Soldier's Boy
One

It had been about twenty minutes since Lee had told Jiro to hide, when he came back. "Freaking pirates," the older boy muttered to himself. "You okay?" he called a little louder.

A rustle, and then a small boy slipped partway out of an equally small hollow buried under a bush.  Jiro grinned irrepressibly at him.  "Yep, fine.  Nobody came by this way."  He wriggled the rest of the way out and casually collapsed his shelter before pushing himself into a crouch.  "How about you?"

"I'm fine. The kids won, I think they're run—" He broke off with a small yelp, as an arrow shot through his shoulder from the back.

"Lee!" cried the younger boy, his grey eyes wide.  He leaned out around Lee, face contorted in an angry snarl, and slammed one hand against the ground.  Earth rumbled, and then a pillar shot up under the man who had shot his companion, sending the man flying.

The older boy spun as well, sidestepping in front of Jiro and drawing a sword with his uninjured arm, to try and disperse the rest of the pirates who'd followed him.

The wind picked up, strong and direct enough to knock the remaining men off their feet. It appeared to come from a boy about Jiro's age, perched on a large white animal. "Both of you, jump on!"

Lee didn't bother to look. "Jiro, get on the bison!"

"You too!"  the younger boy retorted, but he'd already propelled himself into the air with a pillar under his own feet; a dark girl helped to steady him as he landed, then grabbed his belt to prevent him from falling off as he reached over so Lee could jump and grab his hand.

He backed towards the bison, covering his friend's retreat, then spun again and accepted the help up. The tattooed boy called something out, and the bison shot up out of range.  Panting from exertion — he was only ten, and didn't often use his earthbending ability so much and so quickly — Jiro clung tightly to Lee's waist.

Lee didn't hug back. He bowed slightly, as much as he could, at the other passengers. "Thank you."

"Least we could do, after earlier," one of the boys — not the pilot, the other one, the one as dark as the girl — said, shrugging.

Jiro looked up at him with sad grey eyes.  "Lee, you're hurt…"

"I noticed," the older boy said, a little dryly. "Can you break off the feathers? I need to pull it the rest of the way through."

He swallowed but nodded, obediently releasing Lee and crawling behind him, where one by one he plucked the feathers from the arrow shaft.  "Okay, I've got them."

"Thanks." Lee reached up and pulled the arrow the rest of the way through, as quick as he could. He sagged back a bit, seeing stars. Without the shaft to block it, the hole started leaking blood faster.  Jiro let out a small cry and tried to staunch the flow.

"Supplies in my bag..." Lee mumbled.

The smaller boy looked around until he saw the bag, then dragged it over to him with one foot.  Then groaned as he realised he only had two hands and both of them were being used to keep Lee from bleeding out.  "Help…?" he pleaded to the three older children.

The girl crawled over the saddle quickly, and rooted around in the bag. After a minute, she'd found the bandages. Using water from a flask she was carrying she cleaned the hole and wrapped it, quickly.

"Th-thank you," Jiro stammered, moving his hands and wiping them on the bottom of his tunic.

"No problem" she replied, smiling, then frowned. Lee had taken some other hits — though none nearly as severe — during the retreat, and she'd used all of his bandages on his shoulder. "Sokka, toss me my bag?" The dark boy shoved a blue bag over at her, and she dug in it for her own supply of bandages, and started cleaning and wrapping the other injuries.

Shyly Jiro helped her, settling in front of Lee when it was all over and worriedly speaking his name.

"M'okay, Jiro," he insisted.

"He says with numerous wounds," the ten-year-old pointed out dryly.

The older boy managed a small smile. "Not hurt that bad."

Everybody else stared at him for a very long moment, then Jiro sighed and affectionately said, "Idiot."

Lee just sighed, and sank back, closing his eyes.  After a few minutes, Jiro crawled to the edge of the saddle and leaned over it, looking at the ground far below in delight.  Apparently Lee wasn't quite as far out as he'd thought; he reached out and grabbed the back of Jiro's shirt, pulling him back a little. "Gonna fall."

