Author's Note: Week 4, Pro-Bending Tournament

Diamonds

Prompts: (food) moldy bread, (location) Republic City, (genre) Angst, (restriction) No words starting with "M"

Words (excluding Author's Note): 1824

Also, this has nothing to do with the Tourney, but the story draws inspiration heavily from the song "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads.

Asami Sato tugs the blanket curtain closed to wall off the rickety old table from the rest of the basement. She pulls a candle and a battered old lighter from the pocket of her jacket. She lights the candle and drips some wax into a saucer, then sets the candle into the pool. Once the wax cools and sets and the candle stands on its own, she opens the notebook and begins to write.

I found this book today. Someone threw it away even though it's barely water damaged. I'm taking this chance to get these thoughts down on paper so I can slow them down and see them properly. I don't know if there's any sense here or not. That's the point, I guess. That's what I need to figure out.

Rule 1: Eat what's on your plate.

Dad came up from nothing and never forgot. I thought I had been taught not to waste food. I was an amateur. Tonight's bread had spots of green fur growing on it. I didn't pick them off unless they were at least the size of a fingernail. Even then, I felt bad about that small bit of waste.

If I were a romantic, I'd claim that it was some of the best bread I'd ever had, that hunger is the ultimate seasoning. That's nonsense. I want to have good bread again, still hot from the oven. I want vegetables that aren't spotty. I want take out ramen and gourmet dumplings. Spirits, do I ever want real coffee again.

What I want isn't important. What I need is to be strong tomorrow, and that takes a full stomach. A less empty stomach, anyway. Good bread is one of those promises of the future that I'm not sure I really believe in any longer.

Rule 2: Sleep when you can.

Exhaustion is an even bigger enemy than hunger.

We try to keep a schedule in our lives, but there's always the unexpected. Two weeks ago, we had to relocate to a new hideout. The warning that the Equalists were onto us came after lights out. It was almost dawn before we reached a new safehouse. There were still other cells depending on us to do our appointed tasks that day. So no catching up on sleep.

So you take turns napping. You learn the tricks to keep yourself awake when it's your turn to watch. You learn to fall asleep and wake up fast. You get used to sleeping sitting up. A sheet of cardboard between you and a concrete floor is the equivalent of a feather bed.

Rule 3: Blend in with the crowd.

Am I vain? I didn't want to be judged by appearance in the old days, but it was nice to be noticed. At the very least, I think I was a bit of a showoff.

Being remembered is dangerous. I dress like I grew up in Dragon Flats. I still have the old leather jacket. I only wear it in the hideout or use it as a blanket. Hair bobbed by Korra. Not ragged, but sure as Spirits not styled. Lipstick, blush, and eyeliner are things of the past.

Tall women stand out, so I slouch. It takes less than an inch off physically, but psychologically something like five to six. I work hard to stand straight when I'm alone or just with friends. It's another promise of the future, that someday I can stand straight wherever I go.

There's a stranger standing right where I am in every reflection.

Rule 4: It's the small goals that get you through the day.

We're all working to overthrow Amon, to free Republic City. To get our old lives back.

That's too big. I can't picture it. I don't think the others can either. We don't talk about it. We talk about what needs to get done today. The next step. The next chip taken out of the stone. Oh, there's a plan. Everything is in aid of the big goals. We don't lose sight of them. But on that scale, it's a game of inches. You'll break your heart thinking about it that way.

So every day is about today. Today I will build a radio. Today I will tap phone lines. Today I will sabotage a fuel depot.

It's hardest on Korra. Even with only her airbending left, she's too strategically important to use every day. On days when I work in the safehouse, I enlist her help. I've taught her how to solder. She's pretty good at it.

Rule 5: We're all in this together

Republic City got in this fix because we forgot this fact. Too often, bad things were someone else's problem.

Korra has always understood this. "Someone else's problem," just doesn't add up in her world view. She is everybody's Avatar. Even if the last of her bending gets taken away, that won't change. I wish she understood how special that is.

