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We’re going to ride elephant koi, he said; We’re going to have a lot of fun, he said.
Renjun rubs up and down Chenle’s arms in a fruitless attempt to warm the shivering boy, who had hurled straight from the ocean and basically barrelled into Renjun's arms after some giant sea cucumber had attempted to eat him during his ride.
It was a bad idea, such a plainly bad idea because what if Chenle was towed down by an undercurrent? What if whatever that tried to eat him actually succeeded? Renjun definitely should have stopped him before he decided to make some overgrown goldfish his new mode of transport.
“Where we’re going you won’t need pants!”
Chenle had declared high and clear when the trio caught sight of a small Earth Kingdom Island. He’d shrugged the pair he was wearing off before Renjun could comprehend what that meant and thrown it down Kun’s side with a flourish, then he proceeded to give both Jaemin and Renjun a heart attack by basically jumping off the saddle mid-flight and free-falling hundreds of metres into the sea below.
Renjun was going to have to have a little talk with Chenle concerning flight safety. And the dangers of unknown sea life. And cardiovascular health. Renjun literally felt years getting shaved off his lifespan when Chenle was whooping on his way down, he's aging faster and faster these days taking care of the airhead, sweet as she was, he doesn't want to catch up to Jaemin's grannie just yet.
“What the hell was that?”
Renjun directs the question at Jaemin as his best friend scales down the tree he was perched on and lands on Kun’s saddle.
Jaemin peers out at the long shadow in the blue, the elephant koi were long gone by now, and the waves deceptively calm, but he wasn’t about to pretend that Chenle didn’t give all of them a fright when he almost turned into fish food.
Very expensive fish food. Jaemin wonders if Avatar meat tasted better than normal humans, maybe more fluffy and spirit-y?
The Avatar in question shakes his head, Renjun doesn’t flinch when cold water bounces off Chenle’s blond curls, “I d-don’t know.”
Renjun holds the shivering boy a bit tighter in an attempt to pass his body heat on to him somehow. Yawns and exhales from Chenle always seem to summon a pretty strong breeze, enough to knock an unaware rider off the saddle of an Air Bison, Renjun really didn't want to deal with a sneezy and sniffly Airbender, he might just get ejected out of the atmosphere.
Jaemin throws a thick blanket he procured from Kun’s saddle to Renjun, who catches it and drapes it around Chenle. He rifles around the saddle some more before pulling out one of Chenle’s spare pants, and he tosses it at the younger, who cackles when Jaemin's throw hits the mark, Jaemin finds himself smiling in response.
“Let’s not stick around to find out.” Jaemin returns to the matter at hand and decides that he doesn’t want to learn how his companion tastes like, and he probably wouldn’t be able to ask the creature that would sample the goods anyway, “Time to hit the road.”
“Or you could stay awhile.”
Before Jaemin can turn to entertain that suggestion, there was a blur of green, and the world turned black.
Jaemin is considerably unimpressed to open his eyes and find that his world is still black and that he’s bound to a pillar. He is substantially relieved though, to hear Renjun’s quiet, shuddering breaths and feel Chenle squirm next to him.
One step in the right direction: his friends were alive at least. Whoever their kidnappers were, they weren't entirely barbaric as to gag them, they were off to a good start.
Second step: orientation. He needs to find out where they're bound and by whom to come up with a strategy to escape and hightail out of there. The ropes they're bound with are pretty loose, and with the right movement they should be able to wriggle out of them, but Jaemin can't tell where they are, and it's too dangerous to start wiggling compulsively even if the floor below them feels like solid ground.
“Renjun-hyung? Jaemin-hyung? You both okay? You’re not hurt right?”
The pout in Chenle's voice is audible, and Jaemin has to bite back a tiny smile.
He marvels at how he's already familiarised with Chenle’s mannerisms. He just knows Chenle probably has his head down, cheeks fluffed out in a pout, and probably is blaming the big fish (and the giant eel, and Kun, and probably the innocent trees, anything but himself) for getting them caught.
“They’re not hurt, no, but that can change quite quickly.”
As Jaemin whips his head to the general direction of the voice, his blindfold is torn away.
His eyes water at the sudden assault of sunlight, and he blinks to clear his vision.
They are tied to a pillar, but their kidnap is a lot more public than he’d expected. What looks to be an entire village stares back at him as he scans his surroundings.
The houses are small, pretty simple, fashioned out of cement with ceramic rooftops, a far cry from the icy igloos of home.
The village is quaint, with similar looking houses placed close to one another, Jaemin immediately guesses that this was probably one of the only, if not only settlement on the island, and that everyone here is close-knit.
That's dangerous, people with loyalty, extreme loyalty are unpredictable when it comes to what they'll do to protect the status quo.
The villagers look like they've never seen people like them, which means even though this is an island country, visitor are scarce, all villagers have is their imagination and rumours to base their impression on a couple of Water Tribe members and a blond kid off of.
Imagination is dangerous, especially if information is incomplete, Jaemin needs to think fast or the situation would get worse by the minute. Crowd mentality and pressure can be a huge driving force to push people to rationalise and do the unthinkable. Jaemin doesn't want to get stoned here, he doubts Chenle can bend well enough to protect them without hurting the villagers while being bound.
The villagers though, were the least of their problems.
The pillar with the three of them is surrounded by dozens of men with painted faces, all decked in full armour and matching wary glares.
He finally puts a face to the voice. The man in front of him looks deceptively young. Even through copious amounts of face paint he can see high cheekbones, full cheeks and slanted eyes, not unlike a cat’s. The man looks shorter than he is, but judging from the way he holds himself Jaemin hazards a guess that he was probably military trained. His body looks strong and lithe, his stance reminds him of a coiled spring, and despite his advantage of height Jaemin doesn’t dare take him on in a fight, he's seen enough warriors to know the man in front of him was definitely one.
“You three have some explaining to do, and if you don’t answer all our questions we’re throwing you all back to the Unagi.”
Appearances mean nothing, Jaemin had learnt, Chenle was the most youthful hundred and sixteen year old ("Sixteen!" Chenle had protested in a deafening shriek "Hyung, I'm just sixteen, I still get acne and I'm not wrinkly yet!" ) he had ever met, and will likely ever meet, but unlike Chenle who is all sunshine and rainbows, the baby-face of this man does nothing to deter the aura of authority he exudes.
Jaemin knows not to let his guard down, and judging from how tense Renjun is next to him, Renjun had picked up on it as well.
“Is that what the thing just now is?”
Damn, Chenle didn’t get the memo.
Chenle’s face is glowing with wonder, eyes alight with curiosity as he leans forward in his binds, “I saw a huuuuge eye in the water, and I waved to it! But he tried to eat me… I guess the Usagi doesn’t want to be my friend after all…”
Jaemin doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In other circumstances he would have cooed and petted Chenle on the head for being adorable, and Renjun would have given him a noogie on his big golden head for entirely missing the point. But if the sheathed swords at the hips of these warriors were any indication, they weren’t here to bond over Chenle’s cute antics.
While the leader in front doesn’t look amused (which, Jaemin respects as a
soldier but come on, does he kick puppies in his spare time? How can someone be so stoic?) at the corner of the group Jaemin sees one of the younger looking Warriors suppress a grin.
He notes it down in his head. An edge is an edge, he can use a bit of leverage, and if Chenle can move him or maybe deafen everyone with his signature dolphin scream there’s a chance they can get out of this alive.
“Tell us the truth, who are you and what are you doing here? Are you spies from the Fire Nation?” The leader brings his attention back, and before Jaemin can answer sensibly, Chenle interjects.
“No! We’re not spies, um, sir. It’s my fault, sir, I wanted to ride the elephant koi… I’m sorry for coming here… I never thought it would be populated, I wasn’t thinking, really-“
The leader cuts Chenle off by unsheathing his blade and shoving the tip to Chenle’s chest. Jaemin’s heart jolts in his chest as Chenle stutters and stops talking. All the Warriors but the younger one unsheathe their blades, and Jaemin can tell by the heavy breathing next to him that Renjun must be hyperventilating by now.
“And how do we know if you’re not lying? We’ve kept Kangta Island out of the war for so long, we intend to keep it that way.”
Chenle, bless him, brightens again. “Kangta? This island is named for Avatar Kangta? I know him!”
Another Warrior speaks up and scoffs, “Yeah right, and I’m Avatar Boa, you little shrimp! Avatar Kangta passed away four hundred years ago, no normal human can possibly survive for four hundred years! Minseok,” he addresses his leader, “looks like the Unagi will have
three more liars to feed on today.”
Chenle frowns, “But he’s me! I’m the Avatar!”
“Lies!”
The leader, or Minseok, holds up a hand to stop his subordinate, but Jaemin can hear the displeasure in his voice, “The last Avatar was an Airbender who either died or disappeared following the Fire Nation raid on the Temples, if you had an inch of decency, you would not dare desecrate the memory of the Avatar in front of us.”
Jaemin’s heart jumps out of his throat as the Warrior next to Renjun raises his blade and other Warriors move to mirror the action.
"Hyung!"
The young Warrior earlier speaks up from the edge of the group, his voice threaded with nervousness. Jaemin doesn't miss how their leader softens a fraction of a degree.
"Hyung, they might be telling the truth, the boy is blond, that's an Air Nomad trait-"
"Hair can be a deception or a wig! We'll know whether or not it's real hair after we take them down!" Minseok's right hand man barks, "Attack!"
At times like this he’s grateful he’s a quick thinker and an even quicker speaker.
“Chenle! Airbend, now!”
At his cue, a strong waft of wind surrounds their pillar and disarms the Warriors. The currents force the painted men back before knocking them down with a clatter. Jaemin finally lets relief wash over him as Chenle slips past his binds and jumps several dozen metres into the air, bolstered by the wind. The crowd gasps at this display of power and Jaemin silently relishes the stunned expression on Minseok’s face.
When Chenle finally lands gracefully on his feet to stand in front of him and Renjun, he holds out his arms to shield them both, his face is uncharacteristically serious.
“I am the Avatar. I'm a real Air Nomad. I wasn’t lying. I don’t mean to anger
any Ignagi, and I definitely would not insult my own past life. Please don’t hurt my friends or I’ll have to fight back.”
The Warriors on the ground look up at him in surprise and awe. Disbelief colours Minseok’s voice “It’s true, You- you! The Avatar is back!”
“Yeah!” Jaemin really needed to ask Chenle sometime where he kept all that eagerness and energy in that small frame of his. Was it the Avatar spirit? Or was Chenle secretly blessed by some Magical Dolphin Spirit of Vitality?
“Now check this out!”
Chenle produces three marbles from the pocket in his sleeve, and Airbends to spin them in a parlour trick that neither Renjun nor Jaemin had been very impressed with. The crowd cheers, however, and Chenle preens. Jaemin is glad that at least these people weren’t hard to please, it makes everything from here on out a bit easier, because while Chenle captivating the village is great and all, Jaemin really just wants to get out of their binds, they weren't too tight, but moving in them was abrasive, and Jaemin hates the feeling of the rough rope on his ankles.
He meets gazes with the unnamed young Warrior, and it's like a switch clicks when the boy's eyes light up in understanding.
Without waiting for a cue from Minseok, he strides up to the pillar. With a flick of his wrist, he produces two gleaming golden fans and cuts the rope binding them. Renjun slides to the ground, legs failing from fear and relief. Jaemin scuttles over to give Renjun a hug as he exchanges nods of acknowledgment with the boy.
The young Warrior turns to Chenle, and literally folds himself into half with how deep his bow is.
“Avatar, we're sorry for binding you and your friends, we just wanted to protect our village from danger," his voice trembles with reverence, but when he looks up his eyes are swimming with fascination "If you do stay, we’ll make it up to you. It’s an honour, especially on this island, to serve the Avatar.”
Chenle just gives him a sweet smile, the one that squeezes his eyes into a line - oh he’s so cute - and pulls him up, Chenle clasps his hands in his small ones, “It’s okay, you freed my friends, that’s what counts! I’m Chenle, I’m not Kangta really, please don’t bow, you don’t owe me anything!”
The boy blinks owlishly, Jaemin stifles a laugh- this boy will probably be next in Chenle’s ever-ongoing mission to befriend the world and Chenle looks delighted to have free reign over his speech and the silent allowance to press on.
Chenle continues, “Stop being formal with me, you look barely older than Renjun-hyung and Jaemin-hyung anyway. Just be comfortable, I want to be your friend instead, what’s your name?”
Minseok’s mouth is definitely open by now, “Mark. My name is Minhyung, but Mark- I’m Mark.” The boy finishes lamely, pink tinting his cheeks.
Even Renjun is holding back snickers as Chenle takes that as a cue to go full on-
“Mark-hyung then! Do you like fans? Is that why you use them? Can I see them? It’s really shiny! Is it real gold? Do they bend? OH it’s sharp! Why a fan though? Is it that hot here? If you’re hot you should take off your armour! Or I can take you out to a fly with Kun! Have you met Kun? Do you want to meet Kun? I promise he doesn’t eat people like that Ignani!”
Laughter bubbles at his lips before he can stop it. If it means being able to watch Chenle harass someone else like this, he wouldn’t mind staying a while. Mark answers each and every enquiry with an exasperated sort of fondness, and a smile that tugging at the corner of his lips. Mark is already charmed by Chenle as who he is, rather than the all-powerful Avatar, just as he and Renjun had been.
As the people bustle to carry out their duties to prepare for the Avatar’s stay, Mark had stayed behind to accompany them with a nod of approval from Minseok.
They learn that Mark, along with the rest of the Kangta Warriors were all non-benders that specialised in combat. They learn that the swords were intimidating, but the Kangta Warrior’s real strength lay in the pair of sleek and sharp golden fans that they carry about. Jaemin later learns that despite the fan’s delicate appearance, he is barely able to hold his own against Mark with his spear before their short duel ends with his
weapon on the ground and the sharp edge of an open fan pressed to his jugular. Chenle apparently is also a Very Loud Clapper (Is it an
Airbending thing? Jaemin thinks it is, probably something to do with manipulating the particles in the air so the sound travels further, because Jaemin likes explanations, and loud hands can’t be explained by a huge set of lungs)
They learn that Mark had lost his parents to a voyage in the sea to an untimely storm and was practically raised by Minseok and the rest of the Warriors, that he was named Minhyung by his parents, but since he could babble he'd just said Mak, Mak over and over again and the Warriors thought it was a waste not to call him that, by the time he'd grown enough to protest, it had stuck.
They learn that he's barely a year older than Renjun and Jaemin, at nineteen, had always felt lonely because of the different life he led from other kids, he longed to venture beyond the blue to see the rest of the world. They find despite Mark is older than all of them, Chenle finds his mannerisms adorable, and Airbends a lot more than usual just to catch Mark's wide-eyed expression.
They also witness that not only is Mark incredibly susceptible to Chenle’s infectious energy, even Minseok, despite his frosty demeanor, is not immune to the young Avatar either. Chenle manages to make Minseok crack a smile when he accidentally blows up the statue of Kangta in the main square when he was trying to impress Mark by using his fans. Mark
spends a solid ten laughing and hitting Renjun who was rolling on the floor next to him.
“Bet you seal jerky that Mark will ask to join by the end of the week.” Renjun says quietly to Jaemin, eyes soft with amusement as they watch Chenle tap Kun on the nose to wake the bison up.
Kun sneezes, blowing Chenle and Mark into bushes several feet away. They share a laugh as Chenle tries to Airbend to clear both of them of Air Bison snot while convincing Mark to hitch a ride on Kun.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fun! Way more fun than riding the elephant koi, for one Kun won’t be eaten by the Iguana anytime soon! And his snot can't reach his back, it's the safest place from Bison sneezes!”
Spirits, we're a good 40 yards away, this kid is so loud.
"What about Minseok?"
Renjun scoffs at his question, "Are you kidding me? Minseok practically adopted Chenle in half a day, he's basically given us Mark's hand in marriage."
Jaemin watches Minseok come by, he chuckles and ruffles both Mark's and Chenle's hair, and orders both of them to clean up with a fond smile.
He shrugs, true enough.
Jaemin contemplates the deal, then meets Renjun’s eyes and grins.
“Give it three days.”
Renjun's eyes gleam.
“You’re on.”
Little did they know it really didn't take three days.
Two days later, the Fire Nation coast guard catches wind of the Avatar’s location. They devastate Kangta Island, and their group is forced to flee.
Mark does join them, but rather than him bidding the village a
whole-hearted farewell, it was Minseok pushing all four of them to safety, and Mark reluctantly clambering on Kun.
It takes one look at Mark’s teary eyes as they were flying away before Chenle decides to display his free-fall act again.
This time, he rides the Unagi instead of the Koi, and manages to coax water out of the aggressive eel to douse the flames on Kyoshi Island. It earns him a heartfelt hug from Mark, and a huge lecture and long overdue noogie from Renjun.
Jaemin however, can barely manage a smile.
Ever observant, he had witnessed a messenger hawk sent off by the coast guard to the general direction of the Fire Nation. If his speculations are right, that letter isn’t going to just stop at the hands of the coast guard’s commanding officer.
Chenle’s existence will finally be made known to the rest of the world, and to the Fire Lord himself.
They aren’t covert anymore, the Fire Nation will be sending their full forces to stop them and capture Chenle.
It will be a bloody fight to the North.
Jaemin wins the bet in the end and they gain an immeasurable ally in Mark, but the seal jerky is bland and tasteless as he worries it on his tongue.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Renjun swears that he had thought Jaemin was 60% genius, 30% idiot and 10% moron. But right now Jaemin is trying to prove his golden formula wrong by displaying that he was in fact all idiot. Because who, by the Spirits, would catch fish with a boot and a string?
He opens his mouth to let Jaemin know “The disdain I’m feeling for you is indescribable, how- why would you do this to me? Why can't you be honest? Why can't we have a normal fishing trip for once? No sorry Renjun for making you bear with me, you're the best friend ever, instead you're making me do all the work rowing for you while you're offering to feed me boot fish-”
Jaemin pouts, “There’s not enough dried vines or dried guts for us to use to weave a net, I have to make do.”
Renjun understands, he really does, there's not much out there in the icy tundra they can use for tools, and whatever woven fabric is better used as clothing or blankets to fight off the bitter cold.
“A boot though?”
“It’s a good scooping tool.”
Renjun looks skyward and asks the iceberg Spirits, wherever they were, for strength. He's not putting fish that's been anywhere near Jaemin's foot in his mouth, thank you very much, he might be hungry and desperate but he still has pride and basic human dignity.
“There! There- a fish! Injunnie, get us over there, now!”
“I can’t aim that well-“
“Just bend! It’s swimming away, I want fish for dinner!”
Renjun obliges with a sigh, because he wants fish for dinner too.
He really isn’t that good a bender, he’s never had a Master to teach him how to bend properly, then again precisely because of that he should grasp every opportunity there is to practice, he supposes. He readies himself for failure as he motions with his hands for the water to push their boat along the water.
“Great, go further, just a bit faster!”
Renjun purses his lips in effort, and adds more strength to his bending. He can feel the exact moment when he overcomes the force of the water and it responds to his bidding.
Their boat jolts and shoots forward, passing their happily swimming meal
and launching them both directly into a current, they both shriek as the current carries them fast, too fast along the little canal between several large glaciers.
This was not the type of strength he had in mind when he prayed to the iceberg Spirits.
“AHHH RENJUN, ICEBERG!! LEFT, WE NEED TO GO LEFT!!”
LEFT, he motions, and the boat lurches.
For a moment, the water obeys him, the canoe head points in the direction to safety, away from the current that seemed hellbent to ruin them. That brief moment of relief was shattered when the current disagreed with left and hastened, ripping them away from their course and running them smack into a huge iceberg.
There was a loud crack that Renjun really didn’t want to know the cause of, and a splintering sound of their canoe. Huge sheets of ice and snow topple over the nearby glacier and fall into the ocean, raining down on them and the remains of their canoe, water is starting to enter from the sides from all the extra weight, and to their alarm, Renjun’s panic freezes the canoe into the surrounding ice.
The glacier behind them lets out a large groan, and to their collective horror, decides to deposit the biggest slab of snow Renjun has ever seen into the ocean. An iceberg underneath them is suddenly pushed up, and they look at each other in alarm when they feel their canoe rise from the water. That can’t be good.
Without thinking, they grab onto each other and jump, with the force of the head-butting iceberg the two of them are catapulted onto safety on a large float of ice with an oof before their canoe flips, splinters for a final time, and sinks.
Renjun tumbles into Jaemin who is holding his boot by a string in one hand, and holding onto his bone club in the other. And the two of them lie there on the ice, catching their breath.
“I’m never canoeing with you ever again.” Renjun tells Jaemin sincerely.
He winces as his joints creak when he gets up to brush the snow from his coat and boots before it soaks through the seal fur. It just had to be the day after I did
the laundry, Renjun inwardly grumbles, seals were so hard to come by these days that they're running out of seal fat to make soap with. He'll need to persist with wearing this coat for at least two more weeks. Two more unbearable weeks.
“Injunnie…” Renjun looks up from his home-maker troubles when he hears how faraway Jaemin sounds, “What in Spirits' name is that?”
Renjun turns to see what Jaemin is looking at. Where the remains of their canoe should have been, was the weirdest iceberg, shaped in a perfect sphere. Jaemin walks closer warily, and when the sunlight runs over the iceberg, Renjun suddenly sees it.
The figure of a boy in the iceberg.
He’s really regretting asking the iceberg Spirits for anything now.
The boy is softly glowing. He’s sitting in the lotus position, held so still that Renjun is certain that he’s not alive.
As always, the universe loves proving his wrong, as if he'd heard Renjun’s thoughts, the boy’s eyes open, glowing with a strange white light.
A strangled gasp makes its way past his lips and Renjun picks up the club on the ice and runs to the icy dome to hop closer to the boy in the iceberg, Jaemin scrambles to hold him back, “No! Renjun, there’s- We don’t know what that is!”
“He’s alive.” Renjun says with a mix of wonder and awe, he looks at Jaemin whose expression is more horrified than anything.
While Jaemin is by nature more cautious and calculative, a natural born strategist, Renjun lets his instincts guide him more often than he should, he doesn’t enjoy double and triple guessing his decisions. For as long as he remembers, Jaemin had always been the one to keep a cool head and think them out of situations, to hold him back from rash decisions. Not unlike the one now.
“He’s alive! We have to help!”
Jaemin looks like he wants to both hug Renjun for being brave and throw him on the ice for being stupid. So Renjun repeats, more quietly this time, hoping to convince his best friend and partner-in-crime, “We’re the only ones here, Jaemin, he might die in the iceberg. We have to help.”
Jaemin’s eyes search his face before he reluctantly lets go of Renjun’s wrist. Renjun wastes no time picking his way across the chinks of ice. He’s aware of Jaemin’s heavier footfalls close behind him, and when he gets to the iceberg, he steels himself before swinging Jaemin’s club as hard as he can.
It takes three strikes to chip through the ice, and a huge gust of wind bursts through the opening in the iceberg and throws them both back onto the icy ledge they were on before. The cracks they made start to glow, the fissures quickly snake their way over the whole dome.
Jaemin throws himself over Renjun just as the dome explodes, the entire orb of ice is destroyed by wind, gales of immeasurable strength whips at them both as they both hold on to each other for dear life. Neither of them are prepared for the beacon of white light that blinds them both as it bursts from the core of the iceberg and shoots into the sky. Renjun’s heart is thudding so hard in his chest that he thinks Jaemin can probably feel it, even through the thick padding of their clothes, when the light and gales subside, he steals a look past Jaemin at the iceberg.
Light still encircles what remains of the ice dome, now reduced to a hollowed out crater. Jaemin gets up first, pulls Renjun behind him and points the end of his club at the crater, they watch in combined fear as something emerges slowly from the depression of the iceberg. Renjun tries to pull water to him, if that figure is dangerous, or if it’s something far worse than a boy, he’ll need to try to throw as much water as he can at them if they’re going to make a break for it.
The figure slowly straightens out, and the light dissipates to reveal a small boy, dressed in thin yellow and orange robes. The boy stumbles and gives a moan before he suddenly collapses, eyes closing and knees buckling.
Renjun leaps out to catch him before he registers his body moving.
“Renjun! Be careful-“
Renjun pays no heed to Jaemin’s warnings, he gently sets the boy down against the base of the ice crater.
He studies the boy carefully, takes in the fluffy curly golden hair of the boy and the tattooed arrows on his limbs.
The boy in the iceberg is around his height, but slightly broader than Renjun’s fine-boned frame, but just barely. His nose is slightly flatter than the features of people from the South Pole, but small and rounded, with full cheeks and a soft face, the boy looks really young, he couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
Renjun throws whatever thought that he once had about him potentially being dangerous over his head.
The boy wrinkles his nose and gives a little whimper, Renjun places his hands on his shoulders and gently gives him a shake. Renjun holds his breath as the boy slowly opens his eyes.
“Hi,” the boy’s voice was higher pitched than he thought it’d be, boyish and airy, but with a smooth timbre, “What is- Where am I?”
Renjun manages to find his voice, “You’re at the South Pole,” he has at least a million questions on the tip of his tongue, he settles with asking, “Do you know how you got here? What’s your name?”
The boy rubs at his temples, “How I got here… Oh!”
He suddenly perks up, and Renjun is startled as he smoothly rises to his feet in one swift motion, almost elegantly, and nimbly vaults over the remaining side of the crater.
There was a soft plop, a rumble, and a squealing laugh of delight, “Kun! Kun, you okay? Wake up, sleepyhead!”
Jaemin raises an eyebrow, and they get to work to scale the edge of the crater, feeling clumsier than tiger seals in comparison to the boy’s light-footed steps. They clamber over the ledge to see a huge furry white creature with an arrow of brown fur on its head.
Renjun yelps and, in his surprise, loses his grip on the edge of the crater. He hears Jaemin cry as he hurls down to the centre of the depression and braces himself for the impact. He doesn’t meet the ice hard though, a ball of air cushions his fall and places him gently on the centre of the crater, right in front of the giant creature’s nose.
“Renjun!” Jaemin slides down the sides of the crater to land none too gracefully next to him, “You okay?” Renjun manages to nod, his eyes are fixed on the creature in front of him. It looks vaguely like buffalos he’d seen before in story scrolls, if buffalos were ten tonnes, big enough to house a tent on its back and had six legs. It opens a single brown eye, and Renjun scrambles back in alarm.
“W-what in the Spirits is this?” Renjun directs the question at the boy, the boy laughs, a high pitched sound of pure joy, “This is Kun, my flying bison!”
Jaemin snorts, “Yeah, and this is Renjun,
he sends me flying sometimes too- OW!”
Renjun unrepentantly thinks his best friend totally earned that punch to his side when Jaemin crumples from his tackle, Jaemin however, quickly straightens and schools his face into a serious expression. He turns his attention back to the mysterious boy, who had been laughing a shrieking full-bodied dolphin cackle, a strangely endearing sound, at Renjun's attempt at his life.
“Who are you, and what was that light? How do we know if you’re not trying to signal the Fire Navy Coast Guard?”
The boy cocks his head in confusion, “Why would the Fire Coast Guard be at the South Pole? And why would I signal the Navy? Are they after me? Am I in trouble?”
“What do you mean are you in trouble?"
Jaemin’s guard was up now, Renjun could tell, and that wouldn’t do any of them any good, "Are you trying to bring us trouble?” Jaemin continues, shoulders tense. He needs to stop Jaemin’s hackles from rising further before he clubs the kid over the head with his boot.
Renjun places a hand on Jaemin's shoulder, “Let’s all calm down. Jaemin, I don’t think he has anything to do with the Fire Nation, he doesn’t look like it.” He gives Jaemin a squeeze. A signal. Breathe. Stop thinking for a second. Don't overthink, don't stress, they can handle this.
He looks to the boy, “We never got your name, I’m Renjun, the one holding the boot is Jaemin.”
The boy grins, “I’m Chenle! Nice to ah- a- ACHOO!”
Chenle’s sneeze generates a blast of air, he whizzes ten feet off the ground up, up, up.
Renjun’s mouth involuntarily flies open, and Jaemin is stunned into stupor when Chenle lands gently in front of them, unharmed.
“Nice to meet you guys!” He finishes, sniffling and rubbing his nose.
Jaemin’s eyes are widening in realisation, he’d already put two and two together, and it’s moments like these that makes Renjun call him a genius, that gets them both into and out of trouble just as quickly, he might be a compulsive overthinker, but when it works in his favour, Jaemin shines, more brilliant and blinding than a glacier in the sun.
“You’re an Airbender.”
A light breeze ruffles Chenle’s blond hair and tussles his robes, “Sure am!”
Renjun's world flips, everything he's been taught is suddenly overwritten. It all makes sense now, all the winds and his soft landing in the crater with the air breaking his fall, and the presence of an Air Bison, he struggles to form words as he gasps, brain going a mile a minute.
Chances are, the very last Airbender, perhaps the only descendant from
a sole survivor
of the Airbender Genocide is standing right in front of them. Those ice Spirits really weren’t playing around, if Renjun had asked for something other than strength, what would they have unearthed instead? Renjun is vaguely horrified at this thought.
Jaemin looks over at Renjun, “Are we dead? Is this why we're seeing this? That seal jerky from last night was poisoned, wasn’t it, we both have Midnight Sun Madness.”
Renjun would concur if he could, but he's too stunned to even look away from Chenle.
Chenle giggles, “You two look perfectly fine to me! Hey, can I ask you guys something?”
Renjun in his daze, finally gathers himself for long enough to utter an “Uhm”
Mentally he smacks himself in the forehead, and he's glad that Jaemin has enough comprehension left to make him look thoroughly unimpressed at Renjun's response.
With his limited brain capacity, Renjun starts to consider the possibility of Midnight Sun Madness, he remembers that incomprehension and difficulty of speech were common symptoms and inwardly starts panicking Oh Spirits it was the end, he was going to die, he's too young, too hungry, doesn't know enough bending to die.
Thankfully, Chenle doesn’t seem to think any less of the lacklustre answer he gave, nor does he seem to notice Renjun's
mini internal breakdown at the possibility of his imminent death.
He steps closer to the two of them and beams, sunlight, cotton and bunny rabbits somehow rise to Renjun's mind, and his lips automatically pull back in response.
“Will you guys go penguin sledding with me?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“You muzzled Kun?”
This is the last straw.
Chenle had been considerably distraught when they made it out of the Library and found Donghyuck holding
the collapsing building
up with the last dregs of his consciousness. He had been alarmed when Donghyuck passed out just as he whispered I'm sorry and Kun was nowhere to be found.
He had been angry, so angry that Sandbenders had the gall to attack his friend and take his bison that he had turned his staff against the first buzzard wasp that offended them and struck it down when it had tried to carry Winwin away.
In
their trek through the sandy dunes, the
dark cloud of his lost bison
turned
Chenle moody and miserable and quick to frustration, a far cry from his
usual happy self. It wasn't until Jeno had Healed Donghyuck enough
for him to walk himself instead of relying on the members' piggyback relay that the worried crease in Chenle's brow
lifted considerably, despite his mood still in the low.
But this, hearing these Sandbenders confirm it,
that they left
Donghyuck literally lifeless in the desert,
captured Kun, abused him, sold him- This is the last straw.
Chenle’s eyes and tattoos light up in fury as he enters the Avatar State, hot dry winds start to pick up, and with a bang, Chenle destroys the last of the sand gliders with a hurricane-force whip of air.
The sand bender pales as Chenle points his staff at him, fear written all across his face at Chenle’s
wrath, “I-I’m sorry! I had no idea it belonged to the Avatar!”
Chenle looks foreign to Renjun like this, face contorted in so much rage and hatred as he speaks with all the voices of the Avatars, “Tell me where Kun is!”
“I- I traded him! To merchants! He’s probably in Ba Sing Se by now! They were going to sell him there!”
Whatever was left of Jaemin’s cactus high must have faded, because with one look at Chenle he knows to grab Jeno and urge Mark and Donghyuck
to start
running from the Airbender as the air grows dense and tightens around them.
Donghyuck’s eyes are wide as he takes in this side of Chenle he's never seen before. He’s barely pulled back to reality by Mark as their oldest scrambles clumsily, careful to
support Donghyuck's weight, as
they hurry to put distance between
themselves and the young Avatar.
The wind accelerates and the Sandbenders raise their arms to shield themselves, as if it would do them any good. The bandit leader sniffles pathetically, legs wobbling in his terror.
“Please! We’ll escort you out of the desert! We’ll help however we can!”
Chenle isn’t listening, he’s so livid his hands are shaking. The air around Chenle forms a fast moving sphere, it rips sand up from the ground and the gales carry it higher and higher until all of them are standing in a deadly grainy whirlwind.
Chenle starts to rise from the ground surrounded by his sandstorm. Untouchable. Dangerous.
Renjun can just barely hear Jaemin yelling over the wind at
everyone to Run! Everyone get away now! Renjun!
Renjun doesn’t move. He looks at Chenle’s tense figure from where he’s standing as Chenle rises into the sky.
He’s sick of running, of
crying, of
frustration and anger, and he’s so sick of losing his friends.
If he hurts anyone, Chenle would be devastated when his head clears. He’ll hate himself and blame himself, and Renjun will lose more and more of Chenle, fragments of that beautiful
boy
he met in the South Pole, as he slips into that downward spiral. It's a spiral that comes with age and war, but it's a spiral Renjun is very much unwilling for Chenle to
vanish down.
It pains Renjun because Chenle is young, too young, to experience any kind of loss, much less one of his people, of his best friend. And much less of what little laughter this dark world hasn't taken from him yet.
They’ve lost Kun already, he’ll be damned before he lets that happen.
Renjun runs forward,
braving the whipping gales to grasp Chenle’s wrist.
The face of an enraged Avatar looks back down at him.
Chenle’s expression is menacing, eyebrows pulled together, teeth clenched and arms clamped and fists balled up in anger.
Renjun should, by all counts, be terrified.
He knows what Chenle is capable of in the Avatar State, he’s seen the Avatar completely clear out the Fire Navy from the North Pole, witness him wreck the Earth General’s training base, tear the Air Sanctuary apart. Renjun knows the power Chenle wields, and he knows all too well that anger and hurt can push people to do the unthinkable.
But this is Chenle, and Renjun’s not afraid of him.
Renjun pulls him down, wraps his arms around him and holds him tight. He closes his eyes against the wind and lets the tears he was holding back fall.
His heart
breaks for Chenle- The sole remnant of his home, his time, his culture and the Air Nomads, his best friend and companion that had been with him since the very beginning was cruelly ripped away from him, bartered and sold like merchandise. Without Kun with him, Chenle would've been truly alone.
Now
with Kun gone, he
won't let Chenle be alone. He can't.
Renjun ignores the rough sand chafing against his skin- He’s at the eye of the sandstorm. Chenle is the eye of the storm. Chenle matters more.
He squeezes the younger as tight as he possibly can. The violent gales start to die down and the roar of wind fades.
He
feels tears soak his shoulder. He doesn’t know how long he holds Chenle like this, but he knows Chenle is out of the Avatar State when
he goes completely slack in his arms.
The howl of the wind is gone, and all he can hear is Chenle’s heartbroken sobs.
He holds him up, holds him tighter, even as the rest of the group walk up to them to join their embrace, he doesn’t move. As long as Chenle needs him here, he’s not going to.
I'm right here. I won't ever leave you.
I won’t let
you be alone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Avatar is smaller
than Jisung thought he'd be.
He was expecting an all-powerful bender, a century old at least, with snowy hair, a long fluffy beard and definitely wrinkles. Hell, maybe even a pair of tusks and a barbed tail, because who in the Spirits’ name would be able to survive being frozen for that long? He must have had some crazy Zen power that could convert age into badassery, after all even Commander Yifan had trouble cornering him and almost got killed when the Avatar had reportedly destroyed the Temple of Boa. The Avatar must be reasonably skilled.
After Commander Yifan had reported yet another failure to capture the Avatar in another Earth Kingdom town, with a surprisingly animated story involving stolen Waterbending scrolls and backstabbing pirates (which, honestly what did the Commander expect, they were pirates), his father Fire Lord Changmin had summoned Jisung and ordered him to capture the Avatar alive or not to ever return home.
Jisung understands that to the Fire Lord he's worth way less
compared to his brother Taemin, who
houses the same ruthless disposition, but he admittedly does still want his father to at least acknowledge his abilities.
So Jisung takes the pseudo-banishment in stride, and with his cousin Taeyong, takes a ship and crew of his own and leaves to follow the tracks of the Avatar.
By the time he's all caught up in the progress of the Avatar Chase, Yifan had decided that apparently Jisung, a boy half his age, was now his rival and he’d do anything and everything to keep the Avatar away from him despite his main job being to assist the Fire Lord to placate the Earth Kingdom provinces and not chase after his Avatar Vanity Project that no one asked him to do. All of this has Jisung appropriately puzzled, because even if Jisung is technically banished, bringing the Avatar to the Fire Lord would not win Yifan the status and honour of a prince, but the Admiral is prideful and
he's willing to throw all his resources on the line than
let the younger prince get to 'his' prey first.
Adults were so strange.
But adults were efficient, it seems, since Jisung caught wind that Yifan had gotten his hands on the Avatar by employing
the Yuyuan Archers and had locked him in his basement. The
man should have transported the Avatar immediately to the Fire Nation, but because he was promoted from Commander to Admiral (again, Jisung is extremely confused because all Yifan had done was report failure to corner the Avatar
several times over), he wanted to keep the Avatar a bit longer to gloat.
Now, before you misunderstand, Jisung is not an opportunist, he never saw the merit in throwing stones down the well to take out the down and drowning, but
when the possibility to just stealthily sneak into the base and get the Avatar without the trouble of having to track him down himself presents itself, he'd be a fool to not take it. He's somewhat grateful that Yifan's hubris allowed him the chance to intercept before his ticket home goes on a one way trip to his Father's throne room.
Jisung takes his previous statement back: Adults can be extremely inefficient. He's secretly dreading the time when he'll turn middle-aged and obstinate. It makes him feel better to think that Taeyong will get there first though he doesn't voice it, Taeyong'll
get all pouty and dejected and Jisung really doesn't want to deal with that.
Thankfully though, Yifan seems to be at that age,
and inefficient adults were precisely the reason why he was sneaking about Pohuai Stronghold decked in all black, with a blue mask tied to his face and his duo Dao broadswords slotted comfortably in his hands as he peers into the Avatar’s cell.
The Avatar looks around his age, he’s definitely shorter than Jisung,
his
fluffy blond hair, a trademark of the Airbenders, gleams softly in the lowlight.
Jisung takes in full cheeks, pink lips and slightly puffy eyes. Compared to
his own awkwardly long limbs and broad shoulders, the Avatar is smaller and narrower,
with a fine and delicate bone structure which makes him look dainty and light, but not frail. Clad in his orange attire in the dark and dirty cell, he looks like a ray of sun in the darkness, almost fairy-like.
Oh, Jisung is in trouble. He wasn’t expecting the Avatar to be so pretty.
He
doesn't expect
the high-pitched shriek from the Avatar when Jisung breaks his chains in one fluid motion (“Are you here to save me? Why didn’t you say so!”) and he definitely did not think frogs would suddenly wriggle out of the Avatar’s clothes and
croak their way down the corridors as he tugs the Avatar along. He also
didn't
anticipate the laugh that leaves his lips when the Avatar shrieks that his friends need to suck on those frogs.
Suck on them? Is the Avatar alright? Why in any Spirits’ name would you give your friends frogs to suck on? But again, Jisung reflects, he wasn’t someone who could actively speak on this matter: Growing up, the closest person to him
is Taeyong, and he acted more like a mix of a father and an older brother to him. So technically Jisung has no friends, he thinks dejectedly, and his grip on the Avatar loosens.
The Avatar must have felt Jisung stiffen, because he stops struggling, “I said something, didn’t I? Did I upset you? Did you want the frogs too?”
Jisung is about to vehemently deny that no he did not want anything to do with half frozen frogs thank you when a bell sounds in the distance and he hears yells of ‘The Avatar has escaped!’
He immediately
quickens his strides, dragging the Avatar
along and pushing him into the sewer system opening he used to get into the Stronghold. The two of them creep underground with bated breaths as armoured footsteps thunder past, over their heads. He finds himself hyperaware of the Avatar following close behind him, goosebumps rise in the back of his neck when he feels the puffs of air the blond boy breathes out brush against his collar. Jisung's long fingers tremble as he fumbles with the hatch. He manages to open it without breaking the handle (a small victory) and they slink out into the open night air, careful to minimise their footfalls as the Stronghold descends into high alert.
Jisung had sneaked in earlier by crawling underneath a supply cart and hanging on for dear life,
he'd judged
by the cart stops that they would have to pass by three gated walls before reaching
outside. He's suddenly extremely proud of his decision to bring a rope with grappling prongs because 1) it's
legitimately the only way out of here and 2) he gets to show off how prepared he is to the cute boy.
They’re scaling the first of three walls of the fortress when someone shouts “There! On the wall!”
Jisung curses as a guard appears up on the battlement and cuts their rope.
He barely suppress a scream as they fall, but the Avatar manages to Airbend them to a soft landing so Jisung is left feeling a bit silly.
He shakes it off and unsheathes his swords as he dashes after the Avatar, who’s blowing the dust away to clear their path.
“Close all the gates! Now!” Yifan bellows, and the Avatar twists round to look at Jisung, “Stay close to me!”
He
barely nods in reply to the Avatar before soldiers come thundering and the gate in front of them closes. Jisung falls back on his
reflexes honed from years of training to fend the guards off with fluid parries. He's dimly aware of the Avatar blowing more guards out of the way somewhere behind him. He’s dodging a strike from a spear when the Avatar grips the back of his robes and
throws him into the air with a rush of wind,
catapulting him onto the top of the wall. Jisung is glad that he doesn’t squeak in surprise, that would most definitely ruin his cool new image as the Blue Spirit.
He's instantly surrounded by the soldiers stationed on the inner wall,
he prepares to block a strike when the Avatar appears like a vision, twirling a broken spear as an air lift with a shrill cry. He plucks Jisung off the wall and into the air while aggressively spinning the stick above his head, struggling to keep them aloft. Jisung is somewhat sorry that this small boy needs to support both their weights so he tries to make his job easier by diligently knocking away the badly aimed spears sent up
their way.
They make it to the top of the second wall by the skin of their teeth and crash unceremoniously onto the battlements, Jisung manages to throw the guard swinging his sword haphazardly at them off the wall with a wince. The Avatar Airbends all the other guards off the wall in one fell swoop, and proceeds to work with Jisung to knock down the guards climbing up the ladders. He clears two ladders with two huge rushes of wind and brings them over to Jisung while Jisung rids another of soldiers by shaking the ladder and throwing spears within reach down. The blond steps onto Jisung’s emptied ladder and hands one ladder over to him to take.
“Hold this! Jump on my back!”
It’s a bit strange to jump on the back of a boy at least half a head shorter than him, and Jisung has no idea what he's up to but he
complies and wraps his arms around the Avatar's neck.
To his amazement, the Avatar starts using the ladders as massive stilts and Jisung is awed because cute, capable and creative, wow. The Avatar
drops their first stilt
after they take a huge step,
and
calls to Jisung to hand him the other one. Jisung manages to rips his gaze from the other's face to react in time. One tactless soldier interrupts their romantic trek across the huge courtyard by sending gouts of fire up their ladders,
forcing them to jump ship from their last stilt. Their flimsy grip on the last wall ends up failing them and they slip to the ground with
harmonised shrieks.
Jisung despairs briefly as he sees the ladders consumed by fire, he doesn’t know if the Avatar has it in him to Airbend them both over the wall, the blond is breathing exhaustedly next to him, and if worst comes to worst, he might have to face Yifan and his legion of goons alone without his bending if he doesn’t want to give away his identity.
Jisung
does consider himself skilled with his duo broadswords, but he doesn’t like those prospects at all.
The soldiers waiting on the ground unleash their flames. Jisung immediately unsheathes his swords to block, but the Avatar is quick to put Jisung behind him, and
quicker to knock the flames away with a gust of air.
He hears an undignified screech from far away, “Hold your fire! The Avatar must be captured alive!”
Jisung makes a split-second decision before he crosses his swords in front of the Avatar’s throat
in a threat. The blond boy
stills in alarm,
but relaxes slightly
when Jisung whispers a soft apology into his ear. Jisung doesn't like using blackmail either, he was hoping earlier that the Avatar
would be knocked out and that he could somehow smuggle him out inconspicuously- he
hadn't wanted to engage in
a full scale fight with the soldiers of the Stronghold, but what's happened has happened and if their
only chance out is to give a show, he'll give them a show.
His tactic works, because the gate behind them opens with a reluctant creak, Jisung retreats slowly with his ‘captive’,
they step back tentatively in tandem with
their eyes still on Yifan's tiny figure in the distance as they cross the final gate. The Avatar has the sense to whip up a huge cloud of dust
as soon as they cross the threshold, and Jisung feels a thrill of success
at Yifan's enraged shout when
he loses visual of them.
Jisung takes the swords off the Avatar’s neck and the Avatar curls his hand against Jisung’s wrist. He runs, towing Jisung along, and lets out an endearing squeal of a laugh.
“That was so much fun! We should do it again!”
Before Jisung can say something, anything- What did you just say? Spirits, are you insane? Do you enjoy getting your life threatened? How are you so beautiful when you smile?
- a projectile comes whistling through the mist that the Avatar
conjured and nails him on the mask. The Avatar gives an alarmed shriek.
Oh hell, I forgot the Archers, is Jisung’s final thought before he blacks out from the impact.
He wakes
to a pink morning sky, a canopy of leaves and
the Avatar’s curious gaze on him. It takes him a few beats and a hand to his face before
Jisung realises the mask isn’t obscuring his vision anymore, and he’s got a full view of the Avatar’s pretty face.
“Sorry! I didn’t take off your mask intentionally… It came off when they shot at you- That really scared me! I didn’t want to leave you there so I carried you to where I was headed anyways…”
The Avatar trails off, fiddling with his fingers.
Jisung should be attacking him, should shoot the Avatar with a fist of flames while his guard is down, but instead he hesitates, and something in him decides that he should put the boy in front of him at ease, because he doesn’t like how the little frown sits on his features.
He clears his throat; he doesn’t want his voice to break on his first official meeting with the pretty Avatar, “Thank you for saving me. If you left me there I would have been branded a traitor and probably killed by the Admiral.”
The Avatar looks shyly at him, “Y-You saved me first. We actually make a great team, plus friends help each other out, right?”
“F-friend?!” Jisung’s voice comes out in a strangled squeak.
“Yeah! You saved me at the risk of your life! Out of that heavily guarded prison! And I can’t thank you enough for what you did, really. You…You don’t want to be?”
The blond boy deflates, and Jisung scrambles to do anything to get that frown off the Avatar’s unreasonably attractive face.
“No! I mean- Yes! I mean- I- We… We can’t.” He realises heavily.
Oh of course he wants to be, he desperately does. His first friend! Who would have thought in the midst of his banishment someone would like him enough to befriend him? But the Avatar is the symbol of balance, and Jisung is the son of the Fire Lord, this was a friendship that just isn’t meant to be. Jisung didn’t want to bring ruin to this boy, to betray the first person who ever offered him companionship.
“Avatar, we can’t, I- I’m the Prince of the Fire Nation,” he confesses, defeated.
He squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t need to see betrayal in the boy’s eyes, “I’m supposed to capture you and send you to my father, I literally should have shot you with flames the moment I woke up… We can’t, and I don’t want to already lose my first ever friend before we became friends...”
A beat, then a firm: “That’s a load of nonsense.”
“What?" Jisung gaps, "I’m- Avatar! I’m not lying! I am the son of Fire Lord Changmin! Here-“ He shoots a burst of flames into the air, and when the Avatar barely flinches, he fumbles with his robes
to produce the gleaming headpiece of the Prince of the Fire Nation that he always carries with him, the small but recognisable insignia of Flames is carved onto heavy gold, “Proof! I am the Prince! I’ll just betray you one day- I’ll backstab you! We can’t be friends- We-“
His voice breaks, and he
suddenly aware tears are running down his face, “We can’t be real friends, Avatar, not when I’ll harm you instead.” He whispers, more to himself, pathetically.
He squeezes the Crown in his palm in a tight grip as if he could make the reminder of his identity disappear. He’s always taken pride as a member of the royal family of the Fire Nation, even if his family isn’t tight-knit or warm, ironically. But he wanted his father’s approval and trust, and he wanted his brother to acknowledge him.
Right now all he wants is for himself to be a commoner, so he wouldn’t have to refuse the first offer to be his friend, extended to him despite not knowing who he really is. The fact that he was supposed to hurt this beautiful blond boy in front of him- it pains him more than it should.
The boy tackles him in a flying embrace and suddenly he has an armful of Avatar.
Getting hugged by someone that wasn’t his mother or Taeyong is different, and not a bad kind of different, he thinks.
He was smaller when he was last held by his mother, so her embrace was like a duvet- protective,
engulfing. Cuddling with his mother always felt like holding a load of blankets and being wrapped in one because of the layers proper palace attire. His mother, a non-bender, ran slightly cooler than most and it always felt soothing after a day of harsh training and lessons.
In contrast, Taeyong's hugs
are almost too hot from his Fire within, hugging Taeyong is like hugging a firm muscled brick wall, the older
hardened and sinewy from battle. He might be taller than Taeyong now, but his cousin remains to be broader than him still, so Jisung still feels like a child whenever Taeyong holds him, he associates his cousin with sturdiness and stability.
Holding
the Avatar is foreign- for one, the boy is lighter and smaller than him, and his
embrace
is comfortably warm, arms soft as they wrap around his midsection.
Jisung lets himself relish his hold on this pocketful of sunshine, allows himself this luxury before they have to separate and
they have to be enemies again.
“You know,” the Avatar began, hushed and airy, “I had a friend, a hundred years ago, from the Fire Nation too, Yang Yang is- was one of the most mischievous and tender-hearted people I know. So when I woke up, and they told me his people had killed all of the Air Nomads in cold blood, I had so much trouble believing it, because how can a nation who raised someone as kind and fun as Yang Yang be ruthless enough to wipe out an entire race of people out of greed for power?”
Jisung lets himself focus on the Avatar’s voice,
imbued with pain and heartache, he feels guilt rising from his throat to the tip of his tongue as the blond continues, words muffled by Jisung’s shoulder.
“But then I thought back to why I left: how the Elders wanted to separate me from Monk Yixing, who raised me and taught me everything I knew; how Renjun-hyung told me his hyung
was shunned and excluded
when he first came from the North Pole because he was a dancer and didn't fit into the Southern Water Tribe's image of a warrior, I grasped it- if people in power can sacrifice the happiness of one of their own in the name of their own nation, then it makes sense for the
ambition of Fire Lord Junsu to override what the people in the Fire Nation really want and need.”
Jisung freezes under the Avatar’s solemn gaze when he raises his head, he's transfixed by the quiet breaths that fan against
him, the lazy rays of morning light that dances across his face, his cheeks, his collarbones.
“Prince of the Fire Nation- I still don’t know your name- Kindness isn’t limited to one nation, neither is ruthlessness. Do you actually think, after seeing you confess and cry, that I would still think any ill of you? That I would still associate you with the murderers who took the people I love away from me?”
The Avatar raises his hand, and Jisung closes his eyes, bracing himself for a slap, a hit, anything, but instead he feels warm fingers trace his cheekbone, wiping away the stains of his tears,
“I don’t think anyone who
despairs at the prospect of hurting a friend can ever be a bad person.”
He opens his eyes and looks at the Avatar in wide-eyed wonder, beats of silence pass by and the Avatar giggles, a lovely high tinkle.
“You’re so cute! Your nose is all red!” A finger softly boops
him on the nose, and
Jisung manages to choke out a
small laugh.
“The offer still stands you know, Fire Prince or not, I still want to be your friend.”
The Avatar’s eyes are squeezed into a line from the force of his smile and Jisung finds his own mouth twitching in response.
“…Okay.”
“Okay?” The Avatar’s smile grows wider as Jisung nods.
“Great! I’m Chenle, I like eggs and noodles a lot! Egg custard tarts are my favourite dessert! I’m technically turning seventeen in early winter and I’m really, really good at Airball! Nice to meet you!”
“My name is Jisung, I’m-“
He pauses, what should he say, really? I'm the Fire Prince and I'm genuinely sorry my dad is out for your blood? That doesn't sound very first-meeting appropriate at all. He doesn’t have many hobbies, nor is he particularly talented in things other than swordfighting and bending, he can’t cook to save his life (the first egg he tried to boil exploded on the stove, Taeyong was so traumatised that he'd ordered the crew to keep Jisung away from the kitchen at all cost), he’s not unintentionally funny like Taeyong, nor is he sharp like Taemin. He cries more than he should, he's clumsy and breaks everything he lays his hands on, he doesn't have any other friends, his favourite animal is turtle ducks but all that just sounds plain embarrassing to say.
