weirdlet

For Floranna- Figured I ought to start posting these a bit separately from the main meme. I'm worried I made Jet a bit too sane in this one, or perhaps just with a slight double-standard. Unbeta'ed.

The AU: Princess Zura was pregnant when she was banished, and children out of wedlock is a big deal in the Fire Nation- now she seeks the Avatar across the world with a daughter in tow, with all the trials and tribulations that implies, and all the more reason to seek Aang as a prize.

The Prompt: How Jet treats Zura and Lan Min on the ferry or in Ba Sing Se

The Fic:

He catches sight of her at the railing, and she confuses the hell out of him. Middling build, strong but not bulky- she’s about at the range where he could take her for a boy or a girl, even though she’s not skinny. It’s the beat-up peasant clothes, he thinks- and the hair. It’s all been sheared off, closer than a koala-sheep’s, and she stands like a soldier, an angry one. The swords across her back are weird too- he hasn’t seen much of civil society in his life, but he does know that girls in the world are generally expected not to show fangs like guard-dogs.

Then there’s the two-year-old she’s carrying in her arms. Pretty little thing, black hair done up in little buns, clothes crude but colorful. She’s squinting and turning away, pushing back a bowl her keeper is trying to feed her from.

Jet sees the scar.

He sees coal-black hair and moon-white baby skin, and a girl who’s maybe a year or two older than him. Rage churns in his gut- and pity in the rest of him.

The girl turns, growls, and her old man sighs, and she slams the bowl onto the railing.

“I can’t feed this to her- and I’m sick of eating rotten food! Sleeping in the dirt! I’m tired of living like this!”

"Aren't we all."

......

She turns a glaring, suspicious eye- she can barely open that one- on him, and he tones down the smile, plays it cool. This one’s already seen charm, and been cut by the shards when it breaks down.

“Here’s the deal- I hear the captain’s eating like a king while us refugees have to live off his scraps. Doesn’t seem fair does it- especially to the little lady there…”

It goes pretty quick from there- she bundles the kid into the old man’s arms and demands in on the food-raid. They spend about an hour casing the place, planning- Smellerbee gives him a funny look and Longshot doesn’t have to say a thing, but Their Fearless Leader is on the move and better to see what happens than get in the way.

The sun sets just enough and the raid goes off without a hitch- Li moves like a shadow, works those blades like they’re an extra set of hands, and just like that, they’ve got a feast to spread among the hungry. The branded girl even takes a few touches of civilization with the neatly packaged bowls- now there’s style.

The Freedom Fighters settle in to eat with Li and old man Mushi, and the little girl who squeals in delight when Li mashes noodles for her, and babbles happy nonsense that occasionally has a real word or two thrown in for kicks.

Jet is pulling back hard on everything he wants to say, that rushes to vomit forth from his churning stomach, and tries to enjoy dinner. Rest and food, two things you snatch whenever you can.

“From what I heard, people eat like this every night in Ba Sing Se- I can’t wait to set my eyes on that giant wall.” The fresh start he’s been looking for- part of that is knowing that the enemy was firmly on one side, knowing where it was coming from- and that those there were the enemy.

Because he’s scared shitless that he can’t tell anymore.

There’s talk of second chances and changing lives, and Li and Mushi have such a Significant Glance that Jet itches to know the damn secrets he knows a person, a girl’s entitled to. The kid takes the opportunity to toddle over and try to put her hands all over his shiny pointy weapons-hilts and he pulls them back, pushing her back to her mother as delicately as he can. She’s warm, very warm, but without fever-spots or the crankiness he knows happens when little kids get sick.

He feels a little sick himself, and excuses himself for the night. Longshot and Smellerbee look after him, worry plain on their faces.

….

Before dawn, he finds her again- she’s stolen away to find some privacy to nurse, and he hears her humming before he sees her. It’s low and a little broken, and he catches a word or two here and there. Something about- a hymn to the sun, the light of life; and pity the barque, the wild waves part, my love is far, far away.

She’s enough like him that he deliberately makes some noise on the approach- even so he still ends up on the wrong end of a sword, hands up, straw held safely to one corner of his mouth.

“You’re risking a lot for a little peek,” she hisses, and that kid is unflappable, sucking away as if this has happened a hundred times before and it probably has.

“As soon as I saw your scar, I knew who you were.” And her eyes widen and the pupils narrow and he thinks he’d rather face wild cobra-dogs than get between her and something she thinks is hers.

That sword is sharp.

“You don’t know anything.”

“I said I did some things I’m not proud of- think I could just pass judgment on a fellow outcas-“ the blood trickles down to the hollow of his throat and he can feel it stain the edge of his shirt. “-ast.”

“I don’t care who you are or what the hell you want. A lot of people see the hair and think I’m easy-“

“How could they, with that on your face?” Jet says, risking another little nick as he points his chin. That’s not the answer she was expecting- he presses ahead, while she’s got the grip relaxed.

“Us outcasts have to stick together- watch each others’ backs. Because no one else will.” He looks at the kid, who’s finishing up, and she catches the movement.

“And would you look out for her?” she bites off, switching her sword-hand to guard as she refastens her robe. “Since you seem to know everything.”

“Do you know why you’re protecting her?” And he wants to know so bad, too, almost more than he wants her, than her blades under his command. He moves carefully, swiping the blood off his neck with his sleeve.

“Because she’s mine,” Li snarls, and keeps that bitter dragon-mask on even as her daughter calls her mama and wriggles in her too-tight hold. “She’s the one spirits-damned good thing that I can call my own and yes she came from the Fire Nation. My sun-child. And the first one who says a damn thing about it is going to get an Earth Kingdom knife in the spirits-damned gullet.”

She buttons up completely and stalks off, the sun peeking over the water and coloring her cheeks a high red as it burns through the mist. About halfway down the deck, the kid demands down, and she holds her hand for a brief walk. Jet stares after her, heart in his throat, sick to his stomach, hard as a rock.

He thinks if she weren’t so bitchy, so brazen about it, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. She wears her scars and her bastardry and wraps them around her like a cloak, daring anyone to make a comment on the cut. Taking a piece of your enemy and making it your own- he thinks he can understand that.

One thing he knows, dusting himself off and going to seek Smellerbee and Longshot before they figure he’s tumbled off the gangplank- this isn’t over yet.

He’s going to see Li again.