idk man, something about ba sing se just speaks to me on a deeper level. the anonymity of a huge city, the way the metropolis itself seems to be a living breathing creature cradling millions in it's maw, the way the darkness is never truly darkness and the shadows are never truly still and the silence is never truly absolute. the way it would be so easy to forget and abandon yourself to it, so easy to imagine yourself living out the rest of your days in a shabby little side street, packed in like sardines with the people who never stop pouring into the city, disappearing and reappearing like any unknown city dweller is wont to do. and there is never any war here, even as you say you can never go back home. you almost mean it this time. it's so easy to let yourself believe you could be someone else here, someone different, the way the city is both a prison and an escape, the stifling exhilaration of being free to be absolutely nobody. and you wish it could last even though you know you shouldn't wish it could. and sometimes, in the night, you'll hear the rumble of the last train and you'll wonder what the point of going anywhere even is. and sometimes when it rains you'll walk with your head bowed through the uneven roads, mud and grit squeezing up into your slippers despite your best attempts to avoid it and you'll think for a moment that you can smell the sea on the wind. and you know it should be impossible because it's too unbounded, too unimaginable for these walls and much much too far away for you to ever be set adrift again.
