Noatak slips in and out of sleep, rocked by the motion of the ship. Sometimes he opens his eyes, expecting to see someone standing over him, but there's never anyone there, and he drifts away again.
The ship's crew have the sense to leave him alone. He remains on the main deck. Despite his sickly appearance, no one suggests that he should sleep in one of the cabins. He needs to be somewhere open, with as little as possible between him and the sea.
The sea is old and indifferent, and it makes his own life seem inconsequential.
He stirs as a breeze picks up, whistling through the metalwork.
His mind wanders.
The stink of smoke from the ship's boilers nags at his awareness. You know what they used to do with waterbenders, right? his father once told him. They'd keep them deep underground, in these places that were just big metal boxes, like ovens, stuck in the earth. There'd always be fires burning. To cook 'em slow, I guess. The Fire Nation could've just killed the sorry bastards and saved everyone a lot of trouble, but they didn't. Can you guess why?
Noatak had shook his head.
To prove a point, his father had said.
And the story had stuck with him, and had sprung to mind whenever people asked why the Equalists didn't just kill their enemies. Noatak even incorporated it into Amon's background. Why had the firebenders left him alive? To prove a point.
Noatak tries to think of something else. He's not Amon anymore. He's stuck with being Noatak again. And, at the moment, Noatak just wants a rest. Noatak doesn't need to think about fire, or the way skin tightens and splits when burned.
For some reason, he recalls a street fight he witnessed a long time ago. It was a fight between two firebenders, and the loser lost their upper lip and part of their nose. People were crowded around, shouting.
Noatak can hear people shouting right now.
He does his best to filter the shouting out.
It takes him too long to realize that the shouting is real. He's not on a street in a distant city, repulsed by the stink of charred flesh. He's still on a ship. He can smell damp air and coal smoke. And something is wrong.
Noatak sits upright, possessed by the intent to tell everyone, very calmly and quietly, that they need to shut up before he yanks their lungs out through their throats. He's never yanked anyone's lungs out through their throats before - never had cause to try, really - but there is a first time for everything.
The shouting contains a note of panic.
Noatak's eyes adjust to the dark, and he strains his ears as he tries to compensate for his poor vision. He can't be sure, but he thinks he hears the sound of a motorboat over the noise of the wind.
The ship's crew are crowded together at the starboard bow. Some of them are pointing out to sea. A spotlight has been pointed towards the water, and the crew are just silhouettes, but Noatak can still recognize Zhu Li's profile. She looks like a startled deer, except that deer usually have the sense to run when they sense danger, not stand around and gawk like...
The medic, the one who treated Noatak's burns earlier, suddenly breaks away from the group and bolts over to the port side. The rest of the crew follow as a herd.
Then a shadow passes beneath the spotlight, and there is the crunch and scream of tearing metal.
A shudder reverberates through the ship. They've hit something.
Have they collided with another vessel? Struck a rock? Did a motorboat hit them? What? What the fuck could possibly go wrong now?
Noatak is beginning to suspect that perhaps he should stay away from watercraft for the rest of his life.
He gets to his feet. He refuses to panic. He still possesses a shred of Amon's self-control, which might be the only good thing that Amon has left for him.
There is a light emanating from the water; a different light, blue and shifting, and Noatak is almost drawn towards it. But then the ship begins to list, one side pitching skywards, and instinct makes him run to the highest point of the vessel. He has to freeze the soles of his shoes to the deck so he won't skid back down towards the sea. Out the corner of his eye, he sees members of the crew clinging on to whatever they can grab, trying to keep themselves from slipping towards the sea. Noatak is the only person who can still stand upright.
As the ship tilts, Noatak is able to make out that there's something in the water, tearing at the hull. Something very large, and very full of teeth.
They haven't been hit by another vessel.
They've been hit by something else entirely.
Noatak has heard of sea monsters - giant eels, vast squids, all the sort of nonsense you find fascinating when you're eight years old and your father deigns to tell you about his years as a young man in the navy - but... This, whatever it is, this thing in the water, is different. It bites at the hull as if it's trying to get at something deep within he ship.
It hurts to look at the creature. The perspective of its body seems wrong, like it doesn't quite fit properly into this world. Parts of it look too spindly, though it's hard if they look that way because they're genuinely small or if they're just, somehow, further away than one might expect.
Noatak knows that the thing is a spirit. He doesn't have any other word for what it could be.
Noatak has managed to live his entire life without seeing a spirit until now. He decides that he would like to live the rest of his life without seeing a spirit ever again.
