Where Words Fail
Book Four: Threshold Guardians
Chapter 1: And while we're at it, to hell with you!
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-4-1-140268882
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Then
Two Years Ago
She could only remember the air being this alive - this electric - when Jet gave motivational or victory speeches. Even then, her leader didn't come close to rivaling the thriving atmosphere that buzzed all about the Freedom Fighters that night. People roaring and cheering from all sides, the grinding of rock colliding with rock, the scent of dust and sweat laden heavily in the air. Even though the coliseum had been forged by Earthbenders with enough common sense to leave ventilation systems in the roofs, heat pressed down around from all sides, sweltering and almost smothering, but that didn't really bother Smellerbee all that much. After all, Earth Rumbles only came around once a year, and rarely did the entire body of Freedom Fighters get to leave the security of the forest to enjoy an event all at once.
Throat alight from cheering, her cheeks sore and aching from the smile she'd been wearing since the night's first match, Smellerbee lost herself in a long, whooping cheer, leaping to her feet and pumping a fist into the air. Thrilled to the point where her entire body tingled, she watched as a shirtless, muscular, olive-skinned Earthbender landed a critical elbow drop to the ground at his feet. The arena - a square platform of rock standing twenty by twenty yards, set several feet above the ground - trembled as the shockwaves traveled from him to his opponent, lying prone just a few feet away. The earth cracked, split - and with a dry, scraping sound, the tiles beneath the prone man sprung upward, flinging him into the air, out of the arena, and into the stands nearby.
That man with the killer elbow drop? That was The Boulder. Smellerbee whooped again, her voice lost in the sea of cheers for the bearded, rough-cut man wearing his hair in a topknot and donned in a baggy pair of green pants. Her ears popped from the din, but that was okay - she was having fun, and dammit, her favorite Earthbender in the tournament was on a roll. Besting the first five opponents to be thrown his way, The Boulder had his eye on the Earth Rumble Championship belt, and judging by how mercilessly he'd been taking down his rivals, he'd be wearing the gold home tonight.
The Boulder's mentor had been Chuanqi-Quanshou, the legendary Earthbender known best for the phrase after which the swordswoman had been named: "float like a flutterfly, sting like a smellerbee." That was what had spurned this probably-unhealthy interest in the man, but with time it became obvious that he was awesome for his own merits.
"Boo! He just got lucky!" Pipsqueak yelled at the Earthbender as he showboated, the huge Freedom Fighter's thunderous voice for once swallowed up by a greater cacophony. Smellerbee could only hear him because of his proximity, sitting directly to her right; glancing over to the giant, she saw that his broad, anvil-shaped head wore a grimace that could curdle Sneers' milk. "The Gecko had him on the ropes! The Boulder ain't that great!"
"You're just jealous," Smellerbee called, drawing Pipsqueak's attention. "If the Gecko hadn't juked around that rain of pebble shrapnel, then he wouldn't'a gotten blindsided by The Boulder's rockalanche! That's a rookie's mistake and you know it, Pipsqueak!"
"Just you wait," Pipsqueak huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Your precious Boulder ain't gonna last all the way to the end! He still has to beat Xin Fu in order to win the belt!"
"Xin Fu is a tool!" Sneers yelled from the other side of the massive Freedom Fighter, his topknot bobbing. "For once, I agree with Smellerbee. The Boulder's gonna take the belt."
"That's just crazy talk!" Mortar, in the row in front of Sneers and Smellerbee, turned her upper body enough to meet Sneers' face. Smellerbee had to admire the eight-year-old's courage for standing up to someone as grumpy as Sneers; usually, the monk scared away the younger children with his attitude. "The only thing Th' Boulder is gonna take is a dive!"
"You're all wrong," Skillet shot, a demonic grin quirking on her lips. "Big Bad Hippo's going to come up from behind and sweep them all outta the ring!"
Smellerbee glanced to her left, surprised that Jet hadn't contributed to the argument in some form yet; slouching in the bleachers just beyond Longshot (who, in turn, was situated directly beside Smellerbee), the leader of the Freedom Fighters had one arm slung over the rise behind him and a lopsided grin on his tanned face.
"Not gonna step in?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Jet cocked his head to the side and shrugged, the wheat stalk in his mouth bobbing. "I don't see why; it's good entertainment for between matches. Isn't that right, Longshot?"
