"I just realized my review didn't post so here it goes again." Sometimes fanfic be like that lol. "Quick question, new Azula can't fire bend but she does parkour?" That's sort of correct. She can firebend, she just doesn't know that she can firebend. She wasn't taught how and so when she tried it once and didn't get a flame she just assumed that she couldn't. "and then here comes super villian Azula to rearrange some flowers lol." This image is ingrained in my mind along with the sound of Highway To Hell playing in the background. As for the name; I actually have one in mind for her already. :P
The anticipation had been steadily building. Building until the woman looked as though she were ready to burst with it. She decided that she could no longer put off going to that industrial park with her. And that is how she has come to find herself standing in the empty husk of a war-machine factory.
"Well, what do you think?" She asks with a wide sweeping gesture.
"I think that it's...uh...abandoned." Mai answers.
She nods, "yup! I haven't seen a soul here since I found it. I reckon that it's mine. Ya know, 'cept for that it isn't actually mine. But I have it all to myself 'cause no one else is using it."
"I can see that." Mai says.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Do you like it?"
Mai gives the place another all over scan. "It's fine, I guess. I usually don't got to abandoned factories and industrial parks." She cringes when the woman's face seems to fall. "Look, it's not that I don't like it. It's just that, you're probably going to notice that I'm not enthusiastic about...things."
"Oh." The woman mumbles. "Guess we're opposites then. I think most things are exciting."
And maybe that's the allure of this woman. That she takes joy in picking up a new thimble to toss on her pile of shiny things. Faintly, she wishes that she could be more like this woman. Perhaps life wouldn't be so drab if the prospect of climbing over a rusty fence was thrilling.
"You said that you were going to show me your collection?"
Her smile comes back, but not quite as full as her other grins from that morning. Mai makes a promise to try to muster up at least some enthusiasm. "Follow me, it's up here." she says. She leaps onto a pile of discarded and rusting metal rafters. "It's a bit of a climb." Everything seems to be a bit of a climb with her and Mai has a sneaking suspicion that, that is exactly how she likes it. She leaps onto a rather perilously loose ladder. It shakes and shudders beneath her weight. Mai's stomach lurches some, the higher that the woman ascends. The girl is so small and nimble, lanky; if that ladder is wobbly and unstable even under her, Mai can't possibly see it withstanding her weight.
"You coming!" The woman shouts down. Her voice echos about the building, bouncing from wall to wall in what must be the most bizarre display of acoustics she has ever heard from a building.
"I don't know. Could you bring it down here?"
The woman peeks her head out of the little annex that she has squeezed herself into. "Well, sher, I would 'cept that there's way too much."
Mai can already see her expression dimming further. She sighs, "I'll be up in a minute."
"Great. Jus' be careful with rung five!"
The corner of Mai's mouth pulls back into a half grimace. "Rung five. Understood." She mumbles.
The ladder rocks and sways precariously as she makes her way upwards. She doesn't think she has come across a ladder with this many rungs and sharp edges. Decidedly, this place is a death trap of rust and metallic decay. It is the sort of place that her mother and father alike would be horrified to find her in. And suddenly she is quite sure of her footing and quite thrilled to be her with this bizarre creature dressed in human skin.
Said creature extends an arm and helps Mai the rest of the way up.
There are many descriptors that Mai could use to describe the glistening, glinting clutter all around her. But 'nest' is the most accurate. At first glimpse, 'hoard' came to mind. But 'nest' is definitely more befitting, right down to the carpet of straw that the woman has laid down, presumably a substitute for carpeting. It smells of sawdust and oil. And eroding metal, lots of eroding metal.
Suddenly Mai is potently aware of why the woman always shows up to work with her face smudged and her clothing streaked.
"So this is my special place. Even if they tear the place apart no one'll find me in here. 'S where I go when people come chasing after me."
"Why do people chase after you?"
She hums, "lets just say that sometimes I find out some stuff weren't trash." She holds up a small silver brooch with gleaming rubies.
Genuine rubies.
"Why don't you sell that?"
"Cause I like it, that's why." She shrugs.
"You can buy so many meals with that."
"Or I could get a job at a flower stall and buy food that way." She grins. "And I don't even have to sell none of my treasures." She gestures to a pile. A notably large pile.
"How long did you say that you've been living in the capital."
"Two months."
"I take it that you started this stasch back in…"
"Hira'a. Yup!" She declares. "That pile right there is everything I brought from Hira'a." She points to what has to be the smallest rubbish heap in the room. "Everything else 's from here."
Mai blinks. "H-how?"
"I got lotsa time 'n people here throw out lotsa stuff. Kinda wasteful." She puts her hands on her hips. "But that's just dandy for me. 'Cause that means I get to bring it here."
"Aren't you worried that you're going to get caught."
The woman shakes her head. "I don't make mistakes often. Most of this really is stuff I found just lying on the ground...or stuff that people threw at me." She holds up a well-loved ladle. "Like this. The lady weren't all too happy when she caught me stealing one'a her bowls of soup."
This gets a chuckle out of her. "So she threw a ladle at you?"
"Mmhm. 'N she was yelling at me to give it back. But I said it were mine 'because she threw it to me."
"There's a difference between 'at you' and 'to you', you know that right?"
The woman shakes her head, "I'm just a dumb, dirty peasent, remember." She flashes a goofy smile.
A clever, crafty dumb peasent. "Well which ones are your favorites?"
Her eyes light up. "Well I am fond of the ladle because I have great memories with it." She carelessly tosses it over her shoulder and it clatters into a pile of dented pots and already broken plates. "But my favorites are from Hira'a 'cause they have different discardings."
"Discardings?" Mai quirks a brow.
"It ain't trash."
"Got it." She has managed to coax another small snigger.
"I like these a lot." She holds out her hands and waits for Mai to do the same before dropping a handful of colorful wooden beads and a few feathers into her palms. "I think that they used to be part of necklaces. A bunch'a different necklaces. See how this bead is shaped a little different than the others. And this one is more oblong than round."
"I think that I got it."
"And this one's a little chipped. I like the plain ones the best."
"The plain ones?"
She nods. "Yeah, because those are the ones where you can really feel the trees."
"Feel...the trees? How do you know that those were made from trees and not bushes?"
"I can just tell." She shrugs. "Forest things speak to me."
"Alright then…"
"No really!" She declares. Mai fights to keep the skepticism off of her face and knows that she has failed when the woman's eyes dim some and she changes the subject, "I also got a bunch of colorful feathers and some bones!"
"What kinds?"
"Well this one's from a paradise-peacock and this one's from a humming-parrot!"
"What about the bones?"
Mai doesn't expect her to so readily and confidently answer, "these are fragments of a tiger-monkey spine and these are from mongoose-lizard. Most of them are fishbones though." She looks around in a frantic sort of joy before declaring, "there they are!"
Mai looks at what she is holding. This time she is gushing over shells both bright and bone white. She also has a small bottle of sand and a prickly and dried urchin.
"I take it that you found that yourself too?"
She nods. "Mohi lectured me for two hours about sea creature safety while the medicine lady was mixing me a remedy for the venom." She puts her knick-knacks down and holds up a grubby hand. She lowers it to wipe it off before holding it up again to reveal a small puncture scar.
"You are a strange and fascinating character."