Work Text
SUYIN
“Can you drive?”“Of...of course.”Her words caught in her throat, but she swallowed the fear and steeled herself.“Of course I can.”Huan nodded tersely and threw her the keys to the Satomobile.“You know the usual route. Back alley after Sonn Street, hard right at the bridge. If you cut through the market, it’ll be harder for anyone to follow us.”Suyin didn’t need the instruction. She’d heard her friend’s stories more times than she could count- the narrow escapes, the well-planned shortcuts. It was textbook to her.She stood with Huan in an abandoned warehouse, pitch black save for a sliver of street lamp that poured from a window crack. Suyin struggled to see with bending the way her sister did, but it didn’t matter here. She knew her way around. During the day, the place was almost comforting- familiar in a dusty sort of way. Though she couldn’t see them now, she knew wooden crates lined the walls and flattened boxes carpeted the floor. In the middle of the cavernous space, a huge crane sat neglected. The warehouse was Terra Triad’s usual meeting space and Suyin had spent many a Saturday lounging on the crane’s padded seat, absentmindedly bending its metal knobs up and down, left and right as she listened to triad briefings. The thing would never work again, but she liked to pretend.Most days the briefings went long and she’d let her mind drift- to her mother, to Lin, to the restless itch in the back of her mind that wondered if everywhere felt like Republic City. She didn’t usually pay attention to their plans- they were all so similar. Besides, Suyin wasn’t a member of Terra Triad, not officially anyway. More of an onlooker really. A friend. She told herself she wasn’t there for the action.She was there for them. Suyin had known Huan since she was ten- Jun, hell, she’d known Jun even longer. They were closer than she and Lin had ever been. So when Huan asked her to drive, it was never really a question.She stood with him in the dark of the warehouse, waiting. Only their breathing punctuated the silence as their eyes and ears strained for a signal outside. Then it hit her.Jun was across the street, robbing an estate. Her hands were holding Huan’s keys. The keys. In minutes, she’d be driving them home. Them- and thousands in valuables.…At first it was all adrenaline- razor-sharp turns that throttled her ribs, hard shifts into high gear, the smell of sweat and motor oil. They dodged traffic- what was left of it anyway- weaving through crooked alleys and crowded streets to the dim outskirts of town. She barely remembered the chase.Suyin had only driven a handful of times, but she had a kind of natural reflex, something instinctual that guided her hand on the wheel and eyes on the road. Maybe they scraped a curb or dented a fender, but at the end of the night they were free- and more importantly- alive. In a crisis her body had a way of finding its footing, making the right movements more often than not. But in conversation, in the day to day, well- that was different. “I don’t get it.”Suyin heard her voice in the hall. In the whirlwind of the last 24 hours, she’d forgotten the door was ajar. She’d probably forgotten there was a door. Or walls. Or a room. After her arrest and the “family talk”, she’d spent the night trying to forget where she was.“I just don’t.”It was Lin. Her voice cut like a knife into Suyin’s room, grating on the edges of her consciousness. The familiar dry manner of her sister’s voice brought her back to earth.Suyin had laid in her bed for hours, at first burying her face in a pillow to strangle her angry cries and sobs. When they died, she’d rolled to face the ceiling and stared into nothing. Now she rose to sit at the edge of the bed, hastily brushing her blouse with her hands in a vain attempt to smooth out its wrinkles.With her sister there was always some expectation of order.“Are you even listening?” Lin’s voice was different this time, tense. Suyin could hear the crack in her composure.“Of course I am,” she said, crossing her arms as she looked to the wall. Suyin was determined not to make eye contact. She wasn’t sure why.She could hear Lin press the door open, slide inside, and close it firmly behind her. Not that their mother was listening.“Look, it could have ruined her. What you did today, it could have ruined me...ugh Suyin, would you just look at me!”Suyin drilled her eyes into the wall. She wouldn’t give Lin the satisfaction. Not for anything.“Spirits, why are you such a child? You think you can do what you want, where you want, whenever you want. Of course you do. Everything’s always about Su, pretty princess Su...Oh how can I help you princess Su? Could I make you more comfortable princess Su? Have you ever felt for once in your damn life-”“NO!” Suyin whipped her head towards her, still avoiding her gaze as she bored holes into the floor.“No? Oh that’s a word I didn’t think you knew-”“NO!” It’s not about that! It was never about that!” Suyin turned back to the wall and pulled her knees to her chest. “You think this is fun for me? You think it was a game? I was terrified!”“Suyin...”