The Magnificent Two

One dusty day, two strangers walked into town.

It was high noon under a cloudless sky, with only enough of a breeze to push a tumbleweed down the town's sole street. The road itself wasn't much more than a stripe of earth that had been trampled flat by the feet of countless ostrich-horses, and the rows of buildings on either side complimented it perfectly. At one point, the wooden edifices might have been the rich tone of healthy timber, or perhaps even painted eye-catching colors, but now they all shared the uniform gray that only a century of rain and wind can produce, beneath an ancient layer of dust from the road.

It was an appropriate place for the pair of strangers. They were weathered and faded, too.

The tall one wore a simple shirt and pants that might have started out with the blue color and white trim of Water Tribe clothing, and a tattered and stained shawl of the Fire Nation's vivid red silk wrapped around his shoulders. His ragged hat was the simple affection of an Earth Kingdom rice farmer, protecting his long plain face from sun and rain.

The shorter one commanded more attention, boasting a chest-piece of hardened leather armor over a plain black tunic. Only a careful look at her face would reveal the femininity beneath the haphazard ball of brown hair, old headband, and red stripes of war paint. She wore her wild, savage look with easy experience, but her eyes shone with wary intelligence.

Both were armed- the boy with a longbow and quiver of arrows, the girl with no less than three swords hanging from her back and various knives tucked into her boots. It was a rough country, in these parts of the Earth Kingdom.

Any other time, the two strangers would have been the talk of the locals from the second they set foot on the main road. This day, however, there was another show in town. Or rather, just outside of town. A herd of hopping, long-eared rabbaroos milled within a short distance of the small settlement, kept from wondering away by a pair of camelhounds who knew their herding business.

A lot of eyes were on that herd, and not all of them friendly.

Smellerbee led the way into the town's General Store, Longshot just a step behind her. The owner was seated lazily behind the front desk. His eyebrows raised as the pair approached. "I ain't got enough on hand to buy for swords. I'll pay fair fer anythin' else you're selling, but I can't afford no swords. Knives is more useful 'round here, anyway. 'Specially now with the war winding down." His eyes shifted to take in Longshot. "I can scrounge up enough to pay for a good bow, though. That'll sell 'round here right quick."

"We're not selling anything," was Smellerbee's quick response. "We want to buy a map."

"I got maps." The man turned around in his seat to face a box of rolled papers. "What you want? I got maps to Full Moon Bay, I got the Central Desert, I got the Eastern Mountains, I got the Great Divide."

"We're trying to get to the Gaipan Forest region, across the Eastern River," Smellerbee explained. "We'd like to avoid the Great Divide- because it's the Great Divide- and want a map of the routes around the South side of it."

The storekeeper nodded. "I got a map o' that. Though, if you're going South of the Divide, it ain't going to be a lonely road. That herd o' rabbaroos out there is getting driven that way. Big family or somethin' taking their herd West. Sold 'em another copy of this map. Maybe they'll be willin' to hire on some good sword-hands for protection."

Smellerbee bit back a snort as she laid a pair of copper coins on the counter. "My friend and I keep to ourselves."

"Fair enough, lad, I'm just tryin' to be helpful." He snatched up the coins with one hand and tossed the map over with the other. "Times is crazy enough, without people getting nasty with each other."

As they left the store, Longshot laid a comforting hand on Smellerbee's unarmored shoulder. "Thanks," she whispered. After another moment, she spoke again, louder this time. "We might want to talk to the herders after all. That sounds more likely to turn something up than just searching the whole region ourselves."

Longshot peeked out from under his hat, his dark eyes speaking for him.

"Yeah, I guess it would also be good to protect the herders from him, if he's really out there."

If the herders were a single family, it was one of the most mixed-up lineages in the Four Nations. There were two Water Tribe ex-patriots still wearing beads in their hair; the pair had identical noses. Four of the group were obviously Earth Kingdom locals- a teenage girl, a bulky young man, a whip-thin older man with a big white mustache, and an elderly woman so covered in wrinkles that her age was long past guessable; none of them shared either a skin or hair color. The last man was muscular, fair-featured, in the prime of his life, and wore a pair of sturdy Fire Nation army boots in good condition.

