Mortal.
–-
"Remind me again how this keeps happening?"
Mai risked a glance out from behind their makeshift and oh-so inadequate cover while she thought of an appropriate answer.
"Because our lives, despite all our efforts to the contrary, are decidedly wacky?"
"No, wacky is like... like... like that time the chicken farmer insisted that you were his great-aunt. Or when we were run out of that really conservative and slightly inbred town in the middle of the night when they figured out we weren't married, and we stole that cart from the bakery, except it turned out that there was some hobo taking a nap in the back, and he'd taken off his pants, and then you kicked him in the junk because you thought he was flashing you. Or that time we went around catching ghosts."
Mai turned to look at her boyfriend.
"One, I thought we agreed never to discuss that night again. And two, when did we catch ghosts?"
Sokka frowned. "That might have been a dream. Anyway, this is not wacky. This is" he looked up from behind the fallen masonry, and ducked before a fireball came within inches of removing his face "dangerous, and possibly dramatic."
"Our lives tend to be filled with that, too."
"True, but I kind of meant specifics. Did you catch what these guys were screaming about?"
"I think they might be secessionists."
"Oh great. You know, I really think they need a catchier name. 'Secessionists' tends to kind of trip over itself a lot, as a word."
"I'm sure that's right at the top of their agenda. You know, right after inciting the colonies to rise up in popular revolution and getting everyone to agree that they should be allowed to form their own country."
"Neither of which will happen if everyone has to spend five minutes sorting out the knots in their vocal chords every time they say 'secessionists'. It derails things a bit."
"Hello!" a voice boomed, rudely interrupting their lively debate. "You are being outnumbered! Perhaps you will be surrendering now, yes?" The man talked as if he had once read a book on etiquette, but had badly misunderstood the chapter on enunciation while doing something else at the same time. Like getting repeatedly punched in the brain.
"Well?" Mai murmured.
"We've got a few seconds. This guy sounds talkative. If you can keep his friends distracted, I can probably get to him. Okay? Let's go."
With nothing more than a nod, he was turning and preparing to vault the overturned cart. Mai barely stood and chose her targets in time.
Five men scattered around the town square. Try not to kill anyone.
The first knife flew as the man by the fountain punched forwards, and thunked into his shoulder, sending him spinning out of control, and his blast wildly into the air. Sokka ran on, barely bothering to duck the flames.
The second span towards the man with the bow, severing his string as he prepared to fire, whipping the tightly wound bowstring into his face.
Sokka had got ten paces. The ringleader- a big man with a big moustache- was starting to look worried.
The third knife twirled almost lazily, and connected with the palm of the second firebender. Another knife neatly parted his hair, and that was all the incentive he needed to turn tail.
Sokka was nearly upon the man now.
The fourth knife-
Where was the fourth man? Where was he?
Mai's eyes flicked wildly around the square. Not on any roofs, not in the open, not in a window, but she could have sworn there was another man somewhere.
Sokka collided with his target.
Where was he? Behind a tree? Had he fled?
Sokka seemed to be winning. Mai forced herself to scan the surroundings, filtering out the sounds of combat.
She started to wonder if the other man had been a miscount on her part. It happened, from time to time.
Sokka had won. His foot was planted on his opponent's chest, and he was taking the moment to gloat.
"Yeah, not so tough now, are you, yes? Will you be doing the surrendering now?"
There he was.
The glint of an arrow from the shadows of an alleyway. Sokka, totally unaware.
It was too late to do anything but shout, and by then the arrow was loosed.
"Sokka!" nonononononononono and her heart was in her throat and her blood had frozen and she was leaping, flinging wildly but she'd picked the wrong target stupid and the knife was spinning for the man and it was too late because the arrow was already flying.
She imagined she could see Sokka's eyes widen as he dived to the side.
–-
Mai didn't say anything as they made their way back to the room that they had rented. Sokka didn't see anything particularly wrong with this- Mai was like that at times. When she felt like it, she could talk until mountains wore down just to escape her acerbic tongue. And at other times, it was impossible to get more than monosyllables out of her. Just part and parcel of her personality.
He didn't think something was wrong until he closed the door on their room, and suddenly she was clutching at him, arms wrapped tight around his back, head buried in the nape of his neck.
"Mai? Is... something wrong?"
"You could have died, Sokka," she muttered angrily into his shoulder, as if something was his fault.
Huh?
"Hey, I was careful," he said, as soothingly as he could. One hand was placed lightly on the back of her head, the other on her upper back.
Mai didn't take well to being soothed. She jerked her head back, until she was glaring at him, eyes locked on his, transmitting her disapproval.
"You're never careful. You were so busy crowing over that guy you were almost killed."
"Hey, you warned me in time, didn't you? I'm okay," Sokka tried, unsure as to what Mai was getting at.
"Sokka, I didn't see him until he'd already shot at you. I'm not perfect, Sokka, and I'm not going to be able to keep you safe," she growled.
"Mai, I don't know what you want me to say."
"Shut up. Just... shut up, okay?" she asked, collapsing into him again.
"Okay."
They didn't move for a long time.
–-
Mai didn't say anything for the rest of the afternoon. She said nothing all dinner more engaging than 'pass the salt', and try as he might Sokka just couldn't build a conversation around that.
–-
When Sokka emerged from the bathroom, Mai was sitting on a chair in their small room, apparently deep in thought.
Sokka sat heavily on the bed.
This looked like it was going to be a long evening. An evening of awkward silence and Mai totally ignoring him.
Sokka was not going to take this.
"Alright, Mai, I have thought about everything, and have decided to dedicate the rest of my life to building a suit of armour that is totally impervious to absolutely everything. Should take about eighty years or so."
Mai didn't even acknowledge that he had spoken. Sokka was not put off in the slightest.
"Mai, look, neither of us are perfect, no matter what we do there's going to be a chance that one of us is going to get hurt. Believe me, I know that. But there's always going to be a chance in pretty much anything we do. I mean, today was hardly special, I don't see why you're freaking out over this. We take down worse than that about once a month, and-"
"Don't finish that thought. I know you're only trying to help, but if you finish that sentence I am going to hurt you."
"Fine. So what do you want me to do?"
Mai sighed, and slumped a little.
"Distract me. I'll get over this, and you're right, it doesn't do much good to be worrying over it, but it was just... an unpleasant reminder."
Normally, such a frank declaration of Mai's regard for him would have set him grinning for hours, but Sokka had no time for that. He had a mission.
Distract Mai from her own morbidity. Not easy, but if he were to allow a moment of vanity, there were none better suited to the task than he.
Sure, he might die tomorrow. She might (don't think about it). But it didn't do any good to dwell on it, because tomorrow was going to come anyway. The only thing to do was make it worth it at the time.
–-
Today is a good day for angst, it seems. Well, 'good' is entirely subjective. Today is a day for posting angst. Let's leave it at that.
