Where Words Fail
Book Six: It's All or Nothing
Chapter 1: Spatula, Part 4: Show me ya moves!
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.
SCENE DIVIDE
"It's Pipsqueak an' The Duke! Pipsqueak an' The Duke! One's big and burly, the other's small and cute! Freedom Fighters true, from the Earth Kingdom to you, it's Pipsqueak - it's Pipsqueak and The Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke!"
"Hahaha, yeah!" The Duke cheered, pumping his fists into the air and laughing.
From beside the young Freedom Fighter, an older boy sat perched on a log with a chunk of meat pinched between two chopsticks, an amused grin on his face that made his moustache quirk up with a scary sort of charm. With tan skin and sienna hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a cream-yellow tunic with green sleeves, he chuckled and said, "This is what Freedom Fighters do in their spare time, huh? Make up theme songs for themselves?"
"You should'a seen us on music night, Haru." Pipsqueak beamed, still standing from his flashy, dramatic performance, sweat glistening on his brow in the flickering firelight. "I was the best singing voice in the entire forest short'a the birds themselves. And the most impressive triangle player."
Haru laughed again and turned to The Duke. "What instrument did you play?"
"The gong," The Duke beamed, leaning back on the rugged, patchy grass and grinning. The blades prodded at his palms and fingers, and the heat of the fire washed over him in gentle, rolling waves - not unlike the ocean, a unique dichotomy that fascinated the scientific part of his mind. "I'm not under a delusion of grandeur like Pipsqueak, I know I'm terrible with music. The gong is all about timing, and I can do timing."
"Hey now," Pipsqueak growled, his baritone voice growing intimidating - but the grin spread across his jaw like butter on a roll betrayed him, and he moved back to the sizable gap in the ring of young warriors left by his absence, plopping down to the ground at The Duke's right. "I ain't that bad...am I, The Duke?"
"Don't worry, big guy. It's the spirit that counts."
Pipsqueak guffawed at that, which proved infectious enough to draw laughter from those around them as well.
"So, you really grew up in the trees?" Asked the fourth and last person making the ring. Seated in a fantastic device that The Duke could only marvel over - a wooden box serving as a sort of chair that stayed perpetually low to the ground, with extensions for his bandage-wrapped legs and wheels located near his hips and feet - the fourth boy had mussed black hair pulled up into a partial topknot, hexagonal goggles pushed up to his forehead. He cocked his head to the side and grinned. "I'd say that's bizarre, but I've spent most of my life living on top of a mountain."
"We haven't spent our whole lives in the forest, either, Teo," The Duke said. With a belly full of delicious stew - nothing compared to what Skillet or Spatula would have cooked up, but meat was meat was meat - keeping his eyes open became more difficult with each passing moment, especially now that their entertainment had chosen to retire beside him. A lazy grin crossed his face. "Freedom Fighters come from all over the place before they join."
"Some of us are old enough to remember what came before," Pipsqueak said, hunkering down and fixing the flickering fire with a thoughtful frown. "I do. But we have friends that were orphaned so young, they don't know any other life. When we left the forest, the youngest one was five years old. Can you believe that? By the time he gets to be your guys' ages, all he'll have known is the trees. Not like it was a bad way of living."
"That's kind of sad," Haru murmured, picking up his still-unfinished bowl and picking out more of the meat chunks, not bothering with the cooked greens floating in the broth. Internally, The Duke scorned such a waste of food; his time in the Freedom Fighters, and then on the road with Pipsqueak, had taught him that any meal could be your last for a long period of time, that famine tended to rear its head when it was least wanted. It was better to march the road ahead on a full stomach. "But...it sounds kind of nice. You speak pretty highly about your time there."
"If I could go back an' do everything over in my life, I don't think I'd change a thing." Pipsqueak beamed again. "Yeah, the reasons we all wound up there stunk, but the Freedom Fighters are...were such a huge family." The giant crooked his head to the side, a sigh escaping past his lips. "Okay. Maybe I'd change a few things. I'd make it so Jet didn't have his head so far up his butt about the Fire Nation. If - if only he hadn't blown up the dam...if only we'd been smart enough to stop him. Then we wouldn't've split up."
