Unlike the past where Kaede would visit his parents if he deemed himself fit to leave the island, he was requested - by that, meaning his sister popped in 'asking' him - to visit while. His sister, the earthbender, the successful child of the family who went off to learn how to metalbend to be a police officer, taking a bit after their father who had joined the navy to escape the north pole. When she asked for something, it was never something he could escape. No one understood his anxiety, much less his distaste for favoritism and his sister and even less his irrational fear of transportation. Boats, he hated them, but it was the only way across the waters back to shore unless he wanted to swim. The Avatar might be able to do that, but the frail boy was in no way capable of swimming that far.

The boat ride, as always, was unsettling, the uneasy rocking and the waves crashing against. His thoughts diverted from the distaste of his family to those blasted waves, thinking that the next wave could be larger than the last and able to push the ship onto it's side. No, he scolded himself. He had worked too hard and gotten too far to let a boat ride get to him. No, there were many more things to fear once he set foot on the land of the corrupted city. Not the most pleasing thought, but one that kept him from an anxiety attack whilst trapped on waters.

At his family's house - a place he no longer considered home - they ate a nice meal, something that two well-doing business owners would eat, and Kaede sat there in silence as they bragged about his sister's achievements. She even bent her necklace to show her improvement. No one asked him about his art or how he was cooping with his anxiety. He might as well have been invisible. He might as well be back on the island, though such absence would somehow be noticed. What distinction was there?

Afterwards, he said good bye to his family, insisting on walking back himself despite knowing it would scare him. All that was on his mind was getting away from his family. He didn't even care about getting back to the island so long as he was away.

It wasn't long before the boy lost his way in the city.

Before moving to the island to become an air acolyte, Kaede has constantly shut himself in, only leaving his room for school and exercise, never learning the city and it's streets. A knot welled up in his stomach and he picked up his pace, remembering the past when he would run block after block until he puked to keep his mind off his worries. Maybe he wouldn't do it to that extent, but it was better than slowly wandering around.

Half an hour later, he slowed his pace, wondering if he was moving away from the port as he should have run very far by now. Asking people was out of the question; one could never tell who had alternative motives. The sounds of the street overwhelmed his senses, hearing every voice, every word, every motor and every chant sneak it's way into his ears and conquered his mind. He stopped where he stood and knelled to the ground, bend over with his hands covering his ears. What could he do, what could he do?

From the corner of his eyes, a brilliant light blazed. Some people clapped and cheered, sounds that would have usually caused him duress, but the flames had occupied his thoughts. It had been... pretty. He tried to engrave the image in his mind, hoping he could paint it with watercolors the next day after his chores, hoping to recreate it's beauty.

It wasn't long before his trance was interrupted by the annoying sounds of Equalist members, or at least their supporters. He hated them. Utterly hated them. Those nonbenders gave people like him a bad reputation with everyone else. While cooped up on the island, it was never really a problem, Kaede was proud of who he was and didn't need people like them to ruin that image of a content, happy nonbender. He backtracked, turning around suddenly, topping inches away from someone. "Sorry,"

So many little gold jingling coins, amazing, her family was going to be on thanking her on their knees. A wide smile formed at the imaginary vision of her father and mother begging for their forgiveness and her little sister jealous beyond belief. Priceless. At the moment, despite the earlier remarks, Hamari was probably in one of the best moods you’ll ever see her in; all of her families problems, fixed! Cured! This is why she reacted to what happened next so well.

Her stare fixated on the money, even as she walked, and before you know it, she was day-dreaming while strolling across the streets. Hamari let out an ‘oomph,’ and with such a deep tone it went almost inaudible, as she collided with someone, it wasn’t too rough persay, but it startled her and an instant reaction was to say, “Sorry!" blending in perfect unison with Kaede. Her fiery eyes scanned him and instantly she started to feel something familiar about him, it was the water tribe outfit really, was it her sister?

