"Momma, Momma!"
"Shh, honey." The boy's mother wrapped her arms around him, pressing his face to her stomach to muffle his voice. They were cramped under their barn in the secret space, but outside buildings were burning and bodies were falling, never to rise.
"But Momma, something's crawling on me."
The barn door flew open before his mother had a chance to respond. Her hand clasped tightly over his lips and she tried to draw away from the cracks in the wall boards. The men entering the barn said nothing, their masked faces scanning the room, stabbing spears into the hay piles and breaking apart the wagon. The boy was certain to remain perfectly still, even though he could feel the spider-ticks crawling up his legs. Finally, the soldiers turned to leave.
As they were stepping through the wide arch, the one soldier whipped around, stomping his foot and thrusting a burst of flames at the back wall. The dry wood caught the flame and spread instantly. The soldiers continued on their way out, laughing as they heard the screams of the woman and her child.
His mother, her clothes already burning on her back, pounded at the wall to the outside until it gave way. She shoved her son through the opening. As he turned to grab her hand, all he saw were the flames engulf her with a silent scream. Leaping to go to her, he was jerked to a stop by a hand holding the scruff of his shirt. Looking up, he saw the grinning fire nation soldier. "C'mon, boy, watch your mother die like a man."
The soldier smacked a hat on the boy, his father's hat, the rim covered in blood.
Longshot crouched in his tree, his feet balanced on the limb. His fingers deftly drew back the bow and let the arrow loose, listening with confidence as it found its mark in the deer. Climbing from the tree, he was joined by his hunting companion, Smellerbee, who was already heading in the direction of the felled creature. Her short stride was quick, but silent on the forest floor.
"Nice shot." Her voice was dry like autumn leaves. Looking to her, he offered a rare smile.
With her father and older brother gone to war, it was her duty to help her mother on the small plot of land they worked. She gave up her dresses and sewing for pants and sowing. Her mother constantly reminded her, "So young, and yet so strong and brave."
In the fields they worked quietly, saving their efforts to till the earth and help the plants grow. When the sun set, they would return to their home to cook dinner, then collapse into bed to sleep until the sun rose and they would once again return to the fields.
On the days when there wasn't as much to do on the farm, she would hide in the barn, away from her mother, and practice with the two throwing knives her brother had left her. Each tied with a red ribbon for luck, he had told her, "These are so you can protect Mother, since Father and I must go."
With each practice her accuracy grew. In the beginning she had feared them, worried over hurting herself. Even before she grew comfortable with them in her hands, the hilts had stopped bouncing off the wall. By the time the harvest came around, she could flip them through the air, catch them, and send them flying, all with her eyes closed.
One day in the fields, while she gathered the last of her crops so her mother could do the long ignored work around the house, the fire nation attacked her village. She had seen the fires rising from the houses, and she ran as fast as she could to the tree in the nearby forest that she and her mother had set aside to meet if there ever was an attack. She crouched under the low boughs, hugging her knees. She waited until dusk, when the fires of the village died out.
When she headed back, she could barely find where her house once was. Digging through the ashes of the barn, she found the charred, but usable, daggers, the red ribbons nothing but cinders. Couching in the debris, the hot handles burning into her hands, she saw nothing but her mother's smiling face.