"But then we wouldn't be here at all, would we?" Teo said, his voice gentle. "Hakoda said that Sokka was inspired by coming across you two. It was his plan to gather the Avatar's allies from around the world, wasn't it?"
"Heh, yeah," Pipsqueak murmured, shaking his head. "I just wish it hadn't cost Jet's life for it to come together like this. You would'a liked him, I think...he would'a really been a help to us here. Him, and Smellerbee, and Longshot. They were good people."
The Duke nodded in response, leaning forward. He didn't feel sleepy anymore - just, just sick, a little bit. The thought of his lost friends no longer hurt as much, but the little pains still dug barbs into his chest. "They were."
"I'm sorry," Haru said, casting his gaze to the ground.
Silence overcame the quartet; nearby, other warriors - Hakoda, Bato, Tyro, and more, Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom and Teo's peers from the Northern Air Temple - milled about, eating, chatting, planning. The convoy still had a handful of places to stop at, but the list of people Sokka had asked them to locate had shortened drastically in the month and a half they'd been on the move. Only a few remained, according to Hakoda. Then it would be off to rendezvous with Aang and the others, and then the eclipse would come, and...
"I joined the Freedom Fighters when I was about five," The Duke said at last, breaking the silence. "I almost didn't."
"What made you change your mind?" Teo asked.
"My mother." The Duke leaned forward. "She had always been sick, for as long as I could remember, and I didn't have a father or any other siblings. All I knew was that I had to - to take care of her. Because nobody else would. My village was always kinda impoverished, and everyone else had their own families to worry about. I didn't blame them. When the Fire Nation came, they didn't burn my village down - just took anyone who could stand on their own two feet and shackled 'em up. Pipsqueak, Smellerbee an' Jet saved me, but by the time I could go back home - to my village, it had such beautiful trees, they bloomed with pink petals in the spring that fell like snow - my mom had been struggling to get by on her own without any help for too long. Combined with how much she worried about - about me..." he looked up at the sky, at the glittering blanket of stars that had been thrown over them, the moon bloated and silver and glowing at their core. "I was supposed to be the one taking care of her. The only peace of mind I get from that day is - at least she knew that I was okay."
"Come on, The Duke," Pipsqueak said, placing a ham-sized hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "Don't blame yourself for that, I told you over and over."
"Yeah," The Duke murmured. "Yeah."
SCENE DIVIDE
Then
Three years ago
So. Hungry.
The scent of cooking meat wafted out from the wood building not too far away; Dian could, he could see it, and it was a little weird that it was all the way out here in the middle of a forest. His tummy growled a ferocious protest up to him. There was food in that building, somebody was cooking it, and - he hadn't eaten anything filling in almost forever. Sure, the bread the Fire Nation gave him had been stale and pulled out a couple loose teeth, and the water had tasted funny, like metal - but it came regularly. Foraging for his own food while trying to find his way home to Ying Hua and only getting more and more lost...
He had only found some red, round berries that had tight, polished skin that shone in the sunlight, and eating those had made his stomach feel funny - like he was gonna throw up, except there wasn't nothing to throw up.
Alongside the rich, delicious, edible scent of meat, he could smell...fruit, yeah, something really sweet and yummy he was sure, because his mouth started to water just from the aroma. Beneath that - something flatter, not as delicious, but on an empty stomach he'd take anything so long as he could digest it. Greens, probably, even though he hated greens. But Momma had always told him greens would make him bigger, stronger - and he had to be good for his Momma, he had to take care of her, and being big and strong was one way to help, right? Like - like some of the men in Ying Hua. Big and strong but busy with other things.
He hoped that one of the men in the village would notice that tiny little Dian had vanished. Hoped that they could take care of Momma until he - found his way home.
The boy's vision blurred and he felt his eyes sting, his nose start to run; he sniffled and wiped any threatening tears away, frowning so hard to get it to just stop. Thinking about Momma made him sad, but he had to be brave for her too, not just big and strong. He wouldn't get anywhere crying - he had to be brave.
His tummy rumbled again, and he had to bite down on his tongue to prevent from moaning.
