Chapter 20 - Value of Life
A week had passed since Natquik and Miyo left Hikoshu, and yet they traveled in silence. Well, not silence exactly. They talked, and joked, and got along just fine. But there was a certain uneasiness to Miyo's demeanor that changed as quickly as the weather. One morning, she would smile and tease, but by the afternoon, the sky would cloud over and so would she.
Not that Natquik hadn't known this about her. He remembered many similar afternoons when they last traveled together, when her mood frequently reflected her current thoughts. But so much had happened since then, and he found he needed more time to adjust to it now. Unfortunately, his own mood fluctuated with hers, which was something he had never been used to. So it led to some days when they would banter like old friends and others when they wouldn't talk at all.
This was one such day. Natquik had given up annoying her with small talk and had slipped to the back of the saddle, where he occupied himself with whittling an old pine knot. Whittling what, he didn't know. It kind of looked like a caribou-elk had mated with one of the Earth Kingdom's ostrich-horses to produce a caribelkorstrich, and then gained a lot of weight. He thought he'd been trying for a fisherman, though.
It was probably because he had no real artistic gift, but Natquik liked to pretend it was because he was distracted. When Miyo became quiet, he didn't have much to do but think. And Natquik was not an introspective man. So during these awkward times when he couldn't take his mind off of his thoughts with some terrible whittling, he had to think about the future.
If he wasn't introspective, at least he was honest. And Natquik would admit to himself, if not to anyone else, that he was very anxious about the future. For most of his life, his path had been pretty clear-cut: grow up, marry the Water Tribe princess. There had been little opportunity to dream of other possibilities, or contemplate what he actually wanted. In fact, Natquik's passive acceptance of his fate seemed the only way to genuine happiness. The arrival of Hikoshu, however, had changed all of that.
The tribunal's decree that his actions to take away the Avatar's bending had amounted to an unforgivable offense should have led to Natquik's banishment from either Tribe. The fact that it simply resulted in the stripping of all of his titles and his exile to the South Pole was a testament to how powerful Hikoshu's influence was, though Hikoshu didn't quite know it. But because of his friend, Natquik was suddenly thrust into a life that had never been open to him; he became a Shaman, a healer, and a teacher. He found a purpose for his talents, and a reason for existing well outside of the sphere of the Royal Family.
And now, a life he'd never imagined having was the only life he could ever fathom wanting. How doubly tragic, then, was the North's decision that his punishment had been met and his penance served. Natquik was so tightly bound to traditions that even nearly robbing the world of its only hope for peace could not free him from his duties. But now he knew what existed beyond the confines of those traditions, and as he returned to his former world, Natquik found himself thinking dark thoughts that wouldn't have occurred to him otherwise.
He wasn't an introspective man. But the 'what if's were making him that way.
Miyo easily belonged to those 'what if's. She was part of the abrupt shift that had changed his entire world-view and introduced him to an unpredictable path. She was also part of the dark thoughts that floated through his mind whenever she stopped talking. He had always been able live in the present, and when she was happy, he never looked forward. But then she fell silent, and he was forced to think of the future, when he couldn't hide on the back of a bison and whittle a caribelkorstrich…which actually looked pregnant now. He wondered what it had ended up mating with. Maybe a penguin?
"That's pretty hideous." From the front of the bison wafted an unmistakable odor, and Miyo's nasally voice broke through his thoughts. He glanced up to find her leaning over the saddle, the wind blowing her hair into her eyes and sticking strands against her lips. "What is it?"
"Akna, a fertility spirit. Takes the form of a lovely young woman." Natquik had long ago grown used to the whistle of the bison's airbending, which could drown out most casual conversation. Because of it, he had to speak louder, and to his buffeted ears, his own voice sounded hollow.
"Looks like a caribou-elk got together with a boarcupine." He frowned at the little wooden statue. Maybe it did. "We're landing early today."
"Why's that?" Without looking up at her, Natquik started to shave off the fourth leg, his knife handle braced firmly in the dip of his palm.
"Because Tehsa's exhausted and I need a bath."
"Sorry about that. I didn't know what a skunk-goat was."
She gave him a withering look as she tugged the hair from her mouth, the early afternoon sun lending severity to her dirt-streaked cheeks. "And do you often slaughter and eat strange creatures you've never seen before?"
"What can I say? I have a natural curiosity." Straightening, he tucked his knife back into its sheath under his coat. "But it does remind me that I need to get in some hunting."
