Soldier's Boy
Four

When Lee woke up, his shoulder had been cleaned and bandaged, and a blanket dragged over him and Jiro, still curled up at his side with his fingers clutching his brother's shirt. He, too, seemed to be waking up, though, to judge by the small, tired sounds he was making.

"Hey," Lee mumbled, sitting up.

Jiro let go of his shirt and yawned. "Wha time is it...?"

"Dunno, just woke up."

Yawning again, Jiro crawled out from under the blanket and stretched, then looked around for the others. Aang was curled up on Appa's tail, still asleep, Katara was trying to fix one of Lee's shirts, and Sokka was nowhere to be seen.

Flushing slightly, Jiro approached her. "Mornin'..."

She looked up, and smiled. "Good, you're awake. There's leftover breakfast over there."

Jiro practically blurred as he raced for the food; even when he hadn't been bending like he had the night before, he had quite the appetite on him. Lee extracted himself from the blanket and wandered over to join his brother.

"Feelin' better?" Jiro asked quietly.

"Mm," he said, noncommittally, grabbing some of the food before his brother could inhale it all.

"...we should probably get moving when Sokka comes back," the younger boy said after a few minutes. "Com— Admiral Zhao will have a search going."

Lee frowned, staring down at his hands. "Yeah..."

Jiro bit his lip, finished his share, and then went to shake Aang awake and talk to him about moving on.

"Fi' more minnits..." the Avatar mumbled, rolling away from Jiro.

Jiro sighed. "Aang. We need to start breaking camp."

The older boy groaned, and reluctantly sat up. Jiro calmly explained his reasoning, this time carefully leaving out the Admiral's name.

"...Yeah, you're right." He sighed, stood up, and stretched. "You okay?"

"Yep, fine. Not hurt."

"Right. How's Lee?"

"Lee's fine," he called over.

Jiro nodded, and gave Aang a lopsided smile that didn't entirely reach his eyes. "I'll help Katara. That way we can be ready to go when Sokka gets back."

"All right," Aang said, a little unsure and worried about the brothers.

Before Aang could start asking questions, Jiro hurried over to Katara to help her pack, going pinker the closer he was.

Sokka got back an hour later, with a deerhare. By this time, the ten-year-old was noticeably jittery and thus was extremely relieved by Sokka's return. They piled onto Appa and had gotten underway within an hour.

Once airborne, Jiro sighed and finally relaxed. Lee stared down at his hands, frowning and saying very little.

Several days later, they'd made camp by a river, intending to remain for a few days in order to give Appa a rest. The giant bison needed it after carrying five passengers and the supplies required for them. After Aang "borrowed" the fishing line to make a necklace for Katara, Sokka was forced to resort to using his hands to catch a fish.

Jiro couldn't stop laughing after the fish squirmed free and slapped the young warrior in the face with its tail. Lee charitably hid his laughter rather better than his brother. Then they all heard growling, over Aang's inept and transparent attempts to gain Katara's attentions.
"Someone's being attacked by a platypus-bear!" Aang cried, and they all ran off to help, shouting conflicting advice at the man, who was taking his peril rather calmly.

Jiro stared. "...it's like he's dancing with it," the boy said, confused.

"Something's very weird here," Lee muttered, as the too-cheerful man insisted everything was going to be fine.

"Yeah," Jiro agreed. "Now he sounds like you."

"I don't sound like that," his brother protested, as Aang got between the man and the platypus-bear, and then Appa scared the smaller, more vicious animal away.

"You totally do, Lee." Jiro grinned impishly up at him, then made his way to join Aang.

Lee made a face, and followed the ten-year-old.

"Mm! Lunch!" Sokka said, picking up the egg the platypus-bear had left behind. Then he turned to the man. "You're lucky we came along."

"Thanks," the man replied, "but everything was already under control. Not to worry. Aunt Wu predicted I'd have a safe journey."

Jiro blinked. "What?"

"Aunt who?" Aang asked at the same time.

Lee just stared.

"No, Aunt Wu," the man corrected. "She's the fortune-teller from my village. Awful nice, knowing your future."