“Sorry,” she heard him say again, regaining some posture and ‘man’ into his voice. Hamari tilted her head, he’s an interesting one. Noting that as she watched him rub the back of his head. She partly wondered if he was itching or something. He asked her if she didn’t mind helping out, and Hamari kind of giggled, how humbling of him, he went on to mention he needed to go to the docks. “I don’t ever mind helping anyone who needs it,” she started in a whimsical little rhythm, taking a more casual stance.

“You’re gonna want to go that way.” She motioned with her finger at a street running parallel with the Equalist rally. She frowned some, noticing that, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. “But, you might not wanna go that way, per say.” Make matters worse they weren’t standing in the safest of places right now. “Hey, I’ll take you through the backstreets,” Hamari said confidently, this city was easy travels for her and there was no way she could just leave him out here when something like this was going down. “We should run a little, c’mon!”

The young-woman broke off into a sprint, leaving nothing but dust in her path, vaulting over a bench and running straight for a curved lane. She ran for a second or two and stopped, bounced some and turned to see if Kaede was with her or not.

Whatever happens, her first comment, is more of a question, “You’re not from the main city, huh?” she asked, not even questioning if he is alright or not. She wasn’t being rude, she usually considered others were in good shape thanks to living around coal workers and steam factory fire-benders, “Water-tribe clothes like that are scarce sight around the city. Unless you live with me and my ma’ah.” She added and bounced a few times, and then her fiery energy mellow and she took a casual stance again.

Her eyes were the first things he noticed when he took a closer look at her face. He had never seen such a color before, especially not paired with someone who had such tanned skin (that of a water tribe, as he compared to his father). To think of it, he had never seen a firebending water tribe descendant. The idea of something seemed nearly impossible, the two elements so different from each other and their cultures as well. He decided to leave that thought alone, for the time being, so he could have something to meditate on back home, at the temple. Yeah, working on his troubles was time consuming, but it wasn't something he did day and night. Most of the time, on the island, his anxiety was low, leaving him little to work on.

He followed the direction of her finger, a twitch playing on the corner of his mouth as he noticed the Equalist rally. Idiots, he chided silently with a small spark of anger in his eyes as he looked at the supporters. What good would come from violence? More violence? And how was that a better way to achieve equality? There were so many flaws he could pick out in a few moments that he found it impossible that anyone would believe the spokesmen unless they were utterly senile and/or deranged. Chi-blocking, he could understand, but when were they going to draw the line? Instead of taking their bending, what if it got to the point where they just started to take lives?

"Thank you,"

To Hamari, the Equalists gambit has always been a growing terror in her shadow. Hamari was very sensitive to conflict; the idea that there are people out there happy to taking her bending away from her forever was terrifying to say the least. She’s heard the rumors, the stories, and the papers, the masked man, those dark piercing eyes gazing beneath a horrible visor of death and intimidation. Amon. And then, the rumors of people being abducted, some people simply vanishing. It made walking the streets a dangerous action, to say the least. Thanks to this, street gangs have been even more ruthless, attacking people indiscriminately. She’s been jumped by a group of cutthroats before, she was lucky to get out of it unscathed to be honest. She understood why Equalists were angry at some of the benders, because some of them deserved such anger. Some benders were cruel and destructive, and the Equalists were right to be angry at them.

“Actually uh, I am,” so, he was from the main city then? This made her tilt her head some, how could he live in the city but not know the city? You see, it was strange to Hamari because the part of town she was raised in was filled with backstreets, cross-turns, and dead-ends. She pondered hard on this; there were very few people who lived outside of the city and are still being considered part of it. The most obvious of this was the Air Temple island sanctuary in the middle of the bay. Wait, was she staring at an air-bender? No, if she remembered reading an editorial from a newspaper years ago, correctly, Tenzin had only bared one son, who was way too young to be this fellow before her. So no, he wasn’t an air bender… she should of guessed that by the clothes to be honest, but there’s always room to get excited! But as she remembers more of that newspaper, she remembered something…

Air Acolytes.