The mute archer - who sat rigidly in his seat, his hands folded almost primly in his lap - gave a slow half-nod, his mouth curled into a slight frown. The boy didn't really care much for the sort of entertainment the Earth Rumble brought to the party - to him the concept was brutish, that it would just be muscular guys chucking stones at each others' heads. But the other Freedom Fighters wanted him along (and Smellerbee, personally, didn't want to go without him), and after fixing him with what she considered to be the best puppy dog eyes ever of all time, the archer finally wilted and conceded to come along.
Smellerbee allowed herself some preening afterwards, of course. Plus, despite his earlier convictions Longshot did seem to be enjoying the company of the others, at least, even if the display wasn't his cup of tea. He seemed most happy that the younger, non-combat Freedom Fighters got to come along as well; that they could escape from the ragtag life Jet had built for them and enjoy the barbaric flamboyance on the stone battlefield before them.
As The Boulder departed the stage so a pair of badger moles could Earthbend the debris back into the normal box-shaped arena, Jet added, "Nobody's started punching anyone else yet, so I'll let you all have your fun."
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Now
"You remember that night?" Smellerbee asked, her gaze flitting away from the glittering, starry sky to Longshot's pale silhouette lying beside her. With her hands locked behind her head, fingers caught in the tangles of her moss-brown hair, a grin split the tomboy's face. The silent archer nodded in response, and against the luminescent glow of the campfire nearby, she saw his mouth crook into a faint smile. "'Side from the fact that we all got to go out and have fun together, The Boulder up and won the championship to prove 'em all wrong. It was perfect."
Longshot crooked his head to the side and raised one hand skyward, his fingertips brushing the velvet, glittering sky; Smellerbee had totally developed a fangirl-crush on the Earthbender, and even a couple years later it still hung around.
Smellerbee shifted her left arm free just long enough to punch the archer in the shoulder. He grinned and rubbed the spot tenderly. "No, I did not develop a crush on The Boulder," Smellerbee huffed, sliding her hand back beneath her head and pouting. "Those kind of crushes are so...so girly. I'm above fan-crushes. Beyond 'em."
Longshot tilted the brim of his hat back and gazed up at the stars with a poorly-concealed look of amusement on his face; as the cool nighttime air whispered over Smellerbee's face, she saw him close his eyes and draw a deep breath through his nose. The swordswoman scowled playfully at him, putting up an aura of mock indifference that would fool him no better than his current mask did her.
"Just because I stole that promotional poster of The Boulder before we left the arena that night doesn't mean I'm a fangirl. It was out of hero-worship. There's a difference."
Still, thoughts of that night - one of many, where Jet had been a person and not just a concept - stuck out boldly in her mind. She could still smell the overwhelming scent of the fried meat and concession food, watching The Boulder stand, victorious, over the fallen Xin Fu, the glossy, gold-trimmed, emerald-colored belt raised high above his head...
She didn't realize a tiny smile had pulled on the corners of her lips until Longshot pointed it out, nor did she recognize the furious heat welling up into her face, or the lightness in her chest. The archer took it all in stride, despite their newly developed more-than-a-friendship. The depth of their understanding for each other had been swallowed up into the temporary abyss between them, and Smellerbee was glad to have it back.
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The next day
"I think I know what I'm going to name mine."
Smellerbee felt Longshot's attention shift over to her; in turn, she cast her gaze in his direction, keeping her head straight while fixing a lopsided smirk on her face. "I've been sitting on it for a while - no, the pun was not intended - and I think I've finally come up with a good one."
Thighs and back sore, her body jostling to the rhythm of her ostrich horses' massive talons as they kicked up dust along the barren road, Smellerbee removed one hand from the reins of the beast and stroked the down on the side of its neck. The creature, in turn, whinnied and croaked affectionately, gnashing its beak at some passing flies. With the sun rising in the sky - midday had not yet set in - and a cool morning breeze flickering past, things only felt better today than they had last night; a small town sat on the rolling hills in the far distance, at the end of their road, just a half-hour away. It took on the same earthen hue of most towns in the Earth Kingdom simply because it had been made of rock; even from this vantage point, the stone that made up the buildings appeared high quality and expertly crafted.