Momma had always taught him that stealing was bad. And it was! Stealing from other people - being so mean, it just didn't feel right. But that was an awful big building and Dian had seen a lot of older children going in and out, some carrying in unprepared food, some leaving with meals packed up in cloth-wrapped sacks to eat outside. It looked like there was plenty...they wouldn't notice if just a little went missing, right?
But what if he took food, and they only had enough for a certain amount of people? Then one person would have to go hungry that wasn't Dian, and as much as Dian wanted to eat, he didn't know if he could let somebody else starve in his place. Momma had always told him to put others before himself, to be polite and nice and...
Momma was expecting him to come home, though. If he didn't eat, he wouldn't be able to make it back. The throw-up berries had proven that not everything that looked delicious was delicious, and it scared him to try something else just in case that made him sick as well. The people in the building wouldn't be eating poisoned food, and - and enough people moved in and out that, even if they had only one meal to go to a person, there would be enough food for the Person Left Out that his friends could share with him.
Right?
Any doubt left in his mind vanished. Dian narrowed his eyes and set his mouth into a determined frown; the only thing left to do now was act, and he could do that. After running away and sticking to the trees like Mister Giant had said, and then getting this far without anybody else's help...yeah. Gotta be brave, because Momma's counting on him.
He drew a deep breath and began to move towards the building, using the tree trunks between here and there as hiding places - like a game of hide and seek, only the numbers were all backwards, with a million seekers and only one hider. From here, he could see the main entrance pretty clearly; the building sat low and squat in a small clearing in the forest, stretched out really wide, as wide and deep as three of Ying Hua's houses put next to each other. The front doors were made of light, rough wood and could swing in and out, something Dian had never seen before in a building. It fascinated him. Earth Kingdom insignias had been spaced out over each side of the building, the smaller squares inset into the larger circles doubling as windows just large enough for Dian to squeeze through. Near the back, a grove of small saplings struggled to reach upward - they, too, were trying to grow big and strong like their cousins around them, mighty trees that spanned up into the sky and scraped it with their gnarled, aged branches covered in crimson-red leaves.
That was another weird, almost hypnotic thing about this place. The color of the leaves was such a pure, deep red - a beautiful, natural color that reminded Dian of Ying Hua's pink-blossomed trees in springtime. This place could almost be as pretty as his hometown, if it tried. If he weren't so hungry, he'd question the fact that they were that color in the wrong season. Autumn was still half a year away.
Twigs and brush crunched underfoot, but against the backdrop of the forest's natural inhabitants (and those that weren't native to the place), Dian figured the chance of being heard was pretty low. Birds chirped and hooted back and forth at each other, and he could vaguely make out the sound of people chattering - but low, murmured, as if something more wrong than a five-year-old trying to sneak into their kitchen to make a meal for himself was going on around here.
Dian gulped and continued his trek to the building's rear, reaching his first goal undiscovered. Pressing his back against the cool, rough stone, the scent of food overwhelming now, he let a rush of air loose from his chest. Back here, he could see the saplings clearly, and how they pressed close to the building - and, even better, right near one of the windows! This'd be a lot easier now. He wouldn't have to worry about climbing up the wall to get into the window, and he wasn't even sure he could have done it.
So.
His stomach growled again, this time more ferociously than ever, and the boy was moving before it could even settle. He'd try to eat his own fingers if he didn't get food in his belly now.
The sapling closest to a window had one branch low enough for Dian to reach, if he stood on his tippy-toes. His fingers curled around the rough bark, and suddenly he was back home in Ying Hua; he was the best tree-climber in the entire town, and this was just another vertical venture. He'd climbed higher trees in his time, but that didn't mean it was unimportant. Every conquered tree in Ying Hua had been an accomplishment, especially 'cause his friends had all been taller. Every tree had been a goal seen and met, and Momma was so proud of him when he'd come home with new stories to tell.
He hoisted himself up, his arms quivering at first, but the promise of food made his body stop rebelling against him. He pulled one short leg up, hooking it over the branch, using his newfound leverage to haul himself up. Setting one hand on the trunk of the sapling, he clambered up to his feet, the bark digging into the cheap, leather shoes the Fire Nation had forced him to wear; with balance perfected by tree climbing for forever, he reached up for the next branch, grabbed it, and spring-boarded off the first one to get high enough into the air.