Amon only understood it well enough to cause trouble. He understood how to give people an enemy, but he has nothing to offer when that doesn't fix things. So I'm not afraid that Amon will win. I'm afraid of how long it will take and what it will cost before he loses.

The whole anti-bender thing never played well outside the city limits. In farm country, the waterbender is the healer who saved your grandmother. The earthbender clears rocks from your field. The firebender is on the fire watch and stopped your cousin's house from burning down. We don't eat well, but what we do eat comes from farmers who risk their lives bringing us food.

I'm using a candle I got from a stranger yesterday. She didn't know I was Resistance. For all I know, she has Equalist sympathies. I was out on a foraging run and I took the time to help her pick up some dropped parcels. She pulled the candle out of one of her bags and handed it over. She wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Kindness repays kindness.

Thirty seven days ago, they executed Dad. They called him a traitor to the Equalist cause. They didn't think to stop him from speaking, a definite tactical error. He spoke against the hate that had consumed him, warned against where it was leading the city. He apologized, even though he couldn't know that I was in the crowd to hear. He wore the name traitor as a badge of honor. Too late to stem the damage, they thought to gag him. Then they put a bullet in his head.

By the time I got back to the safehouse, I had seen five defaced Equalist posters, the words "Remember Hiroshi Sato" spray painted over Amon's face. Since then, strangers in the resistance react differently when they learn who I am. I can remember him standing tall speaking for peace and reconciliation, not a face twisted by hate only half hidden by glass and steel.

But given a choice, I would have him alive, still cursing his daughter's name.

Rule 6: Rumors can kill you.

Bad intel is dangerous. The worst is the stuff you want to be true.

In the early weeks of the Equalist regime, there were rumors that the Agni Kai had been buying weapons, arming the ones that had lost their bending. That there was a shipment untouched, overlooked by the Equalists after they took the triad down. Grabbing it would have been a big boost to the resistance. If it ever existed.

Bolin said He shouldn't go.

I haven't said His name ever since He didn't come back. As if I was casting some spell that could stop His death being true. Even here, something no one else will ever see, I can't write it. I think I'm going a little insane. If Bolin and Korra have noticed, they don't say anything. How could they not notice?

Bolin said He shouldn't go, but He did. He thought it was worth the chance. And now He's gone, and there are things I should have said when I had the chance. Things I should have taken back.

Rule 7: Pain is not a competition

Bolin lost a brother. I lost a father. Korra lost a teacher. Chief Lin, Kwan, Jasmine, Shady. Everyone in this basement lost at least one person close to them. Everyone in the Resistance has. Perhaps everyone in the city. A lot of our losses overlap. A lot of us have been hurt in other ways as well.

It's hard not to keep score. To not look at someone and think "You don't have it so bad." To not imagine that there's this one thing that should be sufficient consolation for them. But they could just as well look at you and think the same thing.

So we comfort whoever is closest to breaking. We come together for their sake. Because one day it will be our turn to need comfort. To have caring hands pull us back from the edge.

Today, right now, we're all as sane as we can be. None of us are fine, but we're getting by. That's all any of us can ask.

Rule 8: …

"Asami?" Korra pulls back the curtain hesitantly. Asami looks up, pencil still poised. "It's almost time for lights out."

Asami nods. "I'll be right there."

Korra closes the curtain, giving her a last ounce of privacy. Asami stares at the paper, thoughts swirling in her head. Korra looked afraid. Night time is the only time Asami sees fear in her face. She's pretty sure she's the only one Korra shows her fear to. She doesn't know if Korra even realizes that she does it.

What does Korra fear? That tonight Asami will stay away, chose some corner to herself? That tomorrow will be the day one of them doesn't come back? That Asami guesses that Korra doesn't just want a friend to keep her company? That Asami wants it too, beyond her ability to speak? All of these?

She's not ready to put all these thoughts on paper. Not yet. But something needs to go down. Something to slow it down so she can look at it. Before she closes the book and blows out the candle. Before she goes to spend another night huddled chastely with the woman who will never again be just a friend.

Rule 8: It's the people you care for that get you through the night.