Chapter Text
Miya is slouching again.
Reki shouldn’t notice it. It’s not his job to notice it, anymore. He can’t notice anything else.
What Reki should be paying attention to are the bodies. Clumped together, slumped in a heap against the grainy castle wall where the guard bell’s incessant ringing has long been silenced. Unconscious and bound, yes, but by no means not a threat while he is so conspicuously distracted. He needs to be aware of the moon. It had barely risen when their carefully laid plans had crumbled to dust in an instant, and now it illuminates every crevice at the corners of Reki’s vision. They’ve been here too long already, and every stretching moment this drags out only spells further disaster.
But silly little concepts like survival have never found their way to the top of his priority list.
Scathing green eyes search for a weakness in Reki’s defense. An opportunity.
Reki’s not sure what he thinks he would do if he found one standing like that. Miya’s posture is horrendous. A willow tree pretending to be an oak. His gait is far too wide. He’s leaving his left side unguarded. Again. He obviously hasn’t been keeping up with his forms, lately.
If he wasn’t currently trying to take off Reki’s head, he might be inclined to correct his stance. (He is sorely tempted to do so anyway. It looks deplorable. Quite frankly, it’s insulting.) As it were, though, that doesn’t seem like the wisest idea, right now. Shame. It really is excruciating to watch all their hard work deteriorating like this. It’s only been a few months.
But when Miya miffs a simple parry and stumbles onto his left foot, Reki can’t help himself. They’ve talked about that terrible habit. He knows better.
Reki shouldn’t lower his sword. This isn’t a training exercise. Yet, in the name of everything he believes in, he cannot abide by this.
(Besides, when has Reki ever done the things he should do?)
“Your highness,” he attempts, letting his arm drop much to the appreciation of his burning muscles and the screaming protests of his instincts. He tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but how can he? It’s as if Miya has forgotten everything!
In return for his troubles, the whistling swing of the blade nearly parts him with his nose. It’s a sloppy swipe, all things considered. However, it’s nice to know Miya still knows the most important lesson, if nothing else.
A jagged cut? Is still a cut.
He ducks away from the metal and gives in to the bend of his spine ensuring he lives to see another day. The brush of air kissing his cheek is mildly too close for comfort. The earth at his fingertips is dry as he follows the arch of his back where it leads him and his palms spring him off the ground. He lands on his feet with a more respectable distance between him and his favorite, currently very angry pupil. He quite likes his nose exactly where it is, thanks.
Miya growls in abject frustration. It’s a sound Reki is all too familiar with. Seems his patience hasn’t improved, any. Figures.
His left hand twinges. Reki sighs at the sharp bite of a rock unborrowing from his palm. Doesn’t let the smeared flash of red at the corner of his eye draw his attention away from his opponent. (He does allow himself the quick, private surge of disappointment that his glove has undoubtedly torn, but that can’t be helped. That’s the second time this week. They won’t last much longer, like this, and he likes this pair.)
The next second, Miya is on him, slashing through the air, advancing, taking the enemy by surprise before he can recover his bearings. Just like Reki taught him. The cloddish, piss poor form, however, Reki certainly did not.
He can’t let this slide. A flick and a jerk of his wrist is all it takes to knock the sword out of Miya’s hand. Reki can’t fault him for it, really. They’d still been learning disarming techniques before…
Well.
Before.
Reki hadn’t decided if he was going to teach Miya that one, yet. He couldn’t give away all his secrets, now. Where would have been the fun in that?
For a brief moment, Miya’s sword flies. Then it twists in the air and sinks, flashing a glare from the moon’s light in its silver edge as it goes plummeting toward the earth.
Reki catches it by the hilt before it can plunge into the gravel. A dull blade is inexcusable. He holds it out, curiosity curled in his bent elbow. Twirls it along the backs of his knuckles. The problem immediately becomes apparent. He gives it an experimental sweep, to make sure he’s not wrong.
(He’s not.)
“Your highness,” he reproaches, gratified when Miya’s shoulders hunch at the reprimand. He should have known, but honestly. This child’s pride will be the death of him. “You know this sword is too heavy for you.”
Miya’s shoulders hunch further. His hair catches a few flakes of ash as they fall from the sky, like even the remnants of the flames can’t help but be drawn to him.
Reki wouldn’t know anything about that. Fire has never wanted anything to do with him. What he does know rests in the curl of his fingertips, and what it’s telling him is that Miya’s stubbornness has certainly not lessened in his-
Absence.
Nevertheless, this is unacceptable.
