Chapter 4

Smellerbee seemed to have a natural talent for anything she tried when it came to violence and tracking. She doubted that she'd be any good at art, music, cooking, or sewing. It turned out that she was as good at tracking humans as she was at tracking animals. The first Freedom Fighter she tracked down was Pipsqueak.

After the war Pipsqueak moved on with his life. He was the oldest and largest member of the Freedom Fighters. He was married and had two children. Smellerbee was on one hand glad to see her old friend so happy, but on the other so very bitter that he'd found a happy ending and she left forgotten.

Next she tracked down Sneers and The Duke. They were adopted by a high society family together and were also really happy, she could tell. She knew there was no hope of her getting adopted since she was too old. She doubted anybody would choose her anyway. She'd never been good at decorum for long periods of time. She could barely contain herself for her shifts at the Jasmine Dragon.

Smellerbee got more and more bitter each time she found another one of the old Freedom Fighters team who had families and were indescribably happy. It wasn't that she wasn't happy exactly, actually that's exactly what it was. She had no friends, no family, she had a job that made her want to kill herself half the time because of the sheer stupidity of some of the customers, and all of her old 'family' had forgotten her and gone on with their lives.

The only one that she couldn't find for the life of her was Longshot. It was like he literally disappeared from the face of the Earth. She didn't really have an extensive amount of time to search since she only had weekends off. She missed her best friend. She missed having someone to talk to.

Iroh seemed to notice her despair. He noticed that each time she came back from the weekend she seemed a little sadder. Her outlook on life seemed a little bleaker. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she seemed a quiet sort of person. He wasn't really sure if it was something that he could help out with meaning that he didn't know whether or not it was a woman thing. Therefore, he got a woman who most people felt comfortable talking to.

Smellerbee didn't feel comfortable with this woman at all. She knew Iroh meant well, but she highly doubted this woman would have any idea what she was going through. She wasn't sure how she got talked into it; it was probably the only way to get the woman to leave her alone. She allowed herself to get all dolled up and played with like a barbie doll all the while making scathing remarks in her head. It was all going fine as far as the woman could see until she told Smellerbee to turn around so she could zip up her dress.

The woman had the dress zipped halfway up before she even noticed the angry red welts located in strips of scarred flesh along her back. She studied it for one long moment before with Herculean effort pretended she hadn't seen anything. She smiled and said that Smellerbee looked beautiful. She told her to go look into the mirror.

Smellerbee once again didn't recognize herself. She looked beautiful, rather like a porcelain doll except not quite as pale. The woman told her to go down and show Iroh so she did. The woman stayed upstairs and cried for the young woman she simply knew as DC.

The customers in the teashop stared openly as Smellerbee tried to find Iroh. She felt the customers were leering at her because she looked like a barbie, but most of the male customers thought she looked hot and most of the female customers thought she looked pretty. Either way she felt rather uncomfortable with everyone staring at her.

She finally found Iroh, much to her relief because she wasn't sure how much more she could take. "DC? Is that you? You look positively beautiful, not that you didn't before mind you. Sit down and let me get you some tea." She sat down a little stiffly, but drank the tea she was given. She didn't particularly like tea, but seeing as it was being offered, who was she to refuse her boss?

A little while later the woman came downstairs. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, which Smellerbee thought was a little weird. She had heard the rumors that most women were overemotional and so she figured maybe she had been crying over her success in actually getting 'DC' to wear makeup.

When Smellerbee was returning to the kitchen for some more tea for the customers, she heard Iroh and the lady talking. "I don't think I'm the right person for DC to talk to?" the lady said.

"Why? You got her to trust you enough to do her makeup, which is saying a lot." Iroh responded.

"I've worked with tomboys before. She wears a dress because you gave them to her, but if you could hear what that girl says under her breath. They mostly comply with what I want so that they can get away from me. I've also worked with abused cases before. I've never seen such inner turmoil in someone though. It's like she's waging wars with herself all the time."

"Tomboy? Abused cases?" Iroh said clearly confused.

"When I was dressing her up, I noticed many scars along her back. They looked like she was lashed everyday for many years. I also noticed some burns along her shoulders." The woman told him. Iroh's eyes widened in surprise.

