Fanfic in 3... 2... 1...
AND GO
CAUSE SOME TROUBLE
Chapter 2-- The Desert of the Dead
Okay, I’m just gonna say that this chapter was tough to write. It’s pretty dark, since Zafi and Basam have to deal with the aftermath of the attack and all. I’ve never written this much angst before, so this is kind of new territory for me. I won’t lie, I’m glad to be done with this chapter. I’m proud of the end result (I wouldn’t even consider posting it if I wasn’t!) but I’m glad to be moving on to Chapter 3.
Also, here’s a screencap of the oasis so you can get a better idea of the terrain being described in this chapter.
Also: From now on, I’ll be putting the playlists at the end. Otherwise, the explanations of where each song fits into the chapter will start getting into spoiler territory very soon!
The sun was rising over the Si Wong Desert. The fight was done-it hadn’t lasted very long, hardly an hour. Not that it would, with such slanted numbers. The Fire Nation had never really held with the idea of a fair fight.
Those that survived knelt with bound wrists in the middle of the oasis, rooted to the ground by the stony stares of the Firebender troops that surrounded them like a living wall of red and black monsters. The scum-sucking hogmonkey of a commander had decided that the prisoners were wanting a lesson in showing proper respect for the superior element of Fire; some knelt willingly, and the rest got an armored boot to the backs of their knees. The corpses of those that hadn’t lived lay scattered at the survivors’ feet, left where they’d fallen on the fire-blackened sand-the troops wanted out of the desert and back to civilized lands as quickly as they could manage, and they weren’t about to waste time on cleaning up dead vermin. The flying machine had left already, sailing off to more important tasks.
Zafirah couldn’t shake the thought, sticking like a poisoned barb in her mind, that the dead were the lucky ones. Basam was at her left side, tense as an archer’s bowstring. Sprawled on her right was the bizarre tourist who’d blundered into her life just hours ago, before her world had broken apart into a thousand knife-sharp pieces. The Spirits-be-damned fool had gone and gotten himself punched in the face; he still had the Water Tribe war club from the shop gripped in his right fist. He stirred, waking up, and his eyes slowly opened. Well, one of them did, since his right eye was swollen shut. The vivid green of his left eye looked too bright next to the ugly purple and black mess. She just barely had the sense to put a finger to her lips, telling him to stay quiet. He gazed searchingly at her for a moment, and whatever it was he saw in her face left his own pale with horror. Then he frowned in confusion as he looked past her and took in the sight of wood planks over their heads.
In the heat of battle, Zafirah had panicked. She’d gotten the outsider half-awake enough to stumble along with an arm across her shoulders, and gone to find Basam- she’d found him wreaking havoc in a cluster of soldiers, snarling every insult he knew of while Sandbending with one hand (and both feet) and swinging a hammer with the other, Spirits bless him. With an explosion distracting the soldiers, they’d crept away from the fight. Basam was none too happy about abandoning the battle, but even less happy about leaving his sister’s side. None of the soldiers had seen them steal away to hide beneath one of the sand gliders moored just outside the wall. From this shameful hiding spot, they looked on through grief-cloudy eyes as their friends, rivals, and kinsmen were beaten down and rounded up like wooly-pigs.
The triple-cursed commander was parading around in front of his prisoners, chest puffed out, with a sickening smile on his thin lips like he was having tea with his mama. When he started talking, his voice carried all the way out to the sand glider.
“Sandbenders,” he boomed. Like his smile (which widened as he wound up for the crowning moment of his victory) the friendly tone of his voice was about as inviting as a fireball. “The generals of the mighty Fire Nation military have long believed that Ba Sing Se was the last great Earth Kingdom stronghold. They believed that once the Impenetrable City fell, the glory of the Firelord’s reign would at last reach every corner of this barbaric land. But that wasn’t entirely correct, was it? No, for it was this accursed wasteland, this vast expanse of nothingness, that was truly the last refuge of the Earth Kingdom. The Si Wong Desert-‘Desert of the Dead’ in the old tongue.” The Fire-freak’s smile twisted into a cruel smirk. Oh yes, he was having a grand old time speechifying at his captured savages. Kuei moved to sit up, to see what was going on, but Zafirah pushed a fingertip against his shoulder to keep him down; they couldn’t risk anyone spotting the movement, small though it was. The commander’s chest puffed out even more and he went on.
