Nox walked in slowly behind Mio, a bit of sweat trickling down from his forehead and with slightly heavier breathing than before.
Mio was giggling at him, glancing back towards Nox while she made her way across the house, before disappearing around a corner. "Those little kids...they're so much quicker than you'd expect..." Nox muttered to himself, taking this moment by himself to look the room over.
The room was a decent size, and seemed like a mix between a kitchen, a dining room, and a lounge. Almost immediately, Nox noticed that most of their furniture was wood, their dining table, chairs, everything except a single comfortable-looking seat in the back corner, and the house itself. The house was made with stone foundation, something that Nox was pretty sure they'd bended from the ground. It made the house sturdy, but the depressing look to it reminded him of the grey walls of a cell.
Sitting down in one of the wooden chairs that were pulled up to the table, he only had to wait a few moments before Mio reappeared with a woman Nox assumed to be her mother. Mio proved Nox's suspicion right when she introduced her, and Nox in turn gave her his name.
Her mother looked a lot like her; minus how short she was compared to Mio, and some of the faint aging beginning to show on her face and hair, and they were twin. Mio's mother took the padded seat in the back, and Mio took a seat across from Nox. The brief silence was broken by her mother.
"So I heard my Mio offered to let you stay here with us. She's so caring, always looking out for others." she started, saying it in a motherly voice.
Mio's cheeks were red; she lowered her head and quietly murmured "Mom..."
Seeing her child was embarrassed to have her parent go on about all the goods things about her, she stopped and instead turned to Nox and asked "So, where are you from? We don't usually get visitors around here. Would you happen to be an earthbender?"
Nox froze. He should have expected questions like that, but he didn't have an answer. Obviously the truth wasn't going to work here.
On the fly, Nox said in the most casual tone he could bolster "Well, I actually am not a bender, but I spent most of my life with the Air Nomads. They've been allowing me to be a middleman for their trades, but on my way to New Ba Sing Se I got lost, and here I am."
Nox's method of lying was simple, take half of the truth, and make up the rest. He was technically a middleman for a trade, and he was on his way to New Ba Sing Se, but everything else was devised by him.
"Really? Seems you're quite a ways off from there." her mother mused.
She began to start on a tangent of how she'd always wanted to go to the air temples, and soon led to her telling a story about her childhood. Nox relaxed now, she wouldn't be asking any questions for a while. While she went on with her story, Nox stretched out his arms above his head, and his right sleeve sagged down to above his elbow. Putting his arms down, he didn't pay much mind to the sleeve until he saw Mio staring at his arm with the most perplexed look on her face. Following her eyes, he looked at his arm and remembered.
The mark.
A black tattoo-looking mark stretched along his right arm all the way to a little before the wrist. It curved in various directions, interlocking, crossing, but it had a strange look to it like it was moving somehow. It was the symbol shadowbenders were born with to identify them as a bender.
Nox quickly shoved his sleeve down, and tried to ignore Mio, but she kept staring at his arm, as if she was still looking at it through the fabric. Nox slowly turned her mother's conversation towards him getting to the room, telling both of them that he was feeling pretty beat, and that he needed the rest before he left tomorrow. After thanking them a final time, he was directed into a small room in the back, with a single bed and a bedside table. Mio's mother offered him some food and water, which Nox accepted and placed on the table, before eating it quickly and trying to lay down and sleep. Since the only door in this house was the front one, he could hear everything that they saying, so sleep wasn't going to come easy.
"Mom, there's something strange about him." Nox heard Mio say, and he stopped trying to cover his ears with one of the two small pillows and froze.
"Just because he's a little quiet doesn't mean he's strange."
"No mom, that's not what I meant." Mio said in a irritated tone "His arm..."
"What about it? There's nothing wrong with them. He has two, yes?" her mom said slowly. He couldn't tell if she was being serious or just joking. Nox would have been tempted to laugh if the subject was anything else.
"Mom, just listen. I know he has two arms, most people do. But he's got these weird tattoo things on one of them."
"Mio, you can't judge him just because he has a tattoo."
"It..it just looks different. Like it's made out of water or something, always changing and moving. How did you not see it?"
"It was probably just the light playing a trick on you; really you're taking this way too seriously."
Mio was beginning her defense when the ground thumped, rattling everything inside the house, including Nox, who had began to sit up on the bed. Another wave shook the house, and he heard someone get up and open the door.
"They're back." he heard Mio almost whisper.