...

Ayika was always the employee who got sent out on troublesome errands and today at midday was no different. In fact, the continued presence of the professor's detractors outside the gate meant Mrs. Jiangsu had a particularly wicked smirk on her expansive cheeks as she ordered her only water tribe employee out to fetch the staff's reward lunch. The headmaster had reluctantly promised the staff compensation for putting up with the protester's disruption in the form of Ma's Dumplings and Ayika was sent to get them. In front of the school wall there were still quite a number of people milling around and though they were no longer chanting they had formed small knots of whispering individuals who clearly wanted to show that they were having secret conversations hoping people would try to overhear so they could pointedly stop talking until they were alone again.

Ayika drew herself up as she passed those groups, as far up as she could be drawn, noting the countenance of the milling figures as she passed. Most were cut of the same dingy cloth the formed the bulk of any civic disturbance; hard working pillars of the community who mysteriously had nothing better to do at midday in the middle of the week and appeared to have misplaced their razor along with their wash tub. Those were supplemented by hulking angry eyed youths who had regretfully discovered that being able to make little Tsuran hit himself in the face every morning for four years did not coalesce into job opportunities. But as she made her way down the street she began to notice odd things that put chinks in her confidant assessment of the threat level. There were of course the few rich university boys who had probably organized this bit of nationalist uproar, but behind them in the tea shops were men who looked well-off enough to have better places to be. And there were quite a few women in the crowd, women who to judge by their faces were twice as dangerous as any of the other suspects. It was all too organized. Angry crowds were practically the primary employer of the Impenetrable Citizenry, but there was an atmosphere of patience, of waiting for orders. It made Ayika's skin crawl.

She made her way across the little local square, trying to settle the shivers running up her spine. The young nationalists had been rounding up a crowd of discontents once a week since Professor Lizhen and his dangerous Fire Nation praising ideas had joined the school, but she would have placed money on them loosing interest a while ago. What else could be motivating them? Had the Fire Nation Ambassador's funeral stirred them up this much? Her thoughts turned to the golden skinned girl with foreign eyes and she began to think that perhaps there could be another explanation, when something drifting at the edges of her ears slid in and grabbed her brain by the attention.

"A quick light in any circumstance! Magic in your pocket! Improve your daily efficiency by adding a bit of modern thinking to your repetitive domestic duties and exploit the inherent alchemical power potentials in common dirts! Also works for pipes!"

Ayika turned with a groan, knowing exactly who she would see setting up shop just outside the commerce limits of the square. It was not that Xinfei Bao was a bad businessman, in fact he had an innate grasp of how the bits of society fit together that allowed him to put together some quite well reasoned strategies, and quite frequently the "sure-fire hit products" he identified soon enough become rather popular. The problem lay in the execution. Smart he may have been, but the boy managed to combine in one gangly frame unsettling optimism and an off-putting aura of desperation. If a man was dying in the desert Xinfei would show up with a jug of water priced at exactly what his target had in his pockets, but the man would end up crawling away to investigate his other options.

"Xinfei! What are you doing here!?" Ayika hissed furiously as she slid up behind him.

The young man jerked around in surprise, loosing his grip on the small red paper box he had been waving over his head, and failed to make the subsequent flailings result in its recapture. The wax-paper box popped open against the flagstones and sent a stream of little sticks rolling across the street. When he turned to see her, Xinfei erupted into a grin. He ran a hand through his rumpled black hair and said, "Ayika! Ah,...uh, hey! I was hoping I would see you."

Smiling wearily at his attempts to gather back his merchandise, Ayika bent down to help him, tacking care to not let her uniform dress trail in the dirt. Xinfei was clearly related to his elder brother Xiaobao who dispute his best efforts left a trail of swooning girls behind him, but adolescence had so far not been kind. In the last year he had added ten centimeters of height but apparently not a gram of weight. The stretched look was accompanied with the youthful clumsiness of someone who continually finds his fingers and toes several inches away from where he left them. Not that she would trade him for anyone, thought Ayika as she scraped up a handful of the smelly paint dipped sticks. It was kind of nice to have a friend who never seemed to see anything she did as a mistake.