The old woman, who introduced herself as 'Nanna,' was the one who negotiated for the group. "Guard our herd and us all the way to the Yuan Plains, and we'll either give you a rabbaroo or this bag of silver."

Smellerbee looked at the large, smelly, hopping animals. The gray-mustached man was directing the camelhounds in retrieving a rabbaroo that was making a hop for freedom. "Why would we want one of those?"

Nanna grinned. "Over the last months of the war, the Fire Nation's activities were hard on the local livestock, in the West. They need animals, and my family has them. Once we've driven this lot down that way, they'll each go for my weight in silver, if you work the market right. When I was your age, having an animal all my own would have had me feeling like the Earth Queen. We had an Earth Queen back then, you know. Married to the King."

Smellerbee resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah, we'll probably just take the bag of silver. Thanks."

"No need to pick now. You got a distance to go before you're paid, after all. Oh, and we'll feed you, too, for the trip. Only fair. Though you might have to pitch in with some hunting. So, we all agreed?"

Smellerbee looked to Longshot. He nodded back at her, not answering Nanna, but rather giving Smellerbee his support to make the final decision. "Yeah," she allowed, "I guess we are. When do we leave?"

There was little in the way of civilization out behind that tiny crossroads of a town, but that didn't mean a lack of life. All manner of creatures managed to survive in the dry, hot environment, and dull but hardy plants managed to cling to a comfortable existence. Humans, though, would have found that wilderness to be a harsh environment, not worth the effort to tame.

Some people, though, weren't welcome back in civilization.

Soon after the herd was moved beyond the town, a scrawny man on an ostrich-horse set out from the settlement, riding hard into the wild. He made a buzzardbee-line to a specific spot in the middle of that nowhere, a spot that most wouldn't have known as being different from any other random patch of dirt. The man, though, knew what he'd find there.

He found a camp, and accomplices.

The other men there were all rugged, and dirty, and mean. The new arrival ignored most of them, heading straight for the biggest tent. It was dark inside, and occupied by a lone figure sitting with crossed legs. He held a book in his hands, and wore a conical hat not unlike that of a rice farmer. This hat, however, was well made, covered in black velvet, with its tip adorned by a gold spike and green tassel. The figure in the hat looked up at his visitor.

"Boss! I saw it myself! A rabbaroo herd is heading West, only a handful driving it, and just a pair of kids for guards. Easy pickings."

The figure in the hat nodded, reached into the shadows of the tent, and tossed a coin to his informant. "Tell the boys," he intoned with a deep voice, "that we ride at night." Then he turned back to his book.

Longshot learned much, that first day on the Rabbaroo Drive.

There were enough ostrich horses for the rabbaroos' owners and Smellerbee, so Longshot rode behind one of the Water Tribe men. His name was Akitchuk, and the other Water Tribal was his brother, Okitchuk. He was friendly and talkative, and seemed quite content to chatter on with only an encouraging nod from Longshot every now and then. The brothers had once lived one of the frigid islands scattered between the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe's main settlement at the North Pole. They used to be fisherman, selling at Earth Kingdom ports, until the Fire Nation advanced in the Great Siege of the North. A team of scouting ships had run ahead of the main armada, hitting the smaller Water Tribe encampments and destroying all their boats.

The brothers' fishing vessel had been deemed a potential threat to the armada, and burned. When Okitchuk and Akitchuk finally built a new one, they sailed back to the Earth Kingdom and tried to join the fight against the Fire Nation.

Then Ba Sing Se fell, and anyone who couldn't immediately join the guerilla resistance was in danger. The brothers wound up lying low in Herding Country.

An old ranch hand with a bushy gray mustache, Serjao, took pity on the foreign brothers and got them jobs. Shortly, they had enough to pool their money and buy some rabbaroos.

