrich horse grunted slightly as his owner climbed onto his saddle. The faded leather saddle was familiar in Hao's hands, he'd used it for many years, it wasn't the only thing begining to show it's age. "Your best years are still ahead, don't worry buddy. Let's go." He said giving Jakku a gentle kick. As the beast sped up, the young earth bender untied his hair and tucked the chord into his old army belt. Looking up at the sky he felt the sun on his tan face, the air felt cool as it passed through his hair and beard. Hao couldn't help but think that maybe he'd spent too much time in the forest. In just a few short years the world had changed so much. The avatar meant that there was hope, and he planned to do his part to make the world a better place too.

His train of thought derailed at the sight of an old man on the side of the road. Hunched over under the weight of a bucket and what looked like fishing gear, the balding old timer was pretty far away from any village Hao had ever heard of. His curiosity caused him to slow down and match pace with the man. "Say old man. Maybe I can lighten that load for you. Are you selling those fish? I'm traveling and could use one for dinner." The old man stopped and frowned at him causing his bushy white eyebrows to ruffle up and look a bit crazy. Hao smiled but the old man did not return his pleasantry, but as Hao's smile faded the old man finally spoke. "Been travelin' a while huh?" he asked almost accusingly. It was a fair deduction, the young man did not look very well put together, his clothes were ripped in places and dirty, his hair, unwashed for days, had been whipped around by the wind and looked like the hair of a crazy person and his ostrich horse seemed like it had been packed by an experienced traveler (though it was just the result of Hao's lingering military discipline.) Hao smiled sheepishly and rubbed his beard awkwardly in his embarrassment, he opened his mouth to speak but the old man cut him off. "I'll tell you what. We can make a deal. My wife cooks the best fish soup in our village. If you and that beast give me a ride home you can join us for dinner." This time he returned Hao's smile as he took the earth bender's hand and climbed aboard Jakku's back.

It took no more than half an hour at a trot to reach the old man's village. It was a bit tucked away, Hao had to take a dusty road or two before he finally arrived. The village itself was quaint, just a collection of small wooden houses very stereotypical of earth nation villages. There were a few shops and a small town square with a well in the center of it. It warmed his heart to see that there was no sign of the war. They were greeted warmly by the wife of the old man, now known to Hao as Ling He. She was short and starting to gain weight with her age. Her hair was pure white and she had deep smile lines around her mouth and bright green eyes. Hao bowed his head and took her hand respectfully. Dinner was prepared quickly but consumed over several hours. They stayed up late and drank tea as Hao regaled them with stories of the war and his years in the forest. Finally, when the old man began to yawn Hao thanked them profusely for their hospitality.

"You are kind people. Thank you for the meal and the company. I hope our paths cross again." He said graciously as he rose for the door. The elderly couple exchanged looks. "Please." Said Ling's wife putting a hand on Hao's arm. "Be our guest for tonight, it's late and the woods aren't safe at night. Besides we have a spare bedroom that hasn't been used in years." Hao almost argued but the woman had such a concerned look on her face he couldn't bring himself to do so. They gave him some clean clothes and showed him to his room. It was small but clean and the bed was soft. He laid in it for a minute just remembering how nice a bed really was. He was going to get up and do his nightly routine but drifted off to sleep before he ever saw it coming.

"You know, Del...I don't think you're going to top the 'mugged by a giant bat' story that just now happened."
He shrugged off the oddity and awaited the next form of stimulation.

Yudai thought for a time while looking down at his boots and snapped his head upwards.
"We should get you guys high bounties. We could make a killing turning each other in. Just look at Jin. How much did you get for me? Once we make you two notorious criminals we'll have money and entertainment. The important part is that with high prices on our heads bounty hunters will be all over us and we'd have to spend most of our time either fighting or fleeing. Either is fine by me."

"One of you know where we're going, yeah? I mean, I'm not in a huge hurry to get to Ba Sing Se but I don't want to wind up in the North Pole or something. Tell me that one of you has a sense of direction."


OOC: Sorry it's so short and so late but I couldn't think of anything to do with Yudai.

