Why doesn't he talk? Is he stupid?
Those words fallowed like wasp-nats biting at his peace of mind. He didn't speak because words had lost their power, lost their meaning. A pretty promise by a Fire Nation general caused bright flames to paint the backdrop of a midnight sky with ash and the screams of the innocent. Leaving a little boy, with a ragged blanket wrapped around him, father's bow tossed to the side, clutching a rice patty hat. A little boy who no longer had a family, a home or a name.
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He had stopped using his voice finding silence more of a comfort, embracing his faults. He spoke instead with his eyes; the windows to the soul, for the soul did not lie. Funny thing though, not many people could read the soul.
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When he found the half-starved girl nursing her wounds he had approached her from behind. She was aware of him but she sat in her faded white shift washing some of the burns on her legs. Her hair had been shorn, as if someone had hacked the wrong part of her, causing it to lay oddly on her head. When he touched her shoulder to get her to turn around he was surprised then angered.
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For on her face were four burns, bright red and charcoal flesh, marring her features. What kind of monster would do that to an eight year old girl? And he knew; Fire Nation.
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She wasn't scared, just merely looked him in the eyes and asked in a scratchy voice, "You're not Fire Nation or you would have killed me already."
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The first time she ever heard anyone call him stupid she beat the snot out of him. It had been an impressive match up, a half-trained nine year old armed only with a dull knife and hot anger taking on fourteen year old giant with more brawn then brain. She won and nobody ever called him stupid in her presence ever again.
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He choose her name and she picked his. It was more out of necessity then anything else, seeing as they couldn't go around calling each other "yeah you." He had tapped her nose, she had an uncanny sensitive sense of smell, and her scars, bravery that should be proudly worn. A bee, a Smellerbee, one that could nurture but just a quick kill you for looking at her nest.
She had simply said, "Longshot." When he had raised the inquiring eyebrow she merely replied, "Look you're the best thing in archery since arrows but you also have some of the best luck I know. You're a Longshot and a damn good one too." Now he raised his eyebrow for a very different reason. Who had taught her to curse?
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He noticed when she put war paint over her scars, not to hide, but to remind.
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When you were a Freedom Fighter the nightmarish screams of children is something you get used to. Everyone had their ways of coping. For Pipsqueek it was huddling with a stuffed bunnysquirlle, for Sneers it was working himself to pure exhaustion to fight off the dreams, and for Smellerbee it was bunking with Longshot.
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She talked a lot, which was saying something considering he had been around Jet for an immeasurable amount of time. She would go on about everything, about how the berries always tasted sweetest in the middle of summer, of Sneers showing her one of his books and of how great a service they were providing to the Earth Kingdom. But no matter how much she talked she never once mentioned her family.
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It was such a silly thing, she had fought and killed Fire Nation soldiers and she had felt nothing but pride. But this, this was such a stupid thing to be afraid of. Only one other person knew of her fear and she was glad that she did not have to hide it from him. He always took his watch with her and allowed her to sleep in his bed. For Smellerbee was afraid of the dark.
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No one really liked to talk to Longshot because he wouldn't talk back. Except Smellerbee, the exception to everything, who seemed to like his silence.
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It was years before the others found out she was a girl. It wasn't that she purposefully hid the fact it simply wasn't important enough to mention. There had been shock and outrage but Longshot had quietly stood behind her and that had decided it. She was a good fighter, an even better friend and she was the only one who really understood him.
And when anyone tried to encroach on her bathing time a well placed arrow usually sent the Peeping Tom packing. If not a silent death threat did the trick.
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Once he caught her spying on the village. She was just sitting in a tree, watching. He had sat next to her and tried to see what she saw.
A little boy playing with a squirrelcat. An older girl giggling as a young man passed her by. A woman greeting her husband with a kiss as he returned from the fields.
"I want that," she said quietly, "Someday."
He took her hand. Don't worry, we will.
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Breaking an arm wasn't the end of the world but the way Longshot acted it was if the Fire Nation had finally won. She had been in a fight and gotten hurt. It wasn't that big of the deal. He still silently scolded her for her brashness and made her promise to never fight without back up ever again.
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He hadn't spoken, whimpered or laughed in almost ten years. Ten years of self imposed vocal exile. The sound of his laughter was foreign to him and he was glad that she was the only one who heard.
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His father had been a Yu-Yan archer, although he would suffer pain of death then ever revel that fact. When he had lost everything, everything, to his own people he had run off with his father's bow and arrows. Inside the quiver was one of the Yu-Yan's most precious secrets, the tattoo paint.
The paint was a blood red and only a true warrior was ever supposed to use it, for they knew the marks would never come off, as would the blood that stained their hands for the good of the people. He had once envied the markings made by the crimson paint, now he wished they would just fade away into nothing.
He gave the paint to Smellerbee to wear. She had earned it, she deserved it. He knew her scars were a sign of defeat for her but he thought it told the whole world that she had fought and she now had to bear the wounds of a bitter battle.
When he put the paint on her he had felt pride and something else. It spread through out his body making him warm, content…and nervous. For he didn't know how to tell her that by allowing him to put the paint on her, he had marked her as his.
