An airship ducked out of the sky and into the mountains around the Western air temple with the warped black figure of a dark spirit sweeping across the sky behind them. The chaotically assembling and disassembling spots of light that were the spirits eyes slowly began to focus on the airship. The Western air temple had seen better days, even the most dedicated acolytes didn't often brave upside down, rain slicked roof tiles in near total darkness. But as a singular ping on the airship's instruments it was more than sufficient to lift their spirits.

"This is Major Jun of the United forces airship Jongmu 12 requesting immediate assistance, I repeat immediate assistance." The airship's captain, a pudgy man with a receding hairline and thick mutton-chops pleaded into their radio set, about the only thing still working at this point. "We've lost an engine and we have a spirit on our six, we need immediate assistance." He yelled as a sizzling blast of emerald energy shot past them and blew the top off of a lesser mountain. For a moment it looked as if there was daylight in the world as the mountain top split apart in a dazzling blast of light that streamed in through the armoured shutters around the gondola windows.

"Roger, Jongmu, we're scrambling all available aircraft, disengage from our landing trajectory and rendezvous at co-ordinates Alpha six-eight-six."

"Negative, Control, we have lost our primary control surfaces and we are leaking fuel." Jun protested into the microphone.

"Can you find a place to put down, we'll send a rescue party." The controller said, his voice crackling over the radio.

Jun looked to his sensor officer, busily looking over her instrumentation for any sign of a landing zone in the jagged mountains. With an absolutely terrified look on her face she shook her head.

Jun took a deep breath and spoke into the microphone again. "Negative, Control. We can't find anything."

The radio was still going, as the slight crackling and the sound of commotion around the Controller repeated vaguely through the cramped cabin of the Jongmu.

"I'm sorry." The controller said hesitantly, his voice dripping with shame. To Jun it sounded like a death sentence. "We can't render assistance. I'm sorry." The Controller went quiet.

The gondola juddered into a grave silence after the radio cut out. No one was speaking and the other engine had finally spluttered out. Only the gentle noise of wind whipping past the windows and the sound of their own breathing remained. Jun took a shuddering breath and turned to face his crew five faces, grubby weather-beaten and fearful looked at him. "It has been an honour serving with you all."

Before the news could really settle in the bright green light of the spirit shone through the rear windows, its clusters of eyes had formed into a spiralling spiders web around one great glowing maw that crackled and spluttered with exotic energy. There was a bright light and then the airship was ripped apart.

A chorus of short sharp screams and the booming crackle of the spirit's beam searing through the airship sounded throughout the control room at the top of the temple before the radio went quiet. There was a mournful silence in the cramped little room for a moment. Only the constant clicking and whirring of the kitbashed equipment kept it from being a total silence.

"How many people were on the Jongmu?" General Iroh asked from his desk in the middle of the room.

"Six. According to the flight plan they filed." One of the lower officers reported.

"Commander Rhee, see to the paperwork, I have a meeting to attend." He said simply as he left for the door.

He walked down the twisting steps of the spiral staircase. There was a large void down the middle that airbenders used to glide down in a hurry and its walls were adorned with propaganda posters and landscape paintings of happier days now. Iroh tried and again failed to imagine the air temples as they were hundreds of years ago, filled with life and the stories of worldly nomads. Today it was a dreary place. Every possible opening had been covered over with shutters and tarps to keep any light from escaping and attracting marauding spirits. A rough network of lights and candles produced as much light as they could, but even so there were long shadows and dark spots everywhere. It reminded Iroh of winter mornings as a child, getting up before the sun and wandering around in the warm, dim light they had set up.

The wide, airy corridors were filled with refugees and off duty personnel, and the air was always dank with sweat or worse. They were stood around chatting or in the case of the small children that ran between the legs of their elders playing on their days off of school. Between them air acolytes went about keeping the temple clean. Whilst they understood the need to harbour whoever they could, as any good air-nomad should they also abhorred the mess that so many people inevitably caused.

