Nothing much had happened in the past few days. No men whose powers made Rezalia feel the biggest wave of "why the hell can't I remember you" ever, no big fights, no run ins with the Fire Nation. They'd taken a trip to an old island covered in volcanic rock in order to further Aang's spirit journey but all the others had really done was hold hands.
Rezalia wasn't the only one feeling restless. The others were getting a bit jumpy, especially during training. Katara and Toph were at each other's throats currently, with Aang blindfolded in the center of the fight and completely oblivious to the fact that they were longer training him. After a moment he spoke up, "Are we taking a break?"
Sokka runs at him, grinning wickedly. "SNEAK ATTACK!" Aang easily throws a wall of rock into Sokka's path before removing his blindfold.
"Sneak attack my ass," Rezalia snorts from where she was lounging on a nearby rock.
Aang smiles a bit. "Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud." Sokka scowls at both of them, rubbing his nose. Behind the boys, Toph and Katara were wresting in the mud that they'd created together. Shouting insults at one another, both parties got a healthy mouthful of mud. A situation that only one of them was terrinly upset about.
The airbender turns and frowns at his friend. "Uh guys, I thought we were supposed to be training me."
Both girls stop short, looking oer at Aang. Katara composses herself and steps forward, acting to all the world as if she had any dignity remaining. "Very well, pupil. I believe we've had enough training for today."
"While Katara cleans up," Toph speaks up, blasting the mud off of herself. "Let's go have fun!"
The boys cheer as Rezalia rolls off of the rock and blasts flames in her palms to send her into a standing position. "How do you manage to be that lazy?" Sokka asks, raising an eyebrow at the girl.
"It's an art, really," Rezalia responds as she joins the others in their trek toward town.
As they walk, Sokka carries his swoard across his shoulders, using his wrists to hold it in place as he gazes around. A messanger hawk passes by, gaining the boy's attention. "Look at all those messenger hawks! You know, I've been thinking about getting one for myself. That way, I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I could just send them messages."
Toph nods. "I gotta say, I like the idea of not talking to you."
Sokka shoots her a nasty look as Rezalia snorts. "Seriously, who would you message? Everyone you talk to on a daily basis is here and the hawk hasn't ever been to the water tribe."
"Irrelevent," Sokka huffs. Aang cuts off their argument before it could properly form by holding up their last silver piece.
"So, guys. What are we gonna get with our last silver piece?"
Toph stops walking, head tilted to the side a bit. "We can get more money. Right there," she says, pointing to the side. The other three look over and see that on the level below them was a man running one of those con games. The group moves to stand with the crowd gathered around the poor man being dupped out of his money as another man moves shells around on the table top.
"This is where you seeing people are at a disadvantage. Everyone guesses wrong because the dealer moves the rock at the last minute. But I can feel it with my earthbending," Toph murmurs, concentrating on where she could feel the small rock under the shells.
The man inevitably loses the game, sulking off to the side, and the crowd thins a bit as others lose interest. The con-man spts Toph in the crowd and calls out to her. "You there. Wanna play a friendly game?"
"How can I possibly play?" Toph asks, voice painted in faux innocence as she wabes her hand in front of her face. "I'm blind!"
"You don't have to see to be lucky," the con-man says, giving the earthbender a sly grin. Rezalia scowls at the man, uncomfortable by his general existance. Toph sits down in front of the table and feels around wildly, really playing up her "helplessness".
The con-man gets to it instantly, slipping a rock under one shell and quickly switching around the shells. Toph smiles a bit as she senses his tricks and waits for him to stop. Toph points to the shell on her left when the con-man was finished. The man grins cockily as he lifts the shell only to do a double take when he saw that the rock was, in fact, under the shell he had just picked up.
"Flameo, Toph," Aang grins as the crowd breaks out into applause. Rezalia exchanges looks with a nearby lady, who seemed just as grossed out with the use of the old slang as she was and shrugged.
The con-man's eyes narrow. "Wow. Fancy guessing. You are amazing at this. Would you like to make the game a little more interesting?" He jangles a few silver sieces in his loose fist.
"More interesting? How?" Toph asks as she perks up a bit.
The con-man points to Sokka's sword. "Well, let's say you toss in your friend's fine sword there," he says as he pulls a large bag of money from his side and plops it down onto the table. "Then I'll put up twenty silver pieces against it, and that's more interesting."
"I'll do it for forty silver pieces," Toph haggles as she reaches back and grabs Sokka's sword. Sokka looks between the two with wide eyes.
"Shut your mouth, doofus," Rezalia mutters. The water tribe boy ignores her.