“For one hundred years, the tribes of the Si Wong Desert have kept their freedom. Even the most elite Firebender troops would be brought to their knees by this place. For one hundred years, the Sandbender tribes have hidden away amidst these dunes, secure in the knowledge that they and they alone could survive here. Well, no more. As you can see, we have taken the skies with our war balloons-and with the skies under our command, the desert has fallen.”
The desert has fallen. The words hit Zafirah like a strike to the face. They tore through her heart and left an aching hollow in its path and a ringing in her ears. There’s no stopping them now. No one’s safe. No one’s safe… She felt Basam’s hand clutch her own with a white-knuckled grip. The press of his palm against hers was her only anchor in the roaring, swirling nightmare that had swallowed her thoughts. She felt warm wetness on her cheek: tears. She hadn’t cried in nearly four years, not since-
The commander clapped his hands and the soldiers started rousing the prisoners. Some couldn’t stand on their own and were kicked to the dirt for their efforts before being hauled to a stand. She caught sight of Ghashiun, face twisted in pain as he got dragged upwards by his ponytail; beside him was Fung, a kindly old guy who sat patiently at the cantina’s pai sho table day after day, waiting for a worthy challenger. A soldier seized him by the tattered collar of his tunic and wrenched the frail little man to his feet. The siblings watched helplessly while the soldiers shoved the captive Sandbenders into a line and chained their already bound hands. The Firebenders herded their spoils of war to the convoy of metal carts gathered on the crest of the grassy slope that lead down to the oasis’ main gate. Zafirah turned her head away.
None of the three dared move a muscle until the clank and scrape of metal wheels and the grunting of ostrich-horses faded in the distance. Silence fell in the convoy’s wake, grasping the lifeless oasis in a stranglehold.
****************
Zafirah’s homeland had never frightened her much. She respected the desert, but she wasn’t often intimidated by it. Out there, living in that sea of dunes, some would’ve been done in by the loneliness. Zafirah and her brother had never once had such a problem-until that day. She held fast to Basam’s arm as they drifted through what was left of the main gate and right into a graveyard. As they stood surrounded by smoking ruins and half-burned corpses, she felt the deadly vastness of the desert more keenly than she ever had. They were on their own, cut adrift with only each other… and a strange outsider.
Zafirah shot a sidelong glance at Kuei; he was looking at the scorched sand with an odd bleakness, a sadness that ran far too deep to be just worry over the fates of a bunch of Sandbenders. Some tiny part of her mind, some far corner that wasn’t yet lost in grief, wondered if he was seeing Ba Sing Se with that hazy stare.
The siblings’ hut had escaped the bombs, but it felt wrong to retreat to the comfort of their house with the bodies of their kinsmen lying in the dirt like yesterday’s garbage.
She and her brother gave voice to the same thought. “We gotta bury them.” The twins looked at each other. Tears cut trails through the soot on Basam’s cheeks. Kuei stepped closer and lifted his hand, then dropped it again.
“Is there-do you have a shovel?” he asked timidly.
“We’re Sandbenders,” Basam mumbled dazedly, not looking at the other man.
“Yes, but I-I thought… I could help you.” His voice shook. Zafirah forced her gaze off of the horrible sight in front of them and turned it towards the outsider, and saw the misery that clawed at her lungs echoed in his face. Ba Sing Se. The name flared through her stormy thoughts like a match being struck. The siblings had been cut adrift, but Kuei was stuck right there with them in the same Spirits-forsaken boat.
She reached out and clasped his shoulder; he flinched a little and his eyes flickered sideways to her hand, as if startled by the contact. “Go down to the pantry. You’ll see a green jar of salve in there. It’ll heal your eye up faster,” she told him, her words coming out a bone-dry croak. Kuei hesitated.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do…?” he asked.
“It’s awful kind of you, but this is our duty,” Basam said. He put a heavy hand on Kuei’s other shoulder and managed a faint grimace trying to be a smile. Kuei frowned, then nodded and shuffled back to the weapons shop. The two Sandbenders turned to the task ahead of them. “We’ll move ‘em outside the wall,” her brother said softly. Zafirah murmured agreement. The siblings took Bending stances and began their grisly work.
