Then it's practice until sunset.

"Do you want us to settle elsewhere for the night?" Hisame asks Eliko.

"There's no caravan overnighting. You can stay."

"Thank you, then."

"Will you be staying with your bison?" she asks Mara.

"Yeah! I'm used to sleeping outside. It's nice. And Appa'd get lonely without me."

"Be back here tomorrow morning, then."

Eliko starts back to the village.

"Hisame, was it, right?" Mara calls out before Hisame can leave, and draws her into a discussion - mostly comparing their life histories, patterns of thought...

And then Hisame returns to the village an hour later. She is visibly excited and humming.

"You seem happy."

"Did Eliko tell you about her new student?"

"She hasn't been by. I have been... experimenting." There is a minor alchemical lab set up in a corner of their room.

"Fun! Anyways, the Avatar showed up, apparently, and wanted Eliko to teach her Earth-bending - and the Avatar looks exactly like I did at twelve! Quite startling, really."

"Truly? That seems... beyond coincidence."

"She's a lot like me! I'm pretty sure we're in a simulation, at this point. Her name's Mara, after a death demon, which is also something I'd name myself..."

"I wonder if there's one of me somewhere."

"We could look! Though you'll still be my favorite you."

That's deserving of a kiss.

Mmmmmm.

After kiss: "I wonder if there's a me with less of a commitment already, though... Mara doesn't have anyone like my sister, so there might be a me without someone in that slot, who is a bit less - well, twelve. I was a brat at twelve."

"I don't know that anyone else would quite... have your charms. Even another you."

Kiss!

"You could have two me's - I happen to know I'm always incredibly charming."

"Mmm. That sounds like fun."

That sounds like time for fun with clones, maybe.

Multiple Hisames. The possibilities astound.

Indeed.