Inn on the Western Side Of Town (Full)

Raion walked through the door of the Inn slowly, he didn't want to catch too much attention from any of the other firebenders though this didn't seem a problem at all at the moment. Swaggering drunkards full of drink, wandered here and there, eventually knocking over a table or two and causing a tussle. Most people hung out in the bright light of the lanterns, laughing, singing and throwing a fireball or two in the air from time to time, and catching it as it came down.

Other people hid away in the dark corners and near the walls, and murmured too each other of this and that, but mostly about their travels in the other kingdoms, or of other stranger darker things. Many of them were criminals, if you ever overheard their talk which was rare, unless they liked to boast about themselves.

Raion rarely ever went into Taverns or places of drink, as he considered drinking a very disgusting habit. However, he did come there for places of lodging, and this was the cheapest one in town, not to mention the uncleanest. He just hoped he didn't run into anyone he wanted to pick a fight. Which he rarely did, most people here seemed to be practicing their bending, or dueling.

Raion chose a table in a dark corner and sat down, not that he wanted to look cool or anything he just wanted to hide from trouble, and read a book calmly, and be left alone for awhile, though he knew it wouldn't last for long, soon enough some fellow trying to pick a fight with someone just to show how tough he was would come in and attempt to punch him, or say something to intimidate him, which wouldn't be good because Raion had quite a temper, and even though he was somewhat scrawny he could bend good enough to burn a hole through someones arm.

He bent some fire onto his forefinger and middle finger, holding them together closely, then grabbed a playing card that had been stuck to the bottom of the table, and lit on fire, blowing on it softly to give it a large enough supply of oxygen.

" You should be careful playing around with fire like that, kiddo. " Init said, as she watched the young boy closely, she grabbed the chair in front of him and pulled it back. She sat down quite elegantly.

She had been sitting at a table all by herself, hidden in the darker corners of the inn, when she noticed a young boy walking in. He seemed to be too young to be wandering around all alone, but then again, she remembered how she was when she was a kid. Always wandering around, and how she always seemed to get into trouble.

" See these guys, " she said, as she pointed around " If they see you firebending in here, all by yourself, they'll think you're easy prey. they'll hop on you like a dragonfly on a piece of fruit tart. "

She forced herself to smile at the young boy. Although she could see he wasn't even 20, his skin wasn't pretty and pale as most boys running around here, or as hers. It had something rough. It intrigued her, as she didn't see people like that much.

((OOC: Is it okay I join if I join?))

Aki was down in the dumps. She kept being overcome by the nightmares. The Sun Warrior City was flashing by here. Tekara was stabbing her in the heart. It was all too much. The battle of the century with the nature spirit, but that was long ago. Tekara is dead and hopefully resting peacefully. Aki kept mopping until she went into the Inn.

She waltzed in going straight to the bar. Ordering some beer, Aki sat back in her seat, she looked around the Inn seeing a few empty tables and seeing a young guy and gal sitting in a shadowy section of the Inn. Oh, young love, wait no… Aki thought to herself quietly. She looked a little bit closer and didn’t see that usual kissing and handholding. It seemed like the girl walked up to him. Interesting.

Finally her beer came, ah, bliss. The alcoholic affect doesn’t affect spirits, so they can get enough beers to kill a man and still be sober. A few guys in the Inn got antsy and started throwing a few fire punches, and those are bad news. Think of a hand engulfed in flames heading straight for your head, like being punched but a lot worse. The ‘fight’ was ended after only two punches, a new record.

Aki looked over at the two people at the shadowy booth again. The girl seemed to be speaking low then she smiled, no wait seemed like a forced smile. She had a good smile. Aki had nothing to do. Her counterpart the moon spirit was elsewhere. Aki was free to go as she pleased, but she preferred where there was water.

Aki looked back again at the booth then she took a good swig of beer and finished the can. Suddenly one of the drunken men took Aki by surprise and put her in a headlock. She was dragged over kicking him in every place she could possibly could. Soon the drunk’s buddies were edging him on and suddenly his hand lit aflame. Aki sat still, perfectly still. The heat was intense burning close to her face almost burning her. Water Aki’s only thought was this. The flame was dancing around her, he was tempting her to make a move, but that move could kill her. The drunk’s buddies held her down and the flame came closer by the second.