"Am not!" Jiro pouted at him, but he settled down next to the older boy regardless.  Lee just looked worried, and very dizzy.  Sighing, Jiro nestled gently against Lee's uninjured side and turned his attention over to the three other children.

"So, you're Lee and Jiro, then?" the younger boy, the one flying the bison, called back, looking over his shoulder.

"Yeah," affirmed Jiro with a slight smile.  "What about you?"

The three of them introduced themselves in quick succession — the pilot was Aang, the girl Katara, and her brother was Sokka. "And this is Appa," Aang finished, patting the bison, who rumbled.

"Thanks for the ride, Appa," Jiro said obediently, laughing a little bit.

Aang laughed, too. "Well, like Sokka said earlier, least we could do after all the help Lee gave us earlier."

"He has this thing about kids getting hurt," Jiro replied, looking up at his bigger companion.  He'd apparently drifted off to sleep at some point, which explained why he hadn't said anything in the last few minutes.  The young boy frowned, then slipped off his slightly overlarge tunic and tried to cover Lee with it.

Katara gasped a little in horror, seeing the scars decorating the ten-year-old's chest. "What happened?"

Startled, Jiro looked down, then his face closed off and he turned so the scars weren't visible.  "Nothing."

Katara opened her mouth to say something else, but her brother hit her. "Drop it."

Jiro spent a few moments fussing over the sleeping Lee, always moving so that his back was to the others.  He seemed rather self-conscious about his disfigured chest.  Clearly, all three of them wanted to know more, but they didn't ask. Aang even helpfully changed the subject, telling him bizarre stories about penguinsledding and surfing on sea serpents.  This served to lighten Jiro's mood, and the boy laughed as he nestled close to Lee once more under a blanket Sokka had tossed at him.

Lee woke up around the time they brought the bison in for a landing to set up camp.  Jiro gratefully pulled his shirt back on then tried to help the others set up, somewhat ineptly.  The older boy climbed down and, wobbly as he was, helped out as well.

Once Jiro had been settled where his enthusiasm would do no damage, things went a bit more smoothly.

"Hey, you guys want to stick with us?" Aang said, suddenly.

Startled, the younger boy looked over at him.  "Huh?"

"I mean, you guys'll both be really helpful, and you're an earthbender, and I need to learn earthbending — well, I'm supposed to learn water first, but… maybe after, you could teach me what you know?"

Lee got a very odd, closed look on his face, hearing this, but it quickly vanished, helped along by Sokka chiming in enthusiastically and asking for sword lessons.  Jiro looked surprised — well, tattoos, only Air Nomads had those, and for there to be an Air Nomad boy after a century, the boy could only be the Avatar rumour whispered had returned — but hesitated.  "I… I'm not very good," he said carefully.  "I've never had a teacher."

"Well, anything you can show me will help," he said, eagerly, raising his voice slightly to be heard over Sokka badgering Lee about swords. "And we have to go to the North Pole first so me and Katara can learn waterbending right, so it'll be awhile."

"I… I guess so….," Jiro conceded.

"Thanks!" the Avatar said, with a big grin.

Hesitantly, the smaller boy smiled back.

The twelve-year-old then turned his focus to Lee, rescuing him from Sokka to ask where the two of them had come from. The older boy tensed a little, and gave a series of bitter, evasive non-answers.  When he turned to Jiro, he only shrugged and said that Lee knew the land better than he did.  Finally, the tattooed boy subsided, though he was more curious than ever.  Clearly, neither Jiro nor Lee wanted to speak of where they came from or why they were travelling. 

Over the next few days of tedious travel, Aang kept trying to spring the question on them when they were thinking about other things, but neither boy fell for it.  Finally, utterly frustrated, Jiro turned on the Avatar.  "Look," he said hotly.  "We don't want to talk about it.  Just let it lie.  Please!"

