Where Words Fail
Book Three: A Test of Faith
Chapter 1: When you see their heart-shaped graffiti around, you know someone, somewhere, is crying with a Uki-Uki-Waku-Waku feeling!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a fan fiction - nothing more, nothing less. It has been made purely for entertainment purposes, and is not meant for commercial gain. Avatar: The Last Airbender and all characters, places and concepts are copyright of Nickelodeon, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. All original characters are copyright their respective owners and are used with their permission. The story has been illustrated by the talented and awesome SioUte, and this chapter's cover can be found here:
sioute(dot)deviantart(dot)com/art/WWF-3-1-136439967
SCENE DIVIDE
Now
Standing at the fringe of the swamp, Longshot craned his neck back so he could better absorb the green, bushy canopy spanning overhead. A small frown lighted on the corners of his mouth, and his brow furrowed. Something about this place didn't seem right - didn't fit quite well with him. The real kicker - the real break in the bow string - was that he couldn't figure out what, and it was on that grounds that Smellerbee insisted they cut through the swamp rather than skirt around it.
"I don't care," she grumbled, frustration edging into her voice like a chipped dagger. Sitting on the ground with her legs folded and a map of the Earth Kingdom splayed over her lap, Smellerbee's eyes flitted from one landmark to the next. She prodded one spot with her finger, the paper crinkling beneath her touch. "If we take the long way, we risk running into the Fire Nation brigade that's heading over to Ba Sing Se to reinforce the first invasion team; while I don't think a squad every now and then will be a problem, I don't wanna fight like half an army of 'em." She thumbed her chin with her hand before running a curved line around the dense, dark-green splotch (looked suspiciously like a stem of broccoli) on the map she'd been poking at before. "Not to mention we tack on something like an extra five days if we go around rather than through; I dunno about you, but I'd prefer to get to Omashu sooner rather than later."
Longshot crossed his arms over his chest but kept his gaze on the trees, wandering to the darkness between the gaps that felt ominous enough as to swallow the Freedom Fighters and their ostrich horses whole. A distant pressure built up and throbbed in his temples; couldn't Smellerbee feel it...?
When the younger Freedom Fighter didn't answer, Longshot risked a glance over to her, only to see that she had stood up and turned away from him entirely. Instead, she busied herself with folding the map up and slipping it away into the supplies on the back of her mount, tying them down to the saddle still draped with the symbol of the Earth Kingdom - a golden circle with a square of green inlaid directly in the center. The two of them had done away with the ostrich horses' armor, though; they went for a handful of gold coins at a small town between Ba Sing Se and here, and it left the creatures much more fleet-footed.
Seeing as how the swamp would be mired with all sorts of squishy, unstable terrain, this could not be a bad thing.
"We were forced off the road anyway, remember?" Smellerbee scowled into her bedroll, drawing the ropes around it, tight enough to keep the supplies in place. "The Fire Nation is using it while they move into Ba Sing Se. Even if we do go around the swamp, we'd have one side open to attack at any given time. We didn't escape Lake Laogai to do something that stupid, and I'd rather take on whatever wildlife this place has to throw at us."
Longshot sealed his lips and nodded. She had a point, and he would rather avoid having to eat a fireball sandwich if it could be helped...but there was no denying that this bog exuded enough Spiritual pressure to make him feel uncomfortable. It reeked, too - like Pipsqueak farts after eating a plate of Ba Sing Se curry, a pungent odor he missed only when thinking about his old friend, its nostalgia lost as soon as the stench slapped your nose upside its head. Even from here, at the swamp's edge, humidity stifled him; he loosened the neck of his tunic to quash the lurking sensation of suffocating. He could hear horse flies buzzing, raccoon frogs croaking - all sorts of indigenous life that would invariably find their way to the pair of teens.
The Freedom Fighters, as a whole, had never been the most spiritual of people, and Longshot sympathized with that mindset. Still - the Spirits existed, and they liked the mire the archer and the swordswoman were about to traipse through. Smellerbee wouldn't hear an ounce of that, though, so bothering to bring it to her attention would be a futile gesture. Sighing, Longshot turned to what was left of their camp. Best to just get this done with, he figured.
