Where Words Fail
Book Four: Threshold Guardians
Chapter 4: The Creed: "Watch your step"
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a fan fiction - nothing more, nothing less. It has been made purely for entertainment purposes, and is not meant for commercial gain. Avatar: The Last Airbender and all characters, places and concepts are copyright of Nickelodeon, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. All original characters are copyright their respective owners and are used with their permission. The story has been illustrated by the talented and awesome SioUte, and this chapter's cover can be found here:
sioute(dot)deviantart(dot)com/art/WWF-4-4-142446973
SCENE DIVIDE
Skillet sighed, feeling the urge to let loose a particularly nasty curse, and planted her fists on her hips. She turned her full attention to the two younger Earthbenders that had come to appeal to her, her pigtails swishing. "Are you sure this is something you need me for, Mortar? You and Pestle are his official second in commands."
"Yeah, Miss Skillet, but Sneers don't always listen to us, especially when we're not in a fight," Mortar said, wiping her nose with the back of one dirty hand and cleaning it off on her tunic. "Besides, you're second in command, too!"
Well, that was true enough, to a degree. Sneers relied on her to help him manage the intelligence ring, and to wrangle in the younger Freedom Fighters, and valued her as his intellectual equal, but being his lieutenant had never really been an official thing. She paused, trying to think of where to go from there; rather than debate with Mortar over the issue, she decided it was best left alone. There was bigger business to attend to.
"How long has the idiot been locked up?" Skillet asked, closing her eyes tight and drowning the images of her kitchen - constructed on ground level, thankyouverymuch - in a sea of black. Still, it didn't take away the aroma of spices and sweets in the making, or the way the beef sizzled on the oven, the fat popping and snapping, a sound that reminded her of the rain smattering the ground in a downpour. These were all familiar things, but pushing at least part of it away made it easier for her to funnel her irritation. "And what, exactly, did he tell you?"
Skillet could hear Mortar shifting her weight uncomfortably - a familiar sound often accompanied by a confession from a youthful voice hushed by either fear, shame or scorn involving the current state of incompletion of their homework - before launching into her explanation. "He said he was going to meditate in Jet's - his hut for forty-eight hours on the future of the Freedom Fighters. The Duke and Pipsqueak and them...they kinda gave him a lot to think about, and...yeah. But he told us to keep up the training regimen for the other Freedom Fighters without him, an' told us to tell you to 'keep doing what you do.'"
"He what?" Skillet's eyes snapped open and she stomped the floor instinctively. She saw Mortar and Pestle flinch and withdraw a step; Skillet blew a puff of air upward, blowing her bangs clear of her forehead before they settled back into place. "I'm sorry. It's just typical that he wouldn't even come down to give me that sort of instruction in person."
"We asked him why he wasn't, Miss Skillet," Pestle murmured into her sister's shoulder, her chocolate-colored eyes glistening in the light cast by the candles clinging to the walls. "Didn't say."
Following the departure of their friends a few days ago, the - the emotional wringer Pipsqueak and The Duke had put Skillet, put all of them through - Pestle had managed to find her old self, the brief flare-up, the rebellion and passion subsiding, yielding to her bashful nature, once again taking to hiding behind Mortar's shoulder. Still...while Skillet had been careful not to press the issue directly, she'd seen the blond Earthbender react to somebody talking about - about Jet and the others. How she would tense up, she'd ball up her fists and her eyes would go narrow. She still stood by what she'd said that afternoon, and - Skillet felt a twinge of pride knowing that such a demure girl like her would stick so closely to her opinion, regardless of how controversial it was.
Skillet pursed her lips and shook her head. "Don't mind Sneers, girls. He's being a jerk." A jerk with a heart, and a jerk with an incredible brain (and body), but a jerk nonetheless.
Mortar nodded at first, then caught herself, and pressed her lips together tightly, her face flushing red. Skillet felt the urge to giggle rising up inside her and let it slip past her lips, patting Mortar on the head. "That's okay. It's our little secret."