"Wow... must be," Katara mused.

Jiro's face inexplicably closed. "No. It wouldn't be." Lee nodded agreement, squeezing his brother's shoulder.

"That explains why you were so calm!" Katara ploughed on, eagerly, ignoring the brothers.

"But the fortune-teller was wrong," Sokka pointed out, scathingly. "You didn't have a safe journey, you were almost killed!"

"But I wasn't," the man said, cheerfully. "All right, have a good one!" He bowed, and started off. "Oh!" he said, pausing and turning back. "And Aunt Wu said, if I met any travellers, to give them this." He handed Aang a long, narrow, wrapped package, then continued on his way.

"....okay.... that was... weird...," Jiro said.

Lee stared after the man, frowning. "I do not sound like that," he muttered to his brother. "I'm not that crazy."

"Yeah, you're right," Jiro muttered back.

"Maybe we should go see Aunt Wu and learn our fortunes!" Katara said, eagerly, while Aang examined the package.

"No," Lee said, immediately. "I really don't want to know what's in store for me."

"It could be fun," she pleaded.

"Knowing the future won't help anything," Jiro responded stubbornly as Aang started tearing into the package.

"Besides, fortune-telling is nonsense," Sokka said.

"What do you know, an umbrella!" Aang said, having finally finished opening the package. As if on cue, it started pouring. Jiro yelped and ran to hide under Appa. Lee followed, and Katara ran to shelter under Aang's umbrella, telling her brother defiantly that this proved Aunt Wu was real.

"No it doesn't," he said, holding Momo over his head. "You can't really tell the future."

"I guess you're not really getting wet then," his sister smirked.

"It doesn't take a fortune-teller to know when it's gonna rain," Jiro shot at Katara.

"Yeah, the sky's been grey all day," Sokka reminded her.

"Just admit you might be wrong and you can come under the umbrella."

"Okay, I'm going to predict the future now," Sokka said, rolling his eyes. "It's going to keep drizzling."

"I'll bet it stops, just to spite him," Lee whispered to his brother.

Sure enough, it stopped. Jiro snickered.

"Not everyone has the gift, Sokka," Aang said, grinning up at the sky.

They soon reached a decent-sized town at the base of a flat-topped mountain. Lee frowned at it for a while, then Katara dragged them all to Aunt Wu's.

"Aunt Wu is expecting you," a white-haired man in black said, bowing and gesturing them towards a door.

"Because that's really reassuring," Lee muttered.

Jiro balked. "I think I'll stay with Appa. Someone should dry him off."

Lee looked unsure for a minute, then sighed and follow them in. "I'm just going in to make sure Sokka doesn't go snooping around to try and prove this lady's a fraud and breaking something," he announced.

"Have fun," Jiro replied, climbing up the bison to find a towel.

About a half hour later, the others re-emerged, Sokka looking sulky, Aang and Katara walking on air, and Lee very closed off. The boy frowned and slid down the bison's side. "Lee?" he asked, moving to his brother.

Ahead of them, Sokka and Katara were arguing over the validity of Aunt Wu's predictions.

"Hmm?" the older boy said, not looking up from his worried contemplation of the ground.

"Lee, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Jiro clearly didn't believe him, but he dropped the subject.

Much to Lee's discomfort — and Sokka's annoyance — they stayed a few days in the town. Aunt Wu read the clouds, informing the village that the volcano — their mountain was one — would not destroy the town this year. Katara went back to the fortuneteller's house several times for more readings, while Sokka tried to convince the villagers that Aunt Wu was a fraud. Aang made increasingly inept attempts to get Katara's attention, finally dragging the other boys up the mountain to get a pandalily for her.

"I can't believe you're dragging us all the way up here for a stupid flower," Sokka complained.

Aang was bouncing from rock to rock, and Jiro was doing the same, clearly taking the trip as yet another chance to practise his earthbending. He'd also been spending some time with the village children his age who were also benders, learning from them.

"Not just any flower, a pandalily," Aang called back eagerly. "I've seen it in action, and boy does it work."

Lee, trailing along behind Sokka, rolled his eyes.