****************
Kuei felt guilt wash over him anew as he entered the pantry. The room was smaller than he’d assumed, its shelves alarmingly barren. These people had nothing, and still they opened their home to a stranger-a stranger whose arrival had been accompanied by misfortune. He couldn’t fight the chilling thought that perhaps the Fire Nation had followed him to the desert… But no, surely he wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant that much effort? Nevertheless, the fact remained that disaster had shadowed his footsteps with relentless consistency for the last several weeks.
Bosco rumbled sadly and nudged Kuei’s arm as he emerged from the pantry with the green jar in hand. The bear had fled to the basement during the attack; Kuei found him huddled in a corner, quaking and growling. He absently scratched the bear’s ears with his spare hand as he ducked into the washroom and set his spectacles on the shelf beside him, astonished that he hadn’t lost them in the fight.
The reflection in the dusty mirror was an unfamiliar image. Black eyes were most emphatically not a part of the 52nd Earth King’s life. Nor was the grim weariness in his eyes. Nor was charging headlong into battle against a Fire Nation soldier for the sake of a Sandbender he’d known for less than twelve hours. He inhaled deeply to steady himself.
The 52nd Earth King squeezed his eyes shut, wincing at the pain that shot through the right side of his face as he did. He felt himself teetering at the edge of the map, a hair’s breadth from the unknown. Kuei opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.
****************
Kuei was dozing fitfully against Bosco’s flank when Zafirah and Basam returned from the burial.
“Outsider’s got the right idea,” Basam said. “We oughta try and rest, too. Y’know what needs to be done next.” Zafirah nodded weakly. Yeah, she knew: eighty years ago, the elders of the tribes had made an accord. They vowed that if the Fire Nation couldn’t be kept out of the desert anymore, anybody that survived the first attacks would carry a warning across the dunes to the others. Come sundown, the siblings would head off to the open desert to deliver the word that the desert was no longer safe. “I had plenty of shut-eye yesterday,” he went on. “You sleep, I’ll get to packing.” She just nodded again, too drained to force words out. Basam pulled his sister into a tight hug, then steered her over to her bed. “Sleep,” he told her.
She settled onto her mattress, hardly aware she’d even moved until she found herself staring listlessly at the ceiling. She rolled onto her side and turned her restless gaze on Kuei and Bosco through a gap in the curtain.
There’s no escaping the flame-throwing scum-beasts, not anymore, she thought. No matter how far you run… Exhaustion won out and she drifted off.
****************
Packing for their journey was easy enough. There wasn’t much to pack-most of the food from the pantry, all of the water skins the siblings had on hand (plus a few scavenged from neighboring huts), and very little else. The Sandbenders had only a couple extra sets of clothes between them, and of course there were non-essentials like Basam’s shaving razor and her hair comb, but that was about it. Kuei’s personal belongings amounted to the clothes on his back, Bosco, and now a Water Tribe war club. Zafirah had flat-out refused to let him give it back; he probably couldn’t have hit Si Wong Rock at half a pace with the damned thing, but the way she saw it, he wasn’t exactly losing anything by keeping it on him.
It was a good weapon for him, she’d decided. It was just as awkward and out-of-place here as he was. One of Ghashiun’s cronies from outside the tribe had brought it to her after the mess with the Avatar, and it had been sitting on that shelf in their store ever since… until last night, that is.
There was a sand glider waiting for them just outside the main gate, its prow facing into the west, with most of their supplies already carefully stowed away on it. At dusk they would set out to sail it across the desert. Kuei had volunteered to go with them as navigator and watchman. When they found another tribe, they’d pass along their warning, and whichever tribe they found would spread the word to the others. They’d leave Kuei and Bosco at the edge of the desert to wander off wherever that outdated map might take them, and then…? Zafirah was trying not to think about what would happen to herself and her brother after they reached the end of their journey. First things first-the Desert of the Dead was waiting for them. She’d worry about the future if they survived long enough for it to become a problem.
They’d have to travel at night; their guest wasn’t used to the harshness of the sun out on the dunes, and, well, there was a reason Sandbenders went in groups when going into the open desert in daylight. With just the two of them, there’d be no one to take over if thirst or the heat overtook them.