Relief flooded the young girl's face, and Skillet smiled. Mortar and Pestle may have shown great potential as warriors, but their scholastic aptitude was really what made them stand out in Skillet's mind. As the second-oldest Freedom Fighter - only Mama Marlin stood above her - and lacking the same combat savvy the others possessed, she prided herself on being a teacher for the orphans (amongst her duties as head cook). And while she loved all of her 'students' equally, the Earthbending sisters were phenomenal with mathematics. They had designed and (with Pipsqueak) forged the very kitchen the trio now stood in, mapping out the specifications and green-lighting the operation with Jet, using their Earthbending to give life to their creation. This prodigious architectural knowledge the pair had made them a particular mark of pride for Skillet as an educator. The warriors would always have their scars to tell stories of; Skillet let her meals and the high marks of her students speak for her instead.
"Alright," Skillet murmured at last, reaching out for her precious frying pan - the only possession she had left from the Fire Nation raid on her home a few years ago. It laid on a stone countertop nearby, currently unused, but if Sneers insisted on remaining thick-headed, Skillet got the sneaking suspicion that she'd need to utilize it very soon. "Thanks for letting me know, girls. Follow Sneers' orders until I can get him to open his eyes, okay?"
"Yes, Miss Skillet!" Mortar balled one dirt-caked fist in front of her chest and wrapped the other hand around it, bowing her head; Pestle mimicked the move with more hesitancy, a pink blush wriggling across her face, before the twins turned and departed, Mortar pulling Pestle along by the hand.
Smiling, Skillet said, "So delightful," and used the image of the bowing Earthbender children with excellent grades in mathematics to steel herself for her upcoming ascent into the trees. Spirits knew she'd need it.
SCENE DIVIDE
Sneers had been the one to save her - a day she remembered with such clarity that focusing back on it at any given time was akin to reaching into the lake or river set near the forest's edge and touching the grainy floor beneath, feeling the sand swirl up around her fingers. Sneers had also been the one to first take her into the tree-mounted headquarters, urging her to hold onto him as tightly as she could while they rode the dropline up into the crimson boughs draped overhead. She had screamed, then - the ground had been so far away and the only thing holding them was a rope - a rope! - looped around just one of each of their feet (she stood on top of his), and the wind was everywhere and -
- Mortar and Pestle bowing, so delightful -
She did not, did not, did not like doing the treehouse thing when it could be avoided. Rowdy children that didn't do their homework? No problem. Squaring off against leery Fire Nation troops armed only with a cast-iron frying pan and the clothes on your back? A little bit of a tighter pinch, but doable with a marginal degree of success. Heights? Well. That was a beast right there, and one she never looked forward to conquering.
Skillet closed her eyes tightly and let a virulent curse seep from her lips. The word carried enough venom to make a panda lily wilt, but the Freedom Fighter's only teacher and head cook still didn't feel like it did justice to having to - to go up the dropline by herself. If Sneers wasn't such a self-involved idiot...
...okay, maybe that was unfair. Sneers genuinely cared for the well-being of the other Freedom Fighters, and even though he and Skillet were the same age, that care extended to her as well. The monk had shut himself away, but something about the circumstances didn't feel appropriate; he had gone on extended meditations in the past, but never for longer than a few hours. There was always too much that needed to be done. Before The Duke and Pipsqueak had returned, he spent much of his free time teaching the children various forms of combat and art as a way to find balance and peace within oneself, but ever since then, something had changed in the man, and this hide-away sabbatical raised a humongous red flag.
Skillet felt her grip on her namesake cooking instrument tighten, opened her eyes, and realized she had begun to white-knuckle the handle. She glanced upward - fading sunlight poked through what minimal gaps in the leaves existed, patches of glowing orange and pink the color of melon juice. She may not be a warrior, and she wasn't officially recognized as his lieutenant, but unlike Mortar and Pestle, Skillet had history with the monk. If he wouldn't listen to the two young architects-in-the-making, then he'd damn well better listen to his cook, teacher and intellectual peer.