He mentioned that he didn’t spend a lot of time in the city, which only made her wonder if she was right. The article said that some people chose to live and preserve the peaceful monk-like lifestyle of the Air Temple Nomads in the Air Temple Island itself. She decided to keep her judgment of him private for a matter as something more pressing was being said. And of course, not in a bad way, it was very relevant to Hamari’s interest in fact; a fellow water-tribe member was always a lovely sight in her eyes. This was exciting; she was getting to know someone who seemed to be pretty interesting! Like really, he got his clothes tailored? No one does that around where she lives. “It’s always great meeting a fellow water-tribe member!” she started nodding exactly like her father, a couple little bobs here in there with a face showing her approval on the matter, “I’ve never seen personally tailored clothes, to be honest… not this close at least.” Hamari really wanted to touch them, see if the quality was any better.

"Er, so... yeah. Oh, what you did, back at that place before -you know- was pretty cool. But, if you don't mind me asking... You seem more water tribe-ish, yet you're a firebender?" Her eye’s shifted back to him as he started to speak, and upon hearing, ‘pretty cool.’ There was a residual red flush in that dark-toned skin around her cheeks. Her hands slid behind her back, head dipping shyly. “Well, it wasn’t so great.” She started to critique herself, “Too many mistakes and all you know, the small ones.” She was teetering with her fingers by the end of it. But she made a wide smile after; she was animated again, he explained his family life to her, and now she was going to return the favor. “I live in a pretty shaggy part of town. You’ll get lost quicker there than you did here.” She joked, though in a serious undertone, she found it funny; the two of them were from two completely different scales on the money-earned statistics. “I live with my mama, and papa, Mama was a water-tribe dancer, and papa is a firebender, but, everyone says he kind of sucks.”

No really, even people who are bad at fire-bending say Hamari’s father is absolutely horrid at fire-bending.

“But yeah, I was born with my mama’s looks and my papa’s bending. While my little sister, Mei’in, was born with my papa’s looks and my mama’s dancing.” She started to chuckle, “You probably think we’re the strangest family ever…” She joked some more and started to head her way down the street. “Everyone says I look strange, like a smoldering ash or something. Or the sun reflecting off of a dark ocean.” Her imagination was running vivid at this point. A glowing orb reflecting off the riveting waves around her, which would be amazing to see. There was a truthful happiness to her face as she strode, as in her mind she was seeing so much harmony at the moment. She didn’t mind the high buildings anymore or the shimmer of the sunset. It was rather tranquil actually; honestly so far her day has been absolutely perfect. She’s meeting who she might already consider to be a friend. He introduced himself too, Kaede, definitely water-tribish. She bowed her head and introduced herself.

“Hamari, it’s nice to meet you, Kaede.”

This was great, she wanted to take him home to her mother and father and watch them drool at how refined and humble he was. But first things first, she had to take him to the docks, which opened up a question of her own. Why was he going to the docks? Was he leaving somewhere? Hamari had to admit that it would have been rather unfortunate if she had to leave a friend she just met. “So, why are you heading to the docks?” she questioned inquisitively.

Kaede felt his steps grow awkward as she called him a fellow water tribesmen. By lineage, sure, but he would never call himself a member of any water tribe. He wouldn't even consider himself a Republic City citizen. It never felt like a place he could call home. The Air Temple, on the other hand, was just so peaceful, so serene, so simple it felt like home the first day he arrived. Well, after he threw up from the boat ride, it's swaying motion making him far too sick to keep his lunch. "Oh, yeah."