Hao awoke and climbed out of his bed. Rubbing the sleep from the eyes he used his fingers to comb the bed head out of his now mussy brown hair. The young earth bender then carefully tied it back and proceeded to make the bed his gracious hosts had allowed him to use. The bed had been the most comfortable he could remember, the sheets were a soothing shade of light blue, the pillows stuffed with feathers undoubtedly from local fowls had cradled his head ever so gently as he had drifted off to sleep. Grabbing his old military issue canvas bag he swung it over one shoulder and strapped his axe to his back all while hurrying down the stairs. To his surprise Ling and his wife, whom Hao now knew to be Shiya, were waiting for him. Hao greeted them both warmly and began to explain that he needed to leave if he were to reach Ba Sing Se but at the mention of the great city Shiya's wrinkled old face dropped and Ling looked at his hands awkwardly. "What's wrong?" Hao asked through raised eyebrows. The couple gestured for him to sit.

"Ba Sing Se has fallen from within." The words caused Hao's eyes to open wide with shock. Feelings of guilt washed over his body, his sorrow had blinded him to the fact that the world still needed him and now it was too late, the city his uncle had died defending, that his family were sacrificed to defend, had fallen despite the sacrifices of so many people. The young earth bender looked at the elderly couple intensely, they could clearly see the pain on his face and were further saddened but the distress of the young man they had gotten to know. "So where do I go? If the army isn't in Ba Sing Se then where is it? Where is the avatar?" Ling put a hand on his back. "Listen my boy, I have faith that the avatar is alive, somewhere, though word is that he's dead." Sensing that his words had caused Hao's stomach had sunk to the pit of his bowls he slapped him heartily on the back. "Now is no time to feel like that my boy! It's time to do some detective work! Word also has it that the avatar has friends on an island where he lived in a past life." The old man raised an eyebrow and gave a partially toothless grin at the clue he'd provided but frowned after seeing the blank look on Hao's face. "Kyoshi island! Don't they teach you kids anything in school anymore!?" Hao laughed, patted his old friend on the back and thanked him for the information. After saying goodbye he took Jakku and began walking again, thinking about how he'd get to kyoshi island when he realized he had an excellent plan. It would be faster to go around the Si Wong Desert than through it.

Wang hated patrol duty. He was just fresh recruit in the fire navy but he expected adventure and fortune in the earth kingdom not having to feed coal to a patrol ship while his overweight captain ate earth kingdom pastries at the helm. The patrol ship was small and he wouldn't even have to do it if the "captain" weren't so lazy. He was grumbling to himself until he felt the ship slowing to a halt. Looking out his port hole he saw a earth kingdom man bathing in the river while his ostrich horse and a large bag of what he could only assume to be merchant goods laid out beside it. The captain might be lazy, but he had a good sense of greed. "You there, stay where you are and you won't be hurt, the fire nation is confiscating your mount and your wares to aid in our campaign in the colonies."

Hao bowed to the captain trembling like a scared kitten. The boisterous man seemed to enjoy the fear his uniform inspired and ordered this underling to help fetch their spoils. The two began struggling to pull the unwilling Ostrich Horse to the ships ramp when suddenly the ground felt loose beneath them. Next thing they knew they were shoulder deep in the river bank and a half naked, sopping wet, Hao was standing over them. "If you even think about using some kind of breath technique on me I'll bury you down to your eyes." He warned with a smirk. Climbing aboard the small vessel, followed by the now strutting Jakku, he grinned and waved to them as he pulled off. "Don't worry! I'm sure a villager will help you out some time soon." As the boat regained its speed and began to hit deeper waters Hao felt better. Maybe it wasn't much but he'd helped out an old man and potentially taught a couple fire nation ruffians not to pick on people who seem weaker than them. "Kyoshi Island, here I come."

random forest – camping

“Hm?” Shtiya glanced up, slightly distracted with the ball of water. “Oh! Yes, that’s f-f-fine –“ he looked back down between his hands as the ball sort of wobbled. As soon as he focused his vision on it, the water stabilized into a perfect sphere, pulsing in exact time with his heartbeat. This particular exercise was something he was trying to perfect in order to, hopefully, some day, use it to monitor a person’s heart without having to feel the pulse. The petite young man figured that if he could make it work on himself, then he could try practicing it on another person – and maybe it would work. Maybe not, but it seemed like a nice idea.

He certainly didn’t mind if Erikai started a fire. It wasn’t that Shtiya minded tending to the camp – he often just sort of did everything without thinking about it. The waterbender hated to feel like he was burden or troublesome to others, so he tried to handle everything by himself. When traveling with a companion, that meant he usually didn’t ask for help or delegate camp tasks.