The window was level with this branch; once situated on it, Dian crouched down, grabbed the branch between both arms and straddled it, tipping himself over so he dangled from it like a sloth monkey. Shimmying along the branch's length, the boy craned his head back so he could keep an eye on his goal; from here, he couldn't see anyone inside, but his vantage point wasn't the best - it'd be clearer to see once he got in the window itself. The sill came into reach, and he tightened his grip with one hand and his legs, using the other hand to grapple the rough wood.
Easy stuff for a champion tree-climber. He hauled the rest of his body along the branch's length and pushed away from it when close enough, hauling himself into and through the open window. The world gave way beneath him and he fell - landed hard on his back, biting his tongue to keep from hissing.
He'd been lucky to not fall on a counter or something like that, 'cause somebody might have been sloppy in cleaning up their knives. Or he could'a landed funny on the corners if he bounced off.
Still, he was in, and even though it hurt, the delectable odor of meat and fruit and baking bread wafting from all around, assaulting his nubby nose from all angles. Sitting up, he took a quick glance around - nobody stood nearby, nobody came running even though the lights were on and he could hear people moving around and talking. An island in the center of the room provided unanticipated cover, keeping him concealed from any wandering eyes. Scrambling up to his feet, Dian pressed against the counter just as a plate clattered against the wood surface above him.
"Whatcha got there, Skillet?" Somebody asked from beyond the island, coming from a few feet away. "Somebody got an order in on their lunch?"
"Yeah, it's some curry specially done up for Pipsqueak," the one named Skillet responded from the opposite side of Dian's cover. "He's been feeling really down since that mission got botched up, so I fixed him up a batch of Ba Sing Se-style curry. They use a bunch of different spices in the mixture from what we're used to."
"Oooh, that sounds delicious. You gonna serve it en masse one day?" The first voice asked.
"Maybe." Skillet sighed and chuckled. "Those spices are really hard to get ahold of - they're common around Ba Sing Se, but there aren't many trade lines that collect them, so we rarely get them from convoy raids."
"Bummer."
"Tell me about it."
The owners of the two voices walked away. Dian's chest tightened and again he let go of a breath he hadn't been aware of holding.
Curry. And not just curry, but Ba Sing Se curry. Oh, man - he couldn't have been any luckier. He hadn't had curry in forever.
That was worth getting caught for. He gave Skillet and her unnamed friend a chance to turn their attention elsewhere, counted to five inside his head, and chanced a peek over the countertop.
A quick glance yielded what Dian had expected: a small kitchen, with an oven and stove against one wall and a wash basin set into another; pots, pans, and other crockery hung from the walls, a single shelf running the perimeter of the room. A door led out into another room, but whatever laid beyond, he couldn't tell. Only the two people who had been speaking were in the kitchen with him - a boy that looked about Dian's age scrubbing the floor with a rag, and an older girl with pigtails and an apron, standing at one of the stoves. They were too busy working to look his way, and that was fine, that was good, because Dian's tiny, trembling fingers wrapped around the piping-hot stone plate, smooth and shiny with green-yellow glaze that shimmered in the sunlight. He brought it down and set it on the floor, blowing on the steaming rice and golden-brown sauce.
No time - no time to find a spoon. The food was here, it was now, and his tummy growled so loudly that for a second he was afraid it would give him away. The sooner he ate it, the sooner he could be on his way. It didn't matter that it was too hot, he'd make due.
SCENE DIVIDE
The first bite was sublime.
He had learned that word from Old Man Chang down the street from where he lived with Momma; he was stooped with shaking hands and big knuckles, white, thinning hair that he kept back in a braid. His face was melty, like an ice treat that had been left out in the sun, but his smile was wide and reminded Dian of a younger person. He insisted on being called "Old Man Chang," too, which had always been weird to Dian - but the man was so nice, about that and about everything, that it seemed silly to deny him.
