Hey there, I'm just messing around with a new concept for a story and thought I might share it. If I get enough interest I'll continue writing, so share your thoughts in a review! Thanks!
Warning: This story contains mature themes that may be upsetting to some readers. If you want fluff, look elsewhere.
It wasn't often that Jun grew tired of being alone. Usually she was just fine wandering from place to place with only Nyla as company, seeking out her bounties. The stillness of a nighttime campsite in the forest was one of her favorite things in the world. During the day, she liked riding through villages and listening to the chatter of their inhabitants, safe in the knowledge that she didn't owe them anything. Their lives were sedentary and hers was transient. She had her own way to go, and she had nothing to say to those who chose to stay rooted like trees in the dirt.
There were times, though, usually after she had just turned over a particularly nasty criminal, when Jun wished there was someone normal around to talk to. There were things she wasn't sure how to explain but couldn't keep inside, images suspended in her mind like grotesque still life portraits. The bounty she had just delivered to an Earth Kingdom fortress had been wanted for violence against his own family. He had beaten his wife unconscious and fled town with their two young children forcibly in tow. The authorities put a high price on his head, and Jun caught up to him three days later in the high desert beyond Omashu. The fight was brief – he was an earthbender, but a careless one who clearly lacked the discipline to hone his abilities. It hadn't been hard to make an opening for Nyla to paralyze him with her whip-like tongue. It wasn't until she tracked the scent of the missing children to a lonely stone hollow that Jun realized exactly what kind of scum she was dealing with. The kids were malnourished and hollow-eyed, too lethargic to even stand up. The little girl's cheeks were bruised from being slapped, and the boy's arms were bent and twisted like a pretzel. When Jun looked at them she felt a sick kind of fear that she had never experienced in combat. She didn't know how to confront something like this. Fortunately, her brief battle with the earthbender had attracted the attention of some villagers from a nearby town, and they were able to rush the kids to their healing hut while Jun trussed up her bounty and rode straight to the nearest fortress. She made sure he landed on his face when she threw him down at the feet of the jail warden. The sack of coins she received in exchange was satisfyingly heavy, but not as satisfying as seeing her prey bleed and curse as he was dragged inside the walls.
Now Jun was sitting at the top of a flight of stairs cut into the side of a cliff, leading down into a small plains village. The air was cool up here, and in the silence everything seemed far away. It wasn't until Nyla snorted near her ear that Jun awoke to the world and realized she had been sitting here for the better part of an hour, braiding and unbraiding tiny strips of hair. She smoothed her black tresses behind her shoulder and stood, clucking for Nyla to crouch in the mounting position. She climbed into the saddle and clucked again. A moment later, she felt the familiar sensation of soaring as her massive shirshu lumbered to its feet and began to descend the cliffside with admirable grace. There was no use moping around up here when evening was falling. She and Nyla had ridden hard across the desert for three days now, and Jun wanted to use some of her newly earned cash to buy them a room at an inn for the night. A soft mattress for her and a warm bed of straw for Nyla would do them both wonders.
Later that night, Jun breathed deeply as she poured water over her head in the bathtub. After checking into a modest inn and sending her clothes down to the washroom, the first thing she wanted to do was relax in a pool of heated water. This latest job had left her feeling filthy. Strangely, it wasn't the sand and mud caked over her skin that bothered her. That dirt washed off easily enough. Rather, it was the stain of her bounty that stayed with her. After seeing what he'd done to his own children…. Jun had known she had to do the responsible thing in that situation. She had to bind him and sling him onto Nyla and haul him down the desert bluffs to the Earth Kingdom fortress, where he'd be put away for a long, long time.
Still, being near him had been nauseating. Touching him felt contaminating, as if his awfulness were a disease that could be spread through physical contact. Not to mention all the garbage he'd spewed on the way down, calling her a whore, a slut, a cockless bitch, screaming that he was going to rape her to death and piss on her corpse. Well, men always said things like that when they got caught. The words themselves didn't faze her anymore. Rather, she hated how a bit of their….filth seemed to linger in the air even after she'd gotten rid of them, like a stinking miasma. Her grandmother would have called it the bad spirit. According to the old stories, evil people exuded an infectious aura which sickened the things and people around them. If you weren't careful, coming into contact with them could cause a bit of that dark spirit to latch onto you, disturbing your mind and withering your body. Jun knew she didn't really have a choice when it came to interacting with evil people – it was the nature of her profession as a bounty hunter. She was used to pursuing the dregs of society and witnessing the damage they left behind. Still, it was twice as bad when there were kids involved. She hated seeing their faces, so lost and uncomprehending. They had no idea why the bad things had happened to them, and she had no answers to give.
Jun pursed her lips and scrubbed her scalp roughly, soap dripping off the edge of her nose. It didn't matter, anyway. Feeling things never made a bit of difference for anyone. The man would be locked up, hopefully forever. The kids would be returned to their mother and Jun supposed they would try to resume a normal life. The bruises on the little girl's cheeks would heal. So would the boy's arms, eventually. Never the same, but at least they wouldn't be broken anymore. Jun knew all too well how that felt. She stayed in the bath a long time, rubbing circles on her skin with the soap until her fingers grew wrinkly. After dousing herself one last time, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a linen towel around her slender body. Now it was just a matter of sleep, long and dreamless. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, but right now she was safe and tomorrow may as well have been a century away.