423 - Chakra - Ghost of Fire - dandelionlily - Avatar the Last Airbender

[dandelionlily.livejournal.com]

Title:   Ghost of Fire
Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender
Prompt: 423 - Chakra
Warnings: Graphic violence, threatened violence against children
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kun is actually starting to worry about the arrogant woman who stole all his stuff.

The first thing Kun noticed, on returning to his campsite, was that while he had been setting traps his small campfire had become a bonfire. He rushed to move his supplies and bedroll away from it—how had the fire spread?—and nearly lost his head. There had been someone curled up in his bedroll, and judging by the wooden staff that went whistling over his head as he fell back, that someone didn’t enjoy the rude awakening. He winced as the staff came right back at his head, but opened his eyes when the blow never landed.

The staff was poised with its end above his throat. He looked up along its length to the one who held it—Oma and Shu, it was a girl! Several inches shorter than Kun himself, and grandmother said Kun hadn’t reached his growth spurt yet. “Uh, hi?” he ventured. “You built up the fire, I guess?”

Silhouette and eyes gilded by the reflected firelight, she stood motionless for a minute. “Take off your belt.”

“What?” Kun glanced down and remembered his hunting knife. She was probably scared of it. “Okay, just give me a minute.” He worked it out from under himself and pushed the bundle—sheathed knife and all—over to the strange girl.

She shifted the staff into a defensive position. “You made the fire?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me.”

Kun pushed himself up on his hands. “Why? There’s already one going—“ He stopped speaking when the end of the staff sliced back toward his throat. “Okay, sure. Let me get my tinderbox?”

The girl watched him like a phoenix-eagle when he reached into his pack, eyes piercing and suspicious. He grabbed the fire-starting kit and started to head toward the forest when she swept the legs out from under him.

“Ow! What in Koh’s lair is wrong with you? I was just getting some dry leaves!” He got to his feet.

“Why?” She demanded, staff poised to knock him down again.

Why? What kind of stupid question— “For the fire, of course!”

She glanced for a moment at the sticks and deadwood he had stacked up next to his campfire. It was much smaller than when he’d left camp. Wasted so much of it building up the fire, I’ll need to collect more to get through the night. “Why not use the wood you have?”

“It’s how you start a fire. You start small, then add the big stuff. Just let me get some of those leaves?” He pointed to a pile he had made when he’d swept the flammable things away from his fire circle.

She nodded cautiously and knelt on his bedroll, which was still dangerously close to the bonfire. “Don’t try to run. I’m faster than you.”

Kun snorted. “I’m not going to leave all of my things behind, believe me.” He grabbed a handful of the leaves.

“My things, now.”

“What? That’s not fair! You can’t just take things that don’t belong to you.”

“Life isn’t fair, kid. And I’ll take whatever I can. It’s not like you could stop me.”

Cool it, Kun reminded himself. No matter what a brat she was being, it was obvious she was scared stiff, or she wouldn’t keep attacking him. A little girl, all alone, trying to figure out how to survive. Probably her father’s walking stick there, and that might be all that was left of her parents. She’s lucky she found my fire. There are animals out here that aren’t afraid of a stick.

Kun said in his most cajoling tone, “Look, I’m really hungry, and I’m guessing you are too. Why don’t we split the half a rabbiroo in the bottom of my rucksack, and I’ll teach you to start a fire in the morning?”

“If you’re planning to kill me tonight, it won’t work. I’m a very light sleeper.”

“Yeah, I noticed. You nearly took my head off.”

“Next time I will.”

It was a pretty good bluff. Her voice was ice cold and steady. The trembling in her arms, though, made him doubt she had the strength to even stand right now. “Let’s just eat.” Kun dug into the bottom of his pack while she threatened him with her stupid stick, and he came out with the cooked meat. She grabbed it from him and tore into it like a wild animal, holding the meat in one hand and his hunting knife in the other. She ate steadily, ravenously, like a liondog fending off packmates. When she was finished, she tossed him what was left over: the bones, the scrawny front leg and part of the shoulder. Not much to appease my growling stomach.

He made the best of it, skewering the remaining meat on a stick and holding it over the fire until the grease ran and sizzled. Then she grabbed that away from him and shoved it into her mouth as well. His temper really struggled with that. It smelled so good! At least she burned her mouth on it. Not that it seemed to bother her overmuch. She must have been starving.