(It was hardly a traditional friendship, by any means...but who was counting? Longshot and Smellerbee, and Pipsqueak and The Duke had had their own unique chemistry as well; seemed to come with the territory if you were a Freedom Fighter.)
Skillet sighed and reached for the higher loop on the fallen dropline, hanging at about eye level. She couldn't stand here forever and wait for something to happen; Sneers wouldn't magically detect a need for her to see him and appear to her, as convenient as something like that would be (Spirits knew she had enough to talk to him about at any given time, often inciting a heated debate that more often than not turned into a full-blown argument). She stuck her arm through the loop, wrapped it around her wrist once, twice, three times, before clenching the spiraling, splintering rope as tightly as she could. She stepped into the lower loop, which dangled just an inch or two off the ground; positioning the rope so that it lodged in the groove of her boot separating the heel from the rest of the sole, she forced herself to remember Mortar and Pestle, the former coated in filth, the latter shy and polite, and tugged on the upper loop -
"Eeeeeeyaaaah!"
She scrunched her eyes shut as the ground vanished beneath her, her cry ringing out through the boughs and echoing into the far reaches of the forest. All she had to do was - was stay calm, it wasn't so bad, it wasn't, it, oh Spirits she was gonna die -
The wind sweeping through her hair, making her pigtails jig and dance on either side of her head, came to a sudden halt, and the zipline bounced once, twice - and finally sat still. For a nauseating moment, Skillet refused to open her eyes and just make sure she'd arrived safely, but...what if the zipline had stopped short - what if she was stuck suspended halfway up, and nobody would know any wiser? What if she called for help and nobody came and she'd have to cling here for dear life until her strength ebbed and she fell? What if -
"Skillet?"
The cook's ears perked, and she chanced to open one eye. One of the platforms of the headquarters spanned out before her, circling around the trunk of the tree before disappearing from sight; standing nearby, holding a pike with the handle broken in half so he could manage it, the lookout Telltale had a quizzical expression on his round, luminous face. Even with the sun drowning behind the horizon, she could see a light film of dirt on the boy's cheeks. Didn't anyone tell these children to bathe regularly, or was that something else for her to take control of?
"Telltale," Skillet said, trying her best to keep her voice even. She didn't look down. Couldn't, because that'd just reduce her to a gibbering mess, wouldn't it? While image had never been so important to her (she wouldn't deny possessing a boyish streak of her own), showing strength in the face of adversity was part of being a teacher. It put the asses of many a lawless student back in their seats, and helped inspire others to reach for the same ideal.
(Jet, Smellerbee and Sneers, as leaders and warriors, appreciated her for helping to instill that concept into the younger ones' minds, but Skillet had always felt leery of that praise; it was one thing to work and overcome your weaknesses on a personal level...it was another to do the same while in the middle of a fight where you were in over your head. While Jet had never sent a child incapable of handling himself in combat into battle, Skillet knew better - knew well enough - that the shaggy-haired renegade trained the youths, and when they reached a certain age or skill capacity, they too would join the front lines.)
"I need your help," Skillet continued. "Take my frying pan first, okay? Then I'll need you to hold my hand so I can climb off. I need to give Sneers a piece of his mind after I beat it out of him."
SCENE DIVIDE
She rapped her knuckles against the cracked, dried wooden door that closed off Sneers' hovel, and - as she figured - the monk denied her outright with a curt, cold, "I'm meditating. Go away."
Skillet could have smirked. The boy was a jerk with a heart of gold, but he could be so predictable sometimes - the only shocking thing was that he hadn't given her the silent treatment outright, which was his way of putting up with irritations. "Open up. It's Skillet."
"Like I said, go away." His voice was muffled, and - casting a glance left, then right - Skillet noted that the shades over his windows had been drawn, and no sign of flickering, golden candlelight shimmered from behind them. Completely in the dark, huh...?