“No wonder your strikes were coming so low,” Reki complains. “You know how to choose one that’s weighted properly. Why would you pick such an ill-suited blade? No, actually, who was stupid enough to let you out with this? You could have been hurt-!”
He doesn’t see the dagger until it brushes past his face. The wet trickle of something besides sweat dripping down his cheek is, almost, more surprising than the pain.
When he looks, Miya has three more daggers drawn, tucked between his knuckles gone pale with the force he’s gripping them with. They twinkle in a pretty reflection of the waning stars up above, but they are not for decoration. His aim is impeccable, if not misguided. (Reki told him the throat always makes a better target. More vulnerable. Less bone to get through.)
The second dagger is faster than the first, a silver shooting star, and that much harder to deflect. Reki probably shouldn’t feel the spike of pride that floods through him at that, though it’s undeniably impressive. Dirty, but the best fights never are fair, are they?
“Don’t speak to me, you traitor,” Miya spits, low, vicious, sharp as the knives welded between his fingers.
Reki’s stomach drops beneath the dry, cracked earth. The burst of pride mangles into that old, sickening shame.
Ah. Right. He nearly forgot where they are. That Miya wants lots of things, right now, but Reki’s approval isn’t one of them. (Probably the least of them, truly, and Reki can hardly blame him.)
He swallows. Fights the ravenous, fervent urge that clutches at him to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness. It won’t help. He made his choice, and now, he will obey the order his prince has given him. (Even while he wonders what good it is to do so when he has defied so many others.)
Miya lifts another sword from the belt at his side. (Still too heavy. Too unbalanced.)
Reki wipes away the regret with the streak of blood running down his cheek and raises his in kind. He doesn’t want to fight Miya, but he won’t roll over and die, either. He should, but there are too many things that need doing, so he can’t. Not now. (His hands do not shake. Years of training.)
Miya rushes forward with a scream, raw and dry as the ash raining down around them.
Reki pushes down the ache in his chest, crouches lower into his stance, and lets the burn in his legs cut through the regret clouding his mind. (Fights the impulse to remind Miya that only a fool makes the first move if they are not the one with the advantage.)
Miya’s strikes are strong, as always, but uncoordinated. Predictable. His discipline is admirable, but it tends to melt in the face of anger. Now is no different. Presented with two choices, he follows the path his rage has set for him, as if he’s the only one who can read it.
Reki blocks them all, even as the numerous, careless openings he sees whisper to him that he could end this if he really wanted. Easily. That this is not a place for mercy and, if it were, the same kindness would assuredly not be extended to him. He ignores every bared soft spot. Each unprotected, vital strip of skin his sword screams to carve into. He can. Hurt Miya. He won’t.
Miya knows this. Knows him. But he has mistaken Reki’s refusal as pity, and it only makes him angrier.
Reki is no stranger to the kiss of metal. The stinging pain of it sinking beneath his skin.
Somehow, this cuts worse.
A bead of sweat rolls down the back of Reki’s neck, leaving a thin trail of goosebumps in its wake as the humid air, acrid with soot and smoke, dries it tightly to his skin.
They’re pushing their time limit. Hard. Much more, and they run the risk of running into serious trouble. The guards they knocked out on the way in have yet to stir, but they won’t stay asleep forever. What is taking him so long? Dammit all, if he got lost again, Reki swears-
But a black cloud passes in front of the waning moon, pulling the hot evening into something slightly more bearable as fat drops of rain fall from the sky and bury themselves in the earth. Not a moment too soon. The slide of it down his face nips the cut on his cheek none too pleasantly, but Reki smiles, and sheathes his sword.
About time.
(Reki’s not surprised. He would be the only person in history to break into the palace twice in a row, and live to tell the tale. It wouldn’t have killed him to be a little quicker about it, though.)
“Reki!”
A shout. A sharp, electric crack piercing the air. That’s all the warning Reki gets before the thin band of water curls around his waist and pulls him back, out of range of Miya’s sword that was aiming for his head.
(He would have missed. Not that it matters.)
Reki’s stomach flips dangerously as he’s yanked around like a rag doll. He clenches his teeth against the nausea. Seriously, they have got to find a better way of doing this.
His ankle twinges as he lands back on the ground and stumbles backwards. A firm hand against his spine keeps him from falling. Reki cranes his neck over his shoulder.
“I hate it when you do that,” he reminds him petulantly. He knows it’s not going to stop, but he has the right to make his feelings about it known.
An irritated frown. A pinch between his eyebrows that Reki’s wayward, impetuous fingers itch to trace the shape of. He refrains. It is very difficult.
“Hello, Langa. I’m so glad to see you. Thank you for saving my life. How can I possibly ever repay you?” Langa suggests, full of false patience, dressed in a tone that does not sound like Reki in any way, shape, or form.
