Where Words Fail
Book Three: A Test of Faith
Chapter 2: "Who were you - a jock, or a brain?" "I was a ghost."
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-3-2-137207622
SCENE DIVIDE
Now
Things couldn't have been going worse, Smellerbee decided.
She'd tried - tried! So hard! - to close the gap that had formed between herself and Longshot, but no amount of space given seemed to heal his wounds, and talking to him - talking at him, really - bothered the hell out of him. She knew he hated being rambled at! It made him feel like people thought he was too dumb or too oblivious to answer, so why had she even bothered? Under different circumstances, she may have beaten her head against the nearest tree, maybe pound some sense - and the answers she sought - into her stupid, stupid skull.
Compounding the severity of the issue, a headache had been niggling at her, low and pulsating at the base of her skull, for the past several hours; she liked to think she'd hidden the scathing irritation well from Longshot. As the archer never mentioned it and actually seemed surprised when Smellerbee brought it up, it could just as easily have been him making a quick escape into aloofness again. Sighing, she watched him turn to his ostrich horse, crooking her mouth into an uneven line.
The swamp was alive, and not only in the sense that it teemed with life; something about the this place as a whole (trees and the mud and the water included) cast off an aura of secrecy, as if everything Smellerbee could perceive was just a skin. The squelching sensation of the muck sucking at her as she walked, lukewarm water trickling into her boots and getting between her toes, the oppressive, clammy air that made her clothes stick to her body, the damp, musky scent of the trees...she glanced over to the nearest one, furrowing her brow. Something went lopsided in her belly; the atmosphere painted her an unsettling, vivid canvas, as if she took the time to peel the bark away, some heart or eye or other biological ghoulishness would be writhing underneath.
Longshot had known from the start, and he'd been hesitant to come through this way because of it. It wasn't like she hadn't understood - just, they needed to make the most of their time, and...and she should have listened to him.
She hadn't. The communication errors went both ways, it looked.
The archer hadn't taken her stream of thought that way, though, she could see it in the way he'd held himself the entire way into the swamp; the way he hunched over just the slightest bit, and how shadow played off his jawline, accentuating the ghost of a frown on his lips. He must have figured that she defied him out of mulishness, as if he didn't know better. It pissed her off. Smellerbee felt her mouth curling into a vicious scowl; she was tired of being angry at him for being angry at her, how he caused her emotions to sunder and hurtle in different directions. Heat not entirely related to the swamp's weather built up in her chest, welled up in her throat like bubbling lava; how dare Longshot take her feelings and throw them back in her face? Things had changed with Jet's murder at Long Feng's hands, but they were still themselves! They operated great as a team and her capacity for reading him hadn't diminished between Jet's murder and their escape from Ba Sing Se. What the hell had happened to put so much distance between them?
Smellerbee sighed and faced forward, subconsciously thumbing the hilt of Jet's swords as she thought, swatting curious gnat flies away from her face with her free hand. That train of thought only yielded more frustration, and - and it was more important to get out of here, out from under the thumb of whatever oppressive spirits crushed them down. Maybe once they had, they'd be able to sort out their differences.
Through the murk of her petulant thoughts, around the swamp's natural din of bugs and birds and lizards, Smellerbee heard Longshot draw a short, sharp breath; instantly, her left hand went for the serrated dagger at the small of her back, drawing it with a silver, crescent flash. The swordswoman whirled, saw that Longshot already had an arrow nocked in his bow and aimed it upward; she followed his gaze, scrutinizing the treetops - and there, on one branch, a nebulous cloud drawing into the shape of a person -
To her right, she heard, saw Longshot fall face-down onto the ground, grunting. She whirled, eyes wide, but - nothing, he was gone, only the rippling, murky surface of the swamp water greeted her, his bow and quiver the only things that remained, clinging, graceless, to the ground. She yowled his name, lunging for where he'd been, something - some animal - must have pulled him under, and she could, she could save him, bring him back, because a life without Longshot was worse than the abyss between them. Water, freezing and alienating, no longer lukewarm, seeped through her pants legs, her boots slipping on the slick mud beneath the water's surface -
- whistling through the air, clothes ruffling, a flicker of shimmering onyx -
Smellerbee cursed and whirled again, bringing her dagger up to bear; the creature, the Murk Person, had taken a humanoid shape, holding twin swords in each hand, swinging them down at her - she deflected the attack with her dagger, a spray of sparks igniting and casting the water with their orange glow. The impact drove her backwards - stumbled - threw one foot out to catch herself, the water cascading up with each step, further soaking her clothes.
Whatever this, this apparition was - something about it didn't fit right. Smellerbee could see it, hear it, and its posture suggested that it had assembled itself into a male bodytype. The little details - its clothing and face (because it had a face, under the smog billowing from the core of its body) wouldn't come into focus, like the old memory of the girl in the mines, only this was now, this was fresh. It was like the Murk Person sat just to the left of all her senses, perception tangible but not exact because of how slippery the damn thing was. Like grabbing an eel bare-handed and trying to hold onto it.