"Um, actually..." said Xinfei, wincing as he watched her grabbing the spilled merchandise. "I kind of wouldn't try to let them scrape the stones like that. Or each other, really. I ran out of clean cloth strips a while ago." Ayika now noticed the white strips wound tightly around his palm and several of his fingers. Adding that to his fixed grin watching the little capped sticks in her hand like they might bite and the number of black scorch marks one the stones around her, and she very quickly tossed the demon twigs to her friend.

"What are you doing with these!" She hissed with the appreciation of someone who's job led her to her own fair share of finger burns. "Why are you messing around with foreign magic? Keeping fire spirits in a...paper box!"

Xinfei waved an unconcerned though quite bandaged hand. "They aren't magic and they aren't dangerous. Well not really, those guys in the Fire Nation capital really know what they are doing. It's just special types of dirt mixed together and then painted on a bit of wood. Although..." He glanced up at the sky. "...it might be and idea to get these in their box and out of direct sunlight. I've kind of experimented with them already. No point in wasting merchandise."

Ayika groaned "Xinfei, what are you doing here?"

He raised his eyebrow, not understanding the intensity of her questioning. He launched into one of his frequent descriptions of commerce forces."Well, I thought about those who would be the most fed up with the flint and steel method of firelighting, and decided that it would be those have to light a lot of little fires. Not most restaurants or houses because they would just leave one big fire burning when they need it and keep the coals buried when they are not being used. But then I remembered seeing those fancy style tea houses up here by your school where they light a little bit of oil under each pot to keep them warm on the table, and there are a lot of smoke bars and big houses with lots of lamps to light every night. And of course I'd get to see you too when you got off work!"

It was really hard to get frustrated with him no matter what he did. His mind would just race off down the street without checking to see if there was a pit in it first. And besides, that grin was so hopeful. Ayika said, "For the...that's not what I meant. What are you doing selling Island made products right across the way from a bunch of people protesting Foreigners? Did you even notice them?"

Xinfei raised his eyebrow, managing to look slightly hurt. "Of course I noticed them, and I've been keeping an eye on them. I did not get up hear until fairly recently since I don't have a fancy work-passport that lets me take the tram to the middle ring but I have heard some things. I was making my door-to-door rounds I even sold a pack to one place just because the cook was sick of that lot and wanted to spite them somehow. Not everyone thinks Fire Nation is a dirty word. Some even notice it is two words. And besides, if the mob wants to light torches tonight I can probably sell some boxes once it gets dark enough that they can't read the labels."

Ayika grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in close to her.

"Don't help people burn down my school."

She poked him in the forehead and let go.

Leaning against the wall behind her childhood friend she looked back at the peaked eaves of the school rising behind the buildings lining the square, and the steadily growing crowd. "I don't get it. Are they angry about the professor or about the girl? Yeah, she's from the Exclusion but she just got here today. And why does it look, well, organized? Those 'Student Movement' goofs from the university couldn't organize a trip to the bathroom."

Tightening the cords around his bundle of little paper boxes Xinfei spoke up. "It's got to be the funeral of the ambassador, right? People don't like the idea of a foreign god being established in any part of the city. And organized? Yeah, other people have noticed. A lot of people are saying that someone in there is spending money, you know, food and drink and stuff to make sure the crowd doesn't drift off." He caught Ayika's surprised look. "Like I said, I went door to door. Apparently people are getting sent out on supply runs or something. Tsao said it is the Society behind it, but of course it's probably the Public Safety government goons wanting to round up a whole lot of people at once. Yeah, sponsor a riot and then arrest everyone in it, that's like them. Same as the old Dai Li Cultural Authority."

"Spare your paranoia for a bit, what society?"