Down in the basement, Basam picked up the last of the supply sacks and slung them over his shoulder, mustering up the most reassuring smile he could manage as he passed by. Zafirah did her best to echo it, despite the horrible, aching hollowness in her chest. Her twin always had a smile to offer anybody that couldn’t find one of their own. Their parents had always said-
She took another shaky breath and fought against the sudden stinging in the corners of her eyes. She glanced around the basement; this was their home, hers and her parents’ and her brother’s, and as much of a pain as it was living in a place like the desert, it was still theirs.
Her gaze landed on Kuei, sitting in the middle of the floor with Bosco lounging beside him. He was exactly where she’d left him half an hour ago: doing his damnedest to follow her instructions to make his outfit “desert-proof”. The clothes he had left him with bare arms and lower legs, which was just asking for trouble in the open desert, even without the blazing sun. So she’d given him a shirt with elbow-length sleeves (borrowed from her brother) and a bundle of spare bindings to cover himself up with; he’d already swapped his own shirt with the borrowed one and done a passing job of covering his legs, and was now completely failing at wrapping his right hand. Zafirah rolled her eyes and sat cross-legged next to the outsider, secretly glad for the distraction.
“Gimme,” she said, hands reaching out for his. “We’ll be here all day if you keep that pace up.”
Kuei hastily drew his hands in towards his chest. “No, no, that’s quite all right, I think I nearly have it,” he declared.
“No, seriously, give ‘em here. We don’t wear those things for fun. You’ll get yourself hurt if they’re done wrong.” He reluctantly let her grab hold of his right hand, and she began wrapping the cloth around his knuckles with the ease that comes from a lifetime of daily practice. His skin felt smooth and soft under her callused fingertips. Yep, definitely from a rich, noble background, probably never done a single day’s hard work… Kuei winced again as his eye twinged.
Zafirah half-smiled in sympathy, recalling black eyes of her own. “That’s what you get when you pick the wrong fight,” she said, not unkindly. “Why’d you do that, anyway? Felt like takin’ a swing at a Firebender?” He looked up at her, his left eye so wide and solemn it was almost comical.
“That coward was about to attack you while your back was turned,” he said. Zafirah’s hand froze on his for a second, then she recovered and kept wrapping.
“That guy was after me?” she said, working to keep her voice even.
“Yes, I’m certain of it. He was preparing a fire blast. I had to at least try to stop him.” He made a sound that might have been a chuckle and brushed his fingers over his eye. “I’m afraid it didn’t work very well, did it?” he asked wryly.
“It did, as a matter of fact. I never saw him coming. Didn’t even know he was there till I heard you yellin’ your fool head off. He’d have roasted me.” Bleeding hogmonkeys, he saved my life.
“Well then, I suppose it was worth a punch in the face,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upward a little. She studied this bizarre outsider from the corner of her eye, sitting there in a folded-up tangle of thin, gangly limbs and the most absurd hodgepodge of clothing she’d ever seen, grimacing and cautiously touching his black eye-probably the first one he’d ever gotten. She couldn’t have imagined an unlikelier hero. He only had one Spirits-be-damned sandal, for crying out loud! But there it was-she owed him her life. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. There were plenty of unpleasant favors a nobleman could demand from a peasant to cover such a debt. She recalled his clumsy but undeniably honest words from the night before: not that I would even think of-I wouldn’t ever-
No. He’d saved her life because it was the right thing to do, and that made her all kinds of uneasy. Outsiders didn’t go around helping Sandbenders out of kindness-it was a basic rule of her world, and he had no idea he’d broken it. She tied off the binding above his elbow and beckoned for his other hand.
I’ll be keeping my eye on you, outsider, she thought. Before he’d just been an amusing oddity, but now he was a riddle. And Zafirah never could pass up a good riddle.
**************
Yep.
By the way, the part about Kuei only having one sandal? Totally canon, and I have the screencaps from “The Awakening” to prove it!
The playlist: Most of these songs aren’t related to the plot. I’m just establishing some character themes here.
1) Two Hornpipes (Tortuga), Hans Zimmer [Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest]-Zafirah’s theme.
2) 12 Years Later, James Newton Howard [Treasure Planet]-Basam’s theme.
3) Stroll Through the Sky, Joe Hisaishi [Howl’s Moving Castle]-Kuei’s theme.
4) Goodbye Brother, Hans Zimmer [Prince of Egypt]-The theme for Chapter 2.