Smellerbee dropped the tray she'd been carrying. Both jumped at the distraction. "How dare you? I let you dress me up like some rag doll and you go discussing my looks saying that you can't be the one talking to me! I have no friends, no family, and now with this new information I have no job. I quit!"

"DC, wait! I was only trying to help!" Iroh said.

"Trying to help? How? By turning me into a barbie doll?" She asked scathingly.

"No. I just wanted you to have someone to talk to. Every time you come back from your weekends off, you seemed so disheartened. I wanted you to get it off your chest." Iroh said.

Smellerbee ignored the mess she'd made on the floor and pulled up a chair, "you want me to get it off my chest? Here it is: every weekend I go find someone that I used to know. Every time I find the same thing, that person is undeniably happy and has forgotten about me. That's why I'm so disheartened as you call it when I come back. Then I find that you want to find somebody to talk to, which is nice of you, really, but having her say I'm not good enough for her to talk to. Who is she, anyway? I don't want an answer, it was rhetorical!" she shouted when they were about to respond, "I'll tell you a little story, then I'll finish out my week, but I still quit. If there's one thing I've learned, it's the ability to disappear without a trace and not even the bounty hunter June's monster will be able to find me."

They looked at her a little wearily, but agreed to listen. She told them vaguely that she'd had a loving family until she was ten. She regaled them with the tale of having to watch her father burn to death, see his flesh searing, and hearing his screams of pain. Smellerbee told of the eventual raiding of her family's home and their inevitable deaths. The burns on her shoulders were from the impeding small fires left to the embers of what used to be her home, she'd had to crawl through to escape.

She told of how she soon after found a makeshift family all the while leaving out names, not that the lady would know. She was with them for three years until three visitors and their pet turned their lives upside down. She said that her family split up after that. She and her best friend were the only ones who followed the 'head' of the household. She felt it was easier using euphemisms of generalities rather than what they really were.

She told of how they once again met up with the three visitors and their pet, that through them they got trapped with no way out, but that the three visitors did get out. She said that the 'head of the household' was killed. She told them that she made her best friend leave her behind so that he could escape. She said she was thirteen years old when she was first imprisoned. She kept going even though she heard the gasps of surprise and could feel rather than see since she was looking down at the table their looks of pity.

She told them of how she was lashed everyday for the first year of her incarceration. She told them about how it had risen to three times daily during the second year. She told them that she planned on getting everyone out of there. She also told them that the third year, she did. She didn't say how or that she'd killed every last one of the guards. She just said that it took longer to convince the male prisoners that they would soon be free.

She said that she lived in a forest and that it was on her seventeenth birthday that she'd come into Iroh's teashop asking for a job. Smellerbee finished her tale of woe with her finding members of her old family to find herself alone and forgotten in the world. She looked up at both at Iroh and the woman. "I decided that this shift will be my last. I'll clean up this mess and get back to work." She got up and cleaned up the tray full of cut up glasses and spilled tea.

Smellerbee finished her shift at the Jasmine Dragon and went to her forest home. She returned the next morning with the dresses Iroh had gotten her cleaned, pressed, and on hangers. She got in there and wrote him a note and left it for him.

Dear Iroh,

Thank you so very much for your kindness and generosity towards me. Goodness knows I don't deserve it. Thank you for the dresses as well, but I had to return them as they are rightfully yours and I was just borrowing them for a little while. I'm not the most eloquent speaker/writer in the world, but I want you to know that I really do appreciate everything you've done for me. I must be on my way. I feel I have outlived my usefulness to you. I hold you in the highest regard. Thank you for everything.

DC

That was the note that Iroh found along with the bunch of dresses on hangers hanging on the coat rack. He was worried about her, but after learning some semblance of her past figured if she could last this long, then she could definitely survive. Although he did have to somewhat force-feed her to get her to gain weight.

Smellerbee left no trace of herself anywhere in Ba Sing Se or the forest that she'd been sleeping in for about half a year. She took to wearing her ninja-like outfit since she could hardly travel in her old outfit that she'd escaped prison in. She wore a belt that held a dagger at each hip, two swords crisscrossing at her back, and a dagger tucked into each boot.

