A/N Shout out to my new followers: Rankakiu, Gia Dinh Hang, Goku275, and Jessica9906! Thank you also for favoriting my story! :) Thank you to my guest reviewer for the review! Yes, the Mai and Ty Lee chapters are some of my favorites to write. So much to explore with them! :)
The smell of smoke reaches him before the flames do. He wants to run the other way. He knows how this ends.
Ignoring his mind's desperate cries to turn away, to find somewhere else to go tonight, his body wanders nearer to the chaos.
He can hear the roar of the flames as they lick over buildings and into the sky. He's suddenly in the village's center, although he'd stopped moving.
Around him is total mayhem. People are running, soldiers shout.
He hears a woman scream.
He dashes to his own home, and it's remains smolder on the ground. He digs through the wreckage, desperate to find anything.
The light of the fires is gone and a small, cold breeze blows ash and rubble about.
He knows he has searched the entire village for his mother, although he doesn't remember doing so, and that this is the only place left.
He doesn't know how to process the horror he sees. Surely, this is someone else inside their home! Maybe a neighbor had come to visit and Mom had been in the market!
Soldiers and flames surround him again as he cries, and one of them turns. He sees short hair, the flash of a scar, and two swords.
Then, rain comes, cooling the flames around him, the sound soothing his heart, and cleaning all the dirt and tears off his face.
He takes a deep breathe, and welcomes the cool, calm darkness that wraps around him.
((page break)) ((page break)) ((page break))
When he opens his eyes, it's just dawn. The air is still crisp and cool from the night before. He takes one of his new longsleeved shirts to keep warm, and heads over to their host's house to get breakfast.
Feng and Xue were always up at the crack of dawn and Lee can always smell breakfast cooking as he makes his way over each morning.
"Good morning, Lee." Xue greets him with a bowl of fruit. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah, fine, thanks." He lies. He seats himself at the table with a handful of grapes and an apple.
"Where's Hua?" He asks. She's usually around cleaning the rest of the house, already having eaten breakfast. She's always stopped in to greet him. But today, she doesn't appear.
"She's with Zuko. I think he's teaching her a meditation technique." Xue says, placing some rice pudding with cinnamon in front of him, and a plate with sliced cucumbers and carrots next to it.
Lee eats quickly, as always, eager to get out and see what everyone is doing.
"They're working on the shrine today, right?" He asks, being careful to swallow before he speaks, like Xue has been gently reminding him.
"Yes, they are. They'll probably start in another hour or so. If you decide to watch, be sure not to get in the way. If they tell you to move, do it. It could be dangerous." She starts washing dishes.
Lee hands her his plates and bowl and dashes outside, hoping some of his new friends might be up early. Nobody is out and about yet, except for some farmers on their way out to the fields.
The merchants in the markets are just setting up their stalls for the day.
Lee briefly contemplates the idea of going swimming again, but decides that probably wouldn't be a good idea without somebody with him after last night's near miss with drowning.
So, he wanders close to the shrine. There are a few people milling about, and he can't tell if they are working, or waiting for the Earthbenders to show up. So, he follows the cliffside, just exploring.
As the Sun rises over the horizon on his left, he can smell the dew on the grass and dirt around him. A fresh, clean smell, like the world is renewed from it's night's slumber.
Birds start their daily song, and Lee watches a seagull sailing across his path.
Another one comes up behind him, and he tries to race it along the cliff. He lifts his arms as he runs, gaining speed. He can barely feel his feet on the ground. The faster he runs, the lighter he feels. He laughs aloud, and the morning air blowing past him in his rush seems to laugh with him.
He flaps his arms once, jumping as hard as he can. The ground dips below him, and for a brief moment, he feels he's flying with the bird!
But, it's just the cliff starting to dip down a steep path, and Lee comes crashing back down. His previous speed carries him forward and he winds up rolling downhill, his feet dangling over the cliffside path, with nothing but rocks and water below and his body seeming to hit every bump, root, and rock on the path. Probably because it is.
When he stops rolling and bouncing, he lying curled up on his side, his head still spinning and his stomach starting to cramp up from running so soon after breakfast.
The bird he'd been trying to race lands on a jagged boulder about fifteen feet away and eyes him with it's head cocked sideways. It almost seems to Lee like the bird is laughing at him.
"Well, you try being stuck on the ground like me and see how well you do!" Lee shouts at him, disgruntled.
He picks himself up and looks over his various small injuries. Cuts and bumps that will become bruises litter his arms and legs, and there is at least one sore spot on his back. His stomach is still cramping painfully too.