"Hey, if you want to go around, feel free." Smellerbee interjected, sensing his reluctance and striking. It had been like this ever since stopping in that grove outside Ba Sing Se a couple days ago - him keeping mostly to himself, her lashing out at him in response, and he couldn't figure out why any of this was happening. Longshot bowed his head and focused more intently on breaking camp and preparing for the journey ahead of them, causing Smellerbee's ire to rise even further. "I'm not gonna force you to stick this out with me if you're uncomfortable. I can go through and I'll meet Pipsqueak and The Duke ahead of time. We'll wait in Omashu for you."
Despite the fact that she wasn't yelling, Longshot winced, feeling the verbal razor sliding across his skin. As the morning sun clambered lazily towards the midday zenith, he remembered his intent from the other night - the unsaid words that Smellerbee picked up on so easily, always so easily, and the thought of her lying there - drenched, hair choked with sand, and pale, so pale. It made him scowl again.
She'd abandoned him - she had not abandoned him - but, she had,regardless of the circumstances...no, no! She couldn't help it, she - argh! The dichotomy was going to drive him insane if he let it, and he could only take so much irrational guilt; what better way to stave off madness than to dive head-first into an asylum? He gave a slow, clear shake of the head and finished cinching up his share of the supplies. He crouched down on a sunbaked patch of dirt and picked up his bow and quiver, slinging both around his back; using the palm of his hand to sweep away the telltale signs that something had been there, he brought his gaze to Smellerbee and fixed her with a somber expression. She didn't need to worry. He'd stick by her regardless - he wouldn't abandon her.
He flinched, realizing how scathing and blunt that had sounded - but if the swordswoman picked up on it, it didn't show.
Smellerbee - still preoccupied with preparing for the journey - turned her attention upward. For the first time since they'd left the cave at Lake Laogai, Longshot could see the exhaustion on her face; her eyes hid in shadows not caused by their frame of moss-brown hair or her headband, the bags underneath apparent despite the liberal application of mascara. She still had a drawn appearance to her from starving and dehydrating while in the dungeon, and although her face had started to fill out and become rounded again, he could still see her cheekbones.
"Good to know you're coming along, then," she murmured, turning her attention back to her saddle. "I'm almost ready to go."
Longshot sighed and shook his head - no point in trying to fence with her on that one. He stepped into the stirrup and hauled his leg over, plopping down into the saddle. He grabbed the reins, and when Smellerbee had mounted her ostrich horse, flicked them - urging the beast forward, into the skunky, murky bog looming ahead, the pressure at his temples and nape of his neck increasing.
SCENE DIVIDE
Then
"To another successful raid!"
"YEAH!"
Longshot leaned backwards on one hand, thrusting the other up into the air, coddling an adobe cup full of a sloshing liquid which had the color of a polished ruby and gleamed just the same in the flickering torchlight. Jet's toast - the precursor to another one of his flamboyant, charismatic speeches - had gone heralded by all Freedom Fighters, and although Longshot's cheer remained unsaid, his gesture - raising the cup high above his hat - was all that needed saying.
The regular dining hall had been the victim of the storm that had torn through the forest a few days prior; the winds had been so vicious that it ripped a branch clean from a tree and slamming it hard into the dining platform, crushing the table and bringing the platform's integrity down to nil; Pipsqueak had yet to give the clear on using it again, and so, in the meanwhile, the cafeteria in Skillet's kitchen served as their eating space, packed to the brim with all nineteen Freedom Fighters. The booze, when combined with all of those bodies crammed so tightly into one space, made his face hot, his back slick; on all sides, the beige-gold wood flickered and danced with the lanterns hanging from the walls and ceiling, casting undulating shadows across the entire room. He could smell the food, though - a delicious, spiced turkey chicken, a sharp, tangy aroma that made his mouth water. He set his cup down and picked up his chopsticks, plucking at his meal.