((OOC: Oh I forgot to say she looks like she is in her twenties))

(OOC: Yeah sure.)


Raion jumped a little when the lady sat down, but what she said seemed to insult him a bit. "Thanks, but I think I can take care of myself." he said, even though he knew inside he was somewhat wrong about it, but he didn't want to admit it. "And by the way somebody is about to be jumped." he whispered, he had been eying a drunk and his friend's for a while and had anticipated their attack.

Suddenly the girl at the bar was attacked by the drunk and his friends, they wanted to stir up some trouble, and Raion hadn't been quick enough to stop them. They were waiting for her to make a move, a clear mistake.

"Hey punks!" he yelled at them, staying in the shadowy corner so they might not see him, in the dark he lit his hand with flame, shaped it into a ball and flung it at the one with the flame lit hand, hoping it would hit.

"Are you going to help out here or what?" he said out of the corner of his mouth to the lady sitting at his table, as he rushed in for another attack, flames flickering at his hands as he went.

" Fine. " She sighed. She had long gotten used to these attacks, and blasting around like idiots wouldn't help at all. Alcohol didn't exactly make you a better bender.

She raised her voice " I wouldn't do that if I was you! "

She knew that they knew her. Everyone around here knew who she was, maybe not by face, but by name. She was born here, raised here, gained her reputation here.

" I am Init Araw, " she spoke, and it sounded like a threat " And if it was for you, you bunch of drunk bastards. I would suggest you leave that lady-friend of mine over there alone."

She held up her hand, and let a flame flicker between both of her fingers. But quickly made it grow and it became a wild flame flickering around her fist.

" I know your face now. " She smiled widely

She was ready now though, if they didn't react the boy and she would have to be quick and grab the girl out of the fight. That would leave some scares she considered, but nothing she wasn't used too.

((I hope it's okay if I jump in too, tell me if not
Rozan and Wezan are both Fire Nation royal guards, BUT they are here in civil clothing as they both like to go out and gamble at nights when they're off duty. They are known brawlers, but almost no one knows what their work is. Wezan is the elder one, and an earthbender coming from the lower class. Rozan on the other hand is a firebender and descended from high nobility. He's the black sheep of his family, and is afraid of his natural element - and I think that's enough information to go on with. Char description links are in the signature.))

Wezan Alryk (in the company of Rozan Shang)

Wezan sighed and leaned back, as he watched the usual hussle of a tavern at night. The drinks in front of the two guards were strong, but they were also almost untouched. For some reason, the two friends did not seem to be all in drinking and gambling tonight. Wezan looked at Rozan from the corner of his eyes. The fire-bender was unusually quiet, if he hadn't known it better, Wezan might have concluded his best friend was deep in thought.

But no, not Rozan, no way. "You alright, chap?" He gave Rozan a small nudge on the arm, just to make him brighten up, and hitting the firebender only a little bit helped sometimes with that.
Not tonight, though. "Will you stop that?" Rozan sounded irritated, as he flinched and contracted his brows. "Gosh, alrigh'... you're a foul companion ternigh', ye know tha'?" Wezan let his voice sound as if his feelings had been hurt, and this time, his trick worked, mainly because he switched to the broad street accent he had talked half of his life, he guessed. Rozan knew how much Wezan tried to talk properly, but also that he lost his concentration and switched back to his natural accent once he really relaxed or got angry. Or, like now, got fake angry.

"I'm sorry, Wezan, I know... I'm usually more fun. It's just that... I mean... Lahija Zekarion? Seriously, man?" Wezan chuckled. So this was what all of the pouting of the last hour had been about. Wezan's new friend.

Rozan had not told him much about how he knew Lahija, but apparently, they had not had the best start. Lahija was a new Lieutenant serving alongside them, and obviously, she also was a pain in Rozan's a**. Strange enough, since Wezan had only met her a few days past and had been quite charmed of her from the start. She was a strong, deep personality, and he felt they would not only be good fellow recruits, they were also going to be great friends once they saw more of each other.

