The Revenant -- Miss_Sanguine
Title: The Revenant
Author: miss_sanguine
Word Count: 2,164 (this chapter)
Rating: M (Don't read this if you do not like blood, gore, and a teen having unintentional sexual feelings toward a minor. .
In this Chapter: Sokka makes it to the tip of the Earth Kingdom with Toph but finds that his troubles have yet to even scratch the surface.
The flight was long and neither of them said anything to each other, which was fine with him. Now that Toph was there, he found himself regretting his decision to let her come. And it wasn’t even that she was doing anything; she had not said a single word since they’d taken off. It was his thoughts getting the better of him. Thoughts that made him glower at the clouds ahead of them, made him wish he could be alone.
When they finally landed somewhere at the tip of the Earth Kingdom, he was determined to find a way to leave Toph behind; something, he told himself, that wouldn’t be that hard. He could leave her with Appa-the bison wasn’t really needed now that he was here-and that way she wouldn’t be completely alone.
The sun had risen some time ago, heat bearing down on them since they were no longer above the clouds where it was cooler. Sokka ran his arm over his sweaty brow and looked down at the bare ground in consternation. From behind, he heard Toph move.
“Are we back on the ground?” He turned to see her unhook her arms from the saddle-where they had been clasped solidly since Appa had taken off-and throw them half-heartedly into the air. “Finally.”
She looked strained, dark circles under her milky-green eyes, and he felt a small bit of guilt at seeing this. Toph was not a fan of flying, as everyone knew, and usually he helped her through the long flights by allowing her to hold onto him. Having the assurance of someone nearby had always seemed to help. He had left her high and dry this time around, having forgotten her trepidations in his frustration.
He was about to say something, maybe make a sarcastic comment even though he didn’t quite feel like his sarcastic self, but his mouth snapped shut when a thought occurred to him.
You told her not to come. This is no fault of yours.
It was true. It wasn’t his fault. Why had he thought he needed to apologize? She was getting nothing more than she deserved.
Without waiting to see if she needed help down, Sokka slid from his spot on Appa’s head-and crashed to the earth as his legs gave out on him.
For a moment he lay there, stunned and confused and suddenly very, very sore. His knees ached, burned as if he’d been running for days. And then it hit him as to why and he buried his face in the ground and groaned.
Had it really been that long since he had ridden Appa?
Something heavy landed beside him, sending little clouds of dust in his direction and making him cough. There was the sound of someone patting down their clothes and then, “Way to go, hotshot.”
He muttered something unintelligible into the dirt, not bothering to move.
“I’ll get the food. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
---
Despite his not having eaten for a very long time-he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything, actually-Sokka still found that he had no appetite. He should have been hungry. He knew what his stomach was usually like, and this wasn’t what it was like. The apple in Toph’s hand brought only a vague awareness of how empty his stomach was.
Think about meat, he told himself. Meat is always good.
He imagined a large walrus-seal, brought home fresh from a hunt, the meat still warm and steaming in the frigid air when cut into. He tried to remember his eagerness at receiving his portion of meat first for having been a part of the hunting party, tried to recall the way his insides would reach out with yearning hands toward the food.
Nothing. Was that strange? It had to be.
The fact that he knew this emptiness was wrong made him will his attention to something else. Anything else.
His eyes moved to Toph where she sat beside him at Appa’s side. As always, she was staring out at nothing, looking somewhat bored-and tired, which could explain why she was being quiet-as she bit away at the fruit in her hand. What was she thinking about right then, he wondered? Was she reflecting on his recent behavior? Judging him? Insulting him?
No. She wouldn’t think insults. If she had something cynical to say, she would not hesitate in saying it. That was just who Toph was.
You have not seen Suki in a while, the voice in his head stated out-of-the-blue, sounding amused for some reason, which made his brows furrow. Maybe lack of food was making him crazy.
Or maybe he missed Suki more than he realized. It felt like an eternity since he’d proposed to her, and he hadn’t seen her since. She’d vanished since then; had missed out on the entire Spirit fiasco. Oh, and now that he thought about it, she probably wouldn’t appreciate finding out that he’d left the nation without a word. With Toph.