As always, she was visibly repulsed by the idea of him killing. But they'd had the argument enough times that there was no reason to have it again. Neither was going to change the other's mind. "Well, just do it far from me. I don't want to have to bathe twice." Then she disappeared.
The clearing that they landed in looked just like every other clearing they'd landed in. Admittedly, there were small differences. They had passed over the low hills of the South, the jagged mountain ranges of Omashu, and the rolling plains of the midland. Now they were entering mountains again, which were much more vibrant than their southern counterparts, covered in conifers that grew despite the occasional snow, with rounded peaks that occasionally filtered through the clouds.
But to Natquik, it all looked about the same. Sometimes yellow, sometimes green, yet always rocky. Even when the animals changed, their habitats rarely did, and he'd learned through his previous travels in the Earth Kingdom how to hunt. So he hitched up his water skin and his satchel and prepared to head out into the thicket that surrounded their temporary campsite, only stopping long enough to hear Miyo's last instruction.
"Stay east of here. I don't want to see whatever you kill."
Natquik was glad to oblige. Something about Miyo's repugnance for the deaths of living things made him feel bad about causing them. Which was absolutely ridiculous; the Water Tribes had long ago made peace with the necessary killing, appreciating the animals that allowed them to survive in their harsh environment. And he never ate anything to which he didn't offer his gratitude, first. Still, the look Miyo gave him when he smoked his catches made him uncomfortable. Like, perhaps, he should feel guilty.
These were yet more dark thoughts that followed him through the woods, occupying his mind as he scouted game trails. Above him, bare branches and straggly bunches of evergreen needles swayed across the creeping sun, and under his feet, indistinct shadows dappled the still-moist dirt. He walked the paths wordlessly, ignoring the larger trails in favor of tinier ones—ones that were marked only by broken twigs and upturned leaves. The large trails were likely used by big animals, and the occasional scat that littered them said the same. Natquik didn't need to hunt anything big. It would take too much effort to catch them, too much mess to clean them, and then too much time to prepare the meat for the journey.
Plus the added effort of following tracks of smaller animals, hardly distinguishable from the undergrowth, kept him distracted. Natquik had to listen for sounds beyond the listless calls of unfamiliar birds, and he had to scan continuously for movements independent of his own. On occasion, he'd feel the invisible pull of nearby mud puddles created from recent rain, or sense dew clinging to the bottom of fern leaves as he brushed by them. These, however, were the only hints he had of his natural habitat, and as a stranger in this habitat, he opened his mind to opportunities he might otherwise have ignored.
As Natquik walked, he carefully sifted through branches that had snapped loose either from animals or windstorms, searching for ones that were both stout and light. Some of the wood was still green, leaving sticky sap on his fingers and knife, and he stripped their bark for the wood fibers. These, he rolled into little balls as he navigated around mounds of rock jutting from the mountainside. Natquik wasn't sure what animals he was hunting, like the skunk-goat of the day before. Again, though, a decade-and-a-half of field experience had lent him some generalities that he could apply to any situation. So while he couldn't be certain that the roughshod, mud-straw huts that eventually peeked through the trees ahead of him belonged to the ruby-snouted bandicoon, he was certain they housed something. And the freshness of the mud that cemented the knee-high grass structures told him that the 'something' was likely still active for the season, too.
Natquik didn't approach the huts, settling close by the game trail that led to them instead. Scat on the needle-carpeted floor contained the remnants of stick insects, and laying both his satchel and his water skin down, he scouted the nearby trees. Their branches eventually yielded one of the little creatures, its speed hindered by its long legs and its surety that camouflage would protect it. Then, collecting a heavy flagstone that had broken off from one of the rocky outcroppings, he returned to the path and set to work.
Creating a deadfall trap took time and an endless supply of patience. Such that, by the time Natquik finished precariously balancing the flat rock on his harvested twig and sticking the stick bug to the stone with his sap ball, the shadows of the trees had deepened with late afternoon. Satisfied, he sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork, which he'd crafted with far more skill than his woodcarving of earlier. Unfortunately, it was only the first of three traps which he'd have to construct before it became too dark to see. But if any one of them paid off, Natquik would be eating something tomorrow that wasn't Miyo's strange-tasting vegetables, and that alone gave him the motivation to continue. Dusting off his knees, he pushed himself to his feet.
