Chapter Text
Where There's Smoke
I.
Kyoshi looked at the three girls assembled before her, their faces dirty and fierce and young.
“You want to learn how to fight?” she asked them, these brave girls from different homes. From different worlds. “What about your families?”
“Families don’t matter much if you’re dead,” one said, the eldest, a thief from the air clans. Most of her family had died when Chin’s army besieged the Great City, and this girl guided a hundred refugees to the coast, to shelter. There was extinguished fire in her eyes, Kyoshi saw, and worried. Her voice was raw from smoke, and there were sores on her skin, and she looked exhausted. But she was standing, and she was snarling, and she had led a group of terrified people, and led them well.
“My father and brother are off fighting in the war. Who is there to protect my mother and sister but me?” the wealthiest one said, her proper, sheltered accent soft but sturdy, like rich earth. She did not contain any fire in her either, but there was steel in her spine and dirt underneath her filed nails. Her clothes were torn and her arms bruised, and she knew that this girl would find some other way to protect her own if Kyoshi did not teach her.
And the smallest of the girls just crossed her arms and scowled at the Avatar, her eyes dark and demanding and hungry. She knew no family but the two by her side.
“Very well, then,” she said, and handed each a weapon.
***
The storm last night is certainly going to leave its mark, Suki thought, biting into an apple. She was taking a short break from the village repairs—a lot of roofs would need patching or outright replacing, and the streets weren’t much better off. There would be flood damage to assess and boat repairs to begin, but the people of Kyoshi village were focused on getting their homes back into working order before worrying about anything else. As it was, most of the village would probably end up staying in the Kyoshi Warriors’ training rooms overnight, which would set the warriors and villagers alike on edge.
The last time she had seen the village this busy was during the Festival of Kyoshi, last year. There were people all over the streets, carrying wood and tools from the forest to the homes, making piles of the ruined materials, carrying water and food to the people working. The children were being kept occupied down by the beach, though the older children had been trusted with small chores. Suki had put the three youngest Kyoshi Warriors in charge of making sure that everyone was taking adequate breaks and drinking enough water, checking in with the kids down at the beach, and with Sen, the village healer. The children—because that’s really what they were—had accepted their tasks with small solemn faces and dedication. It had been one of them who insisted on Suki taking a break in the first place.
“Suki!”
Kimi, Suki’s second-in-command, came rushing around the corner. She skidded to a stop in front of her and grabbed her arm, pale green eyes wide. “The kids found someone on the beach. Looks like he hit his head pretty hard—must’ve lost his ship in the storm.”
Suki dropped her apple into the hands of the small girl who gave it to her; she didn’t even wait to start eating the rest of it (she wondered if the trainees were remembering to take care of themselves, too). She and Kimi began back down the path to the beach, carefully following the path that had already been cleared of tree branches and shattered tiles through the village.
“Is someone getting Sen?” Suki asked. They weren’t running. Outright running down the streets could send the villagers into a frenzy of worry. But they were walking fast.
Kimi nodded, her dark braids bobbing with the movement, strands that had come loose clinging to the sweat on her face and neck. “Sent one of the girls after her. They’ll probably beat us back to the kid.”
“The kid?” Suki asked, startled, turning wide eyes on her friend. “It’s a kid?”
“Yeah. Can’t be more than a teenager, and he’s way too skinny. He must’ve been on a boat for a while—a crowded one. His clothes are far too well-made; they weren’t on rations because they lacked the gold.”
Suki winced. That meant, likely, a lot of dead sailors.
“He hit his head pretty badly, too,” Kimi continued, “but the bleeding had stopped by the time we found him. I have no idea how he survived the waves in that storm, but he’s breathing okay now.”
“Did he wake up at all?”
“Not yet. Mumbled a few nonsense words, but otherwise—nothing.” She hesitated, eyes darting toward Suki. “At some point, he got on the bad side of a pretty powerful firebender.”
Now, that was interesting. “Burn scars?”