Two guards were stood outside of what had, at one point been the meeting chamber for the elders of the temple, but which was now the Spiritual Sciences Research Group's main laboratory. In the middle of the room was a large table with a variety of maps, graphs and reports stacked high around the table. Taking up the back wall was a massive map of the world and the few remaining settlements highlighted with little pins. It was shockingly few. The Air Temples, The Foggy Swamp, Omashu, Zaofu, Ba Sing Se as well as The Fire Nation capitol which was just hanging on. There were a few scattered military bases and holdouts hidden away in far off places but most of the cities from before Harmonic Convergence were ruined or abandoned. The rest of the room consisted of scientific and technical equipment from chemistry sets to large clicking mechanical calculators. Chalkboards and graphs dotted the walls as well as a small shrine plastered over with photos of those long gone. Another wall was taken up by a wall of windows, perhaps the only uncovered windows in the temple, beside the galleries. Akir had given them the design to fit in their watchtowers and airships. It was one way glass, keeping their light in and without blocking a view of the outside.

"Ah general Iroh, good to see you." A White Lotus member named Akir said as he strode towards the slightly older general. He was medium height and rather skinny with sharp features and jet black, wavy hair. His most distinguishing feature was a shiny platinum eyepatch strapped over his left eye. Unlike the scientists and gurus that worked beneath him in white lab coats and colourful robes respectively he was dressed in traditional lotus garb, although he neglected to wear the cape and mantle for convenience's sake. At his side, as always was his sword. Though Iroh had never seen him draw the short thin sabre he had seen its gaudy hilt made of rosewood and stag-bear horn as well as a platinum tsuba decorated with a lotus pattern. He wore a long matching dagger next to it as well. His face was gaunt and birdlike with a pointed nose and high pockmarked cheeks as well as a proudly tended goatee to disguise a weak chin.

"Not so good we just lost the Jongmu." He answered sombrely. Everyone in the room dipped their head in silence for a moment.

"How many were on-board?" Akir asked politely. As he walked over to the laboratory's medicine cabinet and pulled out was clearly a bottle of sugar wine.

"Six, including the captain." Iroh answered.

"Did you know the captain?" Akir asked, pouring the wine into two ceramic cups. He handed one to Iroh from across the wide table, floating the earthenware across the wide table with his bending, without spilling a drop.

"Major Jun, not well but I never received a complaint against him and his scouting reports were always very thorough." Iroh said, looking down into the dull green liquid. "He always dodged the Officers parties, preferred staying with his kids I'm told."

"To Major Jun then. May he find greater fortune in the next life." Akir answered warmly as he swallowed the stiff, bittersweet drink.

"To Major Jun." Iroh returned before taking his own drink. He pulled a bit of a face as it went down. Iroh possessed many talents but holding his liquor wasn't really one of them. "Can you give me a run down on your projects, I need something to tell the War Council." He added briskly.

"Well, the experimental bending group is working on a way to alter the state of matter without changing the temperature, If we can perfect it and teach it to other benders we could pour rock like pudding and make basic constructs in minutes." He answered. "And we've come up with schematics for a smaller and more efficient lightningbending generator as well as metal bending dynamos."

"And what about your personal project?" Iroh asked, half hopeful and half defeated after asking so many times. "Are you any closer to finding the new Avatar?"

"No results yet." Akir answered frankly. "I think we should expand testing to Fire-Nation children as well. I hate to be morbid but there aren't a lot of us left, it's conceivable that an Avatar died before we could evacuate." Akir said calmly.

"How do we even know there is an Avatar anymore." Iroh asked. The other scientists stopped what they were doing and looked to Akir for a moment.

"According to Commander Mako Avatar Korra was able to reintegrate the Raava spirit before she made her last stand. If she didn't die in the Avatar State there should still be an Avatar out there."

"Well that'll be interesting to tell President Raiko." He answered with a hint of sarcasm.