Still, the water whip around Reki’s hips loosens and falls away. The bottom of his tunic is damp, now. His lips twitch. He never wins. “Yeah, that too. I suppose.” He shrugs.
Langa, the Fire Nation’s greatest fear and the most powerful bender Reki will ever meet, rolls his eyes at him.
Reki’s not sure he’ll ever get used to his homeland’s dreaded, harbinger of chaos pouting. It’s enough to make his head spin, should he take the time to stop and think about it too deeply. He tries not to. As it were, he has quite more pressing concerns to deal with, for the time being. Such as the highly formidable, lightly waterlogged Prince with clenched fists who doesn’t take too kindly to being ignored.
The fury radiating from Miya’s face alone could probably summon forth flames, but there’s no need. Fire of his own making springs to his palm. Dances and hisses around the slow, scattered drops of falling rain with no sign of extinguishing anytime soon.
It is not an altogether unusual expression on the prince’s young (too young) face, but. It’s a good indication that perhaps it’s time for them to go.
Miya throws the flames with a viscous cry tearing from his throat that rips something soft behind Reki’s ears to listen to.
Langa bounds forward in a show of surety that Reki has never, will never possess. He lifts his hand and the stones beneath their feet tremble. It is no easy feat, stealing the moisture back after it has already seeped into the ground, but to just watch Langa would have it look effortless. Water meets fire in a screeching explosion of scalding steam.
While he appreciates the view of Langa’s back, drawn straight and tall as he makes himself Reki’s shield, he needn’t bother. Miya wasn’t aiming for him.
It doesn’t matter. They’ve been here too long.
Reki wipes rain from his eyes, brings his index and pointer finger to his lips, breaths in, and forces out a keen, shrill whistle that melts into the cloying smoke of approaching flames. Vanishes under the sound of footsteps crunching gravel under their boots and brisk, barked orders. It appears their guard friends are awake from their nap. Wonderful.
For a moment, his call goes unanswered. Slick dread pools in his stomach. The perpetual risk that too much distance will muffle his summons into silence and they will fall to fate waiting for a response from something that cannot hear them.
His pulse flutters nervously in his throat. He lifts his fingers to his lips again and sends out a second whistle. This one a little more shrill. A little more desperate.
The flame in Miya’s palm is burning brighter. The crunching gravel is sounding closer.
Then, finally. The crackle of air hotter than steam hissing into the air. The skitter of claws tearing through the rocks at a speed no human could hope to match. The glint of obsidian scales, sleek and shining something iridescent under the curtain of drizzling rain. Their girls haven’t failed them yet.
The knot in Reki’s chest loosens. This has decidedly been an… unforgettable experience. One he’ll be more than happy to never repeat. Those scrolls better be worth all this trouble.
“Langa!” He shouts, swinging his leg aboard his saddle and looping the reins around his knuckles until they turn white. The pressure is grounding. “Time to go!”
Miya’s flames burn brighter, hotter in his anger.
But his opponent is Langa, and it is raining. The roaring fire whispering to a grumble, then a flicker, and then nothing at all, is as inevitable as the sun setting.
A distant, stony voice cuts through the mud and stream. If they don’t move now, they won’t.
“Langa!”
Langa doesn’t take his wary eyes off of Miya as he springs into the air, landing atop his own saddle with infuriating dexterity.
Reki bites back a sigh. Honestly, why does he always feel the need to show off? It only irritates Miya more.
Langa urges Chi’ into a crawl, then a gallop, then a sprint.
Reki… hesitates.
He’s not sure why. The only thing lingering for him here is regret. He should follow. Needs to follow.
Miya has made it clear that his advice is no longer needed. Unequivocally unwanted. But it’s a force of habit. What if he’s up against an actual threat, next time?
One last tip, Reki resolves. Even if it’s unwelcome. It’s the least he can do.
“Pick a lighter blade next time, your highness!” Reki calls, forcing his voice into the safe zone between flippant and teasing. It’s not what he wants to say -the words that have been a poison lingering at the back of his throat since he left- but there’s no room for sincerity, here. Not anymore.
Miya’s face, plastered in dirt, soot, and the ends of his hair, trembles into something unbearably slack.
Reki’s stomach twists. He tightens his grip on the reins, and turns. Leaves. Again. He can’t bear to see the moment the blankness washes back into hatred. He always has been a coward.
***
It only takes him a few minutes of dodging branches and winding through the spindling pines to catch up with Langa, who’s obviously been waiting for him. Idiot. He needs to be more careful. Between the two of them, it’s not Reki who would be a detrimental loss should they be captured.