Old Man Chang had in his house a big shelf full of thick books. Not just scrolls, but actual books! They smelled of must and their pages had yellowed with age, but they told so many interesting stories, and Old Man Chang delighted in having Dian over so he could hear the child read them aloud. (Not many children in Ying Hua could read; that was another tree he had climbed and conquered.) There were so many words in those books; not just regular words, but bigger words, longer ones, and Dian loved to just sit down and learn them all as they cropped up. People spoke funny in the olden times - 'more formally,' Old Man Chang had said, with a nod of his balding head and that childlike, gap-toothed smile on his face.
Dian had learned the word 'sublime' two weeks before the Fire Nation took him away, and it was the only appropriate word for what he experienced when the spice and steam and richness of the curry washed over his tongue. He licked his fingers clean (Utensils? Who needs 'em?) before reaching into the plate and scooping up another handful, letting the flavor take him again, it was so beautiful that he felt like - like crying, which was silly, but after having almost nothing to eat for so long...
After that, hunger claimed him in full. He stopped registering the flavor for the sake of filling his poor belly, because if he savored it for too long then he'd starve to death before finishing. To his credit, not a single spot of food remained on the plate after; he licked it clean, stealing every single grain of rice, every glop of bean paste, every drip of sauce. His fingers, wet and sticky with saliva and nothing else, still carried the eye-rolling aroma of the stuff, embedded beneath dirty fingernails.
It had been a bigger meal than any he had had in Ying Hua, and his belly no longer quaked and growled in protest to its emptiness.
Sighing, grinning, Dian patted his stomach - and let loose a belch loud enough to wake up a sleeping koala sloth.
"...Hey, Skillet. The table ate Pipsqueak's curry. I think it liked it."
"Huh?" Came Skillet's voice. "Hey - where'd the curry go?"
...Oops.
Dian panicked. Oh, he was in so much trouble now! Why - why did he go and steal the food? (Had he already forgotten how much his belly wanted to be full?) Now an older kid knew, and older kids always told on you if you were bad, and Dian didn't want to be bad, he was just - just trying to survive to find Momma again -
He was up and running before he knew it, because running was the only way now, the best thing to do (liar, running made it worse, it just proved how bad you were being), shoving through the door, not a door outside, but into a bigger room with tables and more people sitting at them and run, just run,just blurs of legs and shoes and a sudden, loud din of voices from behind ('din' was another one of those big words even though it wasn't that big really) and then -
An older boy appeared in front of him suddenly - too fast for Dian to register anything about him - and they collided, his nose hurt all of a sudden, and he fell back, landed hard on his butt, and before he could realize it he was hanging up in the air, the collar of the maroon rags the Fire Nation tried to pass off as a shirt too tight around his neck.
"Got 'im," the older boy said, frowning and scrutinizing Dian with beady, black eyes. His brow furrowed, and his tan face was framed by raven-black hair pulled into a top-knot. He held fast to the nape of Dian's shirt, holding him effortlessly off the ground. "What have we got here...?"
"Lemme down!" Dian howled, lashing out defensively with his tiny legs, strong from all the trees he stood victorious over; he connected with the older boy's ribs, and though it probably hadn't been very hard, it surprised him enough for his grip to slacken, and Dian wriggled out of his shirt, dropping down to the floor and dashing between the older boy's legs.
"Little brat - "
"Sneers, don't hurt him - "
"What's going on?"
" - some kid trying to steal our food - "
Too many voices -
He couldn't outrun those chasing him for long (didn't need to look back to know he was being chased), but he could go beneath people, dive under tables and emerge from the other side, and there, finally, the double doors that swung in and out, once he got to the trees they shouldn't be able to find him, he'd just climb them because nobody ever bothered to look in the trees -
The doors swung open before he could even reach them, and standing there, framed by the browns and reds of the trees outside, stood a boy who could easily have been an adult - with a broad face, pale skin, and hair the color of tree bark, framed by a red half-helmet.
Dian stopped short, eyes wide and jaw agape. Had he - was he really here of all places? Could he have come to save him again? Had he...had he known Dian was in trouble, and come back...?
"Mister Giant!" Dian squealed, beaming despite the situation, and the cacophony behind him fell still.
