The Wall remained momentous. A split, horizon to horizon, separating the Fire nation from Wei state remained momentous, impervious, daring. Parallelled to the ground trees populated it, hoisted by their bare claw roots and somehow they've managed to keep living and keep on challenging fools to cross over. Only few were smart enough to sneak through it.

A pocket of The Wall's surface silently rumbled away and an eye, somber green, peeked through. It scouted: one side, the other, then it leaned forward trying to catch the view above, looking for an outpost or a patrolling soldier. Being so dark in the morning there was not so much to see except for a faint dancing of trees on the Wall, no threats to be perceived, so a man sized hole crumbled out and Nite carefully stepped out. Kai, Katar and Koarsa shuffled out on his order and the man closed the tunnel behind them neatly.

The group starved for a breath, starved for light and starved in general. Sneaking back the length of the passage took much longer than riding it and it was far more smothering. Had Nite not been there... "Oh, man," Kai whispered. He would have been louder if they weren't a foot away from the border. "I thought we were going to die in there."

"Right?" Katar had little more to add.

"Don't you 'right' me, student. It's back to bending school for you!" Kai whisper-shouted and Katar almost groaned.

Kai... Well... There was just no way around it. Kai was a horrible teacher. The regret came instant for Katar passed asking the boy for help. He acts like Katar's already supposed to know how to earthbend. You "just do it", apparently, so the rest of his chosen lesson program for Katar turned out to be random tasks to "push one further" or "build character."

The last two days, for one example, he had Katar caring a half-empty bag of rocks over his shoulder. Nothing too big and not for that long. Still - a pain on his neck and back. Katar would just bend them steady in the air, of course, but that's tough mental work and if he dropped the bag, Kai got more rocks. And then got more. And then...

Really, Katar's request got twisted into game of plain revenge way too quickly. A game he couldn't call off without feeling like an ass. The boy's hand was still broken and shut away in a cast, a rather obvious reminder to shut it and take what he asked for.

The teen may have had some breakthroughs in earthbending, but this discipline had too sturdy a frame for him. The concreteness of the form simply escaped him, so he asked the one most trusted to teach. But as painful as Kai's teachings turned out to be, just after a week the frame got lighter, easier. Even when it didn't completely work, Katar would take his own approach and summon up a thought about his brother and the earth would listen. What Kai jammed in and what Katar knew to work was melding into a common shape. Finally, at least one thing was getting under control, at least one element pulled somewhere near its intended corner and at least one foot could be put more firmly down.

"Camou- Came- Uhhh..." Kai tried saying something.

"Camouflage?" Nite raised his brow.

"Yes! That! Do we need that?" Kai pointed, asking and the heavy man nodded.

"We at least need an umbrella," Koarsa added and Katar shot her a bitter look. "What?" she laughed in his face. "It looks like it will rain soon."

"Warm-skin is afraid to get wet?" Katar laughed back at her.

"Somebody's in a good mood."

"A wide um..brella it will be," Kai promised. "Student, in three, two, one."

It did not rain, Katar dropped his task the moment it was safe to.

"Passed today - daylight travel only," Nite laid down the law. "We wake two hours after dawn, trek forward until the sun begins to redden. Meals thrice daily, stopping upon permission. Any questions?" Nite pretended to wait. "Correct."

They've been in this particular forest, all of them, save for Nite. Katar glanced to the side and as he guessed there would be, there was a little paved sidetrack on their right. An earthbent cave entrance with etched writings, mossed and barely intelligible. Down that paved walkway and down the cave there was a temple, inside of which stood dozens of sculptures for every single known avatar.

"So how about that statue?" Koarsa asked.

"What statue?" Katar asked back.

"Yours."

"Down in the temple?" She was actually serious? Katar thought it was a spiteful joke. "We talked about it already."

"You shouting me down is not a conversation."

"My position did not change. At all."

"Which is what?"

"Why do you even want it there?!"

"It's a marker of time. A place in the cycle."

"I'm a non-bender," Katar stated.

"Well-" Koarsa stretched the word.

"Well, I'm not the avatar either, Koarsa."

"I could make it for you in there," Kai offered. "That'd be... neat."

"Are your fingers limber enough to do that?" Nite inquired.

