If you don't know, I'm depressed. So mostly right now my writing will ALL be depressing. -sigh-
Title: Cry into the River
Pairings: Hinted LongshotxSmellerbee
Characters: Mentioned Jet, Song, Longshot and Smellerbee
Rating: PG-13 for major angst and death.
Summary: Song doesn't know how she wound up in this swamp, all she does know is that she hates it and all it is doing is make her miss her mother even more. Although few good things come out of the swamp, meeting two certain freedom fighters are one of them.
She doesn't know how she's got here. She doesn't know when she started running, when she couldn't take it anymore. Like most refugees, the only thing she and her mother had left was hope.
But she would find that hope was a stupid glimmer of a wish that only the foolish relied on. She had been ignorant to believe in it. She'd hoped her father would home, she'd hoped the war would end, she'd hoped for better days, and disdainfully—mockingly, after everything she'd done for the sick—none came true.
Someone in the Spirit World was whispering into other's ears and pointing at the girl who had relied on hope. Hope, she spits bitterly.
She's been on foot for weeks. She's considered hoping for her ostrich-horse, but then has quickly reminded herself that hope has only destroyed everything she's loved. And now here she stands, staring up at the entrance to nothing. Vines limply hang off giant trees, the water is murky and to her ankles, and a thick fog looms over the entire stretch of swamp. She should've taken directions in the last town.
Treading through the water, she can feel things swimming around her feet. Normally she would've squirmed, but now she doesn't want to care if she makes it through this horrible swamp or not. She tramps on.
Ahead lays a small base of land. She rushes to it, and begins to undress. She only has three changes of clothes; two are her casual clothes, which were spared in the fire, and the work wear she had been wearing. Her work clothes, by now are soaked and she is forced to change into a much more revealing cotton slip. It stops before her knees, and if she had any dignity, she would feel bare.
She doesn't care though; not anymore.
"Song," someone scolds behind her. The voice is very familiar…could it be? She turns, and sure enough, her mother is standing with her hands at her hips, a very disapproving scowl of her outfit.
"Mother?" She chokes out. Her voice is weak from lack of use and pure shock.
"What are you doing, dressed like that? What if someone sees you?"
Tears form in her brown-green eyes as she stutters with her words. "I…I didn't want to ruin my clothes…" Song trails off, stepping towards her mother. Her hand reaches out to touch her face.
"I'm very disappointed in you," her mother says an instant before Song's hand reaches her face. She is gone before she can be touched. Her voice echoes once around the swamp.
Song's knees give out on her and she collapses to the ground. She hugs them to her chest and buries her face in the small gap between her legs. She cries again for the first time in weeks. For how long and how hard she is crying she does not know, all that she does know that she is weak and should stop.
She doesn't. Rivers of salty tears pour out of her like a waterfall crashing onto sharp rocks below, sometimes falling harder with a hiccup. Her head begins to pound like someone is hitting their fists against her forehead.
"You." A perfectly manicured finger points in Song's direction. Her pulse quickens and breathing speeds up; her mother subtly steps in front of her. "You know the travelers, don't you? You know who I'm talking about." Her voice is so cold and knowing, seeing through anything Song tries to hide. A sweet grin paints across her face.
"It's okay, healer," she says, trying to be compassionate and sweet. She's good at it. "I just want to know where they went."
Song's eyes dart down; maybe if she ignores the fire nation girl, she will move on. Her eyes flash up—just for a split second—and the girl is angry. She can't be older than Song herself, nor her companions, and yet everyone is shivering with terror.
"I said," the girl's voice is angry and cold again; smile is gone, "what do you know?" Song wants to speak up, but two things are preventing her. The first is the fact that she can't process any words in her mind actually out of her mouth, she is so scared, and the second is the picture of Li's horrified, sympathetic eyes in her head.
The girl is fed up by now. In the blink of the eye her arm shoots forward, grabbing her mother by her collar and pulling her towards the fire nation crew. Another smile has taken over her face, but this time it is far from kind. It is evil and sneering as the girl points two fingers at her mother's temple. "Maybe this will help you find your voice?" Eerily, the girl's voice is blank.
She has been rocking herself for perhaps hours, Song does not know, when something in the water splashes. Her head shoots up, clear water still rolling down her cheeks, and does her best to calm herself. The loud cawing of some type of bird echoes in the background.
Just when she has calmed herself, the water splashes again and from it ascends a snake-fish. It hisses and bares it's long, pointed, venomous teeth.
Song does not scream, but she does gasp out of pure terror. The beast is about to strike, and both are ignorant to the sound of air being sliced. Whizzing through the swampy fog is a wooden arrow. It hits the snake-fish in the neck, almost severing completely through. The creature wobbles for a few moments before collapsing into the water with a loud splash.
Song is still breathing heavily, partially from crying, before she realizes the creature is dead and someone is approaching. Splashing through the water is a boy with a dark coolie hat and a quiver of arrows on his back. From what she can make out, he has a larger nose and (although hidden) compassionate eyes.