He looks back up the narrow path and realizes how lucky he was not to roll off the side of it. He thinks about going back up. The sky is getting light enough now that the Earthbenders might be showing up for work, and he wants to see if he can figure out how to Earthbend by watching them.
But he also notices the rocks along the cliff. They look like a lot of fun to jump on, and the roar of the waves is as tempting as the bird was before.
Running forward, ignoring the lingering ache in his stomach, arms, and legs, he leaps over the gaps, from rock to rock. The spray of the seawater stings his cuts a little, but between the cool air and the cool water, he's feeling that less and less. The roar of the waves thunders through his very being and he feels like a part of something wild and beyond time.
He stops on a rock that points up at the sky, taller than most of the others and closes his eyes, stretches out his arms and leans into the wind, just a little. It holds him up, and the sound pounds all around him, and he just wants to stay like this forever. A part of the wind and the sea, free of time and memory, just in the here and now, blanketed by Forever.
"Lee! That's not safe!" A voice calls out to him. He stands up straight again, opens his eyes, and turns to see Cinderman rock jumping his way over to him.
He glares as the Firebender gets to him, and thinks of how much he'd like to throw him in the water for spoiling his morning. His eyes flicker over to the waves dashing themselves against the rocks and decides the guy probably doesn't quite deserve that level of punishment.
A sudden rumble through the ground shakes Lee up to his stomach. He wobbles a little. Cinderman is almost to him when the second tremor has him kneeling and clinging to the rock for balance.
Cinderman's hand reaches for him just as a third, more violent thrust of the earth brings a large wave of water up, sweeping Lee down to the cold, chaotic depths below.
All around him, the water pounds, pulling at his hair and clothes. He can feel himself being spun around, and he reaches out for anything to get a hold of and climb to safety.
There is a sharp pain in his back as his gash from his earlier tumble is widened and deepened by the fury of water and stone.
His lungs are screaming for air, as he is dashed against the seafloor. His ears pop, so he knows he's at least fifteen feet down now. The brutal water jams him into a space between two jagged rocks, and his arms pin him there of their own accord. He can still feel the vibration of the work going on above him, and in his mind he sees a flash of him being crushed by the cliffside falling on him from above.
A surge of current tugs him around so he's facing up, the gash on his back grinding into the sand and gravel beneath him. He gazes up numbly at the swirl of the colors of the lightening sky above the water's surface, the ripples creating shifting patterns of shadows in the light.
It would be beautiful, if Lee dared to reach for it. He can't let go of his handholds though. His body, seemingly now out of his control, has a death grip on them. A sob of fear jolts through him and he inadvertently inhales water. It makes him cough, which makes him inhale more, now he's choking and his vision is going dark, and his hands are starting to slip even as he begs his body to hold on.
A large shadow passes over him, grips his wrists and wrenches them from the rock. He struggles as much as he can, his body convulsing in it's attempts to rid itself of the water where air should be. The shadow pins his arms to his sides, and they head for the light above.
((page break)) ((page break)) ((page break))
"What were you thinking, Lee?! How did you even get down here?" Cinderman explodes.
"I flew." Lee deadpans. They are sitting under an overhang that protects them from the small bits of debris falling from above, and is just high enough to avoid the roiling water below, although the spray has Hua just as soaked as if she'd been in the ocean with them.
"That's not funny." Cinderman grunts. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
"Well, duh. I do now." Lee crosses his arms and glares at the ground. A mighty thump shakes the cliff behind them and the ground under them shudders.
"Why aren't you with your friends?" Hua asks, sounding a good deal calmer than either of them.
"Nobody was up yet." Lee shivers as the wind starts to chill him. His wet clothes sticking to him make it worse, and with the sting from his wounds, it feels like he is encased in equal parts fire and ice.
"So, again, how did you end up down here?" Cinderman glares back at him.
"I tried to race a bird. It lead me down here. Then, it kinda laughed at me." Lee pitches a pebble and watches it fall into the waves below.
"I see." He says, although his tone clearly indicates otherwise.
A particular large tremor sends Lee onto his back. He rolls onto his stomach and covers his head. Hua and Cinder do the same.
"I think we'll wait to go back up there until they go to lunch." Cinderman says.
An image of the narrow path pops up, unannounced and unasked for, in Lee's mind. He thinks of how close he'd come to tumbling off of it this morning.
He says nothing, but can definitely agree with the Firebender's decision.
He shivers, both from the cold and from the fear of the cliffside falling on them. He shudders each time a particularly large tremor hits. He's beginning to really regret following that stupid bird!
He reaches a hand out to slip his fingers into a crevice to hold onto, but they find a rock instead, and it comes up from the ground. The sudden movement makes feel like he's falling.