The low growl of a nearby animal gave him pause. Turning, he caught sight of a gray-and-white-striped boater's fox in the underbrush, its distinctive paddle-shaped tail and wide-cupped ears giving the creature its name. These it laid flat with forceful menace, though the tiny animal hardly posed any threat to Natquik's good humor. Yet his pleasant mood quickly vanished as he saw what the furry little animal now clutched in its furry little mouth. His good water skin, made out of quality tiger-seal stomach.
Though the fox didn't know it, it had just written its own death sentence, and Natquik pulled his knife from his belt. The fox growled again, poised low in the leafless brush, its blue, feral eyes communicating its ferocity. As if daring him to make the first move. Natquik waited a long moment, then snapped his arm back to hurl his knife at the beast's head.
Sap still clung to the handle, causing him to throw the blade wide of its mark. Even before the knife landed with a dull 'clunk' in the ground, the fox was gone through the forest, a streak of white against the deep brown of the undergrowth. Cursing under his breath, Natquik quickly collected the weapon and his satchel, then dashed after it.
The fox's coloring was meant for ponds rather than trees, the gray-and-white stripes blending in with shadowed waters. Because of this, it stood out against the forest floor, providing Natquik's only hope of catching the creature. Small though that hope was, Natquik persevered in his chase, crashing through brambles and tumbling down short rock faces whose precipices were too abrupt to see. Desperate to find water where it could hide, the fox persevered as well, its oil-coated fur flashing iridescent rainbows in the last vestiges of sunlight as it placed more and more distance between him and his water skin. But without that water skin, Natquik would be essentially defenseless, his waterbending not strong enough to use the air as a source. So panting hard, his face scratched more than once by undetected branches, Natquik fought a quickly losing battle.
He felt the water before he saw it—the sizeable source of a hidden pond tugging at his chi. The realization that his foe, now lost in a stand of laurel trees that blocked his view, had finally reached its destination spurred Natquik into a renewed sense of desperation, and discarding his satchel beside a fallen log, he dodged through the barrier of trunks. But water didn't greet him when he emerged. At least, not at first. Instead, he stumbled onto a black-pebbled bank, and a wide pond stretched in front of him. That was all he had time to see—that, and a flash of blue, and brown, and the soft flesh tones of bare skin as the air rippled and condensed. Acting with a sense of instinct that saved him more often than sheer luck, Natquik leapt back on his foot, jerking one hand high as the other curved across his midsection. In response, water rushed up at the edge of the bank, forming an ice shield to protect him.
It rocked violently under an invisible gust of wind, the trees whipping and groaning to either side of him. For a moment, Natquik feared the wall would break and shower him with ice needles, which would only be a precursor to the barrage he knew would greet him once he lowered his defense. As a result, he held the shield until the quaking trees had settled, and until he'd gathered his composure well enough to face the new threat.
When he melted the ice into the water, Natquik could find no trace of the fox. The pond that lay before him was clear, shallow enough that the rounded black pebbles of the shores followed a lazy incline into its depths. All along the perimeter of the dark beach, stands of laurel and ginkgo grew, their green and bronze leaves catching the reflection of the pond such that a forest sprouted in the water, the violet azure of the early-evening sky encompassed in its center. And towering over all of it was a cropped mountain peak, deceptively close behind the distant trees.
Then in the midst of the trembling forest reflection was Miyo, up to her neck in the water, her face a startling pink that reached her high-set hairline and made her blue arrow practically glow. Her expression was a mixture of indignation and horror, which filled him with inexplicable guilt. Beside her, resting atop a rocky projection on which he was sure she'd been sitting when he arrived, were her neatly folded robes.
"Dear spirits, Miyo, it's just me." Despite his best attempts at composure, Natquik heard his voice quaver a little too much for his liking. In response, Miyo waded closer to the rock, her hair, half-loose from its bun, trailing behind her.
"I know it's you." Her own voice still held her shock, but there was accusation in her gaze. "What are you doing here?"
"I had a run-in with a little thief." His anxiety lessened the more certain Natquik became that Miyo wasn't going to unleash her bending on him, but the air still prickled with the tension of their encounter. In an attempt to dispel it, he crouched at the edge of the shore and scooped up a handful of thick, wet gravel, clumps dripping from his fingers. With his elbows balanced against his knees, he scrubbed at the sap that covered his palm. "Don't suppose you saw a boater's fox and a water skin come through here?"