He offers her his hand. Hesitantly she grabs it, feeling a little awkward about her attire. "Thank you," she says, though she is not too sure if she would've liked to be saved. "What's your name?"
He tips his chin up so he can look at her better; instantly she understands. "Oh," she murmurs somewhat sadly. "My name is Song." A corner of his lip curls slightly. She reaches down for her pack, which he silently takes from her arms and places onto his own back, bumping against his quiver.
She opens her mouth to protest, but a look from the archer shuts it.
They begin to walk, and after a while Song speaks. "Are you lost too?" He nods. "Are you trying to get to the other side?" It's such a stupid question, she notes afterward, but he still nods again. He looks at her; she's still getting used to deciphering his language and it takes her a while to comprehend.
"No, I'm not sure if I am," she says after a while, even after she's figured out what he meant.
---
They are tending the fire when they hear rustling coming out of the dark trees surrounding them. Her companion and rescuer signals for Song to be quiet as he stands, silently drawing an arrow from behind him. He aims it and holds it there, an intense gaze at the moving vines.
Moments later a boy stumbles through. He has a shaggy mop of hair and a awkward, lanky body. His eyes are wide and dazed, as though he's been wandering for hours.
Song then sees the most emotion ever displayed by her companion. He drops the arrow then steps forward (quickly, but not rushing) to the boy and hugs him. The archer then leads the other boy back to their little camp. Song finds the boy staring at her curiously, with a somewhat angry expression (she at first thinks it jealous, but can't see a reason for him to be).
The closer he gets to her, the plainer it is for her to see that he is not so much of a he after all. You would either have to study her closely or well…be a girl to notice it. Song realizes she had been right; the girl was eyeballing her questioningly. "I'm Song," she says politely. She would've liked her voice to sound cheerier, but that's been something hard for her lately.
"Smellerbee," the other girl says after giving her another once-over. A small, brewing hatred forms deep within Smellerbee as she greets the pretty—no, beautiful—girl before her. She is fully developed, with full lips and big eyes—but not too big; like hers—and silky, long, kept hair.
In short, everything Smellerbee is not.
"How do you two know each other?" Smellerbee asks, attempting to smother any jealousy in her voice. Instead of looking to Song for an answer, she rolls her head to the archer-boy (who's name Song still does not know). He looks at her, and she nods with a small smirk.
"His name is Longshot," Smellerbee tells her after they've all gotten used to each other's company. By now, Song has learned that the two are traveling to Ba Sing Se with another boy, and all three had gotten separated in the swamp. The third boy was still nowhere to be found, but Smellerbee has assured her that he can take care of himself fine.
Song looks at Longshot, who is off to the side polishing his arrows and decides it fits him well. He catches her gaze and sends back a sideways glance, asking what she is looking at. She drops her eyes.
By the time Smellerbee speaks again, their fire is starting to die. "Did you…see anything while in the swamp? Something strange?"
The question catches Song completely off guard. "What?" She asks. Longshot watches them both as he scrapes a rock against the edge of an arrow. Suddenly consumed with embarrassment, Smellerbee gets halfway through her excuse before Song interrupts her. "Yes," she whispers. "My mother."
"I saw my Dad," Smellerbee adds softly. "He died in a Fire Nation raid, along with the rest of my village."
Song wants to be as brave and comfortable with it as Smellerbee is, but instead she furrows her brows and stares down at the twigs at her feet. Smellerbee looks to Longshot, who stops his sharpening and also stares downward. "You too?"
He blinks.
Smellerbee pulls her knees to her chest for warmth. "I don't like this place."
"Fire Nation killed both my parents too," someone says, and Song is shocked to realize that it is her. "A group of soldiers took my father away…and an evil girl looking for fugitives killed my mother."
The crickets chirp and all Song sees is Smellerbee's sympathetic eyes as everything around her flashes. Her head hurts.
"You're not telling me everything!"
"No! Please, I swear, that's all I know!" She's crying now; so weak, Azula notes.
"Liar," she hisses. The solemn girl refolds her arms and shifts her balance onto her other foot. The third girl clasps her hands at her stomach and worriedly watches on.
"Azula, I think she's telling the truth." Song hears the panic in her voice; she feels sorry for them.
"Fine." Azula, the Fire Nation girl, releases and pushes Song's mother back towards her daughter. Azula gets not ten feet before clenching her fists and with a contorted face shoots a blaze of blue fire at Song. Song does not see it, but her mother does.
Song finds herself on the ground, watching the fire consume a person it was not meant for.
---
Awkwardly, Smellerbee holds Song's hair back. Her stomach churns and she vomits again, sobbing into the gooey pile of all she's eaten in the past two days.
Longshot watches the scene unfold, unmoving. Finally Song's cries are too much to take and he picks up his rock and arrow. He hits the rough rock sharply against the arrow as he watches the embers escape from their dying fire, as if they are reaching for something better.
Then they fade away as if they were never there to begin with, disappearing into the terrible night.
Well thats not depressing or anything. As you probably know, I like messing with the canon plot.
I might continue this. Might not. All you need to know is that they get out eventually.