"Open the door, or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." It was her final peaceful offer; she put as much sugar into it as she could manage, almost sing-song-y, clasping her hands behind her back and resisting the urge to bounce on the balls of her feet. (No need to tempt fate and lose balance all the way up here, even if the nearest edge was five yards away...) She gave him a few seconds, but Sneers didn't even bother to respond this time, and Skillet's smirk grew wider. "You're doing it out of order - the cold shoulder is supposed to come first, isn't it? Besides, you can ignore me all you want, but you know I won't go away until I get what I want."
Holding up her free hand in front of her, Skillet began to count off the passing seconds on her fingers; one-one, two-one, three-one, four-one, five-one, one-two, two-two, three-two...when half a minute passed and Sneers still had nothing to say, Skillet planted her hand on the sanded wood of the door, still radiating a little warmth from the day's sunlight and heat. She'd come up here figuring that she'd give the monk a benefit of a doubt and a grace period (once she'd recovered from the well-deserved heart attack from riding the dropline and was more capable of sentient though); with both of these broken, she shoved the door open and stepped across the threshold, submitting herself to the nigh-umbric depths of Sneers' quarters.
She figured she might as well not be a total jerkbelly even though the intrusion was pretty rude to begin with; she closed the door behind her, the hinges creaking and groaning under the door's weight. The umbra swallowed both of them, and Skillet only had a moment to see that Sneers sat on a tightly-woven, ugly patchwork carpet using earthen shades of various colors, his back to her, wearing nothing but the skin he'd been born in. Even then, the split second was enough for her; she felt heat rising up into her cheeks, and through the pitch she trained her gaze to what was hopefully the most harmless target she could - the back of his head.
"I told you to go away," Sneers murmured, his voice that of a man struggling to re-shingle a roof while his children tugged at the hem of his pants. "I have a lot to think about. Mortar and Pestle should have been by to see you with your instructions."
"Yeah, about that," Skillet replied, her voice changing, losing its sugar and becoming bitter. "I just wanted to stop by and compliment you on the balls it took to pull that stunt. You didn't think I wouldn't come up here if you didn't give me the full details? You're such an asshole. You know how I get with heights."
"I didn't force you to come say hello. That was your own choice, sister."
"Spirits, you're freakin' impossible!" Skillet threw her free hand out and heaved an exasperated sigh. "How did you think I was gonna react, you sending those kids to me with such a backhanded order?"
"Gee, I dunno, like a rational human being?" At last, Skillet's vision started to adjust; she could see Sneers shift his head, and spotted his broad nose past the frame of his onyx hair, as tan as the rest of his body. "You're such a spaz."
It was - it was very, very tempting to turn around, to storm out, to throw up her hands and be done with the monk, but - well, that would make this entire trip pointless. She settled for telling him that, if he chose, he could stick Pipsqueak's Log of Doom someplace dark and unpleasant. "I care for and about these kids just as much as you do, if not moreso, and I'd like to think the fact that you come to me very frequently to tell me things in confidence - not to mention the fact that I'm the only person here that you can debate with - ought to count for something. Whatever it is you're thinking about, you're not leaving it open for input, and maybe I feel like I deserve to be in the loop."
"It's none of your business." Sneers' shoulders tensed, and it was only when they did that Skillet realized her eyes had been wandering down. She snapped them back to focus on the monk's head. "I've got a dilemma on my hands, is all."
"Oh, so suddenly all those times you've come to me to vent your frustrations don't matter? And if it involves the children, and I get the sneaking suspicion it does, then it's every damn bit my business." Skillet closed the gap between herself and the seated, naked monk, stopping just a couple feet away. "Either you tell me what you've got cooking in that twisted brain pan of yours, or - "
"Or what?" His words became barbed, and Skillet could imagine his lips pulling down into his trademark namesake so vividly that she half-expected a second face to appear from underneath his hair just so he could scowl at her exclusively. "You'll beat it out of me? I'm sorry, but I thought you yourself established that you'd sooner cook and teach than fight."