Her muscles already burned from the effort exerted against her adversary, arms and lungs and back screaming for respite - that wasn't natural, she shouldn't be so poor-off this early in a fight, and the swamp's suppressive, smothering humidity cast its woolen blanket over her again; the premature fatigue was another of the swamp's doings, she knew it. With a grunt, she reached back with her free hand and unslung one of Jet's swords, taking a quick swipe at the cloud monster as it lunged in for another attack; it leapt away, leaving itself open, allowing Smellerbee to whip the dagger at him, a glistening missile hurled at her foe. But - the Murk Person whirled, dancing around the blade (she lost track of it after that) and closing in on the Freedom Fighter again, skimming the water's surface, kicking up a spray behind him.
Smellerbee almost lost her footing again as she swung Jet's sword in a narrow arc in a desperate bid to maneuver to solid ground. The strange not-real swordsman backed off a step before thrusting, crossing both blades together, as if to trap her wrist; she twisted away and struck low, trying to hook its ankle and break its root. It tumbled to the side, avoiding the blow, and Smellerbee backpedaled, drawing Jet's other sword and snarling.
At last - out of the water! The Murk Person shot after her, pinwheeling its swords around, tight, onyx buzzsaws; Smellerbee crouched, pressed hard into the ground, avoiding the blades and kicking out the ghoul in the back of the knee. It stumbled - should have fell! - but didn't, caught itself, whirled - Smellerbee was already up, her breath raw and hot in her throat, she leapt, flipped through the air and tried to catch her enemy by the, the - something, anything! - whiffed, landed, rolled across the rugged ground. She sprang up to her feet as the ghost slashed both swords inward, then out again, trying to split her in half both ways - she felt the unholy, screaming backwind on her face, in her hair - ran for a tree, twisted her body, running upward now, boots scraping against rough, mossy bark, gravity trying to lay claim to her, failing - then, the apparition below her again, swing, come on, hit, damn you -
- missed, landed, stumbled, fell on her butt, dull pain scraping her backside - up, planting one hand on the ground and spinning out of the way as another shower of sparks sprayed from the onyx swords, crashing against the rock she'd hit -
"What's the matter?" The not-quite swordsman taunted; the noise, familiar, but like everything else, foggy, muddled, not entirely there, almost made her flub up her recovery as she sprang back to her feet. A ghost's voice. How the hell could it talk? It whirled one sword around and thrust the pommel at her. Smellerbee leaned backwards, and - the pommel of its sword glistened, razor-sharp, a diamond - like - like Jet's swords. "Not used to using those things?" It took another swing at her, this time both blades coming from one side; the swordswoman danced around it, its back exposed, vulnerable -
"Nff - I know 'em enough - that I can use 'em against - you." Smellerbee grunted as she swung the swords - and, and it blocked, locking both of its swords behind its back, one over the shoulder and one around the side. He whirled, parrying the Freedom Fighter, almost made her lose her balance.
"That's a very bold lie to tell," it snorted, spinning around and bringing one sword up, forcing Smellerbee to side-step; it followed up with a quick horizontal slash from the other blade, and this time she did lose her footing, tumbling down into the water again, and, and, cold all over, no sight, no sound, can't breathe, vulnerable - no, no, no! She shoved at the ground, hurled herself backwards just as the Murk Person's onyx swords slashed through the bog's surface, where she'd been prone not even a second before. Gulping bitter, suffocating air, Smellerbee scrambled backwards (still clutching Jet's swords, each movement hindered), hoisting herself onto dry land. The Murk Person cleaved the air again, and Smellerbee rolled backwards, back onto her feet, panting, her hair clinging to the sides of her face. "You never were much of a smooth talker, Smellerbee."
At the mention of her name, the swordswoman paused; her nameless, not-quite-there assailant leapt in her hesitation and pressed forward with a flurried windmill of attacks, forcing Smellerbee back - coming to a sudden stop as she felt her back press into the rough bark of a tree. Breath tight, hot, searing, she saw the swordsman lean to the left - it swung one of its blades hard, and, and, and - vision, pulse hammering, couldn't, just move! She rolled away, and its sword bit into the bark with a wet, metallic scrape, and - the blade had gotten stuck! Smellerbee leapt backwards as the phantasm struggled with its weapon, trying to dislodge it ("nothing a little finesse won't fix"); she surged towards it, dropping down to the ground and sliding across the rugged swamp floor, her shoulder whacking a gnarled tree root. Hissing, she swung Jet's swords out, tried to grab the ghoul by the ankles - missed, inexperience showing - managed to grab one of its pants legs, momentum tearing it open - and - and, back up to her feet , swinging in a narrow arc -
Off-balance (had hurt something in the shoulder), the hook of Jet's swords cleaved through the Murk Person's arm, the severed limb fizzling out of existence in a shower of shadowy particles, like black dust. The phantom yowled, stumbling away, clutching its sword in its remaining hand, and the wound must have - wounding it - it brought the ghost into focus, no longer slipping through her senses, no longer anonymous, all the little details becoming sharp, acute. It whirled around, and Smellerbee saw its - his face -
"No," Smellerbee whispered, feeling her eyebrows arch high underneath her headband. She swallowed and began backing away, shaking her head. "No, no, no."
