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Jet has never been anywhere this hot before. He doesn’t like it. Living in the forest with his Freedom Fighters had never been easy by any means, but they’d had the reservoir, springs, streams, and as many animals and plants as they needed. You wouldn’t die of thirst in the forest, or even of hunger if you knew what you were doing.
It would be easy to die out here, Jet thinks, where the sun was hot and the earth barren, and none of the survival skills he’d spent his life perfecting meant a damn thing. They have too little water and even less food, but they’re tough, and intimately familiar with how one goes about warding off starvation. They can make what they have last nearly a week. That means nothing if they don’t find a stream or a town or a damn tree in that time.
Smellerbee stumbles beside him, and Jet’s lips thin in concern. “We should have just gone through the valley,” he growls, again.
“The Fire Nation was there,” Smellerbee reminds him tiredly. “We couldn’t risk it.”
Jet frowns and grinds the withered piece of grass in his mouth between his molars in agitation. What she means is they couldn’t risk him. They couldn’t take the chance he’d do something stupid and get them all killed. Smellerbee used to watch him with trust, with a kind of hero worship. Being watched now with such suspicion and concern is like a knife to the chest. She didn’t used to worry so much; she didn’t used to question him. No one did.
Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out so badly, if someone had.
Jet still doesn’t think he was wrong to flood the village, but his actions had definitely had consequences he couldn’t handle. The problem, he thought, was that he only had enough room left inside him to care about the Freedom Fighters. The town in the valley, the tiny settlement whose lights you could see from the trees around the reservoir at night, hadn’t seemed real, hadn’t seemed important. His kids were what was important.
He remembers that he’d started out with every intention of protecting people from the Fire Nation, of saving villagers from the same fate as his parents, as the dozen horror stories the Freedom Fighters came to him with, no matter what. But then he’d lost his first soldier. And his second. And his third. He’d told himself it had to be worth it, that there had to be sacrifice if they were ever going to make it. There had to be a price.
But somehow, over time, his kids became a price he couldn’t pay, and the village did.
He’d been so afraid. It had been years with so little progress, and they were all counting on him, and he was terrified it would end with him in the forest alone, standing over a row of graves the Fire Nation would never pay for.
So he’d blown the dam and flooded the town. And the Fire Nation had decided he was too dangerous, and had burned down the forest.
The sick irony of it was that if Jet hadn’t blown the dam, they would have had the water to fight the fire. But he had, and they didn’t, and the blood of every one of his kids who ran and screamed and burned, the fate of every Freedom Fighter that survived to be scattered to the wind; that was on his head alone.
He’d tried so hard to keep them safe, to keep this one thing. He’d tried so hard he had destroyed them.
So when Smellerbee came back scowling from her turn as the scout and said that the Fire Nation was occupying the next town and they’d have to take the long way around, Jet hadn’t argued.
The familiar tap of Longshot’s knuckles against Jet’s shoulder guard brings him back to the present. “What is it?” he murmurs, scanning the landscape for danger. Longshot points past him, at the horizon. Jet squints, and can barely make out a cluster of tan blips against the too bright sky.
“A town,” Smellerbee sighs in relief. “Thank the spirits.”
“Good spot, Longshot,” Jet compliments, grinning at his friend. Longshot bobs his head.
“Finally,” Smellerbee groans, and sits down on the ground. Jet has to laugh.
Longshot and Smellerbee. They’re all he has left. He won’t lose them. He won’t let them down.
He can’t.
“Ba Sing Se, here we come.”
--
The sun is large before them, and still hot, when they reach the earthen arch of the village entrance. The town is tan, the street, buildings and people alike, like they’ve lived in the dust so long they’ve become it.
“Excuse me,” Jet calls to the first villager he sees. “Where could we find warm food and lodging? We have coin.”
The villager, an elderly woman with the weathered face of someone who’s spent their whole life in the sun, stares at them for a moment before grabbing Jet’s arm and dragging him into a side street, Longshot and Smellerbee darting in behind him.
“You must wait, stranger.”
“What?” Jet shares a bewildered glance with Smellerbee. “The sun is going down. Why?”
“There are bad things happening in this town,” she whispers. “The army men are wicked, they mean to do something awful to young Li. They’re waiting for something in the main street. It can’t be good. So you should wait, until this dreadful business is over.”