CAUSE SOME TROUBLE
Chapter 2-- The Desert of the Dead
Okay, I’m just gonna say that this chapter was tough to write. It’s pretty dark, since Zafi and Basam have to deal with the aftermath of the attack and all. I’ve never written this much angst before, so this is kind of new territory for me. I won’t lie, I’m glad to be done with this chapter. I’m proud of the end result (I wouldn’t even consider posting it if I wasn’t!) but I’m glad to be moving on to Chapter 3.
Also, here’s a screencap of the oasis so you can get a better idea of the terrain being described in this chapter.
Also: From now on, I’ll be putting the playlists at the end. Otherwise, the explanations of where each song fits into the chapter will start getting into spoiler territory very soon!
The sun was rising over the Si Wong Desert. The fight was done-it hadn’t lasted very long, hardly an hour. Not that it would, with such slanted numbers. The Fire Nation had never really held with the idea of a fair fight.
Those that survived knelt with bound wrists in the middle of the oasis, rooted to the ground by the stony stares of the Firebender troops that surrounded them like a living wall of red and black monsters. The scum-sucking hogmonkey of a commander had decided that the prisoners were wanting a lesson in showing proper respect for the superior element of Fire; some knelt willingly, and the rest got an armored boot to the backs of their knees. The corpses of those that hadn’t lived lay scattered at the survivors’ feet, left where they’d fallen on the fire-blackened sand-the troops wanted out of the desert and back to civilized lands as quickly as they could manage, and they weren’t about to waste time on cleaning up dead vermin. The flying machine had left already, sailing off to more important tasks.
Zafirah couldn’t shake the thought, sticking like a poisoned barb in her mind, that the dead were the lucky ones. Basam was at her left side, tense as an archer’s bowstring. Sprawled on her right was the bizarre tourist who’d blundered into her life just hours ago, before her world had broken apart into a thousand knife-sharp pieces. The Spirits-be-damned fool had gone and gotten himself punched in the face; he still had the Water Tribe war club from the shop gripped in his right fist. He stirred, waking up, and his eyes slowly opened. Well, one of them did, since his right eye was swollen shut. The vivid green of his left eye looked too bright next to the ugly purple and black mess. She just barely had the sense to put a finger to her lips, telling him to stay quiet. He gazed searchingly at her for a moment, and whatever it was he saw in her face left his own pale with horror. Then he frowned in confusion as he looked past her and took in the sight of wood planks over their heads.
In the heat of battle, Zafirah had panicked. She’d gotten the outsider half-awake enough to stumble along with an arm across her shoulders, and gone to find Basam- she’d found him wreaking havoc in a cluster of soldiers, snarling every insult he knew of while Sandbending with one hand (and both feet) and swinging a hammer with the other, Spirits bless him. With an explosion distracting the soldiers, they’d crept away from the fight. Basam was none too happy about abandoning the battle, but even less happy about leaving his sister’s side. None of the soldiers had seen them steal away to hide beneath one of the sand gliders moored just outside the wall. From this shameful hiding spot, they looked on through grief-cloudy eyes as their friends, rivals, and kinsmen were beaten down and rounded up like wooly-pigs.
The triple-cursed commander was parading around in front of his prisoners, chest puffed out, with a sickening smile on his thin lips like he was having tea with his mama. When he started talking, his voice carried all the way out to the sand glider.
“Sandbenders,” he boomed. Like his smile (which widened as he wound up for the crowning moment of his victory) the friendly tone of his voice was about as inviting as a fireball. “The generals of the mighty Fire Nation military have long believed that Ba Sing Se was the last great Earth Kingdom stronghold. They believed that once the Impenetrable City fell, the glory of the Firelord’s reign would at last reach every corner of this barbaric land. But that wasn’t entirely correct, was it? No, for it was this accursed wasteland, this vast expanse of nothingness, that was truly the last refuge of the Earth Kingdom. The Si Wong Desert-‘Desert of the Dead’ in the old tongue.” The Fire-freak’s smile twisted into a cruel smirk. Oh yes, he was having a grand old time speechifying at his captured savages. Kuei moved to sit up, to see what was going on, but Zafirah pushed a fingertip against his shoulder to keep him down; they couldn’t risk anyone spotting the movement, small though it was. The commander’s chest puffed out even more and he went on.
