Follow Your Nose <Earth Kingdom>

[iikagen]

June's response was, sadly, predictable.

Sun's response was, well, not important.

Iikagen huffed a slight laugh when he realized that the bounty hunter had more or less passed the entire burden of resolving the situation onto him. She truly seemed unbothered by the chain around her throat. He supposed it was the shirshu's presence that allowed her to feel as though she still had the high ground in this situation, even though the Igni was well-prepared to remove that bargaining chip if need be.

"Well..." Iikagen drawled, stretching the word out for a long time as he bought some time to think, "since no one else wants too volunteer..." The Igni cleared his throat and raised his elbows up in order to place them on June's shoulders like armrests. He let out a content sigh after shifting around to get comfortable and then went on with his plan.

"What if I were to say dat I could get'choo not only de reward, but two or three times dat much?" he asked, his voice resonating deeply with that entrancing accent. He let the offer hang for a moment, knowing full well that he didn't need to wait for an answer. She was a bounty hunter, after all. "You could have at least double de money on de poster, I can go my own way, fighting and stealing my filthy black guts out..." He paused for a moment, turning his head and resting it on his arms as though he were about to take a nap while leaning against June's back. He looked over at Sun, who seemed to be leaning aginst his staff in a similarly tired manner. "...and joo can watch over dis beast or somethin'," he said, almost with a shrug.

Iikagen wasn't entirely sure why he bothered to think of involving the stranger at all, but it simply crossed his mind, so he said it.

Looking back toward June, feeling as though the pitch of the idea had been made enticing enough, Iikagen finally asked, "Interested?"

[june]

June made a small grunting sound as Iikagen propped up his elbows onto her shoulders. A part of her wanted to say something, but she didn’t. What she did was listen to Iikagen’s little offer. However, after hearing him speak out it was more of a big offer. A very big offer and very tempting. Two or maybe even three times her reward? Now, the Igni was speaking the bounty hunter’s language. At first, June thought it was an acceptable offer, but stood silent to think.

She did not trust him at all and she was not an ignorant fool. For all she knew he might be pulling her leg. If she went along with his deal, who was to say he would keep his word and not try any tricks on her? June had never dealt with a situation like this before for her missions went rather smoothly. Well, there’s a first time for everything. The deal was indeed very tempting and seeing as how she couldn’t trust Iikagen, maybe the traveler could become involved with their deal.

"Alright, I don’t trust you at all and I know you don’t trust me either, but I think I’ll accept on two conditions. Firstly, I want to know how you plan on doubling or even tripling my profit."

For a short moment, she stopped and cleared her throat, hearing her speech becoming raspy.

"And secondly, I want you to hand over the blow darts, Igni. Like I said, I really don’t trust you."

[sun]

Sun’s shoulders slumped for a moment at the thought that he had been relegated as little more than a watchdog, he thought they respected him more than that and he felt a little hurt. This was alleviated somewhat by the fact that he didn’t even know these people or even really care what was going on as long as a girl wasn’t getting hurt.

“Look, I dunno whats goin on but if there‘s money floatin I want a piece of it,” This could have been taken as a threat if it weren’t for the slightly dazed look of somebody daydreaming.

Though he was now convinced they weren’t a couple (yes he was still on that subject), he had seen some fairly odd couples during his travels and some of them had some very weird ways of expressing love, maybe this was how these to liked to get their freak on.

[iikagen]

Iikagen made no effort to hide the chuckle that followed when June asked him to hand over his blowdarts. After a moment of laughter he recomposed himself, and spared the other traveller a glance as he spoke up about wanting a piece of the action. The Igni gave a wry grin and then looked back toward June as he let the finer details of his vague plan begin to formulate in his mind.

