Izumi had ordered one of her servants, a man named Omasu, to prepare a villa for Korra and Asami to stay in and he had most certainly succeeded in his task. The villa was a large wooden two story house surrounded by meticulously cultivated gardens of roses out front while towering stalks of bamboo flanked it on both sides.

Omasu had been standing in front of the house when the two of them arrived. He bowed at the waist as they approached "I hope you will find these accommodations satisfactory Avatar Korra. The villa has been cleaned but I regret to inform you that we are still working to stock the pantry for your chef. We won't be able to prepare any meals for you until this evening. But these tablets will allow you to go anywhere and purchase anything you wish in our city." He held out a pair of small golden discs towards to them. Korra reached out to take one in her hand and turned it over in her hand as she examined the metal circle. One side had a curving flame embossed on it while the other contained a relief of the sun. He bowed once again and stepped to the side gesturing to the doorway with both arms. "Please leave your shoes on the porch before entering. There's slippers for whenever you're inside and sandals if you choose to go out back."

Asami looked at the disc in her hand as Korra headed towards the house. After a moment she approached Omasu and pulled him to one side speaking quietly as Korra set foot on the porch. The Avatar reached down to unlace the boots she wore and stepped into the slippers as she made her way into the villa.

The buildings outside hadn't been as ornately decorated as the palace but the inside was another story altogether. The floor was made from countless tiny glittering tiles arranged together to form the image of dragons cavorting together. Korra's gaze lifted from the floor, her attention turning towards the nearby wall and she leaned forward as she peered at it before realizing what the builders had done. Each plank of the white cedar had been hand selected to match the ones next to it creating continuous swirls of wood grain across the entirety of each wall. The bedrooms were the most remarkable thing to Korra though. Each was easily larger than the hut she had lived in as a child before Zaheer had tried to kidnap her. Large bureaus lined the wall and there was a walk-in closet half as big as the bedroom and the clothes she had brought with her were already hanging in it. As for the canopied four poster beds themselves, each was large enough to comfortably hold multiple people and the sheets were made of cotton so finely woven it felt almost silken to the touch. Up until now Asami's mansion had been the most luxurious building she had ever seen but this place was just... the words extravagant or exorbitant came to mind but neither did this building justice Korra felt.

By the time Asami found Korra the Avatar had made her way to the back of the villa. She was seated in a small bamboo gazebo at the edge of a large pond surrounded by willow trees and towers of neatly stacked rocks. Asami ducked under the edge of the thatched roof to see Korra seated on a small platform extending over the pond with her feet in the water. "What are you doing back here?"

Korra pointed down at her bare feet with an almost mischievous grin "Take your shoes off and join me, it's fun." A swirling mass of koi were circling around the Avatar's feet and ankles. Some of them were smaller than Asami's hand but the school's biggest members were perhaps a third of a meter in length. All the fish Asami had ever seen before had a more or less uniform pattern of color but these looked like someone had randomly splashed paint all over them. Red, gold, orange, yellow, white and even a few black splotches decorated the aquatic animals.

Asami gave the fish a skeptical look before reluctantly rolling up her pants and taking off her shoes and socks like Korra had. She gingerly lowered her feet towards the pond but the water was much, much warmer than she had been expecting. As soon as her feet broke the surface a group of the koi splintered off and darted towards Asami's legs. Asami jumped in surprise and yanked her feet from the water when the first fish nibbled at her ankle. "It bit me!"

She looked to her right only to see Korra tilt her head to one side and give that cocky little grin of hers "Yep. They don't have teeth though so it doesn't hurt. It's like being tickled unless its one of the big ones. Those pack a bit of a punch." It took a few seconds for Asami to make up her mind but she gradually put her legs back into the water and like before the koi came to investigate the new additions to their pond. Asami jumped once again at the first nibble but kept her feet underwater this time and soon a childlike glee spread itself over her lips and she began to giggle as the fish darted up to check her skin for food before circling away only to repeat moments later.

It was easily the best moment for the two of them since their arrival in the Fire Nation and Korra was loathe to disturb it but her stomach was beginning to loudly demand attention. "So what now? Do you want to go get lunch Asami? Omasu did say there's no food in the house right now."