When the other Waterbender said they could practice waterbending together, Shtiya lost what was left of his concentration and ‘dropped’ the ball of water. It splashed into his lap and he jumped a little, startled by the cold. “I – um, s---ure. I d-don’t…” he paused, trying to choose his words. “I practice only the forms of b-bending that don’t h-—-arm others.” Pulling the water back up between his hands with fluid motions, the young man focused on it, looking down through long lashes. “I can t-teach you healing, if you want.” While he certainly wouldn’t mind practicing defensive techniques if Erikai wanted to be the attacker, Shtiya had purposefully avoided learning any offensive waterbending. It had always been a point of contention between him, his teachers, and his father. He felt so strongly about the matter, however, that no amount of persuasion had ever managed to sway him.

Luu, Edge of the Swamp
Luu walked through the muddy forests alone, with nothing but the birds and animals to keep him company as they sang their beautiful serenades. Luu pulled out his sitar, one of his only reminders from home, and began to strum it in tune with some of the bird calls. "Mighty fine day for a song or two" Luu said to both himself and the critters as he strolled "All in harmony and like" The Swampbender had never been so far from home, the Foggy Swamp, and was still getting used to the whole hard ground thing. It felt a bit unnatural to him, no mud between his toes. But that was what he wanted to feel now, the unknown. Adventure gnawed at him like a pirahnamander, and he was ready to take the path wherever it lead him. As Luu strummed, he sang.

Through the swamp
Through the marsh
Through the misty bog
Nothin' 'cept the clothes on my back
Over trail and log

Walk all night
Walk all day
Walk the hard and winding way

Through he peace and through the fray
Hey look a monkey-dog!

Luu stopped in his tracks to witness the sight. It was a brown ape with a dog-like head and a hog nose. Its red eyes were staring intently on a piece of fruit that it had found moments earlier. It was hungry, and the fruit was the first thing it could scrounge up in a while. "Hey there lil' fella, wanna come down?" The hogmonkey that was on the side of a hollowed-out tree stopped eating the fruit in its hand and looked back at the strange newcomer, then turned back to its delicious fruit. "Guess not" he said as he went back to walking. He would rest in a while, but for now, the road was calling, and he had a ways to go before his first town was in sight, judging by what the Swamp Tribe members gathered from a map left by one of their kin from the south.

Luu smiled and strolled on, sitar in hand, song on his lips and wanderlust in his heart...

"...Yes, I agree with you." Hinh simply said, not commenting any further on this statement.

So maybe she hadn’t been rambling. Sometimes though, people said that type of thing just to shut the other person up. Hinh did not seem like that type of person however, and so either she was being sincere, or she was pulling a really good act prior to this regarding what type of person she was. Tenoko figured that it was most likely the former, as the latter scenario just seemed nonsensical.

[Hinh] cleared her throat a little. "Meeting new people, sharing your story with them, telling them about your good times as well as hard ones, in total honesty... This is a good way of opening up your soul. This is what will save people from hell."

Hell… Tenoko was not sure if she was familiar with such a place. Where she came from, it was sometimes a crude word people used when speaking. She didn’t know that it was an actual place. She actually didn’t really believe it was, but she knew that there was some sort of opposing force out there working against the forces of good in this world, be it the spirit world or the physical one. Then again, Tenoko was not much for spirituality. She had little interest even in the avatar, or who he or she was. All she knew was that the avatar had vanished many years ago, and rumors were flying around about the return of the avatar. This did little to interest Tenoko, who often shrugged it off with apathy. Maybe her concepts of the spirit world and the avatar were misguided—she never really took the time to worry herself about it. She believed more in fate herself. She said nothing nevertheless.

Hinh snapped out of it only two seconds afterwards, putting a hand over the side of her face. "Ah... I apologize. I have no idea why I just stated this. It does not make much sense, I suppose, so we should proceed."

“That’s fine with me,” Tenoko shrugged. Once again, it was not her apathy, but just her go-with-the-flow attitude she usually had. She was curious, but she wasn’t nosy. Furthermore, walking without conversation was something that apparently both the waterbender and the earthbender were well-accustomed to, based on previous trips they had recently made together.