“Really, it’s just the one—but it’s massive. Takes up half his face. I’m not sure if the eye or the ear works, frankly,” she said, unflinching but sympathetic. Many of the Kyoshi Warriors bore their own scars—between sparring practice and keeping pirates away from the village, they’d each seen their share of fights. But since most of them had never fought a firebender, and since the Fire Nation had left their small island alone for the majority of the war, it made sense to Suki that Kimi found the scar startling. But she wondered if it could truly have been as bad as Kimi described; surviving such a wound seemed far-fetched without a waterbending healer.
“Refugee, then?” she asked. The other possibility—that this boy had been a soldier—was out of the question. Not because it wasn’t possible—she’d heard rumors of the Earth Kingdom generals, that most didn’t care that the boys weren’t of age if they were powerful earthbenders or skilled swordsmen—but because she couldn’t think of a reason why the generals would send anyone down to the Southern Ocean. Both the South Pole tribes and Kyoshi Island had remained firm on their neutrality so far in the war.
“…Maybe. I’m inclined to think pirate, actually,” her second said, pursing her lips. Suki nodded, feeling a little sick. If he was a pirate, she would be the one responsible for deciding his sentence. She hoped that he hadn’t been; she preferred only to deal with pirates in combat. “He looks like he’s got some Fire Nation blood.”
That does make sense, Suki thought, but reluctantly. A lot of people had Fire Nation in their heritage since the beginning of the war: people from the colonies, usually, but there were a lot whose fathers were not known. Piracy was one career path that did not discriminate; they took whoever was handy with a weapon. Young or old, bender or no. That was, perhaps, the best explanation for a kid with fine clothes and deep scars at sea.
They came up over the hill, out of the trees, and Suki could see the group of children gathered around a pair of figures in the sand. One was clearly the village healer: she wore dark green robes and was leaning over the other, who lay, unconscious, in the sand. Suki broke into a jog, Kimi following after, to join the others; the children parted for them, drawn apart by the two men who had been chaperoning them, at a loss for anything else to do.
Suki kneeled next to the boy, across from Sen, who ignored her and continued inspecting the boy’s wound. He was dressed entirely in black silks, with no colors to declare his allegiance; there was another point in favor of Kimi’s theory. He had no shoes on and no weapons, so she wondered if he might be a bender, until she saw that there was an empty sheath tossed behind Sen. She must have cut it off him, to help him lie flat on the sand.
There was a large gash on the side of his head, and the bald skin around it was darkly bruised. She felt an absurd urge to giggle—that one spot of hair pulled into a ponytail was ridiculous, but it did make it easy to see the boy’s wound. The urge faded when she studied the sprawling scar he bore over his eye—his hair had probably been shaved to treat the burn.
Spirits, he really is young, Suki realized, looking over his pale, still face. Kimi had said, but that was different from being faced with that scar on a child. He can’t be more than fifteen, at the oldest. Where are his parents? Likely dead, she knew: if they hadn’t been before, then there was no way that they had survived the storm.
Sen finally looked up, keeping a hand on the boy’s pulse. “He’ll live,” she said, her voice strained. She had been tending the villagers all day before this. “We need to get him out of the sun, and he needs fresh water and a good meal. But physically, he should soon recover.”
“Physically?” Suki asked.
“There is no telling how this wound might affect him; there is something amiss in his chi, and the bruising goes deeper than I had hoped. It may heal on its own with no problems, but I doubt it.”
Suki nodded, ignoring the worry pooling in her belly for this strange, unknown child. “Let’s deal with the immediate problem, then,” she agreed, and ordered Kimi back to the village to prepare the boy a meal. She hefted the boy up into her arms, Sen carefully leaning his head against Suki’s shoulder. He was heavier than she expected, more lean muscle than skin and bone, but she had carried heavier. Sen packed up her bag and they left the beach to the children, following the path back to the village.
The boy shivered in her arms, and she walked faster.
