Stakeout
Out of necessity, the rest of the trek in had been markedly silent. Not five minutes after their debriefing Longshot had heard the convoy approaching from the north, and the trio had taken to the trees. Soon enough the clanking of armor and the measured, monotonous thump of regulation boots had drowned out the cicada-crickets, and the flickering light emanating from the soldiers' outstretched hands had painted the forest red. Smellerbee didn't need to confirm with a glimpse that Jet's face had contorted into a feral snarl: his grip on the shuang gou had tightened enough to elicit a squeak from the hilts, and the swordswoman had sworn she'd heard the boy viciously grinding his teeth, the wheatgrass once between them chewed through long ago.
She and Longshot had then split off, noiselessly traversing the leafy landscape with practiced ease until, finally, the battalion had come within a reasonably audible range. They watched and waited as a troop of about three dozen soldiers settled nearby: one by one they shed their armor and abandoned their weapons, sighing contentedly as they stretched their limbs for the first time in what seemed like hours. Before long they had collected enough wood to start a campfire and, within minutes, had settled about it in a great circle and begun to sup.
The clanking of utensils and buzz of idle chatter were the perfect cover for the Freedom Fighters to descend from the trees and move closer still, shuffling from shrub to shrub until they were but a stone's throw away from the nearest soldier. Longshot nodded: this would be plenty close enough.
"Bloody slave driver, making us march through this muggy hellhole for twenty miles in one day—"
"Keep your mouth shut, Lang!" hissed his comrade. The archer peeked through the bushes: the speaker was tall and lean, and sported a particularly ugly tigerdillo tattoo on his left bicep. "If the Colonel hears you she'll make us all march another twenty miles by morning."
Without missing a beat, Bee withdrew the parchment and graphite from one of her pockets and sat beside Longshot, their knees nearly touching as they sat cross-legged around the heart of the shrub. Ugly Tigerdillo Tattoo had been loud enough so that even she could decipher his words, but— because the shadow cast by the wide brim of Longshot's hat had obscured all but his most prominent features—she was doubtful that she'd be able to read his face for the duration of the task.
Another voice piped up: this one seemed older, more knowing.
"I'll eat my boot if the Colonel isn't as tired as we are, son," he chuckled. "After all, she's been yelling at you young-uns to stay in formation all day."
The one named Lang scoffed. "Well, Grandpa, it's your gazillion year-old prostate that made us have to get out of formation and back so that you could piss every ten minutes. "
As the younger half of the group laughed, Smellerbee nudged her interpreter.
"What's a prostate? Do you think that's code for something?"
The way he bit his lip led the girl to believe that this was (a) something that likely wasn't coded and (b) probably a question better left for later.
"Guys, can we go one night without comparing anatomy?"
A dark, muscular woman sauntered into the clearing, nearly knocking over Ugly Tigerdillo Tattoo as she plopped down next to the fire. She harnessed a small spark from the blaze and passed it effortlessly between her hands, her fingertips a brilliant, flickering red as she allowed the flame to dance.
"What, did you not have anything more constructive to say, or are you just afraid of offending a lady?"
"I'll say, Aza, you're sure fiery tonight."
Another woman with a braid down her back joined her, a bowl of fresh rice and meat in hand. "Colonel Yi just turned in: she wanted me to let you all know that we should be all packed up and ready to leave by dawn. Said that if we continue at this pace then we should reach Yu Dao within the week."
Yu Dao…if Smellerbee remembered correctly, Yu Dao was a Fire Nation colony nestled within the coastal mountains of the western Earth Kingdom. Jet had told them about how it was one of the first cities appropriated by the Fire Nation after the Air Bender Genocide, and how the local Earth Kingdom citizens had been stripped of their power and titles and forced to work for wealthy Fire Nation defense contractors ever since.
Braid Lady turned to Prostate Grandpa, a smile gracing the corners of her lips. "You must be excited to get back to your daughter and grandson, old man! How old is Kuzo now?"
"His fourth birthday is at the end of the summer," he said, the lines of his face softening briefly. "Told him that we'd get back from the Si Wong in time to celebrate."
"Well, if we don't get hit by the spirit bandits first."
Longshot and Bee looked at each other, at least three eyebrows raised between the two of them: spirit bandits?
Aza scoffed. "Honestly, Lang, don't tell me that you believe in those children's stories. You'd sooner see some inbred abomination like the Earth King's pet bear wandering through the forest than a horde of demonic kleptos."