Skillet grit her teeth and felt her grip on her frying pan tighten once again; before she could really even register what had happened, a resounding KLONG! echoed in the tiny hut, reverberating off the walls, making her ears quiver. Skillet's wrists hurt from the force of impact, bones and muscles and sinew thrumming, but the pain was so gratifying. Sneers cried out and fell forward, both hands clutching at the back of his head.
"You - you hit me!" He yelled, his voice high and indignant. Despite the blow, he sprung up to his feet and whirled, his lips peeled back into a sneer ferocious enough to make grass wilt, his eyebrows hiked so high they vanished beneath his brow. "What the hell are you thinking?"
Skillet planted her hands on her hips and frowned, her eyes narrowing. "I warned you. I've been playing nice for you all this time, but I'm a smorgbajillion miles above the ground and a little thin on patience. I may not be a fighter and I may not have any actual control over what goes on here, but that does not mean I'm not on equal footing to you."
Sneers drew a slow breath, and - it took a second, he still looked willing to seethe, to curse, to lash out - but his expression softened. He glanced away, slumped a little, and said, "Fine, we'll do it your way, you crazy witch. I'll meet you in the kitchen tonight."
Skillet felt a victorious smirk crossing her face.
SCENE DIVIDE
"...and, as much as I didn't want to admit it...The Duke and Pipsqueak were right." Sneers hunched over a steaming, wooden bowl of his favorite instant-make noodles, chopsticks in hand. Really, that boy had all the taste of a plank of wood. As he spoke, Skillet moved around the kitchen with a learned efficiency that came from years of navigating the place - and, more recently, while it was full of other people working around and with her. To an outsider, it may have looked more like a dance than anything else, as she gathered the ingredients for a snack and set them at a table nearby. It was only in this place she felt anything resembling grace overcome her; she had noticed that she was less prone to tripping over herself, or walking into walls, or clipping counters with her hips while preparing a meal. "I can't protect the children by sheltering them. But I also have my hands tied; I can't just leave the forest to fight the war, because Mortar and Pestle aren't ready to lead yet. And..."
Skillet would have scowled, because Sneers' unspoken comment still lingered in the air between them - but he was right. 'And neither are you.' The truth only hurt if you denied it, you know? She didn't have the right stuff to lead on that sort of scale. Over fifty men, women and children whose specialties lay outside her own despite her best efforts would be too much of a challenge.
"So you're increasing their training regimen, preparing them for battle." Skillet shook her head, her pigtails lashing out beside her. "I'm not entirely sure I approve. Wouldn't that be regression?"
"Yeah." Sneers closed his eyes and shook his head. "You know that was how Jet...operated. He cared for the kids too, I can't deny that, but he wanted to raise them to be warriors in the long term. He taught them how to hunt animals, to provide meat, not only for survival, but for practice in using blade and bow against a target that'd actually fight back. He never did it blithely...he never once acted as if, in committing a child to a life of bloodshed, their lives were forfeit. I think that was one of the things I admired most about him. But my children are different. They hunt out of necessity, they use the blade and the bow to help achieve inner balance, and if I could help it, they would not draw so much as a drop of another human's blood unless they chose to."
"Hmm." Skillet came to a gradual stop, her brow furrowing. "That is a predicament. I agree with what The Duke and Pipsqueak said, but..." Temporarily abandoning her project, Skillet pulled up a chair beside Sneers and sat down, leaning one elbow on the wooden table and turning her head to face him. "I think, though, you just answered your own question."
"Eh?" Sneers glanced up from an excavatory dig at his noodles, a wad of the stuff clenched securely between his chopsticks. "What do you mean?" He popped the end of the noodles into his mouth and slurped them down, swallowing in a single gulp. Skillet felt little flecks of broth flicker across her cheek and sighed, brushing them away. She could smell the oil in the broth, and it was bland...but the poignancy of the kitchen's meals-in-preparation had faded and become stale for the night.