As Akitchuk gave the history, Serjao himself rattled off some incomprehensible commands to the camelhounds, who brought the herd back into a tighter grouping.

The younger members of the group, the teenage girl Xian and rather un-athletic man Shu, had both grown up in Herding Country. Their status as orphans was testament to the fact that the area hadn't entirely avoided the war and the Fire Nation.

Mumei never explained his history. One day, a trio of rabbaroos had escaped from their ranch; the next day, Mumei had arrived out of the wilderness, leading the animals back, never saying where he came from, where he was going to, or why he wore Fire Nation Army boots. He was good at getting the campfire going every night.

Nanna had always been around. She had been ranching when Serjao was a child. She had happily fed Akitchuk and Okitchuk when they came seeking shelter and care. She had taken in Xian and Shu, and declared them family. And it had been her word that let everyone in town know that Mumei was welcome and didn't have to talk about anything he didn't care to.

At Longshot's quirked eyebrow, Akitchuk had laughed. "Nanna? I dunno, everyone called her that. I guess it was only natural, since she treats the whole world like her grandchildren."

Eventually, Akitchuk had displayed a little curiosity, and asked what brought Longshot and Smellerbee to this point in their lives. The silent young man could have mentioned the old Freedom Fighters gang and the sense of family they shared. He could have mentioned how everyone's faith in their cause had been tested, and how they had been forced to make a last stand against the Fire Nation while in that sorry mental state. He might have merely spoke of their failed attempt at a new life in Ba Sing Se and how he and Smellerbee barely got out with their lives just before the city fell, or of all time they spent in the wilderness dodging the Fire Nation. Longshot could have even started with the sudden end to the war, the lack of direction he and Smellerbee had felt, and their decision to complete one last mission.

Instead, he touched the longbow on his back, and sighed. Akitchuk understood.

That night, Smellerbee and Longshot sat up together for the first watch. The archer watched the campfire burn low, and spoke for the first time in days. "They're going to make a new life for themselves. Together."

Smellerbee grunted. "I hope it works out for them."

Longshot's lips pressed together.

"If he doesn't come out for this group, we can try to hire on again with someone heading back East," Smellerbee said. "If we keep working as guards in this area, we'll be protecting people like we used to, and sooner or later we'll find him. I was talking with the girl, Xian, and she said that the rumors of bandits around here are getting worse. He's building himself another little gang of creepos out here."

Longshot gave a short, unenthusiastic nod. He had heard plans like this before, and no longer welcomed or trusted them.

Smellerbee, as usual, could discern his thoughts. "Jet was our leader and our friend. I can't live knowing that his killer is out here, somewhere, still leeching off people. Once we find where Long Feng disappeared to and take him out, we can think about what's next. Maybe try being Sonyu and Lian, instead of Smellerbee and Longshot. But for now, we have to focus on our duty. To Jet. As Freedom Fighters."

Longshot was silent. He never knew what to say to arguments like that.

After a while, gazing up at the stars, Smellerbee spoke again. "Xian said the Yuan Plains, where they're taking the herd, are nice. Lots of pretty grass, and farms. I think I'd like a change from cities and forests."

Longshot nodded enthusiastically. The last forest he had lived in was burned to the ground while he was still in it. That tended to leave a bad impression.

Also, he liked the thought of Smellerbee standing in a field of tall, pretty grass. He thought it suited her.

As the journey began again, Smellerbee decided that she was comfortable enough on an ostrich-horse to let Longshot ride with her. "It's actually a lot like riding on a Firebender's shoulders, except the ostrich-horse is nicer. The Duke taught me real good, right Longshot?"

Behind her, he nodded agreement, and loosened his grip on the saddle a little bit, in case she noticed.

For a journey that consisted of long days, at least a hundred hopping and smelly animals, and scenery that consisted of nothing but brown weeds, brown rivers, and lots of brown rocks, it was actually pretty easy. Serjao commanded the camelhounds like they were extensions of his will, directing them with a simple, "Ho!" that somehow guided them exactly where along the herd they were needed. Akitchuk and Okitchuk rode with him, sometimes scouting ahead for the best paths, other times directly guiding the herd right with the dogs.