And there's another oddity close to the monstrosity: fragments of wood, turning in the churning water. Did the fragments come from another boat? Was that what Noatak heard a moment ago? And, stranger still, why is there a grappling hook over the railing of the deck? How long has that been there? Did any of the crew see it when they were crowded together on the starboard side a moment ago, or were they too busy looking at the sea monster? Was the grappling hook even there when they left the mainland? It can't have been, but why-
Then two things happen at once:
The wind whips up, carrying a stinging rain.
Something stabs Noatak in the leg.
Noatak reaches down, still staring at the spirit. His fingers close around something long and thin. He unthinkingly yanks the object out of his leg, though the ensuing pain and lightheadedness tell him this was a bad idea.
His hand now holds a metal arrow shaft. There is his blood on it. There is also some sort of syringe mounted to the thing. It looks like a rough copy of a weapon that Future Industries tried to develop once. But they never put it into use, did they? The Equalists never used ranged weapons more complicated than bolas... Or, come to think of it, grappling hooks.
Noatak grips the arrow and squanders precious seconds by staring at it like an idiot.
The syringe on the arrow is half-full of clear liquid.
Then the ship shakes again. The spirit worries at it like a dog with a dead animal. Waves sweep across the deck.
Noatak forces himself to focus, and does a quick count of the crew: most of them are still clinging on for dear life, though Zhu Li has somehow managed to climb up towards the bridge and is pulling herself through a doorway.
How many people were on this ship when it left land? Noatak tries to think. Who the fuck just shot him? Should he attack the spirit or would that just make thing worse? Is the spirit after him specifically? If it's after him specifically, then why is it trying to chew its way through the hull?
It might be wiser to ponder these questions when you're no longer in the middle of a life-and-death situation, Amon might say, like an benevolent tutor addressing a dim student.
Noatak needs to get away from here.
What, and leave the crew to the mercy of the creature?
"Oh, fuck off," Noatak says. then reaches out with his bending to grab a crewman who is still hugging a railing on the starboard side, precariously close to the water. Noatak hauls him by his blood further up onto the deck, towards relative safety. The man only screams a little bit. Noatak is being gentle.
Then, at the edge of his vision, Noatak sees movement. A humanoid figure, though it soon disappears behind the cover of a lifeboat.
Maybe there is more than one spirit present.
Or maybe Noatak is hallucinating due to exhaustion.
Noatak thinks of ijirait.
The ship shudders again. The deck is so much closer to the waterline now.
Noatak heaves a sigh, and does a very stupid thing: he lets go of his grip on the deck, takes a short run, and dives overboard.
He leaps the port bow so that the bulk of the ship is between him and the spirit, and lands feet-first. The world turns dark and noisy. Every raw nerve on his body screams in agony as the salt water soaks into his burns, and his only coherent thought is, I'm an idiot. It takes all of his strength to avoid panicking.
He keeps his eyes closed, and finds the small corner of his mind that always stays as cold and quiet as the bottom of a well, and he reaches out, and lets it draw the heat from the world.
The water around the ship blossoms with ice, keeping the ship from sinking any further.
Noatak is dimly aware that, under normal circumstances, it would take multiple waterbenders in order to do a thing like this. He'd like to think that he's just exceptionally strong, but the truth is that he'll probably pay for it later.
The ice expands and solidifies erratically, as if turning to brittle glass. That'll do. Noatak doesn't need to see it; he can feel the shape and weight of it in his mind, and the way the sea flows around it. Then the movement of the water changes. The spirit - the one with the teeth, not the shadow-thing on the deck - stops tearing at the ship, and dives.
The spirit has noticed him.
Noatak twists the water under him into a spire, and gets out of the sea before the spirit can bite his legs off. He jumps back onto the deck, landing gracelessly next to the foremost smoke stack. The impact sends a spike of pain through his knees, and he throws all dignity to the wind and lets out a good, healthy scream.
His legs don't want to move, and he shouldn't be shivering like this. He tries to keep his teeth from chattering as he draws saltwater away from his eyes.
On a positive note, the ship no longer seems to be sinking. The water on the deck has frozen into a crop of dirty glass spikes.
Then the spirit breaks through the water's surface on the port side, cracking some of the ice around the boat. Noatak pulls the rainwater from the air and draws it into a harpoon, then hefts the weapon at one of the spirit's eyes.
The harpoon passes straight through the spirit's head and disappears into he water behind it.
Well, Noatak thinks, I tried.
A distress flare lights the sky.
"AMON," Zhu Li screams at him from the bridge.
Part of Noatak is sure that she means him, and part of Noatak wants to look behind him to see if there's a man in a white mask standing there.