~Tenoko~

Random Forest, Camp

Shtiya made a fluid motion with one bandaged arm, smiling a little as the rest of the water pulled out of his clothes and up into the little pulsing ball. "D-don't worry," he said. "I'm d-—-ry now." Of course, he certainly didn't mind if Erikai wanted to go ahead and start the fire. A cup of tea would be really nice, and he wanted to make sure he had enough water heated to make an herbal tisane before going to sleep. The Waterbender had been feeling a bit nervous as of late, and he thought that taking some tisane before bed might help with that. He was also planning to make soup for their dinner, another thing that required heated water.

It interested him that Erikai wasn't good with offensive technique, either. "Are you h-—-oping to l-learn offensive bending in the North?" he asked, training icy eyes back on his pulsing ball of water. Really, he shouldn't have asked. Shtiya knew he couldn't carry on a conversation and focus on his heart rate at the same time. Letting out a soft puff of air, he focused on the ball again.

After just a moment, it became clear that his concentration was, in fact, completely ruined. Shtiya began just making little fluid shapes with it, fooling around. Now it was a spiky ball of ice, the next moment it became a little spinning ring. "W-w-w-what kind of p-practice did you have in m-—--ind?"

[OOC—whoops. Totally overlooked this post. Well, here’s something late anyways =P ]
Tenoko’s walk returned to its usual silence, with the only noise being made from her coming from her footfalls. Travelling in silence was nothing new for her. She still did not know where they were, but she also didn’t care. She furthermore figured that Hinh had an idea as to where they were, and so she did not let that bother her at all.

Time passed and the sun blazed through the sky. Tenoko simply kept walking occasionally taking a swig of water. Her mind had resumed wandering, and she was paying very little attention to where she was going. As long as there was that bright yellow of the priestess’ robes in front of her, she figured she hadn’t gotten lost. Considering that she could still see her companion, Tenoko’s fears of getting lost were nonexistent.

Her mind wandered back into the tales she just told, and the gratifying feeling she had for being able to tell them. She enjoyed sharing certain stories from her past—her most prominent exception was, of course her tragic times. Even looking back at how careless she had been with her husband before their marriage made her laugh at her teenaged stupidity. Even some of the most embarrassing moments of her life were always only embarrassing when they happened. They were almost always funny looking back at them.

And of course, Tenoko was not easily embarrassed, particularly in her later years. Even as a teenager, she had been a bit rebellious, and that attitude carried over to her present self.
These were just a few of the waterbender’s thoughts though. She was content with the wandering that both her mind and body were doing right now.

[OOC—Tenoko is not really thinking about the hill they are climbing, which is why I didn’t mention it]
~Tenoko~

Tenoko passed through the mountain range, still following Hinh, and remaining silent. She wouldn’t mind talking about something—even stories from her past would be interesting enough to break the silence. She may not have been keen on reliving the worse times of her life, but there were good times right along with the bad ones.
Tenoko’s mind was wandering back into past tales of her life, and she chuckled lightly to herself upon remembering how embarrassing she and her boyfriend had been. They would do all kinds of things together, trying to outdo each other all the time. Tenoko’s victories were always the dominant ones, and in fact became so notorious that many people in the Southern Water Tribe said that the phrase “getting beaten by a girl” did not apply if the girl was Tenoko. There had been fun times, sad times, happy times, dull times, embarrassing times, proud times, and everything else. All in all, however, they were good times. That was why Tenoko enjoyed reminiscing. She particularly enjoyed looking back to how careless and stupid she sometimes was as a teenager.
Some of her past stories made her wonder how drunk she had been when they happened, as even common sense would tell a person not to jump off an ice cliff into the frigid water below wearing nothing but one’s underthings. However, common sense was for people who weren’t careless teenagers. What a great philosophy.

These sorts of events had Tenoko giggling to herself periodically as they walked—not very loud, but audible nonetheless. Also of interest to the old hunter was the smell of food—smoked food—or so she thought. She couldn’t really figure out what it was. She was tempted to make a curious remark about it, but then again, scents in the wilderness should have been her forte. Maybe she should have gone into the wilderness on more occasions other than being drunk with a bunch of guys. Oh well—that was way behind her.

And yet After a minute or two of walking around, Hinh turned to Tenoko. "What do you think this is ?"
Tenoko paused and sniffed the air again, her prominent nose flaring with each sniff she made. She frowned. What was that smell?

“to be honest,” she replied, “I couldn’t say… though I’ve also been losing track of myself remembering old stories of mine, so I might not be thinking straight. It smells like someone’s cooking something to me… but I can’t tell what it is.”

She was also interested in finding out now, however.

~Tenoko~