"What's that have to do with anything?" Jiro asked. "A flower is a flower."

"Flowers are fine, once you're married," Sokka said, "but at this early stage, it's critical that you maintain maximum aloofness."

Lee rolled his eyes again, and waited, clinging to the mountain, for Sokka to shut up and move on so they could get this over with.

"Is this about a girl?" Jiro demanded sceptically.

"Yes," the other three said in unison.

Aang went on to say, "My heart is telling me to get this flower. And Aunt Wu said if I trusted my heart, I would be with the one I love." He grinned up at the top of the mountain.

"What?! Don't tell me you believe in that stuff, too..." Sokka groaned.

"Why are we getting a flower for a girl?" Jiro muttered, bouncing ahead of Aang. "Girls have cooties."

Sokka grinned up at him. "Give it three years, you'll change your mind. But, seriously, Aang..."

"Well, Aunt Wu hasn't been wrong yet," the Avatar pointed out (Below them, Lee flinched and slipped a few feet). "Why should she be wrong about love?" Without waiting for a response, he bounced ahead of Jiro again. "There! On the rim!" He pointed at the striped lilies growing there.

Jiro blinked. "Wait — something's... different..." He knelt on the rock he'd landed on, trying to figure out what had bothered him.

Sokka and Lee caught up just as Aang finished picking his flower. "...Oh, no," the Avatar said. Lee said something a good deal more impolite. "Aunt Wu was wrong," Aang said, numbly, dropping his flower into the bubbling lava.

"The mountain... it's rumbling," said Jiro quietly, the colour draining from his face. "I can feel it."

"Come on," Lee said, tersely. "We need to go back and warn the village." While he and the others couldn't feel the rumbling like Jiro could, the bubbling disquiet of the lava was sign enough of imminent danger.

"Fast," agreed Jiro, forming a block of the ground into a somewhat large sled. "Aang, you go on ahead! Sokka, Lee," and handles sprang up, "you might want to hang on."

Aang shot ahead on his glider, and the two older boys grabbed hold of the sled. "Here we go!" Jiro cried, and with a thrust of his hands, the sled began shooting down the mountain nearly as fast as Aang could fly, the ten-year-old manoeuvring them around boulders and occasionally just shattering the obstacles in their path.

The four of them made it to Aunt Wu's at the same time, finding Katara standing outside, staring somewhat despondently at the door.

"Hi, Katara," Aang started.

"Can you believe she won't let me in? And after all the business I've given her?"

"But she doesn't even charge," Aang pointed out.

"And even if she did, bigger problem," Lee cut them off.

"Yeah, Aunt Wu was wrong about the volcano," Sokka snapped.

"Sokka, you tried to convince me she was wrong before. It's gonna take an awful lot to change my mind."

There was a distinct loud booming noise from the volcano, and all of them felt the earth rumble. A think plume of smoke began wafting from the top of the mountain. "Will that do?" asked Jiro, still pale.

"...Yes," Katara squeaked. The five of them ran to the square.

"Everyone! That volcano is gonna blow any second!" Sokka shouted. "Aunt Wu was wrong."

Predictably, given his numerous attempts to persuade the townspeople of this fact over the course of their stay in the village, no one believed him. Lee couldn't quite resist the urge to make a dent in the nearest wall with his forehead.

"Can't you feel the shaking?" demanded Jiro. He really did not look well. "The mountain is screaming!"

"Maybe you'll listen to me," Katara said. "I want to believe Aunt Wu's predictions as much as you do. But my friends saw the lava with their own eyes."

"Well, I heard Aunt Wu's prediction with my own ears," one of the men responded.

"Please, listen to us!" Aang shouted, jumping up onto a roof. "You are all in danger! And we have to get out of here. You can't rely on Aunt Wu's predictions. You have to take fate into your own hands."

Lee stopped slamming his head into the wall to stare at the ground. Jiro was the only one close enough to hear him mutter, "I wish it was that simple..."

The ground shook, and Jiro cried out, clinging to Lee. Lee clung right back, trying to stay calm to keep his brother from freaking out further.