Longshot hiked an inquisitive brow so that it disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. The archer, riding alongside Smellerbee, had been introspecting all morning - aside from some light conversation as the two Freedom Fighters broke camp, not much in the way of interaction had passed between them. And what really made it great was that Bee didn't feel the same awkward desire to fill their silence as she had before entering Foggy Swamp; no, her train of thought had simply brought her to this point, rather than trying to deafen Longshot's muteness. The conversation flowed much more naturally, like water through a stream, something she appreciated - and she knew Longshot would as well.
"Well...I used to think ostrich horses were just big dummies," Smellerbee said, a light grin playing across her lips. "You know - brains the size of peas and all that." This elicited a snort from the archer, and the tomboy's grin widened a bit. "Ever since we picked these two up, they've been proving me wrong left and right. But what really did it - remember how we were going through the swamp at first, going really slow so they wouldn't fall into the water? They managed to get through a lot of that area by themselves without us to help, so I guess they're a lot smarter than we thought. And like I said before, I want to give 'em Freedom Fighter names...so, I'm going to name mine Surestance."
Longshot bowed his head ever-so-slightly in return, and Smellerbee could catch the shadow of a grin flitting along the corners of his mouth, before returning his gaze ahead. He liked it; it was fitting and beautiful all at once.
"Yeah, I like it too. Thanks, Longshot."
Silence settled between the two Freedom Fighters, the sounds of Surestance and Longshot's ostrich horse clopping along the dust road being their only audible companionship. It was only as they crested the next hill that Smellerbee spoke again, this time her hoarse voice more inquiring than before.
"Have you thought up a name for yours?"
A small flicker from his chocolate brown eyes - no, he hadn't - and Smellerbee nodded in understanding. "That's alright. There's no hurry...I know you'll come up with something perfect with time." A small blush wriggled across her cheeks, and she averted her gaze to the still-distant town at the end of the road. "After all, you gave me mine, and I still love it."
Longshot smiled.
SCENE DIVIDE
As the pair drew closer to the city, Smellerbee could glean more details: it's beautiful architecture, for one, even though neither Freedom Fighter could attest to indulging in such an interest (that was a Mortar-and-Pestle thing), managed to catch their eyes almost immediately. Smellerbee figured some artsy Earthbenders must have really put their backs into making the place look as intricate as they had, for a lot of the buildings featured strange, flowing designs that reminded her more of Waterbending - gushing rivers and crashing waves - than the stone material from which they'd been carved. While the most standard of buildings only had these water patterns on the fringe surrounding the rooftops and splurting out at corner, gargoyle-like, any buildings of import, or well-to-do businesses, seemed to be rendered entirely of this "liquid rock" pattern, appearing more similar to rushing, crashing tidal waves than actual buildings. Anything in between the common and the important featured much more humble, calmer appearances, with rippling walls and frothing seams.
Ohhh, yeah. Mortar and Pestle would have a field day with this place.
Another thing, which they found strange in contrast to the beautiful architecture, was the stone wall surrounding the city's outskirts. This, unlike the buildings, had been carved straight and plain, with the only decorative touches coming in the form of guard towers posted at select intervals. It reminded Smellerbee too much of Ba Sing Se, and it took serious convincing from Longshot for her to believe that some towns actually used their walls for military defense and nothing more. Just because this city had one didn't mean that it would be the same dystopian nightmare of the Impenetrable City.
The third, most distasteful prospect of all: Fire Nation flags. Scraps of red and black cloth, hanging from the main gates to the city, the guard towers, and sticking up from a handful of buildings beyond the wall itself. This place had been taken, probably recently - most likely by the Fire Nation troops who had tried cutting through the swamp, in need of a waypoint.
"The scorch marks are erratic," Smellerbee mumbled, hunkering down low over Surestance's back, as if the creature were barreling down the path at top speed, rather than taking a steady pace. She gestured at the black smears marring the stone wall surrounding the city, as well as the towers posted on them. "Judging by how thinly spaced they are, and how few marks there are on the wall's face from other weapons, it looks more like vandalism than a battlefield."
This city had surrendered to the Fire Nation when the army came knocking at their door. While the notion stirred up old sensations of distaste - showing weakness to the Fire Nation being so unforgivable a sin back in the days before the Freedom Fighters had been fractioned - Smellerbee had long since realized that some fights weren't worth throwing your life away for. Perhaps the people of this town just hadn't had any other choice, and wanted to bide their time so they could maybe one day return to a normal life.