Zhu Li shouts something else, but Noatak struggles to hear her over the wind. He catches snippets of words. "...BE HERE SOON... THROUGH HULL... FIRE ROOM WALLS... NOT SAFE... HERE?"
Noatak glances over his shoulder. The stormy sea reminds him of... Something, he can't remember what. A painting, perhaps. It occurs to him that it's very beautiful. Then he remembers that he might be dying.
"I SAID, CAN YOU PLEASE GET OVER HERE?" Zhu Li bellows with surprising fervor, then shouts something about... the casing? Something something boiler casing, sounded like.
Noatak starts to make his way over to her, but he sees it again: the humanoid figure, lean and sure-footed on the tilted deck. It's watching him from the shadows. There are shadows where shadows shouldn't be.
There's something about the figure that's both familiar and alien.
He can't make his eyes focus on it. It has no face.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Zhu Li yells, loud and clear now.
Noatak sends a flurry of ice needles at the place where he thought he saw the humanoid. The needles only shatter on the deck.
You can't hurt things that aren't real. That's what makes them dangerous.
Then Noatak's left leg buckles.
Ah, Noatak thinks. I got shot in the leg, didn't I? Not sure how I forgot that. He's still holding the arrow in his hand. The syringe on it is still half-full. He wonders what's in the syringe - he used to know people who could tell him things like that - and then it occurs to him that if he doesn't get his act together, he won't live long enough to find out.
He can't hear very well. The ringing - actually, it's more like a whistle - in his ears is too loud, drowning out the sound of the wind. He has to press his hands against his knee just to keep his leg straight. He can't feel his toes.
He has to survive. There's a quiet, childish part of him that wants to wail in despair. Why should he be scared? Why should he be afraid of spirits? He was once expected to kill the most powerful person in the world. He's losing - losing blood, losing focus - and he can't lose. He's meant to be better than everyone else. This isn't fair.
He's going to-
To...
...Wait, what was he meant to be doing right now?
There's another jolt. This time it knocks him right off his feet. The spirit has resumed attacking the ship.
The ice holding the ship in place is starting to crack. It sounds like bones snapping.
Noatak's vision is darkening around the edges, but he can see Zhu Li step out from the safety of the bridge and scramble towards him. He wants to tell her that he doesn't need help. He's a waterbender. Does she know he's a waterbender? Because he's been one all along, actually. He tries to stand upright.
"THAT THING'S CHEWING ITS WAY THROUGH TO THE FIRE ROOM," Zhu Li shouts, "IF IT DAMAGES ONE OF THE BOILERS-"
Right, yes, didn't she say something about-
The deck around the smoke stack erupts.
The world goes silent, and force shoves Noatak sideways. He sees Zhu Li get knocked backwards, and then he has just enough time to register that his feet are no longer on the deck, he's falling, the air is thick with steam and smoke, and perhaps he hears the spirit scream in pain or triumph, and that the sea fast approaches, and the last sensible thought that crosses his mind is, That's it, I am never travelling aboard anything larger than a canoe ever again.
As time slows, he instinctively reaches out towards the sea, to soften the impact when he lands.
Directly beneath him is a circle of water that is still and dark as a millpond, even as the sea around it churns. The circle of dark water does not react. It's dead to him.
He lands, but there is no splash.
There is, however, the white noise of the wind and waves.
Then Noatak loses all sense of the sea, as if it's just vanished.
The boat and the sea monster were just a bad dream, and he needs to wake up, or-
Noatak's chin cracks against wooden floorboards. He spits out a mouthful of blood and hauls himself upright.
A crowd roars.
Noatak spins around to face it.
He's on a stage. The stage has a painted backdrop that depicts the sea at night. There's no one in the audience. The roar of the crowd stops.
There are only rows of empty chairs beneath a starless sky.
No, that's not true. The audience isn't entirely empty. One chair is occupied. There is something there.
The something is holding a clipboard.
If it's holding a clipboard, then that implies that it has hands, and Noatak's brain tries to fill in the rest from there. The something has hands, therefore it has arms, and legs, so it must be humanoid.
He actually tries to count the hands for a moment. He thinks he counts two. Two hands make sense. He then decides that the something looks like a person made of smoke, as that's a concept that's easy to comprehend. Smoke and falling snow, or ash.
There is a megaphone next to its chair, and also a lever.
"And you're supposed to be the bloodbender, I take it?" the thing says. Noatak gets a vague impression of blue eyes and little white teeth. Its voice sounds familiar.
"Wha-" says Noatak.