"Are you alright, Lee?" Hua asks, reaching a hand over to him.
"Yeah." He feels like he'll fall if he dares to move, so he doesn't reach over to take her hand. He keeps his body flat against the rock.
"Zuko was just showing me a meditation technique to calm down by breathing. Want to try?"
The ground seems to leap under him, carrying his heart up to his throat.
"Sure."
Following her instructions, he focuses his mind on his breaths going in and out. Reality seems to close down to just the feeling of his breaths and the sounds of the water below and the constant low rumble of moving earth above him.
Every now and then, the calm is interrupted by a jolt in the earth and his heart leaps up his throat, but on the whole, he's peaceful. It isn't nearly as difficult as he thought it would be to stay focused on just his breaths and the sounds around him.
"It helps to think of one thing or person that you really like." Hua suggests. The world opens up again briefly, as he open his eyes to acknowledge her suggestion with a nod. Sound seems to flood his ears, as though it had been muffled slightly before. He closes his eyes and breathes again, in and out, in and out.
He brings up an image of Sensu standing on top of what he imagines the wall of Ba Sing Se to look like. He imagines Sensu waving to him. He waves back, in his mind.
In and out, wind and water and earth around him, a calm warmth within him, in and out.
The image of Sensu in Ba Sing Se and his conversation with him become a little more real than the world around him.
Slowly, he drifts into his dreams.
((page break)) ((page break))
He wakes up when Cinderman shakes him gently.
"Time to go." He says.
Lee hops up and immediately regrets the sudden movement. His muscles scream and his gashes stretch, sending bolts of pain up and down his body. He winces.
"We'll get a look at those wounds at my place. And some lunch. Ok Lee?" Hua says. She places her hand on his uninjured shoulder. The other one is sporting a long cut with a nice black bruise underneath.
They make their way up the path, Lee doing his best not to look over the side and think about how little ground there was between him and it, and how far a fall back into sharp rocks and water.
They head immediately back into the village, Lee is too tired to insist on seeing the shrine in it's new form.
"I should probably clean out the shed, I didn't do it yet this morning." Cinderman says. "I'll meet you back at your place in an hour for a late lunch?"
"Sure." Hua smiles at him. "Come on, Lee. Let's take care of those wounds."
They head back to Hua's home, and Lee can smell a light chicken rabbit stew simmering on the stove.
"Lee?! What happened?!" Xue says, running towards him. She gently takes his arm and turns it around, seeing the gashes and cuts. Places that were only small bumps a few hours ago are now a mesh of purple and black bruises.
"I followed a bird, it led me down a bad path, it laughed at me. And I almost drowned when the Earthbenders started working." Lee summarizes quickly, the thought of food and his empty stomach making it difficult to think straight about anything else.
"I'll go run him a bath, Mama." Hua says, pulling out a chair for Lee at the table.
As soon as she's gone, Xue gets a bowl of soup and a little fruit bowl set up for Lee.
"Are you sure you're alright, Lee?" She asks, sitting beside him.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Did the Earthbenders already finish the shrine?" He takes a sip of milk from the cup she's handed him.
"Oh goodness, no!" She laughs. "I don't think they'll ever reach an agreement on that old thing! I think they must have built it up and torn it down four times already!"
"Why?"
"Why? Oh, who knows why. It's such an important project, and everybody wants to have a part in it. And every Earthbender in Chin Village wants to have a spot they can point out and say they were the ones who thought of some spectatcular idea for a layout or texture design." She laughs again. "I'll be glad when it's all over. I think all the noise and shaking is frightening my hens. We might have to go without eggs next week if this keeps up!"
Lee's thoughts are tired jumble of seagulls, eggs, Earthbending, Cinderman, and his stinging, aching body. He yawns and his eyes start to flutter closed once his stomach is full.
"Not yet, Lee!" Hua chuckles. When did she come back in? "Go take your bath, and when you get back out, we'll see about fixing up your wounds. Then, you can go nap."
As soon as his cut up ankles hit the warm water, he forgets all about how tired he is. He bits back a yelp as he eases into the soapy water, his whole body screaming. Particularly the gash on his back.
Tears spring to his eyes from the pain as he gingerly scrubs mud, sand, blood and sweat from his unhurt areas. Then, he soaks in the bath for a bit to let the wounds get cleaned out. He pats at the smaller ones on his arms and legs, wincing as he does so.
Slowly, the sting fades and the warm water is soothing as it eases the pain in his bruises and muscles.
He almost falls asleep again as he rinses off, but when the air hits his body as he goes to get dressed, it feels as if a hundred hornets have stung him.