He’s not expecting the vial arcing through the sky on a course for his head, but he catches it automatically. The cool press of the glass against his fingers tingles pleasantly against the faint buzzing heat that always lingers on the soft insides of his knuckles after quality time with his sword. He jerks his head sharply in Langa’s direction, the protest already at the edge of his lips.
Only to find Langa’s jaw set in that stubborn way that typically means Reki has already lost.
Good thing Reki has abundant experience fighting fruitless battles. He shakes his head. “I don’t need-”
“Use it.” Langa doesn’t give him the room to argue. Which is ironic, given how obedient he always is. “We can get more later. You’re hurt now.”
He makes it sound so easy. Reki can’t stop the derisive snort before it falls into the blanket of space between them. This is not hurt. An annoyance, at best. They’re running low on medicine as it is, and taking a jaunt into town to gather supplies is a stupid, reckless risk they don’t need to take. Not for something as menial as a few scratches. It’s a waste.
He glares at Langa, making sure his displeasure is written plainly on his face.
Langa doesn’t waver. Doesn’t blink. The stars glimmer in the ocean of his pupils, bottomless and impossible to traverse in the absence of light. He waits expectantly, not saying a word.
Reki cracks first. Not because he can’t out-stubborn Langa, because he can, has, and will again when the opportunity arises, but because they don’t have time for this. (And perhaps somewhat to spare the inevitability of Langa pouting like a baby if he doesn’t get his way. Reki grew up hearing bedtime stories of the Avatar told in hushed whispers. The same as the ones speaking of monsters tucked beneath floorboards to keep wayward children in their beds. Great, powerful, and revered. Merciless, cruel, and destructive. The demon cursed with unimaginable abilities no one being should possess, destined to bring the Fire Nation to its knees. None of them mentioned the pouting.)
Reki reluctantly pops the lid of the vial he does not need, wrinkling his nose as it’s assaulted by a bitter, medicinal tang. Another reason he tries not to use this stuff if it isn’t absolutely necessary. Which it is not. Honestly.
“Nuisance,” he mutters, sour and carefully loud enough that there can be no mistaking who it’s meant for.
The blank mask of Langa’s face finally shifts as the corners of his lips twitch into a smile.
Reki vows revenge as he spreads some of the ointment on his fingertips and slabs it sparingly over the tiny cut on his cheek that does not warrant this blatant waste of valuable resources. It doesn’t take much. He clenches his teeth against the yelp as the gel reawakens the sting. Breathes through it as the sliver burns, then cools to a dull, throbbing ache, and then fades to almost nothing at all.
Langa watches the changes all with the light trace of amusement gracing the curve of his lips.
Reki would sigh in relief as the ointment soothes his skin against the dense, humid air, but that would be admitting it helped. He refuses to give Langa the satisfaction.
“There. Happy now?” He asks wryly, tugging the reins twisted around his claimed hand to pick up the pace, a bit. The sooner they make their way past the city limits, the better.
Langa speeds up in kind. (Though not without an unimpressed huff through the nostrils of Chi’s snout. She doesn’t appreciate being rushed.) His gaze sweeps over Reki idly. Consideringly. (Reki astutely ignores the drying patches in his throat and the fluttering in his belly at being so nakedly appraised.) Until his eyes catch on the torn skin of Reki’s hand, still stained with a hint of crimson. He raises an eyebrow.
Reki groans. “Seriously?” He complains.
But if he’s looking for mercy, he was never going to find it in Langa. His lips purse as if Reki is being the difficult one here when it is very well the opposite.
Fine, then. If that’s how he wants to be.
With no further fanfare (what’s the point?) Reki raises the inside of his wrist to his mouth, takes the end of the glove by his teeth and pulls; peeling the fabric over the crests of his knuckles and biting harder when the shifting of the loose, broken skin flares with agony.
(The glove is indeed ripped, but not beyond repair. Thank goodness. These have been his favorite pair, so far. Finding sets with the kind of grip he prefers is such a pain.)
He tucks the glove into his sleeve and doesn’t let himself think as he tips the vial over. (Bracing himself only makes it hurt worse.) It was already light, and it empties quickly. There’s barely enough left to slather a thin layer over the cracking spider web of damage his palm has become. The sear is excruciating. The relief is even more so. By the time he can breathe without blinking white sparks of pain from his eyes, he can flex his hand again, if he’s careful, and they officially have no more medicine.