Xinfei waved his hand vaguely. "You know, the Mask Society or the Society of Masks or whatever. The guys who supposedly got secret lessons from some guru in the mountains or something and now can thump benders around like it was nothing, you know? Lately they're supposed to be everywhere. There's always someone supposedly out there who has the secret to normal people beating benders, didn't we used to hear about, who was it? The Yellow Sage or whatever, over in the tanner quarter?"

"Didn't they arrest a lot of those guys?"

"Yeah, exactly. Didn't hear about any secret tricks helping against benders who can smash a wall with a flick of the wrist and open up the ground beneath your feet."

Ayika shook her head, shaking free of her circular thoughts. "Look, I've got to grab some dumplings from Mama Mao's for the girls. You should really go try and sell your stuff somewhere else. I don't want those guys deciding that some boy needs a pounding for hawking Islander merch." She headed down the street, angling towards a small alley that would allow her to cut through this block of houses. Behind her, Xinfei hoisted his awkward merchandise bundle to his shoulders as he followed her on the shadowed path between the edifices.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry bout me." But he saw her concerned look and gave a toothy smile to reassure her. "Come on, those guys have already chosen what to get angry about today and if they were going to pick fights over selling stuff from Exclusion docks then half the shops here would be in line. Everything from the Fire Nation is in fashion up here, and right now I am very fashionable!"

"Oh are you, really?" came a deep voice.

Ayika groaned, recognizing those tones in their universality. Frustrated with society making them feel weak and powerless, but satisfied that their own bulk allowed them to make those around them feel quite a bit weaker. Thug voices. Cursing Xinfei's almost supernaturally bad luck she looked past him to see two large figures filling the narrow alley, and doing their level best to get that looming thing down right. As he noticed them Xinfei's face smoothly fell from optimism to resigned exasperation. Ayika quickly threw on a smile, noting the mass of bundled jugs the two men had, as well as those that were standing open where they had been leaning against the wall in the shade. A sniff confirmed that these two were had gotten pretty far into at least one of the bottles.

She slowly began to motion to Xinfei behind her, surreptitiously gesturing back the way they had come. She was thinking fast; don't reply to anything they say, they look like they have been drinking up for the protest. Just slowly walk away and make them remember that their bottle is more interesting than bothering you.

"Hey, slow down! We might just want to purchase some of your product, boy! Then you might be able to afford that cut-rate mud-girl you have there." The bigger of the two men was moving, angling to one side of Ayika in the alley which was now at once narrow and quite a bit wider than she would have preferred. She just made an indecipherable gesture with her shoulders and kept a pleasantly neutral expression on her face. She had grown up on the docks and new how to deal with surly drunks holding more muscles than sense.

"Hey! Don't talk about her like that! I'll..." Oh Xinfei, Ayika silently groaned, cursing the collective male delusion that women could not tell the difference between heroics and stupidity. His outrage trailing off into strangulation showed that Xinfei's brain agreed with her, at least once it wrested control from other parts. The men now gave the grins of shark-fish with blood in the water. By the unwritten rules of street life, the two kids in front of them were now fair game as they had shown, to wit, 'bloody stupidity'.

The men loomed, having now perfected that technique, and closed the distance. The nearest spread his hands and said "Hey, now. We are just looking for a little...product demonstration." He grinned at Ayika and put his hand on her shoulder. "And after we might even want to see what the little race traitor has in his boxes! Hah!"

Well, Grandmother had taught her that at least drunks were more vulnerable to some types of reasoning. If they think you are all mystical savages, then you might as well play into it, she had said. Ayika smoothly snaked her fingers under the neck of her dress, bringing smiles to the thugs faces, before she drew forth the talisman that normally hung hidden against her chest. "Some demonstrations have risks," she said.

The thug's smiles vanished. The small idol's wide mouth was filled with shark-fish teeth angled inward completing an image of a pointed oval that men of a certain type were quick to interpret into a cringe inducing vision. Grandmother said that there was no reason to go to the trouble of invoking spirits most people could not even perceive if you could invoke their own insecurities and fears. It was not her fault men tended to see another type of mouth.