“Terrified!” Her voice broke as she stifled a sob. “Last night was the worst, the scariest moment of my life and-”“Suyin! Wha-”“I, I did it for them. For them! They’ve always cared about me and-”“SUYIN!” Lin took a step towards her. Out of the corner of her eye, Su could see she was shaking. “Suyin. What were you afraid of?”The silence in the room was suffocating. Suyin’s eyes began to drift toward her sister, but she stole them back, training them on a Earth Nation map across the room.She realized she didn’t have an answer.“Really,” her sister pressed, “what were you afraid of? Who? Didn’t matter who caught you. Nope. No, you’d just end up with me. Or Mom.” Her voice cracked with a tinny high pitch that made Su’s stomach turn.“What does Suyin Beifong have to be afraid of? Do you know who cares about you- wh-who actually-” Lin paused to stifle a cough.Suyin hadn’t looked up earlier, but she especially didn’t want to look now. Lin in pain was something Suyin had never been able to cope with. It felt wrong- fundamentally wrong - as if the sky was green and grass was blue.“Look.” Lin took a deep breath. “If you would ever take the time to think about- ugh! You know what? I don’t know why I bother!”Su heard her turn and walk away. Lin collected herself somewhere between Suyin’s bed and the door. Her voice was business now, Officer Lin Beifong. “Don’t oversleep. I’m taking you to the train. 6am sharp.”If Su had looked at her sister just then, she would have seen her eyes narrow and blinking, a drop of moisture trailing jagged valleys of raw skin cut fresh across her face.Su did not look at her sister. Thin rivulets of cream swirled with her tea in slow, gentle spirals. She dipped a spoon inside and twirled, blurring their dance into beige. Suyin laid the spoon on a cloth to dry, cupped her hands around the mug. The warmth was so comforting she didn’t want to drink.But the ride to Gaoling had been long. Hundreds of passengers. More stops than she could remember or count. Cramped, interrupted sleep against a window pane had made her irritable, and she’d practically leaped out the door when the train arrived at Gaoling.Suyin needed the tea. In an hour, Gram and Gramps would be meeting her at the station and that was no time to nod off. They would want to know everything. How’s your mother? Everything ok at the station? Lin’s a lieutenant now, isn’t she? Just the kind of surface talk that wouldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. The hard questions they’d avoid entirely. And Suyin would have to talk through it all, smile and nod.Because for them, the situation was uncomfortable without acknowledging its existence. Nothing like a delinquent grandchild coming to live with them to save their daughter's fragile reputation. High society didn’t talk discomfort or disgrace. They talked about schedules and soirees and... tea. Suyin looked down at her cup.She took a sip, thankful for the liquid that would help her survive hours of pleasantries.Suyin could handle small talk, but not a desperate attempt to distract from her catastrophic failure. That was a kind of conversation Su knew nothing about.… “I trust you have everything you need.”The butler stood at the door of the room that was now hers, waiting. Su had expected to be left alone and the question caught her off guard.“Ah, o-okay.” She stared at him, or through him. When his thin shape didn’t budge, Su realized the man would wait as long as he needed to until he was given the correct response. Her words hadn’t made sense but she was exhausted. If this was the last human interaction she would ever have, Su probably wouldn’t have minded.“I mean, yes. I’m fine. Thank you,” she managed.“My pleasure.” The butler abruptly turned on his heels, shut the door and left. The sound of his footsteps walking away was the sweetest sound she ever heard.Alone at last, Su took in the room. There was so...much of it.In her mother’s house less was more. Their apartment in the city had been spacious, but bare, furnished with exactly what they needed and not a thread more.This was a palace. In the center of the room, a large king bed- her bed - if she could believe it, was covered in rich silk sheets of emerald, lilac, and gold. On either side, thin windows stretched to the ceiling- stained glass bearing a proud winged boar. Su had seen the emblem once or twice, on one of her mother’s documents or some fairly heirloom, but she’d never given it a second thought. Here it was majestic- mysterious almost- and Su decided she didn’t mind it watching over her.A door on the west wall led to the bathroom and beside it a vast vanity and dresser sat ready for her. Not that Su had business with either of them tonight. She dropped her luggage, allowing it to plop open and dove onto the bed. By the time she realized her bag had spilled onto the floor, Su was laying on the bed, arms spread wide, far too tired and comfortable to care. Nothing felt real.Not when the family’s butler had answered the door and led her down halls too cavernous and branching to be anyone’s home. It didn’t feel real when she greeted her grandfather, when he told her her grandmother was ill, that she had been for the past few years, and was living in seclusion in the home’s east