The con-man agrees and goes to do his trick once more, moving the shells much more quickly this time. Rezalia tracks the movement with her eyes subconciously, despite knowing that he was using a trick and the rock wasn't going to be in the shell it had started in.
As the con-man stops, Toph points to the shell in the center. "Sorry, little lady, but-" the man's words end abruptly as he lifts the shell. "Huh?!"
"I won!" Toph cheers, grabbing her prizes off the table and dashing. The other three follow her lead, laughing a bit as they stumble around corners and nearly crash into pedestrians. Slowing to a walk, the group decides to buy some food with their newfound money and gets to scoping out the stalls.
~*~
Katara eyes the baskets of goods as the group reenters their campsite from where she was cooking something in a large pot. "Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff? Did Lia buy it?" she questions. Rezalia shakes her head as she sits down on the ground, leaning back onto her palms.
"Toph got us money. She scammed one of those guys in town who moves the shells around all sneaky-like," Aang answers, moving his hands around to physically demonstrate what he was talking about.
Katara frowns as Sokka continues, oblivious to his sister's disapproval. "She used earthbending to win the game! Classic!"
"Ah, so she cheated," Katara remarks dryly.
Rezalia clicks her tongue. "Can't say it's not fair, that guy cons people all the time. Nobody's meant to win that game."
"Yeah!" Toph exclaims, taking a bite out of an apple. "I only cheated because he was cheating! I chated a cheater! What's wrong with that?"
"I'm just saying this isn't something we should make a habit of doing," Katara says, a slight defensive edge to her voice.
Rezalia sighs a bit, watching the argument play out idly. The crew members on Zuko's ship never bickered like this in front of her. It was quite interesting. "Why? Because it's fun? And you hate fun?" Toph scoffs and Rezalia represses the urge to let out a low whistle.
Katara lets out an offended noise. "I don't hate fun!" she shouts, pulling Momo over to her and setting him atop her head. "See? Fun!" Momo screetches at her as he scrambles off of her head.
"Let's...not do that," Rezalia says slowly, giving the other girl an odd look.
Aang gets to his feet and moves his headband a bit so that his tattoos were visible. "Katara, I'll personally make you an Avatar Promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams."
They ended up doing more scams, of course. Between Toph and Rezalia, Aang's promise didn't stand a chance. The scmas had gone from messing with conartists in the street to conning nobles out of money for "running over" Toph. Their bags of money and goods were piling up in the campsite, much to Katara's displeasure. Rezalia didn't mind the cons at all.
She didn't find them particulary thrilling like the others did, but it reminded her of Zuko's shenaggins when he had tried to provide for his family in the only way he thought he could at the time. Katara's huffing draws Rezalia out of her thoughts. "Guys, I think these scams have gone far enough. If you keep doing them, something bad is gonna happen."
"Could you for once stop being such a sourpuss and just lighten up?" Toph asks, tossing a few coins at Katara.
Tossing them back, Katara sneers, "Oh, I'm sorry! You think I should be more like you? Like some wild child?"
"Yeah! Maybe! Maybe then you'd see how great we have it! I mean, look at us! We're traveling around the world! Making easy money! Having fun! With no parents to tell us what to do!" Toph exclaims, folding her arms behind her head. Rezalia winces a bit.
Katara steps back a bit and folds her arms. "Ah. I see. You're acting like this because of your parents."
Rezalia took that as her cue to leave and quietly slipped away, wiggling her fingers at Sokka by way of goodbye when he caught her eye. He nodded at her and turned back to the girls. Wandering around the town on her own was different than when she was with the others. Now, she could slow down and take a good look at the shops. Some evil part of her mind noted that Zuko had always walked at her pace to allow her to see everything even when he was beyond bored.
She pushed that voice aside. He left me. Shaking herself off, Rezalia enters the closest shop to her without paying attention the store sign. A clothing shop. Wandering around idly, she fingers a few clothing items. The clothes were all various shades of red and orange with a few black garmets here and there. Stopping in front of a see through, flowing, red shirt that cinched at the waist and hung off of the shoulders with a tight black crop top with thin straps under it, Rezalia zones out for a moment.
Snapping back to attention, Rezalia grabs the shirt and marches to the register, not paying too much attention to the reason she had grabbed the shirt in the first place. I miss you, a small voice murmurs in her mind. Rezalia stops in her spot, annoying several people who were expecting her to keep walking.
"Stop it," she whispers. "You left me."
"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Rezalia's head snaps to the side, eyes coming to a stop on an older woman looking at her with a concerned gaze. The firebender doesn't answer as she rushes away, shirt clutched tightly in her grip.