Nanna, Xian, and Shu usually stayed together throughout most of each day. Shu would sometimes be called to help out by the Water Tribe brothers, but even Smellerbee and Longshot could see that he was a bit too clumsy for most of the real work. Instead, he helped the women manage the supplies, and could often be seen sewing patches in someone's dusty clothes, somehow staying in his ostrich-horse's saddle as he worked at the one graceful task he was capable of.

Xian could always be counted on to take care of any injuries sustained by man or beast, and one time was called to examine Longshot's head after he fell off the back of Smellerbee's bird-steed.

"I don't know what happened," she complained, "it just bucked all of the sudden."

Xian looked straight into the archer's eyes. "Good, you're focused and not shying from the sun. Any fireworks in your vision? Ringing in your ears?" At Longshot's negative shake, she smiled. "Now, stand up. Hold your hand out to your sides. Are you dizzy? You're standing straight." A smile grew on the teenager's face. "I think you're okay. If your vision goes funny, or you feel like you're going to puke, or just don't feel okay, go ahead and holler." Impulsively, she reached out and ran her hand over Longshot's head. "Don't be shy, now. Concussions can be serious, you know."

Longshot nodded slowly, holding his hat in his hands.

"Okay, okay," Smellerbee grumbled, "he's fine. We should get riding again."

Longshot nodded a bit more vigorously at that, smiling politely, and returned his hat to his head. After he and Smellerbee remounted their ostrich-horse, the archer leaned forward to speak softly. "Watch out for scorpions. The ostrich saw one, and jumped."

Smellerbee turned back to face him, grinning. "Is everyone around here an expert on something?"

As they got moving again, the last member of the herders, Mumei, caught up with them. He always rode in the tail end of the herd, watching for stragglers, helping those animals who got caught on something or lost, and watching everyone's backs. Catching sight of the two former Freedom Fighters, he gave a friendly wave before swinging around to keep the herd moving.

Under the cover of night, humanity's outcasts walked tall and proud.

In the early spring, this land was turned into a web of small rivers by the water washing down from the bordering mountains. To the distant South was the Great Desert, and to the North was the Great Divide, but nothing about this land inspired people to talk of greatness. It spent most of the year dry and heavily sculpted, forcing any travelers who wished to cross it to navigate the twisting, gully-pocked badlands.

Beneath the full moon, the badlands were now being explored by bad men. Their leader stayed in the rear of the group, his subtle hand motions erasing the signs of their travel with unusually quiet Earthbending. Despite the dark atmosphere, he still wore his black robes and wide-brimmed spiked hat. The green tassle at the tip was the only color on his person.

Soon enough, the rustlers were satisfied with the setting. Once of them spat and said, "Looks right good, boss. What's the plan? We got a plan, right? You like plans."

The leader nodded beneath his hat. "I have a plan. It should be simple enough; anyone who enters this gully doesn't leave. Tomorrow we spring an ambush, and take the most valuable herd this side of the Divide for ourselves. Good plan?"

The whoops and cheers of the villain echoed in the night.

The day of the ambush dawned bright, with twisting fields of clouds in the sky above. They almost resembled the tortured landscape of the badlands, parodying the formations of rock and gravel with structures of cotton-like vapors. Of course, none of the group saw the ambush coming at that early hour. The animals might have been a little more skittish, but with rabbaroos, it's always hard to say.

Everyone helped get the herd moving again, and then it was time to start working their way through the network of dry gullies. Gravel and sand crunched beneath the hopping rabbaroos and trotting ostrich horses. Longshot was once more seated behind Smellerbee, and they rode beside Nanna, Xian, and Shu. Longshot listened as the rest chatted. "So once you've gotten all your money for these things," Smellerbee was asking, "what are you going to do with it?"

"Wellllll," Nanna drawled, "first we're gonna have us a little fun. Have ourselves a good ol' fashioned feast, like we used to do for holidays before the War found us, and then give a little money to all the kids so that they can get something nice. What do you want to get, Xian, a new dress?"