"Er," Mister Giant said, rubbing the back of his head. His beady gaze started at Dian before shifting to whatever laid behind him, hiking his eyebrows. "If this is a bad time, I can always come back. I ain't that hungry."
"No, this is actually a very good time, I think," Skillet said from out of sight, and Dian could hear relief in her voice. "Do you know this boy, Pipsqueak?"
"Yeah, kinda. We saved him from that slave line a couple days ago." Pipsqueak glanced down at Dian again and kneeled down in front of him, resting a broad hand on the boy's bare shoulder. He wore concern on his face like the clothes on his body, and Dian was just - glad to see someone familiar at last. "What're you doin' here, kid? Are you okay?"
"I..." Dian met Pipsqueak's gaze before looking down at the floorboards. "I'm tryin'a find my home. I got hungry, an'...I couldn't find anything outside, but I found this place an' there was this delicious curry on the table, and I just had to eat something." He tried to - to stay calm, but his heart, his mind wouldn't agree with him, the events of the past week were finally catching up with him. He felt his brow and cheeks plucking, his lower lip quivering, his eyes stinging - oh, he didn't wanna cry in front of these strangers, but, but it happened anyway, sniffling and sobbing and not being brave at all, two hot, sticky, wet trails sliding down his cheeks, and...
"Shhh-sh-sh..." Dian glanced upwards, and through his blurred vision, he caught sight of the older girl from the kitchen, Skillet. She had a warm, maternal look on her face, her eyes radiating the same sort of caring and love that - that Momma's did. "It's okay, little one, it's okay...I can always make more curry. Sit down, relax...you're with friends now. Nobody here is going to hurt you. I'll make something warm for you to drink, and after that I'll take you down to the river and help clean you up."
This person - this peaceful woman who reminded him so much of Momma, who had scared him blind just minutes ago - was so caring and eager to help that Dian fell into stunned silence. At last, he turned behind him - saw that many of the room's inhabitants had risen from their seats to either see what the commotion was about or aide Sneers in his capture - pointed at the broad-faced, raven-haired boy, and asked, "Not even him?"
"Especially not him," Skillet promised, and Dian could detect the razor-edge underlying the otherwise comforting words. "Or he'll have to watch out for skunk bear dung in his noodles for the next week. Am I right, Sneers?"
The other boy scowled so deeply it looked as if his jaw would fall right off his face. Crossing his arms and furrowing his brow, he grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, sure. Great, my leadership has been usurped on threat of starvation. Brat kicked me."
"C'mon," Pipsqueak said from Dian's shoulder. "Get your shirt back on, an' you can have a seat next to me, kiddo."
A grin sliced Dian's face, and the guilt brought on by misfortune evaporated.
SCENE DIVIDE
"So - you're not mad that I ate your curry...?"
Pipsqueak heaved a booming laugh. It had infectious qualities to it, and Dian found himself beaming all over again, even if it felt like the walls around him and the bench under his butt shook alongside the giant's raucous guffaws.
"Naw. Ba Sing Se-styled curry is a rare treat, but there'll always be more." The massive man - so much bigger than Dian, it was kind of scary how friendly he could be - buried his spoon into the plate of regular, not-as-special curry sitting in front of him. He regarded Dian with a sideways grin. "'Sides, you needed it more than I did, and Skillet's pleased as punch just to have a new fan."
The chef, sitting opposite Dian at the long, polished-wood table, cocked her head to the side and grinned, her brown pigtails swaying. "And a cute one, at that. Dian, your parents must be proud of you."
"My Momma is very proud of me," he confirmed, nodding and feeling pride swell in his chest. "I need to get back to her as soon as I can. She's worrying, I know it, an' she needs me to take care of her."
"She's ill?" Sneers asked over a steaming bowl of noodles (free of skunk bear dung). Around them, the other kids in the dining hall continued eating, talking - as if, come Pipsqueak's intervention, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Yeah. I need to get back to my village." Dian glanced down at his own plate of curry - the second one today, still absolutely yummy, and he surprised himself with the knowledge that he could eat another whole helping without bursting. It was rich and delectable and even if it lacked Ba Sing Se's spices and flavorings, it still had a unique taste that danced and tumbled across Dian's tongue with every bite. "But I don't know how to get there..."
