[FEST; Kaikuro] Mischief maker

[Illah Karu]

The dusk was starting to settle in, the sun being only a thin line on the horizon. The lanterns were lit and they were showering the festival grounds with the glow of red, blue, green and pale yellow light in honor of all the different nations. They had used white lanterns for the Air Nomads, but the light filtered through the thin paper and made it look the same yellow color the acolytes wore on their robes. Small flags embroidered with the nations’ emblems were hung between every lantern and the small updraft created by the warmth made them sway in an eerie fashion, especially so as there was little to no actual wind.

There were vendors of every sort out displaying their goods and engaging in cheery banter with the passersby, all of them potential customers. It was like a miniature city had sprung in the middle of the Fairgrounds. Alleyways and roads formed between the vendor’s stalls and there were a lot of people walking about. At the entrance to the festival there had been a band of benders putting on a show and just like with any other big event, the undeserved criminal aspect of Republic City was well presented as well. Illah had spotted a few pickpockets on her first round about the festival and now she was passing a little makeshift gambling den where men were waging on dice. From what she could see the dice seemed to be loaded. She did not stop to expose the charade though. It wasn’t really her concern and with her rotten luck the joint was run by a triad of some sort.

She stopped by many stalls in which the shopkeeps graciously called her ‘sir’ and asked if they could help her with anything. She only smiled and shook her head, continuing her aimless stroll around the area. Some women would have been offended by someone mistaking them for a man, but Illah had no delusions about her appearance and her current get up made it even more difficult to distinguish her as a female. She was very tall and had very narrow hips and broad shoulders for a woman and her face lacked the round softness that was usually associated with femininity. Tonight she wore a mid-thigh length training west of Fire Nation colors, (courtesy of her short lived fling with a young firebender) which required her to bind her breasts in order for it to fit her properly. The vest vas coupled with black trousers and knee-high boots and she had even made the effort of doing her hair up in a top knot. Of course short hair was gaining in popularity even in the Fire Nation, but lllah did not want to cut her hair to make a fashion statement. All in all, if she wasn’t so obviously from the Water Tribe, she could have very well passed as a youth from the nation which had tried to burn all the others to dust.

She stopped by a stall that sold snacks and bought a shish kebab for a few yuans, frowning in displeasure at the price. Nonetheless she ate it quite happily as she backtracked to the entrance to catch more of the benders’ show. Three waterbenders were currently showing off their skills and around them had formed quite a bit of crowd. Illah entertained the notion of pickpocketing some of the audience, but she saw a few street urchins were busy doing it for her. She smiled deciding to find them later and shake them down for loot. One of the little beasts was so open about trying to snatch the purse of a man not two feet in front of her, that she was surprised no one caught him in the act.

“It’s got nothing to do with me if he gets robbed. Should’ve been more careful,” she thought, dropping the finished shish kebab on the ground and licking the grease from her fingers.

[Kaikuro]

There were very few things in the world that Kaikuro absolutely couldn’t stand.

A party was one of them.

As he returned from work that evening, he found it impossible to circumvent any manner of festivities. He forced himself to walk through the colorful lanterns of the streets and push his way through a steadily thickening crowd of partygoers. His senses were bombarded by a plethora of sights, smells and sounds, he could hardly stand it. A cacophony of voices surrounded him, and he smelled so many different festival foods all at once it nearly made his stomach churn. The crowded streets also added to the possibility that he’d be recognized by someone- possibly even turned in.

All he wanted to do was get home. He lived on the farthest edge of Republic City, nestled away in a tiny apartment in the poorest district of town. It was unfortunately inevitable that he had to expose himself to the crowds just to get home.

He tried to stick to the less busy parts of town, shuffling his way down alleyways in an attempt to get himself closer to his goal without too much incident. Unfortunately he found the quickest route towards his home was blocked by a group of performers, and a rather large crowd had gathered about them. His gaze fell upon a shady group of young men. One of them had quietly slipped a knife towards a man’s coinpurse, cutting it cleanly from his belt.

Kaikuro couldn’t let that slide.
He pushed his way past a few men as gently as he could, sliding his scrawny body between them and reaching out his hand, snatching the young pickpocket’s shoulder.