Rozan and Lahija though were a problem in this calculation. Rozan did not get along with a lot of people, but with Lahija, he seemed to share a mutual hatred of sorts.

"What's the story with the two o' ye anyways? Why do ye hate her so much?" Rozan frowned a bit deeper, and emptied his entire glass at once. If he kept on drinking at this speed, he would be wasted in no time, Wezan knew that from experience.
"I don't hate her," the firebender then darkly said, in a tone that very much implied to skip the subject or regret it. "I can see that. No need to bark up me tree though, ye know damn well I didn' bring her up. Tha' one has yer han'writin' all over 't, man." Wezan grinned all over his face, he was not afraid of Rozan, never had been. They did not have a lot in common, but they had shared many a training lesson. Rozan was a firebender, Wezan knew that, but he had never seen his friend bend. Rozan even tried to spend as little time training together with the other firebenders as possible, because he was dead afraid of fire. Wezan knew why, and he not only understood, he respected it. Rozan had been severly burned as a child, scarring half of his upper body for life. He was damaged enough already, and besides, a good brawler and swordsman. He did not need his bending, not really. Most average benders, he could take on with his swords. It was the masters, of course, that were the problem.

But the bottom line of all of this was: Wezan could take Rozan, without a problem. He was a very skilled earth bender himself, and with Rozan not even being armed with his double swords at the moment, there was not much Rozan could do to him if he continued talking about Lahija - what he pretty much wanted to do right now, mainly because it was fun teasing his friend, but also because he was nosy about the strange connection the two of them seemed to share despite the fact they could only have met a few days ago, when Lahija joined the guards.

They had been sitting at their table for some time now, with the neighbouring tables being empty, but their privacy was somehow interrupted when a boy stepped up and sat down right on the table to their left.
"What do ye think, Rozan - are those ratbags getting younger every time I walk in here, or should the kid be long in bed by now?" Wezan leaned over to his friend and talked in a low voice, leaving their subject and turning to the more recent observation of his. Rozan nodded silently, and they both watched with disbelief, as a young woman stepped up and sat down next to the boy. "What does he have that we don't?" Rozan shook his head. "We've been sitting here all evening, and he just walks in here, green as a lemon, and gets a girl right away? She's not even his size!"

"Life's so not fair..." Wezan winked at Rozan, knowing about the other man's thoughts as if they were his own. Rozan barely left without a companion every time they went out, and the women he went home with were never twice the same, but they all were at least mediocre pretty. The girl over there was not even Rozan's type, she looked more like a streetrat than like a one-night-stand, but well... she was pretty, that much Wezan had to give her. Something about her touched him, he did not really know what it was. And within moments, he involuntarily had started to stare at her.

Then everything happened very fast. There was a girl at the bar, who got herself molested by some thugs. Not the worst type of rowdies, but close. Wezan felt his fist twitch and then close. He hated men like these, more than anything else. They had gotten his little sister with a child, they were nothing but trouble. He could not do much against the mass of shadowy people in this town. But he could help out a lass in distress.

He was about to stand up, as the boy on the next table had already jumped to his feet, cried a challenge across the room, and start to blast fire at the men. Cursing, Wezan jumped up, and saw how Rozan ducked out of the way of an answering blast towards the boy behind them just in time. Within seconds, the bar had turned into a witch's cauldron. It was one of those bars frequented by an unusually high percentage of benders, and that now made itself felt.

The girl Wezan had been staring at, the tough one, had also gotten to her feet, ready to charge, and Wezan realized with frustration, that the tavern, like most taverns in the lower ring, was built of wood. No bending material for him, but on top of that, the firebenders would blast it up if they did not stop with their nonesense very, very soon. Hastily, Wezan joined his friend close to the wall, where they at least had no foes in their backs. "I knew this evening was promising!" Rozan seemed to be at a far better mood now, that a brawl was going on - he was completely in his element, as he shouted to be understood through the havoc around them. "Finally something HAPPENS!"

Aki, Ocean Spirit

Now this is the part of the story where terror is. Death is drawing closer, and Aki did not want to go through that again. The flame almost licked her face when the two she was watching earlier stood up. They seemed to take interest in her safety, which was a good thing, right? The drunks seemed to look around aimlessly for the two voices. They had to be really, (terribly), drunk. One of them tried to walk over to them, but here’s what happened.