His attention returned to the young earthbender. She was on her second apple at this point, the core of the first having been thrown carelessly to the ground at her feet.
There would be no reason for Suki to worry about something like that. Toph was a friend, nothing more. A friend with smudge of dirt on her nose. Not unusual.
What was unusual was his sudden desire to lean over and wipe the smudge of dirt away, to be closer to her in general, and he found himself scooching toward her before he could fully comprehend what was going on. Luckily he caught himself soon enough to make as if he had moved to get at a scratch on his leg, and she continued to ignore him, still staring off into the distance and munching lazily on her apple. Had she noticed anything weird with what he had done?
He rubbed his arm and looked away, heart hammering with what had just happened. He tried to redirect his concentration to a small beetle some few feet away, watched its slow progress across the sand, but his eyes somehow found their way back to the blind earthbender before too long.
Something about her seemed different, and whatever it was it made him unable to avert his eyes again; his mind was focused solely on her. She looked… softer somehow; a kind of soft that triggered an animal-like hunger inside of him. It made an uncomfortable warmth start growing in his middle, a want for something that made him ache. Again he wanted to move closer, maybe put a subtle arm around her. He bet she smelled of fresh soil after a light rain, that her skin was as soft as fresh fallen snow and warm like a new bonfire, that she tasted sweet like the apple in her-
“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?” Toph suddenly asked, sounding annoyed. Her left eyebrow was quirked as she gripped the earth with her palms-analyzing him, no doubt. The second apple’s core had joined its fellow on the ground.
Sokka jumped, reeling back as if her words had burned him. All his sense snapped back into place with the force of an avalanche. “What?” he asked, voice cracked. His throat was dry as a desert, constricted.
“Just because you’re hungry and refuse to eat doesn’t mean you can stare at me while I do.”
Had she not noticed anything? Could she not hear his heart pounding in his chest, so loud it made his ears hum? She had to at least feel it. And he thanked his lucky stars that she was blind, else she’d have seen a blush so vibrant that even on his skin it would have stood out. Oh Spirits, what was wrong with him? Toph was his friend. She was twelve years old. To think that he had wanted to…
He got to his feet quickly. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m starving.” He backed away a few paces and pointed toward the woods behind him. “Going to go hunt. Meat.” More backing away. Panic still present, and horror. “Be back.” And with that he turned and ran; didn’t bother staying to hear her response about what a horrible liar he was. He had to get away, to think. Had to figure out what the heck was wrong with him.
---
What is wrong with me? Sokka asked himself, rubbing his forehead. He’d finally gotten his body back, his mind, but now he was having a hard time controlling how he was feeling? And what had just happened hadn’t made any sense. Would he ever be able to look at Toph again without being morbidly horrified?
I’ve gone crazy. All this Spirit craziness has driven me mad. Stupid Spirits and their stupid spirit-mischievousness! Why can’t they leave me alone?
All of his huffing and stomping around in the underbrush beneath the trees almost made him pass the squirrel without a glance, but some inner and new sense made him stop mid-step. His mind stopped, too, as he wheeled his head around to look.
There, snuffling around near the base of the nearest ash tree, was a full-grown rabbit-squirrel. It flicked its large ears toward him, great black eyes staring, then sat up on its haunches and sniffed the air with quivering whiskers.
Sokka didn’t move at all, didn’t even breathe, or so it felt, but he knew he was breathing because he could smell the stupid thing, and he didn’t want to know how or why. It had a musky scent, like the pelts that were a part of his southern culture, only sweeter. Alive. The animal’s heart could practically be heard on the wind, beating furiously in its little body.
He and the rabbit-squirrel eyed each other for what felt like an eternity, neither of them moving; it took him in, trying to determine whether to run or not, and he waited for it, practically begged it to do so. His body was tight with an unexplained tension, ready and waiting to spring. His eyes were filled with the light russet fur stretched over powerful hind legs and toned muscles.