hall. And it certainly didn’t feel real when the two of them sat down for dinner, the smalltalk she expected, the food she did not, course after course of traditional Earth kingdom dishes her mother never cooked. Suyin had focused on the food- things were easier that way- and pretended to be present. Fifteens hours she’d been awake and every muscle of her face fought to hide it.Now Suyin was alone. She flicked a finger, shifting the metal switch of her bed lamp. She forced her body to relax in the dark, stretching on the soft sheets until her arms and legs cracked. Was she really that tense? The distant sound of muffled voices began to drift down the hall. Suyin froze, straining to hear them. Her grandfather’s voice. Another man. The butler? Fighting sleep, she caught a word here and there. But her eyelids were losing the battle.“...coming in the morning…”“Are you sure?”“the Councilman...”… She tapped a spoon against her plate with small, soft clanks. It was a nervous tick, a vain attempt at containing her excitement.Suyin had a problem with fidgeting. Lin had told her so. Her mother had told her so. But scolding hadn’t made her fidget any less.So when her grandfather, seated across from her at a dining table longer and grander than any table had a right to be, peered over the book he was reading and raised a brow at her tapping,Suyin kept tapping. The Councilman . Did she remember it right? Suyin had barely been awake the night before, but the words stuck with her and she wished she could will them into being. He was a family friend, but to her he was family. It had been a few years since she’d seen him, enough years that the details of his face were fuzzy, but the memories...those were clear, at least the feelings they came with. Su smiled at her plate. There was the time he took her and her sister to his “office” after school, only they never went to the office. Well they went through it anyway, to his private sword collection, stashed in a converted storage closet he’d hidden from everything and everyone. They weren’t old enough to hold the swords but he told them their stories. Each had an adventure behind it, something colorful and daring and larger than life. Lin wondered the stories were true, but for Su they were real and that was all that mattered.There was the time he hoisted her on her shoulders. You’re a lion turtle Sucakes! He’d walked her through the busy market streets of Republic City, weaving through a crowd, through an ocean, and she was the lion turtle, queen of all. Suyin was small for her age, but he made her forget.There may have been a time, early in the morning as light poured in her room, when she opened her eyes to his face beaming at hers. That one she barely remembered- she had been very young. But she thought about it at times, when she thought about him.“Sir.” The butler stepped into the room. Suyin swiveled in her chair to face him as he addressed her grandfather. “There is a guest at the door.”Her heart raced.“I’m coming,” her grandfather said as he closed his book and rose. “Suyin, you should get dressed.”She ignored him, grasping the back of her chair, knuckles white and eyes wide. “Who is it?” she asked, her excitement palpable. The butler opened his mouth and her grandfather answered for him.“You’ll see soon enough. Now go, I want you to be ready when he arrives.”She turned to him smiling and giddy, all composure an afterthought. “He? Oh so it’s a he? Does he have a name?”“Suyin!” He rolled his eyes and gestured to another door that led to her room. “Hurry now.”With a huff, Suyin obliged, running past her grandfather and down the hall. There was no wasting time. Su wasn’t about to wait who-knows-how-long to see a man she missed like mad. She wasn’t going to see him dolled up in silks either.Su ran all the way to her bedroom door and made a sharp right instead, careening down another hallway that led past a restroom and kitchen. She was retracing the way she’d been brought to her room the day before. From that short walk, she knew the hall would eventually lead to the front door and she hoped to spirits no one would cross her along the way.Not that the house was crowded. For all she knew, there were cooks, there were servants, there was her grandmother, who she still hadn’t seen since she’d arrived, and her grandfather. Only the latter would have an inkling of what she was supposed to be doing. He would take the fastest way to the door, certainly not this one and- Shit . Footsteps interrupted her train of thought. From where? Su barely knew the house she was trying to sneak through, certainly not enough to account for all its rooms and corridors. Still, she only passed doors to rooms that should have been dead ends. Unless-A grind of shifting earth gave Su her answer. The sound was only a few paces ahead, just around the next corner. An earth door! Really? What use did seniors have for secret passages? She heard her grandparents had been clingy...but this ? Her mother’s complaints were beginning to make sense now.Su quickened her pace, careful to not let her feet pound against the carpet as she half-ran, half-crouched, eyes darting everywhere in search of a hiding place. Su