The asinine nature with which the Fire Nation treated their new base, however, left a low ringing sensation in her ears; it was bad enough for them to take this place and intrude on these peoples' lives as a military presence, but it was worse to act so - so childishly about it. She had no doubt the denizens of the place would spend the occupation being bullied by the Fire Nation army; she snarled, her lips pulling themselves into a ferocious scowl.
"It's not right, Longshot." She clenched her teeth, eyes narrowing. "This place looks like it was beautiful, and the Fire Nation is just - pissin' all over it."
The mute archer cast his cool gaze over to Smellerbee; he knew what she felt, believe him, he did - but their hands were bound in this situation, too. They wouldn't be staying long, and it was better in the long run - for both themselves and the world as a whole - that they keep moving onward. He frowned. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, too, and he hated not being able to fight the small battles...but one thing at a time.
The young swordswoman drew a low, calming breath; the rage threatening to rise up and swallow her dwindled, not quite vanishing, but becoming a more manageable size. "You're right. We're just passin' through. Let's just avoid making trouble and find an inn for the night."
The Freedom Fighters rode onward, keeping their heads bowed and their gazes on the charred, dusty ground as they passed through the city's gates, guarded by a pair of half-awake Fire Nation soldiers in decrepit armor. As the scent of singed rock flooded Smellerbee's nose, she thought back to the boiling rage and frowned; the sensation of passionate hatred for the Fire Nation's destructive nature was familiar, but stale and laden with dust. She hadn't actively felt the magma rising up from her stomach since Jet organized the destruction of the dam - since she and Longshot decided to get a fresh start, a Second Chance.
That had been a lifetime ago. She'd been so wound up in the fallout of Jet's death that she'd completely forgotten about the details of the war (just that it was happening), and in the days since leaving the swamp, it just hadn't registered. The visual cue reminded her, though - the Fire Nation was still out there, and without Aang to stop them, something needed to be done.
Still, two Freedom Fighters against an unknown amount of enemies was poor battle strategy; it meant nothing to die or get caught here and now. It was best to swallow the bitter pill; the city as a whole had realized it when being invaded after all...and Jet had taught her a lot of things, too, one of which was - at the expense of his life - knowing when not to pick fights.
SCENE DIVIDE
As soon as the Freedom Fighters had passed through the gates, the atmosphere had melted away to that of a ghetto; this once grand, inspiring town reeked of desolation, oppression and maltreatment.
They'd had to ask around to find the inn, of course; the locals on the streets had been willing to help, although they kept their voices low as if afraid the soldiers would hear and jump them just for speaking. All the Earth Kingdom natives here - old and young, male and female, destitute and once-aristocratic - looked anemic, gaunt and grubby, dirt and soot embedded in their clothes.
The occasional Fire Nation soldier, or group of soldiers, patrolled the streets with weapons in hand or slung from their hip, but they all wore enlisted man armor: they were mostly black, basic in design and barely meeting the Fire Army's standards for efficiency (she'd skinned enough enlisted men in her time to know). Whether they could Firebend or not was another matter, but it still unnerved the young swordswoman to be in an enemy stronghold out in the open like this. Old habits died hard; she would have felt much more at home out of sight, with the enemy below, unaware - ready to be pounced upon, taken down swiftly and brutally, all the while her pulse pounded in her chest, her ears, a savage grin tugging at her mouth -
No.
Fire Nation soldiers fixed the two Freedom Fighters with sideways, disdainful glances whenever the pair happened across a group of them, but despite the tension, none of them attacked or so much as spoke to the adventurers; Smellerbee had been to missions in places like this one, where the city was open to people despite the Fire Nation having taken over. She and Longshot would be fine here, so long as they didn't get involved in any trouble.
The pair dismounted in front of the inn, tying the their ostrich horses' reins to a stone rail near the doorway. Smellerbee landed in a crouch, kicking up dirt from the ground, the impact jarring her ankles and knees; she stood upright and leaned backwards, popping out the aches in her back. Thighs sore, a sheen of sweat made her headband dampen; the sun beat down on them from above, proving to yield an exceptionally warm day for this time of year. She massaged her thighs to coerce the soreness from them, at last turning to Longshot to find the archer already freeing his gear from his ostrich horse's back.