“For one hundred years, the tribes of the Si Wong Desert have kept their freedom. Even the most elite Firebender troops would be brought to their knees by this place. For one hundred years, the Sandbender tribes have hidden away amidst these dunes, secure in the knowledge that they and they alone could survive here. Well, no more. As you can see, we have taken the skies with our war balloons-and with the skies under our command, the desert has fallen.”
The desert has fallen. The words hit Zafirah like a strike to the face. They tore through her heart and left an aching hollow in its path and a ringing in her ears. There’s no stopping them now. No one’s safe. No one’s safe… She felt Basam’s hand clutch her own with a white-knuckled grip. The press of his palm against hers was her only anchor in the roaring, swirling nightmare that had swallowed her thoughts. She felt warm wetness on her cheek: tears. She hadn’t cried in nearly four years, not since-
The commander clapped his hands and the soldiers started rousing the prisoners. Some couldn’t stand on their own and were kicked to the dirt for their efforts before being hauled to a stand. She caught sight of Ghashiun, face twisted in pain as he got dragged upwards by his ponytail; beside him was Fung, a kindly old guy who sat patiently at the cantina’s pai sho table day after day, waiting for a worthy challenger. A soldier seized him by the tattered collar of his tunic and wrenched the frail little man to his feet. The siblings watched helplessly while the soldiers shoved the captive Sandbenders into a line and chained their already bound hands. The Firebenders herded their spoils of war to the convoy of metal carts gathered on the crest of the grassy slope that lead down to the oasis’ main gate. Zafirah turned her head away.
None of the three dared move a muscle until the clank and scrape of metal wheels and the grunting of ostrich-horses faded in the distance. Silence fell in the convoy’s wake, grasping the lifeless oasis in a stranglehold.
****************
Zafirah’s homeland had never frightened her much. She respected the desert, but she wasn’t often intimidated by it. Out there, living in that sea of dunes, some would’ve been done in by the loneliness. Zafirah and her brother had never once had such a problem-until that day. She held fast to Basam’s arm as they drifted through what was left of the main gate and right into a graveyard. As they stood surrounded by smoking ruins and half-burned corpses, she felt the deadly vastness of the desert more keenly than she ever had. They were on their own, cut adrift with only each other… and a strange outsider.
Zafirah shot a sidelong glance at Kuei; he was looking at the scorched sand with an odd bleakness, a sadness that ran far too deep to be just worry over the fates of a bunch of Sandbenders. Some tiny part of her mind, some far corner that wasn’t yet lost in grief, wondered if he was seeing Ba Sing Se with that hazy stare.
The siblings’ hut had escaped the bombs, but it felt wrong to retreat to the comfort of their house with the bodies of their kinsmen lying in the dirt like yesterday’s garbage.
She and her brother gave voice to the same thought. “We gotta bury them.” The twins looked at each other. Tears cut trails through the soot on Basam’s cheeks. Kuei stepped closer and lifted his hand, then dropped it again.
“Is there-do you have a shovel?” he asked timidly.
“We’re Sandbenders,” Basam mumbled dazedly, not looking at the other man.
“Yes, but I-I thought… I could help you.” His voice shook. Zafirah forced her gaze off of the horrible sight in front of them and turned it towards the outsider, and saw the misery that clawed at her lungs echoed in his face. Ba Sing Se. The name flared through her stormy thoughts like a match being struck. The siblings had been cut adrift, but Kuei was stuck right there with them in the same Spirits-forsaken boat.
She reached out and clasped his shoulder; he flinched a little and his eyes flickered sideways to her hand, as if startled by the contact. “Go down to the pantry. You’ll see a green jar of salve in there. It’ll heal your eye up faster,” she told him, her words coming out a bone-dry croak. Kuei hesitated.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do…?” he asked.
“It’s awful kind of you, but this is our duty,” Basam said. He put a heavy hand on Kuei’s other shoulder and managed a faint grimace trying to be a smile. Kuei frowned, then nodded and shuffled back to the weapons shop. The two Sandbenders turned to the task ahead of them. “We’ll move ‘em outside the wall,” her brother said softly. Zafirah murmured agreement. The siblings took Bending stances and began their grisly work.