"Firstly," Iikagen spoke in her ear, though loudly enough for Sun to overhear, "joo can offer terms when I don't 'ave a chain under jour neck." The Igni was grinning as he jangled the loose hanging length of chain as a reminder, but then he sat back a little bit and lightened his tone as he continued. "But de idea is simple... We jus' find a Fire Nation outpost dat can pay de bounty, I let joo take me in, dey pay de money, and joo help me escape. Den we move to de next town and do it again. And so on and so on til dey realize what's goin' on." Iikagen rested his elbows on June's shoulders once more as he took to gnawing at a hangnail on his hand.

"Honestly, I'd do it jus' for de fun," he added after a moment, spitting out the piece of nail in his teeth, "Hide'n Seek is getting old, so if joo can bear to keep jour mutt off my ass for a few days den joo can have all de money joo want." Iikagen smirked as he glanced to his side at the traveler who was still holding a bamboo pole. "Even joo might be able to help," he said to Sun, shrugging slightly.

[june]

June scowled, attempting to turn her head away from the Igni. She felt a small ringing in her ears, feeling a small headache taking place. Just what she needed, a headache. How lovely ... sarcasm intended of course. This situation couldn’t get any worse, could it? Well, listening to Iikagen seemed to make June’s current predicament seem a little better. It seemed like a good plan to the bounty hunter ... or at least crazy enough to work. She took a few moments to think.

"It might work, but you better take this seriously and not mess around like an imbecile like you usually do. I’ll make sure my shirshu will behave, you have my word. We’ll go our separate ways afterwards and forget about everything that happened. I want my money. This better work."

The huntress blew out a sigh from her full, crimson lips, then cracked her stiff neck to the side.

"Alright, get this chain off of my neck. Right now. I just want to get this over with already. Also, hand over those blow darts of yours too, Igni. I’m not taking any chances with you at all. Got it?"

[sun]

The plan caused a subtle increase in the size of Suns smile, he would happily get involved in just about anything that could potentially get on the fire nations nerves. As an on and off crew member of the Broken Sword he considered himself to be a professional thorn in the fire nations side.

After pushing off the feeling that he was about as important to this conversation as the tree five feet to his left he began to have his own version of the plan boil up in the back of his mind. Of course in his version he ended up the hero and June ended up in the nude thanking him for saving her… of course this thought had no real relation to the plan but it was one he planned on nurturing copiously.

After several moments of delving into this sweaty fantasy his attention was torn away by June’s response, he could only wonder who long the plan would go before one screwed the other over (the thought it could be him hadn‘t occurred yet) either way he was finally going to have some entertainment.

[iikagen]

Her word... That was Iikagen's garuntee of her complience? The Igni could almost laugh about how little that did to assuage his suspicions that she would turn on him the moment she saw the opportunity. However, for this proposed plan to work, he supposed there would have to be some degree of blind trust. And even though he was certain that this bounty hunter loathed the very core of him, Iikagen suspected that her love for money was no less intense.

The Igni had always considered himself an excellent judge of character. Even from an early age he seemed to be able to read and manipulate the human psyche, and his instincts told him that he could make this leap of faith with pretty good odds of success. So, after a moment more of contemplation, he carefully uncrossed his hands that gripped his chain and loosened the noose around June's neck. Iikagen removed it entirely from her shoulders, draped the chain in his lap and reached into his pocket. After groping around for a moment, he withdrew the hand carved blowgun and the piece of cork that had all his darts stuck into it. Quickly, and without a word, he puled the darts free and passed them under his nose, inhaling deeply. The faint scent of resin reached his nostrils, and he quickly picked out a pair of the thin wooden darts to old onto. The rest he shoved back into the cork and then handed to June over her shoulder, along with the blowgun. Iikagen quickly slid those two darts into the folds of the gauze wrappings on his ankle, and then rolled backward off the saddle and down the shirshu's flank.

The beast growled and shifted a little bit, but Iikagen merely smiled as he put a few steps of distance between himself and the beast. The Igni put on his most confident grin, deciding that the best way to keep June from turning on him was to maintain the appearance that he still had a trump card.

"So," he said, glancing between the woman and the traveler, "Who wants lunch while we work out de details?"

