Author's Note: Oh, my gods! One day- ELEVEN reviews. I'm impressed. I never expected this many. I thought the reception would be something along the lines of xFroggyFernyCabbagex's review, except with the ending: "This is lame. I'm never reading this again." I'm glad nobody thinks so.

There aren't as many Pabu-names for things in this chapter. This is because he is familiar with most of the objects because they occur naturally. Pabu-names are only for human-made things.

Life of a Fire Ferret

A Legend of Korra fanfiction

Chapter Two: Laugh

I hiss in surprise, leaping back and hitting my head against a rock. The pain rockets through my skull, needle-sharp, banishing my fear. I breathe in with my mouth, out through my nose, and spring out of the tunnel before I lose my nerve. My fur fluffed out to twice its normal size, my teeth bared in a snarl, I circle the ratcoon.

Only after several rounds do I realize something is amiss, and look more closely at the ratcoon. It is limp, its grey-brown fur even more scraggly than usual. Its neck is shaped funny, as if broken, and its eyes are glazed over. The clues are obvious, but it still takes me a moment to come to a conclusion that doesn't include death-mimic plants or horribly accurate disguises: the ratcoon is actually a ratcoon, and the ratcoon is actually dead.

My guess is verified when I hear guffaws coming from a bush beside the tunnel entrance, now behind me. This takes me less time to guess: the distinctive sound is one I grew up with. With a friendly snarl, I leap toward the bush, smacking into another fire ferret: Katon.

We grapple for a moment, and I pin him down. But he is shaking so hard from laughter that I lose my grip after a while. He slaps the earth with one dark paw, grey eyes dancing as he looks at me. Apparently what he sees is hilarious, as he loses his balance, laughing uproariously as he rolls around. When he finally calms down, he manages to gasp out "Your-your face!" before again dissolving into hilarity.

This repeats several times, me glaring at him, him giggling, until he finally regains a proper amount of dignity for the chieftain's son. He coughs discreetly, spitting out dust, and cleans his fur as if the bout of laughter had never occurred. I give him one of my "I know that you know that I know that you're crazy, and I really should go find a mental doctor right now, but I think this is contagious, and I'd hate to be the one that starts a fit-inducing plague" look. He looks back at me innocently.

I grasp him by the scruff of his neck in annoyance, dragging him along after me as I set off toward the headquarters of the Eastern Fire Ferret tribe, called the Friskies. It's a horrid name, I agree completely, but as the naming chief had no imagination (or no understanding of idiotic names), and because we have not yet been able to gather the entire tribe together to revote the name, we are still called the Friskies. Luckily, there aren't any other Ferret tribes in the City, so our name is only half as lame on the scale, as there are neither better nor worse names to compare to.

When we get there, Katon shakes himself out of my grasp. His father, Chief Deno, is standing on his hind feet, gesturing wildly with his forepaws, and yelling. His bushy graying eyebrows are raised and scrunched together, giving him the look of a madman. Not that I would say so. I like my ears as they are.

I stand to one side until Chief finishes lecturing an apprentice Sento, or warrior. As I wait, I glance around the cellar of what once was a junkyard. There are piles of human-junk lying around, casting unnatural shadows on the surface of the hard-packed earth. The camp-nest is bbustling with activity, as it usually is in the morning. The Sento are everywhere, entering and exiting the camp from the side entrance under the hood of an old Satomobile, crowding around the food-pile, cleaning in preparation for the day's activities. The sento-ki are absent, probably gone for the day as they scout around the city.

The Chief's yelling stops, and I turn to look at him. The sento-ki scurries off in fright. The Chief mutters something inaudible under his breath. I am certain it isn't very polite. He spots me, and twitches his tail, summoning me to his side. "Pabu! Good to see ye made it!" As if I hadn't made it every day since I was able to climb and get away from Bolin-moves-the-earth-called-Bo. The rest of the conversation is cut off as one of the Sento-sentries cries out, the sound of guests.

I look up. The sky is cloudless, except a small grey cloud speeding towards us. I grin, and run towards the top of the junk heap. The Island lemurs are here.