"Sort of. Been sandbending lately. That stuff is hard."

"Hm." The man nodded in mild approval.

"It'd be a mark to let others know," Koarsa continued. "I just think that's the right thing to do."

Kai opened as if to say something, but words failed him in a slow depression.

"The right thing..." Katar dismissed the idea.

"What's your issue with doing the 'right thing'?" Nite was offended.

"The issue is that the right thing is different for everyone."

"And now you're doing the smallest possible one." Koarsa sometimes was determined to just beat him down, it seemed.

"And again, what would you do?'' Katar tried to wrangle her off his back.

"I think it's rather obvious," Nite said. "She wants you to take up responsibility."

Koarsa relaxed, but Nite's statement just had Katar confused: "Am I not doing that?"

"Full responsibility for one's actions. For what one is accused of." Katar rolled his eyes, trying to convince this man that Katar had nothing to do with that did not work no matter how hard he tried. "You already acted on that by getting off that Fire-nation train," Nite added, reliably pushing him from the back. He was always there now, Katar was always in his target range.

"And where it has gotten me..." The teen raised his hands to show the metal cuffs around his healing wrists.

Nite laughed, gloated: "You're a criminal. You deserve that," then he pointed ahead at a familiar sight: "It could be worse. You could find yourself suspended on your leg down a tree."

Over the road, a boy around Katar's age was being rope-hoisted to a branch by a pair of teens. They tugged the line - the hanging boy jumped up harshly and barked: "Curse you two! You're giving me bruises."

"Wan?" Kai called out the teen.

Wan struggled through a spin to face them, then he smiled warily. Nervousness filling his sharp chin and quick eyes. "Oh... hey..." He waved in his inverted awkward way.

One male, one female - two teens on rope duty regarded Nite's group nervously. He looked simple, barely over Kai's height and squished fat. She was a tad taller and aside from black hair in a ponytail did not look much out of place, though through a few holes on a heavily worn shirt her arm was blackened by something intangible.

"What are you folks doing here..?" Wan asked while the two silently debated their options: they were holding Wan up, but a gang of four was approaching. They bailed. "No-Wait-NO!" Wan barely squirted out before being sent down. Kai hurried a cushion. Too late, Wan crashed and Nite was amused.

"You alright?" the boy worried, turned up closer.

"I think I'm okay... not the first time... I know how to land. What are you doing here?" Wan asked, sprawled resting on the ground, unafraid of new company.

"We're going back," Kai answered.

"Coming back!? That doesn't happen. Why are you coming back?"

"That is out of your concerns," Nite said from above.

"Got it," Wan defended with open palms.

"So," Koarsa looked on him, mocking him: "what's this rope act?"

"What act? There is no act. Did you not see me fall?" Wan glanced to the side in quick thought.

"No. The hanging man. What's with that?"

"Oh..." Wan waved her concerns away, "that's just a thing we kids do nowadays."

"There are simpler ways to lift coin than ambushing," Katar said coldly.

"We're not looking for that."

"And we're moving," Nite ordered and the group was forced to go on ahead.

Wan, at their backs and alone, tried to get up. "...AGH! Okay, I lied. I lied! My neck, my back. I'm not okay! Please, help."

Kai took a look at the big man, "Nite," he pleaded.

"You have your companions around," Nite said to Wan. His voice wide and sand-filled.

"They've run away from your muscles, Mister. And by the way we do things, they are too far for me to call them back."

"Nite," Kai tried again, "it's the right thing to do."

The bounty hunter shot a glance at Kai, a drop of agitation, the boy flinched. Nite then decided to bend the earth, hit Wan's back. Wan scrounged up and cursed in high pain.

"Nite!" Kai and Koarsa were furious.

"Curses!" the man spat to the side. "The kid's not lying," and sighed. "Koarsa, what can you do to help him?"

"More than you, obviously. I'll need water." Nite handed her his flask. She took a short glance at Kai before kneeling down, who looked back nervously at her. He seemed to care more about this than Katar expected. This was only the second time Kai saw Wan.

Koarsa's hands began to work, to glow. The processes wasn't long, a few ins and outs of the light, a little bit of that holding ambience and she was done. Leaning in over Wan she was slow to admit: "That's pretty much all I can do."

