Chapter 7:

Finding some friends in the city was harder than she had anticipated. Of course an antigovernment group would be hard to get in contact with, but she hadn't imaged the sheer size of Republic City. The variety of people, smells, and sounds was enough for her brain to start smoking. Where was she to begin her search for any allies? While she was pondering her situation, she collided with a tall figure. She was knocked on her butt, but the figure only glided back in a flurry of small breezes.

"I'm sorry young lady," she saw the slim fingers and smiled apologetically. Then her eyes traveled up the arm, over the shoulder and to the face. Her smile faded, and a look of pure confusion settled over her face.

"You gotta arrow on your head."

"Yes I suppose I do have an arrow on my head."

"But only air benders have an arrow on their heads"

He chuckled. "I suppose they do." He helped her up. "What is your name young lady?"

Flint snapped out of her astonishment to answer his question. "I'm Flint. Flint Rush…ingburger?" Even she had to question that name.

He seemed to buy it or at least pretended to. "I'm Tenzin, representative of the Air Nomads on the United Republic council. Very nice to meet you Flint. That is a rather interesting name." They shook hands formally.

"You are a rather interesting fellah! Well look at the time," she looked at the skin on her left wrist, "I better be off. Things to do. People to meet. Boys to chase!" She all but ran from him.

That was a close one. He was a government official and surely had seen the posters. Even if he was an air bender and they were the zen'ed out Monks, Flint still wanted to put as much distance as she could between them. She was gleefully squealing on the inside, though, because she had met an air bender. They weren't extinct after all.

She turned into a gloomy alley littered with the shadows of deceit!

She made it out on the other side perfectly fine.

It wasn't until a pebble was in her path did she find ill fate. She stumbled causing her coin purse from the women of the shop to fall out of her cloak. Two seconds later, a dingy looking man had snatched it up. "Hey!" Her call was lost as he sped through the crowd.

"Slimey no-good," she started for him. He was fast despite how frail he looked. It was when she was gaining on him, did she regret following him. He shot baseball size flames towards her and she had to jump to the side to get out of the way. People screamed.

Suddenly she saw the earth rise up to block the thief. The thief could only turn around and panic. He didn't know who in the crowd had blocked his getaway. The earth moved again, this time molding over his feet and calves to immobilize him. A young man walked up to the thief calmly and displayed his bare palm.

"Give the young lad his purse back."

He shot too streams of flame at the young man, but they were cut off when the wall behind him created shackles for his wrist. The purse fell with a pathetic clunk of three coins.

The young man picked it up, looked through the crowd until he found Flint. She was still sitting on the ground. He smiled hugely with all the pride of a recently crowned prince. His enthusiastic waving reminded her of someone. He continued to wave her over, but she only stared at him with a raised eye brow.

"BOLIN!"

Flint forgot the crowd. Those bright green eyes were just as welcoming as ever. Withou breaking stride she leapt into his arms at full speed. For a full minute, he stood still while she sort of half laughed and cried with relief all over him. Once she had sufficiently wiped eyes and nose partially on his back and her sleeve, she pulled down her bottom lip. With all the make-up caked on her face and the short hair it was a miracle he pushed her off.

Initially he didn't understand, but it didn't take long for him to realize what was missing. "Flint?"