Jet grabs her arm and looms close. “How young is young Li?”
“Jet,” Smellerbee hisses in warning.
“This is his eleventh summer,” the woman says.
…Well. Shit.
Jet whirls on his Freedom Fighters. Smellerbee’s eyes are wide and Longshot has his entire history in the line of his mouth. “We’re saving him.”
Smellerbee stares for a long moment, and then nods.
They leave the woman hissing after them, moving through the side streets with silent feet. “Alright Smellerbee, stay out of sight and wait for an opening to get the kid out. Longshot, find a spot to shoot that isn’t too far away in case we need you on the ground, we don’t know how many of them there are.”
They split off silently and without a word just like they’ve done a hundred, a thousand times. Jet has missed this, missed being with them in this way, so much so he thinks he could choke on it.
People are already gathered when he reaches the main street, shifting uneasily, muttering discontentedly. That’s all well and good, Jet thinks, if they were planning to do something about this. But what good is knowing something is wrong if you aren’t willing to help? If you’re just going to stand in the shadows, in safety, and mutter about it?
The boy is enthusiastically tied to the leg of the town’s great wooden water tower, facing away from the gate the Freedom Fighters came through. There are three men grouped under the structure with bladed spears resting on their shoulders, playing some kind of game. Jet casts his eyes about, but he can’t see Smellerbee or Longshot. That’s okay, they’ll be there when he needs them.
The sound of heavy muffled steps brings the kid’s head up just as Jet is working out how he’s going to play this. The boy (he’s so small, it doesn’t matter if they’re villagers or Freedom Fighters or corpses, Jet is always surprised by how small they are) perks up, his face splitting into a gap toothed grin.
“Hey, there he is! I told you he’d come!”
Jet risks a look around the corner of the building expecting the boy’s father, or a brother maybe. There’s an ostrich-horse silhouetted against the sinking sun, a thin figure in a straw hat seated painfully straight upon it.
A man steps out of the shade of the building Jet’s leaning against, probably an Earthbender from the way he walks, and Jet hisses through his teeth and curses himself for missing one. Faulty information is the easiest way to lose soldiers. To lose his kids.
Jet looks back at the ostrich-horse. The rider slips off his straw hat and slips off the saddle with a matter of fact grace that marks him as a fighter just as strongly as the sword sheathed at his side. He’s pale, Jet notes, pale like Fire blood or like sickness. It is sickness probably, given the hollow divots in his cheeks and how you can see the shape of his skull beneath his skin. It’s in the way he walks too, straight and deliberate without a single extra move, like he can’t afford to waist the energy. There’s no way he’s a villager; he’s more likely a lone refugee. A starving refugee, who can fight. Interest unfurls in Jet’s stomach and he gives a brief whistle.
Wait.
“Let the kid go,” the stranger says, commands really, for all his voice is quiet and scratchy with disuse.
One of the men, the leader going by his position, barks an ugly laugh. “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” the pale stranger says. His shadow is stretched out in front of him. He’s positioned so that his opponents have to squint straight into the sun to see him. Smart. “But I know who you are. You’re not soldiers, you’re bullies. Freeloaders, abusing your power, mostly over women and kids. You don’t want Li in your army. You’re sick cowards, messing with a family who’s already lost one son to the war.”
Jet isn’t sure what he thought was going on here but that, that’s just twisted. To force a kid, a child with a home, into the army. His Freedom Fighters were young, but they already knew death when he found them, they knew what they were risking. This, it’s a murder, plain and simple.
Now? Smellerbee whistles, a bit sharper than usual.
And he wants to, so very badly, but… Wait, he whistles back.
And then there’s movement, one of the spear wielders rushing the refugee. The pale traveler sidesteps the blade without even looking at it, drawing his sword in a quick sharp jab which catches the attacker in the stomach with the hilt hard enough to send him sliding through the dust.
Fast, Jet thinks. Skilled. That, the burn scar Jet caught the smallest glimpse of as the swordsman turned his face during the dodge, and the unmistakable insult in the way he straightens and slides his blade back into it’s the sheath to it's hilt, and Jet’s interest bursts inside, giving way to something much stronger.
Now?
Wait.