"You said you came from Ying Hua, right?" Pipsqueak's hand engulfed most of the handle of his spoon, his broad fingers closed tight around the tarnished silverware. He popped a spoonful of curry into his mouth, chewed and swallowed in record time, leaving Dian to blink in awe. "I know that place. I passed through it once a few years back, part of my job as a carpenter in my pop's business. Has really beautiful trees in the spring, right? Pink petals."
"Yeah! That's the place. Do you know how to get back?"
Pipsqueak grimaced, a heavy breath leaving his nose. "It's far away. Past where we met you. I hate to say it, but you've been going in the wrong direction. Get me a compass and I could probably find my way back, but...it's a trip. A few days, easy."
Dian sank, and suddenly the sizzling, delicious curry in front of him lost some of its appeal. Oh, no...it couldn't be, could it? He had - he'd been trying so hard, but he didn't have anything to go by...he knew a lot of fancy words and he could climb any tree you threw at him, but he didn't know the stars and he couldn't survive on his own in the wild. All this time, he'd only been putting more distance between himself and his poor Momma...
"Hey - why don't you take him back, Pipsqueak?" Skillet suggested, eyes going wide. "I think Mortar has a compass from one of the Fire Nation caravans we raided a while back, and Jet's got all those maps in his hut - "
"Absolutely not."
Sneers set his chopsticks down and crossed his arms over his chest, brow furrowed. Stunned silence fell over the table, but it didn't last long; Pipsqueak snarled and said, "Why is that, Sneers? What's it to you that we actually get one of these kids home? Dian's lucky he's still got someplace left to return to!"
"Yeah, what's the deal?" Skillet's eyes went narrow. "I know you're a cold-hearted jerk, but this kid has a home!"
Dian could only listen, his ears throbbing - heat rising up to them. Was he embarrassed? Yeah, kinda, they were arguing over him, and this Sneers guy was already forbidding the boy from the best way he could return to Momma -
"Thanks for the double-team, guys." Sneers closed his eyes and shook his head. "Think what you want, but Pipsqueak is my only able-bodied warrior. Mortar's passable on the battlefield but she doesn't have any formal Earthbending teaching, Pestle's skills are sub-par, and none of the others are really ready to jump into a fight either. Jet may be groggy and bordering on consciousness, but if we needed to take a sudden defensive, I'd need more than myself and two kids flicking pebbles at the enemy."
Pipsqueak lurched, as if ready to rise from the bench, and Dian could see his humongous hands balling up tight - and, in that moment, clarity struck, and the path from Point A (here) to Point B (home) lay open and apparent, like the sun lazing in the sky after having spent the first half of the day climbing its peak.
"I get it," Dian said, his voice quiet but firm. He placed a hand on Pipsqueak's, marveling at the difference in size in the back corner of his mind. Dian felt something strange overcoming him; a greater sense of being - and...and peace in that knowledge. "I'll do what I can to help."
"Huhwha?" Skillet sputtered on the plate of fruit she'd been nursing, flecks and bits of strawberry dribbling down her chin, pink juice staining her skin. "What are you saying?"
"You guys need help," Dian explained, feeling his throat tighten. This would...put his return off a little bit longer, but it was the right thing to do for these people, who had fed him, offered him shelter, and already agreed that Pipsqueak leading him home was a sound concept and it was just the timing that brought up quandary. Skillet had promised to clean him...and Pipsqueak had expressed interest in letting the boy stay, at least for the interim, because they took in so many orphans from the war. "I can climb trees faster than any other kid in Ying Hua, and I know a lot of words 'n stuff. I could learn to fight. I could help you defend your home in return for your hospitality."
Hospitality. That was another one of Old Man Chang's words. One of the more sterile ones, but it worked, it fit like the last piece of a puzzle, and not using it would have put Dian at a loss.
"I..." Pipsqueak affixed Dian with a concerned gaze, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Are you sure, Dian? You're really alright with waiting...? It could take a while."
"Yeah," Skillet leaned forward, a bright, green, circular slice of fruit impaled on her fork, black seeds arranged in a ring around its center and glistening in the dining hall's light. "I mean, we could always get one of the other kids to take you home."