"I dunno," mused Braid Lady. "I was talking to Fu a few weeks ago back when he was stationed by the dam. Swore to Agni that he saw something in the trees lookin' right back at him."
" 'S probably a hogmonkey or something,"Aza retorted.
"Yeah, well this 'hogmonkey' was clothed, almost six feet tall, and had long, shiny claws that ended in hooks instead of arms. Not ten minutes after Fu saw it, an entire crate of food and some of the weapons in storage were reported missing."
Bee narrowed her eyes: unless some other vigilante with shuang-gou was swinging around Gaipan, that had to have been Jet. It struck her as odd that Jet had been careless enough to have been spotted in the first place, but the fact that he had been by the dam…
"Some say," whispered Lang, "that they are angry spirits possessing the bodies of children that were killed by the Rough Rhinos in those raids. They've haunted these woods for years, stripping travellers and supply caravans of their wares whenever they pass through. A lot of people think that they're amassing an army to drive the Fire Nation out of Earth Kingdom territories."
"An army?" laughed Aza, "of spirits?! Surely you recall from elementary lecture how Avatar Wan banished the spirits to the Spirit World some ten thousand years ago?"
Braid Lady scratched her chin thoughtfully. "The Annals also detailed legends of portals connecting the physical and spiritual realms. Since the Avatar hasn't been seen in a hundred years, it's more than likely that the balance between the two worlds has been disrupted, which has in turn made it easier for spirits to immigrate here."
Longshot glanced at his partner, relieved to find that she looked just as incredulous as he felt. So, the Fire Nation thought that the Freedom Fighters were an army of rogue spirits…
"Hey, old man, what's eatin' ya? You haven't touched your food."
Braid Lady had taken notice of Prostate Grandpa's marked silence, shuffling closer to his body before placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Whether the legends're true or not," he muttered, almost in a whisper, "children still perished in those raids. When I think of Kuzo, I —"
"Yeah, well don't feel too badly," said Lang, stuffing noodles into his mouth. "Earth Kingdom children grow up into Earth Kingdom adults, and Earth Kingdom adults join militias and armies that kill us by the hundreds. For all you know one of those mud-flingers could have grown up to slay your grandson, and then where would you be, huh?"
The addressee sighed, gently nursing his tea before taking a quiet sip. "What if the war ended before such an encounter ever occurred? What if Kuzo didn't have to take my place on the battlefield when he becomes of age?"
Sensing Lang's heated retort bubbling to the surface, Braid Lady interjected. "Whether or not this war continues is out of our hands. I think we would all love nothing more than to pack up and return to our families right now, but our being here assures that Fire Nation emigrants in the colonies are safe and well supplied."
Longshot glanced at Bee, his realization apparent. This convoy wasn't here to destroy Earth Kingdom villages and colonize more land: if anything, it appeared as if they were struggling to maintain the existing colonies. In that case, then, did it mean that the Earth Kingdom resistance had finally accumulated enough momentum in the past few years to challenge the Fire Nation occupation?
The girl tilted her head: if this convoy wasn't the only one assigned to defensive duties (and—given the size of Yu Dao—she highly doubted that it was), then there was reason to believe that the Fire Nation wasn't currently seeking conquest as aggressively as Jet had so vehemently insisted.
Though the information offered some sense of relief, Smellerbee couldn't help but bite her lip as she scratched a final character into the parchment.
Doubt.
[then]
Her wrists were smarting again.
The girl hissed under her breath as she peeled away the first bandage, grimacing as the all-too-familiar odor of burnt flesh—her burnt flesh—slithered its way into her nose. One of the blisters must have popped, for the wound was covered in a sticky sheen and Spirits it was just so awful—
Had she eaten anything in the last day and a half she was sure she would have seen it again at that moment: the sight, and the smell, and the undulating waves of pain were altogether just too much—
" 'Ey. Kid."
The tall boy with the shaggy hair—Jet, she reminded herself—had crawled up onto the platform beside her, lugging a sack of objects that clanked and sloshed as he set it down beside her.
"Sneers wanted me to drop this stuff off s'soon as you woke up," he explained, revealing a large, green bottle and a shallow clay bowl. "I'll be helping you with your bandages this morning."