“-just Jisung.” He settles for that, toes curling slightly as blood rushes to his cheeks.
Chenle thankfully just takes it in stride, “Well then, Just Jisung, can you help a friend out? My hyungs are sick and tired and are stuck lying in a cave and this crazy apothecary auntie told me the only cure is to suck on frozen wood frogs, mind joining me in my hunt?”
Jisung doesn’t mind, he doesn’t mind at all.
He spends the rest of the morning as the sky turns from pink to blue dipping his large hands into icy cold puddles, careful to keep his natural heat contained. Chilly rainwater seeps through his boots and splashes through his pants, but he does it again and again until his fingers clumsily close around a frozen frog. Chenle’s face as it lights up when he presents it to him makes it a million times worth it.
(“But when this is over,”
Jisung
says in the middle of trifling in another small pond, “I’ll need to resume my duty to capture you again…”
In response he gets a confident smirk that makes his insides
flutter and heart palpitate, “Oh you can try! Come catch me if you can!”)
Jisung
returns from
his failed mission to his cousin's blubbering (“You missed Lieutenant Gikwang’s breakdance and Crew-member Hodong's Tsungi Horn performance Sungie! It was so
moving as well!” Taeyong is
actually so distraught, Jisung finds it somewhat hilarious) with numb fingers and exclusive knowledge on how to cure a peculiar cold.
He’s not all that bummed though. He’s surprisingly pumped to plan his next move to trace the Avatar, he tells himself it’s not because he’ll get to see him again. It's not.
Chenle’s laughter is still vivid in his memory, still makes his heart
thrum quicker whenever he closes his eyes to imagine his smile.
He goes to bed with a new friend and a full heart.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jaemin has always known his mind is his greatest weapon.
He knows despite being in a team of benders and really good fighters, they all depend on his quick thinking and strategies to get out of tight spots, but it’s hard sometimes, to not feel pressured, or dare he say it, inferior, when a supernatural fight happens and he’s forced to watch.
Well he has really good aim, he supposes, and he’s really good at throwing his boomerang. He’s also quick on his feet- travelling with Chenle and Donghyuck has really honed his instincts to run, but none of these would ever be substantial in a full on fight to the death with Taemin, would it?
He brings it up to the gang mid-meal, the night after a meteor lands several leagues away from their camp and the rest of them, bar him and Mark, sprang into action to put out the forest fire. Hell, even Mark had successfully patted out several small embers in the time he’d panicked and snuffed out one.
“You always feel like what?” Renjun looks like a deer caught in headlights, like he’s almost afraid to hear the answer.
“I just- You’re all benders- no offense Mark-hyung, you’re amazing- and when something happens, like last night, all of you can pull your weight, and I’m stuck either running or getting in trouble and needing you guys to pull me out of it.”
Jaemin predicament continues to pour out of him, “Mark-hyung can fight, he’s so good he doesn’t need a weapon, he can hold Jimin back and all, Jeno is great with a spear too, he can deflect all of Jongin's knives and he’s practicing with Renjun on combat Waterbending. He can also heal all of you when worst comes to worst, and I-“
“Jaemin,” Renjun’s voice was quiet when he cuts in, “We never thought of you as lesser just because you can’t physically strike a blow.”
Jaemin winces at the blunt words, and Renjun’s expression falters.
“Dude, we won’t love you any less just because you can’t swing around an overgrown toothpick.” That was Donghyuck for you, he supposes.
“Yeah, hyung!” Chenle agrees, “You’re our idea guy! We need you to think for us! If it weren’t for you we’d be long gone, like we would have been caught by Jisung and that giant Sushi!”
“Shirshu,” Jaemin corrects as Jisung blushes, “And you’re not wrong, I do try to pull my weight, partially because all of you are idiots who are tunnel-visioned and know nothing more than fighting.” He manages a wan smile when they all protest, “But when we’re facing off, like when we bump into Jimin, Jongin and Taemin, I feel so helpless, watching all of you battle but not being able to defend any of you- I can’t even defend myself.”
Silence settles over the lot of them, the flicker of the campfire is loud, too loud until Jisung speaks up, “You’re not too horrible, Jaemin-hyung if that’s what you’re wondering.”
The rest of them snicker as Jaemin whines, “Jisungie~ Must you be so blunt to your hyung? I’m the only one who actually buys you Fire Flakes!”
“I mean- um, I uh, do have a suggestion to improve your situation- I mean- I don’t mean it in a bad way, mostly, just kind of bad-“
Jaemin
laughs as Jisung fumbles, he finds it adorable how he’s still awkward as ever, but he’s slowly growing comfortable around them, progress is progress, “Jisung, I don’t mind, go ahead.”
Jisung stills, and forges on, “In the next town over in Shu Jing, I learnt how to wield my duo swords with my Master, Hyukjae. He’s the best swordsman in the Fire Nation, and a pretty swell guy. Hyung, you’re not hopeless yet, your reflexes are okay, your blocks are barely acceptable,” Jaemin gives a squawk at that, this talk was ebbing at his esteem! Jisung continues his critique, “You’re a fast learner, I’m sure it won’t take much to make you a fairly decent swordsman, what you really need is a proper Master…”
Jisung trails off, and Chenle nods vigorously, “That’s right! I never would have gotten where I am without Monk Yixing! And Renjun-hyung! And Haechan-hyung! Masters are so important, I bet Jeno-hyung also had a Master in spear training!”
Jeno next to him moves to cup his hands over Jaemin’s as he nods, voice low and smooth as he responds “I did, and it took me years to get to that level of dexterity. I've smacked Doyoung-hyung in the forehead with the butt of a spear too many times for him to not be mentally impaired at this point..."
Jaemin manages a chuckle, impaired or not Doyoung was a major strategist in his own right, he imagines a younger Jeno pouting while apologising. Adorable. Doyoung would never be able to stay mad at him. Jaemin wouldn't be able to at least.
"I do agree with Jisung and Chenle though, I think it’s a good idea for you to seek out a Master if it puts you at ease, just know that we don’t think any less of you if you didn’t.”
Jaemin meets Jeno’s eyes, he looks so lovely and soft, warm firelight casting a buttery glow over his features, “My feelings for you are all the same, it’s not and will never be dictated by your worth or self worth.”
Jaemin’s hand moves before he can stop it, and honestly he doesn’t want it to, he cups Jeno’s right cheek and strokes his cheekbone tenderly with his thumb. Jeno gives a grin in return, eyes curving into lovely crescents.
“It’s settled then,” Mark says, “We’ll head into the next town over and find Master
Hyukjae and convince him to take him in.”
Renjun is unusually quiet in the conversation over the remaining meal, where he would usually interject with scathing comments here and there, and it doesn’t even take Jaemin a look to tell something’s wrong with his best friend. So when Renjun excuses himself early to bed, he follows without a word.
“Injun-ang”
Jaemin uses his pet name for Renjun in lieu of a greeting. Renjun remains silent, his back to Jaemin as he thumps down on a rock at the corner of the camp.
Jaemin doesn’t need to wait long though, before Renjun’s emotions bubble over.
“What kind of best friend am I?” Renjun’s voice is wobbly with frustration and sadness, “I didn’t even notice how you were feeling, I was so caught up-“
“You were caught up making sure we stayed alive Injunnie, from running from the Fire Nation, to losing Kun, to Junmyeon and his Dai Li and Ba Sing Se falling, to making sure Chenle recovers, you didn’t have even have time to mourn-“
He cuts himself off before he can say the name, his sentence hangs in the air.
Mourn Yukhei
Jaemin’s heart twinges as Renjun’s expression crumples.
“This- I feel so stupid sometimes, Jaemin. He was so charming, and I fell too fast, too hard, when I barely knew him- who he really was.”
Words spill from Renjun’s lips, fast and jumbled, “He used me in the end, for his petty revenge, and I- How can I claim to love him when I don’t even know him?
“We left him to die in the catacombs a-and I- sometimes I wonder which Yukhei I’m mourning. Sometimes I wonder which Yukhei I’m supposed to mourn…”
Tears come flooding into Renjun’s eyes before Jaemin can take it back and apologise, all he can do it pull Renjun into his arms and coo soft sorry’s (Not it’s okay, because he knows it isn’t, Renjun is not okay)
He knows all too well Renjun has kept this in for longer than considered healthy,
this cry is long overdue- so
Jaemin lets him let it all out on his shoulder.
They stay locked in each other’s embrace, until Renjun says, muffled against Jaemin’s shirt, “I’ll do better.”
“Injunnie, that’s not what I-“
“No! I’ll do better as a friend! I’ll be more alert! I pay a lot of attention to Chenle-“
“As you should, he’s a baby,
a fetus-“
“I should pay equal attention to my best friend too.”
Jaemin falls silent at this, Renjun smiles through his tears, “You’re one of, if not the most important person in my life, Jaeminnie, and I’m sorry if I
don't show it often. I’ll do better.”
Jaemin squeezes his best friend harder, now tears are welling in his eyes and he’s supposed to be the stronger one, to be Renjun’s pillar.
Renjun goes on, “I’ve never considered you to be anything less because you’re not a bender, Jaemin. For the longest time, I looked up to you, because when the Spirits decided to take away from your bending abilities, they gave a huge heart and a quick brain in return. And they gave me a great friend. I can never thank them enough.”
Jaemin’s body warms at this, and his tears spill too before he can stop them.
If any of the others hear their tearful blubbering, they keep it between themselves and the stars.
The Master- Well he isn’t anything like what Jaemin expects.
He expects a tall, towering Elder in his mid fifties, well aged, imposing and stoic, with hair in a severe topknot, perhaps a well-trimmed beard, and probably with skin tanned from the harsh Fire Nation sun.
What he gets is a man in his thirties who is slightly shorter than him, far more jovial than his expectations, and enjoys getting a rise out of his own butler.
When he presents himself and tells the Master he has nothing to offer but a lot to learn, what he gets in response is “Oh. That’s fresh. Jonghoon-hyung, I like this one, show him to his quarters, we’ll begin rock gardening after lunch.”
Jonghoon, the very disgruntled and abused butler, had shown him around the castle and left him to settle down for the rest of the morning. Jaemin had been nervous at first when
Jonghoon fetched him to sit at the table with the Swordsmaster- Yes, he was good with people, and he knew out of their little group he and Donghyuck are the most adept at (civil, normal, rational) conversation, but he honestly doesn’t know what to expect with a Master of Hyukjae's
caliber.
He eventually relaxes when said Master actually spent the entire meal happily asking about Jaemin’s likes and dislikes, his love life and friends, his favourite animal, all while throwing chili peppers and round mushrooms from his meal into faraway vases to rile the butler up. Judging from how
Jonghoon's expression barely changes, Jaemin hazards a guess that it was a usual occurrence. (It is, he learns)
Hyukjae
leads Jaemin to the rock garden skipping.
Hyukjae
jovially tells Jaemin to make himself comfortable in the garden, explaining that good warriors need to make good use of and manipulate their surroundings to fit them. He had then proceeded to encourage Jaemin to mess up his rock garden. By the time Jaemin completes his own little rest spot with a few large boulders, he looks around to see that the Master had gone around to pile up all the other untouched rocks into a giant mossy rock tower. Their combined enthusiastic efforts had left clumps of unearthed soil sitting around the once well-manicured garden.
At the edge of his vision he can see
Jonghoon hyperventilating.
Jaemin thinks back on all the Masters he’s met and wonders if there’s even one that’s slightly more normal.
(Donghyuck would have said normal was overrated, and Mark would have snorted and both of them would have gotten a swat from Renjun and a laugh from Jeno; Jaemin misses them so much. He’s so used to having them around, having Chenle cling to his shoulder that when
Hyukjae shows him an incredible waterfall and asks him to draw it, he twists back to see Chenle’s face- Just to see
Jonghoon looking peeved holding a basket of steamed buns shaped like koala sheep.
The buns were great though in case anyone was wondering.)
Hyukjae
is a good teacher, a lot better than he’d given him credit for, within the first day,
he
had accurately judged that Jaemin had experience handling a spear, but with his head far quicker than his arms, such a weapon would prove to be unwieldy for him- Which, Jaemin admits, is entirely correct.
“You need a weapon that you would be able to maneuver as quickly as your head,” the Master observes, “Well, good thing Woonie
is good at the Jian sword style, so you’ll have to get used to being his punching bag until you get the hang of it!”
Jonghoon
is better than good, Jaemin thinks after his sword clatters to the ground after his first round of beating, so good that Jaemin can only hope to be half as adept. Jaemin wonders just how powerless he would be if Master
Hyukjae has him at sword point.
Jonghoon doesn’t hold back at all, and judging by his expression he is on the verge of throwing his weapon at
Hyukjae whenever he boos Jonghoon.
Throughout the duels, Jaemin catches Jonghoon mumbling about demonic anchovies under his breath and can't help but worry for the attendant's mental state. Rather than praying to the Spirits for help facing Jonghoon, he finds himself asking for them to bless Jonghoon’s patience and blood pressure.
Jonghoon’s style of fighting is somewhat aggressive, perhaps spurred on by Hyukjae’s sideline commentary, so Jaemin learns to adapt, as he’s always done- he resolves to watching and absorbing the moves, and rolling and parrying until the duel ends with a bamboo sword at his chest or at his neck.
Jaemin doesn’t think his body ached this much before (he desperately wants Jeno to soothe it), but he picks himself up again and again, ignores the cuts on his arm, the scrapes and bruises, rises time and time again when he thinks of Jeno, of Renjun, of a limp Chenle after the Fall of Ba Sing Se and Donghyuk’s tears, of Mark shielding him time and time again and of Jisung’s conviction.
If he gives up now, listens to his aching bones and muscles he’ll never be able to protect them, he’ll never gain the strength to stand next to them.
So he stands up. Again.
His sword clatters to the ground with a flick of Jonghoon’s wrist, he rolls over and picks it up, wincing when his back hits the hard pebbled ground. He
remembers being swallowed up by liquid ground with a flick of General Shin's wrist. He remember's Renjun's expression of horror and Chenle's tearful face as he went down, he sure as hell remembers the carnage that followed when Chenle's emotions pushed him into the State.
He couldn't protect them. He couldn't defend himself.
Again.
Jaemin rises to meet Jonghoon’s eyes from behind the sparring helmet he’s wearing, barely missing the pleased smiles on the two elder’s faces. He remembers Taeyong's broken expression as he cradled the mortal form of the Moon Spirit, how Jaemin tried to stop Jeno from sacrificing himself, Jeno wading into the Spirit Oasis, how helpless he felt when he watched Jeno's trade bleach his hair from jet black to stark white.
He can't go through that again. He can't lose any of them. He needs to be quicker. Faster. Stronger.
Again.
He gets up again.
“What do you think of Master Hyukjae, hyung?” Jaemin asks Jonghoon one of the nights they are out for extra practice.
Jonghoon turns to him and raises a questioning brow.
“Well he’s a brat for sure. He’s annoying, and full of himself, but that confidence isn’t unfounded.”
There’s a fond smile on the older man’s lips
“He’s a child, the better fighter of us two, but he needs someone to take care of everything that isn’t fighting…
Someone has to keep him out of trouble, somehow that’s always been me, just my luck, eh?”
Jaemin keeps his eyes on the moon, the moon reminds him of Jeno, it’s a comfort these nights when he’s not curled up with him.
“Hyung,” he starts, finally words the question that's been haunting the edges of his tongue for weeks, “Why do you think he took me in?”
There's a smile in
Jonghoon's voice “Who knows what that
anchovy
is thinking?”
Jaemin groans
at this response,
he exhaustedly flops to the ground.
He still can’t comprehend the Master’s line of thought, he can’t fathom how anyone would let a stranger into his house and teach him how to fight, and he seriously doubts it’s because he was fresh. The Master doesn’t seem to be trying to humiliate him, if he did, he would have sent him out of the door by the second day with a sneer on his face.
Jaemin has nothing to offer, absolutely nothing, he’d stated from the start that he wouldn’t be able to afford his tutelage or offer
Hyukjae anything he’d find of value. Did the Master really accept him out of the kindness of his own heart? Do people like that still exist nowadays?
He’s aware of
Jonghoon chuckling (evilly) above his head as he rakes at his scalp, frustrated from not knowing.
The Master is a complete enigma to him, and
Jonghoon wasn’t any better, he doesn’t understand: he knows
Jonghoon and
Hyukjae's bond stretches way beyond master and butler, the two of them have a friendship that would easily last a lifetime, but with
Jonghoon’s amount of skill he could’ve easily left the mansion and gotten a high rank in the military, or followed
Hyukjae's path as an instructor, why would he stay here? And why was he the only staff within the walls of the castle? Why was he willing to labour the rest of his life away?
He voices this to
Jonghoon, who
softens, “I’ve been with him for as long as I remember: When we learnt
the art of the sword together, when we served in the military, when we deserted… We’ve been through so much, it just makes sense to stay together.”
“But why?”
Jaemin decided to support Renjun to follow Chenle initially to protect Renjun, and because of the hope Chenle gave them, because of how dark their future
would be if the Avatar failed the world once more.
Hyukjae and
Jonghoon weren’t near that level of desperation, they were far from that, with their skill, they would have ranked high, they could have had a life of glory! Why would they give that all up? And why would they stay together, if the memories within the military made them desert and leave?
Jaemin is careful with his next words, “I’m travelling with a group of friends, we’re all tied together
by a dream, a mission, by the same goal. These days, when I see the Master and you, I wonder how our life will be when the journey is over, if we actually succeed.”
“How do you find the motivation to stay with each other? If you don’t have a common goal anymore?”
"Aha."
Jonghoon makes a contemplative noise as he drums his fingers against his chin.
“Life isn’t all about adventure, Jaemin. When you grow older, you’ll realise that the journey isn’t all that keeps you together, it’s what connects you at first. But if you find even one reason to stay, you’ll always come back. Because it's home.”
The image of Dream, all their smiling faces float behind Jaemin’s lids when he closes them to contemplate the weight of
Jonghoon’s words.
Home.
Since when
did his home change from woven tents and icy tundras to an Air Bison and a bunch of (really wild) kids his age? Since Chenle smiled at him, bright and wide when Jaemin came to fetch him from the Coast Guard? Since Mark cut him out of the binds that the Kangta Warriors held him in? Or did this all begin when he decided to
toddle up to Renjun the day he lost his mother and wrap him in the biggest hug he's given anyone?
It doesn't matter, when it began or how it all became, long ago or not Jaemin has long decided to fight for
Chenle or die trying. He'll defend
every one of them to his last breath. Jaemin isn't an impulsive or emotional person, neither is he sadistic nor apathetic, he knows the value of life, and he knows the consequences of taking one, but he would stain his hands red, red and red again if that's what it takes to guard them, keep them safe.
He'll protect his home.
Jaemin takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.
Mind sharpened, he kicks the sword up from the gritty ground and stands, stretching and dropping into his stance.
Jonghoon simply eyes him and mirrors his movement.
“Again."
The first time Jaemin manages to win
a duel,
Jonghoon makes them seaweed stew for dinner.
Jaemin is surprised that there would be a dish so similar to Water Tribe cuisine, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he definitely wasn’t going to reveal his nationality by thanking
Jonghoon. He suppresses the wave of nostalgia as he digs into the meal that reminds him so much of his own parents, so much of home.
Hyukjae's loud cheers and
Jonghoon’s small smile of approval makes everything even better.
Jaemin spends most of his mornings
‘expressing himself’ on a piece of paper. He’s getting better at calligraphy, he's improving so much
in both writing and drawing he actually thinks he’ll be able to draw a Kun poster well if they ever need it- Fire and Brimstone, he hopes they never do though.
Hyukjae
slides in one fine day in the middle of getting dressed with
Jonghoon holding a part of his robes hot on his heels, and declares that it was time Jaemin made his own sword.
Jaemin is so excited that he nearly topples the ink dish and the table over when he stands and asks if he could procure the material of the sword by his own means.
He
leaves the castle for the first time in a month to recruit the rest of the group into moving the meteor to the forgery.
He gets the wind knocked out of him when Chenle barrels him over in his enthusiasm to see him, he’s not even that annoyed when Chenle gasps and yells “Jaemin-hyung! You got burnt!” straight into his ear mid-tackle. He’s left wheezing on the ground as all of them, even Kun, leap on top of him in a big puppy pile.
Jonghoon’s words of finding his way back home echo in his ears when he meets Jeno’s eyes, as he ruffles Chenle’s hair fondly and squishes Jisung’s cheeks. Part of him is secretly glad that they missed him as much as he missed them.
All of them are more than happy to help move the giant rock, but Jisung insists that he should camouflage himself and stays hidden, moving within the nearby shrubbery as Chenle and Donghyuck Earthbends the meteor to the Master’s door. Chenle thinks he’s really cute. Renjun and Mark think he’s super impractical. Jaemin thinks it’s both. He tries to coo in a baby voice and cuddle Jisung until Jisung runs off in terror. Jaemin is only slightly dejected, he finds comfort in Jeno’s warm backhug instead.
It’s not until they roll the meteor right in front of
Hyukjae's front gate that he realises they’ve basically dug a trench all the way from the crater to
Hyukjae's door, and it's confirmed when
Jonghoon staggers to the back-shed to find a shovel, a rake, anything, to fix the broken path oh my Spirits.
At least
his Master admires the effort and creativity, so there’s that.
Hyukjae
allows the rest of them to stay within his castle for the time being (“Ah, young blood, they make me feel youthful,
Jonghoon-hyung.”) Jaemin just shoots them a nervous glance and gets to the forge to start working on his own sword, he spends the rest of the day in the fiery forge shovelling coal into the furnace while the rest of his gang loiters around the castle.
Jonghoon helps him a lot by helping him sledge hammer the meteorite into smaller chunks, and showing him how to chisel for more, he then leaves here and there to bring him food and water, and to serve meals the rest of them. Jaemin is infinitely grateful for
Jonghoon’s single-handed efforts to keep him alive and hydrated even in the smoky chambers of the forge. He barely has anything left in him to hope that Chenle doesn’t cause unnecessary damage to the Master’s Castle as he diligently works the bellows.
His senses are sharper now, Jaemin realises, because even when he's spent working in the forge he’s hyperaware of
them peeking around corners and hovering about from afar, he's also acutely aware of Chenle and Donghyuck’s
Koala Sheep
Bun Tossing Competition into a certain bush that also seems to shake in laughter whenever they cackle. He
hopes that Jisung can stay discrete and hidden for however long making his sword will take.
Some point during the night, Jaemin startles from his doze when
Hyukjae comes walking in.
The Master waves off his small bow and walks closer to check Jaemin’s progress. He
prepares to move when he sees that the coal is running low when a calloused hand grips his shovel instead.
Hyukjae gestures for him to sit and rest as he feeds coal into the furnace with a practiced ease that Jaemin is jealous of. He blames his aching back, mostly.
“I hear you asked about me. And why I took you in.”
Hyukjae begins with a smile, his eyes on the burning coals as he stokes the flames.
Jaemin swallows the curses to the back of his throat, he’d trusted
Jonghoon not to tell, and yet-
Hyukjae
laughs, full and whole-hearted, “Relax, relax! I’m not reprimanding you, I would be wondering as well if I were in your place.”
“Well it wasn’t your skills that impressed me, definitely,” Jaemin winces when he remembers how clumsy on his feet he had been in the first few days of training, “And you’ve long confessed that you have no riches to offer, not that I need any, I can afford to live comfortably for the rest of my life.”
Hyukjae
places a hand on Jaemin’s shoulder, Jaemin can feel the almost scorching heat of his palms
“I saw something beyond that: Creativity, versatility, intelligence ... these are the traits that define a great Swordsman.”
“I saw that you could be taught, I saw a young man who would be able to make the fullest use of my tutelage. Call me selfish, Jaemin, I want the arts I’ve mastered to be passed down, and I thought you would be a worthy Master.”
Jaemin just stares at Hyukjae, lips parted.
“You’re a fine young warrior, Jaemin, and I’m glad you’re fighting for our cause.”
Hyukjae's
words sink in and shame wells up in him, despite Jaemin knowing that he’s deceiving him to fight for the greater good. For balance. He’s doing this for balance, so why does Jaemin feel so awfully unhinged?
“Jaemin, go ahead to bed, I’ll watch oh-“
Jonghoon comes through the door like the saviour he is, and he stops at the sight of
Hyukjae in the forges.
“Oh Woonie! Bring me tea, I want lemon in mine!”
Jonghoon returns with a tea seasoned with so much lemon that
Hyukjae sprays the beverage into his face at first taste.
Jaemin just listens to them bicker in the background as he endlessly shovels coal into the furnace, guilt building as their words and actions echo in his head.
That same guilt urges him to confess to the Master as his tutelage reaches its end, so when
Hyukjae hands him his forged sword and tells him with pride that he’s one of the most worthy students he’s ever taught, Hyukjae’s earnestly happy expression has him spilling the truth in front of his astonished members against all voice of reason.
Hyukjae
gives him a lukewarm, “I see” as a response before lashing out with his blade against Jaemin.
Mark shouts in alarm before the rest of Dream jump up, alert and ready to fight,
a nearby bush rustles threateningly.
Jaemin manages to roll and dodge the first strike, and he immediately holds up a hand to stop them. He ignores the twinge in his chest when catches Jeno’s worried gaze, he shakes his head and they stand down reluctantly.
He’s so thankful to
Hyukjae and
Jonghoon, they’ve taught him so much, and treated him like a younger brother, like a son, as opposed to a mere student, he can’t possibly repay them with a half hearted fight where his friends deal all the blows.
This is his fight and his fight alone.
Doesn't
mean he isn’t scared witless though.
Their fight, to him, is a blur- It was mainly
Hyukjae
attacking and Jaemin desperately scurrying about, hoping he was too fast for the blade to hit.
Hyukjae, ever the Master, throws compliments here and there when he sees good ideas or good technique, but Jaemin is so terrified at the prospect of this man- who’d defeated hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers at once in order to gain his freedom- running after him at full force with a blade he wielded as well as an extension of his arm to actually take the commentary to mind.
In an ill-advised move, he slashes at his Master, who catches Jaemin’s blade with his own and pushes his sword into two large arcs, ripping the newly forged meteor sword out of his hands. And with that, Jaemin’s sword clatters to the ground and he’s defenceless.
Hyukjae
skilfully trips him up with a sidestep and before Jaemin knows it, he’s on the ground, sprawled at Master
Hyukjae's feet, with the tip of the Master’s blade pointed at him, ready to strike.
Jaemin can see that behind
Hyukjae
his friends are running towards them: Jeno is twirling his spear and Renjun is pulling out water from his water skins, Donghyuk and Chenle are slipping into their fighting stances and Mark's brandishing his fans as he crouches into a lunge.
All of them were ready to reveal their identities to defend him.
Protests rise up against his lips
but before he can voice them
the Master gives a laugh and moves his sword away. With a smooth practiced movement, he twirls his blade about his hand and holds the sword behind his back, in
a position of truce.
“Well done, Jaemin! Excellent work!”
Jaemin blinks in confusion when his Master grins at him and extends a hand to hoist him up from the ground.
Hyukjae
then gives
Jonghoon a signal, who rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath about how the other was such a drama queen, but he dutifully throws the scabbard at the Master.
Hyukjae raises his blade for the blade to slot perfectly into the scabbard in a fancy practiced move.
Jaemin’s shoulders drop when he realises he wasn’t going to die today.
“I think I’m a bit too old to be fighting the Avatar.”
Hyukjae
turns to the rest of Dream, and they loosen their stances in surprise. They turn to look at each other in astonishment.
Chenle’s face relaxes from his expression of concentration and he blinks, before his face morphs into fascination.
“How did you know?!”
Hyukjae
chuckles at how star-struck Chenle sounds, he snatches the hot towel that
Jonghoon throws at his face out of the air with ease with his eyes still closed from the mud Jaemin flicked into his face earlier, “Oh, I’ve been around for a while, and you hear things here and there,” he says vaguely.
Hyukjae
wipes the dirt off his face and tosses the towel on top of
Jonghoon’s head, who fails to dodge and visibly fumes under the soiled towel. Hyukjae's
grin stretches wider.
“Of course I knew from the beginning that Jaemin is Water Tribe, it’s the way he moves, Water Tribe people have softer features, their transitions are smoother from attack to defence. Fire Nation people are more chiseled, we move with more deliberation. It comes with the culture and the bending art itself. Disguise is not an easy art to master, I'm surprised you all kept up the facade long enough to journey into the centre of the Fire Nation.”
He turns to fix his gaze on Mark, "A Kangta Warrior, eh? You lot are
rather rare to see outside of
your island,
you're peace seekers after all... But boy, your reflexes and agility earlier shows talent and training well beyond your years, I am very impressed."
Mark looks stunned at being complimented, but
Hyukjae barely stops before he raises his voice so it carries across the sword fighting ring, into the surrounding bushes, “As for Young Prince Jisung, you need to work on your stealth if you're to stay undetected in those bushes, perhaps extra training with you is in order.”
The bush flinches, and there was a sheepish rustle as Jisung emerges from the leafy branches.
He had been wondering how
their youngest had managed to sneak into the castle, of course, Jaemin reasons, because
the Master had always known he was there in the first place,
he'd allowed him in.
Jisung ambles over and puts his hands forward in the Fire Nation bow of the Fist and the Flame.
“Master Hyukjae.” Jisung says in greeting.
Hyukjae
reaches over- the group tenses again protectively- and flicks Jisung’s forehead.
They relax when they see their youngest is just getting his cheeks pinched.
“You little brat, I’ve taught you how to use your swords since you were five, and how do you repay me? You send your friend to my tutelage, and hide in a bush instead of greeting your old Master?!”
“I didn’t want to bring trouble to your door, Master, I’m a wanted fugitive.” Jisung says ruefully, and
Hyukjae just laughs in response, he ruffles Jisung’s hair.
“Nonsense! Once my pupil, you’ll always be my pupil. Wanted or not, Fire Nation or not, anyone who accidentally sets fire to
Jonghoon-hyung’s hair is always welcome at my door!”
Jonghoon makes an indignant noise. Jisung gives him a shy smile; he nods a greeting to the very stressed butler, who returns with a stare equal parts fond and miffed. Jisung laughs awkwardly and ruffles his own hair in embarrassment.
Hyukjae's
gaze softens as he looks at his pupil, “I see you’re finally at ease with yourself, young Prince, I’m glad. You all seem like good companions, good people to have in a fight. I’m glad you’re the ones to guide my wayward young pupil.”
Their group flushes with the praise, and Jisung fidgets under the extra attention.
“But Master,” Donghyuck speaks up, “You said you knew Jaemin was Water Tribe, why would you agree to teach him then?”
Hyukjae
draws himself to his full height (which is still not very tall, mind you) and barely hesitates, “The way of the sword does not belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all.”
“Jaemin,”
Hyukjae turns to him, “You need to continue your training on your own. You can seek Jisung out
to duel, but you two must not try to mix each other’s styles. It will do you more harm than good."
“If you practice, with your brilliant mind, I’m sure you’ll end up being a greater swordsman than I.”
Jonghoon mumbles, “You spend most of your days trying to catch me out in pranks and planting bamboo, at this rate he’ll be better than you in a year, you overgrown fish.”
Hyukjae
gives him a leer, “Oh Woonie-hyung, you see, I've been called a demon anchovy by you so frequently that I've taken the liberty to sage the castle, starting from your quarters-”
As if magically on cue a plume of smoke started to rise in the distance where the
rooms were. The attendant pales and gives a horrified shriek and runs to keep the castle from burning down.
Jaemin would be hard pressed believe that the man
laughing manically in front of him was a revered Master if he hadn’t proven it just now by effortlessly beating him into the dust.
At the rate this is going, it won’t be a year before
Jonghoon’s hair turns completely grey or he loses all his hair from stress. It’s a miracle he hasn’t already, really. Jaemin should ask
Jonghoon his secrets of looking youthful. For science. He needs to brush up his game after all, he’s dating half a Moon Spirit.
“I wish you well, Jaemin, Jisung, Avatar and friends.”
Hyukjae addresses all of them, “You must get going on your journey. May the Spirits be with you.”
They exchange bows with
Hyukjae and trudge their way towards the gate, just as the gates close, they hear
Hyukjae call, “Catch!”
On reflex, Jisung and Jaemin turn to the command.
A small dark red velvet bag comes hurling through the gap in the gate just as it closes, and Jeno manages to snag it before it drops onto the dirt. They huddle together, curious at the bag and its contents.
“What is it? Oh? There’s a slip of paper- Something to remember me by- Is that a drawing of a thumbs up?”
Jeno inspects the paper for anything more, but comes up blank. He then shrugs and upturns the small bag for a single round tile to land on his palm.
“It’s a Pai Sho tile.” Jisung speaks up, “The White Lotus.”
For what seems like the millionth time these days, Jaemin is confused.
“Why would he want an incomplete Pai Sho set?”
They look back at the red gates to see the insignia of a White Lotus surrounding the Fire Nation symbol carved into the gates.
Jaemin can’t help but feel like there was something more, something he missed, knowing his Master’s nature there definitely was.
He dismisses it for now, they need to get moving.
“Let’s go back, I miss Kun.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For someone so adventurous, Donghyuck surprisingly deals horribly in any element that isn’t his own.
It’s probably why he was so unreasonably crabby when he first joined their team, Mark muses, because other than when he was teaching Chenle Earthbending he was completely out of his element- he’d never been allowed to travel in his life, he’d never been forced to flee from anything, never had to suffer through what it meant to be in a war.
Life on the run would put anyone into anxiety, especially Donghyuck, who had literally been born with a golden spoon in his mouth. Into riches.
So Mark cuts him a lot of slack, just like he had when Jeno joined, because he knows this sort of life would be hard to adjust for anyone, not only the rich and royal.
He tells himself it's the message from the Swamp, the vision that he'd seen of Donghyuck, doubled over laughing accompanied by a flying lion.
He was absolutely positive that the vision from the all knowing Swamp must
definitely mean something, and it proved Donghyuck's irrevocable place in their group, the pivot that would save the world.
He tells himself it’s not because of Donghyuck’s round, starry eyes, not because of the way his heart palpitates when Donghyuck smiles, not because of the way the sun seems to dim when he laughs.
Minseok had always called him adorably oblivious, so it takes him until Donghyuck is left lifeless in the Desert by the Sandbenders that he realises what the pounding in his chest means.
Air
Donghyuck hates flying, as any self-respecting Earthbender would, he tells Mark.
The night he runs away with them is the first time Donghyuck flies, and no amount of unease can prepare him for the sheer panic in Donghyuck’s eyes when Kun flaps his tail and takes off into the air.
It was there and then Mark decided that fear was not a good look on Donghyuck. He reaches out to curl his hands around Donghyuck’s trembling fingers, and squeezes reassuringly.
Donghyuck's hands are around the same size as his, Mark laments his proportionately small hand size briefly, but Donghyuck's are shorter, and definitely softer and smoother than his. Mark's hands were bony, practically skin on bones, and palms and pads of his fingers calloused from years upon years of diligent training. Donghyuck's hands were hands of a painter, a writer, a musician, but far from a warrior.
Colour thankfully starts to find its way back onto Donghyuck’s face, and the younger grips back.
The draft that night was too much for a first time flyer, and Mark can literally feel the fast beating of Donghyuck’s pulse through the clasp of their hands.
Mark, after contemplation and overthinking, decides to follow his instincts (Jeno is so much better than him at this, but he’s asleep and exhausted), he crawls closer to Donghyuck in the saddle, and pulls the shaking younger into his arms.
Some point in the night, Donghyuck stops trembling. Some point in the night, the two of them are knackered enough that they fall asleep. And some point before the morning breaks, Mark wakes up to find Donghyuck’s limbs entangled with his. He remains lucid enough to pull a blanket over them both before dozing off once more.
Some point in time, Donghyuck finds it in him to tug at Mark quietly and say a sincere thank you. Mark smiles as lazy rays of the morning sun peak through the clouds behind Donghyuck, crowning him in a halo of light. Mark can feel warmth seeping from his heart to his fingertips all the way to his toes.
From then on, Mark dutifully
holds
Donghyuck's hand tight whenever they take flight.
Water
Mark finds that Donghyuck doesn’t like water, or boats. Now, Mark grew up on an island next to the sea, so understandably he doesn’t share Donghyuck’s skepticism towards the big blue.
After losing Kun in the desert, they’re forced to take a ferry into Ba Sing Se or cross the Serpent’s Pass, Donghyuck had vehemently denied the possibility of him going onto a wooden ‘raft’ in open waters, much preferring and advocating that they take the narrow foreboding strip of land.
Thing about Donghyuck is that he can be awfully convincing when he needs to be, so the entire group had conceded and settled for the trek.
Turns out the Serpent’s Pass, owing to its namesake, is avoided for a really good reason.
When Renjun and Chenle’s water bubble failed, Donghyuck had immediately raised a small island and stubbornly tried to stay there until the serpent almost flattens him. The ‘scaly fatass’ must have really disliked him, because with a flick of its tail it
sent Donghyuck tumbling into the churning waves and flailing to survive.
Mark had, without a second thought
jumped into the churning waves, sea monster and potential predators be damned, after him and
hauled him to safety, heart pummeling in his throat.
Donghyuck had continued to cling to him even when they reached the shore, and he hadn’t let go even when Renjun forced the both of them to get out of their sopping clothes.
By the time Donghyuck recovered from the scare, the blue was calm again, sunlight dancing on
gentle waves.
Donghyuck
had shyly planted a kiss on Mark’s cheek and Mark
had stilled in shock, Donghyuck looked dazzling then, hair wet and tousled and the glittering sea behind him. He
had thought his heart would burst out of his chest, he just wasn’t sure then whether it was from fear or exhilaration.
He starts holding and receiving kisses from Donghyuck often after that.
The mood of the group lifts even
with Kun still missing.
("About time hyung! I could Airslice the tension between you and Haechan-hyung!"
Mark had thrown his head back and laughed and laughed from Chenle's response for the first time in weeks, and judging from Jaemin and Jeno's matching grins and Jeno snaking his hands over to tickle the young Avatar, their group dynamics were on their way back to normalcy.
Renjun
had snorted and
given Mark a friendly punch to the gut for all his troubles. Mark knows Renjun would rather be eaten
by the Serpent than admit that he’s incredibly happy for them. All of them are.)
They've a long ways to go before Chenle masters the elements and defeats the Fire Lord
to restores peace and balance, but as long as Donghyuck is there to look at him with stars in his eyes, Mark thinks they’ll be okay.
.
(He still
gets nightmares where he doesn’t get to him on time and Donghyuck drowns just beyond his reach.
All too often
he bolts up from his sleep, heart racing, head pounding and breath coming in short gasps.
Every time, however, he feels Donghyuck shifting next to him and mumbling his name in his sleep. The younger then
always reaches
over to
nuzzle himself into Mark's embrace, and Mark's breathing slows, because they're safe, and Donghyuck is alive.
His heart rate doesn't slow though, and it always takes Mark a while before he calms enough to fall asleep, Donghyuck's weight warm on his chest.)
Fire
The fear of Fire is
kind of a group trauma at this point, even though Donghyuck (thankfully) came across less Evil Fire Nation Deeds than they have, discomfort with
the heat makes sense, because any basic human being wouldn’t be having the time of their lives basking in the lick of flames anytime soon.
So when Donghyuck is visibly shaken at the burning earth when the Firebenders go ham on the day of Junsu’s Comet, Mark really doesn’t blame him.
The sky is a blood red, lit on fire by the Comet as the literal ball of fire streaks a blazing path across the horizon, putting even their sun to shame with its aggressive heat. Mark muses that even the sky is bleeding for the world as Firebenders stand on platforms in the lower belly of airships and unleash blasts after blast of flames. Mark can just barely hear the cackles and jeers from the brigade below.
He stands guard protectively over
Donghyuck as
the younger looks on in horror at the events unfolding from the broken window of their hijacked airship. Jeno and Jaemin are both fiddling with the controls of the airship, currently squabbling over whether to basically release every single lever or just resort to smashing the control panel
to see what happens.
Mark secretly agrees with the smashing strategy, but he honestly doesn't want to get into an argument with Jeno.
“Hyuck, can you steer the ship while Jeno is on lookout?” Jaemin turns to the both of them.
Mark sees Donghyuck visibly get a grip on himself and nod, Jaemin grins briefly and says, “Great, I have an announcement to make.”
One fake birthday announcement and pulling a conveniently labeled hatch later, they were one crew less of the Fire Nation fleet. Mark marvels at how Jaemin’s brain works and silently thanks the Spirits that his smarts weren’t used for evil instead.
(Mark secretly knows if he were a soldier on this fleet he would have fallen for that announcement, 100%, and gone to the loading bay jubilant at the idea of cake, not that he'd let anyone in Dream know, they tease him enough as it is)
A few more beeps and calculated presses of buttons,
Mark feels their Airship accelerate and pull away from the neat formation from the others.
“We’ll need to go full speed to catch up to Fire Lord Changmin’s airship,” Jaemin says, the mask of a serious tactician over his usually upbeat demeanor, “We still don’t know where Chenle is, but we’ll need to stall for as long as we can before he gets here.”
Mark is silent as this sinks in. They potentially would need to face the
strongest Firebender in the nation, and in the worst case scenario, if Chenle has vanished and doesn't return (Spirits Mark hopes not), it's up to them to take him down. Four on one. A very very powerful one.
Jaemin fixes Mark with a look and Mark knows what Jaemin needs to hear, “We can do this.” Mark says, he hopes he sounds more confident than he’s feeling, “We’ll face Changmin if we have to. We’ll be right there when Chenle needs it.”
Right on cue, the Phoenix King's airship in front of the fleet suddenly explodes.
All
four of them scramble to the window for a closer look. The largest airship was decelerating and losing altitude fast, whatever had gotten it got it in the motors, and from the groan of the metal and the dozens of soldiers jumping ship, it was no little damage.
Jeno
peers through a pair of binoculars he retrieved from the starboard while Mark tries to make out what’s going on beyond the smoke, eyes narrowed in concentration.
“What’s happening?” Donghyuck’s eyes are wide in fear and curiosity, Jeno gives a happy hoot, “It’s Chenle! With Winwin! He’s back!”
Jaemin snatches the binoculars from Jeno, and he, too, gives a shout of joy.
Mark exchanges smiles with Donghyuck, who’s beaming with pride.
Their Baby Dolphin is back, alive and ready to kick Fire Lord Ass- that’s half their job done at least.
“Well, it’s up to us to do something about the Airships then,” Mark hates to spoil the celebratory atmosphere
but
Jaemin gives him a quick nod, gaze focusing on all the airships behind them.
“How are we going to do it?” Donghyuck seems to have regained his composure and confidence, and Jaemin’s face lights up in a maniacal grin as he drums his fingers together.
“Airship Slice!”
He toggles with the controls on the starboard, and manages to twist the wheel so the airship turns perpendicular to the rest of the fleet.
“Once I pull the hatch down, we’re taking a dive, and we’ll crash into all the other ships in a horizontal line. It’s going to be a really rough ride, so the moment I pull it, we’re running up to the top of the blimp, got it?” Jaemin meets every single one of their eyes and Mark has to consciously stop himself from gulping at the intensity of his gaze.
He shakes himself out of it, he needs to lead, and Jaemin is waiting for his response.
Mark nods, “Great, watch each other’s backs, improvise if we get separated. Our goal is to destroy all the airships so the Fire Lord can’t get backup. Leave a single functioning blimp if you can, if Chenle needs us it’s the fastest way to go the distance.”
He glances out the window in the far distance, he can see two figures darting about, blooms of flames and blots of lightning hitting pillars of rocks and blasts of air blowing the fire back.
He recognise the smaller figure by the way Chenle moves, and says a quick prayer to the Spirits to keep Chenle safe and sound.
If Chenle can't manage to best the Fire Lord, he just needs Chenle to hold on until they get there. With Chenle on their side, they can take him, five on one.
“Okay!!” They all chorus, their hands meet in the middle and they cheer their group chant.
This won’t be the last time Mark is leading it, won’t be the last time he’s hearing it, he’ll make sure of it.
Sure enough to Jaemin’s words, the ship starts to dip and plows unceremoniously into another as they climb to the top of the ship, the floor under them crumples from the impact and Mark, who was taking up the rear, manages to leap and grab the ladder right as the floor fell away.
“Hyung!”
Jeno and Jaemin are looking back worriedly and Mark gives them a tight smile, “Still alive, Hyuck, how’s the trapdoor?”
“Opened.” He says just as he breaks the lock easily.
They all climb out and Mark finds Donghyuck’s hands, fingers slipping between fingers into a familiar grip.
“The ship is demolishing in the process!” Mark can just hear Jaemin say above the destruction, Jaemin is pulling Jeno along as he runs towards the head of the ship “The front will be the safest! Lightest structure, but sturdiest! Mark-hyung, follow us!”
They start running to the front of the airship when suddenly the part of the airship with Jeno and Jaemin still on falls away, Mark looks on in horror as they drift away from Donghyuck and him, his grip on Donghyuck tightens as Donghyuck screams for the other two.
Jaemin and Jeno manage to jump nimbly from their piece of falling debris to another airship
“Finish the mission!” Mark can just make out Jeno’s voice, “We’ll be fine! Focus on destroying the fleet!”
Mark barely has the time to reply when their piece of the airship slams violently into an enemy airship, Donghyuck and Mark jump below and Mark lands on top of Donghyuck, bracing his weight above him carefully not to squash the boy under him
and shielding him from the debris.
Donghyuck
stretches his palm onto the metal deck and the sheets of metal responds to his bidding, fluidly rising from their plates and wrapping around the two of them to shield them from any impact. Mark squeezes his eyes shut to block out the clanging and the explosions, he moves his palms to cover Donghyuck's ears to protect them from the loud sounds.
“Hyung, the rudder…”
Mark opens his eyes to see Donghyuck looking at the metal structure in front of them.
Mark assesses their situation, the ships around them had been incapacitated, but the ship they currently were on
is
relatively unscathed, despite being rather banged up by falling ship parts, around half of the fleet were still functional and moving forward.
From Donghyuck's little prompt, he knew what
to do.
Mark reluctantly lets him slip out from under him. The metal shield around them folds back onto the deck as Donghyuck stands up, he manipulates the metal to brace his feet against the side of the ship as he takes definite steps towards the rudder, his hand is a warm
anchor on Mark's arm, providing the older with a stabilising grip on the slippery metal deck.
Donghyuck grips the sheet of Metal of the rudder and tugs, effort clear in his face. The metal folds itself to his will, he manages to completely Metalbend the rudder, jamming it in a turning position. Their ship spirals and slams nose-first into the abdomen of another ship,
further knocking the others into a domino effect.
Donghyuck keeps a tight grip on the rudder and Mark keeps a tight grip on Donghyuck, the ship shakes and shudders, and the metal moans under the strain.
The trapdoor on their ship opens and a Firebender pops
out, giving an indignant shout at seeing them before yelling
for reinforcements.
The soldier leaps up from the door and
fires at the two of them, Donghyuck immediately crouches down and slams his hand against the surface of the airship, a shock wave travels from Donghyuck's hand to the guard's feet, blasting the guard off the airship completely.
The reinforcements peek through the trap door to see their comrade sliding off the top of the airship, Mark throws one of his fans, open, towards the first guard, and judging by the gurgle, it must have caught him in the throat, the guard stumbles and drags the next few guard down the side of the blimp with him.
Donghyuck tears a piece of metal off the airship surface, and kicks it to slam down on the open trapdoor, successfully drawing a scream of pain from the soldier climbing up the stairs and trapping the rest of the reinforcements underneath.
The force Donghyuck put was too great, because their airship tilts and slights, and before Mark or Donghyuck can stop it, they were sliding down the side of the blimp, straight into the Ocean of Fire.
Mark grits his teeth when he catches Donghyuck's expression of horror, like hell were they burning now- he grips Donghyuck as tightly as he can, whips his
sword out and plants the blade in the side of the vessel to slow their descent, but not by nearly enough.
The shooting platform of their ship is right below them,
metal planks were built parallel to maximise the number of Firebender soldiers on the frontline to burn the Earth Kingdom. Mark thinks he can use the platforms, but he needs to jump just as the surface of the blimp curves inward at the right moment, or he risks dropping both of them into the Inferno.
It's a bet on their lives, and Mark has no choice but to take it.
He leaps, using the momentum of their drop to angle the two of them to the closest plank.
It takes him
half a second for Mark to realise he overshot.
Mark screams in pain as his leg lands wrong on the platform, for a moment, the blinding pain shooting up his leg makes his hand release the death grip he had on Donghyuck.
The sight of Donghyuck falling just out of reach to the platform however spurs him to move, blots of pain traveling up his leg
as he scrambles over and manages to grab hold of his hand at the very last moment.
There was a sickening sound as
Donghyuck's arm pops out of its socket when Mark stops his momentum and Donghyuck lets out a scream of agony.
Mark's heart bleeds as colour drains away from Donghyuck's face, the younger paling from the strain on his already dislocated arm.
Mark tries to tug on Donghyuck's arm to pull him up, but the jostle only gets another yelp of pain from Donghyuck. Mark's heart drops when he realises he broke his dominant leg, and he can't muster the strength to pull.
“Hang on, Hyuck,” Mark grits out, “I’ll
get you up from there somehow-“ He will, he has to.
A threat from both sides emerges when two Firebenders show up on the parallel planks
beside them, before they can open fire Mark kicks the dagger
in his boot into his free hand, and in a last ditch effort, he throws it at one of the Firebenders, knocking him out, he then reaches for his last fan, and strikes the second soldier in the side of the head with a solid throw, the Firebender crumples into a heap, but conscious
and groaning.
Now Mark was truly weaponless and defenceless, his leg prevents him from exerting enough force to pull Donghyuck up and
he doesn't have the devices to fight, his dominant arm is what’s stopping Donghyuck from incinerating into ashes below.
“Hyuck-“ Mark stutters, he sees the Fire soldiers stirring, getting up from their daze, even if they weren’t the chances of him being able to pull Donghyuck up from the plank entirely was too slim, Donghyuck was going to fall either way, and like hell was Mark going to let go.
He'd promised himself to take Donghyuck's hand whenever they take off into the air, he's not going to break that promise, ever.
Mark
knows Jaemin and Jeno
are still out there, and he
has no doubt the two of them
will be able to finish the mission and destroy the fleet, he
has to put all his faith in them now, since he’s not going to let Donghyuck fall into the sea of Fire alone.
“I- I love you,” Mark continues, he needs to get this out, needs Donghyuck to know this, “I love you so much- I know I don’t say it enough, but I mean every word now… You're the best thing that's happened to me and if this is the end then I’m glad I could fight next to you, I’m so sorry Hyuck, if you never met us you would have-“
“Hyung- Mark-hyung- I don’t regret anything.”
Donghyuck’s eyes are glimmering with tears, and the
pain from his arm shows in his expression, but his gaze is clear as ever, sharp, piercing and sincere.
“I’ll never regret meeting you, all of you- It's been less than a year, but it was the best few months of my life- I love you too, Minhyung-ah, thank you, for everything.”
Mark’s tears drop onto Donghyuck’s cheeks, he sees from his peripheral vision that a soldier is getting up, he knows Donghyuck sees it too.
He never imagined it would end this way when he first started out, but honestly? Going into the Inferno with Donghyuck, hand in hand, really wasn’t the worst way to go.
He just wishes they had more time, more time together, more time to travel, to spend, to adventure and explore the world together, to cherish each other. But does he regret it?
Never, not in a million years, ever.
Mark’s arm has long gone numb, and he’s sure Donghyuck’s arm is
beyond saving by now, but he doesn’t let go.
At least his last sight will be of Donghyuck, his own Sun, looking back at him with all the love in the world.
It’s the end.
Suddenly their ship wobbles and the neighbouring ship crashes into the belly of their ship.
Through the sting of smoke, Mark blinks away the rest of his tears to see that the structure is parked right beneath the plank where they are suspended, and providing a platform from the Flame Ocean.
“Hyuck, do you trust me?”
Donghyuck smiles, “A million times, yes.”
Mark lets go.
Donghyuck drops onto the ship
under their's, the one that, Mark is thanking his lucky stars and any deity that will listen, against all odds slammed below their ship and gave Donghyuck a platform to a safe landing.
Mark rolls from his position down to join Donghyuck, landing with a wince when he jostles his bad leg.
Donghyuck immediately stumbles over to give Mark a hug, sniffling and harshly wiping his tears away before cupping Mark's cheek to search his face.
A shout from behind them brings them back to the battle, and they meet the glare of a soldier. Mark stills.
What a pair they make, Mark has a broken leg and Donghyuck has a
dislocated arm- he
has no weapons left and Donghyuck can barely move without wincing in pain.