"Your conundrum wrapped in an enigma." Skillet said, glancing away. "As much as I hate to send any of the kids off into a fight...tell them the truth. Tell them that a peaceful way of life, inner balance, isn't gonna happen if they just lay around and wait for it. That a fight is inevitable and we all have to do our part. That you need help, that you're turning to them for that help...and that they have the right to choose. Tell them that you won't hold it against them if they decide not to fight, because not everybody is cut out to be a soldier."
She hated the words as they slipped from her. All she could think about was...Mortar, laughing and rambunctious and covered in dirt; Pestle, shy and reserved and hiding behind her sister's shoulder; Telltale, swift and loyal and wielding a pike that had been broken in half just so he could hold properly...she may as well be condemning her precious students, but - but she was on equal footing to Sneers, dammit, even if - even if she didn't actually have any power. The kids were her kids too, her students and adopted children. Her eyes stung, and she blinked to drive the pending tears away.
"Skillet..." Sneers' voice came to her hushed and...and, what? Sympathetic? She glanced over to him and saw that his expression had turned somber, that the corners of his mouth tugged down. Not into one of his sneers...the way the muscles trembled, it was - different. Was he about ready to cry too? Skillet didn't see any wetness in his eyes, but they - shimmered in the candlelight, and -
(so close)
She only realized that she had been leaning in towards him too late to pull away, and she could tell that it dawned on Sneers almost exactly at the same time.
"Then," he whispered, his face flushed, "we go to war."
"Yeah. To war." Her voice came out low and hoarse. "We'll help kick the Fire Lord's ass."
"Yeah."
His hand, his broad, stout fingers, found her cheek; they were calloused from years of hard use, but at the same time gentle. Skillet knew Sneers had the capacity for it, but it was a rare treat nonetheless. Heat wriggled up to her cheeks once again, and Sneers' breath was so warm, and, and, his lips soft, and it was just right and yes the monk was a colossal idiot, but he was her idiot.
While things wouldn't feel alright so far as the orphans went, at least they had a direction to go into now and that was a start.
SCENE DIVIDE
The next day
Whenever she had some free time - a rarity - Skillet liked leaning up against the trees, her head craned back, so she could see the platforms on which the headquarters had been situated, and the crimson leaves blanketing the sky. Heights were a lot easier to deal with when you were just looking at them, when you were on the ground and had already gotten as far down as you could get. When they were separate from you. At that point, the places all the way up there were just a different world she could see through a window, and acrophobia wouldn't claw at her skin and make her knees lock up.
Staring up at the leaves and branches and platforms, Skillet did not hear the children laughing as they played, assuming they did at all right now. Sneers hadn't wasted time in dropping his bombshell - that his precious way of life had to be put on hold so they might chance to follow it again later, with the war ended in the favor of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes. Skillet didn't know how many of the children had volunteered to stand by Sneers' side, but the heavy atmosphere was palpable even at the ground floor, and she wondered exactly what kind of affect it would have on...well, everyone. Nobody would be except from the fate of the world.
She hadn't heard. And she didn't think she could manage going up a dropline by herself again. But it was okay, because Sneers - Sneers knew she wanted to speak to him again, and he'd promised he would come after lunch.
Sitting on the ground, the rough bark of the tree at her back, Skillet's mind drifted to the season. According to The Duke and Pipsqueak and their warrior friends, they only had until the end of the summer to win the war - that a comet would scrape the atmosphere and grant Firebenders such incredible power as to sunder the planet. Skillet knew firsthand what those monsters-in-human-clothing were capable of without any sort of otherworldly help, and that sort of power could only augment their cruelty. With summer's end only about a month and a half away, things looked grim indeed.
It was kinda sad, really. Skillet had always been more of an autumn person, preferring the cooler weather and the more festive attitude to summer's oppressive heat and almost doldrummish nature. Sozin's comet would descend on summer's last day, just before the autumnal equinox, and everything would hinge on what happened between the Fire Nation and Avatar's allies. If - if the Fire Nation won, then there'd be nothing to stop them. Everything about autumn would be reduced to ash and soot...just like everything else had been, in what Jet and Sneers and the rest had called The Time Before. Their lives before they were Freedom Fighters.
