bones are important / advisable to keep them / also, stay alive

[roc_on]

The news is grim today. A self-driving software glitch caused the first Republic City car accident in the last four years, uptown; someone has a concussion and someone else has whiplash from their own car swerving to avoid. The company is swearing to have the software patched as soon as possible. There was a food poisoning incident at the Flame Festival in one suburb, and a fireworks accident out in earth country, but these have resulted in no deaths. Death has resulted from what appears to be a murderer - it's hard to explain natural causes leaving a corpse with most of its bones missing.

The news doesn't speculate. Chali, however, does; Beila brings it up with him once he's home, and he says that out in a little town called Hirakyo there was a graverobbing incident - missing bones. They don't have hard evidence on it yet, but they think the same person may have escalated to taking his trophies from living victims, that this could be a serial.

Disquieting. To say the least. But Chali has no reason to believe that it's Avatar business - no spirits, no geopolitics, no heavy-duty bending. So Beila reads another chapter in the autobiography of Avatar Meixing and goes to her firebending lesson.

Comments

[roc_on]

"Oooh, lava. Well, nothing says I have to stick to one of these patterns."

[fiery_delights]

"The performance lifestyle might not suit you, but I think the challenge of crafting a performance might."

[roc_on]

"Yeah. Pity I can't pass them on entire to actual performers. Unless you want to coordinate with three other people."

[fiery_delights]

"Find me an earthbender, an airbender, and a waterbender who're interested, and I'll work with them. Why not?"

[roc_on]

"Cool."

[fiery_delights]

"Anyway, we're just about out of officially planned lesson time, although you could probably squeeze in a little more fire-following practice without making yourself late to anything. Up to you."

[roc_on]

She does a fire kata across the room, with fire following her but not emitting from her strikes.

[fiery_delights]

"I'm definitely stealing that trick."

[roc_on]

"Get me a ticket. Two."

[fiery_delights]

"Absolutely."

[roc_on]

Beila takes a bow, looking rather like an Avatar-shaped campfire, and then trots out of the practice room.

[fiery_delights]

As she leaves, Jun is beginning to experiment with fire-following.

[roc_on]

That evening, she has a date with Dao - hiking to some deserted wilderness out in the country courtesy of Liqing, looking at the stars, toasting toastable foods, and experimenting with toasting each other, because she's pretty sure she has the control now for that to be safe to play with even while highly distracted.

[thinklikethis]

When she arrives to pick him up, he's sitting out front of his apartment, to one side of the door, so absorbed in his (apparently unsettling) thoughts that he actually manages to miss her arrival, roc and all.

[roc_on]

She wafts down from her bird and sits next to him.

"What's on your mind?"

[thinklikethis]

"—Huh?"

He looks up at her, and manages a smile.

"Oh. Hi, Beila. Um. I was just. You know what, actually, let's talk about it in the deserted wilderness, I bet you found us some really nice deserted wilderness and I'd hate to miss it because we got distracted talking about my weird problems."

[roc_on]

"I found some pretty good deserted wilderness." She takes his head and pulls him birdward and wafts them up. "There's almost no light pollution, or at least there won't be until I set something on fire to fix dinner."

[thinklikethis]

Dao giggles and hugs her around the waist, as is right and proper for flying on a roc and also right and proper for when his girlfriend is being excellent.

"Dating the Avatar: so convenient," he asserts.

[roc_on]

"My finest quality." She whistles at Liqing and Liqing takes off.

[thinklikethis]

"No way. Your finest quality is definitely something else. Like maybe how cute you are, or how smart, or how good at catching snakenewts."

[roc_on]

"Maybe a bunch of things tie with my convenience."

[thinklikethis]

"Your convenience is pretty great..."

[roc_on]

"Though I do come with inconvenient media attention."

[thinklikethis]

"I've been keeping up to date on my weird animal trivia, just in case that one guy comes back. And it's all your fault." Extra hugsqueeze, to emphasize that he is kidding around in case tone of voice and context didn't carry it.

[roc_on]

Giggle. "What's your most recent weird animal trivia?"