"You worthless brat," Jet snarled, his face contorting - his eyes growing sharp, distant, a deep scowl twisting on his lips. Smellerbee had seen that look on him before, on the rare occasion where rage overcame his common sense; when Jet, calculating and shrewd, lost his capacity for finesse and gave way to the screaming eight-year-old, the wound from losing his family still seeping and razor-sharp.
He'd worn that look when he thought he'd discovered that Li and Mushi were Firebenders. It - he shouldn't be looking at her like that, and - it spurned a strange cascade of ice and lava inside Smellerbee's gut, causing her to grit her teeth and clench the swords - Jet's swords - even tighter. How could he - how was he here?
"You - you - " Smellerbee sputtered, drawing one of Jet's swords up to her chest, defensively. "You're - you're dead! You aren't real!"
"I raised you for the past six years," Jet continued, his voice low and accusatory. "I trained you to use swords and to fight the Fire Nation! I was the older brother that you never had, I was the father they took from you, and here you are - holding my weapons, using my techniques, hiding instead of taking the fight to them!"
"Jet, I can't!" Smellerbee drew a deep, sharp breath, cold as ice in her throat. Her eyes stung, vision blurred (sweat, or tears?), and, and, her chest became tight, so tight. "It's just me and Longshot - we'd get killed or captured, and I plan to survive long enough to - "
"Shut up!" He snarled, throwing his remaining hand out, his hair flopping around his face. "You're weak! Pathetic! You don't know how to fight, you don't know how to use my swords, and you don't know how to lead. You're just some gender-confused little girl playing soldier!"
"That's not true!" Smellerbee howled, lashing out with Jet's swords; they sliced through his torso, and the ghost of her leader flickered out of existence - as if he'd never been there in the first place. Even weirder - the sword he'd left stuck in the tree had vanished as well, the bark unscarred. Still, his laughter resounded in the pits of her ears; breath heavy and hot, chest heaving, Smellerbee hunkered down lower, scowling, waiting for Jet to attack her again.
Nothing; the laughter faded, leaving her in the natural song of the swamp's wildlife. A toad croaked nearby, and when it was clear the, the - what, the illusion? There was no other explanation for it. Either way, it wouldn't come back, and Smellerbee sheathed Jet's swords.
What the hell had been up with that...? Why had Jet...no, that wasn't Jet, Jet would never have said such, such cruel, heartless things to her. Her leader had taken pride in his Freedom Fighters, they were his children and siblings (the hellish reimagining of him had been right about that much). Sure, he had to - to be that parent sometimes, had to discipline them, but nothing so, so demeaning as calling her - telling her - his words, still throbbing in her ears...just, just put it out of your mind, Smellerbee. The ostrich horses had taken off, too - abandoned the swordswoman as soon as the fight (if it had even really happened) had broken out. Just freaking great. The knot in the base of her skull throbbed even harder now, and she brought a hand up to massage it, her hair still damp from when she fell into the bog -
Her eyes went wide, and her breath froze solid in her throat.
"Longshot!" She cried, panic rising up and claiming her, a clamoring hogmonkey clinging to her back; she tried to, to remember where he'd vanished, and the water here was shallow, but it was more than enough to drown in. She cursed, a virulent, disgusting word that Skillet had taught her; how could she have spent so many precious minutes fighting a hallucination when Longshot's life was in danger? Another, more acidic curse fell as she slogged into the murky waters, scooping up his bow and quiver as she moved, water, more damned water sloshing up, splashing her clothes, soaking her skin.
"Longshot, please! Answer me!"
"Failure," Jet's voice whispered in her ear; she tried brushing it away like an irritable gnat, but it persisted after her, low and venomous and silky. "You've let him down just like you did me."
"Shut UP!" Smellerbee bellowed. She'd never be able to find Longshot! The water in this pond was too murky to see through, too broad for her to sweep, and Spirits knew how deep it got! Jet was right, she was a failure, a terrible person, her poor leadership is what landed them in this position, they should have chanced going by the Fire Nation troops, she should have listened to Longshot when she had the opportunity -
Something caught her attention from her peripheral vision; whipping her head around, rat-tails of hair slapping her cheeks, she spotted a great, yawning chasm inset into a sloped hill off to the right. Water drained from the bog, swallowed up by the pitch beyond the cave's mouth, and - and it was better than nothing, because if she stayed here, she wouldn't ever find him...but what if something had made its home there, she'd need time to scout it out -
- but that was time she didn't have. She knew - somehow - that Longshot would lie beyond the mouth of that cave. It didn't matter what the hell else was inside. She'd wrestle a platypus bear if it came down to it.