She left Ba Sing Se behind her altogether deciding not to go back for a long, long time. She was entirely embarrassed because she'd forgotten that she was horribly scarred along her back and shoulders. If she would have been thinking, then she could have prevented this from happening and her indeterminate departure from the Jasmine Dragon.

She didn't stop traveling until she was at least three hundred miles away from Ba Sing Se. She spent most days and nights traveling while pausing to take little catnaps along the way. She had her gold hidden on her person in a place where they'd have to search really hard to find and she'd have to be really dead to let them. She got more gold by entering random contests that she'd find. Some were dueling tournaments of different varieties and others were random who can throw the best type 'manly' things.

Once she thought she'd found a place far enough away to start anew again, she stopped in a tavern/hotel type thing to stay the night. She bought a new outfit, somewhat like she had when she was with the Freedom Fighters, but more matured and matching. It was a shirt and pants ensemble, but she still wore her daggers and swords proudly. The owner of the tavern eyed her wearily.

"One room please." Smellerbee said.

"I don't rent rooms to strangers." he said.

"Then I don't know how you get any business at all." She said.

"I manage as you can see." the owner said gesturing to the filled room.

"I see. Well do you know anyplace around here that would give a room to strangers? Or could I possibly do a favor for you in return for a room?" She saw the owner think it over and that's when she realized how that must have sounded so she added, "I'm a pretty good bouncer. I could get rid of the troublemakers for you." The truth was she'd never been a bouncer, but considering her success with swords, daggers, and hand to hand combat it couldn't be that hard, could it?

"I highly doubt a girl so small could handle my rough drunkards. As for favors..." he trailed off.

"I could totally take your 'rough drunkards.' Don't you dare think that I can't. As for favors, I was thinking more the lines of the bouncing, or doing dishes or something along those lines. Arm wrestling? I don't know. Anyway, tell me yes or no or tell me the name of some other place." she said rambling a bit because she didn't like the look on his face when he'd said 'as for favors' and trailed off.

"You look like you couldn't hurt a fly, little girl..." Little girl? Couldn't hurt a fly? I'll show him. She surreptitiously glanced around. She immediately swirled around taking out one of the daggers from her waist and threw it at the back wall. Everyone immediately turned toward the noise. The closest one looked and saw a dagger dug into the middle of a fly.

"Can't hurt a fly, huh?" She asked the owner.

"Impressive, but it still doesn't mean you could handle the rowdy drunks." he said.

"Give me a chance to prove myself then. Show me somebody you want thrown out, then we'll see. If I fail, then I'll leave of my own volition. Deal?" She asked him.

"Deal." he said slightly impressed with her unwillingness to give up. He heard her shout at someone to grab her dagger and give it back to her. He pointed out the rowdiest drunk in the crowd. This particular customer came in every night. Every night the owner wanted him to kick him out, but this drunk was a mean drunk.

Smellerbee got her dagger back and slid it back into her belt. She marched straight over to the guy that the owner had pointed out. She said in a clear and authoritative voice, "You've had enough. It's time for you to leave now."

"Who're you to tell me what to do?" the drunken man slurred.

"I'm trying to get a room for the night and if this is the only way to do it, then so be it." She knew he was too drunk to even understand half of what she said, but she didn't really care.

"Make me." he said with an air of disdain. She loved it when people said that. They never assumed that Smellerbee could actually do it since she was rather short, but she was strong. She had been imprisoned and having to move huge weighty rocks from one end of the quarry to the other for three years.

"No problem." She said smirking. She grabbed his arm which he tried to shake off. She started to lead him out, but he then refused to budge. She rolled her eyes at the childishness of it all, "Have it your way." she said as the whole place became surprised when repositioned her arms on the man's waist and lifted him up onto her shoulder. (A/N: I know this is rather unrealistic, but it's based off a cartoon, get over it.) She walked through the customers who had parted for this strange woman and let her through. She opened the door and flipped him over her shoulder onto the dirt road outside.

"So... about that room..."

A/N: So how's that? You like it? Hate it? Too whatever?