The teenager considered for a long moment with an expression of deep concentration. "I want to get a Suona oboe. You know, with the metal bell at the end. I like the way those sound. And I want a good slingshot."

"Hm, not bad, girl, not bad, 'nd I won't ask what the slingshot is for. How about you, Shu? What do you want?"

He grinned and looked at Longshot. "A bow and some arrows."

The former Freedom Fighter offered a smile and nod at the sentiment.

Nanna looked back over the hopping herd. "Once the gifts are bought, then we're going to get a farm. Something nice and big, where we can live for a long while and make a living. I'm thinking we'll maybe grow lotus. They have pretty flowers, and I think I'd like to live near water, for a change. And they're a popular crop, that's for sure."

Smellerbee toyed idly with a knife as she glanced at Nanna. "You can farm flowers?"

"Sure, lots of use for lotus. Ever eat the boiled roots?"

By this point, Longshot had stopped listening. The herd had been brought to a halt, and Serjao had stayed his bird-steed at the head. Smellerbee noticed the archer's wandered attention, and followed his gaze. "Let's go check it out," she decided.

She spurred the ostrich-horse forward, and caught up with the older rancher. "What's wrong?"

"Boys didn't come back. Akitchuk and Okitchuk," Serjao bit out. "Sent them to scout the route. They never returned."

"We'll bring them back. Right, Longshot?"

His eloquent response was to pull his bow off his back and take an arrow in hand.

"Exactly. Let's ride!" With a burst of dust, the two warriors were off into the unknown.

The man in the black hat had made a long career of watching from the shadows, manipulating the sheep-like people of the Earth Kingdom for his own ends, so it was no great hardship to wait for his trap to be sprung. The Water Tribe fools made effective bait, drawing the herd's guards- children with weapons, and didn't they look familiar- away from what they were being paid to protect. After that, it was only a matter of letting them get far enough away, and then Earthbending the path behind them closed.

He didn't use the traditional Earthbending styles. There was a long tradition of different arts in the dark heart of Ba Sing Se, more subtle motions that lost nothing in effectiveness for eschewing raw power. The man in the black hat had used them to kill, even, once. Here, in the badland, it was more than enough, and the time had come to use that power to take want he wanted. After losing everything in Ba Sing Se, he was more than ready to seize every opportunity that came his way.

His gang was waiting where they were supposed to be. They were thugs and vagrants, but at least they had some discipline. The man brought his Eartbending-powered dash to a stop and straightened his hat. "All right, boys. Time to collect our prize."

The lesser ruffians clustered together behind him, the better to intimidate their victims. As good as Earthbending was for making a point, the man in the black hat preferred manipulations when it was possible. It was habit, after all.

They came at the herders from above, using the peaks of the gullies to maintain the high ground.

"Good morning," the man in the hat intoned. The people below looked up at him, and he knew all they would see of his face was a shadow beneath his wide hat. They weren't stupid people; the old woman, the mustachioed man, the young man and woman, and even the secret Firebender all knew immediately what was going on, judging from the hardness of their eyes. "You're in no position to bargain. You have one chance to make this easy on yourselves. Your protectors have been dealt with, and there's no help on the horizon."

The depth of the trouble they were in was clear as soon as Smellerbee and Longshot laid eyes on the Water Tribe brothers. Akitchuk and Okitchuk were both tied up and dropped on the pebbly ground of the gully, their ostrich horses left to wander. When the two men saw their rescuers, they both shouted the same word. "Rustlers!"

Smellerbee turned to look at Longshot with alarm. For once, her face was just as silently expressive as his. The herd was in trouble, along with their friends, and if the information they had hunted down was right, Long Feng was the one running the show.

They were almost certainly going to be too late to stop him.

"We need to ride above the gullies, or we'll never make it back in time," Smellerbee decided. "Ostrich-horses can run up walls, right?"

