Chapter Two:
It is Best to Try Not to Look Suspicious
Very early in the morning in a dangerous part of town, a young girl (older than she looked) stepped out from a decaying door into a cramped and littered alley. For a moment she just stood there between the buildings, a part of the silence of the early morning before the sun, before the people, before the noise.
Finally, Kree let out a deep sigh which turned into a yawn that she thought would never end. Sinking down against the wall, she wrapped her hands about her knees and rested her eyes. Just the course of one more day, and then. . . And then what? Unable to imagine, she opened her eyes with irritation.
Something was off. She remembered daydreaming endlessly when she was younger about her father. On how many nights alone, unable to sleep, had she spent wondering what his face looked like, if he remembered her, if he still wanted her back? How many times in her dreams did his face light with recognition when he saw her, how many times did he embrace her? She'd long ago lost count.
What she had told Pano was true, she realized suddenly. It wasn't a matter of love or forgiveness or anything like that. She wasn't looking for a father. She was looking for closure.
Kree glumly nudged a pebble with the toe of her boot. Her unwitting honesty made her uncomfortable. Going off on an impossible adventure to find one's father was the kind of thing pure-hearted youths did in the stories Kree loved, and in some ways that was how she had justified her own journey. But now, knowing that her motives were not as simple as she had tried to convince herself… it felt like a sham. It brought her out of that story she'd been trying to build, and into the dank corner of a dingy alley in the real world.
Then there was Pano to consider. She'd never planned on being as honest as she had been, not to anybody. Kree wasn't in the habit of honesty when it came too close to old wounds. She wasn't really in the habit of honesty when it came to mostly anything, when she considered it. But she had a talent for reading crowds and knowing what people wanted; she would have made a lousy drifter otherwise. Perhaps that had been why she'd told the truth to Pano and even to herself. Anything less wouldn't have worked.
The fact that Pano had agreed to help her because of Kree's honest-but-not-so-pure-hearted intentions—especially in light of what had happened to him in his past—did nothing to help her feel better about herself.
Kree gave a long-suffering sigh. A few moments of honesty and look how miserable it made her. Why did people hold it in such high regard, anyway? It was obviously overrated.
The sun was slowly coming up. Kree's eyelids felt suddenly very heavy. Unable to think of any reason to stay awake, she slowly sank down against the wall and closed her eyes.
Kree wasn't sure how long she slept. It couldn't have been for more than a few moments, because when she opened her eyes it was still before dawn, and the same chill hung in the air. And, in the strange sense of awareness that is sometimes carried back across the borders of early sleep, she sensed that she was not alone in the alley.
Looming in the entrance to the alleyway was the stout soldier who took a fall in the fight she'd seen just before entering the tavern. Kree stayed stock-still. He gazed blearily at her for a few awkward moments. "Izzis th' way to th' ship?" he finally asked, slurring horribly.
"Probably not," Kree answered at once, her mouth working faster than her brain, as it usually did. "But, if you go around to the front, you could find somebody who could--"
WUMP. The soldier had fallen headfirst to the ground without warning.
"--help you," Kree finished, nonplused. She looked around; the alleyway and the street beyond were both deserted. No one had seen him fall.
Kree got up and walked towards him, uncertain of what to do. She stopped about three feet away from him, and squatted to get a better look at his face. Facedown in the mud, there wasn't much for her to see, but at least, as far as she could tell, he was still breathing.
She looked around again. The smart thing would be, she reasoned, to leave him to his dirt nap. He obviously could do little else and it wasn't like there was any danger present at the moment.
Still uncertain, Kree looked down again. Taking her staff, she nudged the man gently, and when that earned no response, she nudged him harder. A grunt.
Kree sat back on her heels and looked thoughtfully at the unconscious soldier. This really isn't my problem, she thought. She was in a strange place enough as it was already, and it would be better just to leave him be. She stood up and began to turn around—
--when an unfortunate series of thoughts popped into her head.
It was small and silly, impractical as it was useless. It changed her life entirely.
The first thought was, "None of the pure-hearted youths would ever leave someone in need of help on their journeys."
The second thought was, "They would find it in their hearts to help, no matter how strange or unfamiliar the circumstances were."
The third thought was, "I am a sappy idiot who listens to way to many stories."
