"Whoah, can I get in on this?" asked Kiet, not moving from his sleeping mat as Hinto pushed open the house's front door.
"No."
Meelo did, at this point, get off of Hinto for the purposes of inspecting the food he had put down. When he saw that there was pork in it, he hesitated, and then decided to let it be and sat cross-legged near the doorway.
Hinto collapsed near Kiet's feet and let his head fall back against the blank wall. He sighed and moved a kerosene lamp off of its shaky perch and onto the floor, then held his hand a few inches over the top of its neck to warm his fingers. With the shutters closed, it was the only thing that lit the room. Its smell gave Hinto headaches.
Laughing, Kiet turned onto his back and lifted his neck as high as it would go with no support. "So: last night."
"This place doesn't look to bad." The shack was in just its usual state of disarray, and Hinto hadn't noticed any damage done on the exterior, either.
"It's because you can hardly see it from the street," said Meelo factually.
"Give that boy an award," said Kiet, raising his eyebrows; Meelo smiled proudly. He drummed his hands on his bare stomach for a second and then added, "Most of the chaos was outside. Lots of shouting. Lots of crying."
"Huh," said Hinto absentmindedly. "Meelo, hand me the food. Have you heard from Indira?"
Kiet shook his head, and sat up when he saw the box being passed over.
"Do you think she's okay?"
"I'm sure she's fine," said Kiet, mouth already full with the noodles he'd taken with his bare hands.
Hinto thought as more and more of his food was being taken, and finally decided, "I'm going to go and check on her."
"Hinto," groaned Kiet, rolling his eyes. "Stop worrying. She's fine."
"No. I'm going."
Kiet pulled Hinto back down so that they were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder again. "Meelo, you go check on her."
"Okay!" Meelo shouted, jumping up enthusiastically. ("He's in love," whispered Kiet to Hinto.) "I'll be back and I'll tell you if she's okay and maybe I'll bring her back with me but it depends. Bye!"
"Bye," sang Kiet. When the door slammed shut again, he sighed. "No wonder his father lets him wander all over the place."
Meelo held behind his back a flowering wild carrot plant, roots and dirt still attached, as he walked tentatively around the house where Indira and her mother lived. Firebender was written across its front with brownish-red paint, and the thin metal roofing was piled up in front of it.
"Indira?" he called. He lifted up one of the shingles and looked under it. "Indiria/i!"
He stepped through the back door slowly. He fixed a turned-over chair and called her name again. He poked his head through every door in the house, and found no one.
After a few seconds' hesitation, Meelo sprinted out of her house in the direction back towards where Kiet and Hinto lived.
He threw the door open and prepared a lament of his search for Indira, but when he looked inside, Meelo found her already sitting across from the two other boys. So instead, he walked inside quietly and sat next to her. Her head was buried between her knees. He put the flowers down next to the firebender.
"She barely touched him," said Indira; her voice was shaking in a mixture of anger and sadness, but she hadn't been crying.
"Did they tell you where they were taking her?" asked Kiet, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Indira shook her head but didn't lift it up.
"Or how long?"
Indira lifted her head up, and her amber eyes stared hopelessly at the waterbender. "She assaulted a Gong Xun member, Hinto. She'll never get out." She put her head back down when she felt tears pushing against her eyes.
Nobody knew what to say.
Everybody knew what happened to the Gong Xun's prisoners.
"Meelo," said Hinto finally, awkwardly tousling his dark hair and looking at the younger boy. "Maybe you should go home."
Meelo pouted, but did as he was told with no contest. He took a last glance to Indira before sulking outside. A few Gong Xun members, in their uniform black robes with the Xun party's gold crest—differentiating them from common gangs, stood on the shaded side of the street. Meelo avoided eye contact and walked back to his home on the water outside the Republic City.
A/N: Why haven't I been updating? I have this on another website and I've been updating the story on there, but for some reason, not here. I'm sorry about that.
CyclonePsycho - It's not that I didn't know where it was going; I just didn't know where it was going to end. I've decided on that now, though. (: Chie is thirteen here, but (spoiler alert? I don't really think so, but) there's a time skip coming up soon that will make her a bit older.
KurrydaJellydonut: Thank you! And oh no, you caught me! I got a lot of this story from different times and places in history. (Don't worry, it won't be following that path.)