The archer glanced away from his leader as the shaggy-headed boy built up momentum. Although Jet's voice rung in his ears, weaving an incredible story of the raid on the Fire Nation camp - of the reason why tonight's meal was so special - Longshot only picked up dull, thrumming muffles, as if his leader spoke through a thick veil of cotton. No, his attention had already been drawn elsewhere - to her, with cheeks already flushed from the ruby-colored liquid, a grin plastered on her face.
It was about then that summer decided to club him upside the head, its heat spread across that of the fire water and his friends; he tugged at his collar, and (perhaps it was because of the drink) he swore a puff of steam whistled up from beneath the fabric. Longshot craned his head back and chugged the contents of his cup to distract himself, to focus instead on the searing inside his body as the liquid slithered down his gullet and into his stomach. That balanced it out, at least, and as Jet continued to weave his story, Longshot gave a low, throaty cough, thumping his chest with his free hand.
Jet said something - the booze further skewing Longshot's perception, but for once that was okay - and Smellerbee rocked backwards, laughing that laugh, that raspy, rambunctious laugh of hers that reminded him that, yes, she still was a kid at heart. He took advantage of her distraction and sidled closer to her, the girl's heat compounding with everything else and yet radiating through more powerfully than any of the others. The swordswoman still had a sharp air about her, even while drunk, and spotted Longshot moving from the corner of her eye. She turned to glance at him; her cheeks burned ferociously, almost hiding the stripes of crimson war paint, and her eyes shimmered just as the surface of his fire water had.
Looking into those eyes - big and warm and friendly instead of cold and razor-sharp, like the tips of her knives - they were magic, somehow, beautiful almonds that glimmered in the torchlight, and his cheeks tingled as an unmasked smile pulled up on his lips. Smellerbee laughed - snorted and laughed! - just as another cheer rose up into the superheated cafeteria air, so nobody else would be able to hear it except him, a gift for his ears exclusively.
"Longshot, you look hilarious when you're buzzed." She punched him in the shoulder hard enough to send him rocking, bumping into Skillet; his grin widened, and he slid one hand up to his forehead, wiping away the sheen of sweat that had percolated.
The moment became engrossed in the hours to follow; the night turned into a blur of laughter, cheering, and enjoying the company of others, until their numbers dwindled. Midnight had long since passed by the time only seven of the Freedom Fighters remained at the eating hall; himself, Smellerbee, Jet, Pipsqueak, The Duke, Sneers and Skillet. Jet's grandstanding had long since come to a close, and the teen slouched back against a support beam at the head of the table, observing the argument ("debate" was too sober a word) unfurling between his friends, barely able to hide the amused grin hanging slipshod on his face.
"I just don' get how you can do it." Sneers' voice slurred, bludgeoned out of its usual verbal articulation thanks to repeated abuse of the whiskey keg at the back of the room; other than that, though, the normally lucid monk seemed unhampered by the drinks he'd downed throughout the course of the night. He pounded one fist against the wooden table, a curious frown wriggling across his jaw, making the long-emptied plateware clatter. "Livin' a life without the blessin' of the Spirits? They're everywhere, from th' water, to th' forest, to your li'l chubby hide; not to mention, without no Spirits, there'd be no bendin'."
"It's a scientific impossibility," The Duke countered, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head away. The irony that the youngest remaining Freedom Fighter had decided not to imbibe warranted - what Longshot assumed through his haze - was a dopey, warm grin from the archer. "Give me an hour of your time and I could explain both why the sky is blue and why rain falls while inventing an explosive powder that can substitute for blasting jelly."
"Snot-nosed brat."
"Arrogant monk."
"Without th' Spirits, we wouldn' be here," Sneers insisted, his face flushing. "No bendin' - no Firebenders. No Freedom Fighters. Y'ever wonder why th' Forest's leaves stay red all year 'round? Can your science explain that?"
"Yes." But The Duke - cute and probably the smartest of the entire lot if gauged by pure factual knowledge - had a terrible poker face and didn't look nearly as confident as he tried passing himself off to be. Longshot felt a snicker tingling up past the throbbing rash of pain in his throat. Still, the boy kept up his aura of indignance, grumbling a muted, "You couldn't explain why the sky is blue, I bet."
