Note: If I weren't so lazy, I'd find myself a beta reader
to compensate for my lack of Word. But for now, I must apologize for
the gross amounts of spelling/grammatical errors I'm sure this story
contains. Oh, and did you notice the 1000+ word count? Chyeah you did.
:D I do believe that I will go celebrate this craptastic feat with a
Diet Dr. Pepper.
Casting Long Shadows
"I've no words to share with anyone
The boundaries of language are quietly cursed
All the different names for the same thing."
-Different Names For The Same Thing, Death Cab For Cutie
-x-
He should be dead.
But he's alive. Constellations burn coldly overheard and he is alone.
A shaking hand, the one that is not attached to his broken right arm, reaches up and feels his head for gashes.
He freezes.
His hair.
They shaved off his hair.
Whimpering for his mother, he begins to cry.-x-
The village streets are crowded with Fire Nation soldiers, so he ducks under the cover of the surrounding forest in search of a place to sleep. His feet are worn to the point where his bones seem to brush against the weathered fabric of his shoes. There is no way to know how many miles he has walked in the two months past, but if the callouses on his skin are any indication, then there is more than a world between him and the muddy pit that he crawled out of.
It's finally starting to feel like enough space.
The forest is quiet, he reflects idly as he wanders amongst the underbrush. Almost too quiet, now that he thinks about it. The normal twittering of overhead birds are absent from these trees, and the last of day's light streaming through the thick trees is lonely for lack of life.
He frowns, and stops. It's too suspisciously quiet -
OOF!
The next thing he knows, he's being wrestled to the forest floor by a tiny body wielding a dagger and a voice of barbed velvet.
"Hands where I can see them, tough guy!"
-x-
To his surprise, he finds her leaning against a tree trunk and watching him. Not rudely, not sympathetically, but in a way that tells him that she's seeing more than he might want her to.
Just above a whisper she says, "I used to have a hat, too."
Then, with a sad air of understanding, she passes. He stares after her, long after her back disappears under the shadows of the trees.
-x-
Sometimes, he wishes that he was deaf rather than mute.
"Why doesn't he talk?"
"Dunno. Maybe he's too stupid."
"Heh heh. Maybe."
He ducks his head, letting the rain drops slide down his hat. They fall softly onto his pantleg, and dark spots bloom on the fabric. Above him, the leaves whisper and all the precious space he thought he had between himself and everything else is dissolving in the drizzle."Maybe you two had better shut up before I stick this knife somewhere you'd rather not have it."
-x-
Their friendship is built on such strange things - midnight Fire-Water-Earth-Air games, pelting Pipsqueak with acorns, and a common hatred for the Fire Nation. Before her, he has never had a friend he could sit with for two hours in absolute silence and never get bored.
-x-
All she really wants, he begins to deduce as they cautiously allow themselves to open up to each other, is someone to listen to her. For a comfortable silence in the moments when she speaks, and in the moments when she doesn't.
Fortunately, he has silence in a great supply. It is a small token of friendship, but to the only girl in the treehouse it is more precious than gold, and he is more than happy to give it to her.
-x-
When she falls, and it is a rare thing when she does so, he instinctively reaches out a hand, not expecting her to take it. She doesn't disappoint.
Instead, she huffs in irritation - at herself, not him - and springs back up onto her feet again. Over her shoulder, she casts him a nod of acknowledgement. And as she dives back into the fray, he shrugs his shoulders and lets his hand fall to his side.
Whether she takes his hand or not doesn't matter as much to him as it does for her to know that it's there, should she ever need a lifeline.
-x-
She's actually very pretty.
There's not a force in this world or the next that could convince her of it, but she is pretty. Not the kind of pretty that hits you like a maelstrom as you walk by her on the street, but the kind you can pass over and over again and never see. That is, until you knew her.
She's the kind of pretty that turns beautiful the more you look at her. A special kind of pretty.
A kind of pretty he wishes he could tell her about.
-x-
Every once and a while, he notices her staring out into the village. Like most things - her smile, her weakness, her laugh - it disappears in an instant, so that you stood blinking, and wondering if it was real.Sitting at the edge of the forest, he wonders if he saw it now. Behind them, the sun balances on the treetops, casting long shadows that stretch for miles. It's getting dark; they really should be getting back before Jet starts to worry.
"In a minute," she tells him. The quiet expression of content on her face makes him wonder if this is her favorite time of day. Dying light glows on her skin, catching on the secret lightness of her hair, and he thinks that it suits her.
Below them, an alcove of houses sits under the warm bath of oranges and golds. She lets out a tiny breath as she leans forward to watch the people in the streets, a language that says nothing and everything. Silently, he reaches over and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Longshot?"
He gently squeezes her shoulder in response.
"Can you keep a secret?"
The question almost makes him laugh. Almost, but not quite.
She glances at his hand on her shoulder, and then back down at the village. "I want that."
-x-
It's raining.Actually, it's fucking pouring, if you got right down to it. It's pouring rain in the middle of the night, and they are sitting outside, vigilently guarding the treehouse and secretly hoping that everyone inside was having a terrible sleep.
She huffs, "Why does it always rain when we're on duty?"
Rain drips from her hair, which is matted down onto her head. The water has soaked her clothes through, and she shivers. He can hear her teeth knocking inside her mouth.
He shrugs the red wrap off his shoulder and hands it over to her. When they first had this exchange, she wore an expression of surprise, as though she was shocked that somone would do anything nice for her. Now, however, she slips the fabric over her shoulders with a grateful smile. It's soaking wet like her other clothes, but he supposes that it's the thought that counts.
"D'you think it rains like this in Ba Sing Se?"