It has been two days since the explosion.
Their burns are still quite tender, and he does as best he can to make sure that Tarrlok feels better. He ignores his own well-being just to make sure that his brother doesn't hiss in pain every time he turns over when he sleeps. It is the least he could do after everything he's done; leaving him with their father, waging war over the city under both their commands, taking away his bending. Yes, placing his brother's wellness above his is the least he could do.
But Tarrlok doesn't talk to him. He understands why, and the sand is gritty on his knees when he hovers over his brother, taking in the sight of the burns marring the bare of his back, arm and neck, even part of his hair is singed. Noatak sighs and takes a handful of water from the sea a few metres from them, and slices the burnt hair off, gently yet efficiently with a blade of water.
When he finishes, the sun has already set, and Tarrlok gives a sigh before going back towards the ruins of their boat, sliding behind the large banana leaves they use as curtains for shelter. Noatak stands with some effort, his left shoulder yelling murder at him when he holds his brother's burnt hair between them. He clenches his fist and buries the hair far from the wreck, returning to find Tarrlok cradling his right wrist as he slept.
He doesn't sleep as easily as Tarrlok does, but not because of the pain. Only when Tarrlok edges closer to him for warmth is when he finds sleep.
Over a meal of fish and mushrooms is when Tarrlok finally speaks. Interrupted from his tangent of perhaps leaving the island, Tarrlok looks up at him with perceptive eyes, something he hasn't seen up close after twenty-six years and he is saddened somewhat by it. Gone was the younger brother that needed protection from their father's severe words and in its place a partisan hardened by it.
"We cannot leave."
I understand-
"No, Noatak. Try again and I will assure you that I will reattempt what's happened three days ago."
The rest of their meal goes by in silence. Tarrlok looks away and the spiced fish tastes like filth in his mouth. He chooses not to think about how his brother will go about doing it, because he knows it will happen. Will he risk tearing them further apart than he already has if they'd been so lucky the first time?
When he prepares to hunt for more fish for them to eat, Tarrlok joins him. He protests, telling the man to rest, to recuperate, only to receive a vindicated rebuttal that sounds as though it comes from the likes of their father.
"If anyone should rest, it should be you, Noatak. I won't be able to help you if your shoulder starts to sting from the sea water and I'd have to drag you across the sand if you pass out."
He lets Tarrlok snap at him while they fish, and he sees how even after their father has passed, his legacy still continues on to them. Tarrlok would have been right to try and keep them from going the first time.
He raises his head from the water to see Tarrlok profusely push the wet hair from his face with his bandaged wrist and his lips pouted in frustration. Honest to the spirits, it was like seeing his brother as a child again but he keeps himself from smiling when his brother's spear hits the water with more force than necessary.
In the end, Tarrlok catches more fish than he does, enough to last them for three days even.
He leaves in the morning before the sun rises and ventures off into the woods, unsure exactly of what he is looking for. He finds fruit and more herbs for them to flavour their fish with but something catches his eye above the trees. He looks up, past the tree tops and sees a trail of blue forget-me-nots climbing a cliff face that stood high over him.
In the same shade of watertribe blue that Tarrlok's jacket shares, the same shade as the ponytails that he remembers his mother put in Tarrlok's hair all those years ago.
He drops the collected fruit and scales the cliff face, feeling the muscles scream at him while the sun beat down on his bare back. He cracks a smile when his hand finds a bunch of them, tucking them into the strap of his pants carefully before looking down, seeing how high from the ground he is. When he finds the ground, his fruit is gone, and in its place a clump of fur, perhaps a lemur's.
No matter, he has a better surprise for his brother. The fruit can wait.
When he wakes, it is already noon. Tarrlok is gone from his side, and so are the flowers that he's placed on his brother's makeshift pillow. When crawls out of the boat-tent, he sees Tarrlok and a fish.
A giant, orange fish. Elephant Koi, as he remembers from his mother's stories and his father's hunts. And Tarrlok just leans on it as if it were a giant pillow.
He carries on making meals for them but when his eyes dart to the water, he smiles at the sight of the flowers he's picked neatly woven into Tarrlok's hair, and the lazy smile he has when the fish swims around him.
He procures more flowers for Tarrlok, even going as far as planting a few of them close to their camp, giving them more things to do as they lose track of how long they've been on the island. Leaving was never an option.
This life is not expected, but he is grateful for it. As he sits by the crackling fire, jacket donned and Tarrlok sleeping easily by his side, his eyes scanned the moonlit sea around them. A thin piece of driftwood washes ashore and he uncertainly gets up to pick it up. He turns it over, weighing it, feeling a sort of familiarity as his fingers trace the lines crusting it.
It feels like the same wood that his mask had been carved from.
He spends the rest of the night chiselling away the driftwood delicately, remembering what he's left behind before the explosion. There is only one thing, one person he misses about it, but it doesn't linger on his mind, not when he sees the man's bright eyes glazed over from his treason.
He sleeps with the mask covering his face while the fire fades into the silence.
Leaving was never really an option, he muses, making Tarrlok lift his head from the chain of flowers he works on.
The red powder cakes his fingers, but still he smears the bare mask with it.
"No it wasn't." Tarrlok goes back to needling the flowers together. "You know well what happens if you try again."
What if I leave? Just me?
"I know you wouldn't." There's an edge to his brother's voice, though it is as if he merely stated a fact, the memory of running away into the snowstorm all those years ago inches its way through. "But even if you do, I will not hesitate to inhibit you, Noatak."
He gives his brother a sidelong glance before going back to smearing the sphere of the forehead of his mask red but he finds himself smiling, no matter how serious the threat had been.
He is definitely grateful for this life, this gradual redemption.
Based off the one comic by Millionfish on tumblr.