It had been a nice inn at one point, she was sure, but much like the rest of the town, it, too, had been marred by the occupying troops. The stone - once a healthy tan - had likewise been blackened as other buildings and the walls outside the city. The inn rose up three stories, and the scorch marks stretched all the way up to the roof. At this proximity, Smellerbee could pick up the bizarre, unique scent of burnt stone; it reeked like chalk and charcoal mingling together, dancing partners she didn't particularly like - Earth was a solid element (her country's element), supposedly unmovable, and yet the Fire Nation had managed to burn it despite that fact.
Any metal fixtures on the inn's outer walls had been badly singed as well, and only a few wooden ones had been spared; all that remained of a gaping, door-sized hole in the building's face were the warped, blackened hinges, irreparably damaged from a fire blast. Likewise, a twisted, metal brace hung over the doorway, two wide loops hanging from the bottom; Smellerbee could only assume a wooden sign declaring the inn's name had once been adorned there. She snorted and brought one hand up to her hair, sweeping her bangs out of the fringe of her vision; it was - disgusting, despicable, that such an elegant structure had been desecrated like this (again, Mortar and Pestle would be absolutely beside themselves - but this time out of blood-boiling rage at this lack of respect for unique architecture).
Thanks to the efforts of the occupying military unit, the inn looked just as decrepit and abused as most of the rest of the city. "Hopefully it hasn't been trashed so badly on the inside," Smellerbee murmured, tilting her neck to one side, forcing a low, deep pop that relieved a lot of tension. "After all this time on the road, the thought of sleeping in a real bed is so tempting that having to sleep on another dirty floor would be nothin' short of a tease."
Longshot nodded, his lips making the slightest downward turn; 'tease' was too generous a word and she knew it.
Smellerbee conceded with a chuckle, turning to Surestance as she did so. "Okay, yeah. Worse than a tease. It'd be a travesty."
More like an atrocity. The archer crooked his head to the side, and Smellerbee snorted, a grin wriggling across her cheeks. "Oooh, good vocabulary word. The Duke would be proud of you. I like that one better."
Their gear dislodged, the pair entered the inn through the gash in the front wall where the door had once stood. The sun's rays didn't reach inside, couldn't bake Smellerbee's skin any further, and already the temperature had dropped to a more comfortable level. Though her vision had to adjust to the darker atmosphere, the swordswoman could still pick up enough details to know that the Fire Nation hadn't struck inside, for the most part. A few scorch marks on the floor, right at the doorway, were the most obvious signs of damage; several tables had been arranged in the lobby with chairs around them, bearing marks of superficial burn damage. Otherwise, the place looked intact - meaning the beds that tantalized the Freedom Fighters so would await them upstairs.
The lobby for the inn actually passed more of a resemblance to a tavern, upon closer inspection; with walls, floor and ceiling made exclusively of stone (the same smooth, tan rock making up the building's exterior), only a small section of the room looked ready for reception, with a desk set against a wall to the left and an area for baggage spanning out to their right. This segment had been separated from the rest of the room by a low railing, in which the tables and chairs had been arranged far enough away from each other to allow passage between them. A pair of double doors led from the room into what Smellerbee assumed was a kitchen, and against the far wall was a bar - devoid of a bartender or any patrons for now, but the day was young yet.
(Such things were foreign to Smellerbee; she knew that lifestyles existed where you could sit down and have food prepared and then brought to you by others, but she had spent so many hours and days and years stalking prey from the cover of scratchy bushes and the crimson-laden boughs of the forest's trees that it would take a lot of adjustment to learn to live so free of self-preservation. She hoped their stay in this town would be short, if not just because of the Fire Nation, but also because hunting was so ingrained with her way of life. The concept of going so soft almost made the thought of sleeping in a real bed an intolerable notion, but the temptation was just too great; even a Freedom Fighter could stand to be pampered every once in a while, she guessed.)
A few of the tables were occupied - people, eating lunch or reading scrolls to be sent via messenger hawks - and a boy younger than Smellerbee stood out in the center of the floor, pushing dust and dirt and a few scraps of detritus (broken glass, large splinters - the results of a bar fight?) into a desolate pile with a broom. (He looked every bit like an orphan the Freedom Fighters had just recently rescued from the Fire nation: a dirty face, filthy, ragged, hand-me-down clothing, and a desolate expression that could only belong to someone who had lost their home or family or both - and he moved as just the same, as if each sweep of the broom was just another motion that needed going through.)