only had seconds now. She couldn’t sprint, no he’d hear if she did. Then she saw it.Nestled beside a potted plant under a row of family portraits was a metal vase, taller than her and every bit as wide. She could fit. With maneuvering. Su widened her stance, feeling the vase’s metal respond to her movement, and thrust it open with a crunch. She darted inside, crunched the vase closed, and immediately began to rotate the metal around her, willing the torn end to face the wall. She tried her best to stabilize the vase’s shakes and movements, but someone had to have heard. Su could only hope they hadn’t seen.Minutes passed like hours. She steadied her breath, waiting. The footsteps grew louder. They had to be feet away. What kind of plan was this anyway? Not like I’d get to the door any sooner. Stupid, stupid- Then a laugh. It came warm and loud and Su immediately decided it was her favorite sound.“Su! I thought this was a fancy establishment, but if these are the accommodations these days...I mean, maybe comfy for you earthbenders but I should have brought a sleeping bag.”She looked up. Staring at her through the neck of the vase, bent over and clenching his chest in laughter, was the representative of the Southern Water Tribe, chairman of the United Republic council, and a very familiar face- Sokka.“Sir! Sir, is everything alright?” It was the panicked voice of a servant. She heard more footsteps, then her grandfather.“Councilman! What’s going on?”Sokka’s laugh petered out into a wheezy chuckle. Su could feel him leaning against the vase as he looked down the neck again and shot her a wink.“Come on out of there,” he said.“But,” Su said under her breath. “I’ll kind of...wreck it.”Sokka cupped is mouth with his hands and whispered theatrically, still too quiet for the room to hear. “Guess you’ll just have to wreck it again.”Somehow his smile read like a dare. She couldn’t resist the challenge. Su shifted the vase again so it’s scarred side faced the hall. With a gesture of her arms, she bent the metal open and crawled out of the vase.Her grandfather yelped as if the metal had been his own skin.“I-I can’t believe this. You-,” he fumed, pointing an accusatory finger in Su’s direction. The servant beside him stood dumbfounded, staring at the pathetic hulk of metal that was once a prize-winning vase.Sokka raised his hand in a gesture of peace. “Apologies sir. Entirely my fault, I must have startled her. Anyway, it still has a good side.” He cocked his head in Su’s direction. Catching his meaning, she bent the vase shut and turned it to its smooth, unblemished side. With the tear against the wall, you could barely tell it was dismantled twice.“See?” Sokka said with a shrug. “Not half bad. I can pay for the damages. But in the meantime..” He turned to Su, and before she could process what was happening, Sokka scooped her off the ground and squeezed her in his arms. He spoke softly in her ear, a real whisper this time that no one but her could hear.“I missed you Sucakes. I really did.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Can you run?”
The old man looked at her with tired eyes. Deep bags sagged under a desperate, pleading stare. He had been coughing from the smoke, but managed to say those words and shove a handful of coins into her small, shaking hands.
As many times as she'd seen him on his morning walks, Kuvira didn't know the man's name. He was a stranger.
But when she ran that night from her family’s burning home, his was the only familiar face she’d found. Panicked, terrified, she spotted him coughing in his home and pounded on the door, desperate for somewhere, anywhere to hide. He had answered coughing, limping, in no state to go anywhere or do anything.
But he told her to run.
Kuvira glanced down at the coins he’d placed in her hands. Voices screamed and blades clashed in the distance. Most of the village homes were burning and the old man’s had begun to catch fire. It was obvious he intended to die there.
“Hey!” he barked. “Did you hear me?”
The man let out a violent cough. “They’re coming!”
Kuvira shook in fear as the screams grew louder. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
The man crouched to her height, eye to eye, and yelled so aggressively that beads of spit flecked onto her face.
“RUN!”
He gave her shoulder a harsh shove and she fell, stumbling down his porch steps into the dirt road. Without thinking, she’d made the ground cave for her, softening the fall. The blunt force had flipped a switch. She found her footing. Kuvira gathered her scattered coins and scrambled to her feet.
She ran.
Everything after was a blur.
Her small legs ached from the exertion, but she ran, weaving between buildings, dodging bloody clashes in the streets, running so long and so far that finally the village became a smoking heap in the distance, but she ran. Her legs carried her down a long trade route, passing small caravans in the night. She cut through wheat fields, through a stable and into a thick woods, running until the trees became so many and their cover so dense that she could no longer run by the light of the moon.
Her legs buckled. This time the ground did not cave for her.