“H-hey…” he murmured, “You should give that back.”

The surprised pickpocket slammed his elbow into Kaikuro’s gut, forcing the wind out of him. He gasped, flinching, and giving the thief enough time to break loose and run off in a mad dash down the street. Kai, still catching his breath, cried, “H-hey- stop! STOP!” He staggered after the thief, but he wasn’t a very fast man, and running always left him feeling weak. He had no way of catching the theif on his own…

He glanced around the crowd frantically, and then his eyes fell on a woman standing nearby who didn’t seem to be doing much else.

“H-hey, ah- HEY!” He waved at her, trying to get her attention. “Can- can you help!? Did you see that!?”

[Illah Karu]

Illah watched the pickpockets work, admiring how well they pulled off their dirty deeds, seemingly with no one noticing. It was of course easier for kids so young to go unnoticed by their marks, she figured. She was such an ungainly, tall, butchy thing that it was a wonder she didn’t get caught more often than she did. In a way she was envious of those little tykes.

She noticed a man come staggering through the crowd, a scrawny sick-looking fellow and at first she thought he was just passing by. Maybe that was his original intent, but the moment he noticed one of the kids getting tricky he was on him, trying to put a stop to the poor child’s livelihood. Illah frowned a little. Did this man honestly think that a little scolding would make the kids stop stealing? They were most likely trained to do it from the moment they’d figured they had opposing thumbs and by now were working for the triads. It was too late for them.

Nonetheless the man tried and of course he failed. The young boy he’d apprehended elbowed him so hard in the guts even Illah could feel her insides hurting. She pressed a hand on her stomach and let out a sympathetic hiss of a sound. She’d been in the receiving end of such a blow and it did not feel like butterflies and sunshine. She expected the man to learn his lesson from this, but instead he yelled after him and then to Illah’s horror, he called out to her. No doubt he’d seen her looking at his direction and thought he’d found a comrade.

“No, no and no! You are not dragging me into this,” she thought, eyebrows furiously furrowed.

But he looked so miserable and pathetic and as she glanced over her shoulder she saw the young boy and thought she might be able to catch him. And then she bit her lip bitterly and ran after him.

“Illah, you stupid, stupid fool! You just couldn’t let it go, could you?”

She had always been a fast runner and she was taller and had longer limbs than the boy who was running ahead of her. And unlike the boy she didn’t need to skulk through the crowd, she basically ran people over causing quite a bit of ruckus as she went.

“Yeah, just pull some more attention to yourself. That’s the way to go for a thief and a pirate.”

When she caught up with him, instead of grabbing him by the shoulder she lunged at him and tackled him so hard they both rolled over. Illah had no qualms with hurting a child if there was need for it, but she did feel a little sorry for the boy when she heard a distinct snap from the region of his collar bone. He let out a yelp of pain, but was obviously not so hurt he could not kick her in the shin, clamber up and skulk off into the crowd. He did leave the purse behind though.

She returned to scrawny man feeling aggravated and looking like a beggar. Her clothes were dirty with dust and her top knot had loosened to the point where it was drooping over to the side. She had half a mind to smack the man, but instead she went over and gave him the purse.

“Here. I don’t know whose it is,” she said flatly aware of all the people staring at her when they should have been looking at the performance. Such a nice night completely ruined.

[Kaikuro]

Kaikuro sighed with relief as the stranger decided to help him. He could tell she was indecisive at first, and he wasn’t expecting her to actually do it. Still trying to catch his breath, he followed behind her at a safe distance. This worked! She could chase him down, politely stop him and get the man’s money back and-

“NO!” Kaikuro cried when he saw her suddenly flying. But there was nothing he could do to stop her from colliding with the boy and driving him painfully to the ground. He heard the gut-wrenching ‘crack’ from where he stood nearby, and he felt his stomach twist. “Shit!” He cursed under his breath.

As the stranger rose up from the ground and began to return to him, looking rather annoyed and winded, Kaikuro accepted the bundle of money quietly, unable to keep the disapproving look from his gaze.