"No, NO," the thing squeals, coquettishly holding the clipboard over the space where Noatak wants its face to be. "You're not what he wants AT ALL. You're meant to be CHARISMATIC. You're meant to be MENACING. You're meant to be a CRIMINAL MASTERMIND. You're meant to be a SCHEMING PUPPETMASTER with influence over DARK FOCES. But... You? You look like you'd aspire to live in a dumpster even though in a dumpster would be too upmarket for you. Quite frankly, your performance was pathetic. You're just some scrub with a gimmick. I... I honestly can't imagine you fighting the Avatar. I can't imagine you fighting your way out of a wet paper bag. You're terrible. Just terrible. "
Noatak is dead, and this is the underworld. He's not sure if this is better or worse than he expected.
"But-" says Noatak.
"And you're also rude," the thing growls.
Noatak feels the growl through his feet, as if there's machinery under the stage and a throttle has just opened somewhere. Impressions flash through his mind: smoke, fire, metal, offal. Is this place a theatre or a rendering plant?
The thing rests its clipboard on its lap, and steeples its fingers. "In all seriousness, you shouldn't have claimed to speak for us. We're not things that you can use when it suits your agenda. And you have to realize: there's no place in the world for creatures like you anymore. I know your kind. Perhaps I know your kind a little too well. Everything is just a commodity to you. Minds, bodies, souls, ideas. There's nothing you wouldn't weaponize."
"I don't-" says Noatak.
The thing now makes a shushing gesture. "I guess I could say that we're not so different, you and I... But, let's be real here, I don't have to lie anyone. Come to think of it, I haven't lied to him once."
"Who are you talking ab-" Noatak tries, because the thing isn't letting him get a word in edgeways.
"Don't call us, we'll call you," the thing says, and it pulls the lever next to its seat, just as Noatak realizes that its voice sounded familiar because it was his own (and this doesn't surprise him in the least, and actually seems like a bit of a cliché).
That lever had better not open a fucking trapdoor under me, Noatak thinks, right before it becomes apparent that the leaver does, in fact, open a fucking trapdoor.
Noatak falls.
Noatak's chin cracks against wooden floorboards. He spits out a mouthful of blood and hauls himself upright.
He fights back a wave of nausea. There's a mass of human bodies to his left. Living, breathing, screaming humans, united by a common interest. Something cold and wet hits Noatak in the face, making him stagger back. The crowd is restless. They're throwing things.
When Noatak looks up, he finds himself facing a figure in a white mask. This is his chance. One fair fight. (None of this is fair at all.)
Noatak reaches out with his bloodbending to make a grab for the figure, to no effect. It has no substance.
This isn't real.
And then Amon darts behind Noatak and kicks his legs out from under him, and Noatak feels Amon's hand against back of his neck.
Everyone is watching.
Noatak falls.
Noatak's chin cracks against wooden floorboards. He spits out a mouthful of blood and hauls himself upright.
He's in a hallway.
The Avatar stands across from him, still wearing a stolen chi blocker uniform. She's smiling. The idea that he could threaten her in any way is completely absurd. She's ten thousand years old. Does he really think that bloodbending would be any sort of defense against her? After all, it didn't exactly help his father much, did it?
She raises her fists.
Noatak doesn't have to look over his shoulder in order to know that there's a window behind him.
Noatak's chin cracks against wooden floorboards. He spits out a mouthful of blood and hauls himself upright.
He's back on the stage, facing the white mask once more. The crowd screams and howls. On some level, this is exactly what he's always expected.
He still tries to fight. Surrendering would be unacceptable, although he's just not fast enough, just not smart enough. He shuts his eyes the moment Amon touches him.
Noatak's chin cracks against wooden floorboards. He spits out a mouthful of blood and would haul himself upright if he could, but he can't move.
He can't move.
He lies there and listens to his own heartbeat. (And if none of this is real, then why does he still have a heartbeat?)
Footsteps draw close. Someone rolls him onto his back with their boot.
And he hears his Lieutenant say, "You? You're him?"
Noatak is sure it's the Lieutenant, and he knows this immediately, even before he risks looking up. And even when he does look up, he's still sure it's him, despite the fact that the Lieutenant has lost his moustache and seems... different, somehow. Healthier, maybe. Slightly less pale. Not so weathered. A more attractive younger brother of a man Noatak once knew.
The Lieutenant's clothes (expensive clothes, though dishevelled) are soaking wet, and his hair is slicked back against his skull. He puts Noatak in mind of some sort of scavenger bird that's just had its head in a corpse's viscera: sombre, slippery, sharp. In fact, Noatak can imagine the Lieutenant sticking his head in a corpse's viscera just a little too easily. It certainly adds a new dimension to the expression 'all up in them guts', which is already such a charming turn of phrase, and for fuck's sake, why does Noatak have this horrible suspicion that a former lover (alright, Amon's former lover) is about to eat his innards.
