Zuko tossed his beanie onto his night stand, nearly knocking down one of the bedside lamps, and flopped onto the bed.

"Watch it Zu-Zu, I don't plan on handing the hotel any more of my money." Azula rolled her eyes. The girl was sitting before a mirror fumbling with one of her many small hoop earrings. She was on the third, slowly removing them all. After which she planned on switching out her snake bites, and possibly the nose ring.

Image it was all about image, Azula decided. If they were going into the metal scene they'd look the part as well. Zuko was perhaps more into that idea than she was. In addition to his single ear piercing he'd got a whole mural of tattoos up and down his arms, over his chest, and on his back. Azula had lost track of what art was painted beneath his hoodie. She hadn't planned on getting any ink done herself however Zuko insisted that she at least got their band's logo on her arm. That's how she ended up with a trial of flames coiling around her arms and a rose just above her waist.

At this point she may as well uphold that image.

She pulled out the final piercing. "Where are Mai and Ty-Lee?"

"Down at the pool." Zuko replied. "I told them to get up here soon."

"Well they better listen, we have a show tomorrow and I won't accept a performance that is anything less than perfect."

"Relax, Ty-Le only has to pound two sticks around and I'm sure Mai is capable of playing the keyboard just fine no matter how tired she is."

"Right." Azula twirled her bangs around her finger.

Kuvira rolled onto her side to face Baatar. His arm still draped over her waist, the man was sleeping quite soundly next to her. She pressed her forehead against his chest.

It was at around two in the morning when P'Li finally decided to end her cigarette break. She closed the door not so quietly behind her. Ming nearly fell off her bed.

"Must you?" Baatara grumbled through his sleepy haze.

"Just let it go." Kuvira mumbled to him. "Go back to sleep."

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" He replied after a brief period of quite.

"Just thinking. Thinking too much perhaps."

"About?"

"Well for one thing, how we can have a rivalry with a band that's only about a month old…a band that's made up of four children."

"It only took them a month to ruin our tour."

"Shouldn't we just forget about that." Kuvira asked. It seemed that in this day and age she was content to just let a lot of things go…to let the past be the past. And in this day and age there was quite a lot she'd like to put behind her. The Baatar and P'li feud that was putting a rift in their band, the incident with PsychBreak, and the lack of support her parents ever provided.

That above all else was what kept her awake on that night.

This was supposedly the most tour she'd ever lead the band through…the most important series of concerts. And her parents couldn't be bothered to come, not that she expected them to. She was only eight when she had taken a shine to singing.

Apparently that was already a red light to her parents. She'd signed herself up for the school talent show and did a cover of Cher's Believe. She'd won…not that her parents were there to see it. When she got home that night they had a long talk about how singing, writing, painting, any of the fine arts really were to be kept as little hobbies and nothing more.

Only days later at the parent-teacher conference Mrs. Hazlebourn made the mistake of showing Kuvira's parents her 'Dream Book'. Each of the students had written one. On the very last page Kuvira had written under 'dream career' that she had wanted to be a singer—at the time for a pop trio—along with some lyrics (that's she'd sooner throw her had on a blade than preform live) and a little self-insert story about her dream performance.

Of course her parents didn't make a scene in front of Mrs. H—in fact, they actually pretended to be proud.

But when they got to the car the scolding began.

They asked her if she was serious about this silly dream, saying it would get her nowhere. She managed only a yes or two through her tears.

The next day they tossed her to the streets claiming she wouldn't amount to anything more anyways…and that she'd end up on the streets eventually, no sense delaying the inevitable.

It was cruel.

Heartless.

She didn't hold it against Mrs. Hazlebourn, the woman didn't mean any harm.

"You listening to me?" Baatar asked. "You even awake?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of what? You're sort of listening to me or you're sort of awake?"

"They go hand in hand." Kuvira re-adjusted the position of her pillow.

"Perhaps we should finish this conversation in the morning?" Baatar suggested.

"That would probably be for the best."

"Yes, let's talk about PsychBreak and the issues they caused in the morning, because starting my day off with a cup of milk and a nice bowl of shitty memories is just what I need." P'Li growled.

And the banter between she and Baatar resumed.