Why? was the question that came to mind, so small and alone that it was ignored, covered like footprints in the snow. And then the squirrel’s eyes dilated, as if it sensed something. It was a small action, such a small thing, and yet it snapped the string of tension between them. Some substance in his consciousness exploded, came alive, the animal whirled and all remaining thoughts were lost to the tribesman as he lunged. …
---
There was nothing but a confusion of color, sound, and movement for an inestimable amount of time. Images flickered through his head, crowded and cryptic, like poor calligraphy he could only just recognize but not single out. Half the time he thought he was dreaming, tried snatching in desperation at whatever bits of consciousness he could.
The first thing he noticed when he finally got a hold of his sensibility was that he was not in a normal position. He was on his knees on the forest floor, hands and arms biting into fallen pine needles. Then there came the taste on the back of his tongue, like he’d been sucking on something made of copper and salt, and he winced and made a gagging sound when he realized the something he’d been eating was still in his mouth.
“Augh! What a-“ He stopped, eyes widening when he saw it. Beneath his crouching body were the mutilated remains of an animal. Skin had been torn away, the ribcage bursting outward. Some organs lay splayed around the carcass, tufts of fur stuck in the dark sticky blood that had gushed upon the leaves. The only recognizable things were the thick, bristly tail that shot out from the gory red mess and the two long ears near what might have been the head.
Sokka yelped and scrambled back, his legs screaming in protest after having been bent over for so long. He pushed himself along on his bottom with his arms until he was back-to-back with the trunk of a tree and stared, terrified, at what had once been a rabbit-squirrel.
He’d been hunting before. He’d seen the bloodied bodies of his prey. This was different. His stomach curled at the thought of what he’d seemingly just done. He wracked his mind for a recollection of the incident and came up with nothing except maybe a flash of a great silvery blur springing upon a bushy-tailed rodent.
His hands and clothes were covered in dried blood, his face sticky with it as well. He felt the caked substance crumble from his lips as he opened his mouth to attempt a yell, but all that came out was a muffled squeak.
You said you were starving. The voice laughed.
Author: miss_sanguine
Word Count: 2,164 (this chapter)
Rating: M (Don't read this if you do not like blood, gore, and a teen having unintentional sexual feelings toward a minor. .
In this Chapter: Sokka makes it to the tip of the Earth Kingdom with Toph but finds that his troubles have yet to even scratch the surface.
The flight was long and neither of them said anything to each other, which was fine with him. Now that Toph was there, he found himself regretting his decision to let her come. And it wasn’t even that she was doing anything; she had not said a single word since they’d taken off. It was his thoughts getting the better of him. Thoughts that made him glower at the clouds ahead of them, made him wish he could be alone.
When they finally landed somewhere at the tip of the Earth Kingdom, he was determined to find a way to leave Toph behind; something, he told himself, that wouldn’t be that hard. He could leave her with Appa-the bison wasn’t really needed now that he was here-and that way she wouldn’t be completely alone.
The sun had risen some time ago, heat bearing down on them since they were no longer above the clouds where it was cooler. Sokka ran his arm over his sweaty brow and looked down at the bare ground in consternation. From behind, he heard Toph move.
“Are we back on the ground?” He turned to see her unhook her arms from the saddle-where they had been clasped solidly since Appa had taken off-and throw them half-heartedly into the air. “Finally.”
She looked strained, dark circles under her milky-green eyes, and he felt a small bit of guilt at seeing this. Toph was not a fan of flying, as everyone knew, and usually he helped her through the long flights by allowing her to hold onto him. Having the assurance of someone nearby had always seemed to help. He had left her high and dry this time around, having forgotten her trepidations in his frustration.
He was about to say something, maybe make a sarcastic comment even though he didn’t quite feel like his sarcastic self, but his mouth snapped shut when a thought occurred to him.
You told her not to come. This is no fault of yours.
It was true. It wasn’t his fault. Why had he thought he needed to apologize? She was getting nothing more than she deserved.
Without waiting to see if she needed help down, Sokka slid from his spot on Appa’s head-and crashed to the earth as his legs gave out on him.