****************
Kuei felt guilt wash over him anew as he entered the pantry. The room was smaller than he’d assumed, its shelves alarmingly barren. These people had nothing, and still they opened their home to a stranger-a stranger whose arrival had been accompanied by misfortune. He couldn’t fight the chilling thought that perhaps the Fire Nation had followed him to the desert… But no, surely he wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant that much effort? Nevertheless, the fact remained that disaster had shadowed his footsteps with relentless consistency for the last several weeks.
Bosco rumbled sadly and nudged Kuei’s arm as he emerged from the pantry with the green jar in hand. The bear had fled to the basement during the attack; Kuei found him huddled in a corner, quaking and growling. He absently scratched the bear’s ears with his spare hand as he ducked into the washroom and set his spectacles on the shelf beside him, astonished that he hadn’t lost them in the fight.
The reflection in the dusty mirror was an unfamiliar image. Black eyes were most emphatically not a part of the 52nd Earth King’s life. Nor was the grim weariness in his eyes. Nor was charging headlong into battle against a Fire Nation soldier for the sake of a Sandbender he’d known for less than twelve hours. He inhaled deeply to steady himself.
The 52nd Earth King squeezed his eyes shut, wincing at the pain that shot through the right side of his face as he did. He felt himself teetering at the edge of the map, a hair’s breadth from the unknown. Kuei opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.
****************
Kuei was dozing fitfully against Bosco’s flank when Zafirah and Basam returned from the burial.
“Outsider’s got the right idea,” Basam said. “We oughta try and rest, too. Y’know what needs to be done next.” Zafirah nodded weakly. Yeah, she knew: eighty years ago, the elders of the tribes had made an accord. They vowed that if the Fire Nation couldn’t be kept out of the desert anymore, anybody that survived the first attacks would carry a warning across the dunes to the others. Come sundown, the siblings would head off to the open desert to deliver the word that the desert was no longer safe. “I had plenty of shut-eye yesterday,” he went on. “You sleep, I’ll get to packing.” She just nodded again, too drained to force words out. Basam pulled his sister into a tight hug, then steered her over to her bed. “Sleep,” he told her.
She settled onto her mattress, hardly aware she’d even moved until she found herself staring listlessly at the ceiling. She rolled onto her side and turned her restless gaze on Kuei and Bosco through a gap in the curtain.
There’s no escaping the flame-throwing scum-beasts, not anymore, she thought. No matter how far you run… Exhaustion won out and she drifted off.
****************
Packing for their journey was easy enough. There wasn’t much to pack-most of the food from the pantry, all of the water skins the siblings had on hand (plus a few scavenged from neighboring huts), and very little else. The Sandbenders had only a couple extra sets of clothes between them, and of course there were non-essentials like Basam’s shaving razor and her hair comb, but that was about it. Kuei’s personal belongings amounted to the clothes on his back, Bosco, and now a Water Tribe war club. Zafirah had flat-out refused to let him give it back; he probably couldn’t have hit Si Wong Rock at half a pace with the damned thing, but the way she saw it, he wasn’t exactly losing anything by keeping it on him.
It was a good weapon for him, she’d decided. It was just as awkward and out-of-place here as he was. One of Ghashiun’s cronies from outside the tribe had brought it to her after the mess with the Avatar, and it had been sitting on that shelf in their store ever since… until last night, that is.
There was a sand glider waiting for them just outside the main gate, its prow facing into the west, with most of their supplies already carefully stowed away on it. At dusk they would set out to sail it across the desert. Kuei had volunteered to go with them as navigator and watchman. When they found another tribe, they’d pass along their warning, and whichever tribe they found would spread the word to the others. They’d leave Kuei and Bosco at the edge of the desert to wander off wherever that outdated map might take them, and then…? Zafirah was trying not to think about what would happen to herself and her brother after they reached the end of their journey. First things first-the Desert of the Dead was waiting for them. She’d worry about the future if they survived long enough for it to become a problem.
They’d have to travel at night; their guest wasn’t used to the harshness of the sun out on the dunes, and, well, there was a reason Sandbenders went in groups when going into the open desert in daylight. With just the two of them, there’d be no one to take over if thirst or the heat overtook them.