"I suppose my expedition is out of the picture then?" Akir asked politely.

"I've looked over your proposal. If you can get the people and equipment yourselves I'll authorise it but I can't justify giving over that many assets for a mission this likely to fail." Iroh answered regretfully.

"Hey I don't intend on dying out there you know." Akir retorted, deflated.

"Nor did Major Jun, that's still the second airship we've lost this month."

"Can you get me funding at least, I can hire a ship and a few mercenaries if I have to." Akir pleaded.

"Fine, but the council will want results." Iroh huffed, before he walked out.

That night Akir was nearly asleep in his quarters, a repurposed attic above the laboratory. As the senior researcher he was treated to some fairly large quarters. A comfortable bed with silken sheets sat in the middle. He had a desk with a type-writer and a few mismatched chairs. There was a large bookshelf that took up the gap between the door and the corner. The walls were decorated with the rarest and most precious parts of his artefact collection or at least whatever he could get onto the airship when they left for here. He made sure there were no lights on to be seen before he pulled back the thick blackout curtains and looked to the outside. In the permanent twilight that covered the world the spirit lights shone in various colours across the sky. Beyond them were thousands of stars and the moon which gave its meagre light to the Earth still. He dreamt of running out of the temple and exploring as he used to, but it was a different world and not one in desperate need of explorers. Or so it thought. He returned to bed and slowly fell asleep as the sound of the nightshift continued all around him.

The next day he was up and about. Professor Seok was running the lab for the time being, giving him the chance to organise his expedition. He was heading down to the attic in the lower levels. It was those facts of life that accompanied living in an upside down monastery that he quite enjoyed. People stood around the attics every morning to see the airships come in. In the twilight of the brief few ours that counted as day many people made the special effort of going down just to soak up the sun and look at the beautiful valley they found themselves in. Akir found it incredibly humbling to look at the massive void of the air temple valley in all directions.

The roofs and forums, now repurposed into airship docks were hives of activity around midday. Most airship captains preferred to launch or land during the daylight hour to make it easier to come in for landing. Every day the airship crews would pile into their gondolas, seen off by their families. At other berths airships would come from far and wide carrying much needed supplies and equipment, or local patrols would return. Or sometimes they wouldn't return, every now and then a welcome home party turned into an impromptu funeral. The families of the Jongmu were holding their own funeral at the edge of the docks. Rather than traditional lanterns small kites inscribed with the name of their lost loved ones were released into the twisting winds of the valleys and swept off to greener pastures.

Akir dodged through the bustling crowd, he was looking for the best non-military blimp he could find. The wide squat, metal-clad flying tanks of the Earth Kingdom, the heavily armed fire nation gunships and the last remnants of the water tribe's air-fleet were present in the faded blue balloons of their small speedy long rage scouts. He knew better than to waste his time trying to get one of them to sign on with him. There were also tattered old airships, some massive skyliners ferrying tons of cargo and troops whilst others were dinky little skiffs that remained independent only because the United Forces didn't want to buy them off the owners. He searched for one that wasn't too old, too large or too damaged to handle the rigours of his expedition.

He found it in a most unusual airship. It was built around a fourty meter long, wide and slightly flattened rigid envelope made of some sort of shiny black material that glistened slightly in the weak light. It had a wide squat gondola slung beneath it made of, lightweight and sturdy aviation wood reinforced with strips and girders of platinum, all of it painted the dark blue/black of the night-time sky with a wide, glass bubble cockpit sitting at the prow of the airship covered over with metal shutters until only a few strips of smoky glass were visible from the outside. Unusually large double wings sprouting from the side of the gondola held absolutely enormous turboprop engines, a full ten metres long parallel to the airship's hull just far enough away that its propellers wouldn't shear into the airship's hull. On its underside it held three short stubby rudders and one large fin on the top. Stencilled on its side, just ahead of a decal of a biting dragon was the ship's name. Hanapin.