One of the two winced reflexively as he saw it. He waved caution at his companion. "Hey, those tribals mess with a lot of spirit stiff. Not sure I would touch that girl if I..."

Unfortunately other was less educated in the stereotypes of her people. "Ah, shut up. That's all bull and you know it."

His friend was not convinced. "No, seriously. I heard that during the war them up north sacrificed a girl to the ocean and it wiped out a whole war-fleet with a giant wave. Their kind can't read or all that but they've got that big magic." However he was not succeeding in dissuading the man who was stepping closer to Ayika as she reluctantly admitted failure of that tactic and hid the necklace back under her dress.

In the corner of her eyes, she could sense Xinfei tensing to do something that would get his skull pounded against the bricks. Breathing quickly, Ayika took a half step towards the man who thought he was holding her with a hand on her should. She made a quick sharp motion, and watched his lecherous smile turn into a rictus. The thing about being short is is that it made some sensitive parts of tall men particularly accessible. Her next motion implanted another sharp elbow in a kidney, and a heavy leather heel into the back of a knee. Grandmother had taught her about more than spirits.

A push sent the thug tumbling, a distraction to his friend who for a moment was not looking at Ayika and Xinfei. Xinfei fortunately had the sense to turn to run the instant he saw her arm draw back. It was always the same, once you escaped back onto the public streets, different rules applied and you were safe. Usually. Of course escape depended on there not suddenly being a third man standing quite firmly in the exit of the alley-way.

The new obstacle was cut of a different cloth from the two behind. He was not dressed like a back-street brawler, but instead had the kind of clothes that you would actually care about if they got dirty, and the latched bag hanging at his waist was embroidered. That was not what marked him as different. He was plain faced, with a mole over one eye, and he held himself rigidly, but to Ayika there was something of a growling tension beneath the surface. Some people felt like that. They were the ones who would sit quietly in the corner taking abuse all night, right up until they slashed two men's throats with a carving knife and had to be hauled off, still snapping like a chained beast. And yet for reasons that perpetually eluded Ayika, people would always trust them, and say things like "Oh, that can't be the whole story. He was so quiet. He could never cause a bit of trouble like that." Is was as if they could not smell the rot behind their eyes.

Those dark eyes were now taking in the scene before him. Behind her, Ayika heard the thugs skidding to a halt. One unwisely called out, "All right, sir! Ya got em!".

The man with the mole's gaze never flickered from the two kids in front of him, but the snarling presences was now projected at the unfortunate speaker. "And what exactly have I got? Are you referring to the...diminished... supplies I sent you for hours ago, or to the unwanted attention these things in front of me might have brought?"

The other man's hobbled friend, not liking the direction this reinforcement was taking and judging that he could now probably talk without squeaking decided to speak up. "That little street rat there has been selling foreign stuff near the square all morning. Going on about.." Here he spat, partially from disgust but mostly to disguise the shooting pains still dominating his abdomen "...Fire Nation quality. And foreign girl tried to spook us with some savage idol. We were going to teach them a little lesson about national loyalty and honoring our city's spirits."

The eyes still had not moved. "Get out." Not needing to be told twice the thugs made a hasty exit, sliding past their leader like he was a roaring fire. Ayika made a motion to follow them, but an arm like steel blocked her way.

Keeping her face servilely lowered she turned back towards the man with the mole and Xinfei, and said. "Thank you for being so gracious, sir. My foolish friend was just leaving this district and has mentioned that he is never going to be tricked into selling a foreign product again. See, he couldn't read the labels. We don't want to trouble you any more." She thought to herself, alright, we are sufficiently terrorized, now let us go.

The arm did not move. "My associates were idiots. But not because they decided to teach a lesson about capitulation to foreigners. Because they were failing at it."