Setting her mouth in a straight line, she slung Longshot's quiver across her back, the weight of carrying two of her friends' weapons slowing her, as if she had their - their bodies (don't even think about that) as well. With a snort, she headed towards the arch of black, Jet's voice hissing venomous words at her earlobe, words that held no power, not in the face of what was at stake. Still, as she crossed the threshold, sloshing beyond the mouth of the cave and into the darkness, the voice became permeable - less phantomlike.
"Great," Smellerbee whispered, her voice echoing off the narrow walls of the cave. Her headache spiked noticeably, making her wince. "If the swamp really does have a lot of Spiritual power, I'm going right up its nose and into its brain, aren't I...?"
SCENE DIVIDE
Then
Longshot watched from his perch atop a fallen tree as Smellerbee reached back over her head for the quiver slung onto her back; she fumbled, dull from lack of experience or instinct, but he didn't harangue her. It was just practice, and being hard on her would only make her frustrated, and Longshot needed her to remain as calm as possible. Keeping a clear head was a key factor in archery; Smellerbee was capable of achieving that in the middle of combat, but because of the lack of life-threatening danger, she struggled to maintain that clarity.
Grunting a low curse, Bee finally managed to snag an arrow between her fore and middle fingers, as he'd shown her to do, and held the bow out in her other hand. The white gloves she wore had been temporarily done away with, tape wrapped around the fingers of her left hand for steadier, injury-free grabbing and aiming of her limited ammunition. She nocked the arrow, and it wavered a bit in her grasp before resting against the wood of the bow itself, and pulled back on the string until it had gone taut in her grasp, the sinew creaking and stretching. Bee had enough muscle from her own melee-centric style of combat to keep the bow steady, but Longshot knew too well the burning sensation running through her arms, her back, her legs regardless.
All around, birds sang a raucous, slipshod chorus that would been perfect for music night, and the scent of syrup drifted upwards, dancing to the natural song of the forest. Bee narrowed her eyes, and Longshot could see them focusing on the target - a bullseye painted roughshod onto a tree a few yards away. To Longshot, it was claustrophobically close by; at that range, the enemy would have to be pants-on-head retarded to miss you in the middle of a battle. Even then, Jet planned out most of their battle strategies, occasionally letting Smellerbee or Sneers try their hand at it, weaning them into the leadership position, so once in a while - and far more frequently with Sneers - he'd find his proximity to their opponents alarmingly dangerous. Still, the distance was more than adequate for Smellerbee's needs; after all, the not everyone could peg a screech pigeon from two hundred yards away (and that was a perfectly modest gauge of his skill with the bow and arrow, if he dared think so himself).
Her breathing wasn't quite right, Longshot realized; she had her teeth clenched and bared, just barely, and he could tell - by the way her nostrils didn't flare, by the more exaggerated rising and falling of her chest - that she was inhaling through her mouth. Her posture - while mostly correct, with the back straight and legs planted firmly apart - degenerated the longer she hesitated, melting away with the strain on her muscles and the test on her patience.
Longshot blinked and leaned backwards slightly, as suddenly the tension in the air became permeable and suffocating; she was focusing on making the shot more than her surroundings and any elements that could affect it. Narrowing his eyes, the archer watched as Smellerbee's fingers relaxed the slightest bit - hesitated - before finally releasing the arrow. It whistled through the air - missed the target tree, piercing the bark of another a few yards away, stuck out at an odd angle.
"Gah!" She threw her arms up and cursed. "This is dumb, Longshot - I couldn't hit an elephant turtle!"
The archer pushed away from his perch and walked over to her, fixing her with an expectant gaze. Come on, she knew better than that.
"Yeah - like Jet said, it's a good idea to try and expand our combat expertise." She lowered the bow to her side and cast a burning glare to the grass at her feet. "You suck at hand-to-hand, I suck at range; this is the best solution to a mutual problem. But - I mean - don't you think it's kinda pointless?"
Longshot hiked an eyebrow. Why'd she think that?
Smellerbee bowed her head just a tad more, almost-but-not-quite obscuring the pink flush scrawled across her cheeks. She placed one hand behind her head, her fingers grabbing at the tangled mop of hair. "I - I dunno. It just seems like...you know...like we'll always be there for each other, I guess. It's kinda stupid."
This time, Longshot felt himself blushing, heat rising up into his ears; he tilted his hat down, trying to hide it, and rested a hand on Smellerbee's shoulder. When she glanced up to meet his gaze, he gave her a ghost of a smile, and she beamed back in return. It would be okay...he felt the same way, and he knew they wouldn't abandon each other. Now, she had to work on her stance and breathing...once she got that under control, then she could worry about her aim.
"Okay then, tough guy. Go a head and help me improve my stance."
