Author's Note: This was in part inspired by the chapters in Inheritance that are narrated from Saphira's point of view, and especially the words she uses to describe objects. I also wanted to write a Makorra fic from an unusual PoV, and I think Pabu's is one never used before.
Also, if you have trouble with any of the terms, I have included a glossary on my profile. Enjoy!
Life of a Fire Ferret
A Legend of Korra fanfiction
Chapter One: Excite
I roll carefully out of my pigeon-dove-feather-blue-string-twigs-nest, and stretch. Can't fall off the windowsill like last time; a fire ferret's pride can only take so many knocks. The sun feels good on my fur, and it outlines each hair so I appear golden. Wow. Nature is so beautiful. My owner, friend, and partner in crime – I mean practical jokes – Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo rolls out of bed, like I did, but he falls on his short-muzzle-face. I hide my grin, because I'm more mature than he is and have had more practice. Of course, this is highly debatable (and has been debated multiple times), but I digress.
Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire is already up, puttering around the make-food-box-fire with one of my bathtubs that, for some reason, has a stick on the end. He's holding it over the fire. Good. I hope it burns. Fire ferrets do NOT go well with water. If we did, we'd be water ferrets, or steam ferrets. Get it? Water and fire make steam! That was supposed to be funny. I can't help if you have no sense of humor.
The wood-plank-on-twisties bangs open, right into a dent on the wall. Now that I think about it, that's where the dent came from. Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire lets air out of his mouth. Loudly. I think he's annoyed. That makes sense, because Korra-moves-air-moves-water has arrived.
Korra-moves-air-moves-water is bouncy, even more so than usual. Is that good? When I get bouncy, Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo tells me to "Stop bouncing around, you're getting dust on your fur". Then he gives me a bath. I think, out of the three of us in this sky-tall-square-human-nest, I get the most baths. I hate baths. They taste funny, and make you hiccup. So bouncy must be bad.
The two awake element-movers eat their sunrise meal. Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo is still making loud growling noises with his nose. I must figure out how he does this, then I could frighten away the racoonrats in my sleep, but it's normal. Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire growls (with his mouth) like an angry komodo chicken and loud-steps to the nest of Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo, so loud I can feel it echoing in my chest. Normal.
Bolin-moves-the-earth-called-Bo gets dragged out of his nest like a naughty sparrowgull baby, except with the force that a fox-wolf uses to rip up its food. Still normal. Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire dumps Bolin-moves-the-earth-called-Bo in his chair, and passes him a glass of round-fruit-made-of-raindrops juice. When he passes by her, Korra-moves-air-moves-water show-teeth-smiles at him, and Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire makes his face go pink like the cherry blossom. Before, that was unusual. Now, not so much.
After they eat, the element-movers, now with Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo sufficiently functional, they put on their hard skin-coverings that go over their clothes and the box-on-top-of-head that Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire insists they wear.
As they leave, Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire gives me a LOOK that says "if you damage the house, I will damage you". I continue washing my paw, unworried. I get worse threats from my ladyfriend Aiko's aunt. I stick out my tongue just a little more than necessary as I lick, but I don't think he notices.
I wait for them to leave, hear their boots thumping down the spirally-wood-blocks around and around, until there is a whoosh as the wood-planks-on-twisties open, and they are gone. I count to twenty, then stick my head out the window. There they are, entering the fighting arena around the sunside.
As soon as the wood-planks-on-twisties swings shut, I slip my claw under the metal-hook-in-ring holding the not-cold-hard-water squares in place. A quick flick of the paw and a tap with the nose, and the not-cold-hard-water square swings open. I stand there for a moment, looking over the cluster of sky-tall-squares-human-nests called Republic City. If anyone saw me, I would say I was scouting for lemurs, unless they are a ratcoon; in which case I would try to kill them without suffering grievous injury.
Then I remember my duty, and jump out the window.
For a moment, I free-fall, the wind gusting around me, the force if it roaring in my ears. I stretch out my claws as far as I can, and grasp the edge of the rosebush planted there by Toza-loud-mouth-moves-water. I've done this every day of my life since I was twelve moon-cycles old, when Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo found me after I was beaten up by a pack of ratcoons, but it still leaves my heart in my throat every time.
I scamper down the rosebush, grateful for the overlapping branches that make for easy climbing and for my natural agility as a fire ferret. As soon as I hit the ground, I am ambushed by a forest of long-stick-cloth-legs. As I dart through them, some of the humans shriek in alarm and drop their baked-mud-water-dishes, and spilling their brown-sweet-make-bouncy-drinks. Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo gave me some once by accident and I tried it, and then got bouncy and had to take a bath because Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire said so. I really don't get it. I can wash myself better with my tongue than with the hiccup-bubbles. Besides, that's a waste of perfectly good brown-sweet-make-bouncy-drink.
As I squeeze between two dark blue long-stick-legs, their owner screams and drops her baked-mud-water-dish, splashing brown-sweet-make-bouncy-drink all over my dark-red fur, staining it a red-brown. I scoff inwardly, both in disbelief and in annoyance. You would expect them to get used to a fire ferret's daily commute after it's happened for two score and eight moon-cycles, but nooooo, of course not... Now I'll have to wash my fur again. And right after I'd had my morning wash, too. Blasted brown-sweet-make-bouncy-drink.
I run along the metal-squares-with-wheels path, keeping to the humans-path, but still getting sprayed by small showers of scree as metal-squares-with-wheels speed past. The white-arch-over-river looms in front of me, and I turn abruptly to avoid a snapping squirreldog. It barks at me in a high snippy voice that seems completely inappropriate for the kinds of things it's saying. I file away some new ones, and snarl back as good as I got. Hopefully, Bolin-moves-earth-called-Bo never hears about this. His brother, Mako-bright-scarf-bright-fire tries to take care of him, and once I figured that out, I've been trying to help. Honest. That shattered baked-mud-food-dish that fell out the open not-cold-hard-water-on-twisties wasn't my fault. That was the dumb pigeondove.
At the edge of the pond-lake, I screech to a halt. I glance around. The turtleduck family is in the water on the other side of the white-arch-over-river. The ratcoons are wherever they live during the day. The grey-hair-fish-man is nowhere to be found. The polarbear-dog called Naga that belongs to Korra-moves-air-moves-water isn't here either. Good. They can't know. Not about this.
I slide in through a gap in the white-arch-over-river, emerging inside the structure. Following my reasonably accurate memory, I weave sunside, then moonside, skipping two moonside turns before taking another turn sunside, until I reach a curved metal surface. The water-bringer-rod. This one, according to Chief Deno, is one of the wider ones, but I still have to squeeze to get through. The water in it is much cleaner than the water in any of this kind of rod in the city, but it still reeks horribly of fish. I wrinkle my nose, squint, and try not to breathe too much.
I follow its path, whiskers brushing either side, my paws soaked, until I reach the spot where light filters through a hole in the ceiling. Some ferret before me has placed a wooden board there, to ease climbing up and to avoid snagged claws. The bottom is a bit rotten, but it still holds my weight. I scramble up, jump through the hole, and emerge into the mid-morning sunlight. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but as soon as they do, apprehension strikes me.
A ratcoon stares back at me, teeth bared in a blood-thirsty snarl.
Author's Note: So, there's the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic concerning Pabu's rather complicated life. Hope you liked it! I will upload the second chapter if I get eight reviews. That isn't too many, right?