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The next few days were very awkward. All three seemed quite hesitant to travel within throwing distance of the others, and more often than not, Iikagen still opted to remain in the trees. However, by the end of travel that first day they had managed to find a Fire Nation settlement not too far from the edge of the forest along a river. The town might once have been Earth Kingdom, but had obviously been in Fire Nation control for quite some time. Steel walls lined the town and ornate, red-roofed structures occasionally rose up from the primarily one-story buildings. All in all, it seemed like a fairly prosperous little town that could doubtlessly pay the bounty on Iikagen's head.

That night, Iikagen slept in a tree. However, as a show of good faith, the Igni did allow his toes to dangle within reach of the shirshu's tongue; a fact he made sure to note to June. Once morning came, the trio set to observing the town from a distance. From their scouting, they were able to determine that the settlement had a decent garisson of soldiers, but nothing more than might be expected of any town near the battle front. The gritty details such as the location of the prison or the nearest escape roots couldn't be established from the outside, but would instead be June's responsibility to determine once she brought Iikagen in.

Close to midday, a plan of action was finally agreed upon. Several of Iikagen's original proposals were shot down, including one such plan that involved June distracting the warden with a provocative dance and another that involved Sun tattooing his face and taking on the death sentence that awaited the Igni. After a meal and with the sun starting to descend in the sky, the plan was set into motion.


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'This can't have been necessary!' Iikagen thought to himself as another large stone hit his thigh and he grunted slightly from the impact. The Igni had been bound at the wrists and was currently being dragged across the ground on the approach to the Fire Nation town. '"Make it look authentic" my Ass!

The shirshu, mindless beast that it was, even seemed to be enjoying this part of the plan. Iikagen merely sucked up the pain, however, and simply concentrated on keeping himself from flipping over onto his back. He had a knife hidden in a rather sensitive location, and he didn't feel like having their plan ruined, nor a large gash put into his rear. From his position behind the wolf-like creature, he couldn't see that far ahead, and only wished they'd reach the front gates soon.

[sun]

Sun was enjoying himself as well, with the exception of a large red splotch on his cheek that he had earned sometime after he had tried to impress Jun with the bounty on his head. It hadn’t worked in the slightest though as it was so small compared to Iikagen’s that Jun wouldn’t have enough to buy a meal with it.

Despite the horrendous blow to his ego, Sun was smiling and daydreaming as he walked along side the shirshu who, like the other two seemed to barely register his presence (he had also spent half their first day paralyzed from his attempt to pet the shirshu again). In a few moments he would break away from them and enter the city on his own so not to show a connection with the others. Until then he was more than happy to stare at the sky nurturing previously mentioned thoughts.

Before he turned off the trail he looked down and used his pole to nudge a final jagged stone into iikagens path.

[june]

The few days the trio spent together before they even reached the Fire Nation settlement, June made sure that she kept an eye on the two males, mostly Iikagen of course. The traveler wasn’t much of a threat to June, just the Igni. June spent nights being rather restless and found it hard to get some rest; she was only able to catch just a few hours of sleep. Even if the Igni seemed to be cooperating with their arranged plans, the bounty hunter still had her suspicions either way.

---------------------------------

Oh, I love this...

June couldn’t help but let an impish smirk spread across her crimson painted lips. Being able to convince the other two for their entrance to be convincing for the Fire Nation citizens worked like a charm. Though June was serious about making everything look believable to the eyes of others, it was also a little plan of her’s to get some payback as well. After all of that mental anguish Iikagen had made her go through, the bounty hunter was now very pleased and at much ease now.

In no time, the shirshu entered through the gates of the town, picking up its speed as it did so. June tugged hard at the reigns, making the beast come to a halt and within moments the huntress was off of the saddle and tying her shirshu up to a post to make sure it would stay put. She sighed, making her way to the back and untied the rope that kept the islander attached to the saddle of the shirshu. Coiling up the rope to a certain point, she started to drag the Igni along the ground.