Reki tries to quash the curdle of guilt boring pores into the lining of his stomach. Langa was right. It wasn’t worth saving for another use. Reki needs his hands, and now, he will have them back sooner rather than later. But to say that would be to say Langa was right, and Reki’s not going to do that. So, instead, he says nothing.
Langa’s eyes are still on him. That hint of judgement, concern, and… something else, something Reki can’t bring himself to look too closely at shining between the spaces left in the moon’s flickering light.
He can’t bear the awareness of it itching under his skin, wrung out as a cloth as he feels right now. So he runs away for the second time in one night, reaching behind him and pulling his hood over his head. He doesn’t need to. Not really. Any distal patrols will be long gone in the wake of their earlier commotion, and the rain has stopped; has already wrought its damage for him to bother trying to shield his hair now. He does it anyway. It’s been a long day.
Langa, as always, doesn’t let him hide. Not when it’s only the two of them. He’s cruel, like that. “You’re too easy on him,” he warns, tight and unhappy.
A ghost of a smile tugs at Reki’s lips, pulling at the scratch on his cheek. He’s too tired for anything else. He wonders if they’ll keep having this conversation every time they encounter Miya. It’s already grown into a rather tedious habit. “And you’re too unforgiving.”
Langa’s jaw clenches. His blue eyes pierce the dim lighting. The carefully guarded wall around Reki’s heart. Shadows dance across his face. “What makes you say that?” He asks, doubt darkening his voice.
It reverberates in Reki’s chest. He presses down a shiver. Wants… Nothing. He will not go there. Not when there are already far too many complications without. That. He loosens the reins wound around his still-gloved knuckles. Wonders how long he hasn’t been able to feel his fingers. Realizes he doesn’t care.
“Reki,” Langa says, gentler now. Twice as devastating for it. “I know you don't want to hurt him, but he tried to kill you.”
Reki doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t, but he laughs. Hard. Until his lungs squeeze and his eyes ache. “Please,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “If Miya wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”
Langa looks at him as if he’s gone mad.
Perhaps Reki has. But not about this. “Didn’t you notice?” He asks, knowing Langa most likely didn’t. It’s probably not the greatest sign that the world’s last hope pays no attention to his surroundings. They need to work on that, at some point.
Langa’s brow furrows. Biting the corner of his lip, he shakes his head.
Reki sighs. Wishes silently, not for the first time, that they only had one saddle. That he could curl against Langa’s side, forget how everything has gone wrong, and sleep.
He is so, so tired.
But Langa doesn’t understand, and he must explain that his prince has been lenient with him, all things considered. Far more lenient than Reki deserves, after what he did.
He lets his eyes slip closed. Hopes the moonlight will bathe away even a piece of his regret. Ignores the truth in his heart that knows better than anyone that hope is for fools.
A raindrop falls on his cheek.
Reki’s not sure what’s got Langa in a bad mood again now, but he’ll ask later. He doesn’t have the energy to say this more than once.
The cut on his cheek stings. A reminder that the prince has once again shown him mercy, of a sort, when he has a plethora of weapons at his disposal that aren’t made of metal. He wishes he understood why.
“He didn’t use his fire on me. He only ever calls it after you show up.”
The day Reki met Langa was much like every other one before it.
Until, ostentatiously, it was not.
Almost three years of living in the palace, and he was foolish enough to think he’d learned all the rules. (Be diligent. Head down. Heed the prince’s orders. Don’t mind the whispers. Fighting only makes it worse do not do not do not)
For the most part, it had worked for him. Sadly, the rules never took Langa into account. How does one anticipate a literal force of nature, after all?
Reki hardly could have known that his life was about to be thrown off course for a second time. Wasn’t once enough? And all he’d done, aside from innocently minding his own business, was take a stroll through the garden at the wrong time.
But then, he’s getting a bit ahead of himself, isn’t he?
***
It’s always warm in the Fire Nation.
Obviously. It’s the Fire Nation. Not the Light and Breezy Nation.
Maybe it was predestined. An inevitability of the geography of their land in relation to the Sun. More likely it’s the result of cramming so many foul-tempered brutes on the same island.
The heat is nothing new. Reki’s endured it for seventeen summers, now. Each one seeming to grow that much hotter than the last.
(Sure, it may have been a little cooler on the outskirts where he used to live. With the sea to the west smelling of salt, ever sparkling. Swallowing the Sun underneath its waves, ready to take the edge off the worst of the day’s intensity. But. He doesn’t live there anymore. And he hasn’t felt the breeze off the water in a long time.)
Today is different, though.
Today it is sweltering.
He tips the open mouth of his water pouch back, letting it rest against his lips, thoroughly chapped as they are. Raising the end of it until the worn fur shields his eyes from the glare of the Sun, he squeezes. Swallows. Gulps until he cannot breathe and then tilts his head back that much further in the search of more.