Longshot grinned, nodded and walked around behind Smellerbee, positioning himself to help her hold the bow correctly while maintaining the right footing. He tried his hardest to ignore her warmth pressed against his stomach, and the jittering, fluttering sensation in his chest as the pair continued their archery lesson.
SCENE DIVIDE
Now
"Longshot..."
The archer groaned at the sound of his name and rolled over, squinching his eyes shut. Crooking one arm underneath his head as a pillow, the cool floorboards stiff and unyielding against his side (how could he sleep here without his mat?), the pungent tang of delicious, succulent meat in the air. Not something that would be gamy, tough to chew on, like deerhare; no, this had to have been Skillet's spicy chicken tangoing in the air, dancing with...what season was it? Honey, cinnamon, syrup and hickory all congealed into one amalgamation of sweetness, which wasn't right...ugh, maybe if he woke up a little bit more. His lungs ached and his throat burned, for reasons he couldn't quite place; maybe something he'd eaten last night had disagreed with him, or maybe Spatula had put too much spice in his kabal skewers again...
"Come on, lazybones. You've been asleep for fourteen hours."
That voice - so familiar, but he couldn't really place it. Light, hoarse, a little bit nasal. Over the whispering of the tree's branches, he could hear a fire crackling, its warmth refreshing on his body, like a blanket laid over him - a real blanket, not the threadbare, glorified pieces of paper they used. He picked up the smell of burning leaves - rich, poignant, a slice of home. Occasionally, they'd collect fallen leaves and use them to fuel the fires because it just smelled soooo good.
The mouth-watering aroma of food tempted him enough to get Longshot to crack his eyes open; vision blurred, colors swirled together overhead as cool blue and slick gray melted away into gold and crimson. A gentle breeze - cool, but not unpleasant - whispered by, and a few loose strands of black hair flickered in his gaze, pulled out of the ponytail he kept hidden under his hat.
Wincing at a dull razor of pain scraping his chest, Longshot propped himself up on one elbow and tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes; his gaze brushed over the familiar boughs of the Hong Ye's trees, catching small glances of the multitude of platforms and tents spanning out in the distance, as well as the ziplines and bridges weaving through the trees to connect one area to another. For a second, he swore - he couldn't hear anything, an alien silence amidst the savory aromas and vivid colors. No children laughing as they played their games, no birds or bugs singing at each other, no chatter...just the crackling fire, and the voice that had spoken to him. But - the instant he acknowledged it, the silence dissipated, swallowed up by those sounds that defined their home just as the colors of the leaves did.
Something wasn't right about this.
Longshot reached up to adjust the brim of his hat, but his fingers brushed air - where'd it go? He craned his eyes up, the curved straw gone missing, blank, and it'd suck losing the thing - it was ripe with old memories, dusty and faded, but still stuff he was fond of - Jet had found it, had given it to him, said it looked good on him. He didn't think he could handle losing it again.
Wait. Again...? He'd lost it before? Well, sure, he had - back when The Duke kickstarted his prank war a couple seasons ago, Smellerbee had very sneakily done away with the tattered, much-loved object, secreting it in some vortex of anonymity. Only when Jet declared a winner - Pipsqueak, the sly bastard, for his ingenious chain reaction of pranks on everyone, all eighteen other Freedom Fighters (an epic story for another time), did the swordswoman yield his precious hat to him. It had been annoying at the time - he didn't show it, but Smellerbee saw through him anyway, because she was always so good at reading people. (She also saw deeper than that, saw the masochistic delight Longshot experienced at her hands...but he didn't really mind it, because he knew it made her smile.)
Still...he'd lost it again, and he couldn't quite place where, or when, and he didn't really count Bee's temporary theft as "losing" the hat in the first place. Frowning, Longshot eased himself to his feet; the dull pain flared up, the raw burn spiking, red-hot. He winced, hissed - it felt like being lanced through his chest, run through with a polearm wielded by a clumsy Fire Nation soldier.
"Hey! Good to see you're finally with us. We were worried."
The flickering glow of the campfire caught his attention; it had been stoked in a round pit framed by a nigh-perfect ring of stone, something Mortar and Pestle had Bent into existence. Around them, bathed in an orange glow, sat the core Freedom Fighters, plus a few: Jet, with his head crooked, a smirk on his face that made the twig in his mouth bob, one knee drawn up with an arm draped over it; Pipsqueak, with a platter in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other; The Duke, perched on the giant's shoulders with his face obscured by his own plate, his helmet set aside; Sneers, his back to the fire and a scowl on his face (another lost debate to Skillet?); Skillet, standing between Sneers and Pipsqueak, a triumphant smirk on her face (okay, yeah, definitely an argument where the cook had come out on top); Mortar and Pestle, hunched over a sheaf of paper and murmuring to each other; Spatula, his legs crossed and a grin flitting across his chubby face, the fire sparkling in his rounded eyes; and Smellerbee, last of all, facing away from the archer, stooped over and motionless.