He walked up to it eagerly and knocked on the door. Almost immediately a gust of air blew the door open and nearly knocked him off the edge of the dock. He knew there was a safety net waiting below, he'd gone off before. Of course last time he fell off he landed wrong and broke his toes.

"You can't take this one damn you, I built it it's my bloody property." An earth kingdom airbender said as she leapt out on a buffeting cushion of air and landed as light as a feather. The crowd on the dock had formed a gawking, tittering mass. In the bold indigo and bright white of his vestments he always stood out, and a few always watched a member of the Order intently. Needless to say, watching one fall end over end like a twig in the wind was just the burst of comedy this place needed more of.

"I'm not trying to take your airship I want to hire you for an expedition." He answered. As he rolled onto his feet and stood up with a practiced, cat-like precision.

"Oh, well, sorry fella, officials like you usually take one look at my baby and decide they want her all to themselves." She answered cockily.

She carried herself with a poised confidence, typical of most of the airbenders Akirhad met. Like a lot of new airbenders, those empowered after Harmonic convergence she had chosen not to join with the nomads, as attested by her lack of an arrow. She was dressed in a dull red double breasted jumpsuit over a thin grey jumper. She had mousy brown hair with very short pigtails and a pair of goggles acting as a headband.

"I am Science Commander, Master Akir of the Order of the White Lotus, Chief Spiritual Sciences Researcher of the western air temple and the last Swordsman of the Si Wong Desert." He said with an air of pompous posterity as he straightened his vestments, trying to restore his bruised ego in front of the ad hoc audience. "Who are you?"

"Captain Nehal, what's this about money." She answered much more bluntly.

"I won't lie to you, it'll be a long journey and the odds of survival are so low the only reason I'm hiring you I because the military don't want to lose their assets." Akir answered truthfully, perhaps a bit nervously.

"But the pay's good right." Nehal asked, apparently unfazed.

Akir reached into a pocket on his sash and pulled out an official looking piece of paper and handed it to her.

"That is a government officiated contract for a hundred thousand yuans upon our return." He then took out a fold of bold red yuans from his opposite pocket. "And here's ten thousand as a down payment." He added.

"The government's prepared to pay out all of this." She answered incredulously.

"Like I said, the government doesn't expect us to survive the journey, as far as they're concerned they don't think you'll be alive to cash in. I'm rather hoping we will, mind you." He said, absent minded stroking the pointed beard around his chin.

"And what is it we'll be doing that's so likely to get us killed then?" She asked as she sat down on the rim of the Hanapin's open bulkhead.

"We'll be going into the Spirit Wilds." He answered with an air of drama.

"Most airships have gone through there." She answered unimpressed. "Scavenger teams, scouting missions, just taking a shortcut, there isn't an airship captain alive who hasn't braved it."

"I imagine there are quite a few captains who aren't alive precisely because they braved it." He answered sharply. "And we aren't just skirting the borders, as high up as your ship will go. We're going to make landfall in some of the most heavily infested areas in the world." He added almost menacingly, with a building apprehension in his voice. "The Bhanti temple, Ba Sing Se University, the Republic City University and the Library of Wan Shi Tong." He listed, deepening direly on the last name.

Nehal gulped heavily. She weighed the stack of yuans in her hand. "Well we all say we'll get rich or die trying, when do we ship out."

"I'll need a few mercenaries for security and I'd like to load some gear onto your bird." He said patting the Hanapin's hull.

"Don't call it that." Nehal answered deadpan. "I'm not letting anyone on this ship without meeting them first." She said before she walked off towards the bowels of the temple.

"Where are you going?" Akir yelled, weaving through the crowd after her.

"We're finding your mercenaries, aren't we?" She asked with a self-amused grin.

"And where are we going to find them here?" Akir asked as he tried to keep pace with her.

"There's a bar in the middle of the city, a lot of scavangers and mercenaries hang out there." She answered. "And why are we going into spirit central anyway?"