"I'd like to... but I already made plans." Korra's face started to fall and Asami quick to explain "I ate earlier today on the airship while you were still asleep so I'm not hungry right now. That and I asked Omasu to schedule some lessons for me at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls."

"The Royal Fire Academy for Girls? What's the lesson for?"

Asami shrugged slightly as she pulled her feet out of the water and stood up. "Every nation has different styles of hand to hand combat that they favor. I learned a fair amount of grappling styles in Republic City, the Earth Kingdom is known for their wrestlers, the Water Tribes tend to favor striking and I'm curious to see what the Fire Nation has."

That did sound like fun and Korra was tempted to go with her but Asami had pushed her to go eat and Korra not so grudgingly gave into the rumblings her stomach had begun making. Osamu had been quick to be of service, albeit with too much bowing for Korra's taste, as he called a cab for her. Luckily the driver was behind the wheel and unable to bow like everyone else had when Korra got him but he still made the effort, much to Korra's exasperation. Once it was over he asked where they were going. Korra frowned for a moment "Take me somewhere to eat, but not up here. I saw another part of the city down by the docks from our airship. Take me there."

"Take the Avatar to Harbor City?" The man was horrified at the very idea "There are plenty of places to choose from in the Caldera. Surely one of those-"

Korra's face darkened just a tad and there was more than a little annoyance in her voice at how everyone had been acting around her since she had arrived in the Fire Nation "Take me to Harbor City. Now."

That must have done the trick since the driver stopped arguing and the car trundled into motion. For the most part there were barely any other cars on the road but a sporadic amount of pedestrians on either side while her driver stayed in the center of the street. Slowly the wall of caldera approached and passed over them as they entered a dimly lit tunnel. There was a toll booth on the outer entrance manned by security guards they had to pass through before exiting back into the sunlight. The streets around the palace had been made from concrete or asphalt, Korra wasn't sure which, but this road curving down along the mountain side was a poorly maintained dirt road with too many potholes.

Harbor City was an industrial area full of factories, refineries and workshops holding all the heavy, noisy and ugly machinery needed to support one of the world's biggest harbors. Smoke stacks rose into the sky from many of the buildings though most were inactive but the few still running made up for it as they cast a faint pallor over the area. The dirt road came to an end as the taxi slowly drove on cobblestone streets crowded with notably shabbier looking denizens than in the caldera up above. And voracious eyes stared back at Korra from beneath crude lean-tos in refuse strewn alleyways. The cab came to a stop and her driver pointed to his left "You can eat here if you'd like Avatar Korra. I'll be back in an hour and a half."

He promptly peeled off as soon as she had gotten out, honking his horn at people to get out of the way and quickly disappeared around the corner. Korra frowned as she watched him hurry away before taking in her surroundings. There was a wooden plaque hanging from the eaves of the restaurant with a wooden snake carved into the front of it. Underneath the snake was what must be the place's name she decided. 'The Last Serpent'. It wasn't until she felt someone staring at her that the Avatar realized just how out of place she must look with her Water Tribe outfit and noticeably darker skin. It was only one person at first but more heads began turning and Korra darted inside, hopefully before they realized just who she was and decided to act upon it.

Inside was what would have passed for the cheapest of dive bars in Republic City. Stools with a modicum of padding, tables and chairs with only a few splinters and a bored looking bartender busy wiping a stained glass that never seemed to get any cleaner. As for the other patrons, they were all too busy drowning themselves in their drinks to pay attention to the woman who had just walked in. Korra looked around but there wasn't anyone at the entrance and she sat herself at one of the tables and waited. Eventually a sour faced waitress dropped a menu on the table without bothering to say hello or even so much as looking at Korra before wandering back into the kitchen.

She picked the menu up and began looking through the entries on it. Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of things to eat. Komodo chicken, some noodles and some kind of fried bread. It had a few different kinds of tea on it but the overwhelming majority of this menu was all the different kinds of alcohol. Wines, sake, shochu along with beers and spirits imported from the Earth Kingdom and Republic City. This was the place that taxi driver had decided to take her? What a great choice he had made. Korra looked up, hoping that the waitress was in the dining area so she could order from the scant few choices that she actually had but the woman wasn't anywhere to be seen. All of the other patrons were streaming towards the doors and the bartender was ducking out of sight. Korra wasn't alone in the dining room however.