There were many onlookers as June casually made her way to the entrance of the building. However, June did not mind; it was something she was very used to already. She picked up a bit of conversation from those who were within her hearing range, frowning. She had to admit it was a bit annoying, but she ignored it as she always did. When she finally made her way through the doors of the prison hold and away from all of the eyes of the civilians, June threw the Igni forward.

"Alright, one Igni islander for you to keep until his execution. Now, let’s talk about my reward."

[iikagen]

Iikagen did his best to remain fairly limp and lifeless-looking as he was dragged through the streets. Through squinted eyes he managed to catch glimpses of people lining the side of the dirt-paved paths. They looked somewhat frightened and confused, probably more so from the shirshu than himself. After what seemed like an eternity of bumps and wear on his legs, his "captor" stopped her beast and untied the rope that tethered him to the saddle. As June dragged him the rest of the short distance toward what he assumed must be the prison, he managed to hobble along behind her, offering the occasional groan or muttering.

Anything to make it more convincing.

When June came up to the entrance of the building, a pair of Firebenders flanking the doorway stepped forward. They seemed to take in the situation at a glance, though, and the doors were opened without any other question than, "Bounty?"

The moment they were inside, June shoved him forward, and Iikagen stumbled into a rough fall onto the wooden floor. He spared no attempt to break the fall, and lay in a fair amount of actual pain that leant even more realism to his act. A rather elegantly dressed man was sitting behind a desk to one side of the room, and he seemed to be watching the situation unfold with some sort of detached amusement. The quill in his hand had stopped scribbling on a piece f parchment as he leaned slightly forward to fully glimpse the Igni on the floor.

"Igni, hmm?" the clerk mused, sitting back in his chair for a moment and glancing eside him at a wall that was flecked with wanted posters. For a moment, he simply shifted his glance around, looking for the correct poster, and then removed one from the lower left corner. "Ahhh," he said, holding up the poster, "EE-Kajen, is it? My, quite the bounty on that one... Oh yes, he'll burn for sure." A slight smile crept across his features, "You might have done him a favor by bringing him in dead, but I suppose you wanted that bonus for him still breathing." The man spoke in an entrely light-hearted tone, as if he weren't remarking on the horrible fate that awaited the prisoner. Meanwhile, Iikagen had managed to sit up on his knees and caught a glimpse of the wanted poster.

"Bad enough dat I'm in dis situation," he said through labored breaths, "But de picture looks nut'in like me... My nose isn't dat huge!" A hand cuffed him on the back of his head, and a moment later he felt himself being hoisted up into a standing position by one of the guards.

"Take him to Cell Block Nine," the clerk ordered, and Iikagen was harshly guided through a barred door into the main corridor of the prison. As the doors swung closed, the clerk casually went about the task of taking out a stamp, an inkpad, and mprinted a seal on Iikagen's poster that marked the fugitive as being apprehended. He carefully filed the document away, and then finally turned to regard June.

"Ah yes, I'd almost forgotten..." He folded his hands neatly in front of him as he gave the bounty hunter a very transparent smile. "I'm afraid that our humble town cannot afford to pay the bounty on that one's head in full at this time. It has been forever since a payroll carrier has come through, and we just sent out the collected taxes for this quarter. If you'd like money, I'm afraid I could only pay half, but if you'd been so kind as to wait for another day or two while I drsaw up the paperwork, I would be happy to extend to you a line a credit. It would be as good as money wherever the Fire nation's seal is recognized." He smiled widely at her once more.

[sun]

From Sun’s seat he had been able to see Iikagen and Juns arrival at the city gates. Trying not to look too conspicuous he kept his eyes on the card game in front of him. Occasionally he would take a ridiculously large bite of the meat he had bought earlier, he didn’t know what it was but he had probably raised it at one point.

Sun’s apparent lack of table manners seemed to annoy the player next to him who was eating a piece of fruit and currently wearing the straw hat he’d already won off Sun. Absent mindedly Sun finished the last of the meat on the bone and tossed it backwards over his right shoulder where it came slashing down into the soup bowl of a rather large hunter.

