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Jordan and Ai-Ling did, eventually, find a workable motor vehicle; a dark green Sedan car that must have been conveniently flashed in recently, from its relative newness and working condition. They strapped Jordan's new push bike to the trunk and headed towards Kansas.

Ai-ling hasn't turned out to be a natural driver. The car's workings are counter-inuitive to her and she needs things explaining a post-industrial person would take for granted.

She is, however, dedicated to learning, and there's not a lot more to expect from a student, so she's soon capable at least of keeping them moving along an empty desert road.

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At least they have their priorities straight. Even if Jordan has that amused smile while Ai-Ling drives up to the hills.

Then there are lessons in parking and a whistle given so Journey will get out of the car (and stop laying on top of Ai-Ling's spear), and Jordan starts wandering about to pick up kindling and rocks for a fire pit. Not far, just around the edges of what she's mentally considering to be a campsite.

Ai-Ling's backpack produces a blanket. She really is travelling light. Then she strolls around the edge of the campsite, looking for signs of animals.

When she spies droppings and then tracks, she glances up, waves to Jordan and heads down the hill with her spear in hand.

Jordan looks up at the wave and gives a nod. Ai-Ling certainly doesn't need a babysitter, or someone to distract her from her work.

If it's really that difficult, she considers idly as she starts putting rocks down for the fire pit, she could hunt. She'd have to learn a new way of tracking, is all. And rid herself of the unsettling thought that she'd be killing something that wasn't hurting any humans.

Of course, she had burgers at home, so she recognizes it's a bit hypocritical. It's just harder to kill Bambi's mother when he's watching you do it.

By the time Ai-Ling is back, there's a fire blazing, some wittled sticks set up for roasting, Journey chasing a rabbit down the field (and making entirely too much noise to ever be considered stealthy), and Jordan by the fire with her backpack at her feet.

Ai-Ling has two rabbits, holding them by the back legs. A spear isn't the perfect weapon for killing something that small, but she improvising, and there was no big game.

She grins at the fire and sits down in front of it, setting about skinning the first.

"It's quiet around here."

Jordan's eyes are a little wide at the rabbits. Not for seeing a dead animal so much as being impressed that Ai-Ling was able to catch something that small and fast.

And more impressed when she goes about skinning them. Nothing Jordan's ever skinned has ever been quite that clean or professional.

She nods in response and glances around them. It isn't an eerie sort of quiet (yet, maybe) but it's worth commenting on all the same. After all the warnings she'd received, she'd expected there to be more noise in the calmer times than Journey's barking.

"It might not stay there, but unless we get a flash, I think we'll get a good nights sleep at least," Ai-Ling says. Although then she stops mid-thought.

"...I've just ruined everything, havent' I?"

She gets a frown in return - though, to be fair, it was already there at the word 'flash.' For the actual question, Jordan grins at her and shrugs. "I don't mind."

Charlie chatters constantly when they go on hunts. It doesn't bother her a bit.

After a moment, she digs a bag of trail mix out of her backpack and offers it to Ai-Ling. "A flash?"

"That's what happens when things come in from other worlds," Ai-Ling explains. "There's a bright flash, and a loud noise, and then something new. Like you, or me, or something dangerous."

Frowning, thoughtful, Jordan nods again - and takes a handful of trailmix herself. She does remember a flash, and she'd heard a loud sound right before Journey appears.

"What shows up that's dangerous?"

Just lions?

Ai-Ling pokes at her own handful for a second, exploring.

"Animals, dangerous people. Sometimes angry spirits."

All matter of fact, and ways Ai-Ling understands the world. She tries some of the mix.

"Oh wow, this is good."

Jordan nods, thoughtful - which is then broken up by a grin at Ai-Ling's reaction to trailmix. She takes a handful of it herself and whistles to get Journey to quit chasing whatever small critters she's found now.

"Anything else?" she asks, looking back at Ai-Ling while Journey romps up the hill and immediately sets on the trailmix in Jordan's palm. Angry spirits she can handle but she'd rather not get snuck up on by any other supernatural things.

Sadly, Ai-Ling lumps all sorts of supernatural beings under 'spirits'. It's a catch all phrase for anything not a person or an animal.

"Sometimes there are people with spirt-related powers," she says, wondering what else Jordan could be asking. "Like my world's benders."

Jordan's guessing a bit. Ai-Ling, she thinks, might put a werewolf under the animal category, a shapeshifter under human. Maybe a wendigo would be an animal, too, or a vampire human. But it's nice to get a more detailed definition on things.

Y'know. Since her life might depend on it later or something.

"Benders?"

She was expecting the question, so the reply is easy coming.

"Some people on my world can control the elements. We have Earthbenders, Firebenders, Waterbenders and one Airbender."

And just in case Jordan was wondering; "I'm not one, but I was raised by Earthbenders and Miki's sister is a Waterbender."

Jordan's eyebrows drop, not quite sure if she's understanding. But when she asks the next question, it's said in the tone of some obviously aware she might be insulting... and still needing to ask.

"They're human?"

It is insulting, and Ai-Ling frowns in a very deliberate way. She's had to learn that it's an insult.

"Yes."

Jordan nods and considers the subject dropped.

Between them. If they actually find one of these people and they use their powers on another person...

"Your world isn't anything like this, is it?"

...then Jordan might see how good Ai-Ling is against Benders, thanks to all that training with Toph.

"nothing like it," she says cheerfully.

And Jordan will continue being impressed.

(it probably won't stop her from fighting back, too, though)

She waits politely for a few moments for Ai-Ling to continue, still munching on trailmix, waiting for the rabbits to cook. Journey gets a few handfuls of mix, too. And if Ai-Ling doesn't continue on her own, she'll consider that subject dropped too.

Ai-Ling considers where to start.

"It's mus smaller, for one," she says. "People live closer together."

She hasn't quite figured out how big the population reduction was. "And we have the four people; Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes and until about a hundred years ago the Air Nomads."

The silence on Jordan's side takes on a more surprised air and she blinks - but it clicks a moment later. "For the benders?" she guesses.

"Well, Earthbenders only come from the Earth Kingdom," Ai-Ling says with a slightly puzzled air that hopes to understand Jordan's meaning.

"They've just always been separate, even after the war."

Jordan nods, smiling slightly, and moves the hand unburdened with trailmix in a waving motion. "I mean... only Earthbenders come from the Earth Kingdom, only... Waterbenders come from the Water Tribe...?"

"Yeah," Ai-Ling confirms. "Though - marriage between the nations kinda messes with that."

She doesn't exactly mean 'marriage'. Marriage doesn't explain all the firebenders her age and older born to the Earth Kingdom.

That conjures a blink and lifted brows.

"It's... hereditary?"

It's genetic?