"That's confidential, I'll tell you when we're in a secure location." He shouted uncertainly to be heard over the chatter of groups around him. A few looked up to a Lotus shouting about confidential things. "And why haven't I heard anything about this merc hotspot?"

"Because not everything in here complies with martial law and you're part of the government." She answered simply.

They reached the rear of the temple, near the massive stone and metal anchors that held the temple onto the mountain. Built in an old storage chamber under one such anchor was this bar.

A thick metal door presented itself, it was sturdy and well made, even after centuries of use it seemed no less hardy and no less able to keep people out. Until Akir flicked open the lock with a precise application of metal bending. He pushed the heavy slab of a door out of the way and walked into a rather charming bar, in a scummy, decrepit kind of way.

Immediately a rather stout man with a long moustache and scrunched up piggish face moved to bar their entrance.

"What are you doing here, flower man." He said mockingly, there was a small chuckle from the crowd behind him.

"What business is it of yours?" Akir returned, less amused. He edged right into the thuggish guard's personal space with a grim snarl on his face. Just to aggravate the much larger man he flicked his chest.

Naturally the bouncer pressed back breathing fire from his nostrils, forcing the small and slight Akir to back pedal away. "It's my business because you aint getting in without my say so." The bouncer bellowed. Akir gave him a smug look and then weaved past him through the open door, Nehal squeaked through a second later. She blew the door shut with a sharp breeze and Akir set the locks, leaving the bouncer outside.

"Are you feeling clever about that?" Nehal asked mischievously.

"Just a tad." He grinned back.

The interior of the club was a dark, dingy, poorly ventilated room. Low, wide tables made from old cable spools filled the floor whilst old aribender storage vases served as chairs. There was a bar made from earthbent stone at the back of room with a fairly impressive stock of drink locked up behind a messily fitted locker with wire grid doors. Hanging from the roof, between old vents was a series of electric lights, evidently the work of a few bribed workmen. A rather distressingly large number of United Forces red coats stuck out in the crowd of people. As well as a white lab coat.

"Doctor Kumul?" Akir gasped in surprise as he saw one of his understudies sat between a water tribe warrior and a smuggler of indeterminate nationality. Before the put upon doctor could answer the bartender pulled a rather large crossbow from under the counter. Akir went to loosen a bolt on the weapon and found that it was made entirely out of wood and shaped bone. The Arrow was made of sharpened bone. It appeared someone was very much prepared to fight a metal bender.

"What are you here for, Lotus, you've got no right to barge into my establishment, I'm a taxpaying, law abiding proprietor." He yelled.

Akir stammered something for a moment before Nehal nudged him in the back. "Say something explorer boy." She whispered.

"First off, you're threatening me with a crossbow, so no, you're not law abiding." Akir answered wryly. "Second I'm actually here to hire mercenaries for an expedition." He added shifting under the gaze of so many harsh looking faces. At the mention of a job quite a few gave him their undivided attention, watching him with hungry eyes.

"What's the pay!?" A fire nation privateer asked.

"I have a pay slip from the United Forces, five hundred thousand Yuans for everyone who signs on, plus ten thousand up front." He proclaimed. There was a mighty clamouring, enough to drown out the bartender's protests until he just gave up and put away his crossbow.

"What are we doing for this payday?" Asked a water tribe mercenary with a massive withering burn up one half of his face.

"I'm not going to lie to you we'll be going to Republic City and the Spirit Library amongst other places. The conditions will be horrible, you'll have to do a lot of travel and we might all die before we can cash in. But if we do succeed not only will we be rich but we might just turn back ten thousand years of darkness and return the world to balance." Quite a few just huffed and dismissed him as a madman looking to get himself killed.

"What do we do now?" Akir whispered back to Nehal.

"We'll sit down, anyone who wants to join on will come to us." She answered.