The drunk walked a step and kicked a chair. The chair fell over and crashed onto the floor. The sound made all the drunks clasp their ears, because loud sounds really hurt when you’re drunk. While they were stunned, Aki dashed out of her seat and went over next to the two who wanted to protect her in the first place, which seemed to be as promising a place as any.

The guys recovered from the crashing chair after a minute or so. Then two guys in the booth next to where Aki stood hollered about something happening in the Inn. The drunks seemed to be, pissed off. Just adding this insignificant little detail, they were all fire benders. Some were better than others. It seemed there were teams in this battle Drunks vs. two people in booth who Aki thought they liked each other, the two people hollering, and Aki.

Aki fixed open the small pouch with a fire nation emblem, you need to blend into surroundings right? A half-gallon of water waited to be used. The others on her so-called team were in battle stances; they all seemed to be either fighters or benders. Either way they would all be needed. The drunks were about 8 in total while we were only 5. But, you got the rag-tag team of people willing t help.

She quickly glanced around seeing most of the others out of the way, and a few dragged a chair of table for protection. The Inn’s main floor was clear and all Aki could see was the enemy. Their hands flickered with flames; while a few of them drew a sword they carried. Well, they clumsily held the swords and then put them back to shift to fire bending.

Well, there is a first time for everything

On that note Aki took out some water from a nearby glass. She quickly shaped and froze it into an icy sword. The other probably weren’t expecting that were they, element of surprise. It seemed there was a pause. Everyone started to draw out weapons and test out bending before the actual battle.

(drakendottir, god your post is so good, lol I tried to make mine longish)

(OOC: Yeah you can join in drakendottir, great post by the way.)

Suddenly the tavern was all aflame around Raion, the flames licked at the tables which a large amount of drink had already been spilled on by a few drunks who were now shivering the corners of the tavern, all the others who had joined the fight were now up with weapons drawn, he noticed how the drunks who had started the trouble had already been distracted by the yelling, as drunk as they were, and with beer already poured on themselves they would burn in seconds if they didn't edge away from the flame, and nobody likes crisp firebender on a night like this.

And what about his shot, it had started the fire. Damn, why did that have to happen to him every time he bended a single flicker of flame. Well, he would be more accurate with his longbow, he pulled it out of his pack, and unfolded it, locking it into it's position at just the moment the girl who was attacked had jumped by his table, while some other guys sitting at a nearby table started yelling and were already ready for combat.

The girl bended some water out of a nearby jug into an ice blade.
"That won't help you against these benders missy, they'll melt your blade like an icicle in a summer bonfire, you better take this." he said, handing her one of his trusty daggers, now forged into some of his sharpest blades. "Try and put that fire out, it might not put out the fire that those jerks will bend but it'll sure help out cause."
With that he placed an arrow to his bowstring, breathed in and out a quick breath, aimed for one of the thugs eyes, and fired.

If the shot hit it's mark it would kill the thug sending him hurtling into the fire, with an arrow pierced in his eye. That would be one down... a few more to go.

He fired a few more shots at the other drunks, a few went flaming through the fire, other soared through the air. This would be a long night, and every shot would count.

" I've had enough of these drunk men. " Init snapped at the boy with the bowstring. " But killing them is an awful lot of paperwork, use your bending in a defensive way."

She knew brawls like this, they were boring and not even worth the trouble. But the girl was a waterbender. She didn't like waterbenders, not at all. They always were happy and caring and sweet and knew nothing about life. But she was someone who judged quickly. And this girls was clearly in trouble. She felt somehow responsible for her.
She reminded her of one of her friends she had recently lost out on the streets.
Killed by firebenders, for trying to steal some food.

" If you just defend her, they'll get tired of it, I'll buy them a beer, and we can all go home safely!"

He was so young, and had a temper, she noticed. And that was not a good combination in a fight like this. Angry attacks would only make the thugs go angrier.

But all of the sudden, she felt someone stare at her.
She turned around and saw a guy looking at her rather intensely.

" And what are you looking at." She growled, more towards herself than towards him as she turned her face back towards the fight.