The older boy blinked, surprised at this outburst. Then the look of shock faded, replaced by one that looked remarkably like a kicked puppy. He looked away. "I'm sorry..."  Guiltily, Jiro looked away from him as well, and moved slightly faster to catch up with Lee.  Then, with Sokka in the lead, they broke through a screen of underbrush and walked right into where a Fire Nation army patrol was camped.  Jiro squeaked and hid behind Lee.  The children and the soldiers stared at each other for a few moments, then the men advanced—

Only to have their leader cut down by a sudden unexpected arrow from the trees.

That was all the cue the melee needed.

Surprisingly, there was no earthbending backup from Jiro — the youngest of their group crouched close to the ground, arms clasped tightly around his head as he whimpered in stark terror nobody had seen from him before.  Lee stayed close in front of him, oddly reticent to do much damage to the soldiers.

The reinforcements from the trees made this unnecessary.  In short order, the battle was done, and introductions were made, but still Jiro did not uncurl.  Lee bent down and gently picked him up, ignoring the fact that this ripped open the half-healed hole in his shoulder.  Whimpering, Jiro clung tightly to him; the one who had been introduced as Smellerbee gave the boy an incredulous look.  "What's with your brother?" she asked Lee.

He shot her a brief glare. "He's scared," he snapped.

"This I can see.  What of?  Fight's over."

"Just drop it."

The girl glared at him and stalked ahead to walk with the archer — Longshot, that's what he was called.  A short while later, they stopped in a clearing that looked much like every other clearing they'd passed through. The tree-people's leader — Jet, he'd said his name was (Sokka didn't like him. Lee didn't, either) — told their guests to hold on to ropes that dropped down from the trees.

Fortunately, Jiro had come out of his near-catatonia.  He was still trembling, but he was no longer frozen and unresponsive.  Hesitantly, he reached for one of the ropes, wrapping it around his forearm to make it easier to hold on to.  Lee grabbed onto the same rope, clearly not willing to be far from his brother until he was calmed further.

Without warning, they were pulled up into the trees; Jiro let out a startled cry, but he smiled as he watched the ground drop away from him.  Lee wasn't nearly so pleased with this. It only increased is already-significant mistrust of Jet. 

By the time dinner rolled around, Jiro had completely recovered from his earlier fright, and Katara was watching Jet as though he was some great god of beauty, come to walk among mortals.

Lee and Sokka, for once actually agreeing on something, hung around close to the edge of the group, watching Jet suspiciously.  To nobody's great surprise, Jiro remained close to Lee, though he didn't seem to have the same misgivings about the leader of the Freedom Fighters as his brother and Sokka.

When Sokka tried to insist that their group was leaving early the next morning, Jet was rather convincingly disappointed and told Sokka that they had something important they wanted him to help with. While still suspicious, the teenager was obviously flattered and agreed to stick around to help out.

Curious, Jiro asked if he, too, could go along.  Lee, of course, would be going if Jiro was, and Jet sized both brothers up before shrugging and agreeing.  Jiro cheered up immensely after that; he'd been ashamed by his paralysing fear before and refused to say what had caused him to freeze.

And so, early the next morning, Jet, Lee, Jiro, Sokka, and a few of the other Freedom Fighters headed off into the woods.  Surprisingly for a boy of ten, Jiro remained completely silent as they travelled, seeming to understand instinctively the need to sneak around.  Lee was even better at sneaking, moving with an eerie quiet that hinted he'd had to hide more than once before, for significant amounts of time.

Jiro crouched lightly on his part of the tree branch, watching the road eagerly to see what would happen.  Sokka slammed his knife into the treetrunk, pressing his ear against it to see if he could hear anyone coming. "There's someone coming!  Just one person, I think."

"One person can be more than enough," Jiro said, so quietly only those closest to him heard.

"False alarm," Sokka finally said. "It's just an old man."