So much for demure. She straitened up to look the man in the eye as well she could. "Look, the boy is going to be heading out of this neighborhood. You don't want to make a commotion and get the guards' attention here before your crowd outside the school can get fully organized. A beaten harbor girl might not count for much, but an employee of the school that has already lodged complaints? Just let us go and everything's still fine." Her heart was pounding in her ears and she could feel her hands shaking as she gestured to the front of her uniform, she just hoped he could see the school emblem and not the tremors. Then she smelled smoke. Odd.

The man seemed to draw inwards and upwards with marshaled power. One hand twitched towards the bag that hung at his side. The smile now would look more appropriate with snarling fangs. "Oh, I think you might overestimate how much commotion there would be. And everyone does need to be informed how...dangerous, foreign artifacts can be. I think you will see how..." At that moment he noticed the smoke as well. The back of your robe being on fire can be quite attention grabbing.

The man with the mole spun, unintentional fanning the flames that raced their way up from multiple ignition points across his back. He made a move to grab at Xinfei who raced past him but then the man threw up an arm to block the smoldering sticks the boy threw at his face. This led to discoveries about rapid movements accelerated half a dozen small flames into rapidly becoming larger. The last sight Ayika had as Xinfei tugged her out of the alley was the man frantically rubbing his back against a wall while holding his satchel as far out in front of him as possible to keep it away from then fire.

They had gone around four corners before they stopped running, or in Xinfei's case switching between rapid dashing and smooth speed-walking every few meters as the boxes tied in a bundle on his back rattled alarmingly. Ayika snatched him to a halt as he speedily shuffled around the last corner, and for a moment they both stood breathing heavily. The first to catch her breath, Ayika looked at her friend in disbelief. "You set him on fire."

Still panting, Xinfei shrugged. "Well... just...his tabard...really." His speech was punctuated with gasps as he struggled for breath.

"You set him on fire." She repeated flatly.

He waved a red paper box. "I told you I would find a market for these." The smile was too much, and laughing just hurt her sides, but they both could not stop for several minutes. Finally managing to stop laughing and laughing about laughing. Ayika regained composure.

"Damn it man, that guy could be trouble but...nice one. You really should make yourself scarce though. Most of those anti-foreign types are idiots but that guy meant business."

Xinfei looked around at the clean and cobbled streets like he was weighing his very light purse against an intact skin and having difficulty deciding the balance. "Well, this district actually is the best sales territory, and I haven't really sold enough yet. I was kind of hopping to get enough for a proper meal to bring home."

"Well if you had just gone to work with your brother then you would have been fine. My mom made you guys lunches."

"Really?" He said with a grin.

"Yeah, I expect Xiaobao's eaten yours already." The face fell. Ayika punched at his arm. "I didn't know where you were, idiot. I wasn't going to go tracking across the country looking to bring you lunch." She looked back at his skinny face mournfully regarding the nearly empty coin purse. She groaned inwardly, it was impossible to watch those cracks in his perpetual act of self assurance. Ayika shrugged in defeat, knowing she was lost. "Look, just save your coins. Come by the back kitchen entrance of the school after it gets dark. The place always has extra food, and I haven't cashed in on my leftovers rights for a while. I am sure I can stuff you full of something."

"Hey, you don't need to..."

"Come on Xinfei, my mom would have my hide if I let you starve to death. And for you that looks to be a couple hours away." She laughed, hitting him lightly on the arm. The skinny boy looked incredibly embarrassed but he did not seem ready to bring up any new objections. Ayika straitened up and cracked her neck. "All right, I still need to run and grab the dumplings from Mao's. You just be careful, alright? The city's air is too tense for my taste."

"You watch out too. I mean your school is right where all those guys are targeting. You could, I mean, just take care."

She was already turning, not noticing the look of honest concern and something more on Xinfei's face. Her brow was furrowed and her lips pursed to the side as she thought. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I wonder if the school is doing anything to watch out for the foreign girl? What is she to this?" And so she walked off, leaving her friend behind staring at her retreating back, until he shifted his awkward bundle on his back and made his way down the dusty street.