"Th'r's no such thing's Spirits!" Smellerbee protested loudly, jolting Longshot; the tomboy, who had passed out in a small, growing puddle of her own drool, bolted upright with one finger jutting straight up into the air. The entire left side of her face was slick with saliva, her war paint smudged; her eyes refused to open all the way, and the combination left her with the unsettling semblance of a zombie. "Cen't be. 'Simpossible."
"What, are you also a scientist too now?" The monk affixed Smellerbee with his customary, trademarked namesake, but Smellerbee shook her head and gave a gurgling laugh, bringing her finger down and thrusting it straight at Sneers.
"Naw. Jus' don't b'lieve in 'em." Smellerbee smirked, swaying a little bit as she spoke, and even through his own muddled senses, Longshot could smell the whiskey hot and raw on her breath. "An' that tr...trum...ffffucks up anythin' you gotta say t'me. S'my 'pinion - means I'm right, yer not, an' yer face looks like a hogmonkey's ass."
"Low, but accurate," Skillet admitted, shrugging and grinning. She downed the last of the shochu from her chipped, glistening shot glass; sighing, she leaned back in her seat and ran a finger across the table, her lips peeling back in a wicked smile, revealing white, shining teeth. "What stance to take here...on th' one hand, I do actually believe in Spirits...but on the other hand, Sneers' face bears a remarkable resemblance to a hogmonkey's hindquarters. Hm. Decisions."
"Stuff it in yer ear."
Skillet shifted her weight forward again, leaning on the table with one elbow and clasping the back of her chair in the other hand; smirking, she said, "You're just jealous, Butt-for-face. That some of us here can actually choose what we believe in. You - you were raised with that crap, but Smellerbee an' The Duke an' whoever got their own free will. You're shit outta luck, sister."
"B'sides," Smellerbee mumbled, groping for - finding - picking up the wood chalice she'd been nursing and taking a swig. "Th'world ain't pretty 'nuff fer Spirits."
Well...that was sobering. Longshot took another pull at his scotch (he'd switched away from that glistening, ruby drink from earlier in the night) and coughed. She had terrible mood swings when drunk - she knew that, right?
The swordswoman snickered, her lips peeling back as she grinned. "Fair 'nuff. Wha' 'bout you, Squeakers?"
Pipsqueak - who had, like Jet, remained unopined during this exchange - simply let a wide grin cross his broad jaw. It stretched from one end of his headgear to the other, the corners of his mouth obscured by it, a red flush scrawled across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose; he looked about as plastered as Bee, but his wit didn't seem any duller for it. He shrugged his massive shoulders and said only, "If they're real, they're real; if they ain't, they ain't. 'Que sera, sera;' it means, 'Whatever will be, will be.'"
Longshot nodded; he appreciated Pipsqueak's stance most of all because of its simplicity, and because he wasn't being as stuffy about it as the other Freedom Fighters had been so far. (Not to mention - and Longshot only admitted this to himself - that being sloshed actually made Pipsqueak a much more acute philosopher.) But it yielded a question, and the archer turned his attention to the only (other) one who had been silent since the topic came up.
Jet - sensing Longshot's attention on him, and that of the other Freedom Fighters as they followed the archer's gaze - shrugged, smirked, and threw his hands out behind his head. The stalk of wheat in his mouth bobbed as he chewed on it, thinking of an answer to the topic; he craned his neck back, looking up at the ceiling, at the support beams criss-crossing the building.
"Spirits, huh...?" He mumbled, melancholy overtaking him. "I dunno. I kinda agree with Smellerbee; what greater being would simply stand by and let the Fire Nation continue on their rampage on the world? The world is an ugly place, and I can't wholly believe in a God-like entity that turns its back on us so willingly. But I'd be willing to change my mind if I ever got to meet one face-to-face...you know, just so I could smack it around a little and wake it up."
He laughed - a calm, reserved laugh that set Longshot at ease. The booze had left his leader contemplative, rather than self-destructive as it had for Smellerbee.
"Then..." Sneers drew a slow breath before continuing. "What if th' Avatar ever returned...?"