He trudges back out to the kitchen, where Xue and Hua are waiting with bandages, ointment, and...
"What's the string for?" Lee asks, pointing.
"Don't worry about that for now." Xue smiles at him. "Just have a seat, and we'll have you right as rain in a bit."
He sits down and lifts his shirt so that they can see the gash on his back.
"This is the one that hurts the most?" Nothing in Hua's voice or tone suggests anything is particularly wrong, so he assumes it's not as bad as it feels.
"Yeah." He replies.
She smears ointment on it, after checking for dirt, while Xue examines his arms and legs.
"So, Lee, are you excited to go to Gao Ling in a few days?" Hua asks. He looks up at her. She passes him some candy and winks, placing a finger over her lips with a glance towards her mother.
Lee nods and tries not to grin too much.
"I might actually be going with you. Just to Gao Ling. But nothing is certain yet." She looks a little sad, although she smiles. Maybe a little scared too.
"Why?" He asks. He can't think of any reason for her to go with them. Except... "Are you getting married to Cinderman?!" He can't keep the disgust out of his voice.
"What?!" Hua looks genuinely shocked. "No! He has a girlfriend back home, Lee. I'm just going to see a friend of mine. It's not safe for me to travel alone."
Lee doesn't miss the light pink coloring her cheeks though.
He rolls his eyes.
It must be horrible to grow up. He thinks to himself. Being a soldier, exploring and not having anyone tell you what to do seem like fun. Hanging out with a girl all time? No, that does not.
"All done, Lee. Hop up. Be careful though. Don't do any climbing or swimming for a while. Wait at least a week." Xue says.
Lee darts for the door, ignoring the odd pulling sensation in his left arm. The last thing he wants is another lecture about how he should be nice to Cinderman.
His exhaustion starts to catch up to him, and he slows to a walk almost immediately after he's through the door.
He spots Cinderman coming up to the courtyard gate. He notices the man's hair is down from it's usual top knot with the gold piece.
"Whoa. What happened to your hair?" He asks, before he can stop himself.
"I gave my headpiece to Mayor Tong for the Avatar Shrine. It used to belong to my great grandfather Roku." He replies. He brushes a hand over where it normally sits on his head, almost looking like he expects it to still be there.
"Thank for, y'know, not letting me drown." Lee says, staring at the ground.
"No problem.
An awkward silence follows. Lee isn't sure why he's still following Cinderman back towards Hua's house. A seagull idly flies overhead and Lee glares and sticks his tongue out at it. It doesn't take any notice of him, and continues on it's merry way.
"Why were you up so early? I've never gotten you up that early without a fight." Cinderman's voice pulls him out of his thoughts of revenge on the local seagull population.
"I wanted to see the Earthbenders work! Maybe I'm Earthbender, and I just don't know it!" He says.
"And?"
"Well, I kinda didn't get to see them, remember?" Lee kicks a rock.
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
Another moment of silence.
"Do you know any Earthbending forms?" Cinderman asks, out of the blue.
"Nope! I'd be "learning from scratch." as Dad used to always say!" Lee feels his heart ache again when he thinks of Dad.
"Well, if that's the case, show me your best stance! Go ahead!" Cinderman challenges.
Lee adopts an over exaggerated stance and makes a punching movement towards the courtyard wall. It doesn't budge.
"Nope, I guess not." Cinderman smiles. Lee laughs.
"So, why were you teaching Hua how to meditate?" He asks.
"She's been dealing with some, uh, bullies lately. So I thought I'd show her a way to calm down when they upset her."
Lee doesn't miss the pause in his speech.
"What kind of bullies?" He asks, suspicious. The people here have been nothing but kind to him, even the kids.
"The kind that, uh, take your stuff and kick you out of your home." Lee decides that Cinderman is lying and that he's really bad at it.
"Right. What's really going on?" Lee presses.
"You don't need a reason to meditate, Lee! Sometimes it's just a good idea. What does Uncle always say? "A moment of quiet is good for your mental wellbeing." He was talking about tea. But meditation works too."
They stop at the door and Lee scampers off before he can sucked into one of those boring meetings adults are always so fond of.
A/N Ok, I know it's been a while since the last update. I'm really sorry about that! I generally have had a pattern of updating once every ten days to two weeks. But this time it got a little mixed up, because I had some traveling to do, work got crazy right before that, and now I've got a bit of a cold I'm dealing with (not covid, safe there). So, I've finally had time to sit down and write. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! I have some pretty good ideas for the next two or maybe three. It's just a matter of getting it written down. How do y'all like the Lee chapters? Am I developing him alright? Let me know what you think!