"Can your fortune-telling explain that?" Sokka shouted at them. The townspeople looked up at the mountain, some of them slightly uneasy now.

"Can your science explain why it rains?" one of the men in the crowd shot back.

"YES! Yes, it can!"

The townspeople, reaffirmed in their convictions by the man's outburst, scattered, wandering back to their daily routines.

"That's it," snapped Jiro. "I'm going to go dig a trench. Maybe that will slow the lava some." He ran off outside the village.

Lee stared after his brother, then up at the mountain, then at his hands. "...There's something I want to try. You three try and figure out a way to persuade them. Maybe try getting Aunt Wu on your side, they listen to her." He ran off towards the mountain, passing by Jiro who was already hard at work bending a trench. The dirt he moved to make the hole he set up into a second barrier at the top, to slow it even further.

Both brothers were so intent on their self-appointed tasks that they didn't notice the clouds changing, but Jiro did notice when other earthbenders and the rest of the village joined him in building the trenches. One of the older benders eventually dragged him out. "Enough," he told the boy. "If you keep this up, you'll collapse. You've done enough."

Somehow, miraculously, they had enough time to build their trench, despite the rumblings from the mountain getting more and more ominous. As the ground shook even harder, Jiro went utterly white. "Where's Lee!?"

"We thought he was with you," Aang said, frowning.

Before Jiro could reply, the mountain finally blew its top, and lava started spilling towards them.

"Lee!" screamed the boy, starting to run. Sokka barely managed to collar him.

The trench in front of them filled with lava. "It's too much!" Katara shouted. "It's going to overflow!"

Aang took care of it. Jiro didn't notice, still screaming for his brother and struggling in Sokka's grip. The volcano slowly quieted, and cooled. The ash drifted down over them. Sokka said something Jiro couldn't hear over his own screaming that made Katara look at Aang rather thoughtfully.

Finally, exhausted and coughing from the ash he'd inhaled, Jiro went slowly limp in Sokka's arms.

"I'm going to go get the villagers," Aang said, softly, after another long several moments with no sign of Lee. "Maybe he's with them."

No response from Jiro. The boy had utterly exhausted himself between the bending and his struggles to search for his brother.

By the time they gathered the villagers in the square and returned Aunt Wu's cloud book (they'd borrowed it to shape their warning), the sky was blue again. The old fortune-teller praised them for their cleverness.

"No offense," Sokka was saying, "but I hope this has taught everyone a lesson about not relying too much on fortune-telling."

"But Aunt Wu predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed, and it wasn't," the old man they'd met on the road dancing with a platypus-bear pointed out cheerfully. "She was right after all."

"I hate—"

"Lee!" Jiro screamed, cutting Sokka off. He bolted to the older teen. The battered and exhausted-looking sixteen-year-old didn't say anything, just gingerly hugged his brother. The boy was practically in tears as he clung to Lee, burying his face in Lee's tunic. "Lee, where were you?"

"On the mountain," he rasped.

"What were you doing up there?" Katara demanded.

Lee flinched a little, and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Nothing special."

"Scared me," mumbled Jiro, his voice muffled by cloth.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, tightening his hug.

Jiro looked up at Lee now, silver eyes meeting gold. "Tell me next time?" he asked plaintively.

Lee nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady if he spoke. Stupid ash.

The ten-year-old coughed. "L-let's go," he said.

Aang paused to have a quick word with Aunt Wu first, then they all climbed up onto Appa.

"Goodbye, everyone!" Katara called. "It was so nice to meet you!" They took off.

"That was fun," said Jiro quietly. "Let's never do it again."

Lee nodded, and curled up in his usual spot at the back of Appa's saddle.

"I can't believe you went up on the mountain," Aang said, sounding torn between impressed and furious. "You could've gotten killed."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Lee rasped.

Jiro looked thoughtful, and said nothing.

"Yeah, well, don't do it again," the Avatar admonished. Lee rolled his eyes and made no promises.

Current Location: my bed
Current Mood: pleased
Tags: au, avatar, fanfic, soldier's boy

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