"I'm going back to the Air Temple. I was at a dinner with my family- my sis' was visiting from metalbending school, place, thing.” A couple things hit her all at once at this point. The first being he said he was going back to the Air Temple. “I knew it! Well, not that your sister metal-bends, but you know the air- temple thing…” she started off sounding rather confident in her assumption but slowly seemed to slack off, her face even showed how horrible that sounded as a statement, she tried to correct herself. “Well, not really the air-temple thing, I just had this idea in my head that your were an Acolyte of the Air Temple, or someone who works there at least.” She looked away, wondering if maybe she was sounding even sillier all of sudden. His answer to her question seriously opened up a plethora of quarries she wanted to throw at him; she was naturally curious about people and also inquisitive, so she isn’t the kind of person to be nervous about pursuing information or listening to others.

“Wow, the Air Temple.” She thought on it more as she shifted her weight back around and strolled down the street, her orange scale-textured dancing dress reflecting off the sun as they passed a clearing of city structures. “I mean, there must be so much to see there.” The vast incomprehensible ocean, the legendary air-benders, the Avatar… wait, did Kaede ever meet the Avatar? Oh, she wanted to ask him so bad, but that might come off strange to some. In fact she wondered if the Avatar has been stalked, on a more personal matter… well she could guess stalking was sort of a personal matter anyways, but that was beside the point! She wanted to ask about the metal-bending sister phrase too – but then kept quiet as she heard Kaede ask her another question. “Why were you dancing? Are you planning on dancing for a profession?" she sort of frowned actually, dancing was fun, but she wasn’t sure if it was her calling in life to be honest. “Well, I do it mostly to make money,” she started to explain as she reached for her bag of Yuans to make sure it was there.

“Work is closing down where I live, so I had to improvise.” That’s about as simple as it got, the steam-powered factories and the coal mines were closing down there production units. Until she found a master to teach her proper fire-bending, that’s all she could really do. “You said something about your sister training in metal-bending? She’s lucky.” Hamari responded and crossed her arms, “I want to join the police force…” she mumbled to herself, “I wanna catch criminals and stuff. But, I really have no idea how to fight.” She started to laugh a little after the final part. It was true she wanted to fight for and protect people, it was a burning passion in her, but she didn’t really have a warrior’s mind, no apparent signs of it anyways. Some might find it odd that she wants to pursue such a thing as a profession, but that’s only because they see her calmer nature half the time.

This girl was certainly an odd one, Kaede thought to himself in wonder. Sure, he talked a bit to girls when he was in school and listened to their conversations, but they usually talked about boys and clothes. Even if he wanted to talk to them or anything, he had no idea what he would talk to them about. Well, he did have one friend, but they only knew each other for a short time before she moved and his anxiety developed. She had been nice to be around, but perhaps that was simply due to the fact they had both been so young. "It's quite alright,"

What Kaede said next made Hamari giggle and as she walked beside him, her eyes inspected him a little; taking in some more of his details. So far, he was rather calm around her, or so she felt. His aura seems comfortable and she also noted he seemed a little younger than her. His family seemed successful, by the make of his attire, and he was overall very polite and humble. “You’re pretty cool, Kaede.” She admitted with a smirk on her face and bounced a little as she did a leap into the sunlight. Sometimes she got into dancing moods, so she’d perform little sprits of movements every here and then. But whenever she stopped, she start walking in the directions needed, and not long one could even hear the sway of the ocean waves in the distance.

At the moment though, Kaede seemed distracted, or he seemed kind of dazed; his reaction to her question sort of gave the notion he was tired or something. Hamari was starting to wonder if she was right…. But no, he went to explain his sister, and she was actually rather surprised by what she heard. She really had to think about it for a moment, what if felt like to be in a family where the sister sets her goals by an innate ability no one in her family has and everyone else was younger than her too… then she thought about it and it was starting to sound a little like her own life … it felt really complex, and Hamari could honestly understand if Kaede didn’t want to speak much on it. By the content of what he said, there was a bit of self-pity in her eyes for a moment.