Aside from them, a man with deep olive skin and a beard stooped over behind the receptionist desk, wearing a uniform that had definitely seen better days, bearing the usual Earth Kingdom colors of green with yellow trim and beige highlights. Upon hearing the Freedom Fighters' footsteps, the man jumped and began to tremble just the slightest bit; Smellerbee could see his gaze flicker left and right, the gears in his mind churning - clearly not wanting to be responsible for any "accidents" an overzealous Fire Nation soldier might want to start, and thus desperately seeking for some way out.
Smellerbee felt Longshot's gaze on her, and turned to meet it; warm, chocolaty eyes belayed the same thoughts running through the swordswoman's head, and she gave him a minute nod.
"Yeah. This place is bad off," she murmured, the black scorch marks on the outside of the buildings and walls flickering through her mind. "They hit really hard here. I think it's a lot worse than it seems."
Longshot's eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth pulled down into a tight scowl; the scorches and burns were only part of the chaos that had been unleashed. Smellerbee sympathized and nodded again.
Still...
The younger Freedom Fighter approached the reception counter, the soles of her boots padding against the cool, dusty floor. This brought the receptionist's attention over to her, finally, and confusion swiftly replaced the outright panic on his face; Smellerbee, with all her experience in reading Longshot, could almost hear his thoughts screaming into the space between them, thinking, They don't look Fire Nation. But what if...?
The swordswoman stopped at the desk and laid down one arm on its surface, glancing up to meet the receptionist's eyes. Her shaggy, moss-brown hair hung down in her peripheral vision, framing the man in a curtain of bangs. "Hey. Two rooms for a pair of adventurers, please."
SCENE DIVIDE
They couldn't afford two rooms.
At first, Smellerbee had been seething mad - hadn't Longshot stolen enough cash from that rich so-and-so in Ba Sing Se to get a pair of survivalists by for months? Okay, okay, yes, he had, and by all means this nameless, scarred inn/tavern should have been within their cost range. Nevertheless the rent for one room alone put a healthy dent in their finances, and two would nearly deplete what they had. Smellerbee guessed that, after the property damage the Fire Nation had inflicted, the inn's owners inflated the cost of the rooms simply so they could afford repairs.
So really - the swordswoman couldn't fault them for that. While Longshot had managed to calm her down from hell-cat mode, she still had a niggling sense of - bitterness, discontent, jadedness - over the whole ordeal. That had abated itself, though, because Longshot was so warm that it was impossible to stay mad.
The sun had long since set, and after a rather uneventful day of resupplying and gathering information, the two Freedom Fighters had retired to their room.
"Come on," Smellerbee insisted, wearing a pair of shorts and a dirty white shirt that was a few sizes too large for her - bedclothes picked out at a town between Ba Sing Se and the swamp. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, her mane of hair billowing out wildly without her headband to keep it in place. "We shared the bed in Ba Sing Se, an' we slept together in the forest, too. I ain't gettin' in until you are."
Longshot - dressed down, but not fully ready - let his gaze flicker up to Smellerbee before moving back to the floor again. Smellerbee saw the faintest of a hot red color running across his cheeks and snorted in response. That wasn't the same - that had been out of necessity, and - and they were friends, but they weren't just friends any more.
"Yeah, it's different now. So what?" She walked over to him and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing gently. "I mean - it's not like we're gonna do what Jet did every time he spent a night in a nearby town. We're just gonna sleep. That's all."
The mute archer sighed, fixed Bee with a small grin - relented. Good. This had been important to her.
SCENE DIVIDE
With the moon set into the sky - a silver crescent, the most beautiful dagger of all against black velvet - Smellerbee felt a grin cross her face. Longshot's stomach pressed into her back, his arms wrapped around her chest, his face against the back of her head - and he was warm, so warm, that it was kinda okay that they couldn't afford two rooms. Hell, it was more'n that; this made up for it completely and then some.
She could feel his breath against her hair - calm, gentle, and silent, just like him in so many ways - and she suppressed a shiver of delight. This felt good. This felt natural.
Longshot was right. Those nights in the forest and Ba Sing Se were different from tonight; while seeking some form of comfort had been the common goal running from then to now, only this time did Smellerbee start to feel something more. Her heart thumped just a little faster against her ribcage, and she knew she had made the right choice in that cavern under the swamp.
