After closing the latch, giving a cheerful nod to Krane and his new recruit, Shila followed them into the underground city and wandered off into a separate path. She had nothing to do until it came time to introduce the new recruits, and all of her recruits had long since scattered into the underground city. Since thinking of them was easier than letting her thoughts wander, where they would inevitably go to her problem, Shila began to think about her recruits to the Rising and how useful they could be. Of course, she also thought about how detrimental they could be. The thief was useful as an Earthbender, Spirits knew that they could always use another one in the underground city, but the money he brought with him could prove to be even more useful. After all, an Earthbender could only do so much. What you could do with money, however, was nearly limitless. Guards could be bribed and equipment could be bought, just to name the obvious. As an added bonus, he was a skilled thief. Subtle work should come naturally to him. On the other side of the coin, however, you couldn’t quite trust a thief to stay true to the cause when things looked like they were going badly. Shila laughed quietly to herself, still wandering the halls. [i]And I suppose you can trust a deserter to stay?[/i] She thought, still chuckling. Regardless of whether or not the thief would stay long, his desire to avenge his fallen comrades seemed strong enough. He would remain loyal, for the time being.

Her other recruit, however, was far more promising. At least, to Shila as a Firebender. The girl was clearly very powerful, and had as much potential as a burning candle dropped in the middle of a forest during a drought. On the other hand, while her style was unique, it was still forming and her control over her flames was…lacking. Shila was just grateful that the base they were in was underground with very few flammables. Things wouldn’t have looked good if she had brought the recruit who had accidentally burned down the base. 

Shila ignored the looks she got from some of the other people in the halls of Omashu. They ranged from distrust to pure hatred. After all, she was not only a Firebender, but a former Dai Li Firebender. She was everything they hated, all in one neat, easily recognizable, red headed package. Her first week here, someone had tried to kill her. He was a teenager, as much of the Rising members seemed to be, and had had little weapons training. It was pathetically easy for her to disarm him and she didn’t even bother to use her bending. Still, she very nearly shoved a knife through his throat then and there. She didn’t want to have to look over her shoulder the entire time she was in the Rising, and it was better to send a blood red message now than wait until it was too late. Luckily for her ‘opponent’ the person who had brought her into the Rising stopped her. Since that incident, she had been left alone. 

As she was left with nothing to do, and no one who wanted to talk to her other than to tell her how much they hated her, Shila found herself leaning against a wall, creating a little Halo of fire above her finger. She was bored out of her mind. At least it was better than being executed for desertion, or trying to find a solution to her problem. A solution to that, she suspected, wasn’t going to come until far later down this path she had chosen. And who knew? Maybe she’d be dead long before then.