“Get over on the other side of the fire. Come over to this side while I’m sleeping and I will kill you. Run, and I’ll track you down and make you wish I’d just killed you.”

She sounded so serious, it was hard to remember that this was a girl. What had happened to make her so scared? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He lay down on the cold ground on the other side of the fire, cursing softly. The brat seemed bound and determined to make his life miserable; instead of handing over his koala-wool coat so he could make the best of it, she put it on and huddled so close to the fire the edges of the garment started smoking. She’d be sweltering over there, curled up in his bedroll, while he’d spend the night with one side of his body warm from the fire and the other side chilled. Not that he’d run. Maybe he could survive the night without a fire, but the trip back to his grandmother’s cabin? Unlikely. It was even more unlikely that they would survive the winter without the supplies Kun had gone down to the village to trade for: rice, flour, sugar, cooking oil, salt. The staples you couldn’t trap or gather from the forest.

He had just curled up, feeling miserable and trapped, when two objects were tossed over the fire. The water skin he recognized immediately; the block that hit him in the shoulder took a second longer. A block of dried meat. This is an earth army ration. How did she get this? Kun tried to judge her expression, but from across the fire it was impossible. Probably the same way I did. Traded with one of the deserters. Guanyin knows there have been plenty of them since the siege began two years ago. From the rumors, the soldiers starving inside the Great Walls of Ba Sing Se were the lucky ones; the armies on the outside had no protection from the Dragon of the West.

The meat was tough and flavorless; he could barely choke it down even with the water. Still, it was the best sign he’d gotten yet that the girl even knew the meaning of the word ‘share’. Sleep well tonight. In the morning, we’re going to have a talk, stick or no stick.

—————

“Hey. Hey! Wake up, girl.” So much for her being a light sleeper. It was barely an hour ‘till dawn, and Kun couldn’t wake up the brat who had threatened him and stolen all his stuff. Still, he was wary to actually grab her and shake her. Frustrated, he tossed his water skin at her head.

Her staff scythed through the air, slapping the water skin into a pine tree a dozen feet away. She rolled out of the bedding in the same motion and turned a furious gaze on Kun.

“Woah, calm down. I just needed to ask if I could borrow my—your—knife. I need to go check my snares.”

She moved off my bedroll and slipped her feet into a pair of worn leather boots. “You know snares? Show me.”

Kun was so nervous it took him twice as long as usual to find the traps. He set the cricket-mouse caught in the first trap free. The scaly things were near impossible to skin, and the few mouthfuls of meat weren’t worth it. The next one had been set off but hadn’t caught anything. Probably something smart or too large, like a racoon-dog. The only trap to catch anything was the last, which had snared a small rabbiroo. Another morning he might have tossed it back, but the girl obviously needed to eat more. He caught the body in one hand and cleanly snapped its neck with the other, then carefully retrieved the leather snare.

As they stepped into the campsite’s clearing and the sun fell full on the girl’s face, Kun realized two things. The first was that she wasn’t a little girl; she was old, probably twenty at least. The second was that from the ashen tone of her skin and her hollow features, she was very ill.

Noticing the scrutiny, the woman turned away and scowled. “What?”

“How—how long has it been since you’ve eaten enough?” Kun asked. She just shrugged.

Kun cooked some rice for breakfast and noticed that the woman watched the simple task as if trying to memorize his every move. In deference to her hunger, he prepared a large amount and gave her two thirds before forming the leftovers into rice balls. Kun relaxed considerably when she didn’t stop him from picking up his knapsack when they returned to the trail, though her hooded eyes remained threatening and she carried her walking stick like it was a weapon.

Burdened only by the staff and a hip pouch, she chafed at his slower pace, but as the hour got closer to midmorning she seemed to slow down and begin wobbling like a spun top. When they reached a narrow stream and Kun went to refill his—her—their?—watersack, she sat down on one of the sun-warmed stones in a pose of meditation.

After fifteen minutes she rose with a bit more grace and hopped across the stream. “It’s a problem with your chakras, isn’t it,” Kun suggested.

“What? What do you know about chakras?”

“My grandmother treated an old woman like you. She was weak and always tired. Grandmother said her chakras were closed, so the life energy couldn’t flow freely.”