Longshot had already jumped down and begun untying the brothers. The newly freed Akitchuk massaged his wrists and looked at Smellerbee agape. "Yeah, I think I heard of the military birds doing that, but I'm a Water Tribe fisherman who's only spent the last year on a ranch! I don't know how to make 'em do that! Who knows if these ranch birds are even capable?"

The girl looked to Okitchuk, but he just shook his head as well.

Then Longshot's hand rested on her elbow as he returned to her side. "You find another bird. We'll each need one. I'll handle this."

Her own face shifting to match the archer's calm confidence, Smellerbee nodded once and leapt down from her mount. She never doubted anything Longshot told her.

As she ran off to track where the Water Tribe brothers' bird-steeds had wandered off to, Longshot grabbed the reins of her ostrich-horse, and brought the beast's head down to look his eye level. He didn't say anything, and the bird wouldn't have understood his words, anyway. Longshot's gaze, though, was so powerful as to be legendary amongst all the old Freedom Fighters. The look in his eyes communicated very clearly to the bird: 'Hello. I'm Lian. You're a very nice ostrich-horse, and I need your help. We need the power of what's buried in your instincts.'

The ostrich-horse squawked.

Mumei tried to fight the rustlers, of course. He leapt off his mount and kicked up at the leader of the crooks, sending a ball of flame shooting out from air in front of his Fire Nation Army boot.

The man in the black hat raised a fist, and a wall of stone quickly grew to block the attack.

Serjao took advantage of distraction, snapping orders to the camel hounds and driving the rabbaroos back the way they came. The whole herd began a hopping stampede, but the rest of the rustler gang wasn't intimidated. They rode off on their own bird-steeds, pacing the herd. One of the thieves drew a sling, loaded a heavy stone, and targeted Serjao. The older man saw the danger, but it wasn't until after the first stone whistled past his head that he swerved his ostrich-horse down an alternate path, riding deeper in the badlands and trusting the camelhounds to keep up with the herd until he could find a path back.

The rabbaroos were on their own with the rustlers, for now.

The man in the spiked hat glided down the side of the gully, his Earthbending moving him with precision. He effortlessly dodged around the fireballs the Firebender was sending his way, and with casual maliciousness, threw out a hand towards his quarry. The cool stones he wore as gloves flew through the air, the material dull in the full sunshine, as the hand-like shape came apart to form a screen of flat rocks. They were small, but moving with great speed, and the Firebender didn't hesitate to focus his firepower on intercepting the deadly projectiles.

So predictable.

While his opponent was distracted, the rustler leader ran along the gully's wall, Earthbending-powered stone boots easily simulating gravity. The Firebender recovered his attention and tried to track his attacker for another shot, but the man in the hat stopped suddenly, evading the Firebender's aim, and used a fist to shoot a horizontal rock pylon out from the wall. It erupted quickly and truly, smashing the herder right in the side of his chest. The man in the spiked hat could almost imagine that he heard the cracking of ribs, and smirked in response. "Can't breath, can't firebend," he chided.

Then he took his time producing a second pylon that took the Firebender right in the head. The herder didn't get back up.

Unopposed, the rustler leader let himself slide back to the ground, and looked at the last of the herders, the old woman and the two teenagers. "Anyone else care to offer any resistance?"

That was when he heard the neighing bird-screech of an ostrich-horse, and turned to see one of the beasts landing atop the westward wall of gully, backlit by the sun and obscured by shadow. The figure in the saddle was holding a sword in each hand, and looked quite comfortable with the weight.

A hero had arrived.

Longshot left Smellerbee to handle the rustler terrorizing Nanna, Xian, and Shu- a rustler wearing a Dai Li hat and outer robe- and rode onward to chase the herd. He could see the dust produced by the rest of the rustler gang giving chase, and spurred his bird-steed onward with a shake of the reins.

