Torun had felled a few trees with his meteorite blade the next morning, but without specialized metal tools, or the more precise art of lightbending, Yaosen had no way of turning them into the refined lumber he needed to build a home worthy of a Light Temple monk and a Meteor Knight. So in the end, Yaosen had contented himself with a simpler design for their lodging.

It had taken a week of blasting apart treetrunks and using Torun’s side knife to smooth out the cuts before Yaosen felt he had what he needed to start hauling things into place.

Torun for his part, split his time between hunting to keep them all fed, and training Grunt to bring the mushrooms he found back to their valley.

Over the next few weeks, Yaosen fell into his role as the builder, and Torun fell into his role as the explorer. By the end of those first few weeks in the meadowed valley, Yaosen had built not only a warm, dry, simple-yet-servicable cabin, complete with a stone hearth and chimney, but also a barn for Grunt to keep the wolfboar and his eventual mushroom horde out of the rain.

Meanwhile, Torun had mapped out the surrounding lands from memory, using a stick of charcoal as brush and the back of the Fire Lord’s orders as canvas. He divided the entire vista that had been visible from the mountaintop into a system of coordinates, and began making notes of various plants, wildlife and other resources that might help them survive long enough to find the avatar.

So far, they had come no closer to contacting any human life in the Farwilds.

It was at the end of those first few weeks that both Torun and Yaosen, as if on cue, came to the same realization. Surviving was not living, and something was missing from their lives, driven as they were.

Yaosen was the first to diagnose this need and prescribe the antidote.

“On your feet, old man,” said Yaosen, as the Meteor Knight was grinding some pungent smelling concoction with the butt of his knife. “You wouldn’t want to grow dull would you.”

Torun gave the younger monk a puzzled look for a moment, then upon realizing the challenge, his eyes flashed.

It wasn’t long before Yaosen stood in a fighting stance, gi draped upon a rock, and the Meteor Knight crouched in full armor, sword drawn.

This section of riverbank was flat enough for the two to square off on even ground, and wet enough that any errant firebending wouldn’t spread.

Torun roared and charged, causing Grunt to lift his head from where he was dozing.

Yaosen avoided the blade with a series of movements that were more akin to airbending than firebending, then began parrying the metal with forceful bursts of flame when the knight got too close.

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Torun’s attacks came too fast for Yaosen to keep up, and after ducking a blow, he launched into the air with a fireburst from the soles of his feet.

He flipped and landed in a crouch twenty paces back, slowing his momentum with a thrust of fire from his hands.

Torun growled and began closing the space step by carefully placed metal-clad step.

Yaosen decided this was a fair time to employ some long range bursts of firebending. He kicked and flipped sickled-bladed arcs of focused fire, sending comets from his fists in their wake.

Yaosen cut through the first two with his blade and they parted to either side of him, then he put his shoulder into the first ball of fire, letting it break around him. The last comet took him full in the chest, sending him tumbling across the wet grass to crash into a moss-covered boulder.

Yaosen rushed over to the old Meteor Knight, who had come to rest upside down against the rock.

“Are you alright?” Yaosen asked, breathless. He had never seen Torun fold like that.

Torun reached up to pull aside his metal mask and Yaosen was shocked to see the Meteor Knight laughing. Not grunting in approval. Not chuckling. But actually laughing deep within his gut.

“Hohoo, I haven’t been tossed like that since basic training.”

Yoasen grinned tentatively, and helped the man right himself to sit against the rock.

“I’ll feel that tomorrow!” said Torun.

Yaosen rubbed at his forearms, where he had absorbed the shock of Torun’s blows and batted aside his metal bracers, “Me too. Maybe we take the day off tomorrow.”

“Agreed,” said Torun. “We should do this every few days. One day of training and one day of rest out of every ten. And once we get more settled, we can make it every five.”

“Deal,” said Yaosen.

“Let's go again,” said Torun.

Yaosen lifted his eyebrows in surprise, “Alright. If you’re sure you’re alright.”

The Meteor Knight levered himself to his feet and tested how his armor was moving after the tumble.

Yaosen paused before he rose. Silver black flakes peppered the ground where the Meteor Knight had come to rest.

Yaosen lifted one and held it up to Torun, “Are these from you?”

Torun studied them, “That’s not meteorite. Looks like crude iron.”

Torun moved to the boulder to pick up another. “And look here, this moss is scraped off. Someone was sharpening a blade here.”

They both looked to where Grunt was resting, razorback spine glimmering bright in the sunlight.

“Not a blade,” Yaosen smiled, “A razorback.”

“Looks like our resident wolfboar doesn’t want to grow dull either.”

“Must be part of his grooming process,” said Yaosen

Torun’s face lit up as he turned back to the firebender, “Yaosen, do you know what this means?”

“We don’t have to wash him?”

“It means, we don’t have to mine for iron, or do without. It means between him and you, we can have iron tools, iron arrowheads again.”

Yaosen was thoughtful, “I’d need to tinker with fuel and airflow, but… yes I think I could do it. I could figure out some sort of forge.”

“Then it's settled,” said Torun, clapping Yaosen on the shoulder with a meaty gauntlet, “Today we train, tomorrow we rest, and the day after that, you get started on the forge!”

“What are you going to do?”

“While you work on the forge?” Torun stretched his back and grimaced, “I think I’ll need to sort out some medicinal herbs.”