It occurs to him that this man might not entirely be the Lieutenant anymore.
The Lieutenant crouches by his Noatak's, and studies him. His expression is unreadable. He grabs Noatak's hair so he can lift his head.
Then his Lieutenant murmurs, "You? Seriously?"
You're not what he wants AT ALL.
"Say something," the Lieutenant asks. His disappointment is evident in his voice. Noatak has such a knack for disappointing people.
Noatak briefly considers feigning confusion and pretending to be someone else, but then abandons the idea. He doesn't know where he is, but it doesn't seem like a place that's particularly forgiving of liars.
He's on a stage. The stage has red pillars, and it overlooks a courtyard. He's not sure if it's the same stage where he saw last Amon. He looks past the Lieutenant to the courtyard beyond the stage's curtains. What if Amon comes back?
The Lieutenant gives Noatak's head a shake. "Hey."
And because Noatak is Noatak, the only thing he can say is, "Were you expecting someone taller?"
His Lieutenant lets go of Noatak's hair, letting his head knock against the floor. The pain of impact comes as a shock. Perhaps Noatak hoped that his immobility meant that he wouldn't be able to feel anything.
The Lieutenant wipes his hands on the leg of his pants before standing up and walking a few paces away.
Noatak takes deep breaths, and wills his body to move. He needs to get out of here.
The Lieutenant remains quiet for a while. He keeps his back to him.
Then the Lieutenant announces, "Holy fuck. You? You were Amon?"
Noatak would shrug if he could.
The Lieutenant walks towards him again, so his boots are now precariously close to Noatak's head. Noatak grits his teeth and keeps his tongue dead center in his mouth so he won't accidentally bite it if (or when) the Lieutenant gets violent.
"You could've at least been..." his Lieutenant trails off. "For fuck's sake, look at you."
Yes, well.
The Lieutenant is being surprisingly calm about all this. Noatak just looks at the Lieutenant's boots. He thinks of all the delicate bones in the human face.
"What happened to you?" his Lieutenant asks.
Noatak licks his lips. He finds his voice - his own voice, not Amon's. "After everything I've done, will you believe anything I say?"
His Lieutenant places his heel on Noatak's left elbow (ah, so that's how he'll start things), and quietly repeats, "Answer the question."
"By this point, would my answer make a difference?" Noatak asks.
He doesn't know if he'll scream or not when the Lieutenant breaks his arm. Noatak doesn't have much reason to be stoic anymore. No one's going to say, Noatak was a vile person, but at least he met his fate with dignity. Noatak might as well cry and beg. Perhaps he should actively try to disappoint people as much as possible. One final act of spite.
But no pain comes. The Lieutenant removes his heel from Noatak's elbow, then says, "Oh. Huh. I get it. You don't think there's anything I can threaten you with. You think you got nothing left to lose, right?"
Noatak doesn't reply to that.
His Lieutenant crouches again, and methodically unbuttons Noatak's upper layers of clothing so he can remove them. His movements are unhurried, almost gentle. Then he rolls Noatak over onto his stomach. He tugs at Noatak's bandages. Noatak grits his teeth and hold his breath as scabs are peeled away with the fabric.
"Looks like someone only did half a job," the Lieutenant mutters.
The Lieutenant digs a fingertip into a burn. It feels like he's trying to bore into Noatak's flesh.
Noatak still tries to keep silent, although he doesn't know why he's bothering.
"What happened to you?" the Lieutenant repeats.
Noatak lets his eyes unfocus so he doesn't have to look at anything. If he closes his eyes completely, it might just increase his awareness of any pain he's about to receive. "Does it matter when you're going to kill me anyway?"
The Lieutenant lapses into one of his silences. Then he chortles, and sits by Noatak's side. "I'm gonna do worse than kill you," he says,. "I'm gonna talk about my feelings."
Fuck, thinks Noatak.
"You know, before I met you, there was this little window in my life where I could've been happy." the Lieutenant says, still entirely too calm about everything. "I had a little routine going: get home from work, drink something, jerk off, fall asleep. And I mean yeah, I thought I was bored, but... I had a shorter list of things to regret back then."
That's nice, Noatak thinks. Please kill me.
Almost as an afterthought, the Lieutenant pulls Noatak's shirt back over his shoulders, covering him up.
"I always suspected you didn't love me, but I could tolerate that," the Lieutenant continues. "Always knew you thought I was kind of a fuckwit, too. And I figured out a long time ago that you weren't honest. But I still didn't think you'd..."
