Twin footprints were the only indication something was wrong
Twin footprints, tinier than the paw prints of the polar-bear dog, ruined the pristine tapestry of perfect white.
They stayed close together, creeping towards the boats as Noatok's fingers slowly unwound the rope that anchored one.
He slipped inside silently with the ease of practice and waited. Small but strong hands pushed the carved wood into the water; not a word between them, their plan so well rehearsed and practiced that it flowed effortlessly like the tide.
Noatok moved to the front of the boat, taking the helm as he began to rhythmically move his hands bending the water . Slowly, at first, but they picked up speed until they were racing away.
He sat in the back staring down at his feet. He could still feel their frail bodies beneath his fingertips.
His mother had scolded him when he had been little, when he had squeezed the arctic snow rabbit too hard upon catching one.
"No, no...gentle...you have to remember their bones are smaller than ours. If you squeeze too hard you'll hurt him", she'd whisper before he set the animal to its feet watching as it raced off.
He could still feel their blood pulsing beneath his fingers, he wondered if that feeling would ever go away. He stuck his hands inside his pockets sniffing as he tried to fight back tears. You never had to touch a creature when you blood-bended...but you touched it just the same, in the most awful way.
It was like holding a soul in your hands and pulling it apart slowly.
His brother turned the boat, arms gently gliding back and forth as he created waves and parted the water.
He sat in the back shaking, not from cold, waiting for it to end as he remembered the terror in the small creatures eyes. It knew the predators and the snowy chill of constant winter...but it didn't know what Tarrlok had been doing to him. It's eyes impossibly huge as -
He shuddered, the sound of the crunch reverberating through his body.
"Where will we go?", he asked softly, his voice sounding younger than his years. "I don't know." came the quick reply. "...What will we do?", he asked and he could feel the tears flowing past his cheeks then even as he tried to control them. "I don't know.", softer now. "What about Mom?"
"..."
Slowly their speed dropped till their little boat was still in the water.
He looked down at his feet as he waited for his brother to say something. He wished he was braver, he wished he was stronger...he wished ...he glanced up and then froze feeling horrible as he saw Noatak's shoulders heaving up and down.
He didn't make a sound, he never saw a tear, but when he spoke he knew he'd been crying.
"I don't know Tarrlok...I don't know."
He bit his lower lip as head still bowed Noatak moved his arms the boat turning as they faced the shore of their small village again.
They didn't go back quickly, the boat moved dragging across the water and no words were spoken.
He wished he could save his brother.
The boat skimmed, bobbing up and down. Noatok no longer controlling it with his bending but with the controls of the machine. They were headed towards some unknown destination that they'd never seen.
His brow furrowed as he recalled. They had both taken such different paths in life and yet ended up in exactly the same place. They'd tried so many times but never managed to really run away.
They'd never seen that place they were always trying to go.
Mists from the water rushed past him, inconsequential droplets too tiny to truly feel.
They'd never known about the other and yet their plans and actions had so nearly mirrored the other's.
"I never want to do that to anybody!" and yet they both had.
He slipped the metal glove on.
"It will be just like the good old days", he heard Tarrlok say.
The only good times he could remember were when they had both been babes. Too young to bend, too young to hunt. Before they had known the burdens of power, before they had run away dozens of times till their home was a dot in the distance...only to return. Before they had known, like that terrible phantom children came to fear, that the world was a place of cruelty and pain.
There had been so few of those days.
He held the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip his eyes turned towards the horizon.
A tear slipped past his cheek hurtling towards the ocean.
For the first time in the longest time he imagined the boat moving further, never to turn back again, things being different...
He heard the clink of metal against metal and knew.
Tarlok's hands settled over the gas compartment and his eyes drifted close.
The chaos of the explosion rocked the ocean, debris slicing through the water.
Twin ripples flowed throughout the water slowly regaining its peace
Twin ripples flowed throughout the water before the ocean slowly came to peace.