She simply nodded, tracing the pattern of the wood grain in the floorboards with her eyes as Jet meticulously removed the remainder of the cloth. He held her fingers so gingerly that she couldn't suppress the faint blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, just as shocked by the gentleness of this seemingly rough and gritty young man as she was by the very idea of being cared for so attentively.
"Looks a bit better than it did yesterday," he reassured, removing the last of the cloth on her right wrist and moving to the left. "You're a real trooper, you know that, kid? You'll be up and about again in no time."
The way her head hung betrayed her doubt, but Jet—relentless as he was—attempted a different approach.
"I'm going out on a scouting mission with some of the guys later. We're gonna see if we can track down the monster that did this to you."
"Don't."
The boy looked on in disbelief: in the two days he'd known her, she hadn't uttered a single word until now. Jet certainly hadn't expected her voice to be as rough as it was, but the tone—one of practiced authority and perhaps even a dash of desperation—made it abundantly clear that he wasn't to disobey.
A pregnant silence passed before he piped up again.
"Why not?"
He had finished wrapping the left wrist, leading the limb gently back down to her side. The girl hugged her knees in close, her mouth set in a thin line.
"You'd be wasting your time," she muttered, barely audible over the faunal hum of the forest. "He's dead."
Jet's eyes went wide: before he could stop himself, his cool façade vanished.
"How-?"
"Everyone was distracted when you and the other boys dropped in from the trees. I grabbed a rock and struck him as hard as I could in the knee. When he fell over, I snatched a dagger from his belt and tried, and I tried to slit his throat, but my hands were shackled together and he had the chain and started to heat it with his bending and—"
Her voice wavered as she held back a sob, and her entire body seemed to shiver.
"I w-wasn't quick enough."
Jet thought he was going to be sick: her agonized scream had echoed in his head for days. He waited patiently for the girl to reclaim her composure, needing a moment himself to scour the memory from his immediate attention.
"The next thing I knew the bastard had an arrow in his neck, and he couldn't bend anymore," she continued, still shaken by the recollection. "I blacked out after that, and didn't come to until the big one with the log had already begun to carry me back here."
Jet recalled the behemoth's report rather clearly. "Pipsqueak said that you were pretty out of it."
"Given what had just happened, I'm kind of glad I was."
She chuckled mirthlessly, spitefully regarding her bandaged wrists.
"I'd like to thank him," she murmured, regarding the boy seriously once more, "and the marksman, too, when I get the chance. What's his name?"
The renegade smiled. "That would be Longshot," he replied, an edge of pride in his tone. "Pipsqueak said that he saw him run out from his cover to pick the lock on your shackles and carry you away from the fray. He watched over you until we managed to scare the Fire Nation scum away, and handed you over to Pip for the journey back."
It took the girl a moment to realize that her mouth had been hanging open: this kid that she didn't even know had risked his life to save hers.
"I know: pretty crazy, right?" he asked rhetorically, offering her a toothy grin.
"Do you guys do stuff like this all the time?" she countered, still incredulous.
Jet's smirk began to fade. "In a manner of speaking," he suggested cryptically, but then his expression became grave and his voice lowered so that it barely hovered above a whisper.
"A lot of us have suffered under the tyranny of Fire Nation. Their forces burned our homes to the ground and slaughtered our family and friends, leaving us for dead."
The girl's face hardened, and the wounds on her wrists seemed to flare and pulse. She bit her lip, clenching her fists so tightly that she felt the joints pop and crackle with the strain.
"You take in and train the survivors," she continued, following the obvious progression of Jet's exposition, "and organize raids and ambushes to incapacitate Fire Nation forces."
He nodded. "We do whatever we can to slow down their path of destruction."
For not the first time that day, the image of the black-tipped arrow piercing her captor's windpipe flashed through her mind. As horrible as it was, Jet's words—his untold insistence that the Firebender's fate had been deserved—had somehow made it feel less repulsive now than it did then.
Maybe—if she listened to him long enough—she'd be able to sleep through the night again.
"Count me in."
Jet tilted his head. "What do you—?"
"As soon as I'm better, I'll help you fight. Help you stop them from doing this to someone else."
He nodded, almost as if he had been expecting her answer, and smiled.
"Sounds good, kid," he laughed, "though, if you're gonna stick around for awhile, it'd sure be nice to know what to call you."
The girl smirked: is a strange place with strange people with strange names, it would fit perfectly.
"Call me Smellerbee."