Down in the basement, Basam picked up the last of the supply sacks and slung them over his shoulder, mustering up the most reassuring smile he could manage as he passed by. Zafirah did her best to echo it, despite the horrible, aching hollowness in her chest. Her twin always had a smile to offer anybody that couldn’t find one of their own. Their parents had always said-
She took another shaky breath and fought against the sudden stinging in the corners of her eyes. She glanced around the basement; this was their home, hers and her parents’ and her brother’s, and as much of a pain as it was living in a place like the desert, it was still theirs.
Her gaze landed on Kuei, sitting in the middle of the floor with Bosco lounging beside him. He was exactly where she’d left him half an hour ago: doing his damnedest to follow her instructions to make his outfit “desert-proof”. The clothes he had left him with bare arms and lower legs, which was just asking for trouble in the open desert, even without the blazing sun. So she’d given him a shirt with elbow-length sleeves (borrowed from her brother) and a bundle of spare bindings to cover himself up with; he’d already swapped his own shirt with the borrowed one and done a passing job of covering his legs, and was now completely failing at wrapping his right hand. Zafirah rolled her eyes and sat cross-legged next to the outsider, secretly glad for the distraction.
“Gimme,” she said, hands reaching out for his. “We’ll be here all day if you keep that pace up.”
Kuei hastily drew his hands in towards his chest. “No, no, that’s quite all right, I think I nearly have it,” he declared.
“No, seriously, give ‘em here. We don’t wear those things for fun. You’ll get yourself hurt if they’re done wrong.” He reluctantly let her grab hold of his right hand, and she began wrapping the cloth around his knuckles with the ease that comes from a lifetime of daily practice. His skin felt smooth and soft under her callused fingertips. Yep, definitely from a rich, noble background, probably never done a single day’s hard work… Kuei winced again as his eye twinged.
Zafirah half-smiled in sympathy, recalling black eyes of her own. “That’s what you get when you pick the wrong fight,” she said, not unkindly. “Why’d you do that, anyway? Felt like takin’ a swing at a Firebender?” He looked up at her, his left eye so wide and solemn it was almost comical.
“That coward was about to attack you while your back was turned,” he said. Zafirah’s hand froze on his for a second, then she recovered and kept wrapping.
“That guy was after me?” she said, working to keep her voice even.
“Yes, I’m certain of it. He was preparing a fire blast. I had to at least try to stop him.” He made a sound that might have been a chuckle and brushed his fingers over his eye. “I’m afraid it didn’t work very well, did it?” he asked wryly.
“It did, as a matter of fact. I never saw him coming. Didn’t even know he was there till I heard you yellin’ your fool head off. He’d have roasted me.” Bleeding hogmonkeys, he saved my life.
“Well then, I suppose it was worth a punch in the face,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upward a little. She studied this bizarre outsider from the corner of her eye, sitting there in a folded-up tangle of thin, gangly limbs and the most absurd hodgepodge of clothing she’d ever seen, grimacing and cautiously touching his black eye-probably the first one he’d ever gotten. She couldn’t have imagined an unlikelier hero. He only had one Spirits-be-damned sandal, for crying out loud! But there it was-she owed him her life. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. There were plenty of unpleasant favors a nobleman could demand from a peasant to cover such a debt. She recalled his clumsy but undeniably honest words from the night before: not that I would even think of-I wouldn’t ever-
No. He’d saved her life because it was the right thing to do, and that made her all kinds of uneasy. Outsiders didn’t go around helping Sandbenders out of kindness-it was a basic rule of her world, and he had no idea he’d broken it. She tied off the binding above his elbow and beckoned for his other hand.
I’ll be keeping my eye on you, outsider, she thought. Before he’d just been an amusing oddity, but now he was a riddle. And Zafirah never could pass up a good riddle.
**************
Yep.
By the way, the part about Kuei only having one sandal? Totally canon, and I have the screencaps from “The Awakening” to prove it!
The playlist: Most of these songs aren’t related to the plot. I’m just establishing some character themes here.
1) Two Hornpipes (Tortuga), Hans Zimmer [Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest]-Zafirah’s theme.
2) 12 Years Later, James Newton Howard [Treasure Planet]-Basam’s theme.
3) Stroll Through the Sky, Joe Hisaishi [Howl’s Moving Castle]-Kuei’s theme.
4) Goodbye Brother, Hans Zimmer [Prince of Egypt]-The theme for Chapter 2.