The second spearmen shakes himself, steels himself, runs forward with a yell that’s more fear than anger. The swordsman slaps the spear shaft upwards while he spins under the spearman’s guard, slapping his palm to his attacker’s forehead and bearing him backwards, to the ground, never moving his other hand from the grip of his weapon.
The last spearman runs when the swordsman kicks strait through his spear shaft. In the shadows, Jet grins so hard his face hurts. Jet’s seen a lot of fighters in his time but this, this is beautiful. That’s three crawling away on their yellow stomachs, and Jet wonders if he and the Freedom Fighters will even be needed. They’ll go in anyways, he decides, if only to gage how well the Swordsman works in a team.
Be ready, he whistles.
The last thug, the leader, is in a different class than his spineless companions. Jet can tell by the solidness of his stance, the fluid way he moves his great square hammers. This one’s trained, maybe even a Bender. The Swordsman sees this too, finally drawing his weapon and sliding his leg back into a better stance.
Dual swords Jet observes, delighted. He uses dual swords.
The thug slams the hammer into the street, and a chunk of earth rises from the ground. He hurtles the rock at the Swordsman, who breaks it to dust with a scissor swing of his blades.
Jet narrows his eyes and considers the consistency of the rock, how hard the Swordsman swung, and whistles when you see an opening to Longshot. The people near him are edging away, watching him warily. He can’t draw this out much longer.
The Earthbender smacks the ground again, swinging his hammers and throwing chunks of rock at the Swordsman, hard and fast. The pale man (young man, Jet’s age at most) catches the first two with his swords and his first sounds of strain, and the third loses a large chunk by way of Longshot’s arrow, barely grazing the Swordsman’s hip instead of catching him full on.
Jet blinks in shock. Longshot… missed, almost. Longshot is an actual prodigy, and he always goes for the center. Jet hasn’t seen him hit anything but the absolute center of his target in years.
He’ll figure it out later, Jet promises himself. The Earthbender is looking around wildly for the source of the arrow, and the Swordsman takes the advantage, darting close. The Bender catches him quickly, but not quickly enough to spare himself a shallow gash to the arm and a not so shallow one to the leg. He roars is pain and rage, and Jet’s moving before the thug can bend, drawing his hook swords as he runs and catching the handle of the Bender’s weapon with his left one, yanking back fast and hard so the thug has to let go of the weapon or risk dislocating his arm. The man lets go, and the Swordsman is there, cracking both of his hilts into the man’s other shoulder hard enough Jet’s arm wants to go numb in sympathy, and then the Earthbender is weaponless, knocked on his ass, with the Swordsman’s dual blades pressed against his throat.
“Okay, okay! You win, we’ll let the kid go, you don’t have to kill me!”
“Don’t I?” the Swordsman muses, almost pleasantly. “I have no guarantee you won’t start back up the second I leave.”
The Earthbender’s eyes are blown and he’s gasping for breath between pleas and sobs, and Jet’s seen six year olds respond to a blade at their throat with more dignity. “Doesn’t feel so good now, huh?” Jet asks through a razor grin. “Now that you’re the weak one.”
And it’s the wrong thing to say, because the man’s face twists in blind animal rage, and he’s gripping the earth beneath his good hand and shoving-
-Past them towards the water tower post where the kid is tied, spirits-damn it all the kid-
¬-Some of them smiled bravely, and some of them cried and screamed, some barely looked injured and some were barely living piles of cooked human meat struggling for air and all of them died died died-
And the rock is smashing into bare wood because the kid isn’t there, the kid’s running for a sobbing women that must be his mother with Smellerbee at his back, and suddenly it isn’t the Swordsman’s blades at the yellow coward swine’s throat, it’s Jet’s.
“Give me a reason not to kill you,” Jet growls through bared teeth. “Just one good reason.”
“I have one,” the Swordsman says with a voice like ice, like steel. He takes a few steps towards the villagers who’ve streamed into the main street now that the fight is over, and Jet tracks him out of the corner of his eye.
“How were they planning to get Li sent to the army, exactly?” He, well, demands more than asks, but no one’s going to call him on it after that show, Jet thinks.
“A new batch of troops is heading through today or tomorrow,” a brave soul answers. “If they made the kid sign an enlistment form and the active duty roster, he couldn’t have gotten out of it."