It runs empty far too quickly. Enough to coat the back of his throat and keep blisters from forming in a drought. Not quite enough to leave the depth of his thirst fully quenched. (There’s irony there, if he cared to look. He doesn’t.)
He lets his breath settle and brushes away the scattered, wasted drops trickling down his chin with the back of his hand. It’s fine. He’ll get a refill, soon. Once he catches his breath. It’s difficult to find motivation to move, wrapped as he is in the fragrant scent of the fire lilies and roses and ancestors know what some of these delicate-looking flowers are baking into the air itself. The gardens are lovely. Nothing but the finest, of course. To an excess hinging at the point of gaudiness.
His tunic clings to the back of his neck. The plane of his stomach. Glued with sweat. He should feel disgusted (and admittedly, part of him does). The louder part of him, however, relishes the ache. The burn in his legs. His arms. The singe of fatigue at the edges of his core. Proof of his workout and a reminder that his exhaustion was well earned. That his efforts in teaching are bearing fruit.
Miya’s been working hard, lately. He’s always been a quick learner (as if being a natural-born prodigy weren’t enough), but he’s taken to this particular set of forms with an even more intense dedication than usual. It’s refreshing, finally having found something that tempts Miya to genuinely try. It’s not often that the boy actually listens to him, or that he applies himself so studiously. Reki intends to exploit his fickle interest for as long as he can. Raw talent and an innate knack for many endeavors are all well and good, but no one can truly excel without effort. Not even a prince.
The brutal shine of the Sun sears into Reki’s skin. Soon it will crawl under the horizon and wrap itself in a blanket of night, but that remains hours away. Meanwhile, his room is just beyond the next corridor. An oasis of privacy in this place where he is granted precious little of the stuff. Only a fool would forego such a shelter to linger out here, burning with the leaves hanging off their winding branches. So, naturally, Reki stays right where he is.
The shade cast over the notched roots of a bending ginkgo calls to him, and he barely stops to consider as he sinks down to answer it. (It is dreadfully improper, for a guest to help himself to a seat in the Fire Lord’s garden. Yet all the words his fellow servants’ lips ever agree on is that everything Reki does is improper, so really what’s the harm?)
The rough grooves of the bark etch their shape into his tunic as he stretches out, letting his head rest on the crest of a cavity burrowed into the trunk behind him. No dirt, no pollen, not so much as a stray leaf dares to free itself from its binding perfection and attach itself to his tunic. The paths are immaculate, as always. Trimmed, pruned, and swept to a perpetual, pristine cleanliness bordering on something sterile. All in deference to the slim chance His Majesty may decide to grace his exotic collection with his presence.
(He never does. Hopefully he won’t today, either. If he saw Reki defiling his precious (pretentious) garden like this, there’s every chance he would have him executed on the spot. Without batting an eye. The Emperor is -to put it mildly- less than fond of him. The feeling is mutual.)
The koi pond before him bubbles, crisp and bright and clear.
Reki wonders, not for the first time, how much trouble he would get if he slipped out of his sandals and trudged into the crystal water. Only a little. Only up to his ankles.
He lets the daydream of splashing and refreshing coolness kissing his skin like one of the koi unaware of how blessed they are, living free and spared of the heat bring a smile to his lips. Then lets it slip through his fingers.
He truly does miss swimming. Not enough to pay for it with his life, though. Perhaps another time.
He allows the soothing sound of trickling water to wrap around his mind, if not his body. The swaying stream leads him, naturally, to his favorite student. (His only student, as well, but that’s irrelevant.)
Miya is mastering the falchion much quicker than anticipated. (Almost as fast as he took to the messer, but that’s to be expected with the differences in the blade lengths. It had been most entertaining watching Miya pick up the falchion for the first time, after growing too comfortable with the proportion the messer granted him. One day, his eagerly awaited growth spurt will finally strike him, and he will loom as large as his personality decrees. Until then, he really is more suited to the… shorter blades.)
His advanced pace is exhilarating to witness, but it does mean that Reki is most likely going to find himself needing to draft another lesson plan sooner than he expected. Something new, this time. Maybe. Something onerous. Miya doesn’t like not being inherently good at things, but he always does better when he has a challenge, and Reki’s become pretty adept at finding the middle ground, if he does say so himself.
His idle musings are interrupted when a butterfly flecked with the classic Fire Nation oranges, yellows, and reds flutters from its home in the sky and flits curiously around Reki’s head. Perhaps it’s mistaken his hair for some type of flower. It’s been known to happen.