The Lieutenant takes Noatak's right hand, and examines it thoroughly, gently bending the fingers back a little. Noatak wishes he'd snapped the Lieutenant's neck when he had the chance.
The Lieutenant then closes Noatak's fingers into a fist, and rests Noatak's hand on the floor. "And... You know what? You know how many cheap, shitty jokes people made about the two of us? I spent years wanting to prove that we weren't - or, fuck it, I wasn't, because I was usually came off worse for this stuff - a punchline to people's bullshit. I wanted to prove that my loyalty meant something. But I couldn't. And I still stuck with you. And you knew why. Hell, I must've made things too easy for you, huh?"
Noatak is reminded of the parable about the frog and the scorpion. The Lieutenant has always been the sort of man who seems to want some sort of reward for being the most long-suffering asshole in the universe.
The Lieutenant adds: "The funny thing is, if you'd told me you were a waterbender years ago, I might've even forgiven you."
"That's not true," Noatak murmurs, as gently as possible.
The Lieutenant falls silent.
"There were a lot of things that you forgave me for, but you wouldn't have forgiven me for that," Noatak says."You would've hated that my powers depended on an inherent ability. You accepted Amon because Amon represented a possibility. In theory, Amon could've been imitated. But you couldn't imitate a bloodbender. The envy would've driven you mad."
The Lieutenant adopts that blank expression again.
Then the Lieutenant leans back a little, takes a deep breath, and rubs his chin. "Envy? Huh."
Noatak knows that 'envy' seems like such a lazy, childish accusation. It's become a cliché by now: 'The nonbenders are just angry because we can do things they can't. They figure that if they can't have something, neither should anyone else.' Yet, in the Lieutenant's case, it's true. It's always been true. And Noatak knows this.
Noatak still waits for the inevitable bout of anger.
But the Lieutenant just shrugs, before clearing his throat. He straightens his posture and lifts his chin a little. "No one wants to be weak and useless..." He pauses. "Alright, let me rephrase that, and start over. No one wants to be weak. No one's ever useless. Everyone can be useful for something. But if you're weak, you don't get to choose what you're used for, and you're gonna get used for something that hurts."
Noatak doesn't know what to say other than, "I'm sorry." He isn't sure if it's an admission of guilt, or just a general statement of sympathy. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry things turned out like this. I'm sorry you feel this way. Good grief, Noatak needs to shut the fuck up.
"Yeah, people are always sorry when they get caught. Lemme finish," the Lieutenant says. "I get to live in a world that likes to tell me, in thousand shitty little ways, that I'm disposable, and yet it's my problem if I feel envy? What's so bad about envy, anyhow? People only treat it as bad 'cos they feel threatened by it." He gives Noatak a thoughtful look, like he's wondering if his vital organs would be better fried or roasted. "I'm all for envy, me."
Noatak would like to inch away from him. Or, failing that, give him a fatal pulmonary embolism. Something quick and painless. He might actually be doing the world a favor by removing the Lieutenant from it.
"And I bet you're now wishing you'd thrown me harder at that wall, huh?" the Lieutenant says, showing an unusual bit of insight. His then composure crumples, and he puts his head in his hands. "Why was I surprised you did that?"
The Lieutenant now looks more like his old self again. This is almost a relief. He seems so much less malicious when he's miserable. Noatak could even believe that the man's vulnerability makes him less of a threat. There were so many times in the past where it was easy to reassure him with a touch, or a kind word, or even just a moment of attention.
Noatak wonders how much longer he might live if he could sit upright and put his arms around the poor stupid asshole.
"I'm a fucking idiot," the Lieutenant says.
"What, because I had you fooled?" Noatak makes an effort to speak carefully and quietly. "You weren't alone in that regard. Don't feel stupid. I just have an aptitude for identifying people's weaknesses. In fact, sometimes, people's weaknesses are all I see, which might explain why I'm a..." He searches for the right choice of words, "...Massive bastard."
Noatak then realizes what he's just said.
Ah, he thinks, here we are. I'm reasonably sure that this conversation isn't actually happening, I don't know where I am, I'm willing to entertain the idea that you're a figment of my guilty conscience, and I'm genuinely scared because I think you're about to torture me, and... For some strange reason, I am still trying to comfort you. My penchant for charity cases is getting out of hand. He is strangely reminded of a time when Tarrlok once tried to rehabilitate a rabbit with a broken leg. The rabbit died anyway. Tarrlok would've saved himself a lot of trouble if he'd just let the rabbit be used as a stew ingredient.
