Chapter Text
Hashirama yawned.
It was already late and his small gambling incident in a local bar on the Kyoshi Island was now five hours long, his opponent seemed jolly cocky and the teen had a feeling some of the suspicious looking guys in the pub keep an eye on his flaxy bag that he took on his trip to the Northern Water Tribe. Kyoshi Island was meant to be a quick stop where he could get some food and rest – not loose all of his money in a small, musty place. The owner of the pub, a man in his late forties, challenged him to a dice match and of course Hashirama could not refuse.
Even if he had the nerve to, there was rather a lot of potential watchers that would not let him live if he did.
“Okay, kid, place your bets” the man, his name was Lihao or something similar, smirked, sure of his next win. The teen moved his fingers, thinking. I am seventeen, so maybe… “Odd or even?”
“It’s odd, I bet two silver pieces” Lihao’s eyes shone with a strangely reddish shade. This was the first time during the whole five hours of their match when something like this happened. By no means was it a good sign, so Hashirama decided to finish this game with this one bet. “It’s my last one.”
“Oh, c’mon, kid, we were just starting to get into it!” one of the guys in the pub whined, a few approved with a spluttering manner in their voices. A tall, bald man came closer to the table and put his stinky, sweaty hand on Hashirama’s shoulder. He was close enough for the teen to feel the smell coming from his mouth; and it certainly wasn’t a pleasing experience. “There’s little to no entertainment here, on our island”
“I am sorry, but I have to refuse this time,” Hashirama said politely, pushing the man’s hand away. Lihao still hasn’t shown if the dice were odd or even, but his rather weird smile hasn’t disappeared. It was the next sign that something was very wrong with the man. “Quite frankly, I would have gotten out earlier if it was possible” the boy started to get up, ready to run for his life, anytime. The guys in the pub didn’t know he was an earthbender yet, but showing them his abilities probably wasn’t such a good idea. News travels fast, and by that, old friends of his father in Omashu could know that Butsuma Senju’s son ran away from the duty of being a soldier that was put on him by the older man. It’s not like he didn’t want to be in the army of his hometown – he would not mind that. But he was seeking answers. Father kept too many secrets from him and Hashirama found out that he had brothers only after his death. Not to mention his mother – the teen had no idea how does she look like or is she even still alive, just that she was from the Northern Water Tribe.
He didn’t have a chance to stand upright and face the visibly stronger fellow at his full six feet of height, due to the knife being put next to his neck, definitely in intention to kill.
“Wonderful, young lad. I knew such a city boy would never know how to defend himself from a simple shank. It’s a great moment for you to give us all of your…”
Something crashed outside, making the rest of his words impossible to hear. The noise was pretty loud, comparable to the sound the giants chests made when they fell out of the delivery system, back in Omashu. Hashirama was used to hearing such loud noises on regular basis, so he didn’t visibly react, other than the bald man that was about to kill him with a knife. His hand turned floppy and the knife fell, making it easier for the teen to grab his bag and most of the money that were still on the table and run.
He opened the door of the bar with a loud thud, his ears catching the yelling of people running after him. His olive green tunic was blowing in the wind, just as his ivory pants that were definitely too wide for this occasion. Hashirama cursed under his breath; it slowed him, also the bag was kind of heavy and made it harder to just run.
The moon was shining brightly, as the whole neighborhood of the bar was clearly visible – except for the cause of the loud sound he heard before, still inside that pub. The small village looked peaceful as it always did, so the teen just jumped behind an old shed, hoping no one can see him.
“Try to move and I’ll kill you” then he heard someone whisper in a cold manner. He couldn’t see the person, but it was most probably a female and she was now holding something cold, flat and sharp to the back of his neck. Again.
“Please don’t kill me, I’m just trying to get away with my money” he said as quietly and as politely as he could. The woman was probably a Kyoshi warrior, and Kyoshi warriors were for sure not the right people to mess with. That would explain the thing that she held – if she was one of the girls, it was a fan.
She put down the fan, slowly, allowing him to turn around and finally look at the person that had his life in her hands for a minute or two.
The Kyoshi makeup was half washed off her face, head covered with some washed-out cloth, he saw only some of the reddish (their color was resembling raspberries, he thought) locks and something that looked like the forehead arrow tattoo that he saw on pictures of the Air Nomads in Omashu.
If he was correct, she was an Air Nomad trying to pass as a Kyoshi warrior. And she was looking intimidating, but absolutely stunning. At first he thought it was make up, but then he noticed, it’s just her pale complexion and the residues of the paint were just the crimson shades on the eyelids, a color completely different from her hair. Hazel eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes were looking at him with an emotion he couldn’t exactly describe – anger or fear?
“Who are you?” she pointed at him with fan, blinding Hashirama for a minute with the moonlight. It didn’t seem to bother her, so he just automatically lifted his arms up to show that he does not mean any harm.
“Name’s Hashirama, born in Omashu and I just want to get to the Northern Water Tribe,” he answered quickly, backing off from the fan. That thing could look like a decoration but it was a fact a deadly weapon. “Please don’t kill me”.
Her face relaxed a bit, but the slight violence in the hazel iris did not disappear.
“What are you doing on Kyoshi then? That’s not on the way” she blew the hair off her face, unconsciously showing him the Air Nomad tattoo even more clearly.
“I was supposed to get transport from here to The Abbey” if she wants the truth, she gets the truth.
Her face eased. A quick flash of moonlight illuminated her pretty face. In this angle Hashirama would for sure believe if she told him she was a goddess from another dimension, because she looked like one.
“You’re not lying” she whispered under her breath “And…”
She didn’t finish, because the yelling of the people from the pub got closer.
“Come out, city boy! You better give the money you lost back!” he recognized the voice of the tall, bald guy, and before he realized what’s coming, he heard a muffled sound from the Air Nomad woman. He poorly calculated the position of that man.
She didn’t stand a chance against a towering, muscular guy while being in squatting position, so Hashirama, without hesitation, ignoring the self-made rule that he wouldn’t reveal himself as an earthbender, just made the man sink into the ground with a technique his father taught him in his childhood.
“You…” he growled, while the woman let herself go from him and stepped next to Hashirama, the cloth covering her head falling off.
He could finally see her whole head in the moonlight, the arrow tattoo glowing slightly from under the astonishing red hair, that were pretty long for a Kyoshi warrior. She looked at Hashirama with a slight amusement in her eyes and a weak smile forming on her lips.
“Thank you, city boy. But actually, I can protect myself just fine”