Regardless of what Sokka had said, Jet and his followers jumped down from the trees.  Confused, the other three followed, to find Jet holding the old man up, insisting he was a spy.

"Jet," Lee snapped, but the older boy ignored him.

Jiro's eyes narrowed, and he pushed Jet away from the old man with surprising strength.  "Lay off!" the boy snarled, standing between the two.  Jet snarled back and Lee, sensing trouble, got between the two before Jet could fly off the handle in his brother's direction. 
The old man fled while the teenaged boys were fighting.  When they finally got back to Jet's tree fortress, nobody was happy.  Katara was still besotted, and took Jet's side, particularly when he claimed the old man had been carrying a poisoned dagger.

"He was just a colonist!" Jiro snapped angrily. "Probably afraid of people like you!"

"He was sent here to kill me!" Jet snapped back. Once again, Lee stepped between them, a little less quickly than he'd been able to before — he'd decidedly lost that fight. The odds might've been slightly more even were it not for the mess with the pirates less than a week before.  Jiro subsided rather than see his brother fight the older boy again, but he did not stop glaring at Jet. 

The next day, Sokka left with Pipsqueak and Smellerbee, and Aang and Katara left with Jet.   "Something isn't right," Jiro said quietly.  "And I don't just mean in Jet's head."

Lee nodded. "Think you're right." He dragged himself to his feet. "We should follow him. Figure out what's going on."

Jiro nodded and helped his brother get to the ground.  Once there, though, he hesitated.  "Maybe I should go find Sokka?"

Lee nodded, and slipped off after Aang, Katara, and Jet.   Taking a deep breath, Jiro melted into the woods, following the path Pipsqueak couldn't help but make.  "Sokka?" he called quietly.

Sokka had, by now, broken free of Pipsqueak and Smellerbee. "He ran off," the girl told him, a little sullenly.  

"Where?" Jiro demanded, glaring up at the two.  Obviously Sokka had managed to trick them into Fire Nation traps.

"He didn't say."

"Okay, then why did he run off and trap you two?"

"He found out about Jet's plan to flood the valley and get rid of the soldiers."

Silver eyes went wide.  "The village," Jiro breathed, then he turned and plunged into the bushes, heading straight for it.  If Sokka had gone to stop Jet, then the village needed to be warned—!

Sokka wasn't trying to stop Jet. He was already evacuating the village when Jiro got there.  "Sokka!" cried the boy, running in to help him.  "What do you need me to do?"

"Help me get the people out of the town," he said. "Where's Lee?"

"Went after Katara and Aang — and Jet."  Jiro all but spat the name as he fell into helping people move along and carry things.  Sokka frowned, but didn't say anything.

They'd barely gotten the last people out when the dam exploded and the water rushed in.  Quickly, Jiro bent up a small barrier to make sure the evacuees would remain safe, then had to sit down.  He leaned against the wall he'd made, breathing hard.

"You okay?" Sokka asked, worried.

Jiro gave him a weak smile.  "I don't bend much."

The older boy nodded, and helped him up onto Appa. "C'mon. Let's go get the others."

"Yeah."  Jiro sat on the head with Sokka, knowing perfectly well that Lee would have hauled him back into the saddle if he'd been there.

"Yip, yip."

When they got there, Jet was frozen to a tree, Aang was lying on top of his damaged glider, Lee was leaning against another tree, gripping his shoulder, and Katara was yelling at the rebel leader.

Jiro slid down from Appa's head and ran to his brother.  "Lee, what happened?" he asked, worried.

"We fought," he mumbled. "You okay?"

"Yes, fine, see?"  And he took Lee's hand and moved it to his face, so that the older boy could see that Jiro's only hurts were the fading bruises from yesterday.

He relaxed, obviously relieved, to find his brother not further hurt. "Can we leave now? I don't like this place..."

"Me either," was the fierce reply.  Not relinquishing Lee's hand, he lead the other boy to Appa.

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

(1 comment)