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It doesn't matter how cliché it is, everything they say is true, Ba Sing Say really is a long, long way. Traveling on the road hadn't been so bad except for that one awkward night when Jet had figured out –finally after 7 years- that Smellerbee slept with (beside, it didn't matter) Longshot.
He had made fun of them and made some really suggestive comments until a well placed arrow and a threatening knife made him shut up. It wasn't like they were doing anything, they were friends – no closer than that something more – and they needed the reassurance that there was someone that the Fire Nation hadn't manage to take away yet.
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In the Freedom Fighters there wasn't really any need to celebrate birthday's especially since most of the fighters couldn't remember their own let alone anyone else's. It was pointless.
Still on the summer solstices, when the moon was hanging like a swollen water jug in the sky, they stayed awake until they had counted as many falling stars as they had years.
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Smellerbee thought that Ba Sing Sa was the weirdest place she had ever had the misfortune to encounter. It wasn't the too small apartments, that was just uncomfortable. Nor was it the Dai Lee protecting the "cultural heritage," that was just annoying.
No, it was the boys who made it weird.
They saw her and they knew she was a girl. They came up to her and talked to her like she was a girl. And some, either desperate or deranged (to Smellerbee anyway), even flirted with her. Asked her where she lived and if she had a boyfriend.
The most persistent of the boys was Hiro and he was Earth Kingdom born and bred. The first time he had said, "Hey cutie, where you going?" Smellerbee had looked around trying to figure out who he was calling to. When she discovered it was her he had flirted with she had wished the world would end. This was just too weird, and the world the ignored her plea.
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Longshot resented Ba Sing Sa for one simple reason: the boys. They were everywhere always looking at her, always wanting to touch what wasn't theirs. Didn't they see the marks? Didn't they know what they meant?
Seeing the boys talking with her, Longshot had a bitter thought, Obviously not.
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Hiro was confident he could get this girl, the one who said her name was Smellerbee. Sure she wasn't really pretty but she was a novelty, exotic in her own way, and tried in the ways of the world if you know what I mean.
All he needed to do was sweet talk her, maybe give her a trinket or two, then perhaps she would show him the ways of the world that he was so ignorant of. So entranced with his own brilliant plan and his prey he failed to notice a very important fact until too late.
Smellerbee had been her usual abrasive self today, giving him curt replies as always when during one of his well practiced sentences she had relaxed. He thought he had finally succeeded with his charming ways when he noticed the hand.
A bandaged hand, a male hand, a hand resting quite comfortably on her shoulder. That hand was attached to an equally bandaged arm that connected to a very pissed off male. A male that held a bow and arrow with the ease of a practiced killer.
Hiro began to think of a million places he should be right then and all of the people who would miss him if he were killed. Wait, surely that man, for it was a man, wouldn't kill him in a crowded street. One look in the dark, murderous eyes changed his opinion. He was going to die. Die because he was too stupid to realize what the marks meant, what the brisk brush-offs meant. How could he have been such an idiot?
The man just looked at him and Smellerbee was grinning in a strangely satisfied way. Hiro finally got the hint and high-tailed it out of there but not quick enough to miss Smellerbee's scratchy voice, now filled with warmth, remark, "It's a good thing you showed up Longshot, I was about 5 seconds from bringing out my knife."
Hiro vowed from then on to stick to good, quite Earth Kingdom girls who didn't have marriage markings on their faces.
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"Turtle, get back here." Smellerbee was running through the village, desperately trying to catch her son. It wasn't from fear of the Fire Nation that she kept him close, the war had ended years ago, it was the fact that he always seemed to get into trouble.
"Turtle there you are. One of these days I'm going to tie you to a tree."
"Oh, is this your son? He's adorable." A red kimono and an odd hairstyle combining the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe.
"Oh he's adorable all right, when he's not moving." The two women share a glance of motherhood. One mixed with pride, exasperation and a little sorrow.
The woman seems vaguely familiar, a shadow from her past. It takes a few seconds for it to process but the pieces finally click.
"So how've you been Ponytail?" A simple question that asked more then one thing.
"Smellerbee? Is that you?" Wide blue eyes, trembling hands and then what Smellerbee feared, a hug.
It wasn't so bad, they talked for a little while after Katara had calmed down. She spoke of her son and her husband and the Fire Nation Palace and turtleducks. Smellerbee related with her son and her husband and the nice, quite farm house and the turkey-chickens.
Peace could not erase all the scars of war. There were too many hurts on both sides. But Smellerbee thought if a former Freedom Fighter could talk with the Fire Lady who was a Water Tribe peasant in the middle of an Earth Kingdom market, there might be some hope yet.
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A/N: No I don't own it. More like I'm its bitch. Review slave, please set me free with reviews. You know you want to.
Oh and Turtle is being barrowed from Siotue, (I think that's right, forgive me it's late) go check out her fanart on him. He is the cutest little kid. I want to hug him and squeeze him and love him and cuddle him. Okay shutting up now.
Review…runs off to eat cookies