"And always a good choice to listen to." I may or may not have gotten distracted and ended up listening to The Eagles too lol.
"'Wolfbat Fang' is another new name." I am fond of this name because I still love bats with all of my heart and soul. "'The Boiling Rocks'. This kind of bands with bad sound, bad instuments but also a lot of fun and enthusiasm." I could see that being a punk band too.
"Same problem here. I have loosely tried it sometimes but always with frustrating results." I don't think that I'm terrible at it, but I don't get the results I want per-say. Tbh I don't have the patience required either. My biggest flaw is that I'm a fan of instant gratification. I was that kid who always got A's (except in math) with very little effort. And because of that, I'm not used to things that don't come naturally...which is why math is such a disaster. "I'm better with painting figures or making decorations for tabletop." Same actually. I like ceramics and pottery. But that's an expensive hobby and it requires a kiln. Even if I had money for that, I wouldn't have enough space lmao. "I have played it for some time, but the creative part around it was always the most fun for me." That's the part I tend to have the most fun with lol. My brother just made the mistake of letting me borrow his guitar, now I have to save up to buy my own lmao. "Have also written some little stories and backgrond for it back these days, but never have published one of it. Totally guilty to be a little nerd *g*" Being a nerd is a lifestyle and I love it.
"I'm always impressed by people, who are so gifted in art, music and other creative fields." Same tho, art and music and the like are so, so important. Singers and authors may not preform surgeries, but they do save lives. They help break racial, language, and gender barriers. Music, especially imo. "So happy to hear, that this is so much fun for you. Keep it going!" Thanks!

"Being able to handle critique and deal with some hate is definitely part of her canon character." She has pretty thick skin. "Being able to make this switch in your point of view is just so hard, I think. But if you're able to make it, it could be a big help." I feel like in canon she was very diplomatic (thinking of Battle Of Zaofu) in a sense and I tried to play on that in this next chapter.
"The balance between trusting your own abilities completely AND at the same time always questioning youself in order to get better is hard and exhausting." It's hard because you can't be too hard on yourself, but you have to acknowledge that you have some improving to do.
"You're doing good so far, in my opinion. Working with a character for the first time is always interesting. Thanks. :) I do enjoy working with new characters for the first time. It's daunting, but its a new flavor and a new opportunity.

"I think Mai's quote was addressed to her voice and her behavior." It did lol. "But nevertheless, beside all the stress they seem to like each other." They get along well enough. :P "I like the little meeting with the fan." Thanks, it was kind of a preview for a bigger event that I have in mind. "Azula and being crowded and touched by foreign people is a special thing for her [...] I think she has no problem with it, as long as she feels, she is in control, but unasked and out of nowhere?" Exactly. Azula likes order. She doesn't like being disturbed unannounced. She can take care of herself but she is also used to have guards to help crowd control. "So she is still a princess and the siblings have a troubled past with their family." Yup, both are still royals and Ozai is still a douche. ". Besides her hate for her father she misses him. She misses the little happy moments." She's rather conflicted. "Zuko hopes, that it was a drunken accident, but Azula has skipped an answer... and has so said even more." Zuko is very worried about things getting awkward or crossing some line that they can't go back from. "She believes, the band needs scandals like this and she seems to be willing to go on with it, even with higher risk, if necessary." And Azula is willing to cross many lines if it means success. Or what she thinks is success. "The money seems to be a problem. She has an eye on their financial situation." It is a very pressing one. They are very popular but they are still very new. "S.A.S. has invited them and Azula had knownnit for a while. Unlike Kurive she had hidden this fact some time before the others." Azula was basically under the impression that they all knew. But they didn't lol. "And unlike WIM the excitement seems to be limited." This is mostly because the quartet has a sense of entitlement, they believe that they deserve to be there/there was no way that they wouldn't be invited. They take it for granted in a way that WIM doesn't. "The question will be, what is Azula willing to sacrifice for success." *Soft evil chuckle in the distance* "Keep on banging head and having fun with your stories." Thanks again for your review!