The Firebender prepares to deal the final blow,
Donghyuck crouches down shakily to touch the metal deck, calling his element to meet him
but he's moving slow, too slow and Mark can tell he won't be able to bend in time.
Mark immediately moves to shield Donghyuck from the blast.
It never comes.
A streak of blue describes a spear thrown from afar, it jousts
the Firebender
with deadly aim, sending him away from them, down from the curved surface of the blimp.
Mark and Donghyuck look up to see Jaemin and Jeno waving at them from the airship that nudged their landing pad to its position.
“We're
back, losers!” Jaemin whoops, arms open and face triumphant.
Jaemin and Jeno are standing on top of the last unbroken airship, sprays of sparks fly behind them as the rest of the fleet is crumbling from impact and falling into the ocean of fire below. Jaemin's face is smudged with soot, his hair is singed by fire and Jeno's arms are bruised and scratched, he's missing his torso piece and the
armour on his left leg is in tatters. His spear, a gift from Doyoung who had carved it and forged it as a farewell gift, is missing- he'd thrown it to save Mark and Donghyuck- but
the
widest grin made itself home on his face, and Mark's lips pull back automatically at Jeno's infectious smile.
They were far from fine, but this might just be the most
glorious moment Mark ever had the luck to witness (Yes, even above Chenle's merge with the Ocean Spirit).
Donghyuck gives a laugh of delight, Mark can feel his arm snaking around his waist in a secure hold, he shares a look of relief with Donghyuck before Jaemin yells at them to stop flexing. Jeno's laughing face is the best thing Mark has ever seen next to Donghyuck's.
Jeno jumps down from the sails from where Jaemin is perched and helps the two of them up their good airship.
“Sorry it took a while,” Jaemin’s tone is equal parts worried and guilty, their strategist surveys their state. Mark waves him off with a grin, and manages to move his leg enough to wrap all of them in a hug.
As long as everyone is safe and sound.
They manage to find their way into the cockpit, which Jaemin and Jeno had emptied before piloting over to save the two of them, this time a lot slower with all their injuries, Jeno sits both of them down and makes quick work of their wounds, (Mark and Donghyuck fight over who gets healed first, and Jeno ends up having to flip an ice coin) Mark doesn't relax until the little crease in Donghyuck's forehead fades with the pain in his shoulder.
Jaemin takes control at the starboard, setting them on a course over to Wulong Forest, this time they celebrate the Avatar State (for once) and cheer as Fire Lord Changmin
is completely beaten down by the combined forces of all the Avatars.
Jisung and Renjun’s
duel with Taemin would’ve reached its conclusion by now, and judging by how the Fire Lord is trapped in a pyramid of rocks, it’s safe to say the Fire Nation has finally taken a devastating blow.
Mark looks to the sky to see the tail of Junsu’s Comet, with the Comet leaving the atmosphere, blue is slowly
draining back into the clouds, the sky is less vermillion and more purple. For the first time today, he finds it in himself to appreciate the beauty of the Comet- The previously bleeding sky is now a myriad of colours, clouds streaked and tinted from yellow to orange to red to pink to lavender, Mark finally appreciates how the
fiery light
dances warmth
across Donghyuck's features as they gaze into the horizon.
Jaemin steers the ship to drop all of them off where Chenle and Winwin were waiting with a worn out Fire Lord.
Mark lets Jeno support his weight as he watches Donghyuck run over and throw his arms over Chenle, cooing to
the
younger that he was proud, so, so proud. Jaemin joins in with his baby voice and Mark admits it's kind of fun to watch Chenle squirm from all the extra attention he was getting in front of his greatest mortal enemy.
The Comet
has passed, and the
worst
is finally over.
Earth
When Mark first meets Donghyuck, really meets him,
it's in Donghyuck’s huge garden, with him on his back and the breath knocked out of him by the force of Donghyuck’s Earthbending.
He remembers how when he looked up, he sees Donghyuck’s head haloed by the rays of the sun, and the first thing he says is, “You’re really bright.”
(His toes still curl in embarrassment sometimes when he thinks back on it. Donghyuck still thinks it’s cute.)
Donghyuck had paused, expression for a moment going hard in shock and cheeks colouring, before he schooled himself into a neutral expression and asked, voice tinged with curiosity and annoyance, what the hell they were doing there in his gardens with the Baby Dolphin.
Once he’d found his bearings Mark had reigned himself in. He shouldn’t be feeling so much for someone he barely knew, someone he’d just met.
Minseok had told him countless times, he wore his heart on his sleeve so much that it would be easy to take advantage of, and he should be careful to whomever he gives his heart to.
Mark had long given his heart to Chenle and their cause, he had long decided that he would join onto their trip to protect them, escort them, or die trying. He’d consciously made that decision the moment he saw Chenle animatedly enquire about the Unagi while still bound to the pillar. He still smiles
at the thought.
But now, judging by the way his heart beats whenever he looks at Donghyuck- clad in pale green flowing robes that made him look soft and delicate, like a fae, or a Spirit, he thinks- the decision was never his to be made.
Now that he looks back on it, Donghyuck has had his heart since the very beginning.
.
Donghyuck
confesses first, and Mark will never live it down because he had run over what he wanted to say to Donghyuck in his head for weeks, yet the younger one got there first- It's not a competition he knows, but Mark is equal parts frustrated and relieved.
Donghyuck stays awake with Mark one night, and
mumbles to him that he was glad
for Mark,
glad he cared for
him, not a placeholder, not the Young Master of the Lee household. He reddens and stutters and Mark has to strain to hear the precious I'm in love with you, Hyung
from a bashful Donghyuck.
Mark returns the sentiment by cupping Donghyuck’s adorably red face, whispering a reverent “Love you too, Hyuck,” and planting a soft kiss on his heart-shaped lips.
They attend the grand coronation of General Yunho, the older brother of Fire Lord Changmin.
Jisung had told them Yunho had deserted the first Siege of Ba Sing Se when his lover Hero Jaejoong, Taeyong’s older brother, had passed away in the front lines, Second Prince Changmin ascended the throne while his brother was in mourning.
Overnight, Jisung’s mother vanished and General Yunho had retreated deep into the palace, never to be seen again. Little did anyone know he had been conferring with Taeyong on the actions of the Order and supporting the rise of the Avatar all along.
The man straightens from his crouch, the Flame of the Fire Lord standing tall in his top knot, he holds up a hand to quiet the roaring crowd.
He gives a brief smile and he gestures to Chenle, who is standing behind him with his hand in Jisung’s and the crowd goes wild.
Donghyuck and Jaemin are going insane, hollering Those are my babies! Our babies! We raised them!
Jeno has Renjun on his shoulders, his eyes curved up and nose crinkled in laughter as he teases Renjun, who is discreetly trying to wipe away his tears, a soft smile of pride on his face.
Jaemin and Donghyuck are having a competition to see who can generate the most racket and get their youngest two’s attention, apparently, because Jaemin starts swinging his precious sword in an arc over his head and Donghyuck is twirling
Mark's replaced metal fans in the most dramatic flourish and all Mark can think of is that he’s so in love with his Sun.
Chenle lights up when he spots them in the crowd, and he tugs Jisung forward and waves at them with his whole body, bouncing on the podium and surprising the new Fire Lord with his boldness.
A fond laugh escapes Mark when Chenle almost breaks Jisung’s back with the force that he uses to hop onto him, Chenle’s mouth forms their names and Donghyuck screeches and waves back in equal vigour.
The crowd’s cheering is too loud, but he can almost imagine Chenle’s voice when he sees him mouthing Hyung! Hyung! from the podium, Jisung ducks his head in embarrassment but his hands come beneath Chenle’s thighs to fully support him, he shifts him higher, and his grin is full and bright when he raises his head and Mark is so, so happy and so, so proud.
He reaches for Donghyuck’s hand and clasps it tight. Donghyuck stops his chant of Ava-tar! Ava-tar! to grin at Mark, and Mark sees the sun and stars, all in one. He leans in and feels Donghyuck’s smile against his own. They both pull back beaming.
Mark finds the cheek in him to wink at Donghyuck (oh, he’s been rubbing off of him, but not that Mark minds, at all) and whisper to his ear, “You think we can sneak behind them and freak Jisung out onstage?”
Renjun would probably choke both of them for ruining the moment and all, but with all the guards and the fact that Chenle also has some degree of seismic sense, Mark really doubted they would succeed. If he were honest he just really wanted to get Donghyuck where the two of them can be alone.
Donghyuck gives him that musical laugh that has him so smitten, and that mischievous glint that Mark has always found endearing crosses Donghyuck’s eyes, “Oh, it’s on.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The voice of the host of the Earthbending tournament can just barely be heard over the thunderous shouts and applause as it bounces off the dank, sticky walls of the underground arena. The air is
thick and rank with sweat, and honestly the seating was extremely uncomfortable- all bumpy rocks and hard surfaces, but the humidity doesn't dampen the roar of the crowd in the slightest as the host announces the victory of the crowd favourite.
“AAAND THE BOULDER WINS IN A LANDSLIDE! HE TRASHES FIRE NATION MAN!! THE BOULDER GOES ON TO THE NEXT ROUND!!”
Chenle is bouncing in his seat because this is so cool.
The Air Nomads were the only nation where everyone was a Bender. All Air Nomads had access to all 36 tiers of Airbending should they have the disposition to learn it (none of that non-bending discrimination business),
but because of the pacifist nature of well, everyone, they never held duels or raised a hand against each other, even in training or in arguments. Except for Airball, but then everyone
is unnecessarily competitive at Airball. Chenle loves it. Everyone gets so petty, even Monk Yixing would catapult fruit pies at the opposing team the day following a loss- Airball brought the best and the worst out of everyone and Chenle Lived For It.
Now don’t get
him wrong, he respects his culture and he loves his home. Chenle was raised on the principles of Airbending, naturally he found the aggressive spirit of Firebending and the confrontational crudeness of Earthbending to be fascinating. Earthbending face-offs looked
painfully violent at first, but oh, they smash rocks against each other and they all come out unharmed and there’s a champion belt that's all green and gold and snazzy - that’s all so awesome.
Next to him, Renjun and Jaemin are cheering on the Boulder as some guy in a gecko mask steps up into the ring. All three of them hoot
as the Boulder basically owns the Gecko (if Chenle were to be honest, their names alone already decides the winner, but he doesn’t make the rules unfortunately) and sends
his opponent
tumbling straight out of the ring, as quickly has he had come in.
Chenle is bouncing in his seat with excitement, and Jeno next to him has to put a hand on his thigh to calm him down. Chenle whirls to face Jeno.
“Hyung! Jeno-Hyung! You’ve actually seen a lot of Masters in the North Pole, what do you think of the Boulder? Do you think he’ll teach me?”
Imagine! The Champion of Earth Rumble Six teaching the Avatar to Earthbend! Teaching him! Bet the Fire Lord never got a Champion as a teacher, Chenle is one step closer to winning already.
Jeno blinks at the onslaught of Screaming Airbender in his face, then replies carefully after considering his words, “I do think he has some good moves, but Lele, remember what King Heechul said to you: You need someone who waits and listens, rather than an entertaining performer.”
Chenle deflates temporarily when he recalls the encounter in Omashu before perking up again, “Oh, there are still quite a few rounds, I’m sure I’ll be able to meet more Masters other than him!”
Jeno smiles and tickles Chenle under his chin, a gesture that Chenle has learnt that Jeno’s family uses as a sign of affection, and Mark next to him nods, fond grin spreading across his face, “That’s the spirit! If we don’t find a Master in this town, we’ll look in the other town over. We need to find what suits you the most, Chenle-yah.”
But oh, every tingling spidey sense in Chenle is convinced that The Boulder is probably the most badass Bender in this competition! Or this city! He’s just so huge! If he stood next to all of Dream he’d probably tower over all of them (like a huge tree and tiny flowers, he tells Mark, whose hysterical laughing in response earned them side-eyed glares from the other three), and he’d probably be able to strangle both Renjun and Chenle in one arm (now that really wasn’t saying much because Chenle know he’s light and Renjun is tiny
and Renjun can probably strangle anyone if he so wanted to). Chenle briefly contemplates how many Boulders (in plural) Kun can lift before collapsing before his attention is stolen away by a particularly loud GONG.
Chenle turns his eyes onto the podium, the spotlights bathe the host in the centre of the stage in light. The host waits as the anticipation bubbles and the noise in the room sizzles down.
“Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: THE BOULDER VERSUS OUR REIGNING CHAMPION- FULL SUN, HAECHAN!!!”
A lithe figure clad in bright yellow with a jade green cape saunters into the ring, a large champion’s belt raised above their head.
The lights converge on the figure to reveal a
teen, possibly around Renjun’s age, with round doe eyes, smooth tanned skin and heart shaped lips. He's completely at ease in the centre of the stage. The crowd goes completely nuts as the boy raises the belt higher.
Full Sun is a good description, Chenle thinks, Jaemin has always told him that he reminded
him of good mornings, and baby rays of the sun, even if Chenle likes the praise, he thinks this boy, holding up the belt, basking in the cheering of the crowd, is more like the sun itself.
He’s dazzling, and Chenle is transfixed.
Two female assistants swarm the boy, one takes the belt from his hands and takes the cape off his shoulders, while the other takes a strip of jade green cloth, shows the audience the thickness, and binds the boy’s eyes. Chenle’s jaw drops.
“He’s fighting blind?!” Renjun squeaks, even Jaemin is stunned at the unexpectedly bold move.
The Boulder on the podium is flexing his big muscles, he says in that theatrical way of his, “The Boulder feels conflicted on fighting a young, blindfolded boy.”
Haechan snorts, “Sounds to me like you’re scared, Rocky.”
Haechan's voice is high, not as high as Chenle's of course, but his timbre is incredibly unique. Chenle knows he'd definitely be able to pick it out from a crowd. Mark stills and holds his breath at the sound of his voice, Chenle
watches the oldest's expression gleefully as
Markie-poo forms a crush.
The Boulder looks temporarily surprised, then he quickly recovers.
“The Boulder is over his conflicted feelings and he’s ready to bury you in a rock-a-lanche!”
Haechan gives a small mocking shrug, “Bud, I'm ready whenever you have the balls to actually attack.” More laughter from the crowd.
“Oh, it’s on!” The Boulder draws Chenle’s attention back to the ring away from Mark’s stunned face.
What he sees afterwards, not to be dramatic, changes Chenle’s life.
The Boulder bellows a battle cry, and runs toward Haechan, as if to tackle him out of the ring. His first step is menacing, and the whole spectator's stand shakes at the Boulder's strength, Chenle's
lower jaw clatters against his teeth, and he has to grip on to
Renjun when the tremor almost dislodges the older from his perch.
Haechan's facial expression remains calm and unperturbed. He
moves quickly, spreading his feet into a stance, his palms upwards. Before the Boulder takes his second step, Haechan is already moving his feet into an arc, and kicking the floor. His strike creates a shock wave in the arena floor that churns up the ground, and the force travels straight at the Boulder, precisely to where his feet lands next.
Chenle has barely blinked as The Boulder’s foot meets the shock wave just as he puts it back on the ground. Haechan's bending negates the Boulder's stomp, and the Boulder slips and loses his footing,
he drops down onto the ground in a perfect split.
“Ooooooooooooh!”
The Boulder howls painfully from the stretch, and Chenle is shrieking in laughter before he knows it, Winwin squeaks from Jaemin’s hold and honestly that sends Chenle clapping because that ‘oooh’ was several octaves higher than he thought the burly Boulder could ever manage. Renjun, Jaemin and Jeno
cringe in mutual sympathy for the man, phantom pain streaking up their legs at just the imagination alone.
The fight isn’t over yet.
Haechan makes a chopping motion with his hand, three huge stalagmites erupt from the ground and hit The Boulder in Pain in the back. The force ejects him from the ring. He flies across the trench separating the podium from the stands and slams into the wall with an oof. The Boulder
slides down into the space below the podium with a groan, utterly defeated.
Haechan’s
lips slip into a satisfied grin, he laughs and whoops freely, and the crowd roars in response. Next to them, Mark tenses, eyes wide and jaws slack, “That laugh… I know that laugh!” Chenle doesn't pay attention to Mark's horrible attempt at pick up lines, and decides right there and then that he wants this Haechan as his teacher. Forget about the burly man and his large muscles, Haechan is way more badass.
Chenle screams several octaves (and decibels) higher than the crowd, he claps as loudly as he can to show his appreciation and support to Haechan.
Chenle wonders if Haechan does teach him, would he able to Bend with a blindfold on too? He’d be able to wake Jaemin-hyung and get them going without having to get up himself, he’d be able to fake sleeping while sending Mark-hyung up into the air, oh maybe he can even fight Jisungie with
his eyes bound on their next encounter! Jisung would be so floored! All the possibilities has Chenle giddy.
So Chenle being Chenle, hops into the ring the instance an opportunity presents itself, he just doesn’t understand why Haechan is so hell-bent on attacking him when all he wants to do is talk.
“Somebody's a little light on his feet! What's your fighting name, the Fancy Dancer?”
Fancy Dancer isn't too bad a name, Chenle thinks, it's certainly better than what he could come up with, and yes, Chenle does have some moves (it comes with Airbending and being light on his feet, he thinks the fact that Haechan possibly guessed it from just his footsteps alone is AMAZING), but
Fancy Dancer doesn't quite have the same badass ring to it the same way Full Sun does.
Haechan interrupts his internal tirade when he launches another pillar at him, Chenle squeaks, alarmed, in response. Haechan laughs, “Ooh, that’s an interesting sound, what are you doing on land, Baby Dolphin?”
Chenle can hear Renjun and Jaemin yelling in the distance, cheering him on. He briefly looks over to see Jeno looking on worriedly and Mark still stuck in his state of confusion.
“Where'd you go?”
“Please, Haechan-hyung, I really just want to talk-“
“There you are!”
Haechan doesn't give Chenle time to finish before launches a rock towards him
It was
pure reflex when Chenle bends an air blast in return, he really didn’t mean to knock the champion out of the ring, but before he realises it, Haechan is turning away angrily as the host announces his victory and hands Chenle the champion belt.
Chenle ignores him and races over to Haechan, yelling, “Wait! I just want to talk! I need an Earthbending teacher! I want it to be you, hyung!”
Haechan waves him off with an cold, “Leave me alone.” And Chenle looks on in despair as Haechan disappears into a tunnel that he opens and then closes.
At least Jaemin is delighted with his new belt, Chenle feels just slightly better that something good came out of his disastrous encounter with Haechan.
“Jeno-yah, what do you think? The bag I bought matches the belt! I’m so glad I did!’
“It really brings out your eyes,” Jeno deadpans, and Jaemin pulls him into his arms.
“Jenooooo you mean that? You really mean that? You disagreed when I bought the bag, you said it’d end up under Kun’s saddle!”
“Because it will!”
Renjun shushes them both before Jaemin can bicker back. He’s holding Chenle’s hand in a comforting grip and Chenle is really grateful. He should make Renjun a bouquet blindfolded to show his thanks when he masters it under Haechan’s tutelage. If he does manage to get Haechan as his teacher, that is.
He meets Renjun’s eyes, troubled, “What do I do, hyung? I really want Haechan to be my teacher… But I might have pissed him off and now I don’t even know where to find him!”
Renjun sighs, “We’ll ask around, we’ll definitely find a way.”
(They do, of course they do.)
A Boom, a Shake, and then they were flying through the air, breath knocked out of them by hard unyielding Earth.
Mark's brain must still be out of commission, because what he says is frankly embarrassing and Chenle has had enough with the cringey pick-up lines. Really bright? Who says that?
Chenle can hear Renjun groaning and Jaemin holding back snickers and honestly, if Chenle wasn't a Man on a Mission to convince his future teacher (just you wait) to teach him, he would be teasing Mr-Absolutely-Fully-Capable.
Chenle squints to see Haechan
flushing prettily at Mark's words before he gets a grip, and saves all of them from further second-hand embarrassment by enquiring,
“What in the Spirits’ name are you doing here, Baby Dolphin?”
Chenle swears on Monk Yixing’s amazing fruit pies that he
honestly didn’t mean to get kidnapped and used as a portable bank for these Earthbenders.
Maybe abusing the name of the Avatar to gain access into Haechan’s home isn’t the best method they could’ve used, but they’ve tried diplomacy already, and that backfired spectacularly when Haechan threatened to call the guards on them.
Mark spent an entire supper mouthing off with Haechan, whose real name is Donghyuck (which Chenle thinks is also a really nice name, less badass, but sweeter) while Renjun and Donghyuck have a subtle bending battle underneath the table cloth which basically boiled down to the two of them being petty and fooling around with their food- from Donghyuck creating tiny boulders underneath Renjun's feet to make him faceplant into his soup, to Renjun parting Donghyuck's
food whenever the Earthbender tried to dip his spoon in for another mouthful (Soup vs Earth can you believe it? Awesome. SO Awesome). Chenle is so tempted to join in, but the weight of Jaemin’s hand on his shoulder reminds him that blowing up the dining table would not get him into the Lee family’s good graces.
The Lee family however, seem to be completely blindsided to Donghyuck's Earthbending prowess, because whenever Jaemin brings up the topic of needing an Earthbending teacher, the Lee head of the family laughs it off and tells them Donghyuck is weak, frail and fragile, which is clearly untrue if what they'd seen earlier today and Donghyuck's darkening expression was anything to go by.
After the eventful dinner, Chenle returns to the problem of actually convincing Donghyuck (Haechan? Full Sun?) to come with them and teach him Earthbending when said Earthbender shows up at his quarters and asks for a walk in the garden and a truce.
Chenle was enjoying his first lesson (no matter what everyone thinks, this is his first lesson with an Earthbender, so there's that) with Donghyuck on
his history of Badassery (Seriously! Badger moles? How cool is that?) when they were incredibly rudely interrupted and shoved into metal cages by the bunch of butt-hurt Earthbenders that Donghyuck had beaten a while ago.
So now here he is,
learning of
the plans of the traitors to sell him to the Fire Lord while listening to Donghyuck throw insults down at them from their suspended metal cells.
Chenle wholeheartedly thinks there are worse ways to spend the evening.
(Like the
night he spent coaxing that damn panda Spirit, that was really annoying, all
the creature did was bite and roar lasers everywhere)
“Really? Selling him to the Fire Nation? You lot are all retarded! If the Fire Nation gets to him, the War will end and you won’t be able to use all that Earth Kingdom money! Grow a couple more brain cells in those empty heads of yours before you come back! Or better! Get up here and I’ll beat those brain cells into you! Free of charge!”
That's it, Donghyuck is officially Chenle’s idol. He almost whines when he sees Donghyuck’s father crop up at the arena with the rest of Dream to pay for Donghyuck’s freedom,
he resolves to wave mournfully at Donghyuck as the other boy's cell is lowered from its hang and the entire cell is transferred over to Donghyuck's father. Renjun is on the verge of attacking the Earth Rumble Host when the goons tell his hyungs they have no intention of releasing him, so Chenle calls from his cell. to placate his smallest hyung.
“It’s okay hyung, leave me be, I’ll be okay.”
The concerned glance Renjun shoots him almost- just almost- makes him crack. Chenle hates it when his hyungs are upset or stressed, and
upset and stressed they indeed were right now, especially when the Earthbenders have
Evil
Plans with him. Renjun's chances of winning in an all out fight with a team of Master Earthbenders in an arena of earth was pretty low, especially when all the water he's got is in his water-skins. He tries to soothe the frowns on his hyungs’ face by grinning, he’s not too worried for himself, he has no doubt they’ll tail him on their way to the Fire Nation at every opportunity to save him. He's just mournful that he hasn't had enough time with Donghyuck to master the level of name-calling the Earthbending Master had displayed.
Chenle resigns himself to just spending the rest of the trip to the Fire Nation reciting all of Donghyuck’s insults he’s heard in the past hour as the Hippo hefts his cage over his shoulder easily.
He's so bummed that Jaemin
wasn't able
to hear all of them because the older would patiently explain the more complex insults to Chenle and come up with equally brilliant comebacks.
His cage
is suddenly
released from the iron grip of the Hippo
when a huge boulder grows out of the ground underneath the
Earthbender's feet. Chenle, cage and chains and all,
clatter painfully to the ground with a huge clang. He lets out a yelp at the echo in the small metal cage and claps his hands over his ears.
“Let him go.”
Chenle perks up when he
hears Donghyuck’s voice, steely with anger.
He immediately tries to stick his face out of the tiny window in the metal cage, but the horrible cage design was thoughtlessly stopping him from getting his dose of entertainment.
Despite that, Chenle still feels a zing of excitement- Haechan-hyung came back! He must have run back after he managed to get unlocked from his cell, despite his father being there, despite his so-called Earthbending teacher being there!
For him!
“Hrgggh?” The Earthbenders grunt like a pile of uncivilised orcs at the challenge and Donghyuck scoffs.
“I’ve beat all of you into the dirt before and I’ll do it again!! Let him go!”
The Earthbenders laugh mockingly, they flex their limbs and Hippo picks up Chenle's cage and flings it easily to the edge of the ring.
Chenle is once again rattled violently, he knows he'll definitely bruise this time. He hears Jaemin yell his name and all his hyungs' hurried footfalls towards him. When Jeno peers through the tiny window in the metal cage, all fond exasperation and worry, Chenle gives him his trademark beam, the one that he frequently uses to get him out of trouble with Monk Yixing and the one he finds all his hyungs melt at,
as a brief apology for getting in trouble and a thanks for being there,
he knows they'll get him out somehow.
He's far more interested at the fight that's brewing in the ring.
What Chenle has learnt through watching Haechan fight is that he’s fast, he does wait and listen but when he sees the right moment, he always seizes it immediately. The Earthbenders all charge at Donghyuck like a pride of idiots, and in response, he shakes up the ring, and generates a
teeth-rattling shockwave that ripples across the arena and blows them all backward with a huge cloud of dust.
Damn
these bars, Chenle can’t see clearly what’s going on, but he knows that Donghyuck is owning the fight, judging by the screams and the pained groans when Donghyuck ejects them out of the ring. His hyungs are
diligently working on the latch of his prison, Jeno bangs a stray rock onto the
lock with every slice of Renjun’s water knives, while the rest of them look on in awe at the fight that Chenle really wants to be watching too.
When Chenle finally wriggles out of the cage, he's ready
to fight, but Jaemin just shakes his head and points a finger at the raging
battle
through the dust clouds. Chenle can juuust make out that Donghyuck is facing the Hippo and the Boulder at the same time, and some over guy with kabuki face-paint that is way less cool than Mark’s is swinging on a rope overhead (is that even Earthbending?) with a rock in his clutches.
Donghyuck cocks his head, his eyes are closed as he Earthbends the ring pattern of the ground he’s standing on,
it swivels and puts the kabuki monkey into a collision course with the other two bigger guys. The swinging gymnast hits the two wrestlers in a pained moan and Donghyuck swiftly removes them from the arena with an easy flick of his wrist- right on top of all the other wrestlers he’d defeated.
Chenle is about to run over and gush at how cool he is when Jaemin holds him back, One more, the older mouths and he only gets it when Donghyuck forces the dust cloud down and the ring clears to reveal the Earth Rumble Host and Donghyuck standing in the centre of the ring.
Donghyuck rotates his neck while the Host cracks his knuckles and they slip into their fighting stances.
Chenle’s heart pounds in his chest as the Host kicks up one giant boulder, followed by two, then three, then another huge one and sends them all Donghyuck’s way without giving him time to breathe.
Donghyuck pulls up his own little earth pyramid to deflect all the attacks, then in a genius move, he turns part of the rock shield against him, sending the triangle shooting at the man, cutting through the arena in a deadly strike.
The host dodges it, turns in the air and catches himself by planting his hand into the earth, his palm sinks into the ground, as if the rocky arena was made of clay. He then uses his previous momentum to comb the earth upwards, throwing rocks at Donghyuck from the ground up.
Donghyuck seemed to have anticipated this, because he barely moves, only to dodge gracefully, he claps back by forcing his hand forward in a sharp move, twisting his torso to generate more momentum, and the Host is sent flying by the force of his fissure, right out of the
fight between
Donghyuck's
'Master' and his gaping father.
Chenle leaps into the air, screaming as he
bounds over to Donghyuck because Good Spirits he needs to learn how to do that!!!!
He’s aware that his hyungs are also clapping and cheering as he jumps onto Donghyuck’s back to tell him
you’re absolutely amazing, Haechan-hyung! That's LEGEND HYUNG! YOU SEE IT?! IT'S LEGEND!! RIGHT THERE!!
and Donghyuck is smiling wide, wide, wide and oh, Chenle wishes he got to watch all of the fight.
(Airheaded as he is though, Chenle is more observant than he lets on: Donghyuck's father walks towards them with the Master, expression thunderous and footsteps heavy as he briefly gives Donghyuck a once over to check for wounds.
Chenle tries to focus on Donghyuck's glowing face rather than on his father's less than pleased expression- Donghyuck had just beat the dust out of an entire league of Earthbending Masters, if that's not a cause to celebrate, Chenle doesn't know what else is.)
“So yeah dad,” Donghyuck looks shyer and more insecure than Chenle has ever seen him as he addresses his father when they’re back at the manor, “That frail young helpless boy you thought I was? That’s- That’s just not me. I love fighting! I love being an Earthbender and I’m really, really good at it! It’s what I really want to do!”
His doe eyes sparkle at the mention of bending, and Chenle feels admiration surge up his chest once again at this hyung who’s brave enough to speak out against the authority. Part of him wonders what really would have happened a hundred years ago if he’d confronted the Elders instead of running away- Would the hundred year war not have happened? Or would he be dead and instead long reincarnated into someone in the Water Tribes? Would he have been Renjun's friend earlier? Or would he have been Jeno's companion? Or worse, would the Fire Nation have already taken over the Water Tribes in search of his reincarnation?
Donghyuck’s insistent tone brings him back from his regrets as he continues, “I know I’ve hidden my life from you, but you’ve hidden me from the rest of the world- I- Father, I’ve only ever wanted a taste of freedom and a real friend when I first snuck out, and now
it's opened me to so much more!"
“I know this will change the way you
think about me, mom, dad, just- I love you both, and I hope
how you feel about me won’t change...”
Donghyuck bites his lips nervously in wait for his parent's reaction. Donghyuck’s father rises from his seat on the dais, frown prominent on his face.
“Oh Donghyuck, this doesn’t change the way we feel about you, you’re our one and only darling son. This has made me realise something.”
Donghyuck’s face lit up with hope and the beginnings of a smile, “It has?”
“Yes. I’ve realised that I give you too much freedom.”
Donghyuck’s face morphs quickly into horror, “What? No-“
Mr Lee
holds up a hand to silence his son, “From now on you will be cared for and guarded twenty-four hours a day.”
Donghyuck’s knees buckle, and he ends up
falling to his knees
in front of his parent’s dais, mouth open in shock and eyes glazing over with tears.
Chenle whips his head back and forth between his hyungs, who seem equally as astounded, a crushed Donghyuck, and his stone-faced parents, because this isn’t happening, is it? It can’t be happening-
“Please, Avatar and friends, escort yourself out of my house, you are no longer welcome here.”
Chenle's world becomes distorted, tunnel-visioned. It's like he's hearing everything from underwater, and the only thing he sees clearly is how distraught Donghyuck is. Donghyuck looks up desperately at Chenle, then at each and every one of them, eyes glassy, he moves his hands, as if to reach for them.
“No- please-“
“It’s for your own good, Donghyuck,” His mother cuts in sharply.
“Hyung! Hyung! I-“ Chenle wants to go give Donghyuck a hug, but he's blocked by the guards from going any closer. Chenle pushes against the armoured arm, Donghyuck is just beyond his reach, he just wants to soothe, him, to comfort him, teacher or not, Earthbending be damned.
“Chenle!” Jaemin pulls the back of his robe, “Don’t. They won’t hesitate to hurt us.”
Chenle looks around the see the guards with their
weapons at his hyungs' necks and Donghyuck’s parents glaring at them, the guards have them all surrounded, they have nowhere but the exit to turn. Mark looks like he is one move away from whipping out his fans and Renjun is trembling in anger. Chenle has no doubt they
would fully able subdue the numbers here, but what if more guards arrive? What if the authorities, the soldiers of the city arrive? Or worse, what if that Fire Nation Prince- Not Jisung, the mean one- and his two fighters catch wind of their location? Jaemin's hand on his arm is growing heavier by the second as he shakes his head disapprovingly.
What good would it do to Donghyuck, to watch them fight his parents? What good would it be, if more guards come and somehow manage to take one of them down? The steel of the
crescent blades glint cold from the light in the manor, a
bloodthirsty grin. Their hands are tied.
Chenle swallows the lump in his throat and manages to whisper, “I’m sorry, Haechan-hyung, I’m so sorry.”
Donghyuck looks more remorseful and heartbroken than Chenle, his figure is impossibly small against the
extravagant furnishings of the mansion.
“I’m sorry too, Chenle, I really am.” He manages hoarsely.
Jeno turns Chenle away before the guards
spear them out, a protective arm slung over the Airbender's shoulder, he turns that intimidating gaze of his upon the guards as they step out as calmly as they can.
Their footsteps are jarringly loud on the marble floor and they're hyperaware of every step that takes them farther from Donghyuck. It's painful for all of them to walk away when they can so clearly hear Donghyuck’s quiet, heart-wrenching sobs echo against the cold marble as they leave.
Chenle drags his feet against the dirt as they trek up the hill where Kun is waiting, and neither Renjun nor Mark are in the mood to reprimand the younger for kicking up the dust and dirtying their pants and shoes. They can feel just how disappointed Chenle is, and to be honest, they are too, especially Mark, who had finally told them what he had seen in the swamp, and was convinced that the laugh he’d heard from the figure, a boy cloaked in pale green robes, had meant something.
“Chenle-yah,” Jeno begins soothingly when they’re all on the saddle and ready to take off, he places a hand on Chenle's arm as
the young Airbender stares
off into the horizon with a crestfallen expression, “It’s okay, there are plenty of wonderful Earthbending Masters out there, we’ll find you a great teacher.”
“Not like him, hyung.”
Chenle lets Jaemin encircle him in a comforting hug. There are times when they all are carried away by how much power the Avatar wields that they forget: Chenle is still just a kid, and so is Donghyuck, so are they.
Deep down, Chenle isn’t mourning for the loss of a good teacher, he has no doubt they will be able to find another one. He’s dejected of a forced loss of a friend, one that’s beyond their help despite his leverage as the Avatar. Chenle knows how
horrible it feels to be surrounded by people but feel all alone, but he had Monk Yixing, and he had Kun with him- it makes him
feel worse that Donghyuck is so lonely, even lonelier than he had been, in that huge gaudy manor.
A house of cold marble and stone that would never be a home.
Suddenly Winwin chatters, and leaps from Mark’s shoulder to the edge of the saddle, alert.
“Guys! Wait!”
Chenle lifts his gaze from his pile of clothes to see Donghyuck running up the hill.
“Hyung?”
Donghyuck is panting, hair tousled and cheeks pink from exertion. He’s changed into a less flashy attire compared to his Full Sun getup, in deeper and richer forest greens, there’s a small pack of his belongings on his shoulder. His eyes are wide
and frantic and he’s sweating from effort to get to them in time.
“I’m getting the hell out of that house, I’m coming with you guys!”
Chenle’s heart starts to rise in hope. He looks to the rest of them, Jaemin’s eyes seem to be
alight with possibilities and Renjun sits up straighter from his position
on the saddle.
“Wait,”
Ever the leader, Mark hesitates. Getting Chenle the teacher he wanted is important, but if Donghyuck comes with them out of rebellion, things wouldn’t end well.
He peers at Donghyuck’s face,
wanting nothing more than to reach out and pull him into the saddle, but there’s one very important factor in Donghyuck’s life, and miserable as they may make him, they’re still very much a cornerstone.
“Your parents, Donghyuck, what about them?”
Donghyuck’s gaze sharpens, and his jaw sets, lips turned down into a stubborn frown “Well they can try come and get me, but I’m never going back. I’m done living in a house where people just want to tend to an illusion of me, not the real me.”
“You guys need me, I need you guys to travel the world, and I need a bunch of good friends- seems like a good enough deal to me- I- I’ve thought this through, Mark-hyung, I’ve wanted this for so long, and if I don’t take this chance I’ll be stuck living in an even smaller cage for the rest of my life.”
He lips are downturned and trembling, “I don’t want to live as a prisoner in my own home- I'd rather die than live the rest of my life
like a doll.” He finishes miserably.
Mark, Jeno and Renjun exchange glances in solemn silence, while Chenle and Donghyuck look on, nervous.
Chenle really, really wants this, really wants Donghyuck by his side as his friend, as his teacher, as his hyung, and really wants Donghyuck to be smiley instead of sad. Everyone deserves to be smiley instead of sad, Chenle thinks, and a grin suits Donghyuck-hyung so much more than tears and a frown.
Mark eventually nods, a slow smile tugging at his lips and it’s Jaemin who says, “Well, then what are you waiting for? Come on up and get your belt back before I change my mind!”
Donghyuck grins and starts scaling up Kun’s tail as Chenle whoops, crashing into his hyungs in a gigantic group hug. He turns to
give Donghyuck, who was sliding into the saddle, a hug too. Donghyuck’s lips are upturned and he lets out a genuine giggle when Chenle’s flying (literally) tackle sends them both tumbling off Kun’s back and down onto the ground.
"It was a boy around Renjun's size," Mark told had them earlier,"a bit taller though, I couldn't see his features clearly- but I could hear his laughter, and his voice... Donghyuck sounded so much like him. He was chasing a glowing lion cub around, and honestly? He lit up the swamp, I swear on Kangta, he was brighter than the sun."
Donghyuck barely blinks as he turns to cushion their fall, when his back hits the earth, a pillar rises to send them both back up straight into the saddle. Jaemin is clapping and Jeno is grinning at them both. Renjun reprimands them with a
grin not to muddy up their saddle, but he high-fives Donghyuck anyway and Donghyuck is full on beaming, like the sun.
Chenle can tell they’re going to have loads of fun already.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Catacombs Whisper
The
responsibilities
of a Fire Sage has changed drastically in the past century.
It used to be a position that held so much pride. As servants and attendants of the Avatar, in some ways they were considered above the royal family, untouched by politics and corruption, and deployed for their wisdom as guardians of the temple of past Avatars.
When Seungwan was born to her parents, destined to continue her ancestors’ service, they had told her it was an honour to be placed within the temple of the Avatar. She, a young girl from the smaller Fire villages,
had been given the privilege to serve at the heart of the Fire Nation. She had whole heartedly believed this, loved the idea of her serving a greater force, the symbol of balance, until she was old enough to realise politics had long wormed their way into the Temple of Boa.
In the beginning of the War, Fire Lord Junsu had forced them to comply with his wishes, the Sages were given rewards, bribes and threats to turn against the Avatar on sight. The Sages who were supposed to be solely loyal to the Avatar and all his reincarnations were to treat the Royal Family as gods instead, following their bidding and betraying their roots.
The day the statue of Avatar Boa lit up, Seungwan had been so happy, that there was possibility of her true master, her true calling returning, a greater someone for her to serve instead of tending to the Head Sage’s selfish needs. She had felt validated, like the true purpose of her life was finally coming together- They no longer had to listen to the Fire Lord, with an authority figure greater than him in sight.
But the Great Sage remained stubborn, obstinate, and greedy for power, opting to follow the decree of Fire Lord Changmin, barking at the other Sages to stop the Avatar from approaching the Sanctuary and capture him for the Fire Lord's reward.
Seungwan hated it, detested the idea of warping their identity to those in power. She had long decided to follow the footsteps of her family, to
serve the Avatar instead. They can call her a traitor, a betrayer, a spy, a disgrace to her Nation, but she knows who the true disgraces are, and that’s enough.
“Hurry!” Seungwan whispers as she ushers them into the tunnel, the four children look at her gratefully, and they scurry one after another into the entrance. She checks for other Sages before quickly taking up the rear and closing the passage.
Seungwan quickens her steps to take the lead in the darkness. The Fire she cups in her hand is familiar, warm and comforting as it lights the way up the spiralling
corridors
of stairs, “We'll follow these stairs to the Sanctuary,"
Her gaze flits to the little blond Avatar, "Once you're inside, wait for the light to hit Avatar Boa's statue. Only then will you be able to speak with her.”
One of them wearing Earth green robes with bright eyes and high cheekbones speaks up, voice tense with nerves, “What tunnels are these?”
Seungwan smiles reassuringly despite her doubt that they can even make out her silhouette in the dim lighting, “Avatar Boa once called this temple her home. She formed these secret passages out of magma.”
“Did you know Avatar Boa?” The smaller boy in Water Tribe blue with his arm around the Avatar asked this time.
“No.” Seungwan laughs as she shakes her head, “I wish I did, but I’m not nearly old enough. My grandfather knew him. Many generations of Fire Sages guarded this Fire Temple long before me. We all have a strong spiritual connection to this place."
“If this is the Avatar's temple... then why did the Sages attack me?” The Avatar asks, voice small. The young Avatar's head had been down the entire journey in the passage, and Seungwan can just tell from the dim light of her Fire that he was pouting, brows furrowed and eyes downcast.
Seungwan resists the urge to curl the young boy up into a reassuring hug. She pauses to weigh her words before continuing up the flight of stairs as she answers, “Things have… changed, and not for the better. In the past, the Sages were loyal only to the Avatar. When Avatar Boa died, the Sages eagerly awaited for the next Avatar to return... But they never came.”
The Avatar looks down at his feet, shuffling guiltily, the Water Tribe boy
grips the blond's hand tighter, “You were waiting for me.”
Seungwan hopes her tone was at least light and reassuring to the upset teenager, “They lost hope the Avatar would ever return. When Fire Lord Sozin began the War, my grandfather and the other Sages were forced to follow him. I… never wanted to serve the Fire Lord. When I learned you were coming, I knew I would have to betray the other Sages.”
They come to the end of the staircase, and a blast of fire from Seungwan’s palm opens the door back outside the passage. She gestures for them to get out first.
The Avatar walks out last, he bows to her, deep and sincere, “Thank you for helping me.”
Seungwan has to will the tears welling up in her eyes away.
.
“No Avatar, no companions, no Bison! Apparently, the only thing I do have is five traitors!”
Nightfall helpfully cloaks the sky with clouds, obscuring the fleeing Bison and
his Avatar from the Commander's binoculars.
The Commander fumes as he paces across the deck of his ship, he glares at the five Fire Sages in front of him.
Commander Yifan is quite handsome, Seungwan thinks, too bad
his personality is quite unsavoury.
The Commander
had come in at the most impeccable timing. Right after the Avatar managed the slip past the rest of the Sages into the Sanctuary. He had tailed the flying Bison straight to their Temple on Crescent Island, stormed in, demanding the Sages to open the doors to the Sanctuary and kill the Avatar's companions if the boy did not heed his order to come out and be obedient. He had then taken all of the Avatar's companions and Seungwan hostage as he waited for the doors to open to ambush the young Avatar within.
When the doors did open, to all of their surprise and Seungwan's awe, it wasn't Chenle who walked out, but a figure that Seungwan had seen a thousand times around the temple, carved to perfection, and had admired a hundred more.
Avatar Boa herself emerged from the Sanctuary, melted all their chains with an easy flick of her wrist and unleashed a hundred years of wrath upon Yifan, his soldiers and the disloyal Sages. With a rumble, she lifted the magma from below the Temple, and
turned what was once her home into ashes, bringing scores of soldiers from
Yifan's fleet down along with the sacred structure.
Seungwan has never seen anything like it, it makes feel marginally better about her situation and her future.
She honestly
doesn't mind captivity if she had been able to finally serve her true life's purpose, she's as good as a prisoner within the Temple following the Fire Lord anyways. Her capture will only truly be worth it if the young Avatar manages to heed Avatar Boa's advice and succeed in his mission to bring balance.
The Great Fire Sage interjects, eyes wide in protest, “But Commander! Only Seungwan helped the Avatar! We’ve did not betray you!”
Yifan sneers at the Great Fire Sage, “As far as I'm concerned, you are all guilty.” He waves to the guards holding their wrists in a vice-like grip, “Take them to the prison hold.”
Seungwan stares at the
rising moon as she is tugged towards the hold of the ship. This would probably be the last time she’d get to see the sky in a long time.
A jostle forces her below the deck, away from the moon, the clouds, the chilly night air. As the iron bars close on her, she braces herself for a long journey.
It’ll all be worth it, in the end. She whole-heartedly believes that.
Written in the clouds
Oh dear,
Jungsoo thinks when the smaller Water Tribe boy walks into the room, This one has been hurt before, and the wound is still raw.
This
contrasts to the boy earlier, Mark, whom
Jungsoo had seen true love in the future, (“Your love and you will have a million twists and turns, much like writing with ink on water, compromise will be your middle names, but this will be the greatest love of all, he will be like your sun, and you will never wish to let go.”) this boy’s love life is plagued by one central figure, and
he is held captive by his own thoughts.
Poor boy. Poor, poor boys. They could have been such a great couple, had trauma not warped their personalities, had this not been a time of war.
“Well?” The boy looks defiantly at Jungsoo, as if he has something to prove. “Aren’t you supposed to read my fortune? Go ahead then.”
Jungsoo
sighs and reaches over to grasp the younger’s palm. The boy
starts at
Jungsoo's cool hands, and makes a
movement to tug his hand away, before thinking better and settling in his seat.
Jungsoo
smiles.
“Do you believe in greater cosmic powers, Renjun?”
Renjun flinches at
Jungsoo's address.
Jungsoo waits for an answer patiently, he had asked the other two the same question and had received varying degrees of incredulous looks. The other two that came in earlier certainly didn’t believe in Shamans much, Mark was skeptical at best and Jaemin was completely closed off no matter what
Jungsoo said. This one though,
Jungsoo believes, may allow him to shed some light.
Renjun pauses, before nodding just slightly, “In some ways, yes, Destiny and Fate and all that… That’s the only way I can believe the chances of me meeting Che-“
Renjun stops abruptly, clapping his free hand over his mouth, eyes wide in horror.
Jungsoo
makes to study the palm of Renjun’s hand calmly, “Chenle, you mean.”
He looks deep into Renjun’s eyes, he can feel his pulse fluttering underneath his fingertips.
“Do you… Do you know who we…”
“Of course.”
Jungsoo says smoothly.
Call him a Seer, a Soothsayer, a Shaman or a Spirit Whisperer, it all stands for the same thing- he’s not the most famous for miles for nothing. All of those who were Spirit Touched would have
had varying degrees of visions, or an inkling of the destined battle
next summer, but Jungsoo? He must have been punched in the forehead violently by a Spirit, because early in his teens he had already known what the current Avatar would look like and when he would return.
Jungsoo
had anticipated that the Avatar would come for him long ago, but bringing it up would have only made him look like a lunatic.
“I have waited for today, I had known the Avatar and I would cross paths one day long before your time.”
Jungsoo
looks at Renjun to meet the younger’s unwavering gaze, he cuts in as the younger’s mouth opens, “I can only tell you the rough guides of your Fate, I would be going against the Spirits if I told you of all your successes and failures, or gave you the specifics of your future. Forgive me.”
Renjun’s shoulders fall, disappointed, his eyebrows crease in worry.
“Your companion Jaemin has a problem of self-doubt, your other friend Mark has a
flaw of trapping himself within regularity and routine, I don’t see either problem in you, you make a good balance to them. You instigate change, Jaemin mulls it over while Mark builds, truly a good combination within a team.”
Renjun relaxes into the chair as
Jungsoo continues, “I can, however, see that a problem has been bothering you
for the past few days: a boy, deception, and a still
fresh
broken heart.”
Immediately, Renjun’s demeanor changes. His gaze hardens, and his voice turns icy, scathing, “I hope you’re telling me he’ll end up dead in a ditch somehow.”
Jungsoo
freezes as Renjun's energy rushes into his, and his vision is overcome by dark earthen undergrounds.
A handsome boy
lies weak with his head on Renjun's lap and another white-haired boy presses glowing water into terrible wounds. He sees Renjun, Chenle, Jaemin and Mark and a few other teenagers leave the boy behind reluctantly, and
Jungsoo can feel in his guts that the boy dies there, away from the sky and treetops, away from the freedom the boy yearned and fought for.
This child will regret this, regret what he said today, and regret never accepting the boy back into his life when he had the chance.
Jungsoo
shakes his head to clear it, “You are young and impulsive. This can be a wonderful trait for someone accompanying the Avatar- your decisiveness can save many a situation, and your opportunism can keenly grasp chances, but this is not good for making decisions
in your relationships. You must not say things like this, it will only bring you regret.”
Renjun's gaze remains stubbornly on his lap, and
Jungsoo goes on, “This mindset will bring you more harm than good. If you see him again, you must cherish the chance and make amends, else you will never walk out of your depressive cycle.”
Jungsoo
folds his hands in front of him on his lap. He closes his eyes, crimson on cobblestones still vivid on the back of his eyelids.
The Spirits keep showing him flashes, of corruption and desperation. His chest sinks because the boy's death is unpreventable, the events unfolding were already set into motion, not Jungsoo, nor Renjun, nor the Avatar had the power to clear the Capital of the roots of a century of corruption.
Ba Sing Se was doomed to fall, if not from the Fire Nation, then from its own festering. If the Avatar was to save the world, he needs to wake the Earth King from his little illusion of peace. Renjun's boy is only the first of many to be lost in the process, but he's important
in letting the Avatar know of the
tiles on the Pai- Sho board, and he'll be the final push for the Avatar to realise that the true enemy lies within, in exchange for his life.
It pains
Jungsoo to
know that the youth is detrimental to the freedom he
fought for, for a steep, lethal cost. And Seer or not, Spirit-guided or not, he doesn't want to see any more.
Their session
is over.
Jungsoo opens his eyes to meet Renjun's equally troubled gaze.
“Please tell the Avatar I am ready for him.”
.
He tries not to laugh at the golden ball of energy that is the last Airbender currently sitting in front of him. Chenle
is
vibrating in his seat, no doubt he was the most enthused within his little group and had convinced the other three to come and give
Jungsoo
this chance.
Jungsoo
likes this Avatar a lot, he finds. The buzz of
light-heartedness that the younger brought removed the heaviness of the three predictions he had given earlier, and oh, this little one has a crush! How adorable! And who is
Jungsoo to stand in the way of young love?
“Are you sure you want me to tell you? Your soulmate and the one you have in mind may not necessarily be the same person, young Avatar.”
“Tell me! I wanna know, so please tellmetellmetellme-“
Jungsoo
holds up a hand to calm the boy. Chenle settles obediently in his seat, but he's leaning forwards and his eyes are sparkling with anticipation, grin stretching from ear to ear.
Ah, so this was why he has such a huge hunch to make chamomile tea, Spirits knew the boy’s older companions probably needed it.
Jungsoo
examines the shard of bone that remained from the Huge Explosion that happened earlier when the Avatar threw his chosen bone into the fire.
“They are someone of high stature, either born into it or worked for it. Your other half, boy, will be an extremely powerful bender, much like you, but they may be clumsy, callous sometimes with his speech and his movements…”
Jungsoo
hesitates before he divulges into much more: Hurt, betrayal from his own blood, drastic decisions, and crossroads of choices- Chenle will bear the consequence of a poor choice, and he will suffer at the crossroad, both emotionally and physically. But their destinies are intertwined, they complete each other, and one cannot prevail without the other.
Jungsoo
looks up to the ecstatic blond, “Follow your instincts, Chenle, you attract luck with your optimism and cheer, in turn luck will bring you to them and them to you. You will end up with a love to last a lifetime, I’m sure of it.”
Jungsoo
sincerely hopes the Avatar heeds his advice, he may be the only hope for the Young Prince of the Fire Nation.
And the Prince, his.
The smile, bright and genuine, that Chenle offers him fills
Jungsoo with warm confidence that the younger would follow through.
Things will fall into place, just as he predicted. It always does.
Only
Ashes
Remain
They called her indomitable, untouchable. Oh she was. She had been. Her reputation didn’t come from rumours, Joohyun had made sure of that.
She used to be the pride of the Fire Nation, the great military Admiral, the Fire Lily of the Battlefield, beautiful as she is merciless.
She remembers her days when she first started out, how eager she was to prove herself, to achieve. She remembers when she was introduced to her fleet, her closest attendants.
Kim Yerim, so young, and impressionable, but so talented, Joohyun remembers how the girl, barely sixteen, had gotten on her knees and pledged her life to Joohyun’s command, for the honour and glory of the Fire Nation.
Yerim didn’t know what she was getting herself into, neither did Joohyun.