“What was the treatment?”

“She made an herbal tea with chamomile and ginseng, and she told the woman to drink it every day.”

“It helped?”

“Uh, not much. She died that winter.” The woman didn’t respond to that, but she looked grim. “I’m sure it’s not that bad with you, though. I mean, you’re old, but she was really old. Fifty at least.”

“Maybe you should keep your mouth shut,” she snapped, walking briskly up the trail. Ten minutes later her pace had slowed again.

Kun pulled the watersack out of his bag, but when he turned to offer it to her she had vanished. He blinked, startled; he hadn’t heard her move. Bemused, he picked up the pace to catch her. He called out when he finally caught sight of someone ahead on the trail—make that three someones dressed in Earth Kingdom Army uniforms.

“Ho, boy,” one of them called. “Where are you headed and what are you carrying?”

“I’m headed to Naka village, sir,” Kun answered politely. “I’ve collected supplies for the winter: rice, salt and dried fruits and vegetables.” Pouncing on the opportunity, he offered, “I also have rare medicinal herbs for sale, you have anything to trade.”

One of the men nudged another and said, “Why don’t you show us what you’ve got?”

Kun dropped his pack and knelt to dig our the precious package of dried herbs. He glanced up when he heard a hollow thunk. “What—“ he began, but could only gasp and scramble away when one of the soldiers—who was holding a knife in his hand—fell on top of him. “Oof.”

“You’re dea—“ one of the soldiers yelled, but the hammer-strike of the end of a staff into his trachea silenced him. It was the petite woman Kun had thought was further up the trail, but what was she doing? The third soldier had time to draw his sword and attempt an overhead strike, but his smaller opponent danced to the side and struck just below his sternum, dropping the man to his knees. Her staff darted in to disarm him and then strike the back of his neck with an audible snap.

The woman leaned suddenly on her staff and breathed deeply as a trembling passed through her limbs. She asked Kun, “Are you injured?”

“What—what—what are you talking about? What did you do?” Kun managed to wriggle out from under the first soldier’s deadweight and grabbed the man’s knife. “Are you insane? You could have killed them!”

For the first time, she raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. “I did.”

Kun stared at her burnished gold eyes. How had he not noticed them before? “Fire nation.” She inclined her head in acknowledgement. He raised the stolen knife and demanded, “Stay back!” She continued to stand there, leaning on her staff, showing no inclination to charge and murder Kun. One of the soldiers twitched and made a terrible gurgling noise from his crushed trachea. “He’s alive!”

The woman snorted. “He’s dead, his body just hasn’t realized it yet.”

Ignoring her, Kun tried to prop the larger soldier up. The man’s eyes were bugged out, unseeing. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” he promised. The man’s arm twitched once more and then was still. Tears blurring his vision, Kun glared up at the woman and shouted, “Monster!”

“Earth has a strange way of showing gratitude to the one who saved their life.” Leaning heavily on her staff, she shuffled to the side of the trail and examined the soft loam on the banks.

“What are you talking about? You killed all three. You murdered them!”

“Yes, but I did so before they could kill you.”

That response was so nonsensical that Kun could only gape at her for a moment. Kill him? Why would she even try to convince him of that? They had been friendly, ready for trade, and she had taken them completely by surprise and murdered them. Except… he looked at the knife he carried. She had taken the soldier completely by surprise, so why had he already drawn his knife? “Why would they want to attack me?”

“Same reason I did.” She nodded at his pack. “What you’ve got there may not seem like much, but it’s everything a man needs to survive on the run.”

“You think they were deserters,” Kun realized suddenly. It made sense; what other reason would soldiers have to journey this far north, when the fighting was in the south? Perhaps they were headed for Naka village too. Naka was really more of a collection of loners than an actual village, and people stayed out of each others’ business. It would be a perfect place for a group of deserters trying to start a new life.

“That’s what I thought until I got a look at their uniforms.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means they didn’t sew the holes shut from where they stabbed the original owners. They weren’t Earth Kindom army, just thugs who murdered three of them and stole their uniforms.” Horrified, Kun looked down at the body of the man who had fallen on top of Kun and saw what the woman meant. The back of the uniform had a slit halfway up the back the width of Kun’s thumb—the exact same width as the knife he still held. Kun thought he was going to be sick.