When Kuvira woke, the sun hung high in the sky, piercing through the overgrowth in clusters of dappled light. Outside the forest it was blazingly warm, the kind of mid-summer day that could make a firebender wish the sun didn’t shine. But here, under thick cover, speckles of light danced over Kuvira’s face. The ground was cool, moist from a morning rain.
She lay there, watching a sparrowkeet fly from branch to branch. It was brilliant green, a male, judging from the plume of its feathers. The bird chirped and chirped, calling to some companion Kuvira couldn’t see. She took a deep breath and turned her attention to the trees. They had grown so tightly their branches were almost interlaced, a gently rocking web of wood and leaves in the wind. They were nearing summer’s end and every so often a single leaf would release its hold and tumble to the ground. Kuvira was sure she was covered in them. She didn’t care.
For this moment, everything was ok.
A leaf landed on her face and she raised her arm to shove it away. Then it hit her:
A dull throb of pain that coursed down her arm and into her fingers. If moving her arm hurt that much she couldn’t imagine standing. Slowly, limb by limb, Kuvira coaxed her body into a seated position. Cross-legged, still aching with pain, she closed her eyes to steady herself- and her thoughts.
Memories of the night before crawled into her brain and with them came the feelings. The anger. The hurt. She felt moisture well up in the corner of her eye and fought it.
No
.
Kuvira had promised herself not to cry again. She wasn’t going to cry.
Even though life had aged her, Kuvira was still a child. Seven years of age. In happier, better places, a seven-year-old would be going to school, playing games, meeting friends. Instead, she was mostly self-taught. There was little time for games, working day in and day out for the family business. And friends? Kuvira knew what the word meant, but she had never experienced a friend.
Life in the her village had been short and hard. The people labored to live, so life was labor. Bandits lorded over the town as long as Kuvira could remember, demanding sizable portions of their food and resources, threatening violence.
Last night they’d made good on their threats. She always knew they would.
She just never imagined how it would end. Her home, burnt to the ground. Her parents, what they said before they were killed. What they did. She shuddered at the thought and forced it out of her mind.
They would never. It wasn’t real.
Kuvira closed her eyes. She could lay there listening to the birds forever, feeling the breeze on her face, pretending she was anyone else. And she might have- if it weren’t for the sound of wheels splashing in mud.
She froze. Kuvira was no stranger to being quiet when she needed to be. When the bandits made their usual rounds, her parents had told her to hide- behind curtains, chairs, doors, whatever she could find. She’d become practiced at holding her breath, stilling her heart.
The wheels began to grind through the mud, struggling to turn. The sound faded. Was the thing, whatever it was, moving away from her? Stopping? Kuvira laid her hands flat on the dirt beside her, pressing to hear. When nothing came, she dug her fingers deeper into the ground. Kuvira never questioned why she did this, only that it worked- occasionally anyway.
The shape was square, large, and heavy- a blur in her mind- but she was guessing it was some sort of carriage.
Slowly Kuvira flipped onto her stomach and pressed into the ground, angling herself upwards. With one hand she gently pressed aside a few branches from the bush in front on her. Through their leaves she could see it was wooden- that she could tell, with large wheels deeply entrenched in the mud. Whoever they were, they weren’t going anywhere soon.
“Spirits- I told you this was the wrong way!” A man’s voice.
“It didn’t have to be!” Another man, older than the first. Kuvira could hear him leaping down from the carriage. “If you didn’t
have
to stop in Zhufan, we would have beaten the rain. None of this...garbage.” A hand slammed the wood- most likely his.
“You know why…”
“Oh I know why! That girl of yours- total waste of time!”
“Hey, don’t start with her. We’ll be engaged soon, I swear-”
“Soon?
Real
soon. You’ve been saying that for how long?” He sighed. “We have to move before all this spoils.”
Spoils
. One word and suddenly Kuvira’s gnawing hunger that had sat low and ignored was the loudest voice in her brain. Spoils. Spoils could mean food. Real food was worth the risk. While the men bickered, Kuvira slowly crawled through the brush, taking care to make her movements quiet and slight. But if she’d snapped a twig they wouldn’t have heard. The men were going at it now, slinging insults left and right. Their conversation didn’t interest her anymore. They were distracted- that was all that mattered.
Just as their shouting reached a crescendo- she could have sworn one of them threw something- Kuvira poked her head from the brush. Her senses had been right. It was carriage- a shipping one, more or less identical to the others she’d passed the night before. Kuvira had often seen them in her village, passing through to deliver produce or leather or other wares. Her home had been ill-suited for farming, so they’d depended on shipments for just about everything.