The ostrich-horses had understood Longshot's request quite well, and ascended the gully walls with a massive leap that transitioned into a vertical run. The bird's talons had comfortably gripped the rock at the top of the walls, and Longshot thought he had figured out why the beasts were favored as transportation throughout the Earth Kingdom. He and Smellerbee had ridden back to the herd, the ostrich-horses making good time by staying balanced on the walls and leaping over the twisting paths, and while they weren't in time to save Mumei from a beating, the bad guys were still around and dangerous.

Of course, there were a lot of them, too.

Good thing archery is all about evening bad odds.

As he rode, Longshot trusted his ostrich-horse to handle the mechanics of the chase, and let go of the reins in favor of bringing out his bow. Up ahead, the herd took a turn down a gully that Akitchuk and Okitchuk had explored earlier that morning and proclaimed a dead end. While the rustlers were forced to ride on the outside of the turn, Longshot's bird-steed jumped the furrow, landing in a run on the inside of the turn.

The distance was close enough. Longshot let fly with his first arrow.

A rustler with a sling in his hand fell off his ostrich-horse and disappeared in the dust cloud. One down, about a dozen left to go, and now they were aware of him.

Smellerbee pointed both swords down at the guy in the Dai Li clothes. "Reach for the sky!" was her only warning.

The rustler leader's first move was pretty smart; he seized control of the rock beneath her ostrich-horse and turned it into sand. The bird squawked as it lost its footing and fell into a slide, but Smellerbee was more than prepared. Her mount might have done really well on this rocky ground, but it needed something solid beneath it. Smellerbee, on the other hand, learned to fight in a tree as part of a group that specialized in Death From Above.

She stood up in the saddle of the skidding ostrich-horse, and leaped.

The rogue Dai Li was too quick to let her land on his head, but a swing of her twin jian-swords discouraged him from counterattacking. She stabbed at him with her right sword as soon as her feet hit the ground, but he deflected it with a slap of his stone-covered hand, and burst into an Earthbending dash that carried him away.

She hadn't gotten a good look under his conical hat. His face was covered in shadow, but he might still be Long Feng.

Right this moment, he was raising a cluster of bricks made of compressed gravel from the ground, and flinging them at her head all at once.

They weren't bad, but they weren't an elite Fire Nation task force.

The rustlers fired back at Longshot with slings and crossbows and even thrown knives, but there was a key factor to long-range combat that only the most disciplined practitioners ever really grasped. You had to take the time to line up your shot, regulate your breathing, and let your shot become one with your exhalation.

That was how he managed to put an arrow in a man's body from a hundred paces.

The rustlers weren't terrible shots, but their lack of discipline negated the advantage of their massed fire. The ostrich-horse avoided the worst of the projectiles, and Longshot managed to shoot the few crossbow bolts that were any danger to him out of the sky. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked like that move had unnerved some of the men.

A portion peeled off and hightailed it for the horizon, and the rest fell to his arrows. By the time the rabbaroo herd stampeded into the dead-end and began hopping in circles around each other, Longshot was alone to round them up. The only worry he had was for Smellerbee, and it wasn't her safety that had him anxious.

He wasn't bad, but he wasn't an elite Fire Nation task force.

Against less experienced opponents, especially the amateurs you probably found working the drives in his section of the world, the Dai Li's fighting style was probably more than enough to handle all kinds of resistance. The Freedom Fighters, however, were far and above your everyday guard. They had mastered the art of guerilla warfare against the greatest military power the world had ever seen, and specialized in lightning strikes against numerically superior forces with the power to shoot fire from their fists. Those battles always ended the same way- a defeated group of Fire Nation soldiers, a forest setting that hadn't suffered any collateral damage, and plenty of supplies that had been captured intact.

The Freedom Fighers had been the best in the business.

Smellerbee danced around the flying bricks, and those she couldn't dodge, she batted out of the air with her swords. They were good weapons, made by the Fire Nation for use against Earthbenders, and the metal was more than strong enough to smash the weak stone. She only swung one sword at a time, keeping the other tucked against her body, alternating between the two weapons. It was a good style, adaptable for use with any pair of single-hand weapons, from swords to clubs to knives to random sticks found on the ground. Her old leader, Jet, had used the style to deadly effect with a pair of hook-swords.