SCENE DIVIDE
Sometimes, while she slept, she had nightmares of the shackles that cut into her wrists - of the water trapped between the metal and flesh, causing the bright scarlet rashes whenever the rain pissed down from the sky. Of losing her precious voice, the only real thing she remembered from before the inferno sucked her old life away. Of the anonymous little girl with a mouth curled into a starch, round O.
In those nightmares, Smellerbee was young and helpless; she didn't want to kill the only person nice enough to call a friend, but her arms, her body, followed through with the motions anyway. She didn't want to start the brawl that would lead to the Fire Nation burning down their own slave encampment, to her being the only one to escape that wretched place with her life, but she stabbed the grubby-fingered, touchy-feely officer who thought he could get away with that sort of disgusting crap - she sacrificed the lives of those around her to get a chance at freedom, even if unintentionally. She didn't want to - to become muted, unable to express herself, yet her throat would seal up and her voice would be stolen from her forever.
The motions could only be followed, most nights. But tonight...
The nightmares came, they did, but the swordswoman felt reinvigorated by Longshot's shelter beyond the confines of her dreamscape; instead of taking the brazen path of a child who didn't know any better, Smellerbee found herself sneaking out - around - away from the compound without drawing so much as a drop of blood from ally or enemy. Even without gear (because as a child, she had no gear, just that scratchy, rough, filthy shirt that had belonged to several slaves to come before), these feats came naturally - and soon she was out, away, heading for that familiar place that would, in the years to come, be her home, singing the entire way with her voice that still sounded like the chiming of golden bells on a warm summer's day.
In her sleep, Smellerbee smiled.
SCENE DIVIDE
The next thing Smellerbee was aware of was Longshot disentangling himself from her, his limbs inexplicably becoming intertwined with hers during the night; snorting in distaste, the swordswoman cracked open her eye just enough to see sunlight filtering in through the only window to their room. The archer cupped a gentle hand onto Smellerbee's bare, bony shoulder, eliciting a grunt in response.
Come on, Bee. Time to wake up; they had to check out soon and head on their way.
"S'too early," the swordswoman grumbled, half-talking into their pillow. "Dun wanna go jes' yet."
Longshot's grip tightened just the slightest bit - the change in pressure an indication of how soon they ought to be leaving. They were still living life by the war's clock; if the pair were to reassemble the Freedom Fighters in this Life After Jet - in this world without the Avatar - then time was something they couldn't sleep away. Maybe after the war - maybe when they didn't need to be soldiers anymore, when they could just be children like all the other normal ones in this world...
Sighing, Smellerbee nodded and pushed herself up into a sitting position. "I hate when you're right sometimes," she murmured, a slight grin flitting across her face. She yawned - stretched, popping the bones in her back by twisting her torso. "S'a shame, too. This bed was really comfortable."
Of course, that hadn't been all...but by the minute, humble grin tugging at the corners of Longshot's mouth, she knew that she didn't need to verbalize the rest. She slunk from between the linen covers and lumpy down mattress, still glowing from their conjoined body heat, and wandered over to the chair upon which her armor and weapons had been thrown the night before.
SCENE DIVIDE
Minutes later, plodding down the dusty, stone steps, Smellerbee wondered what it would be like to be served food; part of the payment for the room had included meals, and - although she had no idea what a place like this would have to offer that topped anything Skillet cooked - she wouldn't mind setting aside her hunter's instincts for just one meal.
Just to see what it was like, of course. As The Duke would have said, it was all for the sake of science.
Longshot trailed behind her, fingers tracing featherlight trails along the stone wall; his footfalls, unlike hers, came soft and calculated. Even in a place such as this, where they could afford to let their guard down for the shortest time, he refused to do so...Smellerbee could feel his eyes combing the area around the two Freedom Fighters from under the brim of his hat, sweeping down hallways as they passed by. He'd be listening, too, knowing him - and part of Smellerbee's mind yelled at her, a cacophononous screech telling her to wake up, be ready just in case -
Too late. Longshot grabbed the swordswoman by the shoulder, his grip tighter than it had been scant minutes ago. Smellerbee halted in her tracks and crouched on instinct, her hand already at her waist, fingers curled around the hilt of her knife. Through the stone floors separating the Freedom Fighters and the lobby, deep, muffled voices rose up like smoke from a blazing fire; although Smellerbee couldn't make out the precise words, the fervency of them didn't slip past her.