They picked a table about as far from the bartender as they could find. For about a quarter hour they sat alone, avoiding odd looks from the neighbouring tables.

The first to approach was a rather strange man. His head was shaved hairless aside from a long topknot. He wore smoky black goggles over his eyes and he had red tattoos on his cheek. His ears were heavily pierced with onyx black studs in his earlobes and silvery piercings through the cartilage. He was dressed in a grey double breasted jacket with no sleeves and a light red gorget which matched his gauntlets and his dull crimson shendyt which hung over spice brown trousers. The exceedingly tidy man approached them with an icy, almost illustrious calm. He didn't barge through the crowds of people nor did he weave through them like Akir. Instead he simply found a way to be where they weren't.

"My name is Zhu-Rong." He said, simply taking a seat without hesitation.

"Um…Hello, Zhu-Rong, tell us about yourself." Nehal asked, slightly offput. The chiselled features of Zhu-Rong's face betrayed no emotion or sensation, it was really only the fact that his lips moved when he spoke that suggested he could even move his face. His voice was deep and guttural, groaning slightly as he spoke with an almost commanding tone.

"I am a master of Dancing Dragon firebending, I can lightningbend and I possess years of mercenary experience." He responded with exactly measured tones.

"I say, you're a Sun-Warrior aren't you?" Akir asked excitedly. "Avatar Aang told us you were still alive but we haven't heard anything about you since harmonic convergence."

"The Eternal Flame still burns and the Dark Spirits do not dare attack our city while it does." He responded as soon as Akir finished.

"So why are you out here, if your people are safe?" Nehal asked sceptically, looking back at her reflection in his goggles.

"Because the Eternal Flame is weakening. Slowly, but it is weakening. It might hold out for another ten generations but in ten thousand years of darkness that would still mean the end of my people." Zhu-Rong answered. "I have been trying to gather support for a mission like yours, if you believe you can end it then I must try to make that happen."

"I'm convinced, you're hired." Akir answered. "Here's your down payment." Akir said as he pulled out a stack of Yuans.

"No." Zhu-Rong put his hand up. "I don't need your money. I do this for my people."

"You are just the best!" Akir exclaimed. Nehal looked on, suspicious.

The next to come to them was a rather tall and muscular woman from a few tables over. She pulled away from a teenage girl in dull, neutral coloured clothes. This woman herself was dressed in a short, sleeveless Cheongsam of thick emerald silk with a pair of hard wearing cargo trousers tucked into leather gaiters and hard wearing hobnail boots. She had a pair of fans tucked into her sash as well as a sword in a rosewood saya. A great many pockets and pouches hung from a belt tucked into her sash. The most distinctive feature she bore was an ornate golden headdress attatched to her long brown hair tied and pinned into a slightly ornate bun.

She bowed before them. "My name is Mari. May I have a seat?" She asked politely.

"You're hired." Akir responded, apparently a non sequitur. Mari just looked at him dumbfounded.

Nehal looked at him for a moment full of doubt. "Akir, seriously ask at least one question or something."

"Are you a Kyoshi Warrior?" Akir asked with a slightly wry smile.

"I am."

"That's all I need to hear."

"Actually I need to negotiate pay." She said as she took her seat.

"Knew it." Nehal said before she took a sip of her hip flask.

Mari waved the smaller girl over. She was dressed in neutral hues of brown and grey as well as faded green. Her clothes were inelegant workman's wear, a size too big for her and made of hard wearing, not particularly comfortable fabrics like canvas and boiled leather but they were sturdy, warm and clean. More than many these days. She was like the elder Mari, whilst she too was tall she was lanky and awkward, swaddled in oversized clothing and trying not to stare at Akir' shining eyepatch. She was a brunette with tan skin, much like Mari though her eyes were a bright blue as opposed to Mari's green and she had a shorter squarer nose and long hair covered by cloth to make it easier to look after. "Hello, Sir." She squeaked awkwardly, looking down at the dusty floor.