Angrily the man stood up and stormed over in the direction the bone had come from to find the only ones in that direction was a rather disheveled looking man playing cards with a half dozen Hogmonkeys.

[june]

The smile on his face was not helping the situation at all. June’s lips curved into a frown as she looked at the man before her, her gaze soon turning towards the floor for a few seconds. A part of her wanted to start arguing with the man, demanding for her full payment in cash, but she refrained from doing so. The huntress wanted to keep her image as a professional ... that, and she did not want to make the current situation worse by upsetting any of the authorities in the settlement.

Exhaling sharply, June looked towards the man again, trying her best to hide her irritation.

"It seems ... reasonable enough. However, I will have to get back to you on that shortly."

Believing that her little act passed and was convincing enough, the bounty hunter turned sharply on the short heel of her boot and walked swiftly out of the building, hands at her sides. Once she stepped out of the jailhouse, a small growl escaped her lips. This was not good. Her hopes of everything going smoothly were now crushed. She couldn’t inform the Igni, but she could at least let that traveler know. Now, where could he be? She was not in the mood to look, but she did anyway.

At least it did not take long to locate Sun having a little card game. June rolled her eyes.

"We need to talk," she said, not sounding too happy as she dragged Sun away from his game.

"We’ve got a problem. They can only pay us half of the money and I am not settling for that."

[iikagen]

Behind the barred doors of the office, Iikagen was taken through the first level of the prison. It seemed to be comprised of a few large holding cells that contained several lesser criminals all in the same large cages. A few of the men inside lined up along the bars to inspect the newest convict, but many back away just as quickly once they realized it was an Igni. Even among the lowlife scum, it seemed iikagen was a pariah.

The guards ushered him through a second doorway at the back of the room that led to a flight of stairs. Iikagen took great satisfaction in stumbling and staggering the whole way up, acting the part of someone who'd just been dragged along the ground for several miles. It forced the guards to practically haul him up the steps the whole way.

They eventually crested the final stair and arrived at a hallway that looked strangely familiar. The wooden walls were interrupted by steel doors that led to steel-lined rooms of miniscule proportions. Iikagen began to think that perhaps these upper levels were reserved for hard criminals and powerful benders.

That thought filled him with a sense of pride...

He was once more hustled along the walkway until they reached a door near the end of the hall. At that point, one of the guards held him securely by his rope-bound hands while the other took out a large ring of keys. Moments later, the lock clicked and the door swung open.

"Get in," the guard behind him order. Iikagen felt a hard shove on his back as he stumbled into the room. The room was, if possible, even more cramped than the last one he'd been in. There wasn't even a bed, just a stretch of cloth that looked big enough to accomodate the average adult if they were curled into a fetal position.

"We're gonna have to fumigate this room after this," the other guard remarked. The first one chuckled, and Iikagen turned around to look at them before the door was shut.

"Depends on what'joo feed me," he said, keeping his tone even and factual, "Too much fiber gives me gas, and den joo'll really need to torch dis room to get de smell out." The door slammed shut and a moment later, the small latch over the looking slot was pulled back.

"You'll be lucky if we feed you at all, savage," the guard spat at him. Iikagen responded with a shrug, and that didn't seem to please the guard very much. "You're only in here as long as it takes to arrange your transport back up North... Then you're to be executed."

"I hope by Firing Squad," he heard the other guard say.

"Sounds painful..." Iikagen mused. "Den maybe I'll just kill myself now and get it over wit'."

The guard laughed and shut the latch, leaving Iikagen alone in the confined room with only a small window high up on the wall for light. With the guards unlikely to return any time soon, he set about putting his escape plans into motion.

Iikagen reached into the back of his pants and after a moment of fishing around he managed to extract the small knife that he'd curled up in the folds of his breech cloth. The whole thing was only about four inches long, but once he'd manage to squirm his arms under his legs so that they were in frront of him, the knife was more than enough to cut through the binding. Once he was free of the rope, he quickly untied the black sarong from his waist and tied one end of it to the bars of the room's window. The rest he let hang outside as a signal to June and Sun where he was being kept.