For a moment he lay there, stunned and confused and suddenly very, very sore. His knees ached, burned as if he’d been running for days. And then it hit him as to why and he buried his face in the ground and groaned.
Had it really been that long since he had ridden Appa?
Something heavy landed beside him, sending little clouds of dust in his direction and making him cough. There was the sound of someone patting down their clothes and then, “Way to go, hotshot.”
He muttered something unintelligible into the dirt, not bothering to move.
“I’ll get the food. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
---
Despite his not having eaten for a very long time-he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything, actually-Sokka still found that he had no appetite. He should have been hungry. He knew what his stomach was usually like, and this wasn’t what it was like. The apple in Toph’s hand brought only a vague awareness of how empty his stomach was.
Think about meat, he told himself. Meat is always good.
He imagined a large walrus-seal, brought home fresh from a hunt, the meat still warm and steaming in the frigid air when cut into. He tried to remember his eagerness at receiving his portion of meat first for having been a part of the hunting party, tried to recall the way his insides would reach out with yearning hands toward the food.
Nothing. Was that strange? It had to be.
The fact that he knew this emptiness was wrong made him will his attention to something else. Anything else.
His eyes moved to Toph where she sat beside him at Appa’s side. As always, she was staring out at nothing, looking somewhat bored-and tired, which could explain why she was being quiet-as she bit away at the fruit in her hand. What was she thinking about right then, he wondered? Was she reflecting on his recent behavior? Judging him? Insulting him?
No. She wouldn’t think insults. If she had something cynical to say, she would not hesitate in saying it. That was just who Toph was.
You have not seen Suki in a while, the voice in his head stated out-of-the-blue, sounding amused for some reason, which made his brows furrow. Maybe lack of food was making him crazy.
Or maybe he missed Suki more than he realized. It felt like an eternity since he’d proposed to her, and he hadn’t seen her since. She’d vanished since then; had missed out on the entire Spirit fiasco. Oh, and now that he thought about it, she probably wouldn’t appreciate finding out that he’d left the nation without a word. With Toph.
His attention returned to the young earthbender. She was on her second apple at this point, the core of the first having been thrown carelessly to the ground at her feet.
There would be no reason for Suki to worry about something like that. Toph was a friend, nothing more. A friend with smudge of dirt on her nose. Not unusual.
What was unusual was his sudden desire to lean over and wipe the smudge of dirt away, to be closer to her in general, and he found himself scooching toward her before he could fully comprehend what was going on. Luckily he caught himself soon enough to make as if he had moved to get at a scratch on his leg, and she continued to ignore him, still staring off into the distance and munching lazily on her apple. Had she noticed anything weird with what he had done?
He rubbed his arm and looked away, heart hammering with what had just happened. He tried to redirect his concentration to a small beetle some few feet away, watched its slow progress across the sand, but his eyes somehow found their way back to the blind earthbender before too long.
Something about her seemed different, and whatever it was it made him unable to avert his eyes again; his mind was focused solely on her. She looked… softer somehow; a kind of soft that triggered an animal-like hunger inside of him. It made an uncomfortable warmth start growing in his middle, a want for something that made him ache. Again he wanted to move closer, maybe put a subtle arm around her. He bet she smelled of fresh soil after a light rain, that her skin was as soft as fresh fallen snow and warm like a new bonfire, that she tasted sweet like the apple in her-
“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?” Toph suddenly asked, sounding annoyed. Her left eyebrow was quirked as she gripped the earth with her palms-analyzing him, no doubt. The second apple’s core had joined its fellow on the ground.
Sokka jumped, reeling back as if her words had burned him. All his sense snapped back into place with the force of an avalanche. “What?” he asked, voice cracked. His throat was dry as a desert, constricted.
“Just because you’re hungry and refuse to eat doesn’t mean you can stare at me while I do.”
