By Blood and Iron
. helium lost .
Author's Notes: I had this plot bunny from a month or two ago. All I ask of you is to not just automatically flame or dislike this fic or something based on the idea. Thanks.
Anyway, I had originally planned for this to be written as a one-shot, but when I finished the first section, I realized that it would be way too long to squeeze into 9,000-10,000 words, which is the length of the longest one-shot I've written. So, I'm splitting it up into chapters. Hopefully, this one won't die, like all my other multi-chaptered fics. -.-;
Enjoy!
• 1 •
Professor Maikotsu tumbled out of the reach of the forest, wheezing as he regained his footing, supporting himself with his hands on his thighs. Sweat dripped down the sides of his dirt-smeared face; his hat rested askew atop his head, and there were various rips and tears in the fabric of his clothing. Numerous scratches adorned his exposed flesh, most of them still bright red and fresh.
Not exactly his idea of a perfect expedition, wandering around the rainforest for days, surviving on whatever flora and fauna he happened to come across (luckily for him, he'd taken an in-depth botany class in his younger years, without which he would undoubtedly be dead by now). He knew it had been a bad idea to come alone—no, scratch that, a horrible, seriously hideous idea—but no one else was interested in looking for those fabled animals, and his itching curiosity to find out whether or not toucan-monkeys existed had gotten the better of him.
He straightened up and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his mangled sleeve, taking in a couple more gulps of air. He raised a hand and shielded his eyes against the sun, inspecting the clearing.
What he found astonished him.
Glittering in the mid-afternoon sun about five small huts, constructed with a primitive form of mud bricks—but the bricks didn't look primitive: they were crafted expertly, in a very sophisticated manner, each one cut precisely to fit the other, a precision that was hard to obtain with any sort of tool he knew of.
But, as all people know, mud doesn't glitter, no matter how well it's cut—rather, it was the ornate decorations coiled around the bricks that glittered; it was those same decorations that astonished him.
They weren't just little pieces of metal stuck to the huts—no, each thread of metal kept an even width its whole length, and each of the small shapes running parallel to the threads was exactly the same size and shape as the others, as if they had been copied from a single template—but there was, really, nothing that could do that. Nature can't even do that, he thought to himself. Even identical twins have some distinguishing feature separating them. His eyes darted over the rest of the huts, noting that they were all crafted in the same way, with the same eerie precision.
As his eyes swept over the village, something caught his eye. He backtracked, and his jaw dropped when his eyes set on what was standing in the middle of the clearing, equidistant from all the huts—a statue, amazingly detailed and anatomically correct for what he was assuming was a small, primitive tribe (though that assumption was rapidly being shattered). It was a metal statue of a woman and a man, back to back, the woman slightly shorter than the man; both had their hands held out before them, blobs of shiny metal flowing up from their palms. He had thought at first that it was a statue of waterbenders, but, glancing around, he saw that the majority of the clearing was land, not water; there was a small stream running through the forest not too far from the clearing, but it could hardly be enough for waterbending…
But, as he glanced around again at the glittering metal, only one explanation came to mind, and it was a preposterous one, at that.
He had, somehow, stumbled upon a clan of metalbenders.
But that was a ridiculous idea—everyone knows that there are only four types of benders, and metal isn't one of them.
Yet, it was possible…
Judging from the location of the village, nestled deep in the heart of the rainforest, and the size of the clan, it looked as if the clan didn't get very much contact with the outside world—so, even if they were metalbenders (Not likely, he thought, but with definite hesitation), the outside world probably wouldn't know about them—in fact, he could possibly be the first outsider to have encountered them.
As for metalbending itself… Supposing a small group of earthbenders had split off from the rest of the pack, back in the days of early man, and had settled here, isolating themselves from the rest of humanity… Supposing some sort of natural event had caused the need to metalbend to arise, and had caused it to be passed down from generation to generation… He shook his head, but some part of his brain told him that maybe, just maybe, that was what had happened—essentially, earthbending and metalbending would be very similar.
Another part of his brain told him that he would have to find a member of this clan and just get him or her to metalbend. He'd believe it if he saw it with his own eyes, and, as the current head of anthropology at the Fire Nation's most prestigious university, he couldn't free himself from the strings of curiosity that tugged at him. If they really were metalbenders, then this could be the greatest find of the century—maybe even of the last few centuries.
Out of the corner of his eye, Professor Maikotsu saw something move. He turned quickly, then took a step back, eyes widening. In his haste to examine the architecture and hypothesize about the origin of metalbenders, he had passed clean over the man sitting in the doorway of the hut closest to him.
And now, that man was standing up.
He was by far the strangest man that Professor Maikotsu had ever seen—the only clothing he wore was a loincloth, as well as sandals. But what was more interesting was the glittering—there were small pieces of metal embedded all over his face, in his ears, and in various other places, as well. Upon closer inspection—that is, as the professor tried to examine the man from as close as possible while still maintaining a respectable distance, in case the man was hostile—Professor Maikotsu realized that the pieces of metal were pierced through his skin. On his eyebrow, there were various bars with little orbs at both ends; a ring pierced the center of his lip, two more orbs on either side of it. His ears were adorned with no fewer than seven piercings each.
The professor saw the man approaching him, then backed away cautiously; the man's pierced, metallic look was shocking enough, nevermind his strong stature—one that could chuck him away to the next continent, if he decided that foreigners weren't welcome. The man caught up with the professor quickly enough, baring down on him with his eyes, which were a silvery-gold color; the professor returned the gaze with his amber eyes, trembling slightly.
The man said something, rapidly. The professor blinked.
"…What?" he said. The man raised an eyebrow, then turned and looked at a woman not too far behind him, who had emerged from the hut, curious. He said something to her, and she replied, both in that language that he couldn't understand.
But as they continued, Professor Maikotsu realized that he could understand a word or two here and there, and the occasional phrase. Understanding dawned on him when he realized that they were speaking a dialect of the common tongue—not surprising, seeing how they had probably been isolated for a long time. It was only logical that their language took off, as well.
The man turned back to Professor Maikotsu, then reached up and took his hat. The professor didn't protest, instead looking at the small bars driven through the webs between the man's fingers, wincing. The man examined the hat, looking at it from all angles, then untied the string at the bottom. He placed it on his own head, imitating the professor; the woman behind him laughed, and he grinned. The professor was relieved to see that they were both friendly.
The man returned the professor's hat to him, then bowed slightly and said, "Welcome."
The professor smiled. There was a word that hadn't been changed through years of isolation. He bowed back and said "Thank you", hoping that the phrase had remained the same, as well.
Judging by the smile on the man's face, it was.
• • •
Author's Notes: As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, especially constructive criticism. :) Also, I might change the title, seeing how I don't like the current one very much.