But it was too late; the damage was done. Kree turned and looked back at the drunken soldier, debating within. She had traveled for miles to a dangerous place and risked many things, not because she missed her father but because she wanted to stop missing him. She had made the journey not because she wanted to see her father but because she had wanted to stop wanting to see her father ever again.
She was making a kind and honest man confront his painful past so that she could abandon hers. It wasn't fair and it wasn't nice and it wasn't right. But helping someone who needed it, when there was nothing in it for her…that was.
Kree sighed. Feeling that she had somehow tricked herself, she knelt beside the soldier again, and spoke to him in a loud voice. "Listen, if you can hear me," she told him, prodding him gently in the back with her staff, "I'm just helping you out. You need to wake up, right? You can't just lay here like this."
He groaned and said something incomprehensible. He lifted his head up to reveal watery red eyes, before he lost strength and let it drop again. "That's it, that's it," Kree said, trying to sound encouraging. "Just wake up. Then you can find someone to take you back to your ship, and then you can go about your business and leave me with a nice feeling of well-being—"
The man suddenly rolled over to his back and let out one of the loudest, rankest belches Kree had ever witnessed. "Ugh!'" Kree grasped, clutching her nose. She backed up, gulping for air. "There is a limit to how selfless a person can be, you know!"
The soldier just lay there, dead to the world. "Ugh, this is useless," Kree said, giving in. She lowered her staff. "You just sleep there. Don't know why I bothered--"
"You there! Halt!"
Kree looked up, started. Two soldiers in firebender garb stood watching her from the start of the alleyway. Their skull masks hid their faces, and they carried spears. With one controlled motion, they brought them swiftly swooshing down to point in her direction.
They started towards her as cautiously as if she were a mad dog.. "Um…I have to say, I'm very confused right now," she said nervously, eying their spears. "I haven't done anything, so--"
"Silence," one of the soldiers said as they came upon her. The glint off the brandished spears convinced Kree to hold her tongue. "Drop your weapon. Now," barked the other soldier.
"It's more of a walking stick, actually," Kree said weakly, letting her staff fall to the ground.
The soldier to her right knelt to the ground and picked up her staff. Then he eased off the helmet of the drunk solider, revealing a vivid bruise on his forehead that had been obscured. "He's unconscious, but alright. She's knocked him out cold," he said, his voice gruff.
"It was the drink that knocked him out, not me," Kree protested, surprised and alarmed at the accusation. "And he must have gotten that bruise when he fell, I just found—"
"Silence," commanded the first soldier, branding the spear threateningly. Kree backed up a few steps.
"You're coming with us," the second soldier said, standing up. He grabbed her by the arm before she could move.
"Look, this isn't necessary, is it?" Kree asked, hardly believing what was happening. "I mean, how could someone like me knock out a big guy like him? Ow!"
Heedless of her protests, the soldiers had begun to drag her out of the alley. "Stop! Listen to me!" She cried. They pulled her along as if she wasn't saying anything at all. "I tried to help him, I didn't do anything to him!"
Both the soldiers were strong, and Kree could barely resist at all. Before she knew it she'd been dragged from the alley down a whole block of the street beyond it, where they sharply turned a corner and brought her face to face with what appeared to be a small, one-person coach. It didn't have wheels, but was the kind of coach meant to be carried by two people, with handles in front and in back. It was made of thick dark wood, and--Kree's blood froze--it had a window on the door with three bars, like a prison cell window.
"Wait!" she yelled louder, quite panicked now. "I've got a friend, back at the tavern--he'll vouch for me! You jerks are making a big mistake--"
One of the soldiers opened the door, and they roughly flung her inside. "Quiet," one of the soldiers barked through the bars after he'd slammed the door shut. By the light coming through the sole window of the coach, Kree could see there was no handle to open the door on the inside. "The Magistrate will deal with you."
Kree didn't protest. She had a sinking feeling that words wouldn't help her now.
Suddenly the coach gave a heave and she felt herself being lifted up. Kree looked out the window to see the buildings and streets slowly pass her by.
Kree gave a weary sigh. It was quickly turning into one of those days.
A/N: Do you know how long it was since my last update? I suck so hard. My new years resolution is to write more, so….here's to not sucking quite as hard.
Anyway, pretty pleased about this chapter. And it's not 8 pages long, huzzah!
Preview: Kree attempts to fight The Man, and the appearance of everybody's favorite Dragon of the West.