"No, I'm a fucking idiot because I should've expected all of this," the Lieutenant says. "Whether you were a nonbender, a waterbender, whatever... You'd always been ruthless. It's been right there in front of me the whole time."
And now the guy is crying. While sober. He still has his head in his hands so Noatak can't see his face, but there's a tremor in his voice, and Noatak knows him well enough by now to tell when he's ineptly trying to hide the fact that he's in pain.
The afterlife is so much worse than Noatak expected.
"I could've put two and two together and worked out people don't mean anything to you, and I wasn't gonna be the exception to that," the Lieutenant says. "Fuck me, I don't even know why I'm talking to you. I hate this shit. I said I wouldn't do this. I said I was just gonna kill you."
"Want to get things over with, then?" Noatak asks. His mouth is dry. Get things over with, then move on. In this version of the story, the frog gets to kill the scorpion.
"Give me a moment. I don't know," his Lieutenant murmurs.
That makes two of them. Noatak still isn't sure why the Lieutenant hasn't caused him any physical harm yet.
You do remember that, back at the Arena, he ran at you without bothering to arm his kali sticks first, right?
Yes, but I assumed that was because he'd forgot. You know what he's like.
Noatak stares at the ceiling. There are rigging mechanisms right above him, half-hidden in the darkness. A... A what do you call it? A fly loft. There are line sets for lighting. Electricity and metal. If someone had an appreciation for black comedy, they could drop a sandbag on Noatak's head, which certainly seems a lot more preferable to an eternity of lying on the floor while the Lieutenant cries at him.
Then his Lieutenant takes a deep breath. "H'okay. I'm fine." He wipes his nose on the back of his wrist, blinks a few times, then sits bolt upright, and seems to compose himself somewhat.
"You said you were sorry," his Lieutenant says. He now sounds exhausted, but still calm.
Noatak did say that.
"Sorry for what?" his Lieutenant asks.
Why isn't he resorting to violence yet?
"If we'd won, neither of us would've regretted a single thing we'd done to achieve that victory," the Lieutenant says. "You could've killed me - and hell, you probably would've had to kill me after I caught you bloodbending - and so long as you got to defeat the Avatar, I reckon you wouldn't have given a shit. You're only giving me this 'oh boo hoo I'm a massive bastard' bullshit' because you've lost."
The Lieutenant looks around the stage. For just a second, he seems to focus on something that's outside Noatak's field of vision, and Noatak suddenly understands that they're being watched. They're on a stage, and they're being watched. Makes perfect sense. Then the Lieutenant continues:
"I'm not gonna pretend I haven't had moments of weakness. There were plenty of times when I've thought, 'fuck, maybe we shouldn't have done that'. And there were plenty of times when I questioned the sanity of our cause. But I would never, ever try to apologize for anything." His voice remains dangerously calm. "People like us don't get to apologize. An apology is an insult."
Noatak almost says, 'I don't regret my ambitions. I regret some of the things I did to achieve those ambitions,' right before he realizes that this doesn't mean anything, and never did.
Noatak screws his eyes shut. He's had enough.
He hears the scuff of boots against floorboards as the Lieutenant stands up again.
"This situation is kinda like a test of character, ain't it?" the Lieutenant muses. "I can kill you and move on. Or... I can let you suffer. And no one else is gonna know what I choose other than you, me, and the other guy."
So there is a third person here.
"Well, I already know what sort of person I am," the Lieutenant says. "And I've been thinking: I reckon you might be worth more alive. People are gonna want you to tell them lots of shit about the Equalists. And I bet you'd fucking love being interrogated by the authorities, right? You'd finally get the audience you deserve."
Wait.
Noatak looks up and cranes his neck. "What?"
"Like I said, everyone's useful for something." There's a fleeting expression of sadness, and then the Lieutenant forces a smile. "You know, it's funny. I quit drinking because of you. And smoking. Shit, I was even a vegetarian for six months. So... Thanks, I guess? What's your name again? Noatak, right?" It's the worst smile that Noatak has seen. "Hello, Noatak."
The Lieutenant raises his boot over Noatak's head.
"Goodbye, Noatak."
The stage dims.
Noatak stands on the stage once more, in front of an audience, thousands of eyes in the dark. The air is sticky and warm. The audience bays and screams. It almost sounds human.
A pair of chi blockers (he thinks they're chi blockers, as their faces are covered) let go of his wrists and step back from him, giving him some space.
There is the figure in a white mask again. It waits, only a few paces away from him, as if it would like to savor his misery for a little longer.
"You're not real," Noatak says.