If this one was like the others....
Kuvira had helped a trader unload once or twice for spare coin. She knew exactly where to go, exactly how to bend the trailer’s lock and sneak her way in. This would be simple, she told herself. Easy in and out.
Kuvira stole one last look at the traders- she couldn’t see their faces, but they were arguing by the front of the carriage. As long as they kept their heads turned, she’d be out of sight.
She took a deep breath. Clenched her first.
And ran, coaxing the mud beneath her feet to the side and ensuring it wouldn’t slow her. In seconds she was behind the carriage. Kuvira grabbed the end of the wagon and scrambled up on a small ledge by the back doors. Back flat against the wood, she moved her fingers in a slow circular motion- clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise- feeling the inner workings of the door’s metal lock and nudging its pins into position. At first they resisted her and a small panic built in her chest as she begged the metal to cooperate. One more turn. Another.
Then it clicked. A small sigh of relief escaped Kuvira’s lips and she grabbed the doors to pull it open. The faster she worked, the better. The men’s tone had lowered now. Whatever was happening, their fight was coming to an end. Anytime they could come around to free their carriage. Kuvira thrust her hand on the right hand door and pulled.
CREEEEEAK.
No, no, no.
A hideous noise wailed from rusty hinges. How hadn’t she thought of the hinges?
“Did you hear that?” One of the men, the younger one, began walking to the back of the carriage. She could hear his footsteps in the mud.
“Hear what?”
“Spirits, you never hear anything.”
Kuvira’s heart was bursting through her chest now. She squeezed through the crack of the carriage, eased it shut- thankfully it didn’t squeak in the opposite direction- and worked the lock as quickly as she could, struggling to feel the metal through the wooden door. The footsteps were louder now, seconds away. Thank spirits the mud had slowed them. Kuvira was quicker with the lock her second time around; she eased it closed and then half-darted, half-stumbled her way to the front of the carriage, grasping in the dark for somewhere to hide.
Metal!
There was a box in the very back, a shipping container thicker and stronger than the others. Besides small locks and toying with utensils, Kuvira had scarcely bent metal, but this was her only option.
She heard hands begin to work with the lock outside. Voices.
Sloppily she wrenched open the lid of the box. It was filled with miscellaneous tools - no time to think about those. She tossed a few away to make room for herself and crawled in.
With another ear-splitting creak, the door opened. Her breath stilled.
“See? Nothing in here. You worry too much.”
“You didn’t even look!”
She heard a man- the second voice, she assumed, clamber into the storage compartment. Footsteps. And then-
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
A hard knock on her container. The lid swung upon. A young man, early 20s at most, stared down at her with a look of total bewilderment. His hair was shoulder length, ink black and shaggy, skin tanner than she’d ever seen, eyes blue and piercing. Kuvira had never seen a man like him before. He was dressed in a fur-trimmed vest with ragged arm holes- the garment’s sleeves had been carelessly cut.
They were both a mess- sweaty, tired, caked in dirt. Kuvira was huddled in a ball, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She stared back at the man who stared back at her, dumbfounded and silent.
A voice came from outside the carriage. “Come on kid, what is it? Some frog squirrel or something? You’ve seen one before.”
The man swallowed, shook his head as if to steady himself.
“Ah...not a frog squirrel.” He looked away, presumably at his partner. Kuvira’s mind raced, calculating a dozen different plans of escape but none of them made sense.
“It’s a girl.”
Kuvira scraped the bottom of her bowl, scooping up every last drop of stew her spoon could coax from the clay.
The men watched her from the opposite side of the table, eyeing the strange little girl as she devoured the last of her meal. The younger one- his name was Kallik, she’d learned- leaned in to whisper in his partner’s ear.
“She’s something else Alor, I tell you. A little low on the charm, but she tore that box open.
On her own
.”
Alor rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed. Alor was a larger man, tan-skinned like his partner, a bit heavy at the waist but still muscular from years of work. He wore a dirty tunic rolled up at the sleeves; a long-brimmed hat covered his head. On the entire journey he’d been- in a word- unpleasant.
“I can hear you.” Kuvira dropped her spoon in the bowl with a ceremonial clank. She crossed her arms and learned back in her seat. Kallik and Alor sat up in attention. She had never spoken before.
The girl had been silent on their entire ride to Gansu. Kallik tried asking her where she’d come from, who her parents were, if she was lost and where she was going. Alor had tried harder- bribing and threatening- he wasn’t a subtle man. But Kuvira was in no mood to share anything with the men and she had nothing to share.