"The Avatar?" Jet shifted his weight, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Meeting Sneers' gaze with a grin, the leader of the Freedom Fighters furrowed his brow. "Now that would be a story to tell, wouldn't it...? Show me a person who can bend more than one element and I'll show you a man who believes in Spirits."
SCENE DIVIDE
Now
Longshot liked to believe there was a Spirit for Irony, and that none surpassed her in her craft; in the presence of the master, one could either join in the merriment with their own ostentation, however unimpressive it would seem compared to the Spirit's, or they could simply stand back and nod appreciatively as the Spirit struck with an accuracy more true than the archer's astute gaze. Never were these strikes personal; the Irony Spirit only struck as she deemed appropriate, and if she chose to appear in your life, then the best option was to simply take it in stride and, if you weren't too prideful, to laugh along with the mirthful phantom.
(For reasons Longshot couldn't quite place, every time he envisioned a possible physical form for the Irony Spirit, he imagined her carrying around Skillet's cast-iron namesake. He didn't have any idea why that came to mind, but it fit too perfectly for him to care.)
So, allowing himself a smirk, the archer thought back to that night and how, not six months later, the very same Avatar Sneers had brought into question stumbled onto that Fire Nation campsite and made himself an ally of the Freedom Fighters. Later that same evening, when Jet had a moment away from Aang and his friends, he turned to Longshot and shrugged, saying, "Well I'll be damned...I guess the Spirits really do exist, after all." Longshot felt the ghost of a smile tugging on his lips as he appreciated the Irony Spirit's handiwork.
Humidity pressed in on all sides, sweltering and stifling; flies and mosquitoes hummed songs into his ears, and no matter how many times Longshot swatted them away, there would always be more to take their place. His forehead, back and armpits had gone sticky with sweat, and every breath came out hot and stuffy. A knot had tangled up in his forehead; the pressure he'd felt at the swamp's edge continuously expanded, thrumming and buzzing more noticeably the further they trekked. It wasn't debilitating as much as it was annoying, and he would often find his hand drifting up to his brow in a subconscious attempt to rub the knot away.
Like he'd figured, the ostrich horses struggled with the inconsistency of the ground; they made decent time over the solid bits, but once they hit a mud bank or a river, their pace slowed as they slogged onward, their expansive, scaled feet slurping and splashing. Longshot felt a growing concern drift over him for the safety of the animals; they seemed...smart, more intelligent than your average ostrich horse. They'd been able to intuit the Freedom Fighters' anguish following their escape from Ba Sing Se, nuzzling them for comfort without any prompting. Granted, he would have worked to protect any mount of his regardless of the fact, but...something was different with these two.
"I wish we could move a little faster," Smellerbee grumbled, her head hanging just a mite lower than usual. She'd always been good at reading people, even if unintentionally; Longshot didn't feel at all surprised that she knew what he'd been thinking about even though she hadn't turned to look at him since they'd entered the swamp some hours ago. "This is a pain in the ass. Alright, hang on...I need to check the map, see how far we've come."
Why was that?
"'Cuz...I feel like we're lost, even though we shouldn't be."
Longshot paused; he hadn't even really been thinking about it, but now that Smellerbee brought it to his attention, the lurking doubt seeped into his mind - inexplicable, but there nonetheless. He'd be more surprised if it weren't the case. He nodded and gave a sharp tug on the reins of his mount, pulling it to a halt. Exhaling through his nose, the archer pushed off from the ostrich horse's saddle and sank up to his ankles in muck as he landed. (He pulled a face; this detour, already unpleasant, had just been made that much more irritating thanks to the prospect of gunk-filled boots.) Smellerbee followed, kicking up a light spray of water just slightly ahead of the archer (he saw her grimace as water and mud flooded her boots as well, and at least he wouldn't be alone in his discomfort). The swordswoman dug around in her bedroll, arm vanishing up to the elbow, before withdrawing the map; she unfurled it, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow as a finger lighted across the broccoli-shaped patch of green.
"This place...I'm startin' to understand why you didn't feel comfortable coming here."
