Lost Boys
Competition: Pro-Bending Circuit Submission for Round 5
Word Count: 2,289
Task: I went with "Peter Pan", as the Freedom Fighters and Jet are an obvious parallel, but I wrote it from the perspective of somebody joining them.
Prompts Used:
(object) a ratty old hat (character) June (AU) Genderbend (at least one character)
"I think we've got a live one, boys!"
Smellerbee frantically ran from the taunting voices. His feet pounded the primitive dirt road with light, rapid steps that barely emitted a sound. Despite his best efforts, the group of Fire Nation soldiers that were occupying the village was hot on his heels, literally. He could feel the blazing heat of the fire that they flung at him haphazardly, though they were a tad too intoxicated to hope to achieve any kind of accurate hit unless they were within point-blank range.
Swiftly moving past a vegetable cart, he chanced a brief glance over his shoulder, only to find that they were drawing in ever closer. They would soon reach him. He had to act fast.
As if on instinct, his left hand had shot up with alarming velocity, and it caught ahold of a cart he was passing. With a furious and desperate tug, the cart's shoddily made design came undone and sent the cabbages it contained spilling into the street. The anguished cries of the cart's owner attracted a throng of people that cut the soldiers off, allowing Smellerbee to slip away into one of the many alleys that existed throughout the small village.
After carefully navigating the positively labyrinthine setup of the back roads, he stopped to rest at a nondescript wall. Sliding down to a seated position, he stuck his hand into his ragged jacket pocket, and felt a wave of relief wash over him when he felt the weight that rested there. Fishing it out, he lightly tossed the bag in the air and let it drop down into his open palm. The coins inside jingled as it met his hand.
'Phew,' he thought, closing his eyes in assuagement. 'It didn't fall out. Maybe now I can buy some food instead of stealing.' Every single morsel of food he stole filled him with guilt. The people whose food he was pilfering were fellow Earth Kingdom citizens. Even if they were typically rude and apathetic to anything that wouldn't turn out a profit, they were still his countrymen, and he couldn't blame them for trying to get ahead in life, especially given the awful situation they had had thrust upon them.
'I know I have no other choice, but I wish I was stealing from those bastards that think they're so high and mighty. That just because they're Firebenders, that means they can walk all over us. They can't and I won't let them!' Smellerbee's thoughts on the subject were resolute, even though he knew, deep down, that he was just a scrawny homeless orphan. He couldn't do anything in his current state. All that he had available to him was to try to live each day to the end.
Going to the market the very next day had been a bad idea.
To be fair, Smellerbee had thought to hide his face, seeing as how a lot of the vendors were liable to recognize him as the street rat who regularly procured vegetables without sufficient payment. However, the ratty old hat he had donned to obscure his face had been knocked off in the bustle of the marketplace, and then, as if luck itself decided to make a show of humiliating him, one of the soldiers he had stolen from the previous night had come upon and recognized him.
He tried to disappear in the rushing mob of people, but this time his attempts to slip away unnoticed were sadly in vain. Before long, he had been snatched up by one of them – he counted five in total, and he was carried in a most unceremonious fashion to a disgusting, rodent infested alley behind a sleazy tavern. There, they promptly dropped him with nary a hint of a warning. Gathering his wits and attempting to rise, he felt the weight of a boot being pressed down on his back, shoving him back down into the dirt.
"Where's the money you stole from us?" The man's voice was eerily calm, which served as a marked contrast to the ruffians that were with him. He was clearly the leader of the group.
"Are you going to talk?"
"I-it's in my j-jacket p-p-p-pocket," Smellerbee barely managed to choke out. The adrenaline rush that he had felt while being moved to the location had died down, and was replaced by a chilling, gripping fear. 'They're… They're gonna kill me. No-one's here to see it, and even if they were, they wouldn't be able to do anything.'
"Hu, pat him down and see if he's lying."
The man named Hu then proceeded to do as ordered, making Smellerbee want to scream at the feeling of the hands of filthy Fire Nation scum on his body, but a combination of the fear he felt, as well as general common sense stayed his tongue. The bag of mostly silver pieces was quickly removed from his pocket, and for a brief, hopeful moment, he thought his ordeal was over. Unfortunately, the icy voice of the man who kept him pinned to the ground served to dash apart that pipe dream.
"I've seen you around, you know. You're always stealing from somebody or other; always leeching off the people here. Little parasites like you, who rob people blind and never do a damn thing to help themselves should be exterminated." The faint sound of a blade leaving its sheath split the otherwise silent night air.
Before the would-be murderer could do anything else, a loud slamming sound was heard. Immediately afterwards, the knife wielder whirred around. Smellerbee, acting on an instinct that he never knew he had, took advantage of the man's broken root, and swiped his ankle out from under him, causing the man to tumble down like a stone, and drop his knife in the process. Smellerbee then grabbed the knife in a renewed rush of adrenaline and self-preservation, and in the blink of an eye, stabbed the man in the heart.
Over and over again.
Everything was a haze. Years afterward, Smellerbee still couldn't recall how many times he had plunged the blade between the ribs of the man who had attempted to kill him. When he finally stopped the man was well beyond dead. Smellerbee could barely register anything, as the red he saw was still quite present. A low, yet surprisingly soothing voice snapped him out of his unpleasant reverie.
"You okay, kid?"
Whipping his head around, he swept his eyes over the unconscious bodied of the soldiers, and the person who had become his savior. They finally came to rest upon a tall, imposing woman with hair blacker than the inside of tomb, and skin the pale, glimmering white of a full moon. Her eyes, despite having a fierce look in them, also seemed to express empathy for his situation, almost as if she had gone through something similar…
"Hey, kid!"