"I'm naked."
"Yeah. I see your clothes next to you."
"Natquik…" His easygoing attitude didn't put her at ease; in fact, it had the opposite effect, offending her even more, and she clutched the rock in front of her with barely controlled frustration, her damp hair framing the striking gray of her irate eyes.
"I'm a healer. Believe me, I've seen my share of undressed women. You have nothing that would surprise me." That may have been a bit untrue; after all, no Water Tribe woman had those same tattoos, which touched the tips of her knuckles and traced a path along her arms. Natquik didn't know where they ended, as this was the most of her skin he'd ever seen. Perhaps they followed the curve of her back, past her hips, and to the gentle dip in—
Startled, Natquik shied away from the thought. He hadn't intended to think about her like that, but suddenly, he felt as if he'd been spying on her from the trees all along. The heated flush that crept up Miyo's neck implied that she thought the same.
"You need to leave. Now." There was no leniency in her voice—no shred of doubt that gave room for his innocence. Not that Natquik was in any position to plead his case; his conscience was too busy upbraiding him for his lascivious thoughts, and his mind was too busy dwelling on how much of her skin must be blushing below the water, too.
One thing, though, was certain: Natquik agreed that he needed to leave. "Don't worry, I'm going. All I wanted was my water skin." Which he really had no hope of finding now, nor was he going to get any more traps set. The afternoon had fast become a waste, if not an outright disaster. He stood, wiping the remaining gravel on the hem of his coat, and held up a hand in apology before turning away. Miyo would likely forgive him for the intrusion, but not until she'd had a few hours to think about it. So while he waited for the awkwardness to pass, Natquik intended to find his satchel. And pray in the meantime the rotten fox hadn't returned to eat the meager portions of seal jerky he'd saved inside.
Before Natquik had reached the boundary of the trees, however, Miyo's sharp gasp and the sound of sloshing water made him look back. She had pushed away from the rock, her back toward him as she swept her gaze over the pond, one hand clasped protectively against her shoulder. She hesitated, then jutted her palm into the water, creating a breeze that left a foamy wake on the surface.
His curiosity getting the better of him, Natquik lingered on the beach. "What happened?"
"Something bit me," she mumbled as she drew her hand back to examine her fingers, the embarrassing talk of earlier now forgotten. "I think it was a snake."
Suddenly, the encounter was wiped from Natquik's mind, too, as icy spears of dread skewered his chest. Moving without registering the action, he went back to the shore, but this time he dipped low at his knees, sliding the front foot along the pebbles as he circled his hands about his chest and shoved forward. In response, a track of ice shot across the surface of the water, toward the rock outcrop that held Miyo's clothes. Yet before it had even solidified, Natquik was sprinting over the frozen bridge.
Water snakes were too well known in the South, too well feared for him to take the threat of one lightly. Perhaps the continental species were innocuous, and as Natquik dropped to a crouch on the rock, Miyo's robes tumbling into the water before him, he fervently prayed that was true. But he couldn't take that chance. Ignoring the alarmed questions that Miyo kept repeating, her voice high and shaky, Natquik stuck his fingers into the water. Ripples danced on the surface, and he had to close his eyes to feel each one. They came from a thousand sources, a chorus of gentle vibrations that drowned each other out as they caressed his palm. He needed to search them all, just as he would follow the paths of chi in the body, looking for one—just one—
"What are you doing?" Miyo asked from behind him. Had asked more than once, he realized, but Natquik chose not to answer, his eyes snapping open as the snake came into 'view' with his bending. Rising slowly to his feet, he drew up his hands, and in response, a sphere of water emerged from the pristine violet sky reflection that quivered in the center of the pond. He couldn't be certain it was her snake, but he couldn't find any other. Not quickly enough, at least, and so he pulled the sphere toward him as Miyo tugged fitfully at his pant leg just above his boot. Looking down, Natquik saw that she'd wrapped her robes haphazardly around her, her gaze focused with dread on the shimmering orb.
"Natquik, what are you going to do to it?"
"I'm going to kill it." The water hovered in front of him now, and he could make out the snake, though he still didn't know what kind it was. The reptile writhed inside its shifting prison, unable to break through the surface tension his bending had created. Its scales were hidden under a thick, black-and-red coat of fur or wool that twisted violently with its movements, lending it an illusion of size. "Stay back."
"Don't!"