It is almost distracting, the notion of part-taking in S.A.S again. Her mind wanders some during the performance. She wonders if she should remake some of their old songs with a new flavor, that seems like a good way to ease into trying something entirely new. She leans closer to the crowd and belts out the final note, holding it a few beats longer than she would normally. She waits for the instruments to die out, holds the note a little longer, and drops off as well, letting the final note echo about the venue. She dips her head and her braid falls over her shoulder. She takes a deep breath and looks up as the applause sounds.

As they had done the last time, Kuvira leads Wrought Iron Machine backstage and allows the crowd's anticipation to swell into a climax before re-emerging. She has something special in mind, a way to end the show memorably. "Capital City!" She addresses. "Are you ready for one more song?"

She lets the cheers and claps answer for themselves.

"Let's do it then." P'Li shouts.

She decides to go with one of their first songs, 'In Rafters'. A little ode to the days when she'd taken up parkour as a hobby. A particular night when she had climbed to the highest skyscraper in Republic City, reaching the top at the climax of a sunset. It had been an accomplishment to say pridefully that she had done it without metal nor earthbending.

The song opens with no instrumental backing. Slowly, Ming enters with her drums and then P'Li subtly works her way in with her lead guitar. Baatar enters with his rhythm guitar next and then Ghazan with his bass until they have a full and powerful song.

Only when the song reaches its full speed and intensity, a point where the guitars wail the loudest and Ming's drum beats per minute increase to her fastest does Kuvira lift her hands to create a flare of metal. Shifting it until it spiked out and glittered in the spotlights. She will leave pyrotechnics to the firebenders, she rather enjoys an explosion of metal in place of a shower of sparks.

Time and time again, P'Li suggested using fire-and perhaps she will one day-but Kuvira likes what they have. It separates them from other bands. Kuvira lifts the raises the final metal spire and climbs atop it and leans towards the crowd for the final verse.

It is another successful performance with another successful encore. She can't say that Capital City beat the reception they had in Yon Rha's Village, but it is a success no less. A rather strong way to end their Fire Nation tour if she must say. It is enough to keep her mood elated and optimistic.

Which is why it throws her off when a bought of melancholy and perhaps even doubt works its way in as she lies awake. She doesn't know where it has come from and she has half the mind to ask P'Li for a light. She puts a hand to her head, she has decided once and for all that she won't fall back into old habits. Southern Air Sounds has given her the extra push she needed to resist.

But the sudden wave of stress pushes her towards a smoke. Instead she inhales sharply and nudges Baatar awake.

"You've had a long night. Why aren't you asleep yet?" He replies after a brief period of quite.

She can't answer, because she can't exactly place the reason herself. Maybe the past has decided to surface itself again because she had ended her tour with such a nostalgic song. She was so young…

Finally she answers. "I'm just thinking. Thinking too much perhaps."

"About?"

It is a great many things with varying degrees of distressfulness. So she starts with the least pressing, the one that everyone on that bus could understand. "I'm just wondering. How it is that 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 that month to ruin our tour." Baatar points out. "And they sure can drink like adults…"

"Maybe we should just forget about that." Kuvira mutters, had Fire Of Agni even ruined their tour or had they just been trying to shift the blame? "We've never even met them." She doesn't think that their brief encounter truly counted as meeting them. Frankly, the more she thinks about it the better it sounds. They have enough to worry about without fueling their little petty feud. For the time being Kuvira is rather content to let the past be the past. And in this day and age there is quite a lot she'd like to put behind her. P'Li's even pettier fude with Ghazan, for one. The one that is putting a rift in their band, the one that is probably part of what had almost ruined their tour. More pressingly she itches to forget, once and for all, about the lack of support her parents provided.

That above all else is what keeps her awake on that night.

That above all accounts for the sudden was of somber.

Southern Air Sounds is the most important show she'll ever lead her band through…the last true shot to bring them back into relevancy. The best shot she has to find a name for them among the legends, among the musical game changers. And her parents can't be bothered to come, not that she expects them to. She had lost contact with them long ago and has long since let go of her dream; the hope that they would see her in the headlines or on a mover screen and go out of their way to seek her out and reconnect.

"They make themselves hard to forget." Baatar replies.

But Kuvira has already moved on from that subject. She doesn't mean to jump around on her fiance, but something bothers her so much more than Fire Of Agni. "I was only eight when I took a shine to singing. I was fond of Jazz."

Baatar sat up and furrowed his brows. "Where'd that come from." She detects a chuckle.