Joohyun had guided Yerim with a strict hand, taught her to hone her sharp mind and sharper skill, to the point where Kim Yerim rose from a mere attendant to her second in command. And Kim Yerim had grown on Joohyun as a person, often the one to bring Joohyun food and drink when the
Admiral overworked herself,
or the one to cover her with a blanket when the
Admiral fell asleep in her office.
Yerim had, without Joohyun knowing,
wiggled her way into the older’s emotions and
built a home there. Yerim had made Joohyun question her morals and her way of doing things time and time again with inquisitive questions and innocent, earnest eyes. Joohyun had watched as day by day, Yerim’s skills grew and she became more and more valuable to the Fire Nation, Joohyun watched as this young girl she mentored take her first prisoner, and as life gradually left
her eyes, smiles growing heavy and gazes turning weighted.
The day Yerim was announced to be promoted to a Commander herself,
she
had taken her own life, unable to face what she had done to
numerous families, countless
fleets and villages to earn that position.
Joohyun had left after that, indifferent to the possible consequences of deserting the military, because when Yerim left the world, she took Joohyun’s drive with it.
They
still
call her cold and icy, they still call her emotionless. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, Joohyun had too much emotion, so much that it fuelled her Fire for decades when she was in the navy,
scorching villages, enemies, battlefields until it burnt her dry, leaving her hollow and withered.
Now all she has left is regret and bitterness to fuel the Flame.
So when
the Avatar and his friends were brought to her, and the boy, so small, so young, had looked at her and asked her with the same earnestness that Yerim once did, to teach him how to Firebend, Joohyun had refused.
Fire is the element of power, what they don’t
tell them is that Fire is also the element of destruction.
Joohyun knows this all too well- She sees flashes of scorched earth, of battlefields littered with fallen, air heavy with soot every day, every time she closes her eyes to meditate, to sleep. She still sees Yerim’s haunted gaze every night, still has the girl’s last letter tucked beneath her pillow.
How can Joohyun trust this child, who was just as young, if not younger than Yerim, to be able to handle the scorch of Fire? How can she expect him to walk away from their training without consequence, when he hadn’t learnt the rest of the elements to balance himself? This Avatar is flighty and distracted, Joohyun can tell. He is far too young to be shouldering the responsibility of the world, and lacks the emotional maturity and weight to withstand the heat of inner Flames.
Fire takes, it burns, destroys, curses the user with scars beyond Healing.
“Please! Admiral- No that’s not right- Joohyun- Miss- Sir! I know I’m probably far from what you expect as an Avatar, and I can’t bend the rest of the elements yet- I have a bit of a grasp on Waterbending, kinda- But! I need this! Please! The world needs this!”
Joohyun opens her eyes from her meditation to see the young Avatar’s dismayed expression.
“I’m already a hundred years late- A hundred years of suffering- Not just the other nations, the Fire Nation has been too! I need to master the elements using whatever method I can so please- Master Joohyun- Sir, Madam, Miss, whatever you’re supposed to be called- Teach me! I’ll prove myself to you! Just please, give me a chance!”
.
New recruits nowadays are so young, Joohyun thinks as she drafts a letter to the commanding officer of Hanjin Port. They need to stay there for a few days for the storm to blow over, technically Joohyun is of high enough stature that she needn’t inform the man, but it was always better to give them time to prepare for the supplies they needed.
The new recruit is dressed in the same nondescript Fire Nation armour, she’s only slightly taller than Joohyun, and her voice is high strung with nervousness.
“Kim Yerim, reporting for duty! This is my first day um- Madam? Admiral? I mean- I am incredibly honoured to serve under you! I-“
The girl trails off, and Joohyun looks up long enough to see her colouring in shame, Joohyun sighs,
soothing new recruits really wasn’t in her job description.
Joohyun feels a small shred of pity for the girl in front of her, far too young, jittery and inexperienced to don armour and fight for her life. But when the older generations of soldiers fall in battle, younger blood is used to fuel the war. Such was the grievances of these times, Joohyun
muses,
even the Fire Nation can’t be counted on to win every battle, but if the outcome of the war brought prosperity, then who was she to complain?
“What, Cadet Yerim? What else do you have for me?”
The girl looks at Joohyun, face open and earnest.
“I wish to master the element of Fire, I’ve never had a proper teacher, in the military they teach us to fuel it with hatred and pain but… I don’t have that capacity to hate, Admiral, which is why I was deemed weak and given to you as an assistant. I hope while my mind is useful to you, that I will be able to learn from you as well.”
Joohyun is interested now. Within the military, seldom would anyone place emphasis on the
ancient ways. All the newer recruits are interested to learn how to slaughter, to advance, to gain more power quickly, very few are willing to learn the Art itself.
“Oh? And who are you to be confident that you are worthy?”
“When you started out, Admiral, the old Commanders thought your mastery of Fire was a waste of time, those same people are either now under you, or six feet under, while you sit here in front of me.”
Yerim swallows as if to gather her wits, but Joohyun is impressed. The Art is what made Joohyun the Fire Lily, the fact that this girl knew alone spoke volumes of her potential.
“I will prove myself to you, Admiral! If you just give me a chance!”
.
A chance.
Joohyun had taken that chance, and driven both her and Yerim to the brink.
Would Yerim have given
the Avatar a chance,
had she survived and perhaps were The Deserter instead? Joohyun doesn’t know, she can’t answer that question with certainty, because Yerim had always been more compassionate than her, a better perspective taker.
A chance.
“Very well.”
The Avatar must not have been expecting a yes, because he double takes and gapes at Joohyun, “What?”
Joohyun almost, just almost, smiles at this.
“I will train you, but we will start from the very basics. You must not do what I do not allow you to do. We start at sundown.”
“Yes!! Anything! Thank you,
Master Joohyun!”
The Avatar scurries out of her tent, Joohyun can hear his shriek of joy and his friends’ enthusiastic replies.
Joohyun is once again left alone to her candles and her memories.
.
“Very well.”
“What?”
Yerim gapes at Joohyun from her kneel, and Joohyun lets her lips quirk up in amusement.
“I said, very well, I will give you a chance. I will personally train you, one session every week, in the Art of Fire.”
Joohyun rises from her seat, carefully folding her letter and slipping it into her sleeve. She continues “Starting from basics, you must only do what I tell you to, do not overstep, it is not wise. I hope you won't disappoint me. I will see you tomorrow at sundown.”
Joohyun leaves the stunned girl on her floor as she sweeps out from her office to the messenger eagle barracks.
She lets out a small chuckle, one that she would kill to keep her soldiers from hearing. At least the new recruits seemed lively, perhaps the new generation of the Fire Nation wasn’t as hopeless as she thought after all.
Would you slap a puppy?
Jimin is touchy and cuddly, he knows it, he’s aware of it, and he embraces it.
Jongin has brought it up a number of times now, Jimin is probably the only one in the Fire Nation who would dare hug and enjoy hugging Taemin.
He can’t help it you see, Jimin likes small things, like himself. And he likes cute things, like himself. So wouldn’t it make perfect sense for Jimin to gush over small and cute things? Taemin is well, he'd kill Jimin if he told him but Taemin is quite small himself, muscled and lithe and all but his height? Small. And Taemin could be quite cute when he wanted to, Jimin thinks, too bad he never wants to.
That all doesn't matter though, he's not going to stop trying to smother Taemin. He’s spreading love, not hate,
honestly they should appreciate what he was doing
more! Jimin loves smiling and making people smile, that’s why he joined the circus in the first place, to find a special place where he could stand out and entertain. Until Taemin literally set his safety net on fire. That wasn't very nice of him.
Taemin is his friend though, so Jimin doesn’t mind all that much. Sure, Jongin can be a bit broody, and Taemin has a horrible temper, but they were friends! Friends should support and love each other!
Look at the Avatar and his friends! Prime example of great friendship, they even bond through the night arguing through thick and thin without threatening to electrocute or burn each other! That’s so nice! Jimin loves bunnies and squirrels and puppies and babies, and the Avatar and his friends were such fluffy sweet squishy children, he just can’t bear to lay a hand on them! For the love of the Spirits, who would bear to
slap a cute fuzzy puppy? (Taemin. Taemin would probably slap the puppy in a heartbeat if he so pleases.)
The chase had been fun (it had been moderately uncomfortable on the back of a giant lizard but he's flexible, he could make do) and the cornering of prey was exhilarating, but when faced with six exhausted children (who were by the way all taller than him, he’s quite perplexed) he just can’t seem to get his fighting groove on.
“Oh but Taeminnie-hyung,” Jimin starts sweetly, his eyes squeezing into lines with his smile, “They’re so cute, they’re just children, I don’t want to do anything that might make them not grow! You know chi-blocking impedes growth for a period of time, if I block them too often they’re losing prime growing time! See-”
Jimin bounces on his lizard, “I could’ve been so much taller, but my Master was too harsh on me!” He’s pouting now, remembering how
hard
his sparring training had been. All those headshots must have taken its toll.
The golden one with round doe eyes straightens at this, “Oh hell no, I need to grow taller, I’m still ten centimetres off my dream height, don’t you dare touch me!”
Oooh feisty! Jimin likes that, it reminds him of his
own siblings, he places a hand on his cheek “See, Taemin? He has the same issue we do! It’s hard to turn against those that still need to grow, we’re comrades!”
“Yeah, Taemin,” Jongin speaks up, apprehension in his tone “They’re kids, they’re Jisung’s age. I’d feel terrible if I knifed one of them in a vital if they move the wrong way.”
Oh, Jimin knew Jongin had a heart! He could just hug Jongin right now, he's ecstatic that he and one of his best friends see eye to eye. Now all that's left is Taemin...
The other half of his friendship trio
is gritting his teeth, “Both of you are doing a horrible job of being my attendants; do you want
a taste of my lightning to remind you of your place, or are you actually going to follow orders?”
The children, bless them Jimin thinks, all drop into their stances, “We can take ’em, six on three!”
Six incredibly sleep deprived teenagers versus three well-rested, military trained fighters, Jimin doesn’t need Taemin’s brain to figure out the odds weren’t in their favour.
Oh well, Taemin doesn’t need to know that he pulled a punch here or there, and he can probably avoid headshots with this bunch. That poor kid with white hair doesn’t seem to be seeing straight anymore and the one who fought him with fans on equal ground (Jimin was very impressed, Taemin not so much) is swaying with fatigue, knees about to buckle any second, a flick of a finger would send him crumpling at this rate.
Jimin sighs, dismayed that he’s deprived of a good challenge and that these kids are deprived of both sleep and maximum growth opportunity. He reaches down to unbuckle himself from the saddle of the lizard. He has to appease Taemin somehow; if it weren’t these kids it would be his ass getting flamed. Jimin likes his ass very much, thank you.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Boomerang Boy seem to have some semblance of rationality left in him, he grabs Frosty Unicorn Hair and Tiny Waterbender and starts hauling them onto the back of Giant Furball, yelling for them to get the hell out of here.
The rest of the kids are kicked out of their stupor and forced to move when Taemin fires short blasts of flames at them. Tan Doe Eyes (Jimin is only slightly jealous of how golden he is) raises a huge wall of Earth and throws a chunk of it at them. By the time their lizards regroup, the bison is flying away (yes he is very disappointed that he didn’t get to stroke it), white fur trailing in the wind.
Jimin would love to recommend a good animal groomer
for the bison when they catch up to them, nothing like a good trim and clean to make the buffalo truly star-quality performance worthy.
Jongin looks blandly at the horizon where the bison took off carrying the most dangerous group of teenagers on its back while Taemin audibly grinds his teeth behind him.
“Back into the tank! It'll catch up with us in a few. They can’t fly forever, we’ll catch up the moment they land!”
Jongin sighs as he dismounts, and Jimin mirrors him, they stretch a bit while Taemin drums his fingers against his leg, no doubt calculating the next path.
They can hear their ride rumbling towards them through the trees, Jimin busies himself in braiding the long locks of fur that the bison had shed. He holds the braided piece an arms-length away to inspect his handiwork; it would make a decent arm cuff- Oh! Or a friendship bracelet! Jongin might not be down for that though, and Taemin would place so little care in it that it would probably burn off with the first flaming fist he threw.
No matter, Jimin decides, it’s too much of a waste to let all this soft nice white bison hair just float around, might as well repurpose it a bit, he’s keen enough to wear allll of the bracelets he made even if the trend doesn't catch on.
While he hums and braids, Jimin idly wonders how a fur coat made with all this bison hair would look like.
Probably quite fabulous.
Blood is Thicker
Changmin is a man of goals. He is one who makes goals, and achieves them. This is what the Fire Nation is built upon- Powerful rulers, great achievers.
Changmin is not compassionate. And he is proud that he isn’t, it would have impeded a lot of his incredibly efficient decisions.
One such decision is making Taemin his Crown Prince.
Purely in the perspective of talent, Jisung exceeds Taemin, the boy is a fine fighter, Changmin knows, but he is too soft, too influenced by his mother and his cousin, that kid Taeyong.
Taemin? Taemin is ruthless. Useful.
Pitting Taemin against his younger brother since he was little was the wisest decision Changmin had ever made, it groomed Taemin for the throne, and made both brothers stronger. Well, it made Taemin stronger, at least. Changmin would love to have two obedient, powerful, ruthless, tacticians for sons, but one is enough. There is only one throne anyways.
Taemin wants to impress him, wants to make the Fire Nation great, wants to conquer the world, and Changmin can definitely make the boy work for him since their goals are aligned- if not, he'll just make Taemin's goals align with his instead.
Changmin had decided to place less attention on his younger son. Jisung had a better temperament, and would be a just ruler in more peaceful times, but peaceful times this wasn’t, and Changmin had no use for a weakling as an heir.
So Changmin had not been too surprised when Taemin
came back from the Earth Kingdom having successfully completed both missions of bringing down the Earth Kingdom and killing the Avatar with the news of Jisung having defected.
Jisung is far from the pride of the Fire Nation, while
his betrayal
brings shame to the Royal Family, Jisung holds little to no tactical value to him- if the opposition dares use Jisung against the
Fire Nation, he would let them torture and kill him. One good son is enough, after all.
It does surprise Changmin, however, when Jisung walks into his impromptu throne room on the Day of Black Sun, swords drawn and demanding for him to sit down and listen.
Changmin knows not to push Jisung- He knows he himself is the strongest Firebender in the world, the only one possibly greater than him is his brother Yunho. The man is now a recluse, holed up in the recesses of the palace, he wouldn’t even take down a mere guard if he were threatened, probably would thank the damn guard for reuniting him with his lover Jaejoong, what a weakling- but when it came to non-bending combat, Jisung holds the upper hand, over Yunho, over Taemin, and unfortunately, over Changmin himself.
So he does. He sits down and listens.
“For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me, to accept me. I thought it was my honour I wanted- but really? I was just trying to please you.”
Hmph, Jisung has done nothing but disappoint Changmin with how soft and
lenient he was, if this was Jisung’s idea of impressing him,
the boy had a long way to go.
Jisung continues voice getting thicker and higher with emotion “You threatened to banish me if I failed to retrieve the Avatar, then you sent Taemin after me, to kill Taeyong-hyung and I- I’m your son! Your own flesh and blood! How can you justify sending your own flesh and blood to kill another of your own?”
Changmin barks out a laugh, it’s been years of ignoring this child, and yet he’s still too dull to grasp it, ”You were a failure.” Changmin says, scathing.
“I’ve set you two up from birth, I wanted you two to compete, and get better than one another! I wanted two successful sons! Instead, I get one that’s promising, and another one who’s a failure, a traitor to his own Nation, just because you were too weak to fight back!”
Jisung is glaring at him, Changmin feels almost proud that his son is showing personality for the first time, but he does not appreciate defiance or disobedience, especially towards himself.
“It’s cruel! And wrong!”
“You have learned nothing!” Changmin snarls.
His banishment, his encounter with his brother should have motivated him to get better, to be more decisive. If Jisung had killed Taemin instead when he had first sent Taemin after Jisung, or if Jisung had assisted Taemin in killing- actually killing the Avatar, Changmin would
welcome him on the dais next to him with a seat and open arms,
for not only Taemin, but
Jisung as well, but the younger son has learnt nothing, has not awakened from his mushy world of what ifs and kindness and peace.
Kindness does not bring you a Nation. Kindness does not win you a war.
“No!” Jisung’s voice cracks with emotion, but his chin is up and his gaze unwavering, “I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilisation in history and the War is to spread out influence to the rest of the world.”
Of course it was, Changmin thinks, those who can survive the war, the best of each Nation would greatly benefit from their enlightenment,
scum that are weak do not deserve to live in this world.
His world.
“That’s the biggest lie we’ve ever dreamed up! The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation! They hate us! And we deserve it!”
“The
era of the Fire Nation was started by your Great-Grandfather, Fire Lord Junsu, he was destined for greatness, as we are.”
As I am.
“No father, Fire Lord Junsu wasn’t destined for greatness, he was a small man who was insanely jealous of the amount of power that his best friend wielded, and he feared her, he feared what would happen to him if Boa discovered how rotten he truly was, so he took the first opportunity he could to get rid of her!
“Look at our nation, look at this world you want to rule, father! It’s scarred, it’s divided, our nation was once destined for so much greatness, but this isn’t it! We lost our culture, we killed the creatures who taught us Firebending for what? Glory? Honour?
“We’ve sucked ourselves dry and we’re continuing to do that, our culture went from living with and respecting the dragons, and worshiping the sun to this destructive military culture… Tell me, father, what are you planning for the world after you conquer it? How will we earn the respect of all the people?”
Insolent child, Changmin thinks, how dare he come before him and act all self righteous? He’ll do away with him the moment his advantage of non-bending combat is gone.
After all, dead dogs are
worth far more than disobedient dogs.
“We will rule with fear, Jisung, we will conquer with terror and power. After I leave the
earth to burn when the Comet comes,
I will rebuild a world reborn in ashes-”
Changmin can feel that exact moment when a sliver of the sun comes out from under the moon's shadow, because power surges through his veins and heat floods his flesh.
“-and you will not be a part of it.”
He snaps his eyes open, and channels the opposing currents of energy across his limbs, with a practiced
ease he shoots billions of volts of electricity at his failure of a son.
The moment lightning hits Jisung, the Prince is forced back a few steps, eyes wide and body convulsing under the voltage, but the Prince’s
gaze narrow and sharpen, and before Changmin’s eyes, his electricity travels around Jisung’s body in a fashion too orderly to be random.
It takes Jisung stretching out two fingers for Changmin to realise Taeyong had long prepared the brat for this confrontation.
He leaps from his seat just as Jisung’s redirected lightning strikes the throne.
Changmin roars in anger, but by the time the dust clears and guards come in, he knows the boy is long gone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When Chenle told them that he wanted to accept General Shin’s offer to master the Avatar State, Mark was lukewarm about it, Jaemin had agreed cautiously while Renjun and Jeno were against it.
Mark knows how Renjun feels about the Avatar State controlling Chenle, and even he finds it mildly unsettling whenever the younger’s tattoos glow and he speaks with all the past Avatars, let alone Renjun who was practically Chenle’s caretaker since he cracked him out of his ice cocoon.
(Wouldn’t this essentially make Chenle Renjun’s weird ice baby chick then? Mark refuses to let his thoughts dwell on that subject matter for any longer. He still needs to be able to look them in the eye.)
With Jeno’s added worry of the Avatar State putting a huge strain on Chenle’s body, Mark is even less sure of this plan of the General’s to cart Chenle off to the Fire Nation and zap everyone with his Avatar-ness.
Jaemin as usual, is perceptive enough to pick up on Chenle's view-point, “You’re thinking you don’t have the time to master all the elements, right Lele?”
Chenle nods reluctantly, “I need to defeat the Fire Lord by the summer before Junsu’s Comet arrives, that’s what Boa-noona told me. I’ve spent an entire winter and I still think I have a long ways to go on Waterbending! And I haven’t even touched on Earthbending yet! Firebending… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use it, hyung… I feel like the Avatar State is our only chance to win.”
Jeno sighs, “We do support you Lele, we know you’ve put in a lot of thought into this. What Injunnie and all of us are worried about is that you... lose yourself in the Avatar State. You become some sort of a fighting machine, and that really scares us, because you in the Avatar State is not- well- not you.”
“It’s painful for people who love you to see you like that, Lele.” Renjun adds quietly.
Chenle curls in on himself miserably, and Jaemin walks over to give him a hug, “Chenle, I’ll go with you to the General, we’ll be with you throughout all this, just, I’ll support you with everything I have as long as you promise to try not let the State control you, okay?”
Chenle’s voice
is small, but Mark counts it as something when he mumbles, “Okay.”
It was funny at first. It really was.
"Ten-fold energy, huh?" Mark mumbles to himself as he eyes the green teapot
with thinly veiled suspicion.
General Shin Donghee is a big man with big dreams. When Chenle tells him he’s willing to try out his plan, the man lights up and immediately ushers them into a room to begin Phase One to Light Chenle’s Tattoos.
Which is, unwittingly, tea.
After Chenle drinks the ‘rare chi-enhancing’
blend, he spends a solid fifteen
zipping around the room at warp speed on an Air Scooter armed with a screech from hell, voice and laughter higher than it’s ever been and sentences formed so quickly that all they can hear is a mashed mess of words.
“OIOIOIOIOIIIIIII IS IT WORKING? IS IT WORKING? I CAN’T TELL! SOMEBODY TELL ME IF I’M IN THE AVATAR STATE ‘CAUSE I DON’T HAVE A GOOD VIEW OF MYSELF! AHAHAHAHAHAHA HYUUUUUUUNG! MY FACE FEELS LIKE IT’S MELTING OFF! I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS! YOOOOOOOOO! AM I TALKING TOO LOUD?”
“Well,” Jeno starts mildly while nursing his (normal) tea, “He can always try talking the Fire Lord to death.”
Chenle only stops his ten-fold energy fuelled scooter run when he slams into a pillar with a pained
oof.
General Shin then tries to enact Phase Two of his Human Avatar Torch Plan by asking the members of the team to scare Chenle.
Now, Chenle is a relatively squeamish kid, and would
squeal
at just about anything from throwing a fake snake into his lap to just jabbing a finger into his sides.
Nevertheless, Jaemin makes a valiant attempt to scare the boy by stuffing Winwin into his robe and having the lemur leap out and shock him whenever Chenle laughs.
They do get quite a few deafening screams, and Chenle gets so startled he starts hiccupping, so they call that one off because they care about Chenle’s cardiovascular health and the functionality of their ears.
Phase Three of General Shin’s grand plan involves the use of a showy, overenthusiastic old oracle.
All of them are crowded into a dark room in the basement. Chenle is bundled into the ceremonial garb of all the nations and the old shaman lady stomps her feet and warbles out an amalgamation of all the nations' anthems. Mark barely resists rolling his eyes because who is this kook?
The old
scam then wiggles about as she empties ‘elements’ into a bowl with a flourish, and throws the torched mud into Chenle’s face with a dramatic, “Four elements, together as one!”
Chenle stills in shock at the onslaught of sludge in his face before his little nose wrinkles with annoyance, “This is just warm mud!”
On the sidelines, Jaemin laughs and laughs and even Jeno and Renjun manage a small giggle.
“But do you… feel anything?” The oracle peers at Chenle, hands clasped in eagerness for an answer.
Chenle doesn’t answer for a second, and Mark leans in. Maybe, just maybe, this woman wasn’t that crazy after all. He
raises a finger, and all of them take a deep breath in anticipation, General Shin gets out of his seat to take a closer look.
Chenle sneezes, shooting up and out of the garb and coating all of them in the ‘four elements’.
General Shin
mops tepid mud off his face and shakes his head.
Well. Next.
All this failed experimentation takes a toll on Chenle, Mark can tell because the younger’s shoulders are lower than usual, and rather than stuffing his face at dinner as he usually does, Chenle is poking at his dish until everyone finishes.
Jeno takes him aside to smooth water over his limbs and relieve his sore muscles, rebalancing his chi from all of the exciting activities of the day. Renjun gets up from his seat, cornering the younger laid on Jeno’s lap.
“Lele- Can we talk?”
Chenle’s spirits seem even lower after Renjun adamantly told him last night that he didn’t like the Avatar State, and he didn’t appreciate how General Shin and Chenle were taking shortcuts. Renjun had chosen to stay behind in the quarters, refusing to watch Chenle strain and put himself through everything to get into the Avatar State and Jeno had opted to keep Renjun company.
Mark can empathise with Renjun. He cares for Chenle, they all do, but Chenle’s guilt of running away and coming back a hundred years late is pushing him to take all the risks to stop the war, and it’s straining him, both mentally and physically. There’s only so much Jeno can do after every practice session to patch Chenle up.
So when the next morning sees Chenle approaching him to tell him that he doesn’t think they should trigger the Avatar State, Mark agrees easily to support him in whatever decision he made.
Chenle shuffles sheepishly into General Shin’s library, with Jaemin and Mark flanking him for emotional support.
Renjun is the closest thing Chenle currently has to a parental figure, and if Renjun decided that it’s too painful to watch Chenle make the decision then Mark will back Chenle up- because Chenle, despite being a century old Avatar, is still painfully young, and he needs someone to stand by him.
Judging by Jaemin’s gaze when they meet eyes over Chenle’s golden head they had automatically reached a consensus: If General Shin dares to push Chenle over the edge, the two of them will be here to protect him.
“Oh dear… Are you absolutely sure I can't change your mind, Avatar?”
General Shin’s brows are so tightly furrowed there’s a dimple nestled in the middle of his forehead from the force of his frown.
Chenle, to his credit, stands as tall as he can, “I'm sure. I think I can only reach the Avatar State when I'm in genuine danger… I don’t think we should be trying to trigger it.”
“Well,” The General’s response
is
half-hearted
as he fingers at the stubble on his chin, “You see, I was afraid you'd say that.”
Without warning, General Shin Earthbends his entire desk at Chenle.
The impact sends Chenle flying across the room, he crashes through the wall with a pained yelp and practically soars out of the building in a perfect arc.
“Chenle! Agh!”
Mark and Jaemin immediately spring to his aid, only for them to be grappled down by the soldiers standing by.
Chenle manages to break his fall with his Airbending, landing safely on the ground, but not without wincing and clutching his shoulder.
General Shin barely spares Mark and Jaemin a glance, he walks over to the hole Chenle created in his wall and points at the young blond.
“Men! Attack the Avatar!”
Immediately, as if the soldiers on the base were long waiting for this prompt, several Earthbenders move in to surround Chenle. More reinforcements emerge on the back of ostrich horses, spears and swords drawn.
General Shin jumps out of the building and hits the ground feet first, the tiled ground ripples from his Bending, and the rock wave moves at an alarming speed towards Chenle, successfully pushing the boy further into the containment circle made by the Earthbenders.
“What are you doing?!” Mark can only watch on as Chenle jumps up and down, back and forth to avoid attacks from the Earthbenders, demanding answers in fear and confusion, “Why are you attacking me?!”
“No…” Jaemin’s eyes are already alight with the answer, “No,
you can’t force him!”
Jaemin tugs violently against his restraints, while Mark is still, petrified to the spot in shock, “NO! You can’t do this! Stop! General- Stop this- NOW!”
If the General gives no indication that heard Jaemin’s howl, he rubs his hands together in glee as he smirks, “I believe we're about to get results.”
Mark wants to
punch the smug expression off his face.
Chenle is doing a good job of dodging the Earth disks that they’re sending after him, but a particularly close shard of rock has Mark fighting for air into his lungs.
He’s still unharmed, but Mark has a really bad feeling about this.
“I’m not your enemy!” Chenle screams at the Earth soldiers, “I won't fight you!”
The Earthbenders respond by sending more earth discs his way. Chenle jumps into the air just as four discs crash into
the spot he was in a split second ago with a loud bang. As he begins to lose altitude, another Earth disc slices through the air towards him, Chenle barely swipes it away with a gust of wind.
The earth disk sails towards them and for one terrifying second, Mark thought his last memory would be of Chenle’s
frightened
face, until one of the guards holding Jaemin down
moves to smash the earth into pieces with a punch.
Jaemin uses this moment to step on his other guard’s bare foot and throw the yowling bender at the one that just saved their lives, the force of two heavy-set men colliding was enough to send them both over the edge down the side of the building.
Mark yells, “GO!” before Jaemin can make to help him, and thankfully, he understands.
In a split second their strategist changes direction and darts down the corridor to run down the steps to get down the proper way (read: not tumbling out the window). Mark silently curses the General for putting his office library so high up the building that jumping down without bending would mean certain death.
While Mark’s guards are wondering whether they should go after Jaemin or stay guarding him, Mark uses their hesitance to his advantage.
One well-placed tap on the fan at his hip frees it from its sheath, the sharp metal fan opening under its weight at it falls. He's not even sorry when the open fan slices at the bare feet of one of the guards, when the man releases his grip on Mark, he uses his now free arm to unsheathe his second fan, swiping it open across the forehead of the other guard. The fan cuts open the skin with ease, and the second guard lets go of him in favour of cradling his forehead.
The floor is slippery with blood, so he lowers his centre of gravity, and two well-placed kicks to the chest sends them against the bookcase on the wall, hard. Mark lifts his leg to slam once more into their head for good measure so they
stay out cold (they deserve it, he thinks in
cold rage) before running off in the direction Jaemin went.
Jaemin is nothing if not a
fast runner, he’s already reached the plaza and whacked an unfortunate soldier off his ostrich horse and clambering onto the back of the restless animal by the time Mark is out of the building and at the long steps leading down to the training grounds.
Chenle is flipping into the air again, narrowly missing two huge Earth coins sent parallel at him as he flattens himself in mid-air to slip between the strikes, he whips up an Air Scooter to escape two more coins, zigzagging past several soldiers who attempt to slow him by conjuring rock walls in his path.
Chenle starts scaling up the wall of the base with his Air Scooter, trying to get to a height where the Earth soldiers can’t touch him, but two soldiers stamp on the ground, and use their Earthbending to propel them and the ostrich horses carrying them upwards.
Chenle’s Air Scooter gets thinner and thinner as he runs out of air to bend, he uses his lighter weight to his advantage though, and continues scaling the wall with his momentum. The ostrich horses manage to keep their claws in the crevices of the wall as the Earthbenders give chase to Chenle, using their Earthbending to embed the ostrich horses’ feet into rock to secure its footing.
On a good day, Mark would have been clapping and cheering for the wall-climbing bird-horse hybrids, but the two soldiers in hot pursuit close in on Chenle, and Mark’s heart skips a beat when they swing at him with their spears midair and misses Chenle by a hair’s breadth.
Chenle somersaults forward to avoid their spears yet again. Even from this distance, Mark can see Chenle’s face grimace in pain as he twists his body, no doubt jostling the arm that went through the library wall in the first place. Chenle is agile and fast, but there’s only so much he can do with a busted shoulder.
Chenle lands on the ground, on the centre of the square where the engraving of an Earth coin is embedded into the ground. The General uses the coin, raising the disk with a hollowed out centre to trap the young Avatar and uses the coin
like a hoop to
loop Chenle forward in front of him. The General cackles gleefully.
“You can't run forever!”
“You can't fight forever!”
Chenle’s jaw is tense with defiance, he leaps into the air again to avoid the General’s attack as the older man lunges towards him and crushes the Earth coin.
Dust obscures Mark’s vision, but he can make out Jaemin and his squawking hijacked ostrich horse.
Their tactician seems to have finally gotten a grasp on his demon horse and managed to stop it from trying to throw him off his back, instead his ride is flapping and kicking and biting at other ostrich horses, making major disturbances to the fleet of soldiers at the edge of the square.
Jaemin is slowly making his way in, chipping at the force from the edge.
Renjun and Jeno must have heard the loud crashes
of the battle because Mark bumps into them at the stairs, brows creased with confusion and worry. Jeno shouts over the din, “What’s going on? Why is Chenle running?”
“The General has gone crazy! He’s attacking Chenle so he’ll slip into the Avatar State!”
“What?!”
“Jaemin is in there! We need to stop more soldiers from joining! If Chenle manages to buy enough time, Jaemin can grab Chenle and book it out of there!” Mark yells at Renjun and Jeno, hoping they managed to hear enough.
He certainly hopes this goes smoothly enough, it doesn't matter
whether Jaemin can physically ward off all these soldiers, as long as they have the speed to evacuate the vicinity where
the Earth soldiers have the upper hand over Chenle, they'll be out of the sticky situation, and hopefully have enough advantage to give the Earth fleet a good thrashing.
Renjun cracks his knuckles and draws water from his waterskins and Jeno unsheathes his spear from his back dark eyes flaring, “The General wants to play?” Renjun says, seething, “He’ll get it.”
They leap into action together, and Mark is at home once again, beloved fans slotted familiarly in his hands. He’s aware of Renjun sweeping away row after row of Earthbenders on his far right and Jeno covering his back, twirling his trusty crescent bladed Guan Dao.
"Hyung, duck!" Jeno calls and Mark obediently sweeps a leg out into a crouch, simultaneously tripping two unfortunate soldiers over. Jeno grins briefly as he swings the crescent blade almost effortlessly, and Mark admires his mastery over the heavy weapon.
Jeno is wicked good at the spear, but he also wields a crescent blade spear with alarming dexterity. Mark is somewhat glad that Jeno grabbed the right weapon for this huge confrontation, because the crescent blade, while huge and rather unwieldy compared to a lighter spear, was incredibly good against larger amounts of opponents with its quick whirls and heavy slashes, even though Mark has no doubt Jeno would definitely still be able to hold his own with a less advantageous weapon.
He whistles under his breath when the strong slash takes out at least six soldiers in a circle, and Jeno spins the blade around and lunges forward a bit more to extend his range, Earth soldiers scramble back to avoid the bite of the sharp blade. Only a Master would be able to keep the momentum of the blade and accuracy of the spear in balance. Jeno is the opposite of Renjun- he doesn't particularly love the fight, the combat, the challenge- but he's damn good at it, and Mark thinks he would've been such a waste sitting out of the battlefield like he did in the Siege of the North.
Mark throws one of his fans out with a flick of his wrist and successfully wards off two soldiers at Renjun's blind spot, and the Waterbender tosses a
thanks! over his shoulder and uses the stumble to grip at their feet with a whip and throw them away from the fight. He hears the familiar whistle of Jaemin’s thrown boomerang and the resulting screams as his throw hits the mark.
Compared to Mark's fan's and Jeno's spears and blades, Jaemin's boomerang isn't the sharpest weapon, but Jaemin has a good throwing arm and a better aim, and Mark knows from first hand experience that a boomerang to the forehead, even when they were playing around, hurts and bruises terribly, Mark doesn't want to be on the receiving end of Jaemin's Boomerang Throw of Rage. Ever.
It's incredible to him, even though he knows they're all capable and skilled in their own way, but Mark always marvels when they manage to work together as such a cohesive
team when
they're in danger, not just when they're trying to tease the hell out of him (he's only mildly perplexed to be honest) It's these moments when it hits him, the rush of battle, the impending
victory, the collaboration and genuine trust between them and their coordination despite words unspoken.
The Kangta Warriors were intense, trained to move as one, not individuals meshing their skills together, but rather a single unit, a part of a whole. Mark never assumed a leader role, and was kept in the sidelines because of his age and because of their fondness towards him. Here, he's able to lead his team to certain victory, able to inspire each other into protecting each other, keep their bond close and kick some serious ass.
Mark thinks sometimes he's the luckiest of them all, to be able to leave his small island on such a journey with such great friends.
The world rests of their shoulders, and yet their relationship doesn't sour despite the huge responsibility, they've only grown closer since Jeno joined the group.
And they'll grow closer still.
He'll do anything to protect them. He feels this in his bones.
“Chenle!” He hears Jaemin scream, “Come to hyung! I’ll get you out of here!”
Mark tears his eyes away from the fight long enough to see Jaemin and his ostrich horse reaching the centre of the square, where Chenle
is still sidestepping and dodging attacks.
The General’s eyes narrow, and with a gesture, a well-placed rock erupts from underneath Jaemin’s ride and Jaemin is catapulted into the air, he sails a good few feet to land smack a few paces in front of the General.
Mark barely has time to watch Jaemin's eyes widen in horror before the General laughs.
“Maybe you can avoid me, Avatar, but he can’t.”
General Shin tenses his hand, and the ground beneath Jaemin responds, he twists and as if the ground turned into liquid sand, sinks knee deep into the Earth.
“Hyung!”
“Jaemin!” Renjun sends a whip out to the General, who raises a pillar of dust from the ground to deflect his attack and trap the water into mud.
Jeno pushes a guard off his ostrich horse, and makes to ride to the centre of the square, spear swiping carelessly at the wave of soldiers trying to stop him, “Jaemin! Hang on!”
Jaemin strains to pull himself up, but to no avail, horror dawning in his eyes as he meets Mark’s equally dismayed gaze.
Dread churns in Mark’s stomach, coming up in choked breaths.
A swat from an Earthbender brings him back to the fight, and he deftly deflects several projectiles from him, a
well-placed kick to his
chin has the Earthbender out cold on the ground.
Mark defends Renjun’s back while the Waterbender tries to make a geyser out of the mud that would propel him to Jaemin’s rescue, but a slab of rock bowls Renjun over with a yelp and Mark is suddenly fending off scores of soldiers for the both of them as Renjun collects his breath on the floor.
“Hyung!”
Chenle calls for Jaemin again, trepidation steeped in his voice. He leaps to the ground and sends a huge gust of wind at General Shin, who simply summons a wall of Earth to block the attack.
The General is smirking as he brings the wall down, “If you were in the Avatar State, you would be able to save him.”
He sinks Jaemin down into the ground further, this time burying his waist deep.
Chenle sprints to land on his knees in front of the General, breath coming in short gasps in his panic.
“Please, General, I’m sorry! Please don’t do this! Don’t hurt Jaemin-hyung!”
Several soldiers leap into the air and manage to land on Jeno and his ostrich horse, weighing him down and holding him to the floor, Jeno struggles and bites to strain free, but five soldiers were too much for even Jeno to fend off.
“Chenle!” Jaemin calls, even in his state he shows more worry towards Chenle than towards himself, “Please, breathe! Breathe for hyung, hyung will be fine!”
Mark knows Jaemin’s situation is anything but fine, but he’s right in the sense that a
hysterical Chenle would be no help to anyone at all.
General Shin ignores all of their cries and pleas, he scoffs, “I don’t see any glowing.”
Another tensing of his fingers has Jaemin whirling down to his chest level.
Chenle is hyperventilating; he crawls forward on his knees and grabs at the General’s hand.
“Please- I’m trying, okay? I’m trying! Jaemin-hyung is really important to me, please-“
Jaemin sinks neck deep, and tears start rolling down Chenle’s cheeks.
Mark absolutely hates seeing this, seeing Jaemin so out of reach, seeing Chenle so distressed.
In the beginning, Chenle was the Avatar to him, an idol, someone he had to serve, and Jaemin was someone who he admired, not for his skill in duelling (Mark had disarmed him pretty easily) but his willingness to learn and his brilliant mind.
Slowly they had all grown on him, (like fungi, he jokes sometimes) like family. It absolutely kills him to see people he considers younger brothers to be in danger, and they definitely have a death wish if they’re making their smiley youngest cry.
Mark kicks an Earthbender in the side and sends another flying backwards into Jeno’s heap of captors with a twist of his torso and a powerful punch. Renjun helps by flinging several disoriented soldiers away from Jeno, his control over the water in the mud trumps theirs', and he manages to turn their mud against them and knock them away. Jeno wriggles free from their hold while the men are dazed.
He nimbly picks his way towards Jaemin, vaulting over the rocks that the remaining men erect.
Jaemin’s eyes are still on Chenle and only on him, he keeps shouting to Chenle to breathe and stay calm, “Don’t let him control you, you promised me! No matter what!”
Chenle has gone from grasping the General’s hands to clutching the General’s armoured robes as he looks back and forth between the imposing General and Jaemin, eyes wide and demeanor impossibly small and young.
“You don’t have to do this!”
General Shin laughs, apathetic to his pleas, “Apparently I do.”
“Jaemin!” Jeno
bounds over a mini rock cliff in his way and stretches out his hands to grab at Jaemin, whichever part of him, before he disappears into the earth, but the General grips his fist tight, and the Earth responds.
“Chenle! Hyung believes in y-“
Splosh
Ice drips into Mark’s veins
when liquid Earth swallows Jaemin before he can finish, and Jeno is left grasping at the rough but seamless surface of the pavement, “No…”
"NO!"
Chenle’s tattoos light up violently in an instant, when he turns to look at the General his usually happy expression is twisted in anguish and anger.
“YES!” The General had the audacity to bellow and laugh triumphantly, “IT WORKED!”
A powerful Air Blast wipes the smug smile off the General’s face, as he soon realises that Chenle was angry at him.
The wrath of thousands of years was directed at him.
His expression morphs into fear in a split second as Chenle performs a chopping motion with his hand, and that slice of air blasts General Shin backwards, the stocky man lands roughly on the ground.
The residual wind from that chop lands on the stone staircase behind the General, ripping tiles from their places and drawing cracks into the rock.
Renjun is crumpled on the floor next to Mark, tears running down his face uncontrollably. Jeno remains stunned and still on the pavement where Jaemin last vanished. Mark crouches over Renjun to shield him as he tries to call Chenle’s name, but his voice is lost in the chaos.
They can only watch, dismal, as Chenle rises into the air on a vortex of sand and dust and earth under the control of the Avatar State.
Chenle’s vortex grows and grows until he’s standing on a huge dust devil, expression thunderous.
It finally seems to dawn on General Shin that he’d messed up.
“Avatar Chenle!” The General calls above the din, “Can you hear me? Your friend is safe!”
A pull of his fist brings Jaemin back up from the ground, whole and complete and gasping for air.
Jeno freezes for a millisecond before he scrambles over to hold Jaemin in his arms tightly, in case the General tries anything else. Jaemin shakes his head twice to clear it, then clutches back just as desperately.
Mark's heart seems to restart itself- funny, he didn't realise it had stopped for so long- but seeing Jaemin alive made him realise how horrible it felt to live with a Jaemin-sized hole in his chest. But now- Chenle-
The pitter-patter of his heart is still irregular as he gazes at the rampaging Airbender.
The General hasn't stopped trying to placate him, “It was just a trick to trigger the Avatar State-“ A maniacal grin stretches across his face “-and it worked!”
Chenle shows absolutely no sign of hearing anything, he swivels about on the vortex and lands on the ground forcefully with a boom, a flurry of dust spreads across the training field and Mark can feel the structure shake in tandem with the Earth. General Shin is forced back several feet and soldiers are blasted away completely, Mark braces himself for impact but
it never comes and he remains rooted in his place.
The torrent of dust rumbles outwards towards the lesser soldiers, and when it finally clears to reveal the ground, Mark does a double take to see the ground broken and fissured and in ruins.
He watches the torrent continue to make its way outwards from the arena, like an ever expanding circle, towards the houses in the base.
The dust devastates the area, leaving houses damaged and trees torn.
Mark once again marvels at just how much power Chenle has within him - It took the General a huge rock wave to knock Chenle and several soldiers off their feet, while a single dust cloud from the Avatar had completely eradicated the structural integrity of one of the largest army bases in the Earth Kingdom.
Mark looks around to check on everyone else and is stunned to find the pieces of land where he and Renjun were and the separate circle Jeno and Jaemin are holding each other on are completely unscathed save for a few tremors.
He looks up to Chenle, hovering in the sky, eyes and tattoos glowing ominously, surrounded by a dome of air.
Chenle
had unconsciously protected them even when he had no control over his actions in the State.
The Chenle they know and love - Their Chenle was still in there, behind the mask of the all-powerful Avatar.
Jaemin seems to realise this too, because he finally wiggles out of Jeno’s loosened grip, and stands, wobbly, with Jeno’s support.
His face is creased in misery and empathy as he calls out to their youngest.
“Chenle-yah, Hyung is okay, Hyung is right here-"
Something breaks in Mark at Renjun, Jeno and Jaemin's crestfallen and broken expressions, each of varying sadness and understanding.
None of them blame Chenle for this, none of them, but they all know Chenle will blame himself, for destroying the base and endangering hundreds of people, and especially for breaking his promise, for losing control.
"Chenle, please come back to us... Don’t tear yourself apart like this.”
There's a subtle, almost undetectable
shift in expression on Chenle's face, and his brows begin to relax. The gales seem to weaken bit by bit.
Mark can see Chenle's individual fingers moving, as if he's trying to regain control over his limbs.
When the wind lessens into a soft breeze, Chenle’s air sphere lowers him to the ground.
The glow from his tattoos fade and he falls to his hands and knees, weak, to the ground, eyes alert and finally conscious.
He looks around and surveys the wreckage he had wrought on the base. His eyes fall on the ruins of the arena and surrounding structures, and Mark can see his bottom lip trembling.
Renjun surges forward to sweep him into a hug, Mark, Jaemin and Jeno make their way over to their youngest slowly, careful not to startle the young Avatar.
From the looks of it, Chenle is drained and emotional and sensitive and the last thing Mark wants him to think is that they were angry at him. They’re not, if there was someone to blame it had to be the General, not Chenle. Never Chenle.
“I'm sorry,” Chenle mumbles, eyes flitting to each and every one of them, voice filled with sincere regret. Mark’s heart twinges at how
dejected he sounds, “I hope you never have to see me like that ever again.”
Renjun cups his face to thumb away the dust on his cheeks, sweeping the front of his curly hair off his forehead, and Jaemin walks over to encircle them both in his arms.
Chenle clutches so hard at Jaemin's arm that his knuckles turn white, but Jaemin doesn't seem to mind a bit, he holds back just as desperately. Jeno's eyes flit over to Mark as he reaches for his hand for comfort, eying him up and down for injuries, to which Mark gestures a later. Chenle’s busted a shoulder, Renjun’s gotten a huge boulder thrown at him and Jaemin- Mark’s scrapes and bruises can wait in comparison.
The General walks up from behind them, they break apart to glare at him collectively, to which he remains unfazed, tone triumphant as he bellows, “Ha! Are you joking? That was amazing! Almost perfect! We're one step closer to
eradicating the evil plaguing the world! We just have to find out a way to control you when you're like that!”
“You’re insane!” Renjun rages, murderous gaze in stark contrast to how gently he holds Chenle.
Their youngest has his face buried into Renjun's shoulder, but Mark doesn't need to see his expression to know that his features are screwed up in an effort to not cry.
The General shrugs, “I guess we'll figure it out on the way to the Fire Nation- Guards! Prepare the ships! We’re-“
Mark's blood boils
and
he doesn't bother to think before
stepping up and bringing his arm down heavily
to club the General in the back of the head with the butt of his closed fan. The General crumples mid-sentence and passes out from the impact. Mark feels that angry knot in his chest ease, just a little.
He raises an eyebrow at the surrounding soldiers, all still down and frozen at Chenle’s display of power, “Problem with that?”
The soldiers shake their heads so fast Mark vaguely feels it in his ligaments.
“Good.”
Satisfied with their response, Mark walks back over to his friends
and throws an arm over Jeno's shoulder, the younger
relaxes at his touch.
“Sir, do you still need an escort to Omashu?” One of the soldiers asks timidly.
If Mark was to be honest the last thing he wanted was to hang around any of these people.
Right now, he just wants to hug Chenle and Jaemin and Jeno and Renjun, maybe recount this experience to King Heechul so the crazy old man could have a laugh and they could all be reassured that they’ll bounce back from this quick. An escort? Mark doesn’t want that, and he trusts that Kun remembers the way to Omashu.
Jeno seems to share his vexation, because he has an uncharacteristic look of annoyance as he replies, “I think we’re all set.”
Chenle burrows his way out of Renjun’s embrace and makes his way over to Mark. Before he
can apologise, Mark just sweeps him into another tight hug, hands finding their way into Chenle’s golden curls to smooth the tangles out.
“Don’t apologise, Chenle, it wasn’t your fault.”
Renjun helps to put Chenle, limp from exhaustion, on Mark's back and the eldest carries the youngest to Kun. Chenle immediately curls up next to one of Kun's paws, and their Bison lets out a rumble of concern, nuzzling his Airbender with a damp nose.
They have a minor squabble over who should move what before they all collectively decide that Renjun should rest, so he joins Chenle on their warm furry temporary sofa, occasionally brushing stray golden locks from his forehead as the rest of them load their supplies onto Kun.
Mark feels almost criminal for picking up Chenle and removing him from Kun's side when they leave, so he keeps Chenle bundled up in his arms when they fly, Renjun and Jeno don't let go of Jaemin either and they stay on Kun’s back in an awkwardly intertwined pretzel of eternal friendship.
The wet patch that Mark earns on his shoulder from hugging Chenle dries and fades as he takes the reins for the night. He feels Chenle's small hand reach for the back of his robes and looks backwards to see the rest of them fast asleep in a big puppy pile.
Mark finally smiles.
They’re all safe and alive after this ordeal, and Mark knows they will emerge stronger after this, once they sort out all their wounds and emotions.
Off to Omashu they go.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When Jisung sees Taemin again, Taemin’s hair is unconventionally choppy and sloppily done. His coronation robes are in a complete mess and the Court is empty. Only two Fire Sages are left on the podium, the bare minimum for a Coronation.
Jisung has never seen Taemin in such disarray before; it almost throws him off his mission. Only almost, because someone has to put Taemin in his place, Jisung knows this in his bones. If Taeyong and his uncle Yunho are going to take back Ba Sing Se, Jeno, Jaemin, Mark and Donghyuck were to destroy the airship fleet and Chenle was to confront his father, then Jisung’s duty was here, to take the throne from his line and return it to the rightful owner, and restore honour to the Fire Nation.
The air is thick and dense with heat, and he can feel the influence of the Comet on the flow of his energy with every beat of his heart in his chest.
Jisung can't seem to stop his hands from trembling, palms sticky with sweat and tingling with nervous energy. This is a confrontation he's long waited for, and has long been dreading, anticipation and nerves curling in his stomach as he and Renjun take Kun to the heart of the Fire Nation to challenge the First Prince.
Taking down Taemin is critical to supporting Chenle and stopping his father, he knew that even before Taeyong pointed it out, but despite having come a long way in his Bending and being quite confident in his skills, he knows Taemin definitely is capable of tricks up his sleeve, and a small part of him isn't ready to face the fact that maybe his brother would willingly use underhanded tactics against him to win.
He takes deep stuttering breaths in an attempt to calm himself, he has Renjun watching his back, he trusts
the Waterbending Master
will be able to overwhelm Taemin if need be.
“I’m sorry it has to end this way, baby brother.” Taemin jeers as he drops his cloak to the floor, steps swaying and smile crooked.
Readying his stance, Jisung drops his centre of gravity lower, like Donghyuck instructed. Jisung has changed, no longer shrouded by the subjective teachings of the Fire Nation, both mentally and in technique.
Breathing comes easier when he recalls meditation with Chenle, his stances are more solid and punches are more powerful when he draws on Donghyuck's knowledge, and with Renjun's little crash courses of Waterbending, Jisung knows for a fact that he's more aware of the blind spots of his own technique. Dream is with him, if not in body, then in spirit, a little family that he chose for himself. A true family who gave him the strength to stand up to years of neglect and wronged childhood.
“I am too, hyung,” he whispers in answer to Taemin, and he means it from the bottom of his heart.
Taemin’s smirk grows wider as he assumes a stance so unbalanced that the whirling kick he spins into comes as a surprise.
Fire erupts from the soles of his brother's armoured feet, and hot, hot flames shoot towards Jisung.
Jisung brings his hands up and jumps forward to meet it, bringing his arms down in front of him. He bends a flame in each hand and they merge to form a blazing wall. Jisung sends
his
wall towards Taemin.
The two columns of Fire, orange with orange, collide and roar high.
As the wall of flames begins to die, Taemin leaps up on a jet of fire and kicks his legs forward, into another three spinning kicks, speed almost blinding and he sends a wave of fire from each foot towards Jisung.
Jisung takes it all, engulfing his brother’s Fire with his, the heat of the Comet hangs low in the air and zings in his veins as he bends wave after wave of Fire.
A year ago, Jisung would have been so afraid to stand against his brother, he would have shrank away, acknowledging his inferiority to his sibling, not bothering to rise up and meet the challenge.
Since he was younger, Jisung had always been taught to never fight his brother, largely owing to his mother's discouragement. Family should be at peace with each other, and should bear with each other no matter the flaws. Jisung can see now, that this view had driven a wedge between her and his father, and despite her efforts, hadn't saved the chasm between him and Taemin.
Taemin had always taken their father’s goading on a bit too far, tried to challenge Jisung in everything, from racing to the dining hall, to Firebending, to their academics to their father’s approval. Jisung isn’t competitive by nature, but the latter-most was what he strived for his entire life, because his mother seemed to bend over to every single wish of his father, hostage to his whims, so naturally Jisung's values were skewed to vy for his father's approval too.
But the truth was, it doesn’t matter anymore, not when pleasing and obeying his father would subject him to tyranny and bring the world to ruin.