Where she’d come from? Destroyed. Her parents? Dead. Was she lost? You can only be lost if you have a place to be. Where was she going? Nowhere.
No point in questions without answers. So she’d been silent- and Alor resolved to take her to the nearest city, set her up with someone who could help more than they could. Anyway, Gansu was on their trade route; the detour wouldn’t cost them time or money.
Kallik had noticed things along the ride, things that told him Kuvira was different. Of course she wrenched a box open with her bending- that torn crate was an image he’d replayed in his mind more than a few times over the past few days. But there were little things about her that struck him as strange, things Alor missed because he was never paying attention.
At one pitstop, Kuvira had wandered to the side of the road and sculpted a small temple from the dirt. Just playing, Alor had called it, but it wasn’t child’s play. Her dirt sculpture had been detailed, beautiful, the kind of work only an experienced bender would be able to muster.
Yet she was still a child somehow. One night, as they crossed a particularly long stretch of pasture, he’d caught her starting into the sky, huddled in burlap sack she’d found for a blanket. There was something heavy in eyes- and on her mind. He hadn’t dared to ask what.
Now he stared at her, slouched in her seat across the table, sitting with them in a crowded noodle shop that smelled of fish and body odor. The place hadn’t been his first choice- but Alor was cheap and predictable, so here they were.
Somehow nothing distracted the girl, not the clamor of voices at the next table or a plate that crashed in the kitchen. Eyes narrow, her gaze never left them. Kallik was sure she hadn’t appreciated his comment, but it was an honest one.
She was something else
. Would they just drop her at an orphanage, leave her for anyone to find?
Something didn’t feel right.
“Ah, apologies,” Kallik said, wiping his mouth with a cloth as he pushed his own bowl away from him. “I guess it’s a little rude to whisper in front of you, but you know, it’s true. Are you sure you can’t tell us where you’re from?”
She continued to stare, unamused- or just uninterested. A thin strand of black hair lay flat against her face. Kallik raised a hand and waved in her direction, sending a gentle stream of water from his glass to hers.
He’d hoped the waterbending would catch her attention, as it had a few times along the way. Kuvira never spoke, but she always took interest in watching the men gather water and wash the caravan wheels with their forms.
Her eyes didn’t shift an inch.
“Alright, come on kid,” Alor said as he stood to leave. “This is the last stop- we’re taking you to a new friend around the block.”
“A
friend
?” Kallik cocked his head, critical of such a gross exaggeration.
Alor let out a conspiratorial cough, a heavy hint to his partner. “Yes. A
friend
. Let’s go- we’re leaving.”
He began to walk to the door without them, but Kuvira didn’t budge. She watched Alor recede into the distance, who never once looked back to see if they followed. Her eyes turned to Kallik, who still sat on a bench across from her. His face was easier to trust, but still she thought of running, darting between patrons, slipping past Alor and running barefoot into the night. She’d gotten food from the men- that’s all she’d really wanted anyway. Now, in a larger city, she had a true opportunity to disappear.
As Kallik raised from his seat, Kuvira dug a hand into her pocket and felt for the coins the man had given her in the village. They’d feed her for a few days- a week at most. From there she could steal if she had to. Kuvira hadn’t stolen often- it never sat well with her- but when hunger spoke louder than honor she’d swiped from bandits and merchants alike. She could do it again. She could run.
But where?
Kuvira knew no one here, trusted no one.
As she calculated her options, Kuvira hadn’t noticed Kallik walk to her side. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’ll be okay.”
There are times when you’re reassured that everything will be alright. It will all turn out in the end, if you just hold on, if you wait. But then there are times when you hear this- and you believe it- and not a shed of it is true.
That year was her longest year. Days stretched into weeks and weeks stretched into months and no day could be distinguished from the day before.
They would rise early in the morning and make their way to the mess hall, a gray, featureless room with weathered dining tables. The food was always a soup of some sort, a mix of whatever rations the province supplied. Silence was mandatory in the morning, a way to “focus on the day”, the headmaster told them. But Kuvira didn’t mind the silence. She had nothing to say.
The morning meal was followed by lessons. All the children gathered in a single room- all ages and languages and intellects- learning, or attempting to learn, whatever the headmaster deemed important. Then they were sent off to chores- cleaning more than anything else- and Kuvira was always assigned sweeping.
