ooc: The posts in here will take place shortly prior to part 2 of the plot.

A. Docks (Closed to Bumi) - The yelp is cut off all too quickly. The woman's pale hand snakes forward, impossibly fast, closing around the man's throat. She's strong -- too strong -- the momentum of it sends him crashing back against the wall, pinning him under her grasp. Her fingers press like daggers into the soft flesh at his jaw and around his windpipe. Her eyes are cold and black as stones.

He will not be leaving this encounter easily. If at all.

"The Avatar believes that you are capable of learning." Her gaze never leaves his face. "I do not."

B. Spirit Wilds (Closed to Mia) - The water of the former fountain twists in response to the footsteps, swirls. The Mother of Faces emerges from the depths, the great branches of her crown dripping.

She surveys the group -- two stone-faced men, each with a pouch dangling at their belts, holding onto a small, blue-haired girl. One hand lifts; the girl is released. Apparently the Mother has no concern about the girl running off.

"Mia." The name is greeting and question both. What exactly had she been doing?

A. It's too cold to be outside, or she would most certainly be out. It's snowing outside the library, the flakes drifting down beyond the pane, and the woman perched in the windowsill doesn't seem to be anywhere near dressed for the weather. Her robes are light, more ornamental than practical -- some relics of a bygone era. Dark hair is impossibly long, spilling down the sill and nearly to the floor, left loose and undecorated. In her lap is a pad, and she appears to be attempting to draw . . . though it's hard to say, watching her, that she even knows how to hold a pencil. She keeps shifting her fingers, trying to find something that looks comfortable, and the scrawl that she's producing doesn't look much like anything at all.

You'll either find her trying at this or casting down her pencil in disgust, staring out at the falling snow. For anyone spiritually-inclined, she's exuding an enormous amount of spiritual presence; for anyone else, she's merely a woman -- though one who looks very out of place.

B. Sounds like the triads are at it again. They seem to have cornered a tall, pale woman in the nearby alley. Her dark eyes spear them, her voice raised in demand. Whatever she says, however, is lost on the triad members, who smirk. One sparks fire into his hands, ready to move.

The woman answers with no bending. Perhaps she doesn't have any at all.