And then she was being asked a question, and the young woman brightened up some. “I’d do almost anything to be in the force, to fight alongside the metal-benders.” Hamari admitted dutifully as she remembered the first time she saw them, “A few years ago, I got jumped by a bunch of water-bending thugs, they probably would have killed me…” she flashed-backed to the pike-shaped ice rod being pointed to her neck and the head-thug threatening to skewer her; and she shuttered some. “Then the Republic Police jumped from the shadows and just started kicking their butts.” And she meant that most literally, several butts were kicked that day, the police had to be proud of it.

“Ever since, I just wished I could do that, I’m tired of seeing my home being walked on by gangsters and criminals.” She frowned again, and some of that energy she gathered was withering again. Her little sister had to walk through too school with all these horrible people walking the streets. Where she lived, nowhere felt safe anymore, especially with the Equalists and their damned petitions.

She was still walking, but there was an obvious anger or disappointment in her gaze, Hamari had been stressing about things before the dance and finally they seemed to be catching up with her. “But, I can’t even fight, not even a little bit.” She admitted, “All I can do is fancy fire-dancing and how is that gonna be useful in a fight?” she sighed, “Nevermind me, I’m just ranting.” Hamari added shrewdly, and then sighed and looked toward the ocean, the port wasn’t too far now, maybe another fifteen or so minutes.

H-he was... cool? If he could have even managed to say something, he had no idea what he could say in response to that. He rarely received compliments unless it was about his art or his work in the gardens, but never about himself. So all he could do was walk along side the girl, his mouth open ajar from embarrassment. Thankfully, Hamari began to talk in response to his question, leaving him to contemplate himself in silence, nodding here and there to show he was listening though only every other word managed to get past his worries and through to him.

"Sounds scary,"

She was happy he could understand, most people tried to play it off like it was nothing, but that ordeal had definitely terrified her, a fear she hoped to get over by learning bending properly and knowing she can defend herself. Memories of the day still flashed at her sometimes, surrounded by thuggish highlanders. The leader; tall, gaunt, a look of cruelty and emptiness in that gaze of his, glaring down at her with an ill smile on his face. She was certain that fellow had hurt and killed many other’s before her. There was no hesitation in him, not a single bit of mercy.

Hamari recalled those words he growled right before pulling snow off the roofs and condensing into a large spike the length of a small sword. “I’m gonna have fun piking you through the neck…”

She broke from her daze as Kaede mentioned not being much of a talker and then suggesting that she find a teacher and then asking if she knew any fire benders in particular, “Its alright, I normally like to listen, myself. I just, don’t know why, but I felt like talking a lot today.” She sounded a bit confused; it was probably because she was excited about everything that happened today. “And well…” She started, and then looked away with a guilty expression, that or a pitiful one. “A lot of masters don’t really want to train me.”

It seemed strange from another persons ears as classes seemed to pop up all the time for the respectable student wishing to learn. But Hamari was poor, she didn’t have much to her name, and even worse was her credibility. “My father is kind of, well, really bad at firebending.” It was to the point that it was confusing, how does one be ‘bad’ at firebending. Other than the fact that he has trouble producing flames, Hamari’s father has never won any form of fight or competition with his bending. Some would say that it is a lack of effort, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

“And a lot masters don’t really like him around where I live, so they turn me away. That or I don’t have the money.” She relaxed some and thought about it. “I don’t know many other fire-benders who can teach me.” It was strange that she didn’t know any other firebenders either; she swore most of them were too busy laughing at her fancy fire.

Kaede was glad she was in a talking mood today, even if it wasn't something she did a lot. If she hadn't decided to their walk to the docks would be rather awkward and somewhat frightening for the boy. Not frightening in a way of "Oh spirits, she's going to lead me into a trap and kill me, or worse", but rather a "Wow, she's really pretty, but now that I think that, I'll probably start acting weird and she'll laugh at me" kind of way. His anxiety did that, making a mess of every single unpleasant thing in his life and a few pleasant ones, too. Getting through these thoughts just meant ignoring them as he had little to prevent them, but even then it was hard to shake things off when all was silent.

"I bet there's someone out there that needs a bit of money. Have you ever checked the people at the electricity plant?"