No excuse for the gap again. But hey, a month isn't that long of a wait... is it?

Let me know what you guys think!

Hope you like it.

XXXXXXXXXX

Living as simply as I did, my bed could normally only fit one person. So to make it a bit bigger, I raised a pillar about the same size as my bed and turned all the stone a few inches away from the surface into sand, and covered it with a sheet of cloth. Though it wasn't nearly as comfortable as an actual bed, it was as comfortable as you could get when you were making a bed out of stone.

It was on what was essentially a large bucket of sand that I was lying on, watching the chest of the woman next to me rise and fall slowly. June lay still, bitter tasting lip paint smeared away, eyes half closed, and nearly gone.

"...You're pretty good at this you know."

"Well. Good earth benders don't spend many nights alone."

"Aww, so I'm not your first time?" She tried to frown but gave up with a giggle and turned on her side to warn me. "don't expect me to be here tomorrow. I'm just resting my eyes for a bit."

I nodded with an exaggerated huff and put my arm behind my head, bending the sand into a more comfortable shape.

I wasn't really falling asleep. I thought it was kind of funny that she said what she did, since I planned on being gone before she woke up.

I waited until her breathing stayed even for a while and lightly called her name. When there was no answer I sat up slowly and hopped of the bed as quietly as I could. Again, I stood still and waited for a reaction from her when I bent the stone floor away to get to my belongings.

There wasn't much for me to pack. Money, a spare set of clothes, a water skin, some dried meat, and of course scraps of metal. So I was able to leave on very short notice.

The air was cool and, more importantly blowing my scent away from Nyla when I stepped out of the shack that I had still never bothered to bend closed. The animal stirred from her sleep and sniffed the air around her for a couple of seconds, but soon put her head back down with her paws crossed over her nose.

I held my bag still to keep its contents from rattling as I walked past Nyla and to the path leading out from the clearing I occupied.

An hour or two of quietly walking in the dark lead me to a cross roads. Two paths.

One that would lead north east, eventually, to the Capital Ba Sing Se. There I could blend in with a million others in the lower ring. But rumors of a metal bender would spread throughout the city in hours, and the earth kingdom at most within a week.

And the other path would take me to the north east coast of the continent, where the majority of the fire nation colonies resided. There I could experiment with metal bending. And given that the fire nation colonies wouldn't willingly share information with any of the royal army that happened to pass by, that was where I wanted to go.

Sure I might be put into greater danger once the fire nation found out there was someone who could render their technology useless. But I needed a place to experiment, and there was no better place to find metal as abundantly as you would earth.

I briefly considered how backwards it was that I would rather fight the fire nation than have myself caught by the royal army, but quickly brushed it aside in favor of finally resting.

I still had a few hours of darkness left, and decided I should get some sleep before setting off on a journey across the continent. With my back against a tree, and my bag in my lap, I fell asleep.

It felt like a moment later I was woken up by the sun, but more so by something wet and cold at my neck. I nearly shouted when I opened my eyes to see Nyla towering over me with her mouth at my neck, probing the skin with the digits that wriggled from her nose.

"I had to give her your scent so she wouldn't attack you next time we met... nothing you left had a strong enough smell to train her with..." I pat the beasts snout the same way I had seen June do and looked towards her with a grin.

"What happened to being able to smell a mouse a continent away?"

She stood cross armed facing me. "It's an exaggeration. I need buyers to believe shit like that so they'll hire me to track little shits like you" she called Nyla away from me with a short and high pitched whistle. The beast withdrew from me and paced around behind June until it found a resting place. When it sat down, June sat down as well with her back against its stomach. "What was last night about? I've never had a hookup stand me up at their place."

"I ah... I thought I should dissappear for a while..." she gave me a puzzled look. "I've gotten pretty well known. So I'm going to lay low for a while. Maybe grow out my hair so I don't look like my wanted poster. Come back in a little while and be anonymous again."

"... Why? You showed me yesterday that you're hard to catch. If anything it could bring in more requests for your services" the look she gave me as I said that made me feel like a child being scrutinized. Because really, my reasons were not valid in any way. Suddenly, the woman with the shirshu wrapped around her body became more intimidating. The scorn of a woman? Something like that.

I looked down at the dirt in between my legs with a brief grin. "I've got some people that I want to avoid meeting... And getting caught will take me right to them"

"...Alright, I'll start spreading word that Nyla's toxin killed you and she ate you before I could collect the head. I can go pick up one of Xun's idiots and maim him, but I won't be able to give proof. You'll still become a less popular bounty though" she was looking away from me, her fingers buried in the fur on the beasts belly.

"I hadn't thought of that... thank you. But why would you help me?"

She looked everywhere but at me as she spoke. "I don't respect a lot of people... And I like fewer, men especially. Just consider it a favor from a friend. Yeah?"

after a moment of thought I reached into the bag that was sitting on my crossed legs. In my fairly hefty bag of coins there were a number of pouches with varying amounts of money in them. I took out roughly what my bounty was and tossed it in front of her "Friends sure, but here anyway."

"What's this for?" She picked up the bag and tested the weight of it in her hand, eyes widening when she realized the ammount.

"You're doing me a favor, and losing out on a bounty for it. We all have to make a living and I figured you're not making it by letting your bounties go. So I'll pay you mine, as a thanks."

"I'm not going to argue against that. Thanks" after another moment of silence, in which I had started chewing on a piece of dried meat, she spoke agan "I've been thinking about how you got away, and it still bothers me. You would have to be impossibly strong to just rip through the metal cuffs. Even if you did strength training your entire life, that would still be impossible. How did you do it?"

A huge grin broke across my face. As we spoke, I held a metal coin hidden and hovering between my hands "I wonder how good you are at keeping a secret?"

"Very good, when I want to be. I do own the only shirshu in the earth kingdom."

"Ah, I don't give a shit anyways." I held one hand out to her and showed the coin floating inches away from my palm "I think I'm the first metal bender on the planet" she starred at me for a moment, left eye brow cocked, eyes wide in surprise. "Pretty fuckin' awesome, huh?"

"That's... how is that possible?"

"I actually have you to thank for it. Everything was quiet, the chains clinked against each other, and I felt the fragments of earth in the metal. I'm surprised no one else has found out about it yet, honestly. I must be the best earth bender the planet has ever seen if I am the first though." I brought the coin back in front of me and started preforming some exercises I made for myself when I was first learning earth bending. "This is why I'm disappearing too. I want to master this before I put myself back out there. Come back scarier than ever."

She rubbed her face with both of her hands with a long exhale. "This puts you up there... this... this makes most of the fire nations weapons useless... you should really consider joining the army. I don't side with any nation, but if you joined the royal army then you could end this war." She continued again when I made no attempt to reply. "Think about it. Every fire nation soldier wears metal armor, their ships and weaponry are made entirely of metal. The fire nations millitary would completely fucked if you could this large scale. Or train others."

I bent the coin back into my bag and stood up. Nyla sniffed the air when I started walking, but June just put her hand on the beasts belly and it put its head back down. "I already explained that to you. I haven't changed my mind. Now... not that I don't enjoy your company." I bent the broken cuffs off of Nyla's saddle and put them over my shoulder "but I need to go figure this out. Thanks for checking up on me, but please don't follow me around the kingdom, alright?"

June huffed and leaned back with a grin. I stated walking again when she waved me off. "I'll catch you next time. Only the world's greatest bounty hunter could catch the world's best earth bender."

I had to stop walking for that. "Oh, so you're the best now?"

"...Best non-bending bounty hunter"

"You're damn right."