"This is my niece, Comet. Her parents didn't make it onto an evacuation ship. I need to know that I can be paid posthumously." She asked earnestly before her voice took on a more serious and steely tone. "I overheard you talking with your firebender guy, if he doesn't need to get paid we're having his share."

"If you have a child to protect why would you take a job like this?" Akir asked. Mari's distorted reflection looked back at her in his eye-patch.

Mari and Comet exchanged a look for a moment. "I'm a Kyoshi Warrior, I swore to live honourably. There aren't a lot of merc jobs like that."

"How do we even know you're a Kyoshi Warrior. I've met a lot of con-men with 'orphans' to feed." Nehal asked as she put her feet up in front of Mari.

Akir looked her in the eyes, she looked back unwavering. He moved to draw the dagger at his side. Not a centimetre of the bone white blade was drawn before Mari had leapt from her seat, positioned herself between Akir and Comet and unfurled a metal fan a hair away from Akir's neck. The blade of the fan was so sharp it cut off the longest hair in Akir's finely trimmed goatee.

Zhu-Rong just watched them with arm's crossed and a blank expression on his face.

"I am quite certain she's a Kyoshi warrior now, can we hire her?" Akir whispered barely moving his jaw lest he accidently slit his throat.

Mari flicked her fan closed and sat back down looking highly unamused. Nehal took a good long look at her trying to discern any last sign that she wasn't entirely honest. She could not find any.

"She can come aboard. Let's get out of here." Nehal said, squirming a tad on her hard wooden chair.

Akir put down two stacks of yuans. He pulled out a pen and two slips of paper, pay warrants. He ticked the relevant boxes and signed them "That's cashable when we return or three weeks from today, whatever comes first."

He stood up and made for the door. "We'll leave in two hours, look for the Hannapin at dock 12, black balloon wooden hull." Akir added before he stood up and left.

The thug was waiting outside, red faced and fuming. "Listen here you one-eyed pompous-" He was cut short by a fine spray of grit and dust to the face, directed at him by a straight armed swing of Akir's bending.

Zhu-Rong didn't even bother to speak before standing up and walking out the door. Nehal took one last look at the pair from Kyoshi before she left for her ship to make ready for departure, muttering about lifting gas and ailerons under her breath.

Mari pressed the stacks of Yuans into Comet's hands but the younger woman squirmed and tried to press it back into Mari's hands.

"Please Mari, that man's going to get you killed. He said it himself." Comet protested as she tried to push the money back. "Just back out, we can find other work, I can find other work." She said, her voice quivering.

"What job will you get? The only ones open around here are Airship crews and factory workers." Mari asked rhetorically. "You're going to take that cash and pay for a nice room somewhere. When the payslips comes through you just need to move to the Eastern Temple with the other rich people." Mari hissed her words with an air of intimidating importance. "Get a job as a researcher or something, marry someone rich and powerful and live happily. Ever. After."

"You can't be serious, you're going to die just so I can go to the Eastern Temple." Comet replied. It was rare that the awkward teen managed to stand up to her imposing warrior woman of an aunt. "We can just take the down payment and hide, they'll never be able to find us in the commons."

Mari's face softened for a minute. "A Kyoshi warrior does not renege on a deal, you know that Comet."

Comet looked down and away for a moment. "I-I just don't want to lose you."

"Well I don't really intend to die, if I have to walk to the Eastern Air Temple to catch you up I will." Mari said tenderly. "I just need you to know that this is a dangerous mission but that's nothing we haven't faced before." She cupped Comet's face in her hard, calloused hands and pulled her in for a kiss on the forehead.

Comet saw it for the lie it was, it didn't matter how strong or how tough you were in the spirit wilds, not really. "Mari, please." Comet pleaded one last time.

Mari pulled the long hairpins out of her bun, letting her hair fall down to her shoulders.

"Here, just in case." She said, putting them in Comet's hand. "Love you, Comet."