Who: Xiu Mei, Azah, OTA. When: Just after noon. Where: The City Center. What: Xiu looks for a way to get over her guilt.
The days following the quake had been difficult for Xiu Mei, not because of how hard she had worked to help rebuild the city, but because of the unexpected loss. Her earthbending master had perished in the magma chambers, helping to protect a country that was not his own. She had not been particularly close to the man, but she had spent time with him and was only in the city because of her, it made her feel guilty. Guilt was not something Xiu could simply shake off, it tended to stick with her until she did something to fix it. After a day of tears and quiet reflection she decided to make the situation right. She took it upon herself to write his family and send his things back to them with her apologies and compensation. It did not help all that much though, giving money was too easy even if they did end up needing it, she pushed herself to do something more substantial. In his name, she devoted herself to repairing the city and doing what she could for the inhabitants, a lot of it was dirty and hard work, but it felt good in her soul.
The work had been hard, hard especially when she had to work with her hands and not her bending. Putting a house together was hard enough, but putting lives back together was harder. Making sure they had food, finding lost family and valuables, chasing down and stopping looters, it would normally be considered quite the adventure. But it only helped ease her a little, it didn't get rid of that guilt. The last three days it had swallowed her up so much that she could not bring herself to go back to the palace and return to her normal life. An arranged marriage and everything else she could find to complain about her life seemed so trivial. She slept in a tent of earth, a technique her master had shown her before they came to the city, ate at the restaurants and kitchens that happened to be open, and during the day she worked either with her hands or with her bending. The city was not fully restored, but it would be eventually and by those better than she as she was starting to tire.
It had been in one of those kitchens that she was lured into conversation with a mother doing her best to keep her children quite as they waited for their food. After explaining about the work and why she had been doing it, the woman suggested that she move on, that she find a new master and complete her training in his honor since the works she did only seemed to stave off the guilt for a short time. The woman made more sense than Xiu would have liked to admit, but it was advice that she would take. After breakfast she took herself to the city center to check the city bulletin for any earthbending masters seeking students. She stood there still, even though she saw nothing promising she lingered longer than perhaps she needed to, simply staring up at it rereading everything there a dozen times. "Staring at it isn't going to make something appear." she told herself quietly, though she did not move from that spot.