"I signed up for a school talent show, I did a cover of a Rough Rhinos song."

That time her words elicit a blunt chuckle. "Of course you did."

"I practiced every night and I won. I did all of my school work. I kept my grades up. They still didn't like it…" She trails off.

"They?"

"My parents." She clarifies. "After I received my trophy I ran up to my mother smiling like an idiot. I was proud. Because I worked hard, and I won. I beat the older children." She pauses. "I thought that they were going to congratulate me. I thought that my mother was going to hug me and that my father was going to ruffle my hair and say, 'good job Ku-Ku'. Instead they were quiet the whole way home."

She leaves Baatar room to ask questions or make commentary, but he doesn't fill the silence.

"We got home and had dinner. After that I got a lecture about how singing, painting, writing, all of that, were to be hobbies only and nothing more. That I shouldn't get so invested just because I won a single competition for children."

Kuvira sees Baatar go tense. She has told him about her abandonment before, in fact it had been one of the first things she spoke with him about. But she has never given him the details, just little hints as to how much it hurt and still hurts.

"A few nights later the school hosted a teacher to parent meeting. My teacher-her name slips me-decided to show my dream book project to my parents. She didn't know…"

"Didn't know what?"

Kuvira gives a bitter laugh, "How my parents were." She dabs at a tear that managed to escape. "It was on the last page. There was a question about dream careers. Do you know what I filled in, Baatar?"

"You said that you wanted to be a rockstar?"

"No. I wanted to sing in a Pop-Jazz trio. I even wrote some lyrics."

"We should use those in a song!" Baatar tries to ease the tension.

And it works, but only for a moment. "I'd rather have P'Li blast me to pieces." She meant it as a joke, but the look on her face said that her tone had been too deadpan or too dismal.

"Don't say things like that." He mumbled.

Kuvira rolls her eyes. "Do you really think that I actually want that?"

"Sometimes it's hard to tell with you." He mumbles.

Kuvira sighs and gets back on track, with a dismissive wave. "Anyhow, I also wrote my idea of what a perfect stage performance would look like. I was scared, Baatar. When they saw that page, I was scared. I thought that my mom was going to slap me. But...but…" Kuvira falters. "But she...she smiled. Father said that it was 'cute' and 'refreshingly optimistic'. But as soon as we got away from my teacher and into the car, it was 'a silly dream'. My mother asked me if I was serious about that dream. And father told me that it was nonsense and I'd never get anywhere. I don't got a word in." It wouldn't have mattered if they had given her time, she recalls vividly that she had been crying much too hard to get out anything tangible.

"They didn't…"

"No. They didn't hit me. They let me sleep in my bed, as usual. The next morning…" she wraps her arms around her middle, her head dipping some. "The next morning I was on the streets. For parting words my father told me that, it didn't matter because the streets would be where I'd end up anyways. He said that there was no sense in delaying the inevitable." It had been cruel.

She takes in a shaky breath. Raava, she could use a cigarette.

Baatar opens and closes his mouth a few times before settling on simply pulling her closer to him, muttering apologies for crimes that aren't his own. He strokes her hair. "I had to prove him wrong Bataar. I have to prove him wrong."

"You already have?"

"He's waiting for our spotlight to burn out, I know that he is." Kuvira remarks. "We have to win."

"We'll be fine. All we need to do is get Fire Of Agni out of the way."

Kuvira sits up straighter. "No." She says firmly. "All we need to do is forget about Fire Of Agni, and focus on Wrought Iron Machine."

Baatar swallows. "Kuvira…"

"We're putting too much energy into them and not enough into the music." Just in case he wants to debate more, she adds, "they want attention anyways."

Baatar's lip curves up. "That's true."

With a soft yawn, Kuvira snuggles up against Baatar again. "I just want to prove them wrong…"

But is it really?

No. Deep down she knows that what she really wants is to win her parents' affection.

"Don't worry about them. You have Su and the rest of our family. My mom has been wanting to catch a show since we left the Earth Kingdom."

Our family.

The notion was reassuring. It isn't the family she was born into, but it is a family. A family that will welcome her back home.

"Get some sleep." Baatar says. "You're going to need it if you want to prove your point."

She is already drifting into sleep.