Jisung doesn’t hate Taemin. He knows now that he could have definitely been a better brother to him, but he doesn’t hate him for making his childhood miserable. He knows that it’s mostly his father’s fault, that Fire Lord Changmin, ruthless and heartless and led to this rift, because he was raising his children to be killing machines. Taemin was raised to fight, and fight he did.
In a time of peace, in another life, if his father truly treasured his mother and his family, then perhaps Taemin and Jisung could’ve been the closest siblings, but not in this lifetime, where war ran rampant and forced their family into ruin.
The two of them each give a large punch of Fire, and their respective streams of orange blend into one another. The bright sear of the flames illuminates his brother's features on the opposing side of the court.
Jisung had once thought Taemin would be happy to fight their Agni Kai, but that thought
is quickly overrun when he sees his brother’s face now, because rather than sadistic elation, all he can see is strain and stress, and a desperation that Jisung has never witnessed before.
Jisung pivots his feet to avoid getting thrusted back by the might of Taemin’s flames. He pushes further, building to the heat of his Fire. His flames blast past Taemin’s as his column expands, parts of his Flame whistles past Taemin's defense and projects behind him, sending the Fire Sages running for their safety instead of standing vigil on Taemin’s side. Jisung’s flames roll to the edges of the plaza, and swallows the Coronation pavilion. Jisung pauses his attack, and Taemin turns, confused, to find the Pavilion of Address behind him smothered in Fire.
It’s strange to Jisung,
that the place where the Fire Lord or the High Generals hold their speeches and address their people or the military, is put into a blazing inferno by his own hands. It’s symbolic, almost, of an old era to end.
And a new one to come.
Taemin grits his teeth in determination, he nimbly propels himself up into the air and swings a leg down heavily, and a huge stream of Fire pummels down at Jisung.
Jisung responds by making his own vortex, and thrusting his palms outwards to slice at Taemin’s Flame, rendering it into halves like how Renjun parted the waves once. It neutralises Taemin’s attack, leaving only small cinders dying out and Taemin panting heavily.
Anger flushes over Taemin’s features, and Jisung grasps the moment to attack,
he opens a fist to maintain his balance and punches two large Fireballs towards Taemin, the two meld to create one massive blast.
For the first time in his life, Jisung sees fear flash in Taemin’s eyes
when Taemin dodges his attacks, a small jet of flames propelling him away in a nick of time.
Jisung takes in Taemin’s caving form and stance, a stark difference to the Taemin he's known growing up. All his life he’s known Taemin to be impeccable in his Bending, flames and jets extremely precise and his attacks deadly shots of power even when he bends with two fingers alone. But now, Taemin has completely abandoned that unique form that had given him the advantage for the most of his life, instead using fists and palms for most of his attacks. Yes, they were still extremely powerful, and his Fire is hot as ever, but his attacks are scattered, awkward and unbalanced, too much offense and no defense.
Jisung's heart weighs heavier and heavier in his chest when he realises what advancement he's had in improving his Bending, his brother had taken a hit; Where Jisung had drawn from different elements to develop the current style he's now comfortable in, Taemin had discarded his.
Taemin does lack in empathy and compassion, but lacking in Bending he wasn't, and the thought that he wasn't good enough to make his friends fear him to stay by his side was probably so devastating that he'd do anything, including scrapping the years upon years of training because he believed his old style wasn't good enough, wasn't perfect enough, wasn't what his father wanted and made him lacking when it came to ruling the inner court.
Jisung knows he’s partially the reason, that the events of Boiling Rock shook his brother's world to its core, but he doesn't regret it, can't regret it, especially since it was what it took to save their elders, to reunite with their mentors, and for them to atone for failing the Invasion.
Jisung watches, bewildered as Jongin kicks the unconscious guard further into the cell and under the bed, the taller dusts his hands off, and when his eyes meets Jisung's he has a warm smile on his face, one that Jisung hasn't been the receiving end of for years and Spirits, does he miss it.
"I'm letting you go," and Jisung's mouth and brain does that thing where they try to use different words simultaneously that ends up in a garbled "Hurnghwha?" in his shock.
"I organised this interrogation because I wanted to know your motives, I wanted to know if you were being manipulated, and if you were, I was going to keep you here or have you stowed away back to my family home- I didn't want to leave you in the clutches of people who were going to use you, your brother included."
Jisung's heart melts a little, Jongin
has always been a bit of a softie, while Taemin is well, Taemin and Jimin, sweet and naive, can be unintentionally cruel when he turns competitive, Jongin is an honest fighter, and was never someone to take cheap shots when someone was already down and that translates into a warm and honest personality, one that has been tied down by Taemin for far too long.
"But I see your conviction, that you really do believe you can do it, that you can save the Fire Nation from ruin."
He stops in front of Jisung, and his broad shoulders drop, "Jisung-ah, I'm tired, I'm tired of fighting, I really am, and despite your brother's attempts to rationalise, do you really think Jimin and I are blind?"
Jisung immediately understands Jongin. Where the elder has been with his party of three, Jisung has as well. He's seen the desolation of the Earth Kingdom, he's seen the siphoning of resources from all the Fire villages and cities, all but the Capital had taken a hit. Benders and non Benders are taken against their will to fight - to defend, to live, to conquer, to consume.
Jisung had tried to talk to his father in their last conversation, had tried to make him see that he's burning his nation dry. Too many people had given over to greed, cruelty and bloodlust as a defense mechanism against the morality of what they've done, too many people have become disengaged, detached, numbed, not because they didn't care, but because they suffered too much pain, too much trauma to bear. Some withdraw and some succumb to the grip of war, and few really truly survive to live.
"If not for the Earth Kingdom, then please do this for the Fire Nation. Release us, we've been at war for too long I-" Jongin breaks off to bite at his lip, voice vulnerable, "My baby nephew and niece are already learning how to fight,
they've barely learnt to walk, and they can barely form the syllables to say 'samcheon', but they've already learning to bend and wield knives."
Jisung knows all too well what that means, and he doesn't wish that on anyone either- Two siblings forced to fight and compete with each other, forced to serve a country that extorted from its citizens, that took and took and took and exploited all that the world had to give. Jisung had passed through so many tattered Fire villages, had seen rivers beyond polluted and areas that were old, undeveloped and dangerous to live in, seen Fire soldiers about that looked younger and younger and seen what war had done to its military, forcing a mask of indifference or cruelty or forcing them into ruin or hiding. This is why the Fire Lily left the battlefield, why the Swordsmaster escaped the military. Dozens other have tried, but none have actually survived without the skill to fend off thousands. It's heartbreaking that in the end he and Taemin took different stances to the war, and that Taemin is following his father's path of destruction, and he might be too far gone for saving.
"So please succeed Jisung, and save my niece and nephew from this, I don't want them to see what I've seen, I don't want them to have to do what I've done to feed into this war, and I don't want their fate to tear them apart like it did you and Taemin."
Emotion clogs his throat, but Jisung manages to croak, "I promise, hyung," and hopes that his eyes can convey what his lips can't, that he'll try his damn best to defeat his brother and his father, he's got one more drive now, one more reason to fight, one more reason to succeed and survive.
Jongin walks around him to slice through his ropes, the heavy strands thud to the floor with a humid plop, and Jisung springs from the chair to circle his arms around Jongin in a tight hug that Jongin returns, and when they break apart Jisung puts his hands forward in the bow of the Fist and the Flame.
The highest honour. The most sacred promise.
"Go, Jisungie."
Jisung crouches and swings his arms outward, his own flames swirling around him to block Taemin’s. Taemin rockets towards him, swerving to the right when Jisung punches a blast at him.
Taemin starts circling Jisung, going faster and faster on his signature rocket jets, trails of Fire left behind by his feet as he zips around.
Taemin opens blast at Jisung while he’s still moving, and Jisung quickly defends himself with a shield of Fire. Taemin is circling him faster and faster. He’s getting harder to hit and keep up with, so Jisung stops trying to follow, pausing from firing blasts at his brother, instead, he crouches down. Remembering the whirlwind feet move that Chenle showed him once in Airbending, he spins and kicks the biggest sheet of flames he can manage from his feet, in a counter direction to Taemin’s travelling route.
The sheet of flames hits Taemin head-on, and it knocks him off his jets. Taemin is thrown painfully onto the ground, grunting as he rolls in the dirt. When he looks up, his hair is loose and his expression is infinitely frustrated and angry.
"Go, Jisungie."
Jimin's hands are relaxed at his sides, eyes droopy from resignation. Jisung is caught between ogling at his brother's oldest friend and at a bewildered Jongin at the loading bay.
Taemin is crumpled at
his feet, paralysed and chi-blocked
by Jimin in a last ditch effort to save Jongin from the wrath of
Taemin's Lightning.
His older brother had seen Jongin distracting the guards from cutting the line and had, in his fury at the betrayal, tried to bring Lightning onto the knife wielder. It's an execution for traitors, a death order that
Jimin's managed to
hold off temporarily, but judging from the fiery hatred and disbelief in Taemin's eyes, it won't be for long before Jimin himself will also be at the receiving end of the First Prince's anger.
"My place, our place is here, Jongin and I, in the Fire Nation next to Taemin, and now that I’ve betrayed him, the best I can do is let him do what he pleases with me. This is enough. The fact that I kept Jongin alive, the fact that I kept you alive, is enough."
For the second time that day, Jisung is saved by his brother's best friends and his first idols, people who inspired him to take up non-bending combat. And for the second time that day, he's shown that resigned, but free and tired smile. While Jongin's smile crinkles his eyes at the corners, Jimin's eyes are squeezed into lines, not unlike Chenle, but less innocent, and more burdened, "I’ll face whatever judgement is waiting for me, and I'll take it with a smile."
"Now go." Jimin shooes him off the top of the gondola towards where Jaemin is yelling at him to move, and before Jisung can shriek, Mark and Jaemin are there to catch him when he falls.
Jimin's silhouette looks ethereal against the soft grey clouds. Even the sky is mourning for him, for his and Jongin's future. Jisung's choking on his tears before he realises it, because he knows what will await them, a fate worse than death in exchange for the freedom of Jisung and the rest of them. Two sacrifices in exchange for the release
of the world.
"We gotta move!" Mark tugs at his arm and Jaemin drags Jisung to his feet to start running, Jisung's legs are on autopilot, and when he's asked if he's okay, he manages to nod. There's a storm of emotions swirling within Jisung, but he knows what he has to do, and he knows he has to get everyone here out alive.
Too many people gave up themselves so he could be here to fight alongside Dream: Taeyong, the Warriors of the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom rebels and the entirety of the Invasion Force, and now Jongin and Jimin too. He won't let them down, and he can't let the world down, and most importantly, he won't let down the trust that Dream placed in him.
When Jongin and Jimin had decided to spare them in Boiling Rock, the betrayal from the two attendants had cut into Taemin so deep and stewed until Taemin became what he is today. He’d seen bits of it when Taemin attacked him in the Western Air Temple, but to think Taemin had thought himself into a corner so quickly and that his condition had worsened so much, all Jisung can offer is pity for his older brother.
A wave of emotions overtakes Jisung, and he’s holding up his hands, palms out and speaking before he knows it.
“Hyung- Taemin-hyung, I know you're upset that Jongin-hyung helped me, I’m sorry, I truly am- You won’t kill me, and I don’t want to kill you either- What our father forced us both to do was wrong, so wrong, and Jongin-hyung realised it, that’s why he tried to save me instead…”
He pauses to watch Taemin cautiously, bit he picks back up where he left off, “I don’t want to hurt you hyung, I don’t want to redirect your lightning, but if you do strike me, I’ll be prepared, and I won't have a choice.”
Taemin laughs, a harsh cackle with edges of misery, lips twisted in a sick version of a smile, voice vulnerable for once, “You sound just like her.”
“Huh?”
Taemin seems to get a grip on himself, “Stop acting all righteous, you little brat! It’s enough that she’s haunting my dreams!” Taemin rasps, “You stay in your fucking lane if you know what’s good for you, I don’t need an echo when I’m awake!”
Jisung’s heart sinks when he takes in just how thin
the thread of his brother’s sanity had become. A fraying string in tension, ready to snap.
Taemin continues, “You were always her favourite, she’s always cared for you more - What about me? The monster, the child she never wanted because I remind her of the one person she fears the most.”
Taemin's eyes mist over,
eyes distant, “Oh Jisungie, if only you could harness Lightning too- then maybe she’ll finally hate you as well, if you took after Father just a bit more…”
He trails off, gaze darting about as if searching for something, expression falling from vaguely sorrowful to anger filled.
Taemin shrills at something that’s not there.
“You want Lightning? I’ll fucking show you Lightning!”
He turns his stare back at Jisung and Jisung prepares to take the hit.
Taemin moves his arms, fingertips outstretched, to generate the energy to produce his signature Lightning, but his stance is irregular and off, it's as if all the muscle memory from all the practice he put into maintaining a clean form had been erased without a trace.
Belligerent
blue light begins flickering at Taemin's fingertips, a
foil to the vermillion sky as
he begins charging his lightning.
The electricity crackles around him, disorderly, uninhibited.
Jisung keeps his eyes on Taemin’s and when he watches his older brother’s gaze flick to Renjun behind him, it takes Jisung a few seconds to decipher the meaning.
A few seconds too late.
Taemin smiles cruelly as he directs his fingertips past Jisung towards Renjun.
“No!”
Jisung can take it, Jisung can redirect lightning, but Renjun can’t.
He takes one look at Renjun’s horrified expression before he makes a decision- a stupid one, but one he doesn’t and will never regret.
He leaps.
Underneath his eyelids all he can see his Chenle’s face,
his voice, tender in his strangely attractive high timbre, Come
back here, you noodle-
His smile, the grip of his hands in Jisung's, the warmth of his breath on Jisung's collarbones when he leans in-
Come back here.
Come back to him.
The
gentle touch of his fingers on Jisung' face, the brush of lashes against Jisung's cheeks when he presses his lips to his-
Come back to him.
An airiness, a soft milky scent, the occasional Bison fur on his clothes from cuddling Kun that makes him sneeze, the cutest, most powerful sneeze in the world-
Come back to h-
I’m sorry, Chenle.
I love you.
"There is energy all around us, both positive energy and negative energy. Separating these energies creates an imbalance. The energy wants to restore balance and in a moment the positive and negative energy come crashing back together. The Bender provides release and guidance, creating Lightning."
Opposite poles. Jisung knows this, has experienced this before, when his father tried to kill him in the bunker. Opposite, the Bender as the negative and the receiving end as the positive.
Jisung was once on the positive end, he had emerged from the bunker with nothing more than a singed robe and a stronger resolve. Taeyong had coached him on this, careful to explain every single theory behind Lightning redirection, and Jisung has done it before, successfully, once.
But this is different.
"The Lightning will follow the energy flow in your body. Remember this, Jisung-ah, you must create a pathway from your fingertips up your arm to the shoulder, then down into the stomach, then direct it up again and out the other arm. The stomach detour is critical; you must not let the lightning pass through your heart, or the damage could be deadly."
Renjun is the positive, and Jisung doesn't have the luxury of preparation, all of that was thrown out of the window the moment he realised who his brother was aiming at. His energy flow breaks when he lunges. He reaches out a hand to attract the Lightning to him, knowing that without a proper stance, he’ll absorb the Lightning, unable to redirect it.
He doesn’t care.
He opens his eyes to see Taemin’s face turn from smug to shocked as the Lightning hits his chest.
Jisung is engulfed in the brightest light he’s ever seen, he feels like he’s been suspended in midair.
His body isn’t his to control anymore, convulsing heavily from Taemin’s bolt. It’s like time slows, as it always seems to whenever he watched Taemin bend Lightning in the past - Then there was Fire, Fire everywhere as his clothes burn into cinders.
That’s it, no deafening roar, no explosion, no nothing, but in those few seconds energy rushes to the ends of Jisung’s body, filling every hair, every nerve, every limb with energy and heat- too, too much heat.
Then it was over, as quickly as it came, and all the energy left him, along with his own.
Jisung drops to the ground, he should be screaming in pain, but all he can physically
manage is moan.
Jisung is aware of Renjun screaming his name, and he desperately wants to answer, but crippling pain takes over, he rolls over to see Taemin chasing Renjun down, and all he can do is watch through bleary eyes, disabled by his brother’s cold-blooded Fire.
He wants to help, he needs to, it’s his duty, his purpose.
He stretches out a hand, then another, in an effort to drag himself closer to his hyung, but it’s too much, pain flares and sears itself into the back of his mind, blanking his vision, Jisung isn’t sure he’ll be able to think or feel anything other than agony.
Then, he knows nothing.
It’s terrifying- if Renjun had been devastated at Chenle getting hit by a bolt, seeing Jisung convulse in mid-air in front of him was way worse.
Renjun’s only half aware of the scream that rips its way out of his chest.
“JISUNG!!!”
He forgets where he is for a second, and runs toward their youngest. No, no, no, please, no-
A huge blast of Lightning blocks his way and Renjun just manages to leap away just in time, the floor where he once was is scorched, seared and smoking.
“AHAHA- AHAHAA- AHAHAHAHAHA- AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-“
Taemin just laughs and laughs and laughs, maniacal as he directs blast after blast of
Lightning at Renjun and Renjun’s forced to flee.
On the ground, Jisung groans, and he flops over from his side to lie on his chest, arms twitching as if to crawl over to Renjun to help, but he’s too weak, and the youngest of them collapses on the ground, arms giving out.
“Oh dear baby brother, you don’t look so good!”
Renjun looks over to see tears dripping uncontrollably down
Taemin's face as he grins, eyes crazed and deranged.
“Look what friendship has done to you, Jwi!”
He blasts huge gouts of Flame at Renjun, and Renjun moves to defend. He pulls water from the coronation altar and uses that to surf through the courtyard, Taemin’s blasts follows, evaporating the ice into steam while Renjun escapes each blast by the skin of his teeth.
“Friends? What good will friends do you, Sung-ah? Look! Your friend over here-“ A blast and a boom as the Fire hits, “Just spelled your doom!” Renjun manages to coat his arm with water before he burns, rolling and evading as Taemin cackles and throws more fireballs around the Pavillion.
Renjun
dodges the attacks sent his way, he ducks behind a pillar that blocks most of a huge Fireball, arms shielding his head as the pillar shakes under the force.
A huge cauldron of water catches his eye- no doubt it was meant for the Coronation party - Renjun bends the water, and launches a huge jet onto the roof where Taemin sent the Fireball, to see that his attack met air. Taemin has moved, and had jumped to the ground, huge Fire Jets from his fist as he dashes across the courtyard towards Renjun.
Renjun immediately takes whatever water is left around him and ices the floor, sliding across to a quick escape, his Ice is almost vapourised immediately before he can use it in another attack.
Renjun runs on foot to the edge of the courtyard,
he crouches
behind a pillar to momentarily catch his breath and slides to his knees.
Renjun’s close to out of water- he can’t win like this, he’ll lose and Jisung will die and he’ll have failed everyone, not just Dream and Chenle, but the world, by leaving a tyrant on the throne. All because he didn’t expect Taemin to launch such an underhanded attack.
He should never have said yes when Jisung said he wanted to take Taemin on his own, that no one would get hurt - Jisung was right, Taemin is slipping, and Jisung’s current skill and mental state may have given him the upper hand initially, but what’s left of Taemin’s mind is still alert and sharp as ever, ready to take advantage and poised to strike.
Renjun squeezes his eyes shut to Taemin’s hysterical laughter and Jisung’s quiet groans. His fingers close around the grating of the courtyard irrigation.
Wait. Irrigation?
He opens his eyes to see water beneath the grating, still and stagnant, but water, all the same, and an abundance of it.
Think think think think think, Renjun whips his gaze around, Think of what Yuta-hyung taught you, think of what Sunmi Haelmoni once said, think of what Jaemin would do - Use my surroundings - What can I use in this place?
He zeroes in on a bunch of chains hanging off the awning of a pillar- He honestly has no idea what they’re doing there, but a plan forms in his mind. He scrambles to stand.
Taemin is still rampaging in the courtyard, blasting huge plumes of flame everywhere, expression half broken and half crazed as he taunts his younger brother.
“Aww Jisungie, don’t worry- Once I’m done with the Waterbending rat I’ll come back to you-“ His voice turns almost imperceptibly softer, tender in his own crooked way, “I can’t let you go, you’re my baby brother- I’ll make sure you stay alive until I die! I won't let you leave me too!”
Renjun is still trying to yank the chains off the wall, pulling a bit of moisture from the air to use ice claws to slice the tied part of the chain clean through when it wouldn’t budge. He prays that Jisung would lie there calm and docile enough that Taemin wouldn’t finish him off - He can’t ever trust what Taemin says, especially now that he’s out of his mind.
“There you are, filthy peasant!”
Taemin stalks forward him, steps clumsy and uncoordinated, but threatening and terrifying all the same. Renjun doesn’t waver when he meets the Crown Prince’s wild gaze.
“This is all your fault! I’ll skin you alive, burn you to a crisp, I’ll bring Lightning down on your corpse until none of your precious friends recognise you- Jisung is mine to kill at my own time- How dare you make me raise a hand against him!”
Renjun can see now, why Jisung’s eyes got heavier and heavier at each blast he threw at his brother. Taemin is slipping, and by the looks of it it’s not something even Jeno can reverse.
He used to be so terrified of Taemin, because he knew there were layers to the Prince, unpeeled, of schemes and plans and steps ahead, eyes ever cool and calculating and face ever set in a smug simper.
This Taemin? Who’s traded his deadly precision and accuracy with sheer raw power? Who’s breathing heavily, body swaying and eyes crazed? Renjun knows that even though this Taemin is still a force to be reckoned with, he’s no match to the Taemin he met in the Catacombs.
That Taemin would laugh in the face of himself now, and be able to take him down with an unflappable smirk.
He’s gotten close to beating that Taemin in the Catacombs before, only failed to because Jisung then had taken the wrong side.
Jisung's on their side now, and he's dealt damage to Taemin, even when it costs him too, in the process.
He can do it again. Renjun has only gotten stronger since.
He can do this. He can win.
He sends as many water whips as he can at the same time, spiralling and striking at different parts of Taemin’s body- he almost gets a grip on him, but the Prince rolls over skilfully- no Firebending to break the attack, Taemin is relying entirely on Lightning now-
Taemin stands over the grate, feet on metal, uncaring if he’ll get electrocuted as well if he strikes Renjun, all Taemin cares about is just to take Renjun down. He’s right where Renjun wants him to be.
Renjun can feel the telltale sign of Lightning, when the grate starts to vibrate under the static, the whine of the metal so loud it’s almost painful, his hairs are starting to stand on end - He steels himself, and takes a deep breath.
He won’t let it end this way.
Renjun moves.
He lifts all the water below the grate, and with a rush, it engulfs both him and Taemin.
The static in the air
breaks
when Taemin chokes in surprise, channeled energy forgotten in his drowning panic as liquid rushes into his breath. Renjun freezes them both in a wave of Ice.
He has to take a moment to realise that his plan is working, and Taemin is very much in his grasp, completely immobilised by his Ice.
Taemin is in Renjun’s element now.
Renjun breathes out, warming the Ice and bending it into Water, he moves himself through the ice, bringing the chains he had been holding with him.
He takes Taemin’s outstretched wrist and brings it down and behind, Lightning no longer a threat, he brings Taemin’s other wrist to his back and forces the Prince on his knees with a rush of pressure from the Water above the Prince.
Taemin is visibly gritting his teeth and glaring, but Renjun’s got him, has his Water wrapped around him completely and controlling his every move. One careless move and he’ll squash them both, Renjun knows, or freeze their lungs and that’ll be the end for both of them. So he doesn’t let Taemin’s menacing glare get to him as he gets to work, nimble fingers working the chains around Taemin’s wrist to loop around his ankles too, and finally, tying the chain to the grate firmly.
When he finally thinks his lungs are about to give out, he bends the water back into the grate with one move.
Renjun welcomes oxygen back into his system, gasping for breath for a moment before Taemin’s coughing pulls his attention. Renjun tightens the chains and freezes the chain to the grating for good measure, Taemin tugs weakly at them, clearly worn out from the underwater expedition. Renjun knows even if Taemin potentially still has the strength to melt the ice, he can’t break metal or muster enough strength to reheat the metal - Renjun can just freeze him back, and this time, Renjun will leave him in the ice to die.
It’s Renjun’s victory.
He shakes it off, unable to feel the euphoria of winning over this long time enemy with Jisung there on the ground. He gets up from his knees and runs to where Jisung is laid out, face down and motionless.
Smoke is still pouring from him, and small flames simmer at Jisung’s elbows. His arms and legs are badly burnt, all his clothes practically reduced to embers. Jisung is completely out cold- no whimper or groan at all as Renjun flips him to rest on his back.
Renjun’s heart stops when he sees the wound in the middle of Jisung’s chest- it’s a web of burnt skin in a pattern that resembles fern leaves, just like Chenle’s scar, so intricate it’s almost laughable, but Renjun knows it’s the pattern of nerves and veins and tissue that’s been burnt through by electricity. The mottled wound is oozing blood slowly, and Renjun knows if they don’t get a Healer soon, Jisung’s body will start to die of necrosis, slowly spreading from the centre of his chest.
He remembers the helplessness he felt when Chenle was struck, he remembers how it felt and right now, Renjun is spiralling into despair once more.
The first few weeks on the run after the events of Ba Sing Se, Jisung had barely left Chenle’s bedside, only getting up to fulfill his basic human needs. Jisung had spent literally every waking hour holding Chenle’s hands in his, murmuring soft words and short stories occasionally, as if Chenle could hear him.
Jisung had helped Jeno and Renjun with cleaning Chenle up whenever they were in the room, being painstakingly gentle with the comatose Avatar. He remembers Jisung helping the crew out whenever he can, from raising the sails, to cleaning the deck, to working in the kitchens, to using his Fire to trick passerby ships. His sincerity and genuine effort to fit in and help everyone out long won Mark and Jaemin over, and soon, Jeno and Donghyuck had followed on to the ‘Spoil the Maknae’ train.
Renjun remembers when he had almost given up all hope of Chenle ever waking up at around the four week mark, Jisung had quietly sidled up to him and told him, sincerely, reverently, “Hyung, even though all our encounters were battles and we hardly ever got a word in… Chenle is someone who loves living, and life loves him in return… He’ll wake up, because he’ll never want to leave any of you.”
Renjun had been angry, so angry at everything, himself, Taemin, Jisung, the Earth Kingdom, up till then, and hearing those words were like a dam had been released, and he had broken down right there and then, next to Chenle’s bedside with Jisung’s awkwardly long limbs wound around him in comfort. The youngest of their group had only grown on him from that point on, and it feels so horrible, when someone who he considers his charge, his friend, his brother, his family, is struck down under his watch.
Renjun takes water and tries pressing the cool liquid to parts of Jisung’s face, to his neck, in an attempt to get the younger to wake up.
Jisung remains impassive and motionless.
Heart speeding up, Renjun splashes the water gently onto Jisung’s forehead and cheeks, keeping the liquid away from his airways.
No response, not even a flutter of eyelids.
“Jisung-ah-“ Renjun’s voice is trembling uncontrollably, he bends the water to his temples like he’s seen Jeno do to all of them when they’re feeling off, “Jisung-ah, wake up,”
He smoothes the water over Jisung’s eyelids, washing away the soot and dirt from the ground, “Jisung-ah, it’s not funny, please wake up.”
Nothing.
He balls the water up, and moves it to the huge wound on Jisung’s chest- He can’t Heal, and he knows that- Spirits know how many times Renjun has tried and failed to Heal his own cuts and scrapes, and just how long the accidental burn Chenle left on his arm took to fully heal naturally, but he has to try- At least try, then maybe something will happen, he can’t lose Jisung now.
The water under his palms stay dark as blood from Jisung’s wound slowly start diffusing into the stagnant liquid, not even a hint of comforting blue glow.
Tears come burning into his eyes in an instant, his blood quickening as he desperately tries to rouse Jisung’s unresponsive form.
“Jisung- No- You little brat, wake the fuck up! I didn’t ask you to take the bloody bolt for me- What am I going to tell Chenle? You fucking wake up this instant or I’ll bend all the blood out of you and kill you myself!”
Renjun’s train of thought comes to a halt.
Bloodbending.
Renjun stops shaking Jisung. He looks into the distance to the fiery trails of the Comet- he wishes Jeno were here, he’d be able to close Jisung’s bleeding wound in a heartbeat. He can’t heal, he knows that he doesn’t have the gift, but he does have the wretched gift of Bloodbending.
He has no idea where Jeno or Chenle is right now, and he’s sure they’re short of Waterbending Healers here in the empty Fire Nation Capital. All he has is Jisung, and a deathly quiet Taemin watching, and all he can depend on now is his own skill.
It doesn’t matter, Renjun can feel Jisung’s blood
moving
slowly underneath his skin beneath his palms, he can feel the force of the flow weakening as he thinks.
He doesn’t have time to hesitate.
Renjun stops breathing, he lets the draw of Jisung’s blood take over, uses his control over the water in Jisung to direct his blood into his cooling limbs,
pulling the blood flow into every vessel, every vein.
It doesn’t matter if he can’t Heal, he’ll hold out, and he’ll substitute for Jisung’s heart for as long as he needs to, Jeno will come back, he has to believe that.
Jisung’s lips are pale, too pale, and Renjun can feel Jisung’s heart starting to depend on his Bending, the beating is sluggish, and erratic, despite Renjun assisting the flow.
He’s slipping, Renjun’s still losing him.
Renjun forces the lump of panicked tears back into his throat, he remembers what Sunmi told him while she had him under her palm.
“I control every muscle, every vein in your body- With one move I can stop your heart, and I can also restart it.”
Renjun swears that at that moment he had felt his heart hesitate under her influence.
Restart Jisung’s heart. With one move.
He doubts she was exaggerating, and it's not like he has other options on hand- Jisung is dying slowly under his palms, and he has to try and get his blood flowing, to restore a normal heartbeat in the very least.
He’ll do this, he has to.
Renjun slams a hand onto Jisung’s mangled chest, and uses all the force he dares to push.
More blood rises to the surface of the wound in response, but it clots as Renjun seems to pull the water out of the blood with his Bending. It scabs an ugly, angry rust red.
Jisung’s heart sputters and stutters alive, finally beating a more steady rhythm. The jolt of force from Renjun had done the trick to shake off the effects of the electricity and restart his heart. Jisung groans under his hands, and Renjun gasps out a sob.
“Hyung,” Jisung’s voice is a bare whisper, but it’s enough for Renjun to choke on his tears, “Hyung, everything hurts.”
“You little shit,” Renjun wants to sound angry, he’s livid, but his voice comes out in a whimper, his words rushed from relief.
“I’ll kill you if you die on me, then Chenle, so you can reunite, and then myself, because I don’t want to go to the Boiling Rock for murdering a Prince-”
Jisung manages a cough in place of a laugh, “Sure, hyung.”
Renjun knocks their foreheads together, afraid to jostle the huge wound on his chest.
He’s alive.
That's good enough.
Renjun brushes the stray hairs off Jisung’s forehead and plants a gentle kiss on his temple.
He touches the younger’s wrist to reaffirm his heartbeat,
and syncs Jisung’s heartbeat with his.
CLANG CLANG CLANGCLANGCLANG
There’s suddenly a clatter of chains, and Renjun shoots up, ready to fight Taemin again, but the older is still bound by his impromptu handcuffs.
Taemin roars huge jets of flames towards the sky, towards the ground, to every possible direction he can twist. He cries hysterically while he’s bound on his knees, all semblance of the scheming and calculating Prince he knew from the Catacombs is gone, all’s left is Taemin screaming and tugging against his chains on the floor.
If Taemin was unhinged before, he’s gone completely insane now, teeth gnashing against teeth and lips, until he draws blood. He bangs his head over and over again onto the metal grate, metal bruising and splitting thin skin.
Jisung closes his eyes as his brother falls to pieces, tears rolling down from the edge of his eyes, wetting his temples and soaking into his hairline.
Renjun finally allows himself to pity Taemin as he listens to the snivelling and whimpering of the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation; Utterly used and abused and empty of all other purpose but to please his neglectful and sociopathic father, Prince Taemin was a victim in the grand scheme too, he'd just fooled himself into thinking that he was ever a player.
Jisung’s crying too, but for an entirely different reason- there’s no such thing as a graceful fall of an empire, and Jisung and Taemin’s relationship was part of the price to pay- two siblings fighting for power of a nation and the fate of a century long war.
This last Agni Kai signified the end of a complicated relationship, minuscule compared to the genocide of Air Nomads, but Renjun knows it hurts nonetheless, to have to turn against someone that you should be able to love the most.
So he stays faithfully next to Jisung, palm a comforting weight against the younger’s forehead, as he listens to the morose soundtrack of the end of the Fire Nation’s reign.
When Jeno sees Renjun’s handiwork on Jisung’s chest he winces and begs Renjun to never try to Heal again without him here.
It takes all of Donghyuck’s strength to pull Chenle off Jisung, and all of Mark and Jeno and Jaemin to carry Jisung onto a proper bedchamber, their foreheads all creased in worry.
Another complication comes when they realise with the extent of his wounds, they need to submerge Jisung to Heal him properly, so it sends everyone running around the abandoned palace looking for a bathtub big enough.
Donghyuck ends up destroying half the palace in his haste, control off due to exhaustion and desperation, when he Earthbends the tub straight over to the chambers where Jisung lay.
When Jeno finally fixes their youngest, half of them had passed out in exhaustion, and considering they’re all worn out from battle and freshly Healed, it’s a decent effort that they lasted as long as they did.
Jisung is left with a huge scar on the middle of his chest, almost exactly around the same spot where Chenle’s lightning scar is.
Chenle hasn’t left Jisung’s side since they’d arrived on a hijacked Airship with the weakened Fire Lord in tow, even though he looks moments away from collapse.
“Don’t cry, hyung,” Jisung says to Renjun when he turns away from the ruined skin on the expanse of Jisung’s chest.
This was his fault. All his fault.
Chenle’s scar happened because he took his attention off Taemin, and now Jisung sports the same wound because Renjun let his guard down, again.
He balls his fist so tightly that his nails bite into the flesh of his palm- He doesn’t care if he bleeds, maybe he should bleed, it’s not nearly enough to make up for the pain the two of them went through.
He should’ve been hit by the Lightning. He’d rather be hit, both times, by the bolt instead, it would feel better than how sorry he feels now, guilt eating at his chest.
“Don’t cry, hyung, “ Jisung says again, he reaches for Renjun’s hand, long and knobby fingers weaving between Renjun’s smaller ones. His palm is warm and calloused from his sword training. Jisung coaxes his fingers apart and squeezes every pad of his fingertip.
“It’s okay, I don’t really mind the scarring. You Bloodbent me in time so I didn’t have any other complications, and that’s honestly good enough for me.”
It’s not. It’s not good enough for Renjun.
He’d promised Taeyong to return with Jisung safe and sound, what part of being struck by lightning was safe and sound?
“I am safe and sound, hyung.” Renjun hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud, “I’m alive, and my life isn’t threatened anymore.”
“Plus I match with Chenle now, so I’m not too mad about that.”
Chenle manages a tired laugh, and that little bit of sunshine warms Renjun’s chest.
“I’m sor-“
“Don’t be.” Jisung stares into Renjun’s eyes, gaze so young, but so old at the same time.
“Don’t be hyung, there’s nothing to forgive.”
Jisung’s still holding on to his hand, Chenle reaches over to take his other one, shorter fingers thawing him out all the same.
“Then… Thank you, Jisung. For saving me.”
“We’re even, hyung, you saved me too-”
“Just accept it, you brat,” Renjun says without heat.
Chenle’s grin stretches wider as Jisung gives him a small smile and another squeeze.
“Sure," Jisung musters a little strength to shake the hand he's holding, "You’re welcome, hyung.”
Renjun’s next breath comes infinitely easier.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His first thought of the Chief Donghae of the Northern Water Tribe was that he was nothing like his own dad.
This thought is reinforced when the leader of the Northern Water Tribe breaks down into happy tears mid welcoming speech to Chenle and starts sobbing about how the world isn’t hopeless anymore and they weren’t beyond saving.
His eldest son Dongyoung ends up taking over and finishing the speech for him. Judging by the reactions of those attending the dinner, Jaemin would hazard a guess that this was fairly normal.
Chief Donghae is still blubbering as he comes over to personally thank Jaemin, Renjun and Mark for keeping the Avatar safe and being good company, he then starts tearing up again when he’s reciting the importance of friendship and Jaemin wonders how anyone can produce so much tears within one single night.
“You are the same age as my younger son Jeno,” The Chief says while wiping at his eyes, “I’ll introduce you- Jeno-yah!”
Jaemin is about to protest because he really doesn’t think he can handle two weepy Water Tribe royals at the same time, but words die on his lips when the Chief’s son - Jeno - slides through the servants and people to come to his father’s side.
Jeno literally looks like a walking carbon copy of his father, Jaemin thinks, and he’s incredibly good looking.
Jeno’s cheeks and nose are dusted pink from the cold, and his left sleeve is stained by the wine that Chief Donghae had knocked over earlier when he was waxing poetic, but he manages to still look put together and devastatingly handsome as he walks closer to them.
His eyes meet Jaemin’s and curve into adorable crescents at the force of his smile.
“Hello,”
And oh, hello. Jaemin wants to roll in that voice, be wrapped in it like a blanket, if it were possible.
He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the unfairly good-looking face of the youngest Northern Water Tribe Prince.
The striking looks of Chief Donghae and Prince Dongyoung did not prepare Jaemin for this- this-
“I’m Jeno, you’re Jaemin right? I’ve been talking to Renjun earlier, and I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Oh Spirits, please send help.
Jaemin manages to find his voice, “Good things, I hope.”
Jeno’s smile widens, “Oh yes, his descriptions of you were incredibly endearing.”
Jaemin can feel his soul leaving his body and departing into the Spirit World.
Endearing. Jeno found him endearing.
Endearing has officially become his favourite word, Jaemin swears to treasure it forever. He makes a note to corner Renjun and give him a giant hug if he gets out of this conversation with his pride intact.
“G-Good.” Jaemin manages to stutter, he holds back a grimace; never in his life had he ever been so… un-smooth.
Renjun would probably beg to differ.
Spirits, Jeno is cuter than a polar bear dog pup, Jaemin didn’t even know how it was possible, but if anything, his flaming cheeks prove that yes, Prince Jeno of the Northern Water Tribe is beautiful and adorable, and such a human being can exist.
Jaemin hates that his heart wants him to stay while his brain is screaming ABORT ABORT before he embarrasses himself further, but he can’t bring himself to stop smiling at Jeno.
“HYUNG!!!!”
His saviour comes in the form of a fed and happy Airbender.
Chenle comes in with a gust of wind, hair tousled and nose pink from jumping about, presumably. He curls himself around Jaemin’s bicep, and rests his chin on Jaemin’s shoulder, nuzzling close to the elder’s warmth. The smile on Jaemin’s lips go from frozen into something softer and fonder, because Chenle is adorable, and it’s natural reflex for Jaemin to start smiling from his antics.
Forget Renjun, Chenle is his favourite person right now, as of this moment. As for Prince Jeno… Jaemin needs time to properly mull that over in his head before deciding.
“Oh Jaemin-hyung so you met Jeno-hyung! I was telling Renjun-hyung how Jeno-hyung is like totally cute and adorable and I know you like cute things and all and Jeno-hyung is like contest for Mark-hyung as the cutest person in the world-“
Jaemin chokes while Jeno manages to laugh, bright and open.
“-Like a baby polar bear dog!” Chenle continues, effectively killing Jaemin’s earlier opinion of him being a reliable dongsaeng and running Jaemin’s nonexistent love life over into the cold cold ice.
“- Anyway, Jeno-hyung, Doyoung-hyung told me to get you, he wants to discuss some sort of princely duty word that I can’t understand so I forgot what it was but he said I could tag along if I wanted to learn!“
“Of course,” Jeno just smiles at Chenle dotingly like Chenle’s the soft puppy instead and follows that with a soft, “See you later, Jaemin.”
Chenle does what he does best and latches onto Jeno’s side, wrapping his arms around broad shoulders. Jaemin can hear Jeno’s low laugh as they draw farther. He only snaps out of it when they reach Dongyoung, and the First Prince, with his eyes on Jaemin, clears his throat so loudly that Jaemin can hear it from where he’s standing. Jaemin can’t shake the feeling like Dongyoung is judging him extremely harshly across the banquet hall.
His theory is confirmed far too quickly when he meets Dongyoung’s scrutinizing gaze, and not even Chenle’s chatter from far across the room and the prospects of listening in and learning Northern politics can shake his embarrassment.
And if Renjun’s smirk is anything to go by, his long time friend is enjoying this far more than he needs to. Jaemin decides that Mark is the only good person to him in group and he tells them that much the next time they all take Kun out on a good long fly.
(Exercise, Chenle says, but they all know it’s because the Airbender misses the altitude he used to live in. Jaemin doesn’t mind, and he knows Renjun and Mark both would rather accompany Chenle than do anything else, and they’ve long learnt to love the feeling of the wind against their faces.)
Long flies in the sky is also the only safe place to divulge what he’s thinking, because with Chenle’s vocal chords and his ridiculous set of lungs, Jaemin would count himself lucky if Chanyeol and Baekhyun can’t hear him shrieking about Jaemin’s predicament from the Northern Air Temple several thousand leagues away.
“Hyung, do you like him?”
Chenle excitedly pushes off his perch on the edge of the saddle and noses into Jaemin’s face,
“Like- Like like him like that?”
“That was a lot of likes,”
Mark muses, and Jaemin makes a solid imitation of a beached and dying whale on the saddle as he buries his face into his hands.
He mumbles something
incomprehensible and a grin makes its way across
Renjun’s face.
“What was that?”
Jaemin snaps his face up to glare at the grinning lot,
“I said yes, in
Chenle’s
words, I do like, like like him.”
Chenle squeals while Mark holds a palm over his heart,
“He just said an extra like!!!”
“Jaemin, my man,” Mark claps a hand on his shoulder, "I’ll support you while you court him however I can.”
“With your rhyming I think he’s better off on his own, hyung.”
Jaemin’s been doing an awful lot of take-backs but he takes back what he thought about Mark – as of this moment he hates all of them with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
“Why am I telling you guys this,” Jaemin mumbles into the saddle, “Why is my life like this- A few months ago all I wanted was more seal jerky and now I’ve been through it all: Angry pandas, rude admirals, frog lollipops, the crazy inventors were the only highlight of my life, can we go back there? I miss Chanyeol-hyung, he doesn’t smile like he’s trying to melt my heart into my shoes.”
The red of his ears intensifies when his brain catches up to his mouth, that ending sentence was a bit of information he never intended to divulge or share. Jaemin just wants to survive and preferably not die from anything, definitely not from embarrassment, but it was probably too much to ask from the universe.
“Wow,” Renjun starts clapping, shit-eating grin on his face, “That was a beautiful soliloquy, absolutely wonderful, who knew you had a knack for speeches as well? And the little love confession you threw in at the end there? Flawless, amazing, would definitely watch again.”
“I want to see you get smashed by Yuta-hyung again too, but you only know it’s good when it’s gone.”
Jaemin gets an undeserving smack for that.
Renjun had challenged the Waterbending Master Yuta to a duel over the refusal of the Master to admit a non-Northern Water Tribe student that wasn’t the Avatar.
Of course, Renjun being Renjun had taken this personally and challenged the older, more experienced Waterbender in a duel, and was able to sustain a drawn-out battle with the Master, surprising everyone with his new forms and unique uses of water.
("The ice chips!" Chenle had chirped after the fight as if Renjun didn't just get news that overturned his small world, "-were so cool, hyung! Like you went sliceslice and Yuta-hyung went whooshwhoosh and then fwooooom-")
His half-hearted jabs aside, Jaemin meant it, it was a hell of a fight, (that he watched with Jeno next to him, he might add) and even if it ended in Yuta’s victory, it was thrilling to watch Renjun use all the knowledge he’d accumulated in their adventures and see his growth as a Waterbender.
Jaemin is immensely proud of Renjun, but right now, he doesn’t need to know that. Jaemin doesn’t want to blow Renjun’s ego up while his is bruised.
“Is he still refusing to teach you? After that whole fiasco?”
The fiasco that followed, is what Mark's referring to.
Somewhere amidst the chaos, the dancer’s ribbons that Renjun has as a keepsake from Sicheng was cut from his wrist and Yuta had picked it up after trapping Renjun in a prison of ice, recognising the pattern and the stitching on the inside, Yuta had choked on his tears and asked them where they got their hands on this.
For the first time since they’ve got here, where Yuta had only given them icy cold gazes, he looked lost, all the pride draining out of him
“I would recognise this anywhere- The stitching- I did it, I did the inside stitching for him, other than the betrothal necklace I carved him- The love of my life, Sicheng. I- I handstitched the 27 into it because that’s the day between our birthdays-“
Jaemin wonders how someone so strong could look so so broken in a matter of minutes.
“Sicheng is like a brother to me.” Renjun’s voice is filled with confusion and shock, so much that he’d let down his guard against Yuta and told him a piece of home, information Renjun would have never given out to someone he didn’t consider a friend.
But here they were, Renjun’s defences lowered, and a highly revered Master looking minutes away from falling to his knees.
Yuta’s eyes get softer and softer at the mention of Sicheng and his chuckles though broken, are heartfelt, “So he did make it out there,” he whispers, more to himself than anything.
“Sicheng… is the love of my life, but he left me because he hated the customs of the Water Tribe… If we got married, he wouldn’t have been able to dance, he would have to stay home, and I knew he hated it. He begged me to leave, and I wouldn’t, because I had too much to lose, with my position as a Master on the line… I still regret it. I still regret it everyday.”
When Yuta looks up, he releases Renjun from the icy prison he caught him in, and Renjun looks like he’s about to faint too.
“Oh holy- Spirits, all this time he was talking about you? Sicheng-hyung was supposed to marry you?”
“Don’t mention it,” Renjun's groaning as he pulls at their lemur Winwin's ears, “I basically gained an in-law who was left at the altar by my brother I don’t know how to feel, I don’t even know whether I want him to teach me Waterbending anymore, he so sappy whenever he sees me, all he does is ask about Sicheng and grin like an idiot.”
Chenle rolls on the saddle next to Renjun his whole body indicating he refusal of the Renjun’s idea, “Noooooo hyuuuuung, you can’t leave me with him, Yuta-hyung is too strict, I need you to distract him- He whoops my ass every time, I need you please please please-“
Renjun’s demeanor changes immediately at the mention of the younger’s slacking, he flips over to wrestle Chenle into the saddle, “You need the training, you little brat, I’m not the distraction- How are you going to save the world properly if you're like this-“
“Owowowowowowwwww-“
Jaemin sighs as Mark laughs, wide and bright at their antics as Renjun comes close to his 89th attempt to end the Avatar's life (go figure, Renjun's 89 steps ahead of the Fire Lord, maybe one day he'll succeed and the Fire Nation will hail him as a hero), such is another day in the daily life of their team- at least their attention was off Jaemin and his Jeno issue now
(Jaemin is lying when he says he hates them, he knows deep down he would never trade anything for this)
As all Jaemin’s problems come, the solution is to face it head on and hope to acclimatise. The Jeno issue crops up again whenever he sees, well, Jeno.
Thankfully, humans are adaptive, because Jaemin gets better at actually being able to simultaneously look at and speak to Jeno at the same time.
(Small miracles, Renjun says. Thank goodness, hyung, you were painful to watch, Chenle tells him.)
And as all things go, his friends simultaneously make his life better and harder all at once. Whenever they see the Prince at meals, Chenle makes sure to drag him to their side of the table, not just to embarrass Jaemin, but because the Avatar had genuinely taken a liking to the Northern Prince.
They all try to shower Jeno with stories, of stealing scrolls and faking Earthbending to get into a prison, of bounty hunters and her Shirshu and how it managed to sniff out Renjun from towns away with only Sicheng’s ribbons, of inventors and rotten eggs and natural gas and setting the whole mountain ablaze, of crazy hundred year old kings and his giant, terrifying rabbit hybrid Flopsie (who Jaemin is certain has to be half hippo because Flopsie is utterly petrifying he never wants to see Flopsie ever again if he can help it).
And it’s so much fun, for once they get to hang out and talk to someone who’s close to their age, to share their experiences and just how wild and awesome their adventures have been.
They all like Jeno, there’s no doubt, they all like to see him laugh and Chenle adores Jeno’s baffled expression almost as much as Jaemin does, the one where Jeno’s eyes go really round and he tilts his head, and produces the cutest sound of confusion that Jaemin has ever heard in his entire life.
“They don't have palaces in the Southern Tribe?” Present day Jeno asks when the two of them decide to skip out on watching Renjun absolutely thrash another Waterbending student again. There it is, that adorable wide-eyed awe, the very one that reminds Jaemin of blinking polar bear puppies, cocking their heads in curiosity.
He forces his brain to shift gears to react, “No, Spirits, no- We don’t exactly have a cultural hub there, too many raids and no Benders really doesn’t help with infrastructure development in the tribe.”
“You’ve been living like that? In tents? Until Chenle came along?”
“Until we fished him and Kun out like a freak show, yeah.” Jaemin huffs a laugh at the memory, “Imagine how scary it is to have an iceberg crack open and there’s this giant buffalo that can swallow you in one bite with six legs, and there’s this weird kid who can fly 10 feet into the air with a sneeze- Renjun and I actually got ourselves checked for Midnight Sun Madness because of how unbelievable it was. After that we've been sufficiently upgraded from tents to sleeping bags- Not too big a trade if you ask me.”
Jeno’s laugh echoes in a happy song in Jaemin’s brain, it’s both good and bad for him because it makes the gears in his head stutter to a flustered stop.
“I wonder what it’s like to be an Airbender,” Jeno sounds faraway, “I’ve been thinking about this now that I’ve properly met you guys, I can’t believe how strong Chenle is, I don’t think I’d be able to cope with being all alone, the last Airbender in the world.”
This is why Jaemin is so taken with Jeno, admittedly his mannerisms drew him in, but the way he reacted in their conversations, the natural empathy displayed in Jeno is something that Jaemin admires. It’s so rare to have someone so sweet and so empathetic when they’ve been born with literally everything they need at their disposal. Experiences humble people, and Jeno is humble enough without any. It’s a wonderful thing, really, and it gives Jaemin faith that maybe humanity isn't as terrible as it seems.
“He has Kun,” Jaemin offers gently, “And he has us, and now you, people who understand how hard it is for him, and that’s sometimes all that we need, a kindred spirit or an understanding friend.”
Jeno smiles softly, dotingly. He's extremely fond of Chenle, that much is clear, he genuinely feels for the younger, worries for him, cares for him, even though it's only been a bit more than a week since they've met. Jaemin is falling, falling more into this hole of gravity known as the Young Prince of the North.
“You know what?” Jaemin suddenly says when he looks up at the grey overcast in the sky, an idea lighting up his eyes. The weather is milder today compared to yesterday, even though there's less sun, slower winds were good for flight. He’d wanted to shift the mood into something less heavy and since Jeno wanted to know what it was like to be an Airbender, maybe Jaemin can show him a happier aspect.
“I can’t believe I beat Chenle to this- Jeno, have you met Kun?”
“This is amazing!” Jeno’s grin is wide and bright, despite the freezing air whipping at them as Kun descends back onto the ground, melancholy at Chenle’s predicament forgotten for now, “You guys have been travelling like this for months?”
When Jeno saw Kun, all he’d wanted was to barrel straight into the bison’s fur and stay there, stroking him until Kun was rumbling and purring at the attention, damp nose happily nudging at Jeno as the Prince laughs breathily in wonder.
Jaemin has never seen Kun so taken with someone that isn’t Chenle, and so instantly as well. Brown eyes closing at Jeno’s affectionate touch.
He can’t wait to tell Chenle he missed out on Jeno’s bewildered expression, on Jeno making Kun purr, and not once did Kun blow him into the air like he does when he wants to tease Chenle (the young Airbender would get so whiny at the favouritism, but Kun will always come round, and Chenle will always be Kun’s favourite, Jaemin doesn’t need to be a Bison whisperer to know)
It took a while to convince Jeno to leave the floofy pile of fur that’s known as Kun’s sides to mount the seat at the reigns, then they were off, with Winwin perched on his shoulder and Jeno laughing in delight while they soared through the sky.
Somewhere in the middle, Jaemin handed Jeno the reins to control where they’re off to, and he took them happily, hands grasping at the rough leather, careful not to tug so hard so “his horns won’t hurt”, Kun had snuffled happily at how sweet Jeno was.