The masked figure cants its head to one side, so the shadows make it appear to smile.
"You're not real," Noatak repeats, "You're not real."
The figure keeps its hands by its sides. It doesn't even bother to assume a proper combat stance. Noatak doesn't pose any threat to it. Everything is bloodless here.
Noatak isn't going to take this anymore. He turns and runs.
There's snow underfoot. Noatak stumbles across it, limping badly. He looks back, but all he can see is grey. The wind tears at his skin and stings his eyes. He's lost. There is something out there, and it hear it growling. Maybe the wolves remember him from long ago.
Through the blizzard, he can make out a the shape of something ahead. A lean shadow, built for speed. An eyeless head, fleshless and vulpine, nothing more than a pair of long, narrow jaws full of things like meathooks. There's a miasma of smoke around its mouth.
Noatak comes to a dead stop so he can get a better look. The papery snow gets in his eyes.
The creature is no longer there, if it ever was. Instead, there is only the silhouette of a lone female figure. Square-shouldered. Not particularly tall. Very, very familiar. He can't make out her face, but he knows she's looking directly at him.
Noatak turns around and, stupidly, runs back in the direction he came from.
And then he's back on the stage again, which had better not be a fucking metaphor for anything, because Noatak is dying and he doesn't want to deal with fucking metaphors during his final moments.
The audience surges at him in one movement. It has no faces, but many hands. The hands pin his wrists behind his back, and tear at his clothes, and when they reach bare skin, they keep tearing, trying to get at something deep inside him. There is a particular thing they're after.
When they're done, he's too weak to move. Parts of him are missing. He can't see the missing parts, but he can feel their absence.
The crowd parts, allowing Amon to pass through and approach. Amon carries a fuel can.
Noatak starts to scream.
You weren't like this. We didn't do this to people. You weren't meant to be like this.
And Amon replies:
So? Does that change anything? Do you think we will be remembered for our mercy and restraint?
Noatak is still able to close his eyes, so he does that. The fuel is cold against his skin.
He wants to go home.
He hears the match being struck.
He stops being
"Noatak?"
Noatak opens his eyes again and discovers that he's being stared at.
"You looked like you was having a nightmare," Tarrlok says.
Noatak gently pushes his brother away, and sits bolt upright up in bed so he can brush his damp hair back from his forehead.
There's just enough moonlight for him to make an inventory of his surroundings. Those are his boots by his bedroll. That's his half-finished carving of a sled dog in the corner. That's his slate leaning against the wall, ready for his appointment with the writing tutor tomorrow. There is Tarrlok's collection of feathers and Interesting Rocks. There is a wooden flute on the floor that's in danger of getting stepped on (probably by Tarrlok). Noatak was given the flute by his mother when he turned eight last week. He should move the flute to somewhere safe (tomorrow, not right now).
Tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow. And this doesn't seem like a bad thing.
"I'm okay," Noatak says. Relief floods through him. He doesn't know what he was just dreaming about, but he wants to cry.
Tarrlok just keeps staring. "Noatak."
"What?" Noatak says.
"Your nose is bleeding," Tarrlok says.
Noatak wipes his upper lip, and finds blood on his fingers.
"Don't tell anybody," Noatak says. The nosebleed is his fault, somehow. The blood is sticky and dark.
Noatak then looks back at his younger brother and, for some reason, he expects him to say something horrible. He doesn't know what Tarrlok could say, only that it might be something bad, and true.
But Tarrlok just mutters, "Okay, don't get nose blood on me, good night," and cocoons himself in a blanket near Noatak's feet.
Noatak settles back down. He wants to get a good sleep so he isn't tired during his writing lesson tomorrow. His tutor says he's clever. His tutor says he's eloquent.
Noatak wakes up on a shore again, and coughs until his vision darkens.
When the coughing finally passes, he wipes his face. There's fresh blood on his mouth and chin, and he can taste metal. Perhaps he bit his tongue.
He sits up so he can look for Tarrlok, without really knowing why, then drags himself out of the water before lying back down. He waits for things to change once more. This is all temporary. It will pass.
He can still feel the weight of the sea close by. The water is still alive to him, though he doesn't know why this matters. He can still bend. Of course. What else was he expecting? Why would he think something has been lost?
He waits.
It seems odd that the salt water doesn't hurt.
The tide withdraws.
The blood around his mouth begins to dry.
He still waits.
The world doesn't change. He suspects that he's stuck here. There are no new horrors, only the same ones as before.
He remembers, distantly, that just for a short time, he really did think that everything was fine, and that he was safe, and that he had a writing lesson tomorrow.
He curls up on the ground, and covers his face.