Gifted

posted August 17, 2009


Zuko spent the night outside the lodge, the other male captives huddled nearby – the few captive women had been led inside the night before – as he leaned back against the wooden wall, slipping occasionally into a fitful sleep. He sighed with relief as the sun finally rose over the forested shore opposite the village, thankful for that one constant in this waking nightmare. The morning brightened and he enjoyed the caress of daylight through his body, warming him and filling him with its faint energy.

The peace proved short-lived as warriors emerged from the lodge and the others spread along the beach, jostling the overnight guards with friendly familiarity. They spoke among themselves, eyeing the captives, and Zuko noted that their cautious stares wandered to him most frequently. He narrowed his eyes and watched them back, noting which ones returned the stare and which shied from it.

Easy laughter drew Zuko's attention and he turned to watch as the chieftain – Sokka, he'd named himself – climbed through the lodge's mouth-opening and stretched, looking idly to the captives. His smile broadened as he met Zuko's eye and tipped his head in a way that Zuko could only describe as cheeky.

Zuko frowned and turned away, looking back to the sun, but was soon pulled to his feet by two warriors. They shouted something at him and shoved him towards the beach, other captives stumbling with him. Warriors standing near the water shouted something in their own language and a few of the captives began to strip their clothes off.

Oh, no, Zuko thought. He stopped in his tracks and glared at the nearest warrior, who frowned and gestured towards the water. Zuko stood his ground, slipping into a defensive stance, and the warrior called to others farther up the beach, then lowered his spear threateningly. Zuko growled, knowing that his words would mean nothing to this man, and feinted; the warrior jabbed at him and Zuko grabbed the spear, twisting it from his grasp and shoving him to the rocky beach.

Shouts rose on the beach behind him as he kicked the warrior once, forcing him to curl inwards defensively, then turned to face the others; he raised the spear and growled again as other warriors swept down the slope. The first slammed into him with a yelp, knocking Zuko to the ground; others soon surrounded him and the fallen warrior, who was helped to his feet. Other warriors grabbed Zuko's arms, pulling him up and forcing him to face the warrior he'd kicked; Zuko readied himself for a blow, but instead the man spat at his feet. He uttered a short, decisive phrase, then turned away.

Zuko blinked in surprise as the warriors around him laughed, but then he struggled for balance as they pulled him along the beach, stopping at the edge of the water. The chieftain stood there, watching as the other captives were herded into the sea; he turned to regard Zuko with both caution and humor. He said something in his own tongue, then paused. "In," he said in the trade jargon, pointing to the water, then pointed at Zuko, indicating his clothes. "Off." Zuko prepared himself to fight again, but then felt a spear jab his back, sharp enough to cause pain, but not break the skin. "Off," the chieftain repeated, the smile gone from his face, and he nodded towards the water.

Humiliated and outnumbered – despite his temper, he knew when to fight and when to wait – Zuko pulled his shirt off and threw it to the ground, followed by his boots, his pants, and his undergarments. He waded out into the water before they could force him into it, ignoring the cold and trying to keep his balance on the shifting pebbles. The other captives avoided him and he ignored them, wading and then swimming out into deeper water. He dipped below the surface, the blood pounding in his ears with the numbing cold, and re-emerged, shaking his head to clear his eyes. He looked back to the beach to see the other captives stumbling from the water and swam back in, pulling himself smoothly through the waves.

The warriors herded them across the shore, away from the lodges and toward a broad clearing between the beach and the dwellings. An empty firepit lay at its center, surrounded by fallen logs and beaten earth. Sokka stood at the edge, arms folded and directing the other warriors. Soon the captives stood in a line before him, drying in the sun; Zuko stood near the middle, head defiantly raised, and he noted that he towered over the other captives; indeed over many of the Water Tribe warriors.

The realization afforded him little comfort as warriors moved between the captives with baskets of grease, directing them in words and gestures to smear it over their cleaned skins. Zuko started to refuse, baring his teeth again, but saw the warning look Sokka gave him and he subsided, shaking with anger but remembering the jab of spears to his back.

Another warrior walked down the line, a basket of dark blueish paint in one hand; he dipped his fingers into the paint and drew lines across the captives, some on the forehead, some on the chest, some on the arms. Zuko found himself with twin lines down his forehead and across both forearms and biceps; he resisted the impulse to wipe the marks off and instead held himself still under Sokka's watchful gaze.

