"It's a pleasure to meet you, Riku," Reina replied.She then turned to Ao and gave a warm smile. "A pleasure to meet you as well." As Riku began to talk about healing Reina noticed a spark of fascination in his eyes. Nobody had ever seemed that enthused, or apprehensive when she offered her healing abilities. A slight smile played on Reina's lips as she searched his eyes. He seemed to have a genuine appreciation for the intricacies and the personal element involved in the healing arts. "My parents sent me to the Northern Water Tribe for a while to learn healing arts," she stated in a measured and smooth voice . "I have professional level training. It would only take a moment, but we can wait until you're done with your meal." As Reina said this her mind drifted back to her order and her stomach rumbled. She blushed a little.

As the waitress brought her food out Reina gave her a quick nod to set it down. "I should get to my meal, but perhaps we could talk after? You seem interesting," Reina stated with a tone of eagerness. She was still fascinated by his eyes. He was definitely a waterbender but there was no telling where he was from. What if he was like the swampbenders her mother had told her about? No. Of course not. Or was he? She was trying not to let herself get swept away in some old fairy tales that she used to hear. For all she knew he was just of mixed heritage and inherited a different eye color.  

“Likewise,” replied Ao to Reina as he gave a light nod towards her. Continuing to stay silent while the two were talking, Ao couldn't help but feel silly. His plan of bringing a ‘boat’ over worked. Although uncertain, Ao couldn't help but feel the two were attracted to one another. It made sense, since they were looking into each other’s eyes for an awfully long time. “I’m sure Riku won’t mind if you join us, in fact – I’m pretty sure he’s more than inclined to let you join us.” Ao said with a sly smirk on his face. “There’s more than enough space for three, I’d say.” Turning to face Riku, Ao asked, “Wouldn’t you agree?” Suppressing a chuckle, Ao awaiting for a response from Riku.

It's rude to stare
The voice of Rini's mother rattled in her head, but she couldn't help it what was going on at the nearby table was very interesting and so she now had a vested interest in what was going on.

So, it seemed that other girl had spilled water at the person with the weird eyes who was actually a waterbender so she could find out who or what he was, and his name was Riku and he seemed to ramble a lot and it seemed like he didn't really know what was going on and the other stranger hadn't really reveled anything about himself, but he seemed to like talking a lot though.


But she also realised there was a pretty good chance she wasn't being subtle with her looking, it wasn't her forte. And so she adjusted how she was sitting so it wasn't that obvious, or she hoped so as she tried to look nonchalant and managed not to knock over anything or her chair make a horrible screeching sound that would've otherwise alerted them to her presence but then she had a feeling they probably knew she was there, wasn't exactly a big resturant.

Reina gave a large smile to Ao and Riku's invitation. "Of course! I'd love to join you," She said as she turned to grab her food. As she was walking back to her table she noticed that Riku was talking to the young girl that ad been observing them. The more the merrier right? It would also be nice to get to talk to another girl in Republic City. Reina had felt like she had only met men since she had been here. She also noticed that Ao seemed to be trying to set Riku up with a date since he was all too eager to have him invite over a few ladies.

As Reina brought her plate and tea over to their table she began to think about how she would find out more about the two men. They seemed to be an odd set of companions. Ao also seemed to be the more perceptive of the two, which may mean that he had already figured out that Reina wanted to know more about Riku's bending and who he was. She sat her plates down and waited for Riku and the girl to come over to the table before sitting down herself. She looked from them to Ao and wondered how she would broach the subject of Riku's eyes and his bending.

Reina then looked back to Riku and gave a warm smile. "I don't know if any flowers would grow there, but it'd be fun to find out," She replied as her mind drifted back to life in the Northern Water Tribe. That place was cold, literally and emotionally. She had hated staying there with her aunt and uncle. She briefly shuttered at the thought before snapping back into the present. She didn't intend to ever live there again. For now she would enjoy her meal with some strangers and find out exactly where Riku was from. 

Oh no... Was Rini's first thought on the stranger who she knew was called Riku turning to her as she was expecting to get told off for her nosiness.
So when it turned out he made the offer of letting her join their table (in a rather longwinded and rambling way, but still he got the point across) she was somewhat suprised.
She also realised she had actually paused after he said that, and probably for a bit too long. She blinked and then smiled, "Thank you very much, I'd like that" She tried to sound somewhat more polite than she usually did, it wasn't that she made a habit of being rude but sometimes she did it by accident and she knew she sometimes had problems picking up on how people acted and she hoped nothing like that happened with these new people.

She stood up and carefully picked up her plates from the table and walked over, she stopped and smiled, "My name is Dharini, or urm most people call me Rini," she said before she went to the spare seat on the table.

She hoped though that if her uncle did make an apperance he'd be able to find her easily enough, but then it really did seem as if he wasn't showing up so she'd make the most of meeting these new people.

“Well, what a gathering we have here today.” Ao said with a faint smile on his face. “Nice to meet you Rini, my name’s Ao.” Looking down onto the empty space on the table in front of him, Ao curiously peered around in search of a waiter bringing his meal over. Good news and bad news – it looked as if a male individual was carrying two sliced pieces of cactuses over, but unfortunately his roasted duck did not appear to be ready yet. Shrugging, Ao turned his head to face Riku and said, “Looks like our drinks are ready, hopefully the juice will be worth the yuan.”


As the waiter neared the table and placed the two drinks onto the table, Ao looked down to avoid eye contact and thought to himself, “Hopefully he won’t mind the addition of two seats at this table…”

Reina gingerly sat down and moved her plates in front of her. "I've only been in Republic City for about two weeks," She replied before taking a bite of her roast duck. "I'm still looking for a job and getting settled in." Reina couldn't help but feel a little self conscious about being so new to the city. "I grew up in the Southern Water Tribe and trained with the warriors there after I learned about the healing arts in the North," She added. Reina continued to eat her duck and was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. She had never had Earth Kingdom cuisine before. She thought that it would taste bland, or like dirt. Reina looked over at Rini and waited for her to answer Riku before she would start asking him about his life. Maybe she could find out why his eyes were black this way.

Only two weeks? Rini thought as she heard Reina speak, she remembered how she felt when she'd just come to the City and how daunting it was although of course in her case she had family to stay with which had made the whole process a lot easier. "Southern Water Tribe? My grandfather came from there, or well his parents did, he's mostly been in the city."

Rini smiled before she spoke, abesent mindily stirring her noodles, they smelt really good and she hoped they'd taste good as well. "I've been here about... two years. I moved down here from one of the trading hubs to live with my uncle so I could learn to earthbend properly..." She paused, "Maybe you've seen him? He's really into probending and he trains people part time, he's a pretty big guy." (And she avoided the urge to state that she was meant to be here with him now)

She was still finding it quite hard to not blurt out at Riku about his eyes.