He was a good teacher.

Within moments, Smellerbee was once again in striking range of the man in the Dai Li hat. She had two opportunities, and took the wrong one. Instead of stabbing or slicing, she angled to get a look at the face under the hat, and in doing so lost a half a second that her opponent was able to exploit.

He swung his entire arm upward at her, and a blunt spike of rock rose directly in front of him to drill towards Smellerbee's chest. Her armor wouldn't save her; the danger here was in the transfer of force that would wreak havoc on her internal organs.

She had seen it once before, and had no intention of experiencing it herself.

Smellerbee threw herself backwards, but instead of letting herself fall, she balanced herself by swinging her left sword with all her strength. She felt like she was hanging in the air, watching the stone pass slowly in front of her face, and was almost startled when her sword rattled as it struck and smashed through the stone spike.

Then the moment passed, and she wobbled back and forth before snapping upright once again. The rock spike was now a dead pile of rubble. The rogue Dai Li was staring down at his robes.

Then Smellerbee saw that the rock wasn't the only thing her sword had passed through.

The man sank to his knees, and the fatal wound in his belly became hidden by the stone debris. His hat fell from his head, revealing a bearded face paralyzed by surprise. "Oh," was all he said.

Smellerbee looked him in the eyes. "I thought you were Long Feng. He killed my friend."

The rustler looked at her without recognition. "I betrayed Long Feng. We all did," he gasped. "When the Fire Princess banished us, I came here. Thought I would do well." The breath left him for the last time. "So many mistakes."

"Yeah," Smellerbee grunted. "Join the crowd."

The body fell, and she turned to clean her sword in the dust at her feet.

The time after the battle was always tedious, although it was usually a little more celebratory back with the Freedom Fighters. The herders- old Nanna and Serjao, young Xian and Shu, the brothers Akitchuk and Okitchuk, and mysterious Mumei- efficiently rounded their herd back up, and got them moving on the trail again. While Xian treated Mumei for his injuries, the Water Tribe brothers buried the bodies of the rustlers who had been left behind, including the nameless ex-Dai Li.

By sunset, the day's events were nothing but memories. Memories, though, have a power all their own.

Smellerbee was watching the last of the sun fall below the horizon when Longshot came up to her, and put an arm over her shoulders. She sighed and leaned into him. "Long Feng is still out there, somewhere," she noted tiredly.

Longshot nodded.

It was a long moment before she spoke again. "But, you know, there's two ways to make a life. At least, the way I see it. I don't even know how to describe it, but the Dai Li guy I fought today, he was doing it the wrong way. He betrayed people, and fought a lot, and was all about hurting other people in order to survive. Today, though, we protected our friends. We could keep trying to protect people by chasing Long Feng, but who says we'll ever find him? And how many friends will we leave behind along the way?"

Longshot smiled. "Never me."

She smiled back. "I know. But what I'm saying, is that maybe we should think about a real life. Where there's grass. And maybe a rabbaroo. Or some lotus flowers."

Longshot didn't need to say anything. She knew what he thought. He did place a kiss on her cheek, though, because that never got old for either of them.

Together, they went over to the campfire, where Nanna was making stew. Mumei, his head wrapped in bandages but otherwise looking alert, got the first and biggest portion. Serjao was next, and ate his silently but with great satisfaction. Xian and Shu were too busy comparing recollections of the day's events to pay much attention to their bowls, which Akitchuk and Okitchuk were trying to steal. As Smellerbee and Longshot arrived, Nanna grinned warmly at them and gave them their own bowls, filled high and steaming hot. "We really appreciate what y'all did for us today. We're mighty grateful, Smellerbee, Longshot, you can be sure of that."

Smellerbee contentedly lifted a spoonful to her mouth and blew on it. "You know, you can call me Sonyu." She sipped from the spoon, and then put it in her mouth with great satisfaction. Afterward, she nodded towards Longshot. "And he's Lian."

Above, the sky was filled with the impossibly bright whirls of the stars.

END