“Where are these forms?” the Swordsman asks, and the man bucks under Jet with an unearthly scream, but then Smellerbee’s there holding his good arm down and Longshot’s sitting on his legs and he can writhe all he wants but Jet’s not getting off his chest. He stops when Jet drives a fist into his stomach, but he’s still wheezing pleas, that they can’t send him to the front, the Fire Nation will kill him, they’ll be killing him, have mercy-
“What about the boy?” Jet sneers down at him, “What about the little kid you were going to send out there to die, tell me where was your mercy then, hm? I say you should be flayed alive right here and now, and made to apologize while you bleed out as slowly as I can manage-”
“Jet,” Smellerbee says, and he’s getting so sick of hearing his name said like that. “That’s enough.”
Rage snaps through him so hard he sees white, his mind twisting in absolute fury and how DARE SHE.
Fire at their backs, the air thick with smoke and the stench of burning cooking meat, they’re losing their home again and this is all because of him-
Jet lets out his breath slowly, shakily, and leans back on his heels, removing his blades from the man’s throat.
The Swordsman crouches beside them, and it’s the first time Jet’s seen the left side of his face full on. The scar is huge and deep and old, the rough ridges, squinting eye and mutilated ear a dull angry red against pale white skin, pulling awkwardly over his bony starved face. “Sign these,” the Swordsman orders, his light eyes sharp like a knife.
“I won’t.” the thug squirms, stilling when Smellerbee presses the tip of her dagger into the underside of his throat.
“You have two choices,” the Swordsman rasps, his voice low and hard. “You can go fight in the war you’re willing to throw a boy at, and either learn some honor or die the coward you are. Or you can refuse to sign, and just die.”
The man signs.
“We have a metal holding room in the old prison,” someone volunteers, so Smellerbee knocks the crying coward out with a practiced chop to the neck, and her, Longshot, and a helpful villager lug the Bender up and drag him away.
The Swordsman hands the villager who first spoke the paperwork, picks up the knife that fell out of the man’s pocket during the scuffle and steps off towards the kid and his mother. The woman jerks her son behind her, eyes wary and wide. “Not a step closer,” she says.
She’s stunned by their viciousness, Jet realizes, and unnerved by it. He can understand that, she's living out here in a tiny desert town no one cares about. The war has hurt her, definitely, but it’s always been a faraway hurt. She’s always had the luxury of having a heart.
But the Swordsman is like him, a child of the war, breathing blood and ash since the day he was born, and there is no too much for them, no mercy, because anyone who’s not dead or yours will kill you one way or another and they all know it.
The Swordsman crouches again, holding the knife out flat on his hand towards the boy, Li. “Take it,” he says, “It’s yours.”
The boy reaches around his mother and takes the blade, holding it with wonder.
“Just, don’t pull it on anyone again,” the Swordsman tells him, the thinnest thread of reprove in his tone. “Not until you’re good enough with it to back up the threat.”
And the woman jerks and stares at him like he’s a monster, but the kid grins with just a bit of one of them in it, and yells his thanks as his mom pulls him away.
“That’s done,” Smellerbee says, cracking her knuckles as she and Longshot approach. “Can we eat now?”
Jet twitches when he realizes she’s asking him with the same bright faith her voice always used to have, and that apparently all he had to do to earn her trust back was show her he would stop, if she said so.
“Sounds alright to me,” he says, and watches the Swordsman sheath his blades with barely trembling hands. “We’re paying. Are you coming?” he asks him. The teen startles when he realizes he’s being addressed, the tiniest flinch and widening of the eyes. “As a thank you,” Jet adds when he sees the rejection building. “I haven’t been in a good fight in a while.”
The Swordsman looks at him through squinted eyes, and the contrast with the burn makes them look lighter, almost gold. Jet wonders what he sees, if he can almost smell kinship in the air between them like Jet can, if he’s also thinking refugee, war’s child, outcast, and you’re just like me.
The Swordsman hesitates for a long second, and then nods once.
Jet’s going to be better. He’s going to be stronger. He’s going to remake his family once again, and he’s going to be able to protect them this time. He’s going to be a better leader, a better friend, and he will never let the fire touch any of them, no matter what it costs him.
The Swordsman offers him a hand up off the ground, and it feels like a beginning.