Her sudden rise in volume pulled him out of his trance. "W-what?" he asked, shakily.
"Why were these clowns after you?" She started cautiously moving closer to him.
"I… Kinda stole some money from them…" He looked down in embarrassment, only to remember a second too late that a bloody corpse was below him, causing his head to snap back up and making him backpedal away out of instinct.
She moved closer to him, and tentatively touched his shoulder. He responded by turning to her and wrapping his arms around her in an embrace. He shuddered and nearly completely broke down right there, but somehow managed to keep it together. He felt her patting his back somewhat awkwardly; clearly, comforting people wasn't something she did all that often.
"Don't you have anybody to go home to?"
"N-no."
He heard her suck in a breath, and he looked up at her to see her face scrunched up in thought. After a spell, she looked down upon him and asked as sweetly as she could, which for her wasn't saying a whole lot.
"Would you come with me?"
The mysterious lady had led him to a mount that was unlike any he had ever seen before. She had called it a Shirshu, and they had climbed atop it, and she had led them off into the night. The ride was mostly silent, save for the sound of her steed's footfalls.
The events of the day made Smellerbee feel extremely tired, and it felt like they had been riding for hours. His exhausted mind was still wrapped up in feelings of shock and guilt.
'I… I know he was gonna kill me… I know it was self-defense, but… I just took a life… The man will never move again… He'll never breathe again… He's gone…'
It was a simple concept, truthfully, but rationalizing while still in a state of shock was not a simple in the slightest.
Some minutes – or hours for all he knew – they stopped in the middle of a forest, and the lady dismounted and approached a tree. There was a rope hanging from one of the branches, and she grasped it and pulled. Turning around she addressed Smellerbee.
"You should get off now."
Numbly, he nodded and did as suggested. He didn't move too far away from the Shirshu, though, and this made her shake her head and indicate that he should move closer with a tilt of her head, an order he also followed.
"You have a name, don't you?"
His response came out as barely a whisper. "Smellerbee."
"'Smellerbee', huh? Well, I'm-"
The rustling of leaves derailed her train of thought, and then a body dropped out of them with a thud.
"June, what are you doing here so late?" the newcomer asked.
"Jet, I think you might be interested in him."
The recently named Jet cocked his head to the side quizzically. "How so?"
June moved over to him, and led him away from Smellerbee, speaking to the other male in hushed tones. It was during that time that Smellerbee finally got a proper look at Jet. He had a very dark tan, and his brown hair was messy and seemingly unwashed. Compounding that with his lanky build, Jet was an oddity amongst the peoples of the Earth Kingdom, where broader, stouter men were more commonplace.
Jet's reactions to what June was telling him were rather understated. Other than a few curious glances his way, Jet never really made it obvious that Smellerbee had caught his attention. After some minutes passed, Jet nodded at June and walked over to Smellerbee, who had been standing stock still the entire time.
"So, I hear you have nowhere to go home to?"
The blunt question was a bit unexpected, but Smellerbee nodded fairly soon after being asked.
"Would you like to join us for a bite? We have food and warm beds up there," he said, pointing skyward. "Well, bedrolls, technically, but they're quite comfortable," he amended with a disarming grin.
"Okay."
Jet found him again after the meal.
Throughout it, Smellerbee had been mostly silent, though a few people in the group – Longshot and The Duke, he recalled – had managed to get him to speak, and they had been nice. Otherwise, he was fascinated with their living arrangement. A life among the trees was a rich fantasy, but the people in this group had actually managed to make it work, what with their intricate system of ropes, pulleys, and makeshift huts. The plentiful supply of lychee nuts made food shortages a non-issue too, and there were plenty of other foods to choose from.
"So, what do you think of this place?"
The sudden appearance of Jet startled Smellerbee a little, but he was able to answer fairly easily. "It's a marvel. How do you have all of these things so greatly set up?"
"A lot of trial and error, scavenging and help from June. She's the one who helped me out when my parents died."
"I…" Smellerbee swallowed audibly. "I'm sorry. I know how that feels."
"The Fire Nation thinks they can boss us around; that we're just puppets for their amusement. I like to show them that we're far more than puppets."
That sparked his attention. "How so?"
"Like I said, scavenging," he responded with a dark, wry grin. "Sabotaging supply trains and swiping their blankets and their food is just too easy. Makes it harder for them to occupy more villages too."
"H-how do you manage that so easily?" It didn't make sense. This was a group of shoddily armed kids going up against Firebenders. It couldn't have been that easy.
"Oh, it's not the easiest thing in the world. They fight back and sometimes we have to take… Drastic measures, let's say."
The sinister undertone in his voice perturbed Smellerbee. "You… Kill them?" he asked almost reluctantly, fearing the answer.
"Yes."
Smellerbee was struck dumb by that. Jet saw this, and quickly moved to reassure him.
"We only do it when it's absolutely necessary, and even then, we're only doing it because they're taking our homes. They're taking our families. Those pirates are taking our way of life!"
Despite what he had just admitted to doing, there was still a passion in his eyes that made his words very easy to identify with. His charisma and honesty managed to reel Smellerbee back in.
"If you'd like, we can let you join the group. I'm sure it'll be better than living off of stolen produce on the streets."
It did sound tempting, but Smellerbee had to ask one question.
"Who even are you guys?"
Jet smirked almost imperceptibly. "We're called a lot of things. Rebels, degenerates, outcasts, Lost Boys – I kinda like that one, actually. But, I would say that we're Freedom Fighters."
A/N: Well, hopeful that didn't suck too terribly. Let me know any thoughts you have on that subject if you please.
Read, review, and I'll see ya next time
-TheNotSoTalentedPoet