"Well?" Nite asked.

"Well..." Wan tried to sit up and his face turned foul in pain again. "No! Still hurts."

"Koarsa, can you not do more?" Nite asked.

"This isn't magic. It's hard to heal things deeper than scars. If there's damage below I can't do much about it," she said and Nite was getting frustrated. "Well how about you try hitting him some more, that sure helped!"

"I just need to get home, it's not that far," Wan said.

"Bad fortune to you," Nite said and turned the group away. Kai gave pleaded Koarsa again.

"Say something," she mouthed to Wan.

"I could pay you with food!" Wan bargained. "Judging by how worn out you guys seem, you did not have breakfast yet."

"Free dinner for us?" Kai interjected and Nite laid a hand on his shoulder for silence.

"Full courses?"

"Of course," Wan boasted.

"Then we take our payment and leave. Still a long road to Taku," Nite said.

"All the way to the capitol? That's interesting. Why there?" Wan asked as Katar pushed the ground under the lying teen.

"Oh, that's-" Kai started.

"He doesn't need to know," Katar interrupted.

"I don't," Wan defended with open palms again. "Just making conversation. Nice swords, by the way."

"Thanks, not for sale."

"Sale?" Wan laughed. "I don't have money."

"And neither do we. There's no need to ambush us, like you tried the last time, apparently."

"I wasn't trying to rob you, lets not be that dramatic. Money is worthless out here. But most travelers here have at least some food to... spare. We thought you could when our 'eye' called out you out to us."

"Do you mean a scout?" Koarsa was intrigued.

"Yes. Did you think I hang on that rope all day? We plan things."

"Sure," Katar said dryly.

"Anyway, that one time the ground just fell in. Nothing too weird," Wan joked and Kai fell for it. "Again, glad you survived all that. Where's the old guy?"

"Don't know, don't really care," Kai said.

"Okay. And your arm?"

"You're one confident kid," Nite said as he pushed the group from the back by his very presence.

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment." Nite stared stonefaced.

In a short silence that followed a cart with a laughable selection of food crossed paths with them. The fifty year old man that drove it was going to be their victim, Katar suspected. But as wheels rolled passed Wan did not pay even a glance at that lost cause.

"Are you a prisoner?" Koarsa asked Wan.

"What?! No," he laughed.

"What's with that marking then?" Koarsa pointed to Wan's forearm.

"This one?" There was an inked picture there of an enclosed circle. Inside it, a crudely drawn dagger beside a fishhook. "We make them. Everyone has them where I live."

"Why?" Kai asked.

"They carry meaning, you know? This one sort of means I'm a good cook," Wan smiled sheepishly. "There is another one, on my left shoulder." He tried pointing, but pain didn't allow accuracy. "There I have 'a helping hand'."

"Why would you need a mark for that?" Kai withheld nervous laughter. "That's stupid."

"Hmm." Wan didn't defend. "Maybe."

"They look fresh," Katar stated.

"You want one?" Wan was intrigued.

"NO," Katar and Kai answered together.

"Okay," he laughed in defence.

Around unknown trees and bushy pathways they followed this shady kids' direction and Nite was getting wound up. They were getting too far off the track, too deep into the green of the forest. Concern Katar shared. "So where's this camp of yours?"

"Guys," Wan smiled, "you're second time visitors."

And downwards, there, through a shadowy and overgrown arc the view below them opened into an enclosed oasis bound by a circular wall. Birds in the trees, chicken-rabbits running passed bushes and short grass by the Avatar temple. They were back by the caves, though this time there were no badgermoles to chase them out.

Looking down from the upper edge of the enclosure it was easy to notice that things were remarkably different here. Never-minding the destroyed entrance to the Avatar temple now standing earthbent back into shape, there were people here working the ground, turning a solid half of the green of this oasis into soil-ready brown. People, well...kids.

"I hear, last time you people crashed our home, so be a bit more careful, won't you?" Wan said.

"Be calm. We will not remain for long," Nite was commanding.

"Whoa, Kai!" Wan pointed right next to the kid. "Don't step into that fireant colony. It can get nasty if they bite you."

"It's just their small poisons," Nite stated. "Careful now. Move ahead."