Okay, something really wasn't right about this, but Longshot would be damned if he could figure out what. Something about - Spatula? Skillet, too - almost as if neither one belonged here.
"It's been one heck of a party," Pipsqueak offered, holding up his plate as if in salute to the rising archer, slices of chicken glistening on top. "Kinda disappointing that you missed most of it."
"Yeah! We really kicked some Fire Nation butt yesterday!" The Duke chirped.
Longshot nodded slowly; yeah, of course, another successful raid against their enemies. The Fire Nation. Why else would they be celebrating...? Because this was a celebration - a feast. The laughter of the younger Freedom Fighters drew nearer - so close, so suddenly (how had that happened?), and then - there, flickering into being in the fire's light. They gathered nearby as if waiting for Jet to deliver one of his legendary speeches, to sweep the entire group off its feet; and, it must have been speech time, the chow had been served and the others had gathered. However...Jet's charisma, the pending, pulse-hammering electricity that always preceded his showboating didn't ignite the air. What was going on? Longshot turned to his leader, arching his eyebrows, expecting the show to start. Maybe it was the grogginess...maybe, once Jet started...
The leader of the Freedom Fighters caught Longshot's expression from the corner of his gaze and pushed upward into a standing position, his smirk growing cockier; he drew a deep breath, spread his arms wide, and opened his mouth -
Nothing. That same alien muteness, striking so fast as to be like a mongoose viper. Shock flitted across Jet's face, akin to a wayward firefly, panic quickly overtaking him; he turned his attention to Longshot, eyes wide, pupils small, as if to ask, 'How do you do it?'
Longshot felt a similar panic burbling up into his throat. How did he do it? How did he communicate without verbalizing himself - how did the world notice him when he kept his mouth pressed firmly shut? The others were able to read him - he had no idea how, it just happened that way! Jet should understand - he'd spent enough time around the archer to be able to interpret him well enough, even though it took a subconscious effort on his part. He shook his head; how the hell was he supposed to answer...?
Smellerbee - she would know, she always did. Somehow, the tomboy had been gifted with the ability to read him without having to look his way, to puzzle out his minute expressions. Longshot pointed at her, arching his eyebrows high; this elicited a frustrated sigh from the swordswoman, and she hung her head, her silhouette a dark blot against the glow of the flame. "Fine. Dump it all on me, like always."
Longshot felt his lips pulling into a small frown, and he shook his head; he wasn't shirking responsibility, it's just - he needed her help, something only she could tell...
"Hey, if telling yourself that is what helps you sleep at night, I won't say otherwise." She shrugged, a motion that usually made her shaggy hair bob...but it didn't, it clung to the sides of her head, didn't have any spring to it. "You're certainly not the same Longshot that ditches his friends as soon as they show signs of walking away from you, nope."
Ice ran down his arms, numbing his fingers. He clenched his fists at his sides, gritting his teeth; how dare she accuse him of running away, when she'd been the one to die on him? He approached the tomboy, each step as hushed as his voice; his fingers clamped down on Smellerbee's shoulder and he forced her up to her feet, whirling her about. Alright, enough was enough - he was tired of being so confused, so mad at her, mad at himself, because he didn't know what to think anymore! Time to solve the issue - time to confront her about what had happened at Lake Laogai (Lake what?) -
Her face - when he saw it, memory came flooding back to him, waves crashing down upon him, the ocean in a typhoon - visions, fleeting and rapid and vivid, of the trip to Ba Sing Se, the ferry ride, the city, Jet fighting the tea shop boy, Lake Laogai, and, and Jet, lying there cold and still and bloodied and not really his friend at all, the prison cell trapped under the water's surface. So many memories, pounding him from every angle, telling him that this happy scenario - being back at the Hong Ye forest with everyone, everyone - Dead Spatula the Fire Nation Infiltrator and Acrophobic Skillet Who Hadn't Set Foot in the Trees Since Joining the Freedom Fighters - was nothing more than a sick illusion. Upon this realization, the false reality, so sharp and lucid, sounds smells sights, shattered as if made of glass, thousands of millions of colored shards fluttering away into an inky void.
The cloth of Bee's tunic was damp; not soaked, but more like it had rained recently. Beneath the rough fabric, her skin - her flesh - shifted, bloated, soft, unnatural.
But her face! Her cheeks had gone pale, paste-white interlaced by sickly purple bruises, her lips frosty blue. The war paint on her right cheek had been smudged, just as it had on that rainy day when he brushed against her by accident; the crimson bled out across that cheek, choked and swollen, mottled with patches of rot. The other cheek - there was no other cheek, the flesh had been stripped, torn away, only one strand of skin left in the middle of the hole - gums and teeth, much more than should have really been showing even, so, too visible. Her hair laid flat against her head, matted with water and sand, patches of the stuff, and skin, and bone, just gone, and, he could see her brain. Perhaps the most revolting, though, were her empty eye sockets: nothing but pits of inky black that pierced Longshot's gaze, freezing his blood in place. Even though she had no pupils, Longshot could feel her - it - looking at him, looking through him, a twisted grin curling up on its decaying face.