***
He came to consciousness slowly—then all at once, when he opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room and rolled from the small cot that passed for a bed, landing in a crouch on the floor without a sound. There was a girl’s voice coming from the doorway, which didn’t have a door so much as a curtain, and she sounded like she was arguing with someone. He reached for weapons he knew should be there but weren’t and he doubted himself. He didn’t even know what kind of weapon that he was reaching for, how would he know that there was a weapon at all? He wondered if he should let someone know he was awake; his head hurt something fierce, and there was a familiar taste of herbs on his tongue and a vague ache in his bones that implied someone had given him something to keep him asleep. He’d tasted it before, though he did not remember when.
He swallowed, nervous, but unsure what other option he had. There were no windows in this room, and only the single exit. Somehow, these people—friendly or not—would find out that he was awake. “Hello?” he said, voice breaking.
The arguing stopped abruptly, and the curtain was pushed aside. Two people walked in, one a woman with the unmistakable robes of a healer—in Earth Kingdom green, which he found strange, but recognizable nonetheless—and…something else. It looked like a girl, but its face was white and streaked with red. It wore a long green dress and thick pads of armor, glinting gold sprouting from its brown hair. There were fans tied at its waist. It was tall and moved like it was dancing: every step graceful and deliberate. Deadly.
“What are you?” he snarled at it, hiding the fear that jabbed through him, cold and sharp.
That red mouth curled into a smile, and he realized that, human or spirit, its pale blue eyes were kind. When it spoke, the voice was a girl’s. “My name is Suki; I’m a warrior of Kyoshi Island. We found you washed up on our beach.”
Spirits are wary of giving their names to humans, a vaguely familiar, comforting voice in his head whispered. This girl was human, and she was a warrior. The boy knew that warriors had honor, though he didn’t know why. He nodded and relaxed his stance, though the movements caused pain to stab through his head again.
“This is our village healer, Sen. She’s the one who took care of the wound to your head,” the girl, Suki, continued, and the woman behind her gave a shallow smile. The boy bowed back, his hands moving instinctively. The eyes of both women became wary in an instant, and he felt shame creeping over him. He wondered what he did wrong. When the girl spoke again, her voice was harder. “What is your name?”
The question hit him with all the force of a blow, and he fell against the wall, clutching his head. There was a gaping space where the answer to that question was, and it burned at the edges, a hollow white light that frightened him when he looked too close. “I don’t know,” he groaned, and the words cooled the fires in his brain, so he said them again. And again. And again, until soft hands wrapped around his wrists and pulled his hands from his face. He quieted, but the roaring fires in his mind remained and crackled from the depths of the bright caverns, and he threw heavy gusts of cold wind uselessly back, and oh, everything in him hurt.
“Shh,” the girl whispered, and her arms were around him, his eyes pressed into the dark fabric on her shoulder. He heaved a sob, and her hands stroked his back, and he only calmed when it felt that there were no more tears in him. Hot shame filled him for that weakness, but the panic drowned that out too. “It’s okay. Just breathe.” He listened to the girl, and it felt like hours before the winds in his mind stilled, waiting.
The girl moved but didn’t pull away, just turning to address the healer behind her. “Do you believe him?” she asked, voice quiet, and the boy wondered why she didn’t when all he could feel was the hollowness of his mind, his spirit. Whatever answer the healer gave her, however, must have been in his favor. “Can we ask any more questions without upsetting him?”
“If you are careful, and do not press,” the healer warned, and the boy felt Suki’s sigh before she moved back. He followed her as she guided him back to the cot, crouching in front of where he sat, careful, at the edge.
“Okay, kid,” she said, and her voice was kinder, now—like her eyes. “You don’t remember your name. That’s okay, that’s fine—you took a pretty sound hit to the head. That sort of thing happens. Right, Sen?”
The healer took a moment to respond. “Occasionally, if the hit is in the right place. I must warn you: you may never regain your memories. Or they might come back to you tomorrow. The mind is a strange thing.”
“See, kid? You might remember your name tomorrow,” Suki said, smiling. He tried smiling back; the expression felt unfamiliar and strained. He let the smile fade. “In the meantime, we need something to call you. Do you have any opinions?”
He shook his head. The names he did remember felt raw in his mind—Ursa, Lu Ten. He didn’t know whose they were, but they were precious, and they were not his.