Then, with nothing else to do for the moment, Iikagen loosely wrapped the rope back around his hands and sat down in the corner of the room. A random tune came to mind and he began clicking his tongue in an upbeat rythm.

[sun]

Sun stared at his cards intently for several moments before grinning and placing a red card down on the table, “Aha! A prince for the win!” He reached out and took the hat back from the monkey next to him and grinned.

"We need to talk"

Sun was midway to placing his hat on his head when he was suddenly jerked off the ground by a seemingly annoyed Jun. His hat fell to the ground, balanced on it’s rim for moments before flopping down to be picked up by it’s temporary simian owner who gave the hog monkey equivalent of ‘finders keepers.’
“Hey my luck was just about to turn!” he whined while subconsciously snatching his staff from the nearby post. Behind it, at least partially ignored by the witnesses was the unconscious body of a large man who hadn’t realized the effectiveness of a large piece of bamboo to the side of the head.

"We’ve got a problem. They can only pay us half of the money and I am not settling for that."

Sun shrugged as he was dragged towards the jailhouse drawing surprisingly little attention. “Well if were going to break bird nose out anyway why don‘t we just make off with all the money while were at it” suggested Sun who was quite naïve to ways of subtlety. They came to a stop when they saw the black sarong (sun refused to call it that for his own reasons) tied to one of the highest windows.

[june]

The frown on June’s face disappeared quicker than she expected it to. And she thought this rugged looking traveler was a complete imbecile. At first her expression was calm, but then the slightest smirk of deviousness came to her lips once an idea popped into her head. Instead of both of them taking all of the money and leaving that damned Igni behind, why not only herself keep the loot? In the bounty hunter's opinion, Sun wasn’t much of a help up until now for giving her this brilliant idea.

This was absolutely perfect.

"Hmm let’s go then, shall we?" June turned on the short heel of her boot and walked off.

Expecting Sun to follow, June made her way to her shirshu, untying the restraints that kept the wolf creature tied to the wooden post and leading it over where the traveler was. She stopped just a few feet behind him and pondered a way to distract the man. Now what, oh what could she use for a distraction? There was no way she was going to try and seduce him, or anyone for that matter, ever again; she still had dignity. However, maybe pointing out a woman that’s job was to could work.

"Well, well, well. Would you look at that? Seems like we’ve got a local prostitute in our midst, selling her goods," June stated out loud with a little smirk, pointing at a random direction behind Sun.

As she hoped, Sun did indeed become distracted by the make-believe prostitute that June had pointed out to in the crowd. Before he would notice that the huntress was lying, June quickly cracked her whip. The shirshu obeyed its master and lashed its tongue out at the foolish man and hit the back of his neck, paralyzing him instantly. Many of the townsfolk gasped and stared with wide eyes while others tried to leave the scene. June just chuckled and dragged Sun right to the jail house.

She forcefully entered and threw Sun before the man at the desk for now she was in a rush.

"This man is an Earth Kingdom rebel. I lured him here, but now have gotten the chance to capture him and bring him to you. And with this fool out of the way as well as that Igni, I want my payment."

With some rushing and pressure from her side, June managed to retrieve her money in less time than she would have thought. As much as the ruthless huntress was a greedy woman, it seemed better not to risk her reputation, her job and especially her life just to get the extra cash that she really wanted in the first place. A grin was plastered on her face as she walked out of the jail house in a saucy manner, listening to the gold pieces jingle in the bag that she bounced in her hand.

"Well! Have fun in jail with your new buddy that I brought you. Though, judging by how long you're gonna be there, "buddy" might not be a good term to use after awhile. Have fun, suckers!"

With that remark to Iikagen's window, June got onto her shirshu laughing just loud enough for him to hear and rode off. Rumor had it there was a wanted bandit in a village not too far from this area.

June has left the thread