"Oh, sorry I startled you," it said, its voice burbling and haggard - lungs filled with water, throat choked with grit. Longshot backpedaled, his gaze trailing downward; beyond its jaw, he could see the pale streak of its neck vanishing into its high collar, and he realized that part of its throat had gone missing - torn out by a beast, somehow, or just lost to the natural cycle of decomposition (what did it matter?). "My bad. Looks like on top of that irresponsible streak you've been lugging around, you're a bit squeamish, too."
He scowled and backstepped again, but his shoulders bumped into something rough, rugged - a single tree, the remains of his hallucination of the forest, except withered and leafless, its bark turned bone-gray. The abomination of his friend, this mockery, this shameful proxy - advanced on him with one great step, jabbing him in the chest with a rotted finger, the fabric from her gloves tattered and peeling to expose more pustulent flesh. "Keep walking away, Longshot. Keep running; that's all you're good for. When guilt comes down on you like a hammer, you try bearing the burden alone, but you always knuckle under in the end. It happened when you realized you and you alone were responsible for nearly killing dozens of innocent people by blowing up that dam; it's happening now, with me, because you nearly lost me and at the last minute you gave up. Pathetic. Feeble."
In a perverted parody of Smellerbee, this zombie - the ZomBee - crossed its arms over its chest and glanced downward, pouting, brow furrowed enough to appear from beneath its filthy headband. "I mean...you're supposed to be the Freedom Fighters' backbone, aren't you? They can always rely on Longshot's stoicism to strengthen 'em, give 'em some resolve. What an incredible lie you live, barely standing upright under your own burdens, let alone those of others."
It snorted and reached up to its scalp, hand disappearing around the side of its head; for a moment, Longshot thought the ZomBee was scratching an itch, but it jerked its head to the side and scowled, a second later drawing a strand of pink-gray brain matter that jiggled and danced in the air like a worm on a fishing hook. The corpse sniffed at the strand experimentally, wrinkling the remains of its nub-shaped nose in distaste (another accurate parody, something Longshot had seen Smellerbee do towards strange, exotic foods she'd never yet eaten) before slurping it into its mouth and swallowing.
Finally, the archer felt his resolve give way to nausea; he stumbled down onto one hand and knee and threw up, this morning's breakfast vanishing into the inky abyss surrounding them both. The ZomBee laughed, a cruel, gritty sound that tore at his ears. "Weak, feeble, terrible, the boy who thinks himself a man simply because he wears the albatross of guilt alone and in silence."
The ZomBee shuffled backwards (for that's what it was, shuffling; not the lanky, wide steps Smellerbee took when walking, nor the graceful, fevered way she moved in combat) and, through the pitch, the crackling orange glow of the fire reappeared; Longshot, still queasy, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glanced up to see Mortar and Pestle's ring-shaped pit had emerged with it, cradling the flames like a mother to a newborn baby. The fire still licked at the alluring meat impaled on the spit, but the aroma of Skillet's turkey chicken had turned acrid, foul.
"Maybe something a little more palatable is in order," the ZomBee said, a smirk crawling across its face, a hand thrown out in a sweeping gesture at the spit. The glowing firelight cast shadows against the decay; it accentuated gaps, holes in her clothing and armor, revealing more bloated, chalk-white skin, glistening and wet and festered. It reached into the fire and tore the meat from the spit, examining it with a crooked head. "Here; the others were eating this before, and I don't think it's too bad. I made it myself."
Longshot stumbled to his feet and tried to back away again, but his shoulders bumped into the tree again - only it wasn't the tree, this new surface was still ragged, but cool and wet; he reached backwards and felt his fingertips brush stone and moss. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed only more pitch; another illusion, as the forest had been, as well as the shambling, abominate corpse of a person he knew still lived.
He looked at the ZomBee again - and felt his chest tighten, the beast having covered the ground between them, too quickly (he wanted to, to call zombie bullshit, they weren't supposed to be that fast!); it stooped over, clutching the meat to its chest, its left ankle dragging slightly behind as if the rigor hadn't yet eased in it. The scent of decay flooded his nostrils, and Longshot felt his lips curl down into a scowl; he tried to move away from this abomination, this animated deception, but the stone had closed in on him, left and right and back, trapping him in every direction but forward. The ZomBee stood rooted between the archer and escape, and its stench - foul, noisome - caused the world around Longshot to lurch, and its hollow-eyed gaze sharpened with a quirk of the mouth.
"A little woozy, I guess. The meat will help you recover. Here; it's especially for you." The ZomBee withdrew the chunk of meat from her body: festering, with maggots squirming on the surface, Longshot knew well enough to know that it was not muscle from an animal, but a heart - a very human, very undead heart. Pale, purple, with black, cancerous splatters covering its surface, the bell-shaped organ pulsed in the ZomBee's palms, and Longshot felt reviled at the sight. He fell back against the cool stone behind him, sliding down until crouching, revolted, his stomach churning and flopping and threatening to void its contents again.