Longshot glanced up at the swordswoman; she hadn't looked away from the map, actually looking much more intent to find out what the hell had gone wrong. Her hair had matted down to her head, a sheen of sweat glistening just beneath her headband. He didn't care for clammy atmospheres; when they had crossed the threshold of the swamp, where grass and dirt shifted to become vines, mud and murky water, he could feel the air pressing at him with heavy, moist fingers. It had been like stepping through a door into a different world; beyond the canopy of Hong Ye, the weather had been chill, lush and inviting, not unlike a typical spring morning. Here, the air itself was thick with moisture and bugs, the latter of which trying perpetually to choke the archer up and flying into his eyes.
"I feel this - I dunno - this tightness in the base of my skull." She brought one hand up and rubbed the back of her neck, grimacing again. "Like there's something alive about this place and it doesn't really want us to be here..."
The already-stifling atmosphere doubled in propensity; Smellerbee's words had given heft and weight to the sensations she'd just discovered, that Longshot had known since entering this dank hole (why the hell hadn't she listened to him before, when he brought it up outside the swamp?). It brought an extra dimension to their surroundings, and Longshot felt his innards lurching in fierce protest. One thing the archer and swordswoman had become familiar with over the years, and especially recently, was that verbalizing certain things that were better left unsaid brought an unnecessary dose of reality into the equation. Then again, maybe she'd had to air it out, openly admit to feeling the same fleeting sensation that had been bothering Longshot for hours now. She was too proud to turn on the beliefs she'd fostered since childhood, but maybe, just like working with Katara and Sokka in Ba Sing Se (who had every right to turn the other cheek to the Freedom Fighters and leave them to their own devices), the same niggling sensation that attacked both Freedom Fighters carried enough weight that her own opinion on the existence of Spirits had become a trivial thing. Frogs croaked and snakes hissed, birds screeched to each other through the din...and the Spirits inhabiting this place knew, they knew, that two outsides had trespassed on their territory. The sensation slammed into Longshot like a brick upside the head, and Smellerbee must have picked up on it as well; their eyes met, and all Longshot could do was swallow and nod in agreement to her statement.
"We...we should be careful." Smellerbee's cheeks flushed, and this time Longshot wasn't sure if it was from the humidity. "And let's trust each other to get through this together, okay?"
Well, crap. Longshot felt the old, familiar guilt pressing on him again, welling up underneath the presence of the Spirits...she had to bring that up, here, now, of all places and times! His desire to commit to Smellerbee's word clashed with his self-inflicted burn, awarded to himself after she broke a similar promise in Lake Laogai. She - she couldn't understand, wouldn't understand - he sure as hell didn't, and it was his problem! (At the same time, her problem as well, but not - his, but hers too, but not...which is exactly why she wouldn't understand to begin with.) As he erected another wall to prevent her from seeing his train of thought, he nodded to her. This wasn't the time to make waves.
In the back of his mind - because the fore was too occupied with the gnawing spider of being watched by a greater presence - he knew that his ambivalence needed to be taken care of; if he didn't come to grips with the problem, stare it in the face and take control of it, the abyss that yawned between himself and his friend would grow wider and, eventually, become irreparable.
The archer turned back to his mount, his mouth set into a thin line; an uncomfortable tingling sensation continued to wriggle through his chakras like a caterpede with one leg too many. Creatures scrambled through the underbrush, the swamp burbled - and, something, right on the fringe of his vision, blurred and dark and not entirely there - Longshot had his bow in hand with an arrow nocked in a blur, aimed up at a tree branch overhead. Yes - there! Crouched on the branch huddled a dark shadow - a person - as if waiting, ready to drop down on the Freedom Fighters, to strike. Smellerbee had drawn Jet's swords the instant she heard his bowstring draw taut, twin flashes of quicksilver cleaving the dank air in two. The form didn't move - that was okay, Longshot only needed a second, but -
- something snared his ankles, thin and stinging; he had only a second to think, vines? before the world extinguished around him, yielding to, to wet cold grimy can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe, water rushing through, around his ears, vision blurred and darkened, the ground scraping his belly - bow and quiver gone, tried reaching for the surface, but his fingers combed nothing but muck, and, and -
Nothing.