“Okay. My father’s name was Lee; can I call you that?” Suki asked, patient. He looked at her. She seemed sincere, even friendly. He wondered if she really was, or if this was an act to put him at ease. He decided it didn’t really matter; he didn’t know anything about anything at the moment, and Suki was the closest thing to help he had. And he wanted a name.
He nodded. “Lee is fine,” he said, and felt the name settle over him. It felt comfortable. Ordinary.
“Great! It’s very nice to meet you, Lee,” Suki said. Lee tried to smile again. She beamed back at him, and her make up ceased to be frightening. “Can you tell me what you do remember?”
He swallowed and searched his mind. If he hovered at the edges of some of the holes… “There was a ship. I was on a ship,” he began, slowly. “It was cold.”
“Good, that’s really good, Lee.”
“We were sailing north. There was a storm; I was on deck, and…and then there was a bright light—white, and blue, like lightning, and—” he broke off with a moan, clutching his head again, dragging in ragged breaths. “Sorry, sorry,” he gasped.
“Shh, hey, it’s okay, that’s a lot of good information, Lee,” Suki said. She kept her voice low. “We can figure out what happened to your ship based on that.”
He nodded, letting his hand drop back to his lap as the pain faded. He focused on keeping his breath under control in a steady rhythm.
“Where are you from, Lee? Do you remember?”
He shook his head. “Someplace warm, I think.”
“What do you know about Kyoshi Island?”
“It’s in the Earth Kingdom,” he answered. “Avatar Kyoshi created the island when she executed the Conqueror. It’s…in the Southern Ocean, I think.”
“So you remember history,” Suki said, frowning. “That’s interesting. What do you remember about the War?”
Lee recoiled. His stomach filled with cold dread and—his head didn’t hurt, really, not like it had when he tried to remember his own name, but it felt heavier. Facts sprang forward in his mind, things that he knew were true but didn’t know how. “The War—begun by Fire Lord Sozin, nearly a century ago. His comet heralded as the beginning of a new age. The Air Nomads were defeated, save for Avatar Aang and his band of rebels-”
Suki said, in a voice so calm that he wanted to duck for cover, “Rebels?”
Lee met her gaze. Again, he did not know what he had done wrong, but he knew that, somehow, he had made a mistake.
Sen cleared her throat, and they turned to look at her. “Lee is clearly from the Fire Nation, Suki. His understanding of the War is different from our own; listen to him. There will be much that you can learn. And you, Lee.”
“How do you know that I’m from the Fire Nation?” Lee asked, recognizing it for the truth. “Do I have an accent?”
“Not a very strong one,” Suki said, lip curling. “But that wasn’t our first clue.” She watched him for a moment, quiet. She sighed. “It’s your eyes, mostly. Golden as the sun.”
“Yours are blue,” he said, feeling stupid. “But you’re Earth Kingdom, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes, technically. But Kyoshi Island has harbored all of the elements in its past.”
“Including,” the healer said softly, “those from the Fire Nation. And she shall grant safe harbor to one of Agni’s children once again.”
Suki glared at the older woman. “You know that is not your decision.”
“Whose is it?” Lee asked, but a sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he already knew.
“Mine,” Suki said, but she said it gently, and Lee could hear the pity in her voice. Bile rose in his throat, but he forced himself not to say, or do, anything as she studied him. It was ages before she continued. “And I am not going to cast you out to sea for where you were born. Or who, if you ever learn who that was. Not unless you give me reason.”
Lee did not say anything, unsure how to respond to her shaded threat. Suki worried at her lip, staring at him. She looked genuinely concerned, but Lee wondered—people were tricky. He had a feeling that he wasn’t very good at them.
“He’ll have to go somewhere, Suki,” the healer said, brisk. “And as long as he’s healthy, he won’t be staying here. I have too many people who need looking after.” She nodded sharply at both of them and left the room without another word.
Where will I go? Lee thought desperately, staring at his hands. I have no one. No money, no family, no trade. Nothing.
“Well, lucky I’ve got a spare room, then,” Suki said, and even though she sounded resigned and reluctant, he felt a flicker of something like hope.