Mr. Mom

Notes: Since Ash and Allen don't have kids, this was the best I could glean from this theme. Allen taking care of a younger kid. Sort of. Pfft.

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"So…you live with that lady?"

"Ash," he said with a nod. "Her name's Ash. And yes. I do."

"Oh. That's a funny name." Jinora paused. "Are you…together?"

Allen caught himself before he became a spluttering mess when he managed to pick apart her insinuations. "No. No, we're not. We just live together and we work together."

"So you're not married or in a relationship beyond the working one. Got it."

He sighed. The raptors were shadowing them, leading the way through the coastal forest. They had gotten turned around and now they were taking the long way back. His infamous directionless sense has struck again. They would be out still well past dark, he came to realize.

Wonderful.

Creed, one of the raptors of the pack, came ghosting into sight to stalk alongside Allen. Jinora stared up at the raptor, a lean grey-and-rust-red feathered machine that was as silent as he was deadly. Just like all the Dakotaraptors. Allen patted the raptor's side gently, earning a soft growling purr from the half-ton predator, golden eyes sliding half-shut.

"You called this animal a Dakotaraptor. What, exactly, is a Dakotaraptor? I've never heard of it before."

"It's…it's a dinosaur. I'm sorry, I'm not the subject matter expert on them, other than knowing they're distantly related to modern birds, they're very fast, and that they're carnivores. They went extinct millions of years ago. Ash would be a better source of information though, she's the one who knows all about them. And every other dinosaur on this island, for that matter."

And those that are not. She had a massive amount of data about species that weren't even present on Yamatai. It was honestly quite staggering.

Jinora considered him thoughtfully. She was recovering well, considering she had almost been burned alive by Mathias and the Solarii Brotherhood. She diverted her focus to their path ahead as they forged through the underbrush. Creed brayed loudly all of a sudden, cough-barking to the empty air. Allen gave the raptor a little glower at the unwarranted break in silence. Creed slid his eyes half-shut, purring softly.

The raptor is looking down his nose at me! How smug and… how odd. And rather new, Allen thought with a mixture of shock and exasperation. Creed continued alongside him, occasionally pausing to listen or leap onto an overturned tree trunk, or a large boulder, getting a bird's eye view on the layout from afar. He chittered away and with modified limited signs, made his intentions known to Allen.

"This way," Allen said after the third time this pattern has made itself known. Jinora quietly stared between him and the raptor.

"He's talking to you," she observed with an appraising look. "Do they all talk? The dinosaurs, I mean."

"Only a select few. Ash taught it to them."

"She taught you too," she observed and he nodded. "Is she a firebender?"

"I'm…not sure what a firebender is, I'm afraid."

"You don't know what benders are?" Jinora looked positively stunned and she stared up at him, as though waiting for him to go 'just kidding!' When he didn't, her expression morphed into actual fascination.

"So you've been living with a firebender and you have no idea what they are?"

"She's never called herself that before. She used…what's the word…pyro…pyrokinetic. She's called herself that several times."

"She practices firebending very strangely. No incorporated techniques, no routines…it's strange."

"She can summon fire without moving," Allen replied in a helpful voice. Jinora considered his words, distracting herself momentarily when Creed darted out in front of them to lightly jump onto another fallen tree trunk. He chittered softly, head on a swivel as he surveyed the growing shadows of the forest. The wind rustled through the canopy of leaves above them. Jinora smiled a little, stray strands of her hair dancing about.

"She must be a completely different level than any firebender I've met before, then, if she can do all that without needing to move."

Allen didn't have it in him to correct Jinora, to say that Ash wasn't called a firebender.

"Are you a firebender?"

"No. I'm an airbender. My father, my sister, and my brother are all airbenders. Our newborn baby brother might be, but we haven't seen any evidence to that yet. Chances are he might be, though." She granted him a curious head tilt as they passed their raptor sentinel. Creed squealed, wheeled around and came trotting after them on silent feet. "Do you have any siblings? Or a family? What about kids?"

"Wha—I'm not—I don't have any kids! How old do you think I am?"

"Sorry. I just assumed, with the white hair…but I guess you do sound kind of young." Jinora smiled sheepishly, apologetically. Allen felt he could forgive her for the slight. He sighed.

"I'm an only child, as far as I know. And my family is…gone. I'm all that's left, I'm afraid."

"Oh…I'm sorry." The little girl paused thoughtfully. "So you don't count Ash as family? Maybe not blood related, sure, but…not even a little?"

Allen considered that.

What was Ash to him, if not just a friend?

He wasn't sure and it stumped him.

She could be considered a friend…if one could even be allowed to proclaim a highly volatile, moody, intelligent, angry instinct-driven werewolf a friend. He wondered if he was even allowed to venture into calling her 'friend' to her face, never mind something even close to 'family'. His friends from his old life, he might have ventured that far. But Ash?

"You're blushing," Jinora snickered.

Allen frowned at the break in his thoughts. He sniffed pointedly.

"No, I'm not. And it's too dark for you to even see if I was or wasn't."

"Your silence tells all," Jinora said in an ominous voice before she laughed again.

"How old are you?"

"I'm eleven."

He sighed.

"Sometimes, I don't know what to consider her," he remarked at last. "We work together to help people, whoever ends up shipwrecked on Yamatai. She's been doing it for much longer than I have, though. I want to say she's my friend, but mostly, I have to wonder."

"Don't you want to leave?"

Allen glanced over at the girl.

"Yes, of course. But Ash…she's been here for much too long. After all the people she's helped, they've never come back with help. She's always left behind. She deserves to leave this place just as much. I aim to find a way to help her." He returned his gaze to the path ahead, squinting in the low lighting. "I don't know how much she's sacrificed over the years. I don't believe even she remembers or knows. Until she can leave, though, I won't leave her behind. Everyone else has already done so, without repaying all that she's done for them. The very least I can do is offer her something she most likely hasn't had in a long time."

"What's that?"

He offered a faint smile to Jinora. "A friend. It's not much, but it's a start, don't you think? Even if she might not admit it, I think…I would like to believe she sees me as a friend. And I'd like to think of her as one, even when she can be…temperamental, at times."

Jinora studied him as they forged a path through the underbrush for a few quiet minutes. They were fast approaching a precipice that would require loosing an arrow with rope attached to it's shaft. He hated shimmying his way across such open expanse, especially when the winds were in full force, but the pine forest and home was just on the other side of this canyon and the mountain beyond. To go around would take much longer and if they took any longer, then the risk of running into a predator grew greater. There was also the others back at home to consider. They might go running off due to impatience and worry and end up getting hurt or worse. Then they'd have to go looking for them, too.

The sooner I get Jinora to safety, the better.

"She killed that man. Do you think…if she had a friend, she wouldn't kill people anymore? If someone was there to give her balance?"

Allen glanced over briefly.

"She told me once that if she had to be the one to perform undesirable tasks to protect others and to keep their hands clean…then she'd gladly take on that burden so they wouldn't have to live with the guilt." He replied quietly. "Her methods are flawed. I know this. But…I hope maybe one day she won't ever have to resort to such methods."

"Is that possible? After all this time?"

"I think it is." He paused as the forest gave way to a clearing and that led to the precipice they needed to cross over. "We're almost there. We're going to do something a bit dangerous, but I need you to trust me. Okay?"

Jinora stared after him, trailing her gaze over towards the cliffside beyond and the dark smudged silhouette of the mountain peaks.

"I trust you."

He was relieved to hear as such and he nodded to her with a reassuring smile.

"Good."