Skillet was fortunate to be old enough to remember that time with clarity. Her parents, her sister - lost to the war, her home destroyed...but humans were a fleeting thing, and the seasons had endured before their existence and would thrive long after humankind wasn't even a memory to the planet. The thought of losing something as, as natural as a whole season to the war...it cast the Freedom Fighter out of her depth. Because if the Fire Nation did win, they wouldn't end until the entire planet had been ruined. That was their way.
So lost in thought, Skillet didn't hear Sneers approaching her until he spoke, just a few feet behind her; she yelped, leapt up to her feet instinctively, and tripped against one of the tree's roots, stumbling back and landing hard on her butt.
"Ow ow ow," Skillet hissed, rubbing her hindquarters and wincing. "You jerk, that really hurt!"
Sneers leaned against the tree Skillet had just fled, hiking one brow and smirking. "You really are a spaz. I wasn't even trying to be sneaky."
"I hope a komodo rhino sits on your head."
"Go eat a poisoned sweet bun," he returned, his smirk growing even cockier. "Good to know nothing's really changed."
"Oh, are you kidding me?" Skillet clambered up to her feet, brushing off her pants. "I think I'd hate you as a sappy romantic more than I hate you as a twisted jerk."
"Same back at you, only replace the 'twisted jerk' with 'crazy spaz' and you're about there." His gaze shifted, the cockiness melting away, a somber expression taking over. "You wanted to know the results of what happened last night, after I told everyone."
Skillet moved back over to the tree and returned to sitting down against it, Sneers standing at her right. "Yeah. None of the students have said anything, and I haven't asked, but...they're glowing, almost. Not all of them...but most of them, they look like they're at peace about it, one direction or another."
Sneers sighed. "I've been in charge of these Freedom Fighters for almost a season. In that time, I had a lot of doubt - whether or not I could amount to being the leader Jet was, and whether or not I'd be able to prove myself his better by taking them down a safer, more zen route. By imparting the same wisdom of the monks who raised me had done."
"You had self-confidence issues?" She asked, her eyes going wide. "You, of all people?"
He smirked again. "Believe it or not, I'm not infallible, and even I know it."
"Shock! A humble side stumbeleth forth!"
"Stick it in your ear. Anyway - my people, the monks, they taught me that wisdom, tranquility and balance all came with honing the self. Just as you and I teach the children through education, art, martial combat and...I guess eating healthy, so did those that raised me." He slouched a little and shook his head. "They told me that any goal worth achieving could be reached without having to resort to confrontation, and...and I believed that for the longest time."
"But they were taken from you," Skillet said, her voice soft. "The monks were your family and the Fire Nation..."
"Yeah. It's the same story as everyone else here, only my family was never bloodbound to begin with." Sneers grunted. "When I met Jet and Longshot as a kid, I found a new purpose, and Jet convinced me to betray the teachings of my mentors. But I was alright with that, because Jet had so much charisma and people just seemed to look up to him naturally." He shifted his weight, as if this discussion - sharing such privy thoughts - unnerved him. It didn't surprise Skillet at all; Sneers rarely ever talked about his past, and even rarer still in such detail. Having been by his side throughout the fractioning of the Core, Skillet hadn't detected any doubt at all in the monk's mind, and openly confessing to it must have taken immense strength on his part - strength through adversity.
He continued. "And when - when we blew up the dam...when we almost killed so many innocent people, even if they had submitted themselves to the Fire Nation...I think it was the wake-up call everyone else in the Core needed." He drew a deep breath and expelled it through his nose. "I can't speak for the others, but to me, it screamed every last one of my failures at me, hurling them back in my face; every mission where I'd had to hurt or kill under Jet's orders, it wasn't right, and that was my shame. And I knew if Jet was allowed to continue leading, he'd drag the others - most of them children! - down the same dark path he himself vaulted through, with his charismatic nature and slick-talking and his razor's edge of self-destruction. I couldn't let it happen." He shuddered and shook his head again. "I thought I was doing the right thing, deposing him. Sending him packing with Longshot and Smellerbee."