It's always a breathtaking sight, usually one that sparks a bit of jealousy, but, as always, I push the emption down and focus at what's at paw. The lemurs usually spin around, ducking and diving and dodging, but today they are just a grey mass of fur and wings, speeding towards us. As they approach, I notice Ling swooping past Phun-lai, the elderly chieftain of the Island lemurs, who is also, coincidentally, his grandfather. Then Ling crashes into me. See, breathtaking, isn't it? We tumble off the junk heap and I end up breaking his fall, my snout buried in a pile of I-don't-even-want-to-know. Then Katon lands on us. "Oof," I gasp. "You guys are killing me."

I can't see anything, but I know Ling is smirking. He's always smirking, and then he says something, and then I say something, and then he says something witty or unfortunately true, then I say "Touché." It always ends like that.

"You deserve it," he says, poking Katon in the ribs so he giggles and falls off. "It was your fault we ended up wet and muddy last week."

"No it wasn't," I argue, squirming. "That was Katon." From the sidelines, I can hear the traitor yelling something about Ling being a world-class wrestler and me being a pansy-butt. I growl. I am so going to kill him later.

"He didn't want to chase the pigeon-doves to raid their nest," I snarl, and relax my muscles, digging my claws into a scrap of white-tree-flat-with-squiggles. He leans his weight backwards in one split second, and I propel myself upwards, catching him unaware. I flip him over and snarl in his face.

He groans. "I yield."

As I jump off I make sure to step on his tail, to make up for the time he stepped on mine. "Since when have you had to tell the victor he won?" I ask.

He huffs, and gets up. With an air of wounded pride, he declares, "Touché." I grin. Except this time.

I turn to look for Katon, and spot a flash of brown-red disappearing around the barracks of the sento-ki. There. I chase after him with a playful snarl. He leads me around the sakura trees, their fruits hanging in maroon globes among the dark red leaves. A single white flower drifts toward me, and as I pass it, I leap up to clap it between my front paws. We dash around the lavender beds, where I surprise Katon as he winks at a pretty ferret. Saki, I think her name is. Then we swerve around an old, beat-up metal-square-with-wheels.

I notice a vague blur of red in front of Katon, but that doesn't matter, I'm gaining on him, the wind rushing through my fur, the scent of sakura and lavender in my nose, the ground firm and solid beneath my paws. Then I smash into him and we roll over, one on top of the other, like we did when we were young. Ling lands beside us and tries to hide his amusement. Then Katon and I collide with something- or rather, someone.

Ling's face has suddenly morphed to the studied, serious face he wears at council meetings. I look up, worry gnawing at my heart, but balanced by the exhilaration of the chase. Chief Deno and Phun-lai look down at me.

I skitter backwards, off Katon, as fast as I can, then sit up, staring into the space between the two chieftains. Katon looks at me strangely for a moment, and then catches on. I see a shadow of worry flit across his face, but then it is gone, and I can only wonder if I imagined it. Phun-lai leans in, eyeing first me, then Katon, then his grandson.

"What's this?" he blares, making Katon jump. I had forgotten his sergeant-like demeanor, possibly brought on by the onset of old age. I have long since gotten used to loud, sudden noises, and my only indication is a momentary increase in heart rate. "What are you three lily-livered, pansy-tailed-" Ling and I look at each other, then look away. Ling is smirking "What's that you're looking at?" bellows Phun-lai.

Looking straight ahead, I shout back in my best parade-ground voice. "Nothing, sir!"

"Good, because you three greenies shouldn't be out in times like this. I say, you three greenies shouldn't be out in times like this!" he shouts the last bit in Katon's face. Katon's whisker twitches. Apparently he'd gotten used to the yelling, if not to the senility. "The enemy is coming! The red toads are coming! The pink frogs are coming! Sound the alarm! The-"

"The point is, the ratcoons are attacking," says Chief Deno, looking at us sternly. "The day after tomorrow."

Evidently remembering the incident earlier today, Katon starts laughing again. Ling and I share a glance of hopeless hilarity. Then we join in, abandoning any and all parade-ground behavior.

Phun-lai glares.

Author's note: So, there you have it: the second installation of I, Pabu. How about twelve reviews this time? Is that a reasonable number?