“Th-thank you f-f-for helping me,” he said genuinely, “b-but you really didn’t have to do THAT…”

He looked over his shoulder, trying to find the man who had just been thieved, but he couldn’t see him… he couldn’t even remember what he looked like! Kaikuro grimaced, wracking his brain. Dammit, what color was his hair…? What was he wearing…!?

He was completely unaware of the fact that the little street rat boy had stopped a city policeman, allowing his tears of pain to draw streaks down his dirty cheeks. Clenching his injured collarbone, he gestured with his good arm towards the direction of Illah and Kaikuro, telling the guard through a series of sniffles that he had been assaulted and robbed.

It wasn’t hard for the boy to describe Kaikuro, though he didn’t get a good enough look at the woman who tackled him. All he had to say was, “a crazy skinny man and his friend attacked me! Over there, he’s got black hair and looks starved!”

The child could always use his youth to his advantage, and for once in his life he felt that running to the guards for help wasn’t without merit. He had been seriously hurt!

The guard was upon them in an instant. Weaving through the crowd and pushing through distracted partygoers, he raised his voice and jabbed a finger towards the “crazy skinny man”.

“HEY! You two! I got some questions for ya!”

Kaikuro froze, his face mirroring that of a cornered mouse. He stood his ground, swallowing hard. Holding the bundle of money rather conspicuously, he could hardly will himself to move. This was the first time he ever had to deal with a policeman directly. It was very likely he could be recognized as a man on the police wanted list… and the guard himself looked rather aged.

This, he knew, would be a very close call.

[Illah Karu]

Despite the skinny man giving her the evil eye, Illah didn’t feel remorse about tackling the kid to the ground. She did feel a little bad about him getting injured unexpectedly bad, but that was just the downside of working as a thief she figured. Some people would have hurt him a lot worse than she had. She saw much of herself in that child; stubbornness and a tenacious need to survive no matter what. It wasn’t so long ago that she could not remember being exactly the same. And she’d gotten beat up pretty bad too. She traced a finger up the scar on her face thinking about it.

“Hmm…Yes, I suppose I could’ve have grabbed him by the arm and dislocate his elbow, or shoulder depending on the amount of force. Did you expect him to stop if I yelled after him and said ‘please’?” Illah snorted, not really knowing whether she should feel embarrassed or amused at his scolding of her.

It was amusing in the sense that he stuttered like mad and it was at first hard to make out a coherent sentence out of that babble, but embarrassing at the same time because she had not expected to criticized over her choice of action. She had not had that happen to her in years and it came as kind of a surprise.

As the man started looking around and over to the crowd, no doubt in search of the owner of that purse of money, Illah stood there and started fixing her hair to a more presentable state. It was hard to do without a mirror and the long strands of dark hair refused to co-operate with her, tangling around her fingers and getting into her eyes and mouth. She groaned in displeasure and pulled off the simple brooch that was keeping the top knot in place, stashing it inside her boot leg and letting her hair fall freely down her back. So much for the gentlemanly image she had been striving for.

She was about to start walking and leave the man to figure out how to proceed with returning the purse, when she was stopped in her tracks by a voice she had not wanted to hear. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes for a moment, frowning.

“This cannot be happening to me. When I open my eyes, I’m going to wake up and it’s all a bad, baaad dream.”

It was not of course and opening her eyes she was still at the festival and the skinny man was right there with her, looking equally as uncomfortable with the turn of events as she did. Illah looked around and swallowed hard. She could not afford to get caught by the police. Even though she’d landed herself in trouble numerous times, she had somehow always managed to evade getting actually caught by the law itself. But if she did get caught now, she wondered how long it would take for them to figure out the extent of all the immoral, illegal things she’d done. She could be sent away for a long time.

“No. I can’t get caught. Think Illah, for the sake of everything that matters, just think. What would Maruk do?” she thought desperately.

Well, he would not have landed in a situation like this in the first place. And if he did, he would have dealt with it with his charm. Illah had none of that so she chose the only sensible course of action she could think of at that moment. Run like mad.

And in a fit of sympathy she grabbed the skinny man’s arm, ready to let go if he was just going to stand there and get chewed on by the cop. She owed him; after all she had been the one pulling all the unwanted attention towards them.

“Yeah, nicely done Illah. You’re a first class villain now aren’t you?”