She glanced back over her shoulder to Longshot with narrowed eyes, and he nodded. Drawing his bow and an sliding an arrow from his quiver, the archer set his mouth into a grim line. Trouble was definitely brewing downstairs and given the condition of the town, the chances of it being Fire Nation in orientation was too high for his tastes. It was best to assume the worst and be prepared to fight their way through it, if it came to that - after all, Surestance and the other, unnamed ostrich horse waited for them in the stables attached to the inn's outer walls...
They slunk down the stairs, this time Smellerbee moving swiftly, and as silently as Longshot; she drew her dagger with one hand and one of Jet's swords with the other, keeping close to the inner wall of the stairwell. A half-minute and two floors later, the voices from the lobby became clearer - but Smellerbee could only make out what was truly being said at the lobby's doorway. She peered around the corner, being careful to stay obscured from anyone who waited beyond their cover.
Four Fire Nation soldiers all stood, fully armed and armored, in the center of the eatery; their armor belied that these, like most of the ones outside, were enlisted men, and judging by how armed three of them were, they of them weren't even Firebenders. (The fourth one, though...) Without the skull-like faceplate to provide them that aura of death and power, Smellerbee could make out pointed, jeering features - beady, tight eyes and mouths pulled into cruel smirks. Their leader - the only Firebender of the bunch, a trail of blazing flame flickering between his closed fists, stood at the center of the troupe, and at his feet, curled into a ball, laid the shivering, heaving form of the cleaning boy from yesterday. He clutched his left hand with his right, the skin on his palm seared pink and blistering.
"That'll teach you to scuff up by boots, boy," the Firebender seethed, a wicked grin flitting across his face. Just under his gravelly voice, Smellerbee could make out the sound of the boy choking back sobs - scared that the noise would provoke the slimeballs further. "Next time, watch where you're walking, or you'll be sweeping the floor with brushes strapped to your feet!"
"I'm surprised, boss." one of the three behind the Firebender leered at the fallen boy before casting a razor-sharp gaze to something beyond Smellerbee's line of sight - obscured by a stone support pillar. "You're being so harsh on this Earth Kingdom snot...but your audience ain't even gotten up to stop you!"
The Freedom Fighter froze for a moment, shocked - had they been seen? There was no way they could'a been seen! - but her senses came about her, realizing that the soldier had addressed somebody in that obscured area Smellerbee couldn't see from this vantage point.
"They seem like pretty tough guys," Another soldier continued, slinging a pike around from behind him with a modest amount of grace. He sneered and thrust the tip of it into the floor, the blade catching at the stone just inches shy of the boy's head. He gave a tiny yelp, and Smellerbee felt the old, familiar fire rising up into her gullet.
"Please," the boy whispered, so quiet that the soldiers probably wouldn't be able to hear him. "Please. I idolize you. Help me."
From beyond the pillar, Smellerbee heard a low, growling sound - a snort so deep and guttural that it may have come from an animal of some sort, if she didn't know any better. Following that came a sharp intake of breath - from someone else, this one definitely a human's, and Smellerbee crouched down low. This would be their opportunity to strike.
"...The Boulder fights only for the entertainment of the people...he has no interest in political squabbles."
Lightning may as well have struck the swordswoman down then and there. That was his voice! His attitude! His mannerisms...
...she stumbled, her body caught somewhere between wanting to regress to that eager fan from three years ago and wanting to slaughter the maroon-clad bullies torturing a boy who had probably seen enough hell in the days past. Jet's sword clattered from her hand onto the ground, the noise ringing sharp and loud against the stone, echoing throughout the confines of the lobby.
Out of her hiding space - exposed - she could feel everyone's eyes on her. The boy's. The soldiers'. The receptionist's.
The Boulder's.
Time froze, for a moment, and from her peripheral vision, she could see him - just as she remembered him at Earth Rumble IV. Olive skin, a beard, hair tied back into a topknot, shirtless, wearing dark green pants and no shoes. It was him, it was The Boulder, it was her hero...
...and her hero was a despicable asshole.
The brakes came off and time hurdled forward again at a breakneck pace, just in time for Smellerbee to see a glowing, fiery whip head her way.