“It takes a while to get used to being in the air,” Jaemin answers with a smile at Kun pawing at the ground now that they’ve landed, time to get off, “But Kun is a great flier, we never fall off because he’s careful to bend Air around the saddle instead of letting it blow us all off, at least that’s what Chenle tells us. It helps that he slows down his speed if we’ve been on land for a while. Even though we’ve basically been living in the air more than on land.”
They may have gotten used to flying, but the first few seconds taking off is always the same- the flip flop of his belly, the anticipation- just as fresh and unnerving as the first time.
Jaemin hops down from the bison before helping Jeno down, settling in front of Kun’s adorable face, leaning against his front paw as the Bison curls up on the large iceberg they were on top of.
“Everything is worth it though, I don’t think I’ve ever regretted my decision to follow Renjun and Chenle, we got to meet Mark and so many other important people, and we got to meet you.”
And Jaemin means every word from the bottom of his heart. A light pink flush drapes itself across Jeno's cheeks at his words, and Jaemin is reminded of just how chilly it was, the sky looked to be on the verge of snowfall. He reaches over to the supplies pack strapped to the saddle and unfurls one of the blankets they have there to wrap it across Jeno’s shoulders.
Jeno’s cheeks darken at the action, he opens his mouth to say something, but Winwin insistently burrows into his lap, and Jeno obliges to the distraction, hand instinctively going to the base of the lemur's floppy ears for a good scratch, earning him happy chitters. His eyes are still on the lemur when he speaks, “I’ve never ever left the North Pole. And I’m sure you've noticed by now, I’ve never even actually left the premises of the palace much.”
Of course Jaemin has, it's not like he'll deny that he was watching Jeno's every move since they've arrived in the North, more out of curiosity and attraction than wariness. Jeno shrinks away, albeit with grace and dignity, from events outside of the vicinity of the palace. It wasn’t that Jeno was shy, if anything, Jeno was eager to make connections, to learn, and Jeno loves his nation, his people, and it shows, clearly with his actions and his gaze, how he looks at the citizens, how he treats his Warriors and how the Healers of the palace are undoubtedly extremely fond of him.
“Why?" Jaemin finally asks, "You certainly don’t need protection- I’ve seen you spar, and Prince Dongyoung seemed to go in and out of the palace freely, is this another custom that I’ve never heard of?” Jaemin frowns, remembering Sicheng and Yuta.
Jeno shifts from his crouch next to Kun’s nose into a sitting position, and starts drawing patterns in the snow.
“Not… exactly,” Jeno’s the one frowning slightly now, that and his lips in a slight pout were the only indication that he was thinking of something that bothers him.
There's a pause, not an uncomfortable one, but Jaemin rushes to fill in anyhow, “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to, Jeno.” He says softly, and he means it.
Jaemin's interested, of course he is, but not at the expense of their newfound close friendship, and certainly not at the expense of Jeno's comfort.
“It’s not that- It’s- It’s just quite the long story.”
Jaemin scans him for any unwillingness, but Jeno's demeanor isn't closed off. The opposite really.
A good sign, Jaemin decides. He shifts closer to him, hoping that he’s conveying reassurance, that he's all ears, because this is Jeno’s tale, one that he’s been keeping back, and Jaemin wants to learn everything about him, the good and the sad (not bad, never bad).
“I was born on a night of a lunar eclipse.” Jeno begins, “My birth coincided with a prophecy kept by the Tribe’s Elders.”
Jaemin has heard of lunar eclipses before. When the shadow of the earth covers the moon, the moon will turn red, such is the nature of a lunar eclipse. His mother told him that it was eerily beautiful, and it happened a few months before his birth, a month after Renjun's and it was like nature at the South Pole stopped, the tiger seals were silent and the fish sank deep into the depths of the ocean. That night, a ship of Warriors almost didn't return with how violents the waves became, and it lasted until dawn, a whole night of darkness.
“I don’t think you’ve heard of this term before, Jaemin," Jeno snaps him out of his memory, "Our tribe calls a lunar eclipse a Blood Moon, because that’s when all Waterbending fails, the most vulnerable time of the Tribes.”
Oh. This is new to him. He's never heard of that aspect but it makes sense why he wouldn't, the South wasn't exactly abundant in Benders and Renjun was the only Waterbender one left, a mere month-old baby in last lunar eclipse. He pulls himself out of his headspace again and settles to listen to Jeno again attentively.
“When my mother started her labour, the moon rose, but it seemed to… stop working. They say it happens sometimes, even the Spirits need a reprieve, but it's rare, especially in the North Pole because the Moon and Ocean has blessed our land since the beginning of time... But that day, the moon rose red, darkness covered the North Pole, the waves churned and churned, signs of life in the tundra shied away from the open. And during my birth, none of the Healers could use their Bending on my mother to aid her birth or to soothe her pain.”
Jeno’s tone is soft, and Jaemin can feel the blanket of sorrow draped across his words, even if Jeno doesn’t seem emotional now, this was still a wound. An old one for sure, but deep.
“When I was born, my first breath became her last, and when I started crying, the moon began to shine again, as if the lunar eclipse never happened at all.”
“Some think it’s a good omen, that it indicates great power, perseverance in uncertain times, some people think it’s a terrible sign, that a Prince was born without the blessings of the Moon.”
Jeno stops his scrawling in the snow, and with that, he falls silent. Jaemin takes the prompt to look over Jeno's shoulder to see neat lines written across the snow.
The youngest Prince begins on a Blood Moon.
The youngest Prince ends on a Blood Moon.
Full circle, as all things should be.
Jaemin feels sick- Actually, no, sick doesn’t fully encapsulate what Jaemin feels.
How hurtful could a nation be to their own? To uphold traditions so much that a native runs away to the opposite ends of the earth, to believe in a prophecy to the point where their own prince has to suffer through rumours, experience the pain of losing a mother in the most drawn out, public way possible?
“So my people," Jeno goes on, tone gentle and impressively composed, "Know my birth caused the death of the wife of the Chief, and they know I’ll die in the same circumstances, that I’ll bring vulnerability to the Tribes, take their moon out of their sky once more.”
If anyone was looking from a distance, they'd assume Jeno was talking about the weather, or his last meal, or anything that was slightly pleasant with how a smile is still playing on his lips, but Jaemin can tell that it doesn't reach his heart because his eyes aren't smiling, aren't curled into those crescents that Jaemin likes, is growing to love. It's heart wrenching to see- It's not fake, never fake, but it doesn't come from the heart, it comes from the position of reassurance rather than joy. How many of these smiles did he give to those people who talked behind his back? How many smiles did he give away to people who were undeserving? And how many times did Jeno have to put that expression on his face simply because as a royal, he had to be alright?
“Doyoung-hyung knew the rumours were hurtful, so he kept me out of politics and all that, to protect me from things that would further tarnish my reputation. Only the Healers, Waterbenders and Warriors, those who were taught the nature of Spirits and the cycles of the moon treated me normally.”
Only now does Jeno’s smile turn sad, “I… If I go out much, too many people look at me, and their whispers are far louder than they think… I still love my nation and my people, but I wish they would look at me other than the Young Prince who killed his mother.”
They're silent until Kun blows out with a huff, erasing the lines Jeno drew in the snow in one breath, and Jeno manages a chuckle, hands reaching out to rub Kun on his velvety nose. Jaemin can feel the vibrations from Kun's full-chested rumble.
“Jeno… I’m so sorry.”
Jaemin can’t claim to understand the pain of losing his mother when he was a child, but he’s seen it before on Renjun, held the shaking boy in his arms when the last Southern Raid took his mother away from him. It’s the kind of pain that doesn’t fade, which rekindles whenever it’s brought up. He knows Renjun to this day hurts because of it, forced to grow up too quickly in the absence of a parent.
While Jeno might be born in the more prosperous North, it doesn’t take away the pain of losing a mother, the pain of never experiencing a mother’s love again.
Jeno’s smile doesn’t fade, but his voice does tremble, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in her arms, or what it’ll be like to hug her back.”
Before he knows it Jaemin is opening his mouth.
“Renjun’s mom died on the last raid of the South.” His heart starts palpitating, suddenly nervous now that he’s talking about himself.
Renjun and Jaemin never shared their life in the South with Jeno, they’ve always only talked about their adventures, and Chenle would occasionally share how it was like living in a temple with Monks who have great sense of humour, and Jaemin can tell Jeno loves it, Renjun and Jaemin’s past was never touched on because neither of them had the heart to wipe that smile off Jeno's face.
It’s like ripping open a bandage that’s been sealed for too long, Jaemin doesn’t know how Jeno would react, how he himself would react, to the scar underneath. Has it really healed? Or is it festering? Jaemin had shoved it aside for too long, preoccupied himself with travelling with Chenle and keeping them alive that this feels new to address, even if this scar has been with him practically for most of his life.
“At that time, Sicheng had just arrived from the Northern Water Tribe. We know now that he’s trying to escape the customs and all and his determination is admirable but at that time, Sicheng was only a teenager, and we didn’t trust him.”
He bites back a smile, he still remembers, tall and gangly Sicheng, awkward and endearing, tongue loosened by travels so much that he fumbles over the simplest words.
“Renjun’s mother was the only one who was willing to take him in. She was hoping that since this Sicheng was from the Northern Tribe maybe he had the wisdom to teach her son Waterbending.”
Jaemin huffs a small laugh, “Of course he doesn’t, we know that now. But Renjun was so happy to have an older brother that we all grew to accept him.”
Their families did, at least. Sicheng was a dancer, and men in the Southern Tribe were scarce as it is, they didn’t take a dancer as a proper occupation. For the longest time, Sicheng and Renjun’s family had to endure implicit laughs, people poking fun behind their backs, there’s that family with the lone woman and her failed Waterbending son, and now they’ve taken in a dancer, snickers, laughs that weren’t at all well hidden, or even attempted to be hidden.
“Three months into accepting Sicheng into their home, Renjun’s mom was lost in a raid, and the rest of the men in the tribe went to the Earth Kingdom to offer their help. Renjun was left alone with Sicheng, who basically had to raise him like a brother and a dad.”
The poor awkward teenager, too graceful to fight, too old to learn, had to learn quickly how to do most of the work around the house, how to sew, how to cook.
Slowly the village accepted him, as time went by, the older ladies saw how useful it was to have a grown boy stay in the village, how Sicheng was helpful when it came to work that required more strength, but Jaemin will never forget the early days when everyone heckled at the thought of him, how much Sicheng had to tolerate before the place he called home was willing to greet him.
And to think Sicheng had run away so to not conform to Water Tribe customs but was caught in the net of another, and Jaemin finds that so so sad, especially when he recalls Yuta’s broken expression, Sicheng’s wistful gaze.
“And since that day, my mom became Renjun’s mom.” He raises his gaze to meet Jeno’s. “My mom became Sicheng-hyung’s mom too. She’s the best.” Jaemin says wholeheartedly.
“And if she can take in two extra kids into her heart, I don’t see why she won’t take you in either.”
Who was he kidding? His mother would love Jeno. Jaemin’s mother loves him no matter what, but sometimes Jaemin wishes he could be more of a son that would earn the village’s approval as well. He wasn’t that good at the spear, their main weapon, he wasn’t that good at fishing, he wasn’t a Bender like Renjun, all he was good at was thinking, dreaming up ideas, using his smarts to quick solutions, getting out of trouble.
He knows his mother loves him nonetheless, but he wishes he could be the son where she could gloat back to the villagers to, rather than stay silent, though still proud, when they discussed their sons’ merits over sewing.
Jeno would be that son. Perfect Jeno, brilliant at the spear, ever respectful, mild-mannered and sweet. Where Jaemin had depended on sheer dumb luck and quick thinking to scrape by and survive with the team, he has no doubt Jeno would actually be able to save them with the skill he has. There it was, those thick, jagged lines of self doubt that runs white, discoloured lines across his soul- growing up with the awareness that his mom deserved better than him, that he wasn't good enough, but her loving him with everything she had anyway was more hurtful than having her hate him, but still, less hurtful than having no mother at all.
He's not being explicit about this, he really isn't, but this is as far as he's verbalised these emotions of his, that he couldn't before. There was no space or capacity for Jaemin to be emotional. For Jaemin, suspicion had become his defence when he dealt with jumpy teenage boys who were better than him and Renjun at fighting but never clever enough to outsmart him. While that became indispensable in terms of getting Dream out of tight spots, it doesn’t erase the times when he would have to come running to pull Renjun out of a heap of boys, how he had to quickly familiarise himself with every geography when they moved camp spots so he would know which route to take to foil bullies, yelling failed Waterbender, failed Warrior, each footstep thudding closer and closer on their trail.
In some ways, Jeno was the person Jaemin wanted to be, but never could, maybe that’s why he stood out to him so much, because he just was brilliant without being prideful, kind without trying, a stark difference to those considered capable in his own icy home.
“You have a home in mine anytime, Jeno, as long as you want it.”
Jeno’s eyes sparkle and Jaemin is mesmerised.
“I do want it, and I want it forever.”
Jaemin thinks the way Jeno curls his fingers around his is the sincerest thanks he’s ever received.
Maybe he could learn from Jeno, during their time in the North Pole, maybe being near him would allow him to soften, pick up some of his lovable traits, because Jeno is forgiving where Jaemin isn’t, and he’s trusting where Jaemin can’t be.
Maybe it’ll give them time to grow closer as well, because Jeno effortlessly draws him in, like the ocean to the moon, and it takes Jaemin’s breath away.
He reaches out to sweep a stray hair away from jeno’s eyes when a snowflake lands on the back of his hand. Grey instead of the usual white.
Snow, charred and dyed black with soot.
Kun opens his mouth to catch some of the falling flakes, only to sneeze and spit out the contaminated snow, disgust clear in the way he wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue. Winwin leaps from Jeno's hold to land on Kun's forehead arrow, shaking himself of the sooty snow.
Soot comes from burning coal.
The Northern Water Tribe doesn’t use coal, they’ve lived in this cold for centuries, they know the counter measures to them, and with Waterbending, their ice structures trap more heat than tents and flames.
Jaemin has seen this before. Black snow, once, right before his village was attacked and Renjun’s mother was taken.
This can only mean one thing - The Fire Nation navy is here, and ships are closing in. A lot of them.
Jeno sees the recognition and rising dread in Jaemin’s expression, “Jaemin? What is this? What does this mean?”
“We need to get the word out; we need to tell your brother and father to prepare the troops.”
Horror spreads across Jeno’s face and Jaemin hates it, he hates it so much, but this is their reality.
“They're coming. The Fire Nation is coming. The war is here.”
When he was younger, in the Fire Nations last raid of the South, Jaemin couldn’t do anything, too young to fight, too old to be oblivious.
He had stayed with his mother and Renjun, the older having run into their tent out of fear when he’d crossed gazes with the Fire soldier in command, both of them, unfamiliar children clutching at each other, shivering under thick blankets- from fear, not the cold. Sicheng, who was always around Renjun and who Jaemin thought was nice and pleasant and oh so pretty, was nowhere to be seen, lost in the fight. His mother had stood next to the entrance of the tent with a pot in her hands, ready to throw it and herself at anyone who enters to distract them and allow Jaemin and Renjun to slip away, eyes glassy at the thought that she might not be able to see her husband again in the mess of the raid.
He’d been scared, so scared, so powerless and it was all he could do to not burst into tears because Renjun was sobbing next to him. He barely knew Renjun then, but he knew he had to be strong at least, two crying children would draw more attention than one, and the last thing they want is to draw Fire soldiers in.
That raid was the first and last in their memory, and they’d lost Renjun’s mother in it. Jaemin still remembers how the two of them had torn through the camp after the Fire soldiers left, hand in hand, distance seeming unreasonably far with their small feet and short legs, racing to Renjun’s home, ignoring the shouts of the elders in the village and they’d found her there, eyes closed, a wound in her chest and deathly still.
They had been powerless, weak, too useless to stop it, and this time, Jaemin is determined to make a difference. He won’t let anymore children cry like Renjun did if he can help it.
.
“Infiltration won’t do much, with all due respect,” Jaemin starts, uncaring if he offended most of the Warriors of the North with just one sentence.
They’ve never seen a Fire soldier in their lives, and Jaemin has survived dozens, he’s in the full right to speak up in this, he has a wealth of knowledge to share with his sister tribe that has been safe and secluded in the north. So does Renjun. Because they were the ones who lived in fear for the most of their lives, had relived that day, time and time again as the fire soldiers laid waste to their village.
They were the ones who lost more, and in turn, knew more.
Dongyoung seems to acknowledge this, he raises an eyebrow, not to challenge, but in curiosity, “Please do elaborate, Jaemin.”
“The information you have on their forces is outdated, that’s not what their uniforms look like, we don’t have the material to make their uniforms, so we’ll need to get them off of the actual soldiers during the battle. But, your highness, if you were an invading navy, would you rush in at first sight at the huge icy wall in an unfamiliar territory?”
“No,” Dongyoung’s lips are pursed because he understands where Jaemin is coming from, “You’re right, our plans are redundant until they get here through the wall, by the time that happens-“
“It’ll be too late then.” Jaemin says softly.
But the room is quiet, and he knows everyone heard him.
“If I were the commanding officer of the Fire Navy, the first thing I would use in an unfamiliar territory of ice and snow would be fireballs, large catapults. Fire rocks will do a lot of damage against ice, and when our walls are down, they’ll disembark their ships to attack. If we don’t plan for that, we’ll be several steps behind.”
“What do you suggest, Jaemin?”
Chief Donghae is listening intently, leaning forwards in his chair. Yuta is fixing him with an intense gaze, and Dongyoung’s attention is all on him. Jaemin has the room holding its breath for his next words.
“We stop them before they fire. Send out some of our most skilled Waterbenders, and stop them before they get to the gates, sink their ships. Admiral Yifan is hotheaded and has a terrible personality, but he’s smart. He’s been pretty good at tracking down Chenle so far and he won’t have come to the North Pole if he weren’t prepared. He won’t waste time with taking down the North in conjunction to his search of the Avatar, and if we lose the North Pole, that’s one nation left for the Fire Nation to take over the world.”
“We can’t have that.”
.
Jaemin watches through a telescope as the water around the first few fleets of ships begin to rise and freeze into ice, trapping the ships in their place. The metal burns his hand in the frigid air, but he keeps it up as the first team of Waterbenders work to slow the ships and stave them off as long as they could.
“It’s working,” Mark breathes from next to him, but Jaemin frowns.
Something isn’t right, Yifan isn’t known for inaction.
Presumably, they would have some sort of signal, maybe a smoke gun? Or a hawk? To tell the ships at the back their predicament, because that’s where the commanding officer would be, safe at the back to oversee the rest of the fleet.
And then, just as Jaemin is looking out for released hawks, he realises Yifan may have long briefed them on this possibility.
The first Fireball hits the base of their wall, near the water, and the Waterbenders standing guard are quick to mend the damage.
Fire away, regardless of interruptions.
Brutal and crude, but well played from the Admiral, the air wasn’t the Water Tribe’s domain after all.
The second fireball goes past them, and Jaemin and Jeno watch in collective dismay as it crashes into an empty civilian bridge.
.
“We can try stopping the ships from advancing, reaching the wall, whatever, but when the fireballs come-“
“-Send me in.” Chenle interrupts Dongyoung mid sentence, and everyone turns to look at him
“Chenle-“
“Wait-“
“Are you sur-“
Jaemin, Renjun and Mark simultaneously try to speak to their youngest and the Avatar shakes his head to cut them off.
“Send me in hyung. If they’re sending fireballs through the sky, that’s my turf! I won’t let them get through. I’ll try to do something about them!”
The guilt and regret in his eyes reflected sadness of a hundred years, “I wasn’t here when the Fire Nation attacked my home, my people, my… family,”
His voice catches in his throat and Jaemin’s heart hurts for him, it really does, because he knows all too well to feel powerless, unable to change the past.
Renjun reaches over to hold the younger’s hand, Jeno reaches over to clasp at his shoulder, and Mark, who was standing behind him, cards a reassuring touch through his blond hair.
When Chenle looks up, there’s something other than sorrow in his gaze.
“This time I’ll make a difference.”
.
There’s a familiar grunt behind Jaemin, and the strategist knows that’s Kun, coming up from behind them and gaining speed as the bison smoothly flies past everyone keeping watch on the wall.
Jaemin watches with pride as Chenle, with Renjun next to him, flies into the battle on Kun’s back with a very determined look on his face.
The next two fireballs from the trebuchets are very clearly aimed at the Avatar and his companions, and Chenle directs them to crash into each other instead of on Kun with a dash of wind, and the two flaming fireballs lose height, tumbling into the water below with an explosion of steam.
Chenle jumps down from Kun’s back, leaving Renjun to catch the reins, and snaps open his glider in midair.
No matter how many times Jaemin has seen him fly, he’ll always find Chenle graceful, worlds different to how clumsy and careless he usually is.
He glides through the air, gaining speed and going on a fast, downward traction to meet the first of the fleet. Chenle Airbends several trebuchet operators off their feet before he even lands, he leaps onto one trebuchet and narrowly dodges a sledgehammer from one of the operators of the giant weapon, back-flipping away nimbly.
Two more operators approach Chenle with sledgehammers as he stands on top of the giant contraption. Young silhouette painfully small against the big invention.
He jumps into the air as they simultaneously bring their sledgehammers down at him, avoiding both blows. Chenle twirls in midair, and with a swipe of his glider, completely collapses the trebuchet with his Airbending.
Chenle’s smug face as he lands back onto the deck, triumphant, is clearly visible even from the small view of Jaemin’s telescope.
Chenle makes quick and light steps as he runs over to an unoccupied and loaded flaming trebuchet.
Whirling around, his eyes land on a sledgehammer, and he picks it up, going by impulse, he sticks the sledgehammer in another launcher's chain.
A Fire soldier approaches him, but Chenle buffs him away in an efficient blast of wind that activates the catapult.
His little sledgehammer and chain maneuver works, because it launches the fireball straight into the deck, leaving a large smoking hole in the ship. With a groan, it starts to sink, and Chenle moves on to the next one, gliding lightly through the air to wreak havoc on another ship.
Renjun lands on another deck with Kun, and with practiced moves, cuts through chains and metal with an alarming mastery of water blades, showing so much progress in just a matter of days.
Good. That was a good start. They’re doing great.
“Signal the First Prince to send out the mission team.” Jaemin says, the the messenger next to him scurries off to heed his order.
If there was a good time to have a few select warriors sneaked on Fire Nation deck undetected, now’s the perfect time, when the Fire soldiers are scratching their heads trying to stop the surprisingly jumpy and resourceful Avatar and his small but lethal Waterbender partner.
Chenle and Renjun goes as a power duo and disarms the ships, while the rest of the Waterbenders will take care of the rest and sink them.
Quick, efficient, avoid all conflict possible. They need to conserve firepower on their end as well. The Fire Nation uses machinery, but the Water Tribe’s weapons were their people, they have to be extra careful to not expend their stamina.
Mark doesn’t hold back a laugh when Kun lands heavily on one of the ships and swats a Fire soldier away with his sixth leg, Not losing to Renjun at all when it comes to sweeping soldiers off the deck.
A thump from his tail generates so much wind that it blows a chunk of a catapult off, and when a Fire soldier rushes at Kun, fists flaming, the bison snorts, unimpressed, and blows him overboard as well.
Renjun jumps from the ship, bending the water to meet him and surfing his waves to another ship, where he uses the control recently acquired in his new Waterbending training to make quick work of the trebuchet operators with a couple of water whips, displaying surprising dexterity.
.
“Our greatest advantage is our terrain,” Jaemin continues after they settled the fireball issue, “The icy tundra isn’t anything they’ll ever have encountered, Fire Nation soldiers are based on the tropics, and they wouldn’t move the troops that are used to the South Pole over, it’s not efficient and will have taken too much time and effort.”
“So we’re faced up against a bunch of tundra newbies, is what you’re trying to say?” Renjun asks with a glint in his eyes and Jaemin nods.
It’s different this time, these aren’t experienced Southern Fire soldiers, and this isn’t their desolate village, robbed of their Benders since the very beginning of the war.
No, the North is a fortress, and even if resources are scarce in comparison to the prosperous Earth Kingdom, there were plenty compared to what their village was like, and they had Warriors and Benders in scores.
Jaemin and Renjun will make it different this time, they will.
“Good.” Yuta grins at the information, ferocity almost too much to look at, “We’ll fuck them up before they even reach us.”
“It would put us at an advantage if you can manage to sink at least a quarter of their fleet before they reach the wall,” Dongyoung says, “Do you think you and the Benders can manage that?”
Yuta scoffs “Quarter? Give me some credit, Doie, I’ll give you half of their fleet for the same price. Serves them right, coming to our home- I’ll show them the true North Pole experience.”
.
The true North Pole experience is a huge ice spike that pierces through both the hull and the deck of the ships. Yuta is making good on his promise.
Another ship is being lifted, lifted, lifted higher and higher by a huge wave, then frozen at that height as the water curls around the ship and turns to ice. Then with a slice, the icy tower comes toppling down, and the ship comes crashing with a boom into a conveniently placed iceberg.
It’s almost surreal to watch, and it makes Jaemin sadly wonder if they would have made a difference, if the South had Benders too.
(It would, it definitely would.)
.
“The next day,” Dongyoung says firmly, “will be the key.”
Jaemin nods his agreement.
“If they don’t take the city by the full moon, we will be unbeatable, our Benders will be able to overwhelm them under the power of the moon.”
“There is four days until the next full moon, and if our scouts are accurate, they will get here in two.” One of the section leaders of the Warriors around the table speaks up, “We need to hang on for at least two days. Until the full moon rises, only then can we guarantee victory.”
“They will attack with the rise of the sun,” Jaemin voices out his thoughts, “We need to be prepared and station Waterbenders and Warriors within the city
Donghae looks to Jaemin, “What do you suggest?”
Jaemin weighs his words before speaking again, “As an outsider, the city itself is a maze. We know their centre of operations will be near the back, or at least centre back, where the supplies will be and where it’s the safest.”
“We need to be as unpredictable as possible on our end if we want the upper hand. Knowing the Fire Nation, the whole city will become a battleground. We can use the city and their unfamiliarity as a boon. Keep our supplies safe underground where it would take a Waterbender to access; Healers and base of operations should be placed where they would expect the least, and civilians-“
“-need to be evacuated.” Dongyoung finishes for him.
“Yes. The city is built from ice, it’s the greatest weapon and at the same time the greatest weakness.” Dongyoung nods and Jaemin feels a rush of happiness, similar to when he was working with Chanyeol on inventions because it’s like an intellectual meeting of minds, a mental battle where Jaemin can flex everything that he’s got instead of watching Chenle, Mark and Renjun risk their lives for him time and time again.
“We can use the landscape, I’ll tell the Waterbenders to feel free to use it as they see fit. We never wish to bring the fight into the city, but with the Navy so close we don't have a choice, stationing troops within is a wise decision.” Donghae approves, ”We’ll take Jaemin’s advice- Cut the infiltration mission to only a few select Warriors, and have Jaemin brief you on everything he knows of the commanding officer, his information is invaluable to us.”
Donghae gives Jaemin a brief approving smile before going on, “I want the infiltrators to find out intel, on their battle plans, how they will carry out the siege.”
Dongyoung nods, “What we’re going on right now is an educated guess, get information from the source, and if you can and only if you see a perfect opportunity do you lay a hand on the Admiral. We do not want to see unnecessary
deaths. Clear?”
“Yes sir!” The room echoes as one.
“Good. We’ll soon do a tally of what resources and supplies we do have, and each troop will receive their share when it is complete, squadron leaders report to me latest by tonight. We’ll start with the civilian evacuation immediately.”
The room moves to carry out their commands, and Jaemin makes to leave with the rest of them.
“ Jaemin?” He looks back to meet Dongyoung’s bright eyes, “A few words with you, before you go.”
Jeno gives his arm a squeeze before Mark curls an arm over his bicep to leave, their leader throws Jaemin a worried look over his shoulder before he joins the rest of their group.
The room is suddenly very big and very empty with just the two of them.
“You needed me, your highness?” Jaemin asks politely
Dongyoung hesitates, before forging on, “I know there is already plenty on your plate acting as a war consultant here, and I cannot thank you enough for that. This is a selfish request, that my father and I want to put you on.”
Jaemin bows his head respectfully at the mention of the Chief, “Whatever you two would request of me, I’ll do my best to fulfill.”
There’s a pause, and Dongyoung’s voice comes, an edge softer than anything he’s addressed Jaemin with, “Please keep an eye on my brother.”
“Your highness?”
“He’s very capable on his own, yes, but we’ve sheltered him too much. As much as we’d like to prevent it, there will be lives lost in this battle, and I want him to have a friend he can fall back on, rely on. And also…”
Dongyoung trails off, there’s something unsettling in his gaze and it’s not intensity, it’s something more, a worry, a kind of helpless sadness.
“I have a very bad feeling about this siege, Jaemin, and it’s not only about our odds. Please keep an eye on Jeno, that’s all I ask.”
“Of course I will,” tumbles from his lips before Jaemin can stop it, “I’ll do my best, your highness.”
He bows again and makes to leave when Dongyoung calls again.
“And Jaemin?”
He turns to see a small smile, the first one directed at him.
“Call me Doyoung-hyung, please.”
.
Chenle and Renjun come back at twilight, hours after they send out their first team of Waterbenders, Renjun is holding the reins because Chenle is droopy and Jaemin can tell from the distance that their Airbender is worn out beyond compare.
“You did well Chenle,” is the first thing out of Mark’s mouth after they scramble to catch the younger when he tumbles out of Kun’s saddle, too knackered to hop down properly. Winwin chitters from his perch on Mark's head, agreeing in his lemur language wholeheartedly that Chenle had done plenty.
“No, hyung, it’s hopeless,” Chenle whines in Jeno’s secure hold, “There are too many ships, there were so many of them- I must have taken out dozens- I've destroyed so many catapults I think I know how to make one now, but it doesn’t work-“
He raises his head from Jeno’s shoulder, “I still feel like I barely made a dent, they keep coming hyung, they never end.”
“And they’ve stopped,” Renjun says, “Just as our Waterbenders start to gain advantage.”
As a tactician, Jaemin can’t help but respect that decision. The Water Tribe is stronger at night after all, if there were any doubts, the statement was proven through Renjun. As the night falls, Renjun’s bending seemed more and more steady, more and more sure, each stroke more powerful than the last.
Meanwhile Chenle, Airbender and Avatar, didn’t seem to be as blessed by the Lunacy as they’d like to believe, the younger seems inches away from falling asleep in Jeno’s arms.
Jaemin worriedly checks on the younger, should they bring him back to the inner city? They can always use Kun to fly in, but bringing him to where the Warriors are resting surely isn’t that good an idea, seeing an exhausted Avatar would negatively impact whatever fighting spirit Doyoung and Jeno had tried hard to rally up in the first place. But Jaemin, and surely the rest of them couldn’t just leave Chenle to take a nap here out in the outer wall, that’s just immoral.
“You know what?” Jeno cocks his head in the direction of the inner city, “I know a place where we can rest, follow me.”
Jeno leads them to a neat little garden behind the Chief’s temple, verdant and lush and blooming and every descriptor that doesn’t belong in the North Pole.
The little sheltered garden is surprisingly warm, tropical, even, with crystal clear pools of running water surrounding a little island of greenery, and in the centre of the island is a still pool, silvery from the light of the moon. A closer look unveils two fish at the centre of the cove, one black, one white, spinning and circling each other, round and round and round. Winwin flies about over their heads, expressing his chittery relief at the warmer climate that was gentler on his webbed wings.
“This place is amazing!”
Chenle seemed to have temporarily gained back his zeal as he skips across the wooden bridge to the patch of greenery in the centre, “Grass! I never thought I’d get to see grass here! I never thought I’d miss it so much!”
To demonstrate his ardour, Chenle dives to the ground, pressing his cheek against the soft green, tumbling and rolling in the soft grass. None of them try to hold back a smile at this, Chenle’s too adorable.
Jeno’s eyes seem to be permanently stuck in their crescents whenever he’s around Chenle (honestly, Jaemin empathises), “I thought you’d want a break from all the ice and snow.”
Chenle bounds back to Jeno to give the older a giant hug that Jeno gladly returns, “Hyung, you’re the best!”
“It’s so warm in here,” Mark’s eyes are wide with wonder, “How? What is this place?”
“This is the centre of all the Spiritual energy in the North Pole, our Spirit Oasis. We come here every full moon to give offerings under that Spirit Gate,” Jeno points to the wooden gate, old, but well kept and beautifully carved on the other side of the small pool in the centre, “As a thank you to the Moon and the Ocean Spirits for their protection.”
“The Spirits!” Chenle lights up, “Of course! You’re a genius, Jeno-hyung! I can ask them stuff!”
Jeno gives a small noise of curiosity, “You can do that?”
“Yeah! I’m like the bridge between humans and Spirits!” said like a true Avatar, in a tone way too happy to be taken seriously, but Jaemin loves Chenle too much and it’s too relieving to see the energetic side of the younger return to reprimand him about it.
Mark follows Chenle's train of thought, “You can try visiting the Spirit World, Chenle, and maybe the Spirits can give you guidance-“
“OR THEY CAN UNLEASH AN ULTIMATE SPIRIT ATTACK AND ZAP EVERYONE AWAY-”
When Chenle’s overzealous idea is met with no response, he straightens with an adorable grin that squeezes his eyes into straight lines, “Or guidance. Guidance would be nice too.”
Renjun can’t help but laugh as he reaches out to ruffle his golden head before returning to business, “Chenle, you entered the Spirit World last time because of the Solstice, do you think you can do it again?”
Chenle actually stills to think before replying. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes to look at them seriously.
Jaemin is suddenly reminded that Chenle knows his duty as the Avatar all too well, and there’s a part of him that’s older, mature, and burdened by the responsibility of not just their world, but two worlds, the Spirit World as well. Jaemin always gets the chills when the younger shows this side of him and this time is no exception.
“Yeah… I think I can do it here. It’s so tranquil, I feel… I feel like this is the closest I’ve been to the Spirit World.”
Chenle walks slowly to the edge of the pool, where the two koi fish are spinning, spinning, spinning their never ending circle, and takes a seat near the end of the water, folding his legs into the lotus position to meditate.
Jaemin takes a deep breath, he understands what Chenle meant by this place feeling different. Even as a mere human, he can feel it, a low calming buzz under his skin, energy that’s enveloping and welcoming but dizzying at the same time.
They watch as the young Avatar enters a trance, eyes glazing over as he watches the koi in the centre of the pool and when his tattoos start glowing softly, accident or not, Jaemin knows he’s in.
“Is he okay?” Jeno asks softly from next to him and Jaemin remembers that Jeno has never seen Chenle like this before.
“Yeah,” He replies, equally as quietly, to not disturb the serenity in the air, “He’s just crossing over into the Spirit World, he’ll be fine- As long as we don’t move his body, he’ll be able to find his way back.”
What a task, Jaemin thinks, it must be so taxing for Chenle as well, to have been fighting with no stops in between, and still exhibit the mental fortitude to enter another dimension. Chenle is amazing, no matter how young and childish he acts and what people see. Jaemin knows he certainly would collapse at just how much pressure Chenle has to shoulder as the bridge between worlds, and it's a burden only he can bear, the only person powerful enough to deal with Spirits themselves, an entity far more dangerous than humans.
Or were they? Were Spirits really more dangerous than people? Spirits were predictable in some ways, either they were disrupted from their cycle, or they were hurt, angered by humans who had overstepped their boundaries, taken their good for granted. Jaemin seriously contemplates this- Were Spirits really the problem in the equation? So far the most malignant Spirit they came across was Hei Bai, the panda who'd kidnapped Jaemin, when people overstepped their bounds and damaged his habitat. Though Jaemin was definitely innocent in the whole matter and had just been an unfortunate sacrifice, the Spirit hadn't done anything detrimental to those who were taken, and had retreated immediately once the villagers righted their wrongs.
Jaemin slows to think about the implications of the Fire Navy's attack on the North. The Water Tribes are known to be Spiritually protected by the Moon and the Ocean, especially the North. What retribution would this war wrought on all of them, if the Spirits were sufficiently angered? Jaemin isn't sure he wants to know the answer, it's not likely that he'll get one.
So for now, he lets himself be lulled into a sense of peace instead, glided by the atmosphere in the Oasis, he can only hope that the Spirits are omniscient and knows to whom punishment is due.
The temporary repose is broken when a messenger scurries to deliver a message from Doyoung to them. A call to arms for a war meeting to discuss the events of tomorrow, and the possible preparations they need to make, as reluctant as Jaemin is to leave, their wisdom as the war consul, Dream's leader and a Prince are needed.
Jaemin looks unwillingly back at Chenle who’s still in the Spirit World, body vulnerable to attack, and Renjun snorts and waves his worries off.
“Just go,” Renjun’s expression is fond and assured, “I can protect him, the North Pole needs you guys.”
There was a siege to win, and while they’re given a reprieve owing to their nocturnal advantage, the battle hasn’t ended.
And war waits for no one.
Jaemin knows in his bones the Fire Nation will attack by early morning, and it’ll be a painful fight, one they can’t afford lose. He can only hope the preparations they’ve made and they will make, is enough.
But of course, nothing ever goes according to plan.
It's been proven time and time again: When Jaemin and Renjun fished out Chenle instead of dinner in the South Pole, when they ended up having to suck on frogs instead of good old soup when they come down with a cold (but honestly Jaemin shouldn’t have expected anything too far off, they were placed in Chenle’s care afterall), when it was revealed Chanyeol gave his intellect and inventions to the Fire Nation to keep the Northern Air Temple and Baekhyun safe-
Point is, things never go according to plan, and a twist, a change, something out of Jaemin’s expectations, like soot in the snow, something out of his control always, and will always happen.
When day breaks, Jaemin comes back with Mark and Jeno to find Renjun sprawled on the floor of the Oasis, out cold, and Chenle gone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Start from the beginning- what do you mean you lost Chenle to the Fire Nation?”
When they'd reached the Oasis and found Chenle missing, the first thing they did was send a messenger to scour the whole premises of the Tribe, and when Jeno and Mark decided they couldn't wait any longer, the rest of them joined the search. Jaemin had been careful to stay by Renjun's side, knowing that Renjun will escalate from anger to self blame to full blown hysteria.
By early afternoon, the Fire Navy finally broke through the walls of the citadel, and they'd concluded that they couldn't just sit around and wait any longer- Jisung must have long slipped away under the radar and was probably trekking his way across the tundra. They mounted Kun for a faster and broader search, and true to Jaemin's prediction, Renjun was, indeed, panicking.
“That Fire Prince Jisung, he came in, and slipped on ice like an idiot- And what was I supposed to do, help him up? It escalated into a fight and I froze him into a block of ice, then when day broke he must have melted it- Of course I had to beat him down again and mid-fight I bumped my head and passed out and now he’s gone-“
Renjun roughly rubs his frustrated tears away with a sleeve, “He took him right from under me." he says bitterly, "This is all my fault, I let my guard down, hell, Jisung wasn't even trying that hard against me, but I knocked myself out like an idiot and now he has Chenle, has had him for Spirits know how long- They could be anywhere now! If Chenle was taken into one of the ships it’ll take forever to search every one!”
“He wouldn't have- The Prince must be acting on his own,” Jeno reasons, “I don’t think a Prince would do an admiral’s bidding, and judging by what you guys told me, Chenle is one of the admiral’s targets too-”
“So Jisung still has Chenle,” Mark concludes, eyes scanning the expanse of snow through the thick blizzard for any sign of movement, “And he’s probably trying to find his way off the North Pole.”
Their leader peers through the blizzard from his position at the reins, the heavy snowfall completely obscures their vision, Kun's sense of direction and his Airbending were the only things keeping them on track, on what track, Jaemin wasn't sure, but they were on definitely moving forward.
Jeno speaks up, “How is he going to be able to travel through all this snow? Aren’t Firebenders weaker the farther they are from the equator?”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Renjun fidgets with his sleeve, “Not if Jisung succeeds, but what if he doesn’t? What if he gets lost? What if they get captured together? What if they freeze to death or get buried by the snow?”
There's also the siege, Jaemin thinks, Chenle comes first and foremost, and they'll be able to recover him no matter what, but what if they find him, a hair too late? What if even the Avatar isn't enough for them to win the siege?
“We’ll find them,” Mark says, to reassure more than anything. He must have instinctively known that having the whole group overthinking and worrying would do no good to their esteem, and Jaemin alone thinks enough for all five of them. Chenle skips out on thinking entirely most the time
“Jisung doesn’t seem to be the type to give up, and from what I’ve seen he’s actually pretty decent to Chenle, even in the times we fought he never crossed any boundaries he shouldn’t.”
The dodgiest method he’d used was a giant Shirshu with a paralyzing tongue, and that was far more morally sound than keeping him imprisoned in a dungeon fortress, or setting fire to a military deserter’s camp- That being said, the Shirshu demolished the nunnery they stayed in and they probably destroyed a year’s worth of work the nice nuns put into their perfumery business, but that was less on Jisung’s methods and more of circumstances that arose when they fought. And to his credit (or discredit), Jisung had been so distracted by Chenle’s light-hearted jeering then
it was almost like he was trying to miss his flame shots he was tossing at them.
“There are worse situations Chenle’s been in, we’ll find them.” Mark finishes firmly.
Jaemin silently concurs, Chenle had been in situations far more dire: when Renjun and Jaemin had nothing but the element of surprise on their side when they tried to rescue him from the South Pole Fire Coast Guards, having to face off against an entire guard of an Earth Nation prison when they were unsure if they were going to be supported at all. Chenle's been in plenty of danger, though he was conscious in the process.
Jisung is a dangerous element in their journey, no doubt, he's proven himself to be quite resourceful and is a formidable Bender, but in all the times, Jisung acted alone. Sure, there was his cousin Taeyong with him, and Taeyong's presence and the way he carried himself alone screamed of power and unbelievable Bending prowess, but not once did Taeyong step in to fight Jisung's battles, only stepping in when Jisung was in immediate danger, and Jaemin has no doubt this time would be the same.
On top of that Taeyong seemed far more sound of mind than to allow Jisung to go after Chenle in the frozen tundra, at the very least the elder would have a backup plan rather than rush into this mess of a siege without one like a teenager.
And a teenager, Jisung was. No matter how much threat he posed to them and the situation right now, Jisung was just one teenager, and this was five against one, Jisung is no match to them right now, as of this moment, as long as they can locate him.
It was near nightfall, late afternoon, when a streak of light, clear as day, hurls through though the whirling snow in an arc, shooting past them into the horizon.
“What was that?” Renjun scrambles from his sitting position. The rest of them, eyes bleary and faces windblown and frozen, instantly sit up, alert.
That’s no normal shooting star. If they go by what Jaemin knows, that can’t be one. What kind of star would be visible even through the thick snowfall? Conveniently zipping past them towards the tundra as well, away from the North Pole?
“Only the Spirits would be this bright though a snowstorm! That’s gotta be our star-”
Their star trying to find his body because some suicidal idiot was trying to carry them away from the North Pole. Their star Chenle.
They've found him, got an inkling of his coordinates, now they actually have a valid way to search- once they find Chenle, it will be nightfall, and the Water Tribe will prevail, judging by the lack of messengers or any smoke signals, the Water Tribe wasn't faring too badly against the Fire forces, they just have to get Chenle back as soon as possible, then they'll win, they'll successfully defend the North.
Hope rises in Jaemin's chest, but he forces it down, it was too soon, they have to actually recover Chenle before he can celebrate.
Mark eagerly taps Kun on the forehead, “Kun, yip yip! After the light!” and Kun rumbles enthusiastically, turning in the air with an agility he shouldn't possess with the amount of time they'd been in flight, and shoots off in the direction of the light.
They’ll make it on time, before Jisung and Chenle freezes to death, and whatever is waiting for them they’ll be prepared, what, with Mark and Jeno to subdue a single prince, as well as Renjun Waterbending all the ice and snow, Jisung can’t escape with Chenle.
They can make it, they'll make it, Jaemin repeats that mantra again and again as he scans the snow with renewed vigour.
Hope is a strange thing, Jaemin notices, even as they fly about in circles, even as the expanse of white is as broad and empty as before, the simple thought that Chenle was definitely in this direction changed all their attitudes, gave them hope, just as Chenle had to everyone they met, to the Water Tribes, to the Earth Kingdom, just the presence of the Avatar itself, gave them so much hope, hope that they never knew they needed, but were waiting for.
And hope was what had the four of them hanging on, eyes wide despite the snow piling on their eyelashes, and it was what made Mark's shout of "There! There's a small cave!" bloom heat in Jaemin's chest.
Hope is a beautiful thing, one that makes Renjun's eyes sharpen and Jeno's eyes fold into crescents, and Jaemin is determined to bring that hope back to the Northern Water Tribe.
"Over there!"
Jaemin prepares himself for a fight, prepares himself to have to sneak past a huge Bending battle to get to Chenle, expects to see Chenle hanging upside down from a rope, maybe metal cuffs too, or chains, or even a cage, but when they, shivering from the cold, faces numb and fingers possibly frostbitten, find Chenle and Jisung in a cave, they’re met with a sight beyond their wildest imagination.
Instead of Jisung holding a dagger to Chenle or strangling him in ropes or something equally as drastic, they find them holding hands and talking, huddled next to a small flame.
Chenle’s unmistakable giggles hits his ears and the smile that catches Jaemin's eyes on Jisung’s face is bright and genuine.
At least Jaemin isn’t the only one flabbergasted at the scene.
“What is this!?” Renjun haphazardly discards their stealthy plan to swoop in and save Chenle by taking Jisung by surprise the moment he speaks, words echoing in the tiny cave, “What are you doing!?”
“Oh Renjun-hyung! You came! See Jisungie, I told you they’d find us!”
Wait what?
Jisung...ie?
“Chenle- Has the cold gotten to your head? Don’t you know who he is?”
Jaemin swears he sees sadness flash through Jisung’s eyes and the Prince’s lips fluff out into a small pout, but he writes it off as poor vision in the dark cave.
“Jisung is my friend, hyung!”
Chenle shuffles closer to Jisung till they’re flush against each other and as if it proves everything, holds their linked hands up for all of them to see.
“Chenle,” Renjun’s voice is several octaves higher than normal, and is still rising in alarm, “He’s the Fire Nation Prince! He’s tried to get to you multiple times! He’s going to kill you- “
“No!” Jisung’s eyes are round in alarm, and even Jaemin can see the sincerity in his gaze, “Chenle is my friend! I really won’t do that- Why would I want to hurt him?”
Jaemin wants to question why else would Jisung be so persistent in chasing them across the globe but his heart twinges when Jisung curls in on himself after the outburst, cheeks red and low voice in a mumble, “He’s the only friend I have, I wanted to get to Chenle before Admiral Yifan did so Chenle would be safe…”
Chenle wraps his arms around Jisung’s shoulders, and Jisung, consciously or not, leans into his touch, “I know! The admiral is a meanie! He even tried to explode Jisung! Thank you Jisungie.”
Oh.
Oh. That’s so cute.
Jaemin loves cute things.
He has to calm his heart down at that one because even his cool head sometimes gets overtaken by his weak weak heart for puppy love and The Adorable (see: Mark when he's flabbergasted, Renjun when he's confused, Chenle when he's laughing and Jeno. Just Jeno). While Jaemin still doesn’t quite have the ability to put his and Jeno’s relationship into words yet, he’s not an idiot like Renjun, he knows a crush when he sees one. Chenle is so going to get an earful if they get out of this mess of a siege.
When they get out of this mess of a siege.
“You- That- This-“
Renjun tries to get a sentence out as he gapes at the two affectionate friends in the middle of the cave. Mark straight up gives up on whatever train of thought he’s on to pursue the more important business- War and team first, possible first love shenanigans after.
“This will need to wait, Chenle-yah, we need you back for the siege.”
Jaemin promises this time he sees both Chenle and Jisung wilt.
“Oh.” Jisung’s voice is small but coloured with realisation, “You need to go.”
Even Renjun doesn’t sound sure when he half provokes, half asks, “You- You wanna fight?”
Jisung looks at Renjun, eyes glinting in the dark firelight, before he shakes his head slowly.
Jisung looks more like a sad dejected hamster than a Fire Prince to Jaemin right at this moment, and he can sort of understand why Chenle is so fond of the him. His cheeks suddenly look very pinchable.
“We’ll postpone the fight,” Chenle says brightly, “You’ll come to us again anyways, right?”
Jisung looks at Chenle, and there’s some sort of understanding passed between them before the Prince nods and Jaemin has literally never seen Chenle’s grin so happy and bright and tender.
Is this a promise? A date? They’re making a fight date? That exchanged glance clearly has a lot of story behind it, and are they both blushing?
Jaemin cannot believe this sort of relationship had been blossoming right under their noses.
Jeno is the first to move out of all of them, offering Jisung to ride back with them. Mark and Renjun reluctantly agree so the Prince doesn’t freeze to death in the blizzard, even though Jaemin would have given in faced with the triple pouts of Chenle, Jisung and Jeno. Chenle keeps his hold on Jisung's hand and leads him to the saddle, chattering all the way, and Jisung just kind of... complacently follows, a small dopey smile on his face.
What does he do with this information? What can he do with this information? Jaemin’s lost, really lost for once, and he thinks planning for the siege might have been easier than this. Here they are, in the same saddle as the Fire Prince, with no sort of restraint around him, no knives, no pointed weapons, nothing, and Jaemin thinks this is insane.
When did this begin? What happens when your charge goes and falls in love with his archenemy? The Enemy?
But somehow things click when he thinks back on their encounters with Jisung: Chenle had always been laughing, always been more than friendly, teasing with a smile on his face, and they had always written it off to Chenle’s happy personality and him liking Jisung’s reactions. What Jaemin thought was Jisung’s embarrassment and shame from Chenle’s teasing, with the flushing, the stutters, must have been Jisung getting flustered. They’d been flirting while fighting since the Prince appeared in their path, and they’d held each other in the same esteem since very early on.
This wasn’t a story, a play or a drama, this was Jaemin’s life and the Spirits had just thrown the biggest curve ball at him yet. He doesn’t even pay attention to Chenle and Renjun’s bickering as they fly, he can barely evaluate everything happening in his life in his head.
What will Chenle do if Jisung breaks his heart? What would they do if Chenle gets his heart broken? What if he doesn’t get his heart broken, and this relationship continues, is Jisung their charge now too? Does that mean Taeyong and them are in-laws? Jaemin is so bewildered, Chenle is all grown up and collecting hearts now, he feels vaguely like an empty-nested mother.
But all his worries are valid, right? Jisung was the Enemy. The son of the Big Enemy. Jaemin hasn’t stooped to the level of wanting to manipulate Jisung against his parents and nation or anything but what was he supposed to do with this information that the Avatar and the Fire Prince liked each other in a very much more than platonic way?
Chenle can’t hide anything from him, they might insist they were friends but that’s a crush. That’s puppy love that Jaemin sees and oh god Chenle went ahead and made the Fire Prince fall in love with him- Chenle went and fell for the Fire Prince. It was cute at first but now reality sinks its teeth into him-
What is this? Why is this happening to him? Where did it go wrong? Were they too lax? Why did Monk Yixing leave the three of them to manage a teenager? Jaemin laments silently, Chenle was barely more than a year younger than him, and he’s already become a parent.
Being a parent is painful. Jaemin is going straight home after all this is over and giving his mom the biggest hug ever.
That brings him back out of his mother hen thoughts back to reality.
The siege. Yes. Important. More important at the moment than Jaemin’s quickly dying motherhood at the hands of Chenle’s forbidden relationship with the Enemy.
As if to validate Jaemin’s existential crisis, the moon flickers, and when Jaemin blinks, it turns red, crimson bleeding into the sky.
When the shadow of the earth covers the moon, the moon will turn red, such is the nature of a lunar eclipse.
A warning, an omen.
Jaemin didn’t hear of a lunar eclipse coming, it was supposed to be a full moon tonight, not a- not a-
“A Blood Moon.” Jeno whispers next to him in horror.
“What's- What’s happening?”
“Chenle? Chenle, are you okay?”
Jaemin tears his eyes from the sky to see Chenle trembling uncontrollably in his position, eyes wide. Jisung disregards the fact that he's sitting in the saddle with four of Chenle's best friends and protectors in mid-air (where any one of them can probably easily throw him off to his death) and scoots over immediately to hold Chenle by his shoulders to steady him.
“Something’s happening-“ Chenle’s voice is shaking from the terrible tremors that come from his core, “Something’s wrong.”
“The Moon is-“
“-Spirits, I didn’t think- I didn’t think Yifan would be able to do it” Jisung’s voice is imbued with alarm, his hands tighten on Chenle as he looks at the moon in abject horror.