Just the thought of it made her angry. Of course the floors would accumulate dirt and crumbs every day - it was inevitable- and sweeping daily did nothing to stop the tide of dirt and crumbs the next morning. She’d dreaded the whole tedious ordeal: sweeping each room for messes, sweeping again when someone charged through with dirty feet, awaiting the headmaster’s inspection, and finally, depositing her dustpan in the backyard.
It was meaningless.
But it was better than the evening meal. Here the children were allowed to speak, to socialize, to gather in clusters like children do. It was Kuvira’s least favorite time of the day.
“What’s that on your face?”
Kuvira sat by the window, as she always did. She stared outside instead at the boys in front of her.
“Is it a bug or something?”
“I think it’s a mole.” This was another boy, his voice higher, eager to impress.
“Girls aren’t supposed to have moles.”
“I don’t like it.”
None of this was new. Kuvira continued to stare at her modest view: a small yard with a shed shaded by a tree. A black bird was building a nest there. She’d watched it for days now, but the nest was almost complete, a careful, delicate construction.
“Hey do you hear me? I said I don’t like it.”
“He says he doesn’t like it.”
Kuvira balled her fists as she watched the bird fly to the ground and return with a twig. It nestled the wood into the nest and hopped back on the branch, as if to get a final look. Maybe this was the last piece.
One of the boys sighed. “She can’t talk anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“Kinda stupid if she didn’t know how to talk. Nobody wants that.”
Kuvira’s broke her gaze to look down at her hands. They had began to ache; her knuckles were white now. She hadn’t realized how tight she’d be gripping.
What she’d been holding back.
Kuvira sensed the two boys next to her. They had stepped closer. Too close.
“She’ll be here forever.” The two laughed. “Forever and ever.”
The world went black.
“So the reports are true?”
A woman’s voice drifted down the hall. It was late into the night, but Kuvira had been fighting sleep as she always did. Laying flat on her back, the girl stretched and squished a small metal bead between her fingers. Tonight she would form a perfect sphere- or she hoped.
Bending was something she could do when she slept alone. Kuvira always slept alone now.
“The reports are true.” It was the headmaster- his droll voice unmistakable. “I understand if this affects your decision; we completely understand if-”
“Across the room? Fifty feet?” This was the woman again, her manner refined, if a tad impatient.
“Ah- ah yes.” The discomfort in his voice was palpable. “Fifty feet...maybe sixty or so.”
Kuvira sat up. She still toyed with the bead, but their conversation began to interest her.
“Incredible. And you never taught her this? No one ever taught her this?” The two were closer now and they weren’t alone. She heard more pairs of feet than voices.
“No ma’am, we never taught her such a thing. Just some language, some mathematics, nothing unusual.” He coughed to clear his throat. “Water tribe merchants found her in a forest. Most likely abandoned, or some kind of runaway. A poor upbringing, obviously. If you’d like, there’s plenty of other children who-”
“The boy? Did he survive?”
“Oh yes- ah, a broken rib- nothing more.” The man took a deep breath. “It was strange, the way it happened. The cart pushed him against him against the wall, should have crushed him. Solid iron! The momentum, you know? But it just stopped. Had to be painful, but he’s certainly alright now.”
“Control…” Her voice trailed off.
The group took a few more steps. A door opened down the hall.
“Listen ma’am, I’m sure this isn’t what you’re looking for-”
“It is.”
Footsteps faded into a nearby room and the door shut behind them.
Kuvira wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
She slipped off of her cot and made her way to the front of the room. Her bedroom door had a small window, but it was covered by curtains on the outside. Easy to see in, impossible for her to see out. The floors were wooden here- useless- but she could lay by the crack of the door and listen. As Kuvira began to kneel, a pair of feet walked in her direction, a light
clack, clack
.
The door down the hall hadn’t opened.
Then who-?
A soft knock. She snapped to her feet and watched a hand brush aside the outside curtains. In the little square window was a face she’d never seen.
“So you’re the one, huh?”
His crooked smile was framed by a long face, thin but defined and crowned with an unkempt tossle of brown hair. In his expression of surprise, thin, circular glasses had slid down the bridge of his nose.
Kuvira didn’t move, trying to size up the stranger.
“It’s alright, spirits know I’m quiet too sometimes. ” He pressed his frames up with a finger. “They’re having a meeting about bringing you home with us. I hope they don’t mind me saying hello. Of course, I also hope you don’t mind.”
Kuvira would have found his smile unnerving if it wasn’t so earnest.
“She’s very excited to meet you Kuvira.”