Reki lets his breath go shallow. Quiet. Lifts his hand slowly. Carefully raising an extended finger his new companion can rest on, if it wants.
The creature’s spindly, pin-like legs tickle as it settles against the crux of his knuckle. Seems his offer has been accepted.
Reki watches the small thing’s magnificent wings ripple; catching a beaming ray of the Sun and glimmering into a flame itself. He imagines, zanily, if this might be close to what it would be like to hold fire in his palm. If it is, maybe he can see the appeal, after all
Hm. Now isn’t that a thought? Perhaps Miya would like to try-
Something muffled scrapes and clatters beyond the garden wall.
Odd. The guard patrol doesn’t usually pass this section at this time of day.
Reki’s light breaths cease altogether in an instant.
The butterfly’s wings still, a beam of the Sun frozen in time, just for a moment. In the next, it darts back into the air, zipping into the safety of the leaves above, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.
Reki frowns. Cranes his ears beyond the gurgling pond and tries to squash down a flash of irritation. Spring and Summer, he never noticed how loud it is until he’s trying to listen for something.
He waits.
The trickling stream of water happily, annoyingly continues to sing its tune. But that’s all there is. No more strange noises occur.
Reki almost relaxes. Almost allows himself to be convinced it was a figment of his imagination. He’s always had an active one.
Then it happens again.
Reki’s hand is clutching the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist the next second.
But a figure is already jumping over the wall, landing in a crouch in the crux of the embrasure.
Reki’s heart drums back to life, thrumming to a faster beat. He briefly wonders if he’s succumbed to Sun Stroke without realizing it. Fire Nation people aren’t supposed to be able to succumb to Sun Stroke, of course, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Surely no imbecile would dare try and break into the palace in broad daylight.
But Reki blinks, blinks again, and the figure doesn’t fade. So, apparently someone is that stupid. He rises carefully to his feet, trying not to make a sound as he does. It’s going well. He’s almost got his sword unsheathed.
Then, underneath his sandal a twig cracks.
The figure, a boy, from the looks of it, snaps his head in Reki’s direction, dammit. Their gazes lock, the last wisps of hope Reki had that he might go unnoticed vanishing in a curl of smoke.
The intruder’s eyes widen, and they are…
wow.
They are so blue. So clear. The hue of wind between the clouds. The sky itself. The sea Reki has only glimpsed in his memories for years. He hadn’t known it was possible for one’s eyes to hold so… much?
And for a long, frozen moment, that’s where Reki remains. Hopelessly captivated, dangerously spellbound by the weight of the ocean staring at him.
Until the spell is broken when the boy takes a startled step back and plummets off the side of the wall.
The jolt of Reki’s heart shocks him out of his dumbfounded reverie. What in hellfire is he doing, standing like a bewitched ninny while some fiend is trespassing? Miya would have his head, and Reki could hardly blame him.
The boy lands silently, if not gracefully. He is admittedly fast in getting to his feet.
Reki is faster.
The boy goes positively still when he realizes the point of Reki’s blade is at his throat. Perhaps not as much of an imbecile as Reki presumed.
Reki keeps his sword poised at the line of the intruder’s pulse. Seems he’s getting a bonus workout today. Lucky him.
“Who are you, and what are you doing, sneaking around His Majesty’s garden?”
It’s a simple, reasonable question, all things considered. But the boy with the sky ringed around his pupils frowns and shakes his head; a furrow of confusion stitched between his brow. His lips part, but no sound comes out.
Reki’s grip tightens around the hilt clenched between his knuckles. The boy didn’t show the faintest glimmer of recognition. Does he not know what Reki’s said? Or is this some kind of trick?
He looks again, and sees signs he didn’t before. The blue hair, matching the eyes. The pale skin. The dark, sapphire robes, unbearably heavy and torturously constricting for this kind of heat.
What in the Ancestor’s name is a water bender doing showing his face in the Fire Nation’s backyard?
“You’re not from here.” Reki tries Common tongue, this time. It’s not a question.
That gets the uninvited guest’s attention. His eyes light up in understanding. Dawn breaking through the clouds.
It’s all the confirmation Reki needs. He can’t imagine what a water bender is doing here, of all places, but it can’t be for anything good. Regardless, he’s an awful long way from home, and he needs to find his way back before Reki carves his throat out and feeds it to the koi.
Reki tips his blade further against the soft give of the boy’s stock-still neck. Not enough to make him bleed, yet, but enough to make his point. “I said who the hell are you, and what do you think you’re-”
A distant, distinct gaggle of voices cuts through Reki’s ears. The familiar chorus of his fellow servants meandering their way back to their duties, and in none too much of a hurry to reach their destination. Their laziness may be the highest blessing Reki’s received in ages.