“What? What’s going on?” Jaemin turns sharply to Jisung, “What do you know? Is this a plan from the Fire Nation?“
“I- I wasn’t sure about this at first, I heard this when I was stowing away in Admiral Yifan’s ship. He told Taeyong-hyung of this plan he had to end the siege, he said he would take the Moon out of the equation and kill the Moon Spirit.”
“That’s impossible,” Renjun says immediately, “Don’t lie, Spirits live in the Spirit World, only Chenle is able to enter it, Yifan won’t be able to lay a hand on the Moon, that’s just impossible.”
“Oh. Oh no.” Chenle rakes his hands over his curly blond hair, “He can. Oh no. He can, Renjun-hyung, he can.”
“What?”
“He can,” Chenle’s voice is unsteady and high in horror, “Because the koi in the Oasis are the Spirits’ mortal forms.”
Their faces start to mirror Chenle’s expression, when he raises his head, face wrought in lines of fear, “That’s what I learnt in the Spirit World, the Moon and the Ocean gave up immortality to watch over the world.”
“That’s what the Face Stealer meant,” Jeno’s hand comes up to his mouth at the information, they’re hanging on to each and every word from Chenle, “When he told me the Spirits needed our help instead of the other way round.”
Because the koi in the Oasis are the Moon and the Ocean.
There’s no protection around the Oasis, Jaemin didn’t even think it would need guards, Renjun was all they thought they needed to defend Chenle and now he’s gone, and only Winwin is left there in case Chenle returned before they found him.
Their Moon and Ocean are one lemur away, basically defenceless if the Fire Nation manages to find the wooden door.
Ice cold dread dances its way across Jaemin’s back, it curls a hand around his neck and teases, laughing a cynical tune.
“Our strength comes from the Spirit of the Moon. Our life comes from the Spirit of the Ocean.” Jeno’s voice is trembling, “They work together to keep balance.”
Jisung continues where Jeno leaves off, “If the Moon is killed, Water Tribes aren’t the only ones that will pay the price, the Moon is one of the most important Spirits, and the world is all about balance. There’s going to be a ton of deaths if we don’t stop this.”
Mark immediately tugs at Kun’s reigns, “We need to get to the Spirit Oasis! Now!” and Kun understands, the bison rumbles in cooperation and tucks his feet in to accelerate.
It’s a blur to Jaemin, with how fast his heart is beating, adrenaline seems to erase time from his perception, all he cares is that they’re landing, and they’re leaping from the saddle as one, all of them, and running, running, running to the wooden door to save the Moon.
Chenle, the fastest of all of them, bursts into the Oasis and Jaemin hears him scream, “Yifan, stop!”
They rest of them pour in after Chenle, and Jaemin sees the admiral holding a woven bag, the contents of the sack is flopping about, struggling to escape.
The Moon.
“You can’t stop me, I will be a legend- The Fire Nation will, for generations, tell stories about me, who darkened the Moon. They will call me Yifan the Moon Slayer, the Invincible.”
“No.” Jisung steps up from behind them to stand next to Chenle, “No one will sing of your praises because there’ll be hell to pay. You’ll be solely responsible for all the deaths you’ll cause if you do this.”
“So you’re alive, Prince Jisung? What a shame.” The admiral spits the title ‘Prince’ with so much contempt that it makes something boil in Jaemin’s blood at his audacity.
“You tried to have me killed,” Jisung says steadily, “But I’m only one human, even if what you did was treachery. I won’t let you do that to the Moon.”
“What would you know, Prince Jisung? You’re a failure. You failed to capture the Avatar time and time again, I’m doing the Fire Nation a service.” The despicable sneer on his lips is so malicious, holds so much venom it drips from his words, “Even the Fire Lord won’t notice your absence.”
Jisung winces and Chenle reaches to put a hand on his arm reassuringly while still keeping his eyes on Yifan, face betraying nothing but absolute seriousness at the situation.
Jaemin files that away for later.
“It's my destiny, to destroy the Moon and the Water Tribe.”
“Destroying the moon won't hurt just the Water Tribe.” Chenle says slowly, as if he were trying to calm a rabid animal, “It will hurt everyone, including you. Without the Moon, everything would fall out of balance. You have no idea what kind of chaos this will unleash on the world.”
“He’s right, Admiral.”
“Hyung!”
Their heads swivel to see Jisung’s cousin, Taeyong, standing hooded in the shadows. Taeyong, for once, gives priority to Yifan over Jisung, eyes boring into the admiral, displeasure clear in his gaze.
Yifan narrows his eyes, “Brother of Hero Jaejoong and Fire prodigy Taeyong, why am I not surprised by your treachery?”
“I’m no traitor, Admiral,” Taeyong says, voice steady and firm, “The Fire Nation needs the Moon too, we all depend on the balance. Let the Moon go, or I’ll unleash on you, and your companions, whatever you do to the Moon, tenfold.”
Jaemin can tell by the steely glint in Taeyong’s eyes and his ready stance that he’ll do it.
Everyone looks murderous, and ready to strike, even Winwin, who’s notorious for disappearing in crucial moments in a fight, is perched on Chenle’s shoulder, teeth bared at the admiral.
The admiral, surrounded, reluctantly opens the bag and lets the Moon slip back into the Oasis.
Red retracts from the sky, and the Moon resumes shining again.
But Jaemin doesn’t trust Yifan, and he can tell from the cruel rage in the admiral’s eyes, that he’s far from finished.
Jaemin had anticipated Yifan to lash out on them, on Taeyong, on Chenle and on Jisung, perhaps, but he didn’t expect the admiral to be so clouded in rage that he’d strike the Moon out of pure anger.
Yifan unleashes his flames and immediately several things happen at once.
Chenle releases a whip of wind, aimed at Yifan’s hand to disrupt the path of fire. Renjun growls and draws water from the Oasis, the liquid whips its way through the air and cools as it spirals, water giving way to ice as Renjun commands it to drill a hole into Yifan’s skull. Winwin leaps, little claws out, and lands on Yifan to scratch at his face viciously. Jisung and Taeyong both simultaneously throw huge plumes of fire at the admiral, orange and blue, the fire swirl together in a lethal dance of searing heat towards Yifan.
But the damage is already done, and the mortal form of the Moon is only one of a koi.
Mid attack, Renjun’s water drops with a cry, no longer lifting to his bidding.
Winwin jumps away from messing up Yifan’s face, job done, just as the swirls of fire hits Yifan squarely in the chest and he’s blasted away, attack on the Moon cut short, but when the bubbles clear from the boiling water of the pool, the Moon Spirit’s mortal form is prone, belly up, and no longer moving.
Rather than a red moon, the light vanishes completely. The sky turns pitch black, and their world turns grey.
A sudden chill settles around them, crawling up Jaemin’s arms and spine. His heart clatters to the ground along with Jeno’s thrown spear, a throw that would have met its mark had it been moments sooner.
No.
There’s a sinking feeling in Jaemin’s chest and Jeno drops to his knees, mouth open in shock.
“No!”
Taeyong snarls; Bright blue, brilliant blue, azure blue plumes of flames, the only colour that Jaemin can see, roar their way towards Yifan, and some sick satisfaction rises in Jaemin’s chest when he sees Yifan’s eyes widen in alarm and fear at the prodigy’s merciless onslaught of flames.
Taeyong makes true to his promise, and with a huge blaze, incapacitates all of the Fire soldiers rooted to their spot. When Taeyong finally turns to Yifan, eyes blazing like the fire he controls, the admiral knows what’s coming for him and turns to flee, top knot messy and terror in his eyes at the power of the Fire Nation prodigy.
Every cell in Jaemin is screaming at him to chase after Yifan, to take him down while he’s been weakened. This is their chance of winning the siege, by taking down the commanding officer, but even Jaemin isn’t immune to shock, and the blood thudding in his ears doesn’t translate to his legs.
Jisung though, barely hesitates before he strikes in Jaemin’s place, again and again, while the rest of them are paralysed, orange fire harsh and movements ruthless as he whirls and kicks, footsteps light and disciplined as he chases after the coward, young face twisted in fury.
Even though Jisung is the enemy Jaemin finds himself secretly rooting for the younger, hoping that he succeeds, because while Jisung was a threat on their way to the North Pole, the admiral is nothing short of detestable.
The fight seems to bleed out of Taeyong as turns sorrowfully and pads slowly to the oasis, footsteps soft and hands gentle as he lifts the limp form of the Moon Spirit.
Jaemin never expected the famous Fire Nation prodigy to have this dimension to him, because that right there, is the face of compassion and absolute devastation.
Maybe, something in Jaemin’s mind silently says, maybe it is possible that Jisung wasn’t putting up a front, if he was raised by this man, because despite Jaemin’s rationality, he wants to trust in that face, trust that the empathy Taeyong is showing is real.
And Jaemin wants to trust Chenle’s judgement, because the last thing he wants right now, on top of losing the war, is for Chenle to get an emotional scar.
The Ocean Spirit is in the middle of the pool, spinning in circles, shock and confusion apparent as the black koi swims faster and faster when he fully realises that his other half is gone.
Dead.
Taeyong looks up to Jeno on the ground, Jeno’s eyes are wide, imploring, the image of shattered hope.
“She’s gone,” Taeyong says heavily, “I’m sorry, all of you- A thousand lives will never be able to pay for this loss.”
The loss of balance and the loss of one of the oldest Spirits.
“It’s over?” Jeno’s voice quivers as he asks, gaze hollow in disbelief, and Renjun curls himself around Jeno as a form of comfort, and where Jeno would normally be more than happy to return the physical affection with the best hugs, it barely is able to elicit a reaction from him.
The Moon Spirit is gone, and the world is plunged into darkness. Waterbending ceases to exist, and the North Pole has lost its greatest advantage, their only arsenal of firepower that was their sure-kill, enough to stand against the heavily mechanised and industrialised Fire Nation.
“No,” Mark speaks up, tone firm in a way that his voice isn’t, Winwin curls around his neck, a familiar furry scarf winding itself across their eldest’s shoulders, Mark’s shoulder square a little in the subtlest of responses, “No way this is over.”
“It’s not over,” He repeats. Mark sounds surer this time, even if Jaemin logically knows he’s just grasping at straws, but he appreciates it, he really does. They need Mark here to keep their heads above the water more than ever. They need their leader to keep them afloat.
“We need to rally,” Mark continues, “Only when we lose hope and give up, is it truly over.”
He’s right, Jaemin thinks, with Mark’s words striking a chord, he starts mapping out the forces they have left.
Without Waterbending, North Pole is effectively stripped of its healers, medics here rely more on Waterbending more than anything, and even though the Water Tribes are arguably the most well versed in medicine, plants and herbs are difficult to come by, so to ensure their survival, food, supplies and herbs need to be rationed.
Jaemin does a quick tally of the resources he thinks remain – They need defences placed around the supplies tent, and protection for the Healers. Waterbenders who can no longer Waterbend need to return for protection. With the number of Warriors that he thinks they have on hand who are versed in hand to hand combat, they have roughly four Firebenders to one Warrior.
Even with Mark stationed there, could they protect that many people if the Fire Soldiers suddenly decide to attack? Four to one was far too tricky. Mark and Jeno can normally easily take four to one, but in these extreme circumstances, everyone is shaken beyond imagination, and Renjun can’t bend anymore. Chenle surely can’t be reduced to protecting the Healers as the Avatar. Jaemin knows for a fact that he probably can’t take four to one himself.
Slim slim odds.
He meets Mark’s gaze and he knows even though the leader hadn’t gone through all the calculations he did, he could tell their situation was dire. There was no time to waste.
Jaemins makes to get up when Chenle springs up from his crouch next to Jeno, frown uncharacteristic on his face.
“No, Jeno-hyung,”
Chenle’s voice has this hardened edge that Jaemin doesn’t like, and when he looks at Chenle, the younger’s chin is set stubbornly in defiance.
Chenle walks to the edge of the Spirit Pool, and when the tip of his shoe touches the water, his tattoos light up.
Jeno gasps from next to him, as Chenle speaks again, with the weight of a thousand years and generations of power and wisdom, a thousand voices of the past Avatars echoing his words.
“It’s not over.”
He wades into the centre of the pond, hands clasped in prayer and meditation. They watch in wonder as the Ocean Spirit stops his futile circles to come to Chenle when the blond reaches the centre of the pool.
The Water Tribes have depended on the Moon and Ocean for a millennium. Their power comes from the Moon, and their life comes from the Ocean.
The Ocean Spirit starts glowing, white light matching the intensity of Chenle’s tattoos when suddenly, with a splosh, Chenle sinks into the centre.
The whole pool glows with light, blinding in the moonless world, and the light spreads, from the tiny pool into the surrounding canals of the oasis and it’s terrifyingly beautiful.
A deeper vivid blue, bluer than Taeyong’s flames, sears itself into Jaemin’s brain.
If Taeyong’s blue is azure, a promise of lightning and burning flesh, the blue of the Ocean Spirit is one of the unknown, one that speaks of the depths of the sea, the ocean, the things that Jaemin simultaneously wants to learn of, and fears.
A glowing wave rises from the pool, with Chenle in the centre. The wave grows higher and higher, until Jaemin sees, heart pounding, that the water had taken the form of a huge glowing koi fish with Chenle at its heart. And if a fish could look extremely angry, the koi with its form engulfing Chenle, looked like it wanted to tear the world apart.
His mouth drops open when he realises Chenle, his Lele, their Lele, had merged forms with the Ocean Spirit.
One of the oldest Spirits, one that gave his all to the world finally discards his vow of peace, heeding Chenle’s prayer and willingly merging forms with the Avatar to rid the North Pole of the invaders.
Of course, Jaemin thinks, this is the answer to the consequences of the siege.
The Ocean lost his Moon, his other half- How dare they, mere mortals, disrupt their eternal dance because of struggle over power and land?
How could they, when the Moon and the Ocean had taken mortal forms to watch over the world that they loved so much?
The Ocean has given too much, lost too much, and now, humanity must pay.
The Ocean Spirit, with Chenle in tow, washes out of the Oasis to mete out their punishment.
Jaemin almost follows, except he’s painfully reminded that with Chenle later limp from exhaustion, he doesn’t have the skill to carry them and defend them both at the same time. And there’s Jeno, right here, on the ground in despair and Jaemin can’t bring himself to leave him, let alone trust Taeyong, the enemy, as decent as he seems, to not attack when he’s gone.
With an exchange of glances, Renjun immediately understands and runs to shadow their Avatar, tugging Mark and Winwin with him and that’s a small weight off Jaemin at least- when Chenle slips back from the Avatar State, they have sensible Renjun and Mark able to fight without bending watching his back.
And there’s no one better than Mark to have watching everyone’s backs- Jaemin would trust Mark with everything, his life, his tribe, the world- Everything.
But this problem is beyond Mark, it’s beyond their leader, and it’s beyond Jaemin, because what can they possibly do to bring back a Spirit that’s a millennium old and now suddenly gone?
Jaemin’s brain doesn’t stop moving, he’s thinking of the possibilities. If this is all over, assuming Chenle can rid the North Pole entirely on the Fire Nation, he’ll need to return to the Spirit World to ask for way to revive the Moon.
Was it even possible? Chenle only successfully entered the Spirit World because of the influence of the Moon and Ocean and their eternal dance. Jaemin doesn’t know if Chenle has the ability, let alone energy to try to re-enter the Spirit World for the second time today, on a mission that none of them were sure would succeed.
They’d initially thought going into the Spirit World would help solve the problem of the siege, but it turns out it doomed them. If they had just guarded the Oasis better, all of this wouldn’t have happened, they would still have their Bending, and they wouldn’t be expending Chenle’s stamina against the entire fleet of navy so casually.
Jeno’s mouth moves, “The prophecy,” and Jaemin’s gaze snaps to Jeno.
“What?”
Jaemin has to have heard wrong, please, he has to-
Jeno clears his throat and looks at Jaemin, dark eyes piercing into Jaemin’s core, and pinning him there.
“My prophecy.”
There it is, the cold dread pooling in his stomach.
“No.”
Taeyong looks up from where he was cradling the mortal form of the Moon Spirit, round, curious gaze on Jeno.
“I’m supposed to die on a Blood Moon, but maybe not in the way I thought I would.”
No, no, no, please-
Jeno starts to rise from his kneel to walk towards Taeyong and the Moon Spirit.
“Maybe I’m supposed to give my life to the Moon instead.”
Jaemin’s heart drops to his feet in an instant.
“No! Jeno-”
Jaemin dives forward to grasp Jeno’s hand, he lands painfully on his knees. Instead of warm grass, he lands on cold hard ice. He doesn’t need to look down to know why.
The grass in the Oasis is thinning.
The North Pole is dying.
He grips Jeno’s hand tighter- He can’t let him do this, they shouldn’t have to sacrifice anyone, let alone Jeno.
Chenle will find a way out of this, once he defeats the Fire Navy he’ll be back and they’ll be able to access the Spirit World through him, Jaemin can’t let Jeno sacrifice himself. He- He can’t, he wouldn’t be able to take it, can’t bear it.
Jeno turns back to look at him, a gentle curve on his lips that doesn’t meet the silent apology in his eyes.
Jaemin is horrified, but he can’t look away, Jeno’s eyes have always drawn him in, always spoke to something in him, now those same dark eyes and asking, imploring him to see in his light.
And Jaemin can’t, he just can’t.
He can’t afford to lose Jeno, as much as he can’t lose Renjun or Chenle or Mark. They might as well cut his heart out right there and then. He’d rather they cut his heart out than just stand there, searching Jeno’s face for even a hint of hesitation.
His heart sinks and sinks again until it thuds below the ground, the floor through his boots, his knees, below the ice, when all he sees in Jeno’s eyes are resignation and determination.
“Jaemin.”
“No- No- Please, Jeno, you don’t have to do this!”
“I do.”
Jeno cuts him off quietly.
“I’ll go inste-“
“No, Jaemin-ah,” Jeno cuts him off firmly, “I know you only want to protect me, but think about Chenle, think about Renjun and Mark. If they lose you, we lose the world.”
He’s right. Jeno’s right. And it’s painful to admit, but they do need him. Renjun needs Jaemin to ground him, Mark needs a friend, someone to care for and someone to talk to as an equal, and Chenle needs a brother, a companion, a family.
And the world needs them.
Jaemin’s thoughts stutter to a halt. His heart aches and aches and aches.
“This is my duty, it’s what I’m destined to do.”
The youngest Prince begins on a Blood Moon.
The youngest Prince ends on a Blood Moon.
Full circle, as all things should be.
No, Jaemin doesn’t want to let things be. Jeno is the last person deserving of this fate, a life of scrutiny away from his mother’s embrace, ending his life to preserve his home. Jaemin can’t let him-
Jeno comes so close to Jaemin that their breaths practically mingle.
He cups Jaemin’s face tenderly, there’s a little bit of something other than the desperation that Jaemin feels for the North Pole, something other than the hard-headed determination to do what’s right, it almost mirrors the way Jaemin’s father looked at his mother.
Jaemin’s heart leaps, he opens his mouth to say anything, just anything to make Jeno stay.
It’s as if Jeno knows what he wants, he shakes his head gently, gaze glazing over as he strokes Jaemin’s cheekbone with a thumb.
Then, Jeno leans in and places the softest kiss, their first kiss, on the corner of Jaemin’s mouth. Jaemin is too stunned and devastated at the implication of this to chase his lips.
Jeno caresses Jaemin’s face with the back of his hand, warm skin against cold cheeks, he leans forward, not quite connecting their lips, instead holding his forehead against Jaemin’s. He murmurs against Jaemin’s lips.
“I have to do this.”
Jaemin reaches blindly to clasp at Jeno’s hands, pulling them from his face to study Jeno’s expression. Jaemin knows deep down that nothing he can say or do, no one on this earth can shake Jeno from his resolve.
He holds so much affection and adoration for Jeno, that he can’t even be mad that Jeno’s sacrificing his future, their future, because it’s so in character with who Jeno is - Strong, gentle and kind, courageous, giving and responsible.
Jaemin can’t stop him because he knows if he were in Jeno’s place, if he were the Prince of the North Pole instead, he would’ve done the same.
Taeyong had been silent for the entire exchange, he meets Jeno’s gaze and understands, he places the Moon's prone form into the pond gently, and bows to Jeno respectfully, in the full salute of the Fist and the Flame. He then walks towards Jaemin to place a hand on his shoulder.
In a moment of both strength and weakness, Jaemin’s grip on Jeno’s hand loosens, and Jeno slips from his grasp. Jaemin can only look on in dread as Jeno walks slow but certain steps towards the pond.
Taeyong’s hot palm remains to be Jaemin’s anchor and the only thing keeping him in his place as Jeno wades into the pond to rest his hands gently against the Moon Spirit.
There's no sky splitting light, no explosion, no thunder, no waves other than a gentle weak glow emitting from where Jeno’s hands meet the Moon Spirit’s form.
Then, right in front of Jaemin’s eyes, Jeno’s hair starts to bleach in colour, from his roots to the ends, from his soft jet black to a brilliant, stark white.
As sudden as the sky turning dark, the Moon shines again in her apex in the sky, full and bright, cold white light filtering through the opening of the Oasis. The pool is bathed in silver once more.
The Moon Spirit wakes, she wiggles under Jeno’s fingers and zips into circles, swimming around the Prince and nudging him with her snout.
But Jeno remains still, deathly still until his legs buckle underwater.
Jaemin surges forwards, wades into the pool holds Jeno in his arms, hands trembling when he feels that Jeno is cooler than the water in the Oasis.
It’s his turn to cup Jeno’s face now, he forces himself to stay calm as he feels for a pulse at his wrist, but his hands are shaking too hard and the thundering of his own heartbeat covers any possible sign of life from Jeno.
Jaemin’s shaking so much he barely registers Taeyong crouching at the edge of the pool, leaning over, brows furrowed in urgency and concern. He's so disoriented he lets Taeyong gently push his hands aside to feel for a pulse, knowing when he’s out of capacity to do anything useful.
“He’s breathing,” The older says, “Just barely… And his heartbeat is incredibly weak.”
It’s like he’s hearing it from underwater, his vision is hazy, everything else but Jeno is distorted, his thrum of his own pulse is louder than anything, and he starts to choke on his breaths, cold, frigid puffs of air.
He’s not going to make it. Jeno needs a miracle.
Jaemin can barely reason with how distraught he is that he doesn’t notice the Ocean Spirit come back in the form of a glowing wave, can barely hear Taeyong’s voice above his thunderous heartbeat, telling him to loosen his grip on Jeno.
His movements are mechanical as he does, his brain feels like chalk and his limbs heavy, Jaemin doesn’t think he’ll ever be capable of rational thought ever again over this deep deep pain. A crippling grief.
The Ocean Spirit morphs back into its mortal form, and it shoots to the centre of the Oasis, urgent to see its other half again. And there, in an event that even Jaemin can feel in his core, the Moon and Ocean meet.
Starting from the Spirits in the centre, a soft blue light floods the cavern and Jaemin is forced to tear his gaze away from Jeno’s face. The pool that Jaemin holding Jeno in gets warmer and warmer.
He feels, rather than sees Jeno and the Oasis breathe in deep in tandem, and sigh.
A buoyant ripple of wind passes through the Oasis and the blades of grass seems to sense it, because they turn greener and stand taller.
The air in the Oasis grows warmer. Richer.
“…Jaemin?”
Jaemin’s eyes snap open at Jeno’s weak whimper.
Jeno’s eyes are half-lidded, gaze tired and body slack, but his eyes are glimmery and Jaemin still thinks there’s nothing more beautiful than Jeno in this world.
He can hear Jeno’s heartbeat from where he is, strong and even, his breaths are quiet, but steady and sure.
“A miracle.”
Taeyong echoes his thoughts in a whisper, the elder had walked over to the wooden door of the Oasis, mouth parted in wonder as he takes in the brilliant full moon, shining sure and bright once more.
Even in the throes of his emotions, Jaemin doesn't waste a second in carrying Jeno out of the Spirit Pool to settle on the grass. He pays no heed to how sopping wet the both of them are, and keeps Jeno securely in his hold as he looks over to the centre of the pool to see the Moon and the Ocean in their eternal dance, the rhythmic motions of the two Spirits moving in tandem to restore the North Pole.
He barely registers the hot trails of tears rolling down his face as he leans down and clutches Jeno closer and rests his forehead against his.
“Jaemin,”
How could Jaemin ignore Jeno, when he calls his name like that? How could Jaemin not fall for him, not be filled with adoration for Jeno, when he looks at Jaemin like he hung the moon in the sky, when in fact it was the opposite?
Jeno’s eyes fold into those crescents that make Jaemin’s heart clench.
“I’m in love with you.” Jaemin blurts out, “I know this is a horrible time to say it, we still have a siege to win, but by the Spirits, I’m so in love with you, Jeno,”
He doesn’t wait for a response, “I know it’s selfish, it’s so manipulative to say this and ask you of anything, but I don’t think I can take it if you pull another stunt like this one-“
He fumbles with his words, “You don’t have to return my feelings, just- please remember the next time you risk your life, think of me, even as a friend, and don’t- please don’t ever do this- do this to me again- please-“
He doesn’t manage to finish before tripping over his tongue, he’s full out sobbing like a child and he doesn’t care, doesn’t care that Taeyong is still here and the enemy might still be in the room, doesn’t care that this potentially gives anyone watching a lifetime’s worth of blackmail over him.
“Don’t-“ Jaemin chokes.
He’s aware of how selfish his request is, Jaemin’s in uncharted waters. He’s never held so much love for one single person before, and even if this would make Jeno hate him, recoil from him, if it at least made him hesitate before the face of death, before another sacrifice, then Jaemin would have served his purpose.
Jaemin hiccups, not daring to look into Jeno’s eyes, blurry gaze focused on his mouth instead. He fully expects Jeno’s lips to turn into a frown, for Jeno to push him away, be cold to him, but instead Jeno’s lips curve up into a smile, and before he can stop himself, his gaze shifts up to Jeno’s eyes, crinkled into loving crescents.
“I-“
“Jeno!”
Doyoung comes barreling in, fresh from the fight, cuts on his cheek, panting, eyes wild and hair messy. Only then does Jaemin remember the siege and where they are, but judging by the look of things, the Ocean's return and Doyoung having the time to run to them, it's safe to say the worst is probably over.
“The mission team got back to me, they- they found the plans in the Admiral's quarters then- Then, I saw the Moon go and I knew- I knew-“
He stops in front of Jeno, he raises shaking hands to card through Jeno’s now snow white hair, expression crumpling.
“I’m sorry-“
Doyoung sobs, and Jaemin feels that pressure behind his eyes again, a threat to spill over at the rare showcase of emotion from the fellow strategist.
“Hyung is so sorry- I couldn’t protect you- I knew this was going to happen and I had to let it run its course-“
Had to let his younger brother take the sacrifice to save his nation. Had to stand back and let the prophecy that he would lose his brother take its toll.
Suddenly Jaemin understands now, the tight-lipped smile, the grave request, why Doyoung pulled him aside to ask him to look after Jeno, why he had felt uneasy from the start of the siege. At this moment Jaemin feels more than sorry for Doyoung and can immediately empathise why the older had always been so protective.
Who wouldn’t be, if they had known that their brother would have to pay the ultimate cost, as an expense for all their lives?
“It’s okay hyung,” Jeno says, voice small but strong, “Everything worked out.”
Did it? Jaemin has heard stories of people who were Spirit Touched, and it’s rarely a good end.
Most of them end up as Seers, driven insane by their visions. Some of them end up secluded, tired of being worshipped by the mundane, and shut themselves off from the rest of the world.
At the very least, he’s heard when the Spirit Touched pass, they have to remain in the Spirit World forever, as a payment for the Spirit who blessed them, who saved their lives.
Judging by Taeyong’s expression as he looks on at them, he knows. He knows Jeno will never reincarnate, will never live a life outside of this one.
This was the sacrifice he had to make to save the North Pole, to save the world. This was why he gave a full bow in the Fist and Flame, even as Fire Nation royalty, because Jeno is every bit the hero, if not more so, than each and every one of them.
Doyoung pulls both of them close into a tight embrace, and Jeno’s hands find Doyoung’s back, patting rhythmically to soothe the older.
Doyoung’s hand presses against Jaemin’s shoulder blades and for now he lets himself have this, lets this comfort him, that in the very least in this life, Jeno has so many people who love him, and Jaemin will love him enough to make up for all the lost lives, every single one of them.
That’s how Renjun and Mark find them, with Chenle asleep on Mark’s back, the three of them in a tight embrace in the middle of the Oasis. Taeyong brushes away a tear at the sight before bowing to them again respectfully and disappearing through the door, to find Jisung, presumably, and make a tactful retreat.
Jaemin stores that information for another day, that the Prodigy of the Fire Nation is a decent man. For now, they need to get Jeno to a Healer, and Jaemin’s worries won’t settle until he’s pronounced completely fine.
“He’s completely fine!”
Head Healer Sunyoung cheerily wipes her hands on a flannel, “Didn’t have to do Healing on this one- No holes, no bruises, other than maybe a lot of fatigue- Well he did transcend dimensions somewhat, he’s been touched by the Spirits, after all!”
Mark and Renjun’s shoulders relax.
“Also, something else you all should see-“
Sunyoung rummages in her drawers and retrieves a bowl, she gracefully bends water into it and sits down next to Jeno.
All of them watch on, curious, as she casually takes the bone scalpel she was holding across Jeno’s palm, just enough for the thin cut to bleed. Jeno jolts in surprise and Renjun jumps up, startled.
“Noona!”
Doyoung’s exclamation holds more shock than anger, and Jaemin’s too taken aback to take offence as Sunyoung laughs, “Relax, relax, I’m not trying to kill him- I observed something really interesting just now when I put him into the healing tub. I didn’t have to do anything because of this-“
She dips Jeno’s hand into the water, and Jeno’s hand starts glowing blue, bright blue, not the blue of Taeyong’s fire or the menacing blue of the Ocean Spirit, but a soft, calming hue.
When she draws Jeno’s hand out of the water, the cut is completely healed, not even a scar in its place.
Jaemin’s jaw drops, and Jeno is too stunned to even move, round eyes staring at his own hand as if it was something foreign and Renjun is the one who asks instead, “How? How- Jeno wasn’t a Bender before!”
Sunyoung smiles, the bouncy cheer now gone, mellowed out to a gentle calm, “I believe when Jeno gave his life to the Moon Spirit, there may have been a trade of some sorts.”
The image gets clearer and clearer as Jaemin understands. The Moon is the source of Waterbending and Healing. If Jeno had given part of his life to the Moon, then the Ocean and Moon must have given Jeno something back, because the Moon and the Ocean are the symbols of balance, and simply taking from the young Prince is not a fair exchange.
The Healer bows her head, “The Moon is a benevolent spirit. She loves us, she loves humans, she loves the world, and she’s rooting for you all. I’m sure upon Jeno’s sacrifice, the Spirits decided to award you with a gift in exchange for the price he’ll need to pay. One that will come into use in your travels, I suppose, should Jeno decide to join you.”
Healing.
When Jeno lent his life to the Moon and returned her to the Ocean, the Ocean rebestowed him with Life, and the Moon gave Jeno the gift of Healing.
It’s beautiful, poetic, even.
Full circle, as all things should be.
Silence permeates the room, and when Jeno looks at Jaemin, he sees hope sprouting in the light of his eyes. Jaemin can feel something in him inundate with gratitude that the Spirits saw fit to at least give Jeno a life that he deserves to lead.
“Now out! All of you, out! Jeno needs rest, I don’t care if he’s injured or not, you’re clogging up my workspace. I have plenty of people to attend to- You! Yes you, your Highness, in my quarters I make the rules, don’t you dare leave your bed again, your injuries are worse than Jeno’s-“
“You two-“ She points at Mark and Renjun, shifting targets from a disgruntled Doyoung.
“Come help me with your Avatar, Spirits bless him- that child will not sit still and he refuses to stay in bed even though in all circumstances with all he's been through he should be in a coma by now! It's a miracle that he's even awake! Goodness, the Avatar State drained so much away from him, someone needs to explain to him that just because he feels like jumping out of bed doesn't mean he should! He's worse off than both hard-headed Highnesses over here-“
Doyoung gives an insulted squawk before heeding the Healer’s order, and Jeno manages a laugh as Mark and Renjun grin and follow Sunyoung to placate their Avatar.
She's right, Jaemin or at least one of them need to talk to Chenle soon about the strain he puts himself under when he enters the Avatar State, Chenle might have gotten through this battle unscathed physically, but no one should remain awake fighting, entering the Spirit World and the Avatar State respectively without rest for two days straight, and whatever Sunyoung said just now was mildly concerning, Jaemin will have to follow up with her later and ask her the specifics.
Jaemin makes to leave to join them when Jeno grasps his wrist.
“Stay- Please?”
His eyes, those eyes. Jaemin has no choice but to relent, he’s only human, and there’s no way he can turn against Jeno when he asks him so sincerely.
“I need to talk to you, about what you asked of me, what you said.”
Jaemin swallows his heart back into his throat and sits back down on the bed.
This is it, wasn’t it? The rejection.
Now that Jaemin thinks of it, Jeno would never be cold or be mean in response to whatever he said, it just wasn’t like Jeno. He’d probably let Jaemin down gently, with a smile.
Jaemin can’t decide which one would hurt less.
He takes Jeno’s hand from around his wrist and clasps it carefully in his. He knows by looking at Jeno he’s denying himself any chance of softening the blow, but he does it anyways, because he wants to drink in his presence while he still can.
“It was painful for me too,” Jeno starts quietly, “When I thought I had to leave you.”
Jaemin stills and Jeno gives his hand a squeeze.
“I didn’t- I don’t want to die either, Jaemin, I didn’t want to leave my life when I’ve found something other than my kingdom to live for. For once, I wanted to live for myself, and not for others… But I love my people, and I had to- I wouldn’t have done it, if I thought there was any other option.”
Jeno’s smile is sad and true, and his words are slow, but Jaemin knows he means it with his whole heart.
“What you said was very sweet, Jaemin, but I can’t promise that I wont risk everything I have to save my nation. I just can't, Jaemin-ah. If you were in my place, if the South Pole were in danger you would lay your life down in a heartbeat, and it’s the same for me- I’d choose this again and again, even if it’s unfair for you, even if it’s unfair for me…”
And there it is, why Jaemin is irrevocably in love- In love, he finally verbalises it in his thoughts coherently, firmly, rather than in a rushed slurry of words: He’s in love with Jeno.
“The world is our duty, Jaemin, and if you ask me to choose between my life and the world, I won’t hesitate to choose my duty, but if I were to choose between my life and yours… I’d drive a dagger into my heart to keep you alive.”
That hits too close to home. It’s soon, too soon for Jeno to be saying things like this.
“Jeno…” Jaemin’s voice is a bare, hoarse whisper, “Don’t- please don’t say that.”
“I mean it, I mean every word.”
And Jaemin believes him, knows it’s true, that Jeno is speaking from his heart now, and that’s what hurts the most, is that Jaemin knew if they had to, they would choose duty above all else, such is the life of people raised to lead a tribe. Such is the life in times of war.
“And if I had to choose between the world and you,” Jeno continues, reverent, “I’m not sure which I’d rather lose… I’d probably rather die than lose you or anyone in Dream.”
Protest bubble at Jaemin’s lips and Jeno continues before he can voice them.
“But we shouldn’t have to.”
Jeno’s voice is saturated with assurance as he forges on to pierce through each and every layer that Jaemin’s head carefully built around his heart.
“We shouldn’t have to make the choice, because we’re strong, the five of us. Injunnie is now on par with a seasoned Waterbending Master. We have the Avatar, the last Airbender on our side, coupled with Mark-hyung and my weapon mastery and your tactics - Now, with the blessing of the Moon and Ocean, we’re invincible, Jaemin, even if you don’t believe it. Through all your stories, you’re all extremely lucky despite the horrible circumstances. And I’m extremely lucky to have met you guys. It’s like the Spirits wanted us to meet, and it’s like they want you- us- to succeed in restoring balance.”
Jaemin knows he’s the lucky one, the world is lucky that Jeno was born, because the youngest Prince, shunned by the Tribe because he ended the life of his mother on a Blood Moon, had saved all of them.
“But yes, Jaemin, I swear on the Moon and the Ocean, on Tui and La-”
Their Spirits, the ones that blessed the Water Tribes, their oath alone-
“I love you too, and I’d go to the ends of the world with you, if you’ll have me.”
It takes a beat for Jaemin to process this in his thought-addled brain.
And then joy rushes through Jaemin at his words, because Jeno is willing to come with them, Jeno is willing to put down his title as a Prince and go with them on their suicidal mission of four- no- five people against a whole nation.
It’s suddenly not so suicidal anymore as well, what with the embodiment of the Spirits’ blessing on their side.
Of course, Jaemin wants to say, Of course I’ll have you, of course I want you, of course you have a place with us, you always will, in our team, in my family, in my heart- You’ll always have a place.
Instead Jaemin embarrassingly hiccups as he whines, insulted, “How dare you- Why are you one-upping me? I’m supposed to be the one with the toe-curling confession- I confessed first- I liked you first!”
Jeno’s laugh is quiet, but it takes up his whole chest, and it’s wholehearted and endearing, and Jaemin unconsciously leans in, eyes meeting Jeno’s smiley, sparkly ones.
And when they finally kiss, a proper one, it tastes of salt and tears and it tastes of relief, of a victory hard won, of a promise, of companionship, of love.
Of course Chief Donghae would summon the waterworks the day they leave, Jaemin didn’t expect any less from the watery Chief.
(“Jeno-yaaa my baby is all grown up, merging with moons and going on adventures- “sniff “Appa is so proud-“)
The two weeks following the siege is a blur, it mainly consisted of Jaemin and Doyoung working together to restore the damage from the Siege, and Renjun and Chenle getting more intensive Waterbending training by helping to reconstruct the buildings.
Now that the Fire Nation had been here, they couldn’t just restore everything into its original place, it was simply a tactically bad decision to keep the original structures, the Fire Nation already knows too much, and Doyoung had agreed.
“Everything’s changing,” Doyoung articulated, “Everything, and even though this siege took a lot away from us, it was the right move to kick us into action. Starting from dispelling horrible rumours and prophecies, then onto dropping roles and traditions.”
Doyoung’s eyes glint in the dim light, and Jaemin can’t help but shiver, “The world is moving forward, and this siege has shown us that. We can no longer fall behind, we must move too, starting with abolishing the very things that hold us back.”
“We need to be able to work as one, or else the next time the Fire Nation comes, we won’t have the Avatar to cushion us anymore, the Fire Nation will take us down if we stay as we are.”
Starting with Jaemin’s suggestions and Chief Donghae’s approval, Doyoung and Jaemin spent day and night drawing up a new city plan for Waterbenders to follow and rebuild the North Pole into something greater than its former glory.
In exchange for the Avatar’s help, the drafting committee (basically the two of them) saw fit to consider the suggestions the Airbender made, so now courtesy to Chenle, there’s an ice slide connecting the throne room of the palace and the courtyard.
Chief Donghae had allowed it because apparently it shortened the travel time needed. Jaemin just thinks it’s because Chief Donghae secretly also wants a ride. Jaemin wholeheartedly approves of the addition when it makes the corners of Jeno’s eyes crinkle prettily.
In the midst of all of this, Jaemin hardly saw Jeno outside of meal times because Sunyoung had seen fit to abduct Jeno and try to cram all her years of Healing knowledge into him in an intensive two week course in light of his new abilities, now that the whole of North Pole knows that the Young Prince had saved the Moon and was going to be joining the Avatar’s team.
Their team. Dream.
Jaemin’s heart still flutters every time he thinks of how Jeno is a part of them now.
Jeno emerges from the Healer’s house with hands full of notes to study and a two spears strapped to his back, one of which was forged by Doyoung specifically for Jeno, as a parting gift, and the other one, part of his father Chief Donghae’s arsenal of weapons, a Crescent Moon Blade, both a piece of his home and heritage.
Not far away from where Mark and Renjun are packing, Yuta and a team of other Benders and Healers were preparing to leave for the Southern Water Tribe, to help rebuild it. Especially with the news that all the men had gone to war, their help was needed now more than ever.
“And I want to see Sicheng again,” Yuta had said wistfully after giving Jeno the vial of Spirit Water and cautioning him to use it wisely. His gaze into the horizon is reminiscent and aged but his smile is so wide, and so so young, “We’ve been apart for too long.”
He looks at Renjun who’s curling in disgust and pays no heed to the younger’s reflex to his mooning, “You’ll be fine out there, I’m not worried. You’re a Master in your own right, Renjun, and you’re more than qualified to continue Chenle’s training.”
Renjun stands taller at this, flushing at the praise. He opens his mouth to thank Yuta, but the Master continues, “And thank you, Renjun, for trying to beat the sense back into me. I was bitter for too long, when Sicheng left me for freedom. And seeing how you love him and he clearly cares for you, he’s found another home. Maybe it’s time I took the risk and joined him. Can you imagine that? Our new home.”
Renjun’s nose wrinkles at Yuta’s lovesick smile, “That just means we’ll have to share a house? That’s disgusting hyung, even if it’s kind of cute. I’m happy for you I guess, even though I just had to witness the sappiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
It’s a testament to how far gone Yuta is into Sicheng-land when he doesn’t even give Renjun the side-eye.
“And thanks, hyung, for teaching me everything.”
For the first time, Renjun bows respectfully out of his own volition to Yuta, and the Master can’t help the chortle escaping his lips.
“You brat- I’ll miss you, it won’t be quite the same training Waterbending students after you, you have a spark, Renjun, that's rare for a Waterbender but it's invaluable to have..”
Jaemin silently agrees. Renjun is a Waterbender with the tenacity of an Earthbender and the ferociousness of a Firebender. The warmest and softest of all souls all wrapped up in a firecracker. A tiny vivacious firecracker. Jaemin is so lucky, so so lucky to have Renjun as a best friend.
He’s so caught up in his thoughts he nearly doesn’t notice Doyoung walking up to him and Mark to bid them farewell.
Jaemin had grown a lot closer to Doyoung in the past two weeks, owing to them spending almost every waking hour together, to the point where Jaemin can safely say Doyoung is definitely fond of him, just not in the explicit way he dotes on Jeno, and Jaemin is okay with that.
“Mark,” Doyoung starts with their eldest. His hands are on Mark’s shoulders in a warm hold, “You’re a good leader, no matter what you may think or how you’re raised to believe.”
”From this point on, you’ll be in charge of one more, and you’re already doing very well to nurture the bonds of the group and keep them in line at the same time. As a future leader myself, I’m glad to have met you, and I’m still learning, and I’m glad I could learn from you too.”
Jaemin turns to see Mark’s cheekbones rise with the shy grin he’s sporting. And Jaemin wholeheartedly agrees with Doyoung, he couldn’t ask for a better leader, a better teammate, a better friend, a better brother.
“I’m happy, that if my younger brother needs to venture out in the world, he’s going with you. Both of you.”
Jaemin’s heart hammers in his chest at being addressed with such praise, and Mark’s ears are a pleased red.
“Jaemin,” Jaemin gulps when Doyoung turns to him.
As a Warrior, he has utmost respect for Doyoung, and as a strategist, tenfold, even. But as Jeno’s brother, Jaemin finds him intimidating, because he knows he can’t guarantee the safety of his precious younger brother on this trip to end the war.
Jaemin can’t even guarantee any of them will come out of it alive, and he’s already almost lost Jeno once.
“Jeno doesn’t need protecting.”
Jaemin blinks in surprise because he was expecting the opposite.
Jaemin knows Jeno is more than skilled enough at the spear and the Guan Dao to hold his own, what he didn’t expect was for his older brother to admit that to him.
“He doesn’t, but he needs you. All of you.”
Doyoung’s gaze is sharp and calculative, but not without warmth, “You’ll need his support as much as he needs yours, you’ve experienced the same feeling before, of going out into the wide world to complete a mission that’s a hundred years old. That’s something I can never imagine doing, but Jeno has always been braver than I gave him credit for.”
Brave enough to wade into the Spirit Pool to sacrifice his life, brave enough to go off with them into the unknown.
”All I ask is for you to be there for him, as he will for you.”
Jaemin’s mouth dries at the sincerity that Doyoung is looking at him with, and he understands, this is Doyoung placing his trust in him, in all of them, to be his younger brother’s guide in this new world that Jeno is about to be exposed to.
“I promise. We promise, hyung.”
Something in Doyoung’s gaze lifts, and Jaemin is suddenly the receiving end of a very gummy smile.
“Good. You’ll need each other, especially to take care of that one.”
Doyoung turns and directs his gaze to a very happy Chenle who’s currently buried in the snow.
The Avatar rises from the heap he’s in, bending the snow to morph around him into a giant snowman.
He uses his recently acquired skill in Snowbending to propel himself across the white to chase the polar bear dogs around on the snow, shrieks rivalling the yaps of excitement from the puppies.
Jaemin finds himself smiling and Mark mirroring him at the cute scene.
“Chenle!”
Mark calls their youngest over from where he’s rolling in the snow now, polar bear dog pups smothering him with licks and bites.
“Hyung!” comes the enthusiastic response as the Airbender gently blows the dogs off him with a buoyant gust of wind that carries them back to their original stations.
He’s definitely grinning wide at the Avatar now, as the blond jumps into the air and lets his Bending deposit him right in front of them. Their lemur chitters as he leaps off his perch on Kun’s horn to land on Chenle’s shoulders.
Doyoung had left his side to give Jeno one last hug before ushering him to join the rest of them. It’ll be a long time before the brothers meet again, but Jeno’s smile is brilliant instead of sad, and it’s beautiful. He’s beautiful.
Renjun had sidled over to dust the snow off the big blond head of their youngest and pinch his cheeks, pink from play. Jeno reaches over to tickle Chenle on the underside of his chin, fond smile wide and brilliant.
Jaemin’s grin doesn’t fade even when he knows it’s time, preparations are done, and their elders have said what they need to say.
It’s a clear day, warm for the North Pole and little to no winds, it’s a good day to fly. A good day to leave.
It’s time to go.
He meets Mark’s gaze, and he can tell their leader is thinking the same. They all are.
Let’s go
Chenle has two more elements to master.
Let’s go
They have to travel across half the world. But they’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again.
Let’s go
Jeno weaves their fingers together, hand slotting perfectly against Jaemin, and Jaemin pulls him close, brushes his lips against Jeno’s temple as a response.
Mark steps towards their centre and everyone is smiling, he extends his fist out to Jeno, “Jeno, you ready?”
Jeno gives him that heart melting eye smile and a nod as he returns the fist bump and Jaemin’s insides turn into a puddle.
He’s so happy and so excited at what’s to come, despite the potential hurdles that lie in front of them. Jaemin hasn’t always liked a challenge, but he’s learnt to embrace it, he blossoms under duress, after all.
They all do, all of Dream.
“Here we go-“
They huddle around in a circle, grins wide and energy high.
They can do this, as long as they have each other, they can do anything. Jaemin wholeheartedly believes that.
Mark opens his mouth to start their group chant, the first one Jeno is a part of and many more to come.
“YO~ DREAM!”
They have a world to save.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The moon is close to full and the campfire is warm, but the dim light thrown over the fire lily fields gives a foreboding, ominous feeling.
Said ominous feeling is multiplied by the hair-raising tales they were sharing by the campfire, Renjun is very rapidly starting to regret going with Chenle’s whims and Donghyuck’s challenge. It’s really no wonder why Jisung is shivering like a leaf clinging to Chenle.
Look, Renjun’s is no coward, he’s faced a whole fleet of Fire Navy ships before when the odds were close to none, he’s fought more Dai Li than he’s met people, he survived a sinking library and an owl Spirit hell bent on burying them alive, then walked through a whole ass desert, and pulled himself together despite the hallucinations shown to him by a very malevolent sentient swamp - but ghosts weren’t tangible, he can’t just water whip them into submission, he’d probably get possessed instead and lose agency of his body or something equally as messed up.
Renjun is big on free will, someone controlling his body while he’s forced to take a backseat? Hard pass. The worse thing is he can’t even touch the goddamn ghost and avenge himself, he’s not about to rent his body out for free - No. Nope. Not happening.
Okay, point taken, ghost stories on a cool night was a terrible idea, the goosebumps on Renjun’s arms can certainly attest to that, he rubs at them, irritated at how they’re staking their stubborn claim on his skin. He’s freaked out all right, and it’s taking everything in him to not show it or he’ll never hear the end of it - Renjun lives in this battlefield known as Dream, the Fire Lord can take a backseat, Dream scares Renjun more than any peril the dictator could ever present.
He finishes his encounter with the glass bottle under his bed in one of the hostel rooms and is met with varying degrees of unimpressed faces.
“Guys, come on, it’s really scary-“
“I think I liked the alien story better.”
“Man, Water Tribe parties must suck.” Renjun squawks at that, ready to fight the Metalbender.
“Hey!” Jaemin takes equal offense, “That’s only half of the Water Tribe representation here, I haven’t told mine yet!”
“I’m not daft, Jaemin, I’m very inclusive.”
“Oh, to hell with you,” Renjun gets up out of tribe pride to put Donghyuck into a headlock, scary night or not, their shitty sun was going down.
“Excuse you, unlike Renjun who gave us three mediocre anecdotes,” Jaemin huffs and Renjun almost goes over to strangle him too, “I have one good scary story, I value quality over quantity, but I obviously can’t expect you to understand this simple ass concept-”
“And I’ll simply shove your ass into someplace where the sun doesn’t shine-“ Donghyuck gurgles under Renjun’s grip.
That won’t do, Renjun adjusts his angle until Donghyuck taps out, slamming his palm on the earth, each tap leaving an imprint on the solid ground.
What a drama queen, Renjun rolls his eyes, grinning, but he remembers that they can’t sleep on quicksand (spoken out of experience after one of their tiffs, it might have triggered some form of PTSD in Jaemin and it took forever to free Kun from the sinking earth, all because Donghyuck was being a total brat), and reluctantly releases the Earthbender.
This almost always happens, and somewhere along the line, Renjun and Donghyuck will start some sort of Bending Aegyo Battle (BAB for short) that challenges Renjun’s blood pressure, Jaemin will somehow try to start kissing anyone but Jeno to annoy everyone, something will somehow explode, everything will end up coated in mud and Kun’s saddle will end up 50 yards away even when the bison is clearly happily minding his own business.
Their official mediator Jeno just sighs and flops to the ground, opting to snuggle against Chenle’s other side comfortably to wait it out. Renjun doesn’t understand why he chooses Chenle to be his cushion when Jisung is far more likely to stay put, Chenle is always the third to jump up and show them that “Airbending’s boss”, an opinion that Renjun, once again, cannot share out of pride, and these mini altercations will end up with Mark screaming, Renjun deposited onto a nearby tree via Airbender-made tornado and Donghyuck and Chenle frozen into some sort of very complicated icicle contraption. It’s worth it.
Jaemin will always return to Jeno the moment the aegyo battle veers off to a full-on Bending battle (Donghyuck would beg to differ, they don’t keep saying ‘kkyuu’ as they throw their respective elements at each other for nothing) to whine about ungrateful best friends and the rest of them will always try not to barf their meal up at their old married couple.
There’s only so much aggressive aegyo they can take before Mark makes the three of them settle in their seats. Donghyuck tucks himself under Mark’s arm and gives Chenle a raspberry for his trouble before Jaemin starts weaving his story.
“One winter when my mother was still a young girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks.”
Jeno snuffles out of habit and the corner of Jaemin’s mouth lifts in a fond response, Jeno colours a soft pink as he nuzzles his face into Jaemin’s shoulder. Jaemin keeps at his tale, but slides a hand down Jeno’s back, resting it on the small of his back and rubbing in small soothing circles. Renjun tries to wipe his eyes of the exchange, goosebumps now raised for a completely different reason.
Donghyuck mimes throwing up and receives a bunch of grass in his face for the trouble, Jaemin nonchalantly dusts off his grass-stained fingers before returning his hand to its post on Jeno’s back, continuing.
”A month later, Mom noticed she hadn't seen her friend Nini since the storm-”
“Do Water Tribe people do long distance relationships?”
Jaemin hisses out his next sentence, sending Donghyuck a glare across the circle, aegyo battle threatening to restart, “Tidying up after the storm took a lot out of them, but it had been eerily long, so Mom and some others went to check on Nini's family.”
“When they got there, no one was home… only a fire was flickering in the fireplace-“
“What?! How?!” It was Chenle this time, and Jaemin ignores him.
“-while the men went out to search, Mom stayed in the house-“
“Oh god that’s a bad idea, that’s a really bad idea-“ Jisung squeaks.
“Shhhh!”
Everyone is focused on Jaemin now, nervousness apparent on their faces.
“- And when she was alone, she heard a voice.”
Jaemin pitches his voice higher in imitation of a young girl, "It's so cold, and I can't get warm!"