"Especially for you," the abomination repeated, bringing its face - a blasphemy, a mar to the person who it really belonged to - in close to Longshot's, its stench overpowering. It jabbed him in the chest again. "I took my heart out and I'm giving it to you, boy who bears the weight of responsibility in silence - a laughable dichotomy. You know it, and you still try to put distance between you and me because you let me die. The comedy gold with that? As much as you think I abandoned you, you abandoned me in return! Well, now's your chance to make it up to me, Longshot; I've died and taken my heart out for you! Let your failures pierce you like arrows riddling a tree; know that, as hard as you try, you can never do the right thing when it counts!"
"Oh, put a sock in it, lady!"
Longshot blinked; the familiar twang of a bow's string losing its tension flicked in his right ear, followed by the sound of a low, wet impact; the ZomBee howled, a bestial roar like a lion hawk, stumbling, falling backwards - swallowed up by the abyss. The pitch receded, giving way to a cave dimly illuminated by glowing, blue crystals embedded in the walls. Standing at the mouth of the cave, holding his bow in one hand, stood Smellerbee - the real one? - with her mouth quirked into a victorious, relieved grin.
"Well, it's about time I hit something with this damn thing," she said, a nervous laugh lighting on her lips. "Good to see that the archery practice paid off, huh?"
Longshot stumbled up to his feet again, balancing himself against the cave wall behind him, his legs threatening to give out. His eyes wide, his chest tightening all over again, his breath coming out fast and narrow, he shot her a panicked glance. Was she just another illusion? His hands quaked, and he took a few steps forward, being careful of his footing, avoiding the pile of sick near the room's center. He looked Smellerbee over to make sure: Jet's swords on her back, certainly much more alive, didn't have the fermentation of a rotting corpse...
"Yes, I'm really me," Smellerbee said, unslinging Longshot's quiver from her back and casting a worried glance over to the place where the fraudulent doppelganger had vanished. "I think I understand now - what you weren't telling me before. That was me if I'd drowned, and the only time I've ever come close to that was at Lake Laogai." Smellerbee bowed her head for a moment and frowned, her eyes squinched shut. "When I almost died...it was like I'd abandoned you. Like I broke my word to stick by you, no matter what. You felt that way, but you also felt like it wasn't my fault, and that indecision's what's been tearing you apart the past few days...isn't it?"
She turned her gaze up to him again, and by this point he had crossed the remaining distance between them, and Longshot could see, hear, smell her properly; her war stripes, perfectly intact, her cheeks flushed crimson, her voice hushed and raspy, choked not with sand but with the destruction of her home, the scent of - honey, cinnamon, hickory, syrup, of burning leaves - all those wonderful smells, not congealed. Of sweat and blood and oiled metal and (faintly) lilacs. She was alive, she was the real thing, and something inside Longshot began to crumble; the invisible walls he had built up to protect himself, losing their support. He nodded, bit his lower lip, eyes drifting away from her. Yeah. That was it...and he was ashamed of that, and...and...
The walls fell. He drew her into a tight, powerful hug, her body warm and alive and scrawny and Smellerbee, and she wrapped her arms around him in return; burying his face into her neck, Longshot felt the hot rivulets running down his face before he could stop them from coming, his body quaking. His breath caught in his throat, and he choked out a small, barely audible sob; Smellerbee clutched him even tighter, and finally, the abyss that had yawned out between them mended itself, bridging one side to the other.
"It's okay. It's okay, Longshot, I'm here," she whispered. "I'll never leave you, Longshot, I swear to the Spirits. I swear it on Jet's grave. I'll stay by your side. You don't have to worry about what happened at Lake Laogai anymore, okay...? I forgive you. I'll help you bear your burdens from now on...I promise."
Longshot nodded into the crook of her neck, and Smellerbee rested her head against his; and, for the briefest of moments, the archer felt the ghost of a kiss on his cheek, fleeting, featherlight, like a flutterfly caressing his skin. His eyes widened, and he pulled far enough away from Smellerbee to examine her; she blushed, frowned, and turned her head away, punching him in the shoulder in response. Longshot grinned.
"Now, follow me, okay?" Smellerbee turned and waited for Longshot to equip his gear again. "I got washed down here by an underground river. I saw a way back up while searchin' for you, but you'll need to watch your footing, cause the rocks are slick and...and we dunno if the Spirits are still feeling playful."
Longshot paused, glanced up at her - the way she said that...did she believe in Spirits now?
Smellerbee smirked and raised a helpless eyebrow. "I can't believe I'm saying this...but yeah. You were right. For Jet, it took meeting Aang...for me, it took a Hell Jet and a zombie me."
The archer's cheeks tingled, a warm smile flitting across his face.