Two more warriors moved through the captives, handing each a wide strip of rough woven cloth, dyed a brownish-blue. They said something in their own language and Zuko frowned, refusing to understand. "On," Sokka called from where he oversaw the process, and Zuko saw at the edge of his vision the other captives wrapping the cloth around their bodies; a long loincloth that hung to the knees in the front and back, but otherwise covered very little.

This time, Zuko waited for the jab to his back to follow the command; Sokka raised his eyebrows and gestured, as if to say "If you want to stand naked, be my guest," but Zuko found himself with no choice as the warriors behind him shouted and prodded and finally he stood barely clothed with the other captives before the warriors. One of them moved forward to wrap a fine rope, hardly more than a string, around his wrists, tying it loosely in a knot clearly meant to symbolize rather than bind. Zuko shook his hands in token protest, but one of the warriors spoke sharply and he recognized the end of patience in another. He set his teeth and seethed as they moved away, ever watchful.

There followed a long wait, as the sun rose in the sky and the heat of the day grew; some of the other captives sat or squatted, dozing, but Zuko remained standing, glaring, as hunger gnawed in his belly. The warriors stood in groups, seemingly relaxed but watching warily as they talked in low voices. Zuko weighed his chances for escape, measuring the distance between the clearing and the forest, but concluded that the warriors would know the land far better than he. Better to wait, learn, and take a later opportunity than lose his life in futile struggle.

The sun had moved noticeably across the sky before another group moved into the clearing, older men and women led by an ancient crone and a middle-aged man, solid and stern with a trace of a limp in his stride. Zuko watched as the new arrivals, followed by younger women and men who lacked the weapons and lean muscles of warriors, some guiding children, filed into the space.

Motion caught his eye from the opposite side of the clearing as the female captives, similarly painted and simply clothed, were guided into the clearing. The woman who had healed him, the sister of the chieftain, led the group with several other women, her movements graceful but no less powerful than those of her brother. Zuko dropped his eyes and turned away before she looked at him, Sokka's words from the day before echoing in his memory.

A deep voice raised in a strong cadence broke Zuko's reflection, and he turned involuntarily to its source. The middle-aged man spoke, the words indecipherable but the meaning clear as he raised his arms to Sokka. What do you bring before me?

The chieftain bowed in response, touching the earth with his fingers and rising to gesture at the captives. His answering words, recited in the same cadence, rang in the silence and the older man nodded.

What followed reminded Zuko of nothing so much as the great slave markets far to the east, save for a single peculiar difference. No bids seemed to be offered nor money exchanged as each captive was brought forward to a new owner, who nodded in thanks to Sokka and then the older man and the crone before taking the rope and leading the slave into the crowd. Zuko noted that some of the new owners were warriors, others men and women who stood in the crowd. Without exception, the female captives went to women and the male captives to men until finally Zuko stood alone before the assembled tribe. He felt the weight of their awareness, glares from the warriors, curiosity from the tribe, and – heavens help him – blushes from some of the young women gathered there. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin and let his stare show that he was no-one's slave.

Sokka's cadence changed as he gestured to Zuko, the words rising in falling as if he told a tale, the motions of his hands, Zuko realized, telling the story of a man nearly felled by a spear before dragging his attacker into shallow water with hands around his throat. Sokka gestured at his arm, at Zuko again, and finally into the crowd, where the healer stood at the fore, watching her brother impassively over folded arms. The chieftain's voice lowered, dropped in the way that ended a sentence, and moved his arms in a grand sweep from Zuko towards the woman, falling silent as he touched the ground again.

The gathered tribe exploded in noise, voices raised in excitement, anger, laughter, and discussion. The woman reddened and strode forward to speak angrily to Sokka, making an irritated chopping motion with one hand and grabbing his upper arm with the other. The chieftain laughed, waving his hand as if to dismiss her concerns, and patted her shoulder affectionately and spoke again. She reddened further, cursed, then threw up her hands as if to say "to the seven hells with you" before turning to shove her way through the crowd.

The chieftain watched her go, an amused expression on his face, and turned to Zuko as the tribe began to disperse. "Good match," he said, echoing his words of the previous day, and laughed heartily as he gestured to the warriors to lead Zuko away.