Renjun can’t stop the shiver going up his spine, the pitched voice should’ve been funny, but the way the firelight cast shadows across Jaemin’s face is going to haunt his dreams, he knows it.
“Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire, and she was blue, like she was frozen.”
Oh Spirits, there goes Renjun’s sleep tonight.
“Mom ran outside for help, but when everyone came back, Nini… was gone.”
Chenle is wound around Jisung like a he’s a flying squirrel and Jisung a very overgrown, very terrified human tree, and Jeno looks ready to bolt it from under his covers, Jaemin’s hand the only thing keeping him still.
“W-Where'd she go?” Mark hazards a question.
“No one knows. Nini's house stands empty to this day, but sometimes, people see smoke coming up from the chimney, like little Nini is still trying to get warm.”
All of them fall silent as the cicadas chirp in the trees around them.
Their gazes dart back and forth, daring each other to say something, anything. Renjun is about to call Donghyuck out for being quiet once in his life when suddenly Donghyuck gasps.
He leaps from his position on his stomach, and crouches close to the ground, palm on damp earth.
“G-Guys-“ Donghyuck looks shaken, truly shaken, “D-Do you hear that?”
Renjun suddenly realizes he’s in the middle of a very tight team huddle, Jisung’s clutch at his arm is borderline painful, but he’s too spooked to care.
“H-Hear? Hear what?”
Renjun briefly wonders how Jeno manages to keep the tremors out of his voice. Superior core strength, probably. Renjun should start doing those sit-ups more often, maybe he’ll tire out enough that he’ll pass out, that’s sleep too, technically.
Donghyuck’s eyes are wide in alarm, “I- There’s people under the mountain- I think- There’s screaming- terrified screaming.”
Mark tries for a laugh that sounds far too tense to be natural, “Hahaha. N-Nice try, Hyuckie.”
“No!” Donghyuck looks more certain this time, in the dim firelight Renjun can tell there’s no hint of joking in his eyes, and that’s what scares him the most, “I’m serious! I hear something!”
“Come on, Hyuck, we’re probably all just jumpy from the ghost stories… Right?” Mark looks to Jaemin for support, but the strategist’s face is white as a sheet, he too, recognizing that Donghyuck wasn’t at all in a jesting mood.
Donghyuck frowns and cocks his head to the side, his eyes are troubled when he brings his gaze up from the ground to meet Renjun’s. “It just… stopped.”
“All right, now I'm getting scared.”
“D-Donghyuck, this really isn’t funny…”
“Oh please tell me you’re messing with us-“
“I will fight you, idiot sun-“
All of them speak all at once to try to dispel the chill in the atmosphere, and Renjun waits for Donghyuck to crack up and start teasing when he suddenly gets a different type of chill down his spine, a feeling that someone had been watching them from since a while ago, a set of eyes on the back of his head.
“Hello children.”
Everyone starts screaming at the top of their lungs, and Renjun all but throws his bedspread behind him at whatever ghost that’s behind him.
It takes a genuine wild run around the clearing before Renjun realises 1) he’s at the end of the pack, and 2) they’ve left Kun and Winwin behind there somewhere and 3) the bedspread slid off the menace to reveal a very confused, frail-looking old lady, with sunken eyes and wrinkled skin, gaunt on a sack of old bones.
Said old lady also does a mean spiced tea.
“Oh, oh dear me, I meant no harm! You must have had a rather dreadful fright!”
After relocating to her inn, there’s barely any energy left in Renjun to be grateful that the elderly woman has it in her to invite a band of teenagers, who essentially lobbed their homewares at her and bolted, to stay and calm themselves with warm tea and proper beds.
“Sorry to frighten you dears, I see that greeting you in that manner was not the wisest decision, you do have very strong throwing arms!”
The elderly woman looks to be in her mid-sixties, though her way of speaking suggests an age much older. She’s humbly dressed, nails and hair long but otherwise well-kept, her features, though marred by age, suggests that she was beautiful in her youth - A refined beauty, a dark rose blooming under the moon.
“Children such as yourselves shouldn’t be out in the forest alone at night! Dear heart, you might run into danger!”
This was the poor soul that Donghyuck had hurled their pot at? Renjun straightens, feeling incredibly guilty, and is the first to reply, “We’re really sorry we caused you quite a bit of trouble, thank you for taking us in.”
“Oh, aren't you a darling? You all need to be careful; people have been disappearing in these woods! Wouldn’t want that to happen to precious children like you!”
Mark manages to find his voice, “What do you mean ‘disappearing’, miss?”
Her eyes crinkle in laughter, “Ohoho! How sweet! Alas, I’m a miss no longer! I’m Sunmi, you can call me Haelmoni, you’d be my grandchildren’s age if I had any. There’s always been a bit of trouble in this town, you see, when the moon turns full, people walk in there-“
She waves her hand around to gesture to the dark window, a waxing gibbous in the sky, a few days to full moon.
“-and they don't come out.”
A prickle runs down his spine, and to some extent he understands now, what people mean by the feeling of someone walking on your grave - They very well could all be left in graves in a few days if not for Sunmi taking a late-night stroll in the woods. Seven teenage boys, an Air Bison and a Flying Lemur, swallowed by the dark forest. Bye bye Eclipse Invasion plans.
He shudders, wasn’t the Moon supposed to be the kindest of Spirits? Jeno always says so, often. “Everywhere the moonlight touches is her realm", Jeno had clarified after they located Chenle on Crescent Island with her help, “She sees and knows all, especially stupid suicidal Avatars who think they can fly to the Fire Capital and take down the Fire Lord alone after waking up from a coma”. It’s improbable that such a nefarious thing was happening right under her influence.
Renjun looks over to meet Jeno’s gaze, feeling equally confused and troubled. Sunmi puts a wrinkled hand on Renjun’s shoulder, her nails dig into the fabric of his robes like an anchor, she squeezes his shoulder twice in reassurance, and he relaxes.
Then, as she pulls her hand away, Renjun feels something, not a sharp spike, more like a weak magnetic force, a small tug of his blood, his limbs, his muscles towards the centre of her palm.
Is he so spooked that he’s craving for the touch of a stranger now? Before he can comprehend it, she speaks again, aged rasp low and slow.
“Don't worry, you'll be completely safe with me. You can all get a good night's rest.”
He won’t, he can’t. He just knows it. Renjun can’t seem to stop the shivers down his spine.
Later that night, they’d opted to push the beds together so they could reach for each other, anything to feel less unease. Renjun curls up between Jaemin and Chenle, but no matter how much he tosses and turns, his eyes go back to the waxing gibbous in the sky.
He’s safe here, there’s Sunmi here, all of his friends are here, he shouldn’t be so on edge, but Renjun doesn’t sleep well at all.
“Something’s wrong with this town,” Jaemin frowns, eyes darting about to pick up on something, anything, as they walk through the market with Sunmi.
“There’s no way this is normal, people disappearing in woods? Weird stuff happening during full moons? This has to be tied to the Spirit World somehow.” Jeno wordlessly squeezes Jaemin’s hand in reassurance, and the furrow of his brow softens somewhat.
“If we take a little walk around, we can find out what these people did to anger any Spirits?” Mark suggests, eyes clearly fixed on the watermelon in the fruit stall, Donghyuck swats at him to get him out of his watermelon trance.
“And then,” Chenle beams, reaching past all of them to grab the watermelon Mark had been eying with both hands, “I can sew up this little mystery problem, Avatar style!”
“Shhhhhhh!!” They chorus, panicked, and Jisung cups Chenle’s cheeks together in lieu of covering his mouth.
“You want to broadcast the fact that you’re the Spirit of all Spirits here in the middle of the Fire Nation, baby?” Donghyuck says through bared teeth in a smile far too sunny to be real.
“N-n-nuuuuu~” Chenle manages to reply with Jisung squishing his face. Cute. Renjun reaches over to pinch his nose when Chenle wrinkles it in defiance.
Chenle glares at him, and reflexively tries to get at Renjun's fingers, but Jisung's hands hold him in place. His shoulders relax when he meets Jisung's gaze, Jisung smiles dopily and presses a kiss to his nose before releasing the Avatar’s face, opting to reach and interlace their hands instead. That somehow calms Chenle down into a pleased silence.
Great. Jisung is a miracle worker and Renjun wants to bleach his brain.
Sunmi comes out from inside the fruit stall and saves Renjun from trying to take his own eyes out with a banana.
“Why don't you take all those things back to the inn?” she says, smile not leaving her face as she reaches for the watermelon Chenle’s still holding and puts it back amongst its brethren, Mark just watches on sadly.
“I just have to run a couple more errands. I'll be back in a little while.”
While Jeno and Jisung obediently take the groceries from her, Jaemin speaks up.
“This town is quite mysterious, Haelmoni.” he says, politely, in a way that suggests that he's probing for more, “It’s an interesting place to live in.”
Sunmi matches him with her own measured grin, “Why, a mysterious town for mysterious children.” she replies before she saunters away, leaving them once again in confused silence.
Jaemin is wordless for the rest of the way back, brain clearly working at full force.
“She’s hiding something,” he declares once they’re back at the inn.
“Absolutely,” Donghyuck agrees as Mark sets the bags on a nearby table, “Whatever she said just now was suspicious as hell.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, both of you.” Renjun reprimands, a bit irritated at how Jaemin sometimes refuses to take things as is, “She's a nice old lady who took us in and gave us a place to stay.”
“Something’s wrong with this town, Injunie,” Jaemin insists stubbornly, “She knows something.”
He looks up to see Donghyuck with his hands on his hips, Jaemin furrowing his brows and Mark mirroring him, “Oh come on, she’s just an old lady and we’re all spooked by the stories from yesterday.”
“But what did she mean by that comment, ‘mysterious children’? Did she work out who we were?”
“Maybe because she found a bunch of strange kids camping in the woods at night? That’s kind of mysterious.” Jeno says placatingly as he moves the bags he’s carrying into the kitchen and Jisung follows him to help unload the produce.
“Well, she’s not back yet,” Donghyuck’s eyes are on the front door of the inn, “We’re settling this now, I'm gonna take a look around.”
“Wait- Hyuck!” Mark’s fingers miss Donghyuck’s arm by a hair, the Earthbender zooms pass all of them to dart up the flight of stairs, “You can't just snoop around someone's house!”
Normally Renjun would probably join in, he’s usually pretty happy to go along with Donghyuck’s antics, but Sunmi had been so sweet to them, so appallingly nice that Renjun can’t bring himself to do anything that would even have a chance of disappointing her.
Jaemin seems to have made his decision, because he, too, darts up the stairs to join the search.
“She could be home any minute,” Jeno and Jisung have abandoned the veggies to try to stop Jaemin and Donghyuck, their discipline overriding their curiosity.
“Guys,” Mark says, urgent, “You're gonna get us all in trouble and this is just plain rude!”
Donghyuck pays them no heed as he reaches past Jisung and pulls open a closet door, grunting when it doesn’t give.
It suddenly swings open, and Donghyuck stumbles, Mark catches him by the waist as the rest of them jump back, surprised by the wooden puppets stowed inside. The dolls fall forward, held together only by their strings. A chill runs up Renjun's spine.
“Okay,” Chenle grins in a way that suggests that he’s up to trouble, “That's pretty creepy, now I’m intrigued.”
An intrigued Chenle is never a good sign, Renjun strides over to close the cupboard.
“So she's got a hobby, there's nothing weird about that-"
"I beg to differ Injunnie," Donghyuck sasses lazily, "Her hobby is stringing puppets in her empty closet, everything's weird about that."
"Still,” Renjun’s starting to get a bit angry at being ignored, “Jaemin, Hyuck, you've looked enough, Haelmoni will be back soon!”
“This door is locked,” comes Chenle’s voice from the attic, Jaemin and Donghyuck take off at the news.
“Guys, seriously, stop snooping through her stuff!” Mark and Renjun follow hastily, both of them intent on ending this madness.
Jaemin is peering through the keyhole into the room, “It's empty, except for a little chest.”
“Maybe it's treasure!” Chenle, exclaims, excited, he gestures for Jaemin to step back and skillfully blows the door open.
“We shouldn't be doing this-“ Jisung flits about, nervous.
“There’s a lock on the box!” Chenle says, all too brightly.
“Ooh! Hand it over!”
Donghyuck grabs it from Chenle, he reaches for the meteor bracelet he made from the leftovers of Jaemin’s sword and Bends it into the shape of a small key. He puts his ear onto the surface of the chest and sticks the impromptu key into the keyhole.
“It probably is treasure - Come on, hurry up Haechan-hyung!”
“You can’t rush art, baby,” Donghyuck tells Chenle sagely, “This isn't as easy as it looks.”
“Will you teach me this too?”
Donghyuck winks at Chenle.
“Guys, I don't know about this…” Mark watches on, half wanting to stop him and half content to watch Donghyuck do his genius thing.
“Yes, this is your local safecracker," Donghyuck says, ignoring Mark, ear still on the box, “and I pronounce the lock…” theres a telltale click, he grins, satisfied as Chenle cheers, “-defeated.”
“I can tell you what's in the box.”
Jisung and Renjun jumps at Chenle’s ear-splitting screech and all of them whirl around to find Sunmi standing in the doorway.
She walks over and takes the chest from Donghyuck, and opens it and reaches inside to pull out- a comb.
Mark sounds so bamboozled when he asks, “An old comb?”, but Renjun’s breathing quickens when he recognizes the kind of comb she’s holding.
A blue whale tooth comb, a traditional gift to girls of age in the Southern Water Tribe.
She turns to Chenle, “You were right, child, it is a treasure box- This is my greatest treasure. It's the only thing I own from growing up in the Southern Water Tribe.”
“Y- You're from the Southern Water Tribe?” Jaemin asks, stunned.
Sunmi lowers the comb carefully back into the box, “Yes, just like you.”
“How- How did you know?”
“I heard you talking around your campfire.”
“But why didn't you tell us?”
“I wanted to surprise you!” Sunmi puts the box back where it was, “I bought all this food today so I could fix you a big Water Tribe dinner. Of course, I can't get all the ingredients I need here, but ocean kumquats are a lot like sea prunes if you stew them long enough!”
Chenle blanches a little bit at the mention of sea prunes.
“Oh,” Renjun feels giddy, actually giddy – this is a far better outcome than he could ever have imagined. It all makes sense now, the draw he could feel to her, that his body, blood and bones seem to sing whenever she’s nearby.
“I thought I was too on edge, I was convinced I was going crazy, but I knew I felt a draw to you, Haelmoni- I’m so- I’m so honoured to meet you here, so far away from home.”
“And you were keeping a secret, so we were right too,” Donghyuck says, never to be beaten down, and Jeno elbows him before forcing him into a bow.
“I'm sorry we sneaked around Haelmoni,” Jaemin says, reserved and remorseful, “I wanted to make sure that this place was safe to stay, I had no ill intentions towards you.”
Sunmi waves them off, “Understandable, especially since you’re in the Fire Nation- Well, let’s put it past us! I’ll need help cooking.”
Help is a bit of a stretch.
Chenle somehow burns two pots through in his task of stewing the ocean kumquats, and when the third batch almost explodes after Jisung takes over, they’re rightfully banned from the kitchen.
Renjun can almost promise that it’s intentional, with Chenle’s terrible track record with Water Tribe vegetables, and the fact that Chenle, once you take away all the flammable items (their clothes, the blankets, Kun – long story), was more than a decent cook.
On his trip to the table, Chenle almost drops the plate of ocean kumquats again, and the plate is saved only by Mark’s inhuman reflexes, Renjun responds in the only way he sees fit, by absolutely piling Chenle’s plate high with the dreaded vegetable as the green Airbender tries not to gag.
Jisung, the sweetheart he is, takes most of the kumquats off his plate and eats them slowly in his stead, his face also turns a bit green from the taste. It’s only the manners ingrained into him that’s keeping him from setting the whole plate of kumquats on fire.
“Who wants five flavor soup?”
When all of them raise their hands, Sunmi smiles, she situates her hand over the pot and with a move that Renjun recognizes, deposits a globule of soup to fill each of their bowls.
There’s a beat, a silence while they process this, all of them blinking in astonishment.
“Haelmoni… You’re a Waterbender?” Jeno asks, eyes round.
Renjun almost jumps up in delight “I've never met another Waterbender from our tribe before! Haelmoni, why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
Sunmi’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she replies, “Our tribe- All of the Waterbenders of our tribe are wiped out, sweet, by the Fire Nation. I was the last one.”
Jisung drops his chopsticks onto the floor, he hastily apologises, but Renjun doesn’t miss the way he goes very pale. Chenle reaches for Jisung’s hand. The rest of them stay silent with pity. An echo in Renjun stings in pain.
“How did you end up out here, Haelmoni?” Mark asks, tone low.
Sunmi looks out the window before replying grimly, “I was stolen from my home.”
“Sixty years ago, they started to raid the South, they’d round up more of our Waterbenders and take them captive, my brothers and sisters, my siblings-in-arms. Finally, I too, was captured, led away in chains, taken from my friends.”
“I was the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.”
Renjun puts down his bowl to reach for Sunmi’s hand, hoping to offer her just a bit of comfort. He’s lost almost everything to the Fire Nation too, once, but whatever horrors Sunmi has seen as a prisoner of war surely trumps his own experiences.
“They put us in terrible prisons here in the Fire Nation. I was the only one who managed to escape.”
“How?” Jaemin’s guilty tone gives way to genuine curiosity and a tiny bit of suspicion, “How did you get away from the prison, Haelmoni? And why did you stay in the Fire Nation?”
“I'm sorry.” Sunmi looks down at her lap, “It's too painful for me to talk about anymore.”
“I-“ Renjun swallows, he wants to at least get this out before they change the subject into something happier, ”I lost my mother in a raid, I grew up as the only Waterbender in the South Pole- I can't tell you what it means to meet you. It's an honor. You're a hero.”
Sunmi lifts her head to fix Renjun with a stare, “I never thought I'd meet another Southern Waterbender, much less here in the Fire Nation. I’m sorry you grew up without a proper Master, you poor darling, I'd like to teach you what I know so you can carry on the Southern tradition when I'm gone.”
“Yes!” Renjun bounds up from his seat this time, “Yes, of course! To learn about my heritage, it would mean everything to me!”
It does, it means everything and so much more, to know what his life could have been if it weren’t for the war, the raids, if the Fire Nation weren’t hell bent on taking away everything Renjun loved.
Renjun is a Master in his own right, he’s learnt almost every style but his own tribe’s, what luck, that he got to meet an esteemed elder and learn of the Southern style of Bending, all at once, before the invasion, no less.
“Haelmoni, when you take Renjun for lessons tomorrow, can we go around the town and the forest to explore?” Jaemin asks.
Knowing Jaemin, his hyper-focus is back on the disappearances around town now that Sunmi has revealed her story, determined to solve the mystery before they leave. It’s a good call, since without Sunmi around they would be free to sit and wait while Chenle and Jeno meditate to communicate with their mediums, and they can also visit their team pets, who they left in the woods, while they’re at it.
So far, the danger under the moon doesn't seem to extend to animals, what with all the donkeys and horses returning despite people disappearing, but it wouldn’t hurt to check, and it certainly would be nicer if they could find a far enough clearing for them to graze.
“Just be sure to be back before nightfall,” Sunmi warns,
“Tomorrow is the full moon, after all.”
The next day, Sunmi takes Renjun into the woods. He learns very quickly that Sunmi does not teach the way Yuta does, she does not pause to let him repeat her motions, she simply demonstrates, then moves on, regardless of whether Renjun wants to practice it or not.
“Growing up in the South Pole, Waterbenders are totally at home surrounded by snow and ice and seas. But as you probably noticed on your travels, that isn't the case wherever you go.”
Renjun could feel his heart freezing in his chest, an unresolved lump in his ribcage. Yes. He completely understands what Sunmi meant, in an episodic sense.
He still remembers how useless he had felt in the desert, having to save the last of their water for survival, having to hide behind Donghyuck and Chenle for defense when they were faced with a whole swarm of the buzzard wasps, feeling so hopeless when Chenle reached his limit and flew off in search of Kun, unable to fend for himself, much less the team.
“-That's why you have to learn to control water wherever it exists.”
Renjun straightens up, and offers, “I've used my own sweat for Bending, once.”
That one time when Jeno went along with their (read: Donghyuck and Renjun) scamming spree to demonstrate that he can have fun too (read: exploit the hell out of the rich town of people), it had ended badly, and they fell into a trap made by a mercenary sent to track down Jisung.
Renjun and Jeno had planned that they’d lock them into a metal cage that Donghyuck would be able to Bend his way out of and reasoned that it was worth it turning themselves in for the reward, they hadn’t expected the opposition to be so much of a cheapskate that they’d cage them in with wood instead, and there was too little room for Jeno to generate enough force to punch his way out.
It had taken a very squished, equally panicked and heartfelt confession from Jeno, and Donghyuck complaining about sweating like a pig for Renjun to pull the sweat off of all three of them – which was gross, ew, he’s never doing that again if he can help it – to slice their way out and get to the rest of them in time to freeze Sparky Sparky Boom Man's head in a column of ice.
Sunmi nods, “That's the right idea, you're thinking like a true Master.”
Renjun knows he’s a true Master, but he preens under the praise anyway, glad to get the approval of an elder of their tribe.
“But did you know you could even pull water out of thin air?”
Sunmi moves her fingers, flexing her hand, she pulls the water in the vicinity to her, manipulating the vapor in the air, liquefying it and coating her fingertips. Renjun stops breathing.
“The climate here in the Fire Nation is a blessing, warm and tropical, and often very humid,” Sunmi continues.
“Keep an open mind, Renjun.” Sunmi says, as she turns the water coating her digits into ice claws, “There's always water in places you never think about.”
Sunmi whirls, far nimbler than a woman her age would be, and flings the small icicles like daggers into a nearby tree, all down a straight line, while Renjun looks on in amazement.
“Look around you- Water is everywhere, in everything. Water gives life, and in return, we can take water from it.”
She leads him to an open field next, at the edge of a plain of fiery five tipped orange blooms that seem to glow under the afternoon sun.
Renjun has to take in a sharp breath at the beautiful sight as he drinks it in greedily.
It’s the closest to real untouched, unpolluted nature that he’s been since they stepped foot into the heavily mechanized Fire Nation, he just wants to drink in this view for a bit longer.
Sunmi seems to sense his wonder, she smiles and gestures to the field, “These flowers are called fire lilies. They only bloom a few weeks a year, but they're one of my favorite things about living here.”
The Fire Lily, Master Joohyun's title on the battlefield. Blooming bright and fierce, and beautiful, withering away quickly. Renjun suddenly can appreciate the title given to her by the Fire Nation so much more, whether it was intentional or not, it’s so fitting.
“They’re lovely,” he says instead, “I’d probably never leave this field if I lived here.”
“Yes, and like all plants and all living things, they're filled with water,” Sunmi’s voice gains an unexpected edge, “So, so much water.”
Ah, Renjun tears his eyes away reluctantly from the view when he gets what Sunmi is hinting, he’s here to learn how to bend after all, not sightsee.
“I met a Waterbender who lived in a swamp and could control the vines by Bending the water within.”
That Waterbender also made a weed monster and proceeded to fling all of them around until Renjun blew a hole in the swamp weed. Bastard.
“You can take it even further.”
In a sharp, swiveling motion, Sunmi draws water from dozens of the surrounding fire lilies and with a flick of her wrist, slices a nearby rock clean through.
“Amazing…”
Renjun tries mimicking it to keep it in his memory, pulling a bit of water out of a leaf he lets the water drop to the ground, then draws it back out again with little effort.
Renjun is struck by how original this is – this feels right, this was what the Southern Water Tribe would be like if it weren’t for the war: Ingenius solutions, flexible Bending.
Where the North had customs, rigidity and well tested methods, the South had a style reliant on aggression and wit.
Maybe Jaemin and Renjun really were meant for greater things, had the Tribe been able to hang on till Chenle was broken out of the iceberg. The South would have been such a force to reckon with had it not been destroyed by all the raids.
Sunmi embodies all the power and influence of his tribe before it all went to ruin and Renjun’s never been more proud of his heritage.
“That was amazing!” Renjun repeats, whirling round to look at Sunmi, his eyes catch onto the blackened and browned vegetation where Sunmi pulled the water out from, “It's a shame about the lilies, though.”
“They're just flowers,” Sunmi dismisses, and Renjun blinks, a bit uncomfortable at the nonchalance. “-When you're a Waterbender in a strange land, you do what you must to survive. Tonight, I'll teach you the ultimate technique of Waterbending. It can only be done during the full moon, when our Bending is at its peak.”
The image of the dark forest and full moon rises to Renjun’s mind, unbidden. He shudders.
“But isn't that dangerous? Renjun asks, a bit hesitant at the idea of lurking danger, the fear of the unknown, “You did say people have been disappearing during the full moon.”
“Oh, Renjun, dear, two Waterbending Masters beneath a full moon?” Sunmi smiles before she turns to walk back to the town, she pays no heed to the fire lilies under her feet as she steps off the field, “I don't think we have anything to worry about.”
Renjun looks back on the field of fire lilies before following Sunmi, carefully stepping around the flowers as they make their way back.
The Moon is silent, at least that’s what Jeno tells them after Donghyuck asks, the team having split two ways to accomplish their tasks (it's not as casual as it sounds, there was a mini thing where Jeno chased Donghyuck around, granted, "Your pet fish say anything, Moony?" is kind of funny but also a bit offensive- very Donghyuck. Jeno lets him get away with it with a small swat).
With the Spirits ruled out, Renjun feels just a bit more at peace when he announces that Sunmi has proposed their final lesson tonight, under the full moon.
It’s then, that Jaemin corners Renjun in their room and implores him to be careful, with a “Look, I know you feel strongly because she’s of our tribe, but don’t trust her with everything, we really don’t know her-“
“Why are you stopping me, Jaem?” he interrupts, Renjun is more than a bit incensed at this point at how biased Jaemin seemed to be towards the old innkeeper, disappointment really is a bitter emotion.
“You of all people should be backing me up, you of all people understand how hard it was for me to grow up as the only Bender in the South, hell, you were the one to come up with the idea to bring us to the North so I could get a proper Master, why now, when we found one of our own, why are you stopping me?”
“Renjun,” Jaemin says softly, “Remember when you felt just as strongly about Yukhei-“
“Don’t you dare,” Renjun snaps, patience all gone, “This is different.”
“Tell me then,” Jaemin challenges, “What makes her more trustworthy than Yukhei? You’ve only just met; We barely know anything about her over the fact that she’s a prisoner of war-“
“Show some respect Jaemin,” Renjun seethes, “She fought on behalf of our tribe, she did something that neither of us could have done, you can’t compare her to the likes of Yukhei-“
“Can’t you see, Renjun? You're too invested into her.”
Renjun backs up until his back meets the wall. He takes a deep breath to find patience.
He won’t hit Jaemin, not in that way, but at this moment he’s so tempted to take a swing at his best friend.
“Alright, let’s say she’s completely trustworthy, which she still isn’t, who drags out someone else into a situation that they know is dangerous like the full moon here – how is she equipped to deal with something that has taken so many people? Renjun, you know what happens to the Spirit Touched, I was lucky, Jeno got lucky too, but Sunmi’s only human-“
“You guys literally just said there was no Spiritual energy amiss,” Renjun argues, “At least try to make sense-“
“I am making sense!“
“Renjun-ah,” Mark tries placatingly, “Jaemin’s just worried-“
“Well, don’t be,” Renjun cuts in harshly, “I trust Sunmi, and I’m the one who’s been with her the most, I can handle myself.”
“I’m going with her under the full moon, and I’ll come back a stronger Waterbender. This is what I want, don’t bother worrying about me.”
Goosebumps prickle their way across his skin once again, when Renjun stands under the cold silvery light of the moon, having left their shared room after the argument with Jaemin and opted to help Sunmi with doing the dishes instead.
The older woman takes no notice of Renjun’s discomfort. She inhales deeply through her nose, and flexes her limbs, face relaxed in the moonlight.
“Can you feel the power the full moon brings?”
There’s a sharp edge to her voice, an edge that Renjun doesn’t particularly like.
She curls her hands, and something feels wrong, so wrong, so in contrast to the Sunmi that Renjun has gotten to trust these past few days.
No, it’s just Jaemin’s words getting under his skin. It’s just Renjun feeling uneasy about leaving Jaemin and Mark on a bad note, he’ll see them later and apologise to the rest of them and talk it out, he’s here now to learn. He holds himself back from gulping.
“For generations it has blessed Waterbenders with its glow, allowing us to do incredible things.”
Sunmi snaps her eyes open, irises glinting, almost dangerously, in the full moon.
“I've never felt more alive.”
The wind wafts through Sunmi’s hair, “What I'm about to show you, I discovered in that wretched Fire Nation prison.”
“The guards were very careful to keep any water away from us. They piped in dry air and had us suspended away from the ground. Before giving us any water, they would bind our hands and feet so we couldn't bend. Any sign of trouble was met with cruel retribution.”
“And yet,” Sunmi raises her head to face the moon, “Each month, I felt the full moon enriching me with its energy. There had to be something I could do to escape! Then I realized that where there is life, there is water.”
Renjun’s stomach starts turning at her words, brain whirling a mile a minute.
“Those rats that scurried across the floor of my cage were nothing more than skins filled with liquid.” Sunmi takes no notice of him as she keeps going, expression at peace, as if she was commenting about the weather instead of something so inherently wrong.
“I passed years developing the skill that would lead to my escape-” Her gaze turns knife sharp.
“Bloodbending.”
Something in Renjun’s chest stops. He’d believe it were his heart if it weren’t for the fact that he was still breathing, breaths getting heavier and heavier and Sunmi continues.
“Controlling the water in another body, enforcing your own will over theirs. Once I had mastered the rats, I was ready for the men.”
Renjun’s hands are shaking, he clamps them to the side of his body to steady himself, maybe Sunmi is going to laugh later and tell him it was a joke, maybe he fell asleep after his tiff with Jaemin, maybe this was all a very long, very bad dream-
“And during the next full Moon,” She smiles, and if it weren’t for the fact that Renjun had been hyperaware, nerves on end for her whole story, he could’ve believed that she was just enjoying the nice cool night breeze, “I walked free for the first time in decades. My cell unlocked by the very guards assigned to keep me in. Once you perfect this technique, you can control anything or-”
Her smile turns wicked, sadistic, a sliver of pure malice.
“-anyone.”
Bending someone’s blood? To reach inside someone and control them?
Renjun likes winning, likes the fight, he loves when he wins a duel and has the other person under his proverbial feet, but a cheater, an underhanded duelist he isn’t. He hates not being in control of himself, and he likes the idea of wrenching that control from others far less.
His chest feels like it’s caving in with how fast and hard his heart is beating, like it’s crumbling, along with his belief in Sunmi, his defense of her, his trust in her, his want to rely on her, to learn from her, to succeed her, all up till now.
“With all due respect,” Renjun hopes his voice doesn’t betray any of his impending implosion, “I don't know if I want that kind of power, Haelmoni.”
“The choice is not yours. The power exists, and it's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war. Renjun, they tried to wipe us out, our entire culture, your mother!”
What? No, no, no it’s not the same, it’s not the same-
Renjun starts shaking his head in denial. He fought for her, he fought for her integrity against Jaemin, against his oldest and closest friend, against someone he considers his family. He chose to disprove of Jaemin’s intuition and go with his feelings, but it’s like Sunmi pulled the rug underneath his feet and he’s left reeling, spinning in disbelief.
How could she try to convince him to do things of such nefarious nature? How could she even think this was acceptable in the first place? Forcing your will over someone else’s displays an arrogance beyond what any moral person could possibly have. A violation of nature, of the ebb and flow.
Stop, he begs silently, pleads in his head desperately, Stop, please stop before I lose my respect for you, please stop before you overwrite everything, every impression I had of you.
“You understand what I'm talking about! We're the last two Waterbenders of the Southern Tribe. We have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary!”
She knows something
She’s hiding something
Something’s wrong with this town
Renjun, don’t trust her with everything, we don’t know her
Jaemin’s just worried for you-
Everything Jaemin and Mark said the past few days trickles back into the forefront of his thoughts.
Why was she out on the night they were in the woods?
Why was she always periodically excusing herself to run these unknown errands?
What was the screaming that Donghyuck heard on their first night?
An ice-cold grip closes around his heart.
“It's you,” Renjun shakes in fury, betrayal coating his insides black, like thick sticky tar. It’s hard to breathe, it’s harder to think straight.
“Y-You're the one who's been making people disappear during the full moons!”
“The people who fought alongside me were all captured! Our tribe was left defenseless!”
Renjun didn’t think his heart could break like this, it’s a different pain to losing Chenle or Jaemin, more intense than when it was revealed Chanyeol made airships for the Fire Nation, closer to when it was revealed that Yukhei used him-
“These people you’re punishing are villagers! Citizens! They’re not warriors! They’re not the soldiers who brought war onto the tribe!”
This is like Yukhei all over again, Renjun thinks, misplaced anger and redirected rage.
This is like how the Freedom Fighters tried to fight back, in battles they knew they could win- it’s cowardly. Safer for them, but cowardly and underhanded, it only affected the innocent, and ultimately in the grand scheme of the war amounted to nothing, nothing but petty petty revenge.
It’s wrong. It’s cowardly, and it’s so wrong.
And to Renjun, this ran deep, far deeper, because while Yukhei was his first love, Sunmi was someone that Renjun thought he could rely on and trust as an elder, as family, as someone of the same tribe and of the same vein. Someone who reminded him of his grandmother.
Sunmi shakes her head, furious that they cannot see eye to eye, “They threw me in prison to rot, along with my brothers and sisters! Your brothers and sisters! They deserve the same! You must carry on my work!”
Renjun is enraged, “Work? You call this work? Are you proud of this? That you’re not brave enough to fight in the right ways?”
He sees Yukhei’s dam again, the water that he made run into the bank. The dam filling, filling, filling, close to breaking.
Renjun feels like that dam now, desperately holding back against the flood of emotions - It’s coming back to him, all the homes wrecked, all the people whose lives he endangered because he was too quick to trust, quick to fall.
It seems like a lifetime ago, Renjun was never the same after, he’s changed, he’s had to grow stronger. Right now, he’s not the cause of danger, he’s not the weak boy who left the South who had barely been able to bend. He can stand up to this. To her.
“You know what you should have done? You should have freed the rest of your brethren! You should have tried to return to the South Pole or journey to the North Pole, you should have volunteered yourself as a Master, a teacher, or a Healer, you should have laid down your life to fight properly for the Water Tribes, not execute this bastard form of punishment on people who aren’t even involved in the attacks!”
“They are Fire Nation, Renjun! They are connected, if not by intent, then by blood! And you will help me! With you we can finish this town completely! We can move on to the next town over, and the next!”
She’s insane, Renjun realizes, she’s become greedy for the temporary rush of power she gains from bending people against their wills, there’s no turning back for her, neither is there any chance of talking her down from this, her mind is set on taking revenge in this way until someone stops her. Renjun steels himself.
“I won't! I won't use Bloodbending and I won't allow you to keep terrorizing innocent people!”
Sunmi’s mouth twists. She cocks her head, and Renjun’s hand suddenly twists to one side.
He gasps, the pain of the sudden jerk pulling a startled yelp out of him, and his heart drops when she cackles in dark morbid glee.
No.
He’s trying, he’s trying but he can’t resist it, he can’t move according to his own wishes, no matter how hard he thinks, no matter how much strength he tries to pour into his limbs.
Sunmi’s triumphant cackles aren’t genuine, full-chested laughs that Renjun is used to hearing from Dream, it’s throaty, raspy, misused, almost as if she’s forgotten how to laugh, it reverbs in his head, along with his thoughts of I can’t move I can’t move Ican’tmove-
“Foolish child, you should’ve learnt the technique before you turned against me!”
She plays him like a puppet, forcing him into positions that strains his joints, his muscles, his tendons, and when he feels like everything is on the verge of snapping, she’s quick to switch him into another position, callous in the way she commands his muscles to move.
Renjun’s heart suddenly stops thudding in his chest for a millisecond, seizing under her control.
“It's impossible to fight your way out of my grip! I control every muscle, every vein in your body - with one move, I can stop your heart, and I can also restart it.”
He’s terrified, absolutely terrified at what she can force him to do, at what she could do to everyone else.
“Renjun, darling, can’t you feel it?” She purrs, “You’re under my palm, my bidding, my control, mine to do as I wish.”
With swift staccato jerking of her arms, Sunmi claws at the air, twisting Renjun around and throwing him from side to side, dangerously close from hitting the sturdy trunks of the trees in the clearing.
All the liquid in his body lurches to obey her bidding. A single motion has him raising his hand and twisting painfully, then he’s tugged to position himself right in front of Sunmi.
“Stop!” Renjun chokes, as he’s made to sink to his knees, “Stop this!”
This is a nightmare and a half.
All his life Renjun had control taken away from him: His mother was taken when he was a child, people in the tribe discriminated against Sicheng, believing that he led a far more privileged life in the North and giving them the worse share of things - All the helplessness he felt from wielding power and not knowing how to use it, fear of the Fire Nation and their sudden raids, the fear of them taking away Sicheng or Jaemin as well.
Just when he finally got some degree of control back, by taking the choice to support Chenle, just when he felt like he was powerful enough to reconnect with his culture and forget all his old scars, Sunmi takes it all back. Both physically, and emotionally, her whole harmless act manipulated him into believing that he could trust her intentions, turning him against Mark and Jaemin, even when all they were trying to do were to protect him, to make him see sense.
She planned this, from the moment she saw their camp, from the moment she heard their Water Tribe story, she planned on using Renjun as her legacy.
Sunmi’s cruel laughter as she forces him into prostration echoes in his ears, ringing in his head. Tears stream down his face as she pushes him down, down onto the earth, the foliage. It’s humiliating and terrifying, all at once, betrayal churns in his stomach, helplessness pulses through him.
Energy still flows in him from the moonlight, a mocking buzz, a reminder that yes, he has power now, but he can’t do anything about it. Her command over him clashes almost painfully with the power from the Moon, it rings a dizzying contrast. A push and pull, a tug of war, all within Renjun.
No, he can do something, there has to be something he can do- If Sunmi can harness the power of the Moon, then as a Waterbender himself, why can’t he too?
Then that’s all he’s fixing onto, focusing, concentrating on breathing in deep, trying to clear his throat, breathing out slow, in deep, out slow.
The Lunacy courses through his body as he breathes, in, out.
He’s aware of the thrumming of blood in Sunmi’s body in front of him, beating far slower than his. He’s too strung up, to coiled tight, not just because she commands him to be, but he’s tense, he’s far too into his emotions and it shows. He concentrates, and breathes, and his heart rate slows.
Clear your mind, Yuta says in his head, slow your breath. The Moon doesn’t lend her powers to those with a hot head.
Please, he thinks, just a little more, just enough that he can break free-
He far past his limits now, forced through hell and back by Sunmi, maybe it’s the adrenaline rush, maybe it’s his head messing with him, but it doesn’t stop him, not even when he’s hallucinating: The Moon glowing impossibly brighter and Jeno’s voice in his ear.
Get up, Injunie.
The pressure on him remains the same, but energy zings underneath his skin, threads itself into his muscles, growing stronger than the grip on his veins.
Renjun breathes, and raises his head, and pushes free.
He meets Sunmi’s stunned stare, and his rage colours into confidence.
“You’re not the only one who draws power from the Moon,”
Renjun assumes a fighting stance.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, clear thoughts, cool head.
“My Bending is stronger than yours, do you really think you can take me down as I am now?”
With him drawing more and more power from the silvery light of the Moon, growing stronger and stronger yet.
“Your technique-“
He pulls a ring of water from the ground to his waist. Time to counterattack.
“-is useless on me!”
Renjun sends a hard-hitting stream towards Sunmi. She halts it and responds in kind, sending it with equal force back to him.
She then pulls, two pillars of water from the nearby trees, completely shrivelling them up and killing them, and sends them both towards the first stream with vigour, until the three stack together to form a single powerful, highly pressurized jet.
When Sunmi sends over the torrent, Renjun doesn’t redirect it, doesn’t neutralize the attack the way a Waterbender would.
He’s mad, he feels betrayed, he’s livid, and even though his head is cool and analytical, his chest burns with fury.
He takes a page out of Donghyuck's book, and standing his ground, he circles his arm forwards and with his palm, stops Sunmi’s conjugate jet in its tracks.
The torrent hits his palm and curls and curves against his hand, disintegrating from the direct and abrupt stop to its warpath. The residual force from the attack reflects and spray into the area in front of Renjun in a sphere, like a glass shell, except Renjun is outside of the crystal ball, looking into Sunmi’s terrified face at the display of his raw power.
Sunmi is leagues behind Yuta in terms of Waterbending technique - Yes, her style is far more aggressive, but her defense is full of holes, and both of them know that Renjun has the upperhand, evident in the way Sunmi’s breaths are growing more and more laboured as she struggles to keep up with Renjun’s offense.
He draws from the droplets in the air, splitting it into two circular disks, spinning around his fists, in a move that resembles Jisung’s Fire Fists, Renjun punches the two disks forward, they gain momentum and whirl through the air, not unlike the way the Moon and Ocean swirl around each other, they knock into Sunmi, one after another, hitting her shoulder, her legs, and continuing their momentum until she’s twirling into the air, spinning, and landing heavily on the ground with a grunt.
Renjun’s about to completely knock her out when he hears Chenle.
“Renjun-hyung! We’re here to help!”
Chenle and Jaemin burst through the trees as the old woman rises to her knees.
Panic rises in his throat, because these two have no idea what she’s is capable of. Renjun is winning, boosted by the Moon, neither Jaemin nor Chenle have the blessings of a Waterbender.
“No, don’t come-“
Renjun is mid-warning when Jaemin cuts in, “We know what you’re doing, you old hag! Our friends are now freeing the innocent villagers, you’ll never see the outside of a prison cell again, ever!”
“Yeah! Give up!” Chenle leaps over the brush nimbly and lands in a fighting stance, “You’re outnumbered!!”
In response, Sunmi laughs.
And laughs and laughs.
Unsettling cackles echo through the clearing, there’s nothing, not even a whisper of wind to dissipate the harsh sound from grinding itself into their ears.
“Oh, sweet darlings, so naïve-“
She straightens and wipes a tear away with a finger.
“You’re wrong, loves, you’ve outnumbered yourselves.”
She crooks a finger and pulls both Chenle and Jaemin towards her, and Renjun watches, unable to help as she begins her wretched dance of a puppeteer, those horrible rigid movements, a stark contrast to smooth flowing movements of the Waterbending.
Their bodies whirl through the air uncontrollably as she sends them in Renjun’s direction.
Renjun dodges them, ducks out of the way, and bends to draw water from the ground.
He builds momentum on a stream that he sends towards Sunmi. She pulls water from nearby vines as a response and spins the streams into a huge turning wheel of water to deflect his attack.
A sharp zing, a sound of metal against metal draws Renjun’s eyes towards Jaemin’s whose arm is drawing his sword against his will.
“Renjun look out- I can’t- I can’t control- it’s like my arm has a mind of it’s own-“
Jaemin’s face is red with the effort of resisting, but his legs are forced to walk stuttered steps towards Renjun as his arms start waving the blade back and forth rapidly. Renjun grits his teeth and curses under his breath. He pulls up a ring of water from the ground and pushes Jaemin away.
He’s keeping them out of the fight if he can help it, with all the strength and expertise that he can muster.
He’s livid that she’s involving anyone else in their duel, a testament to just how underhanded Bloodbending is. Sunmi knows she can’t take him down in a normal duel and is trying to level the playing field by using the people precious to him, she couldn’t care less if she hurts them, Renjun is the only one she needs for the sake of her legacy. He has to stop her before she seriously injures either of them.
Chenle comes fists swinging, legs flying, limbs uncoordinated. Renjun was under her influence just moments ago, and he knows: One pull out of line, one single mistake, one blunder, one stumble and Sunmi could kill him, twist him up, rupture an artery, pull limbs out of joints, stop his heart. Renjun is terrified.
Chenle’s voice is a strange combination of fascination and horror, “This feels reaaally weird, hyung, I can’t stop it!”
Good thing Chenle doesn’t actually have a weapon and the old Waterbender has no idea what Chenle is capable of, because it makes it easy for Renjun to pull water from the ground again and send it at the younger, pushing him away from the fight.
Renjun freezes him to a nearby tree, wincing as he calls, “I’m sorry, Chenle!”
“Don’t worry, hyung!” comes the all-too cheerful reply, “I’ll just stay here while you beat the hell out of her!”
Spirits bless him, he’s too cute, Renjun thinks, even when he’s in danger.
He’s barely allowed a moment of reprieve before Jaemin’s body gets up at the opposite end of the clearing.
He stumbles towards Renjun, movements of his sword jerky and erratic, unwillingly prepared to give Renjun a fatal blow, and possibly break his wrist in the process.
Renjun dodges the first strike of the blade.
The old witch cackles, “Do you feel it, Renjun? The power of the Moon? The call of the blood in their veins?”
He does. Renjun does.
He’s all too conscious of the red pounding in Jaemin as he swings at Renjun with his sword. He’s hyperaware of the way Jaemin’s muscles contract and relax as he yells at Renjun to please dodge my strikes, I’m sorry, I don’t want to attack you-
He’s brimming with power and energy from the full moon, and Renjun is scared, scared of how this tempting it is to just slip from his morals and grip at Jaemin to stop him from attacking, to take control of Jaemin’s limbs and force him to slice at Sunmi instead. It would be easier compared to dodging every strike or trying to meet each stroke of the blade with a water whip.
Renjun can’t help but think back to when Master Joohyun told him Waterbending gave life and healing while Firebending brought burning destruction, no, Renjun can now attest that the extreme nature of this dark art refutes what she said completely: Bloodbending makes Waterbending the more destructive of the two, because it not only is a danger to the victim, but it also opens the Bender to madness as well. The crazed glint in Sunmi’s eyes alone proves it.
What then, if he manages to overpower Sunmi’s control over Jaemin? Will she try to end Jaemin as a puppet then? Twist his neck and kill him? Make blood spurt out of every orifice? The moment Renjun starts seeing his friends as objects to manipulate, he’s going to be set on the same path Sunmi is on.
He won’t use it, the power to violate people.
Renjun wonders if she was the only one to think of this, her reasoning is nefarious enough, but what if, somewhere else in the world, a Bloodbender was using his skill for something worse than revenge?
For those few torturous minutes where his body was completely out of his control were amongst the worst in his life. He won’t subject that to another human being, certainly not his friends.
What if Bloodbenders used it outside of pure combat? To force people to do things against their will? The Dai Li would get off on this, surely, perhaps they would use it to silence people, retire their use of hypnosis completely, or worse, use it in the black markets to control pleasure houses, render hostages helpless, literally force innocent people to do the unthinkable.
What about war prisoners? What would happen to them instead? Bloodbending could be used to grind someone’s brain into mush, crush their organs and pressure the heart until it fails. Renjun can’t think of a single beneficial thing Bloodbending can be used for, all he can think of is all the wrong reasons someone would use to exploit the art.
He’ll win this battle with his skill in Waterbending, not with the dark art of control.
He draws water from a nearby vine, smoothly turns to sidestep Jaemin’s blade, and sends a jet of water at his best friend, pushing his backwards onto a tree trunk and freezing his sword and hand to the tree.
He grits his teeth and turns to deal with the source of all the trouble, anger boiling through his veins.
“Hyung!”
Jisung.
He feels, rather than sees, the rest of them hurdling through the trees to reach them, heartbeats hard and fast, thrumming red through their bodies as they rush over, Jisung ahead of the pack.
Renjun has to get rid of Sunmi before she grips onto them too.
Sunmi only cackles when she sees the murderous blaze in his eyes.
“Oh, don't hurt your friends, love! And don't let them hurt each other!”
With a gripping and pulling action, she uses brute force from Bloodbending to break Chenle and Jaemin free from their ice encasement, with another tug, she forces Jisung to draw one of his blades. Across the clearing, Jaemin’s arm moves by her will, holding the sword up and straight.
“W-Wha-“
She crosses her clawed hands, sending all three of them hurling at each other screaming, with their swords pointed at Chenle.
“No!”
If he does this, they’ll think him a monster, like Sunmi.
If he does this, he’ll be giving in to the most carnal of desires in him, the desire for power, and Renjun is above this, he’s better than this, he can’t let Sunmi control him-
But he won’t make it in time, all the water around Sunmi had been cleared, the time he’d need to send water from his end of the clearing to her would take too long, and the swords would have pierced into Chenle’s chest by then.
No, never on his watch, he won’t let Jisung’s nor Jaemin’s hands stain scarlet and he certainly won’t let that blood be Chenle’s.
He’s already failed once, and Chenle had died, he had died from Taemin’s lightning bolt, and Jeno’s Spirit water was the only thing that brought him back. Jeno doesn’t have any left, they don’t have the luxury of the power of Spirits to bail them out of death.
Renjun’s eyes dart about the clearing, and all he sees is their terrified faces, Jisung, Jaemin and Chenle’s horror, all people that he loves the most.
If he doesn’t do it, Chenle dies.
He gives in.
Jaemin and Jisung halt in their tracks, they continue to scream their heads off while Chenle drops to the ground, limbs limp.
Jaemin is the first person to realise they had full control of their bodies now. Confused, he flexes his fingers to reaffirm it. Jisung goes immediately to Chenle, who’s slumped boneless on the forest floor.
Jaemin turns to see the elderly woman rooted in her place, twitching and groaning in discomfort and possibly pain.
“Hyung…”
Chenle’s voice pulls their gaze to Renjun, whose eyes are locked on the older woman, hollow gaze on a haunted face as he subdues her with his own Bloodbending, movements hesitant.
Renjun lowers his arms, and her body follows suit, crumpling to the ground. Through her thin, almost translucent skin, her capillaries are damaged, bruises starting to bloom on her limbs, Renjun’s inexperience and distraught state leaving repercussions on her aged body and bones.
“Guys!” Donghyuck’s voice is clear as a bell as it cuts through the haze of his heart beating in overdrive, “We came to help! We brought the villagers!”
Renjun’s legs wobble, and Jaemin is already there next to him to steady him. Renjun can’t bring himself to meet anyone in the eyes, except for her’s, because she’s the evil. The monster.
Like him.
“You're going to be locked away forever,” a villager scathes as he binds her wrists with an iron cuff.
Sunmi gives a bark of a laugh, sinister grin stretched from ear to ear in that poor imitation of a smile.
“My work here is done.”
She turns to Renjun, whose arms are crossed defensively across his chest, his watery glare as sharp as her bloodthirsty grin.
“Congratulations, Renjun, poppet. You’re a Bloodbender.”
Hot angry tears burn fiery trails down Renjun’s cheeks before he can stop them; He claps a hand over his mouth to stop any sound of distress from escaping. He’s lost already, he mustn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing she had successfully ruined him further.
But she has, hasn’t she?
Renjun is now a product of her twisted desires. Bloodbending is now an option open to him in a fight and it’ll always be there, tempting him to use it. After all, what’s once more if he’s used it once before? He’s the real puppet here, he’s fallen into depravity already and she knows, all too pleased with the outcome.
If glares could kill, Sunmi would be dead more than seven times over, but none of them were murderers, and there was little else they could do to someone who genuinely didn’t feel remorse for their actions.
Chenle encircles his waist in a backhug, a warm weight while the rest of the team converge tighter around Renjun protectively. Mark comes round to hug Renjun properly, smushing Renjun’s face into his shoulder and whispering reassurances into his ear that Renjun needs to hear, but doesn’t.
He doesn’t protest as his tears run and wets their leader’s shoulder. He feels Jeno’s gaze on him, but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t want to know if he understood what just happened, doesn’t want to find out if what he saw and heard was a product of his twisted mind or because of Jeno’s lunar connection.
He wants to apologise, words a salty burn in this throat, I’m sorry, you were right, I could fend for myself, but she wasn’t to be trusted, it hurts, and I wish I was more careful. I lied, I need you, I need you guys, and I don’t think I’ll be the same ever again either, but he can’t bring himself to say anything other than silently sob.
Renjun feels all of them pressing ever closer, heartbeats slowing but warmth coursing through their bodies all the same. It’s there: Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. Their huddle doesn’t stop the sound of Sunmi’s laughter from travelling into his ears as the villagers drag her away. He feels like breaking down all over again.
Something in him has shrivelled, dried up, tired, given out, something in him curls up and refuses to move, tying itself into a complicated knot that won’t loosen. He doesn’t know whether he wants it to loosen, he doesn’t think he can deal with facing it, with untying it. He just wants to lock it up and throw away the key, forget everything that happened but he can’t, he can’t when all he hears is his own shaking breaths and blood that isn’t his own.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
The full moon is mockingly bright, and the night seems a lot colder than before.