Her pleas went unheard as Natquik held the sphere suspended in front of him and gently breathed out. From the bottom of the sphere, the water quivered and began to freeze. Upward, the ice crept, and inside the snake's frantic struggle reached new heights of distress.
"Natquik, stop!" she repeated as the sphere became a ball of ice. Soon, the snake was nothing more than a silhouette whose movements quickly slowed as the ice leached the life from its body. It would be dead in moments, either drowned or frozen, and then he could set to work.
A wind slammed into Natquik so abruptly that he didn't have a chance to brace against it. The ice forgotten, he swung his arms out to catch himself, but there was nothing to catch himself with. Cold water raced up to meet him, engulfing him as the world momentarily inverted. His vision filled with bubbles and darkness, and he had to find the gravel bed with his feet before he could find the surface.
He came up, spluttering, just in time to see Miyo bring the ball of ice down with all of her strength against the rock. It shattered into five pieces, revealing the damp, red-mottled fur of the bizarre Earth Kingdom snake beneath. Now freed, the snake lay limp on the stone, its body jerking weakly with minute traces of life, but Natquik suspected it was only stunned. So he dove forward with an awkward splash, the pebbled bottom giving his feet no purchase as he slid back into the water. By the time he regained his balance, the snake had recovered and slithered off its perch, lost in the anonymous ripples of the pond.
He still could catch it. The waves produced by his fall had wiped out the animal's subtle wake, but he knew it couldn't be far. He just had to flatten the water—smooth the surface and look for the serpentine disturbance of its body. Yet as Natquik lifted his hands to attempt the nearly impossible task of removing every ripple on the pond, Miyo suddenly sprung in front of him and snatched his wrist from the air. "I said stop!"
"I need its blood." He tried to yank his arm free, and almost threw her in the water as a result. But she held tight, her fingers digging into the skin just below his sodden cuff.
"Leave it alone! It's just a snake."
"I can't heal snake bites, Miyo!"
The panic Natquik had been denying flooded his voice, and he finally met her gaze with the full force of his urgency. Her look, however, brought him up short. She was soaked, locks of her hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead. Her naked shoulders shook both from the effort of holding his arm and retaining her modesty, as her free arm clutched the orange robes against her breasts and stomach. They clung to her waist and floated lazily in the water near her hips, yet Miyo didn't notice the haphazard way she covered herself. Her eyes were focused solely on him, the strength of her grip promising that whatever it took, she intended to stop him.
"Don't hurt it," she said lowly.
Natquik couldn't fight her. Even when every lesson he'd learned, every bit of his healer instinct stated that he was making a mistake, Natquik found himself unable to battle the stern sincerity that she leveled on him. "I know you don't understand, and I know you don't agree. But please, let me do this."
Some of the vulnerability he was feeling must have come through with his words; almost as soon as he finished speaking, Miyo's unwavering gaze seemed to falter. Even the tight clench of her fingers lessened, and for a moment, Natquik thought that she might relent. But then the color abruptly drained from her cheeks, turning her skin a sickly white as her eyes rolled into her head, and her body swayed backwards. Natquik barely caught her before she collapsed.
"Miyo? No!" He lifted her to the rock and bent clear the broken ice shards before laying her down. Her head rolled away lifelessly as he pressed two fingers to her throat, her skin already clammy with the wet and cold. There in her neck, he found a thready pulse, which seemed to ebb and flow with her shallow breaths.
He had to get her warm, he had to get the venom out, he had to recapture the snake—Natquik had to do a thousand things at once, and he didn't even know where to begin. But while his mind struggled to organize itself into the stepwise fashion that such situations required, Natquik felt Miyo fading under his fingers. Terror finally prompted him to move, and he gathered her up again, his hands snagging in her hair as he held her.
He needed dry land. But in order to get there, Natquik would have to relinquish any hope of catching the snake, which he would also need if he wanted to save her. He paused in that tense moment, torn between two decisions that both seemed to result inevitably in death. But the moment passed quickly—he couldn't waste any more time, and with a cry of frustration, Natquik swooped his hand low over the water. In response, a swell rose from the pond, and he hugged Miyo to his chest as the wave pushed them upward, lifting them off the rock. Then they were rushing toward the shore, propelled by his bending, and Natquik shoved the thought of the snake from his mind.
The decision was made; the bones had been thrown. All he could do now was get to the beach, and pray that Miyo hadn't just given her life to save another.