Had she not noticed anything? Could she not hear his heart pounding in his chest, so loud it made his ears hum? She had to at least feel it. And he thanked his lucky stars that she was blind, else she’d have seen a blush so vibrant that even on his skin it would have stood out. Oh Spirits, what was wrong with him? Toph was his friend. She was twelve years old. To think that he had wanted to…
He got to his feet quickly. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m starving.” He backed away a few paces and pointed toward the woods behind him. “Going to go hunt. Meat.” More backing away. Panic still present, and horror. “Be back.” And with that he turned and ran; didn’t bother staying to hear her response about what a horrible liar he was. He had to get away, to think. Had to figure out what the heck was wrong with him.
---
What is wrong with me? Sokka asked himself, rubbing his forehead. He’d finally gotten his body back, his mind, but now he was having a hard time controlling how he was feeling? And what had just happened hadn’t made any sense. Would he ever be able to look at Toph again without being morbidly horrified?
I’ve gone crazy. All this Spirit craziness has driven me mad. Stupid Spirits and their stupid spirit-mischievousness! Why can’t they leave me alone?
All of his huffing and stomping around in the underbrush beneath the trees almost made him pass the squirrel without a glance, but some inner and new sense made him stop mid-step. His mind stopped, too, as he wheeled his head around to look.
There, snuffling around near the base of the nearest ash tree, was a full-grown rabbit-squirrel. It flicked its large ears toward him, great black eyes staring, then sat up on its haunches and sniffed the air with quivering whiskers.
Sokka didn’t move at all, didn’t even breathe, or so it felt, but he knew he was breathing because he could smell the stupid thing, and he didn’t want to know how or why. It had a musky scent, like the pelts that were a part of his southern culture, only sweeter. Alive. The animal’s heart could practically be heard on the wind, beating furiously in its little body.
He and the rabbit-squirrel eyed each other for what felt like an eternity, neither of them moving; it took him in, trying to determine whether to run or not, and he waited for it, practically begged it to do so. His body was tight with an unexplained tension, ready and waiting to spring. His eyes were filled with the light russet fur stretched over powerful hind legs and toned muscles.
Why? was the question that came to mind, so small and alone that it was ignored, covered like footprints in the snow. And then the squirrel’s eyes dilated, as if it sensed something. It was a small action, such a small thing, and yet it snapped the string of tension between them. Some substance in his consciousness exploded, came alive, the animal whirled and all remaining thoughts were lost to the tribesman as he lunged. …
---
There was nothing but a confusion of color, sound, and movement for an inestimable amount of time. Images flickered through his head, crowded and cryptic, like poor calligraphy he could only just recognize but not single out. Half the time he thought he was dreaming, tried snatching in desperation at whatever bits of consciousness he could.
The first thing he noticed when he finally got a hold of his sensibility was that he was not in a normal position. He was on his knees on the forest floor, hands and arms biting into fallen pine needles. Then there came the taste on the back of his tongue, like he’d been sucking on something made of copper and salt, and he winced and made a gagging sound when he realized the something he’d been eating was still in his mouth.
“Augh! What a-“ He stopped, eyes widening when he saw it. Beneath his crouching body were the mutilated remains of an animal. Skin had been torn away, the ribcage bursting outward. Some organs lay splayed around the carcass, tufts of fur stuck in the dark sticky blood that had gushed upon the leaves. The only recognizable things were the thick, bristly tail that shot out from the gory red mess and the two long ears near what might have been the head.
Sokka yelped and scrambled back, his legs screaming in protest after having been bent over for so long. He pushed himself along on his bottom with his arms until he was back-to-back with the trunk of a tree and stared, terrified, at what had once been a rabbit-squirrel.
He’d been hunting before. He’d seen the bloodied bodies of his prey. This was different. His stomach curled at the thought of what he’d seemingly just done. He wracked his mind for a recollection of the incident and came up with nothing except maybe a flash of a great silvery blur springing upon a bushy-tailed rodent.
His hands and clothes were covered in dried blood, his face sticky with it as well. He felt the caked substance crumble from his lips as he opened his mouth to attempt a yell, but all that came out was a muffled squeak.
You said you were starving. The voice laughed.