A thin man with a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache had seated himself at the table nearest to hers. Hanging off his belt was what looked like a scythe connected to a long chain of metal links terminated by a metal sphere at the end. He was rather stylishly dressed in his embroidered leather jerkin and dark trousers but his companions were anything but. Stained shirts, unkempt beards and pants with holes at the knees along with the hammers and cudgels they carried made for a group that couldn't have looked more mismatched if they had tried.

This group's leader stood up when he saw that Korra was looking at him and swaggered over to stand above her. He bowed at the waist before speaking politely but she could hear more than a little cockiness in it "Avatar Korra, my name is Machi and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Fire Nation. It is an honor to us all that the Avatar visits us after so many years absent. But I must apologize in advance for this."

He gripped the handle of his curved blade and began to swing it at her neck but the blade scarcely moved a foot before it came to a halt in midair. Machi frowned at the suddenly motionless weapon and Korra could see his confusion as he wrenched at the blade trying to make it move. "What? I don't under-." His eyes widened in realization as the chain and ball ripped free from his other hand and stretched out to their full length in midair. "Metalbending. When did you learn to bend metal? This hardly seems sporting."

Korra wanted to smirk but the man looked so genuinely put out that she almost felt bad. Well, she might have if he hadn't just tried to kill her. By the time a second group burst through the door, looking ready for action, Machi and the other three men were seated on the ground, the chain tying them together. Korra tossed the sickle like weapon to the side and bent her knees as she prepared for another fight. It proved to be unnecessary however as this other group slowed to a stop as they took stock of the situation and started kowtowing towards her. She groaned in annoyance and started gesturing with her hand at them "Stop that, get up."

Machi may have been chained up on the floor but he sounded as confident and composed as when he had entered the tavern earlier. "I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it Avatar Korra. Showing the proper respect for another's station is a deeply ingrained aspect of our culture. Wouldn't you agree my Prince?"

Another person had entered the room and was looking between everyone else in the room. He had been wearing a military uniform the last time Korra had seen him but now he was wearing a sleeveless red and gold vest that hung down past his waist over a pair of black trousers. "General Iroh?"

Iroh bowed at the waist, though not as deeply as Machi had before responding "A pleasure to see you Avatar Korra but excuse me for a moment." He looked at the men sitting on the ground and shook his head, almost seeming amused "Going after the Avatar is bold even for you Machi. I'm a little disappointed you would actually try it."

Machi grinned in response "I'm sure you know the saying about mountain peaks and all that. Truth be told I wished I had known she could bend metal. I wouldn't have made such a grievous error then." Iroh gestured to the men waiting on him and they escorted Korra's would-be assassins out to cars parked on the sidewalk outside.

The general turned towards Korra as he clasped his hands behind his back "Allow me to apologize for this offense. Machi has something of an infamous reputation in the Fire Nation but we never expected he'd try to kill you but the challenge must have been too much for him to resist." Iroh looked around the tavern for a moment, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly "What were you doing here anyways?"

Korra shrugged "I was hungry so I decided to get something to eat but I wanted to see what it was like outside of the caldera up there." She pointed up towards the peak of the dormant volcano for emphasis. "The taxi brought me here and then this happened." Neither of them needed an explanation on what 'this' was referring to.

Iroh rubbed at his chin for a moment "Well if that's the case then perhaps you'd like to have dinner with me? I know the perfect place to eat, however it is back in the Caldera, but I can promise no one will try to kill you there."

Dinner with the general? It was still early in the afternoon but the offer was definitely tempting since she hadn't gotten anything to eat yet due to the attack. "All right, but I'll need something to tide me over until then."

"Not a problem Avatar Korra. There is one thing however. It's quite a formal restaurant and while I mean no offense, these clothes -." He waved at her fur lined Water Tribe getup "- don't meet the dress code of this particular place so you'll have to visit a tailor first. Fortunately I know just where to send you."

Korra frowned just a bit but she had already said yes and frankly she really was getting pretty hungry.