Dian shook his head. "I wanna go with Pipsqueak...I wanna show him my trees an' show my Momma the man who saved me from the Fire Nation." Yes, this was it; there was no denying, no turning away from this truth. He'd have gone with Miss Smellerbee in tow, too, if he could bring her, but it had really been Pipsqueak who had let him get this far. "For that, I think I can wait."
Sneers cocked his head to the side, leaning back in his seat and smirking, his arms still crossed over his broad chest. "Well I'll be damned, this kid is actually pretty smart, for a brat. I think I like you enough to forgive that kick of yours. You got the strength of an expert tree-climber, that's for sure." The older boy rubbed his side, letting a breath whistle past his teeth. "I think I might actually bruise because of you."
"I guess it's settled then, huh?" Pipsqueak said, his baritone voice belying the same kind of childlike joy that Old Man Chang had in his smiles. The giant's mouth curled into a grin. "The Duke of Tree Climbin' is part of the Freedom Fighters now, at least for a little while."
"The Duke...what?" Dian felt his eyebrows shoot up. He knew a lot of words...but 'duke' was a new one, something he hadn't found in the books in Ying Hua.
"A duke is sorta like a king," Pipsqueak said, fixing Dian with a grin with corners that vanished beneath his odd half-helmet. "It's a regional thing and kinda out of use around the world, but I always figured 'duke' had more flash an' style than 'king.' And if you're gonna be a Freedom Fighter, you gotta have a Freedom Fighter name."
"So, The Duke for short," Sneers nodded, giving an approving frown. "Okay, The Duke - Skillet said something about getting you clean, and she has the right idea. You stink. Once you've been scrubbed down, come see me. Pipsqueak, you think you can show him the ropes?"
Pipsqueak nodded. "You can count on me."
Sneers finished his noodles with a slurp and a belch, leaving his bowl empty at the table and making for the dining hall/kitchen's exit. When the trio of Freedom Fighters were alone (Dian - The Duke - beamed, he was a Freedom Fighter, he belonged somewhere, finally - the other kids at home always made fun of him unless he climbed a tree to prove them wrong), Skillet turned her attention to Pipsqueak and said, "Hey, that's pretty impressive. I didn't think you knew much about monarchic history."
Pipsqueak gave a humble, thunderous laugh, placing a hand on his massive belly and closing his eyes. "I only know 'cause my town's senile elder insisted on being called a duke. You hit the bulls-eye, I'm in the dark about that sorta stuff."
SCENE DIVIDE
Now
The aroma of burning cinders rose up into the air, accompanied by the wonderful, refreshing scent of fresh air rolling over them. The fires had been extinguished for the night, and the ragtag army slept the night away, oblivious to the time they turned away to refresh themselves with.
The Duke knew he should have been sleeping, too, but thinking about becoming a Freedom Fighter - even if he hadn't known as many words, or climbed as many trees at the time - reminded him of too many painful things. Who this war had taken from him. Jet, Longshot, Smellerbee...Momma. Pipsqueak had told him years ago that the pain of losing someone you love never really goes away, but with time, it would start to hurt less.
For Pipsqueak - who didn't share The Duke's passion for words and science and learning - that statement had depth to it that rocked the younger Freedom Fighter's mind. It held true, too; his friends' deaths in Ba Sing Se no longer made his hands tremble, or cause him to wake up from nightmares about them, drenched in cold sweat. There were other things, bigger things to take into account now, and he had to do his part as a member of the resistance.
Things were going okay, though, he figured, watching the stars glimmer and sparkle overhead. He leaned his head back and sighed through his nose, soaking in the little flecks of silver-white light. They had the eclipse, they had the element of surprise...and he still had his best friend. With Pipsqueak at his side, The Duke felt like everything would be able to go their way.
The Day of Black Sun would fall two weeks from today. And they would win...they had to win. There was no other option, and The Duke would allow no other outcome, for himself, for Pipsqueak and Sneers and Skillet, for Haru and Teo - even if he had to square off against the Fire Lord himself should the Avatar fall.