"But what you were taught and what you were trying to teach the others conflicts with what you were told by Pipsqueak and The Duke," Skillet murmured, nodding and pulling her knees up to her chest. She folded her arms over her knees and rested her chin on them, letting her eyelids slide halfway shut. "Hence, last night."
"Exactly." He slouched further, finally sliding down the tree's trunk until he sat on the ground beside her. "Skillet...last night, I threw away everything I thought was right. Do you know how many of them volunteered to fight alongside me, after I gave that speech?"
She shook her head, but it was an arbitrary answer, anyway. He knew she knew. Instead, she asked, "How many?"
"All of them."
Skillet paused to let that information sink in. "All of them?"
"Every last one. From Mama Marlin to Wind-up."
"Wind-up is five."
"And he stood up." From her peripheral vision, Skillet could see Sneers' entire body quaking; she glanced over to him and saw that he'd splayed the fingers on one hand and pressed the tips against his face, and he wore a bittersweet smile. He was - laughing, yes, but it was a silent, hollow laugh that left a pit in Skillet's chest. "Even Bedrock did, and you know how ill she is. Stupid kids."
A dull buzzing noise flooded Skillet's brain, and it spread to encompass her entire body - tingling, sharp, prickling, it felt like millions of fire ants jostling across her skin, fighting for purchase, their clawed feet burrowing into her. Surely - surely some of them had only voted because of peer pressure, or something like that - right? Not all of those men, women and children could actually be willing to put their lives at risk like that...
Unsure of what to say, what to do - how do you respond to a revelation like that? - all Skillet could do was lay her hand on Sneers' shoulder. Over fifty war orphans between the ages of five and twenty-two. Every last one had cast their vote to stand beside Sneers, to help him where they had nobody else to rely on. But wasn't that how the Freedom Fighters worked to begin with? 'Watch out for each other because nobody else will.' They were a family, even if their blood didn't originate from the same source, and a family had to watch its own.
After a few minutes, Skillet released a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding, expelling it with a low whoosh. The tingling sensation inside her head, on her skin and muscles, didn't fade, but - but she needed to ask, or else she'd never be able to live with herself after. "You're not - you're not going to send all of them into battle, are you?"
"No." His response was immediate, solidified in self-confidence, but hushed nonetheless. "I - I made it clear that not everyone would be able to help by fighting, right from the start. Any physically capable Freedom Fighter will begin at least basic combat training, though I'll only deploy skilled warriors onto missions. I'll be bolstering weapons and armor maintenance with the youngest ones, and those that just aren't meant to fight. Any..." he drew a deep breath and pushed it out with some effort, closing his eyes. "Any leader worth his salt needs a skilled support crew to keep his soldiers fed and educated, his gear in top shape."
Skillet cocked her head to the side, the tingling sensation being gradually replaced by a surprising warmth. She - she hadn't thought of that. It didn't make up for the rotten sensation of giving Sneers the idea in the first place, but at least this way, she wasn't forcing five-year-old Wind-Up or the weak-bodied-yet-strong-willed Bedrock to hold a sword and draw blood. The monk's foresight on the matter helped conquer that notion of self-betrayal, and she patted his shoulder once again. "I think that was the right thing to do. I'm proud of you."
"Hahaha..." he grinned. "A rare treat, you actually giving me a compliment."
"Well, you told me about your past, so consider it even trade. Enjoy it while you can." She felt herself grinning. "We'll make it through this, won't we?"
Sneers shrugged. "If the Spirits are on our side, then we can endure anything."
"Well, I guess I'll have to take your word for it, won't I?" Skillet shook her head and clambered to her feet. "Come on. I'll make you another bowl of noodles, you look about as spent as I am."
He nodded, clambered up to his feet, and walked beside her as they made their way for the kitchen. "You took all this pretty well."
"If that's what it looks like, then you've had your head up that komodo rhino's butt for too long."