They’re farther away than he’d like, but close enough. A single shout would suffice to alert them.
Reki is only distracted for a moment.
It's a moment too long.
Ducking under the blade and jamming his elbow against Reki’s wrist, the boy bats the sword out of Reki’s hand, grip carelessly lax in the wake of his torn attention, and levels a swift kick at the side of his knee.
It’s a cheap, dirty trick. One Reki would never be caught unawares by under normal circumstances, if only because he would be too busy looking for an opening to implement it himself.
These are not normal circumstances.
Pain shoots up Reki’s thigh, down his calf, hot as lightning, and while he prides himself on his discipline, he has no say in the reflexive way his leg buckles underneath him.
But he doesn’t hit the ground. That would have been more humane. Instead, the call of gravity pulling him down is interrupted by an arm snaking around the front of his waist, and a hand sliding over the gap of his open mouth. The arm draws his back against a firm chest. One without even the decency of a struggle for breath to suggest the slightest difficulty in subduing Reki.
Reki would have strongly preferred to kiss the dirt.
He kicks. Struggles. Screams insults and curses that aren’t as satisfying as they would be if they weren’t being muffled to silence in his captor’s palm.
None of it does a lick of good.
This is absurd. Reki’s often been told he talks too much, but no one has ever taken it this far before.
The water bender makes an urgent, shushing noise by the bend of Reki’s ear that prickles goosebumps across the back of his neck. His hold is tight, but not painful. It would be downright patronizing if it weren’t displaying itself to be such an effective balance.
“Please stay quiet,” the boy murmurs, low and tangled in a knot of apologetic sympathy, but unyielding. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Reki gives a stifled snort. Yeah, sure. And the air nomads are just taking a nap. Who does this miscreant think he’s kidding?
Yet the hands on his skin speak of desperation, not malice. And somehow, Reki finds himself believing what would be nothing more than an empty platitude from anyone awake.
(It’s only a shame he doesn’t return the sentiment. And also that staying quiet? Has never been one of his stronger qualities.)
Gathering himself in a sharp breath through his nose, Reki clamps his jaw shut and sinks his teeth into the palm covering his mouth. Salt, and the faintest promise of iron coat his tongue.
There’s a choked hitch behind him. A bitten off sound in a rumble Reki doesn’t recognize, but rings with the viscous cadence of a swear. It appears even curses sound pretty in Water Nation speak. Interesting. Although it is less interesting than the abrupt loosening of the confining grasp wrapped around him.
Reki needs no further prompting to ram his shoulder into the give of flesh behind him, breaking the chain of it.
The boy stumbles back, staggering with the uneven strides of someone who’s had the breath knocked clean out of their lungs.
A savage sort of satisfaction curls warmth between Reki’s ribs.
It’s decided. Miya will be going over some more advanced disarming techniques, in their next session. Without his bending. Given recent events, it seems appropriate.
Following the momentum of falling after being so unceremoniously dropped, he lets the furrow of his spine tuck him into a roll, snatching the hilt of his sword as he does. By the time he’s made it to a crouch, poised on the balls of his feet ready to spring forward once again, his precious, beautiful falchion is back where it belongs, folded safely beneath the lines of his fingers. And he has a plan.
First, capture the water bender.
(Reki doesn’t know if it was coincidence, a stroke of sheer, dumb luck. Or if he had been watching, biding his time, and had somehow determined that Reki doesn’t have the sway over the flames his comrades do. Mistakenly presumed that meant he was a weaker target. Depending on which it was will decide whether Reki sinks something sharper than teeth into his skin.)
After that, he doesn’t particularly care.
The guards are more than welcome to embark on their own barrage of questions, but Reki wants his own answers first. Ones he will be hard pressed to come by if this drop of the ocean front of him gets tossed into the dungeons to be evaporated.
So, Reki turns, blade drawn, charged, ready to follow the arc of his arm, prove just how weak he isn’t, and sees
Nothing.
Only the furl of the fire lilies. The blooming roses. The bathing koi.
Reki is alone.
Adrenaline hums high and hot in his blood. He scans the bushes below. The branches above. More trickery. He can’t have gotten far. And if he thinks he’s about to get the jump on Reki again he has another thing coming.
A scrape of a foot behind him and Reki tenses, twists behind him and-
“Reki?”
Finds that he’s drawn his sword on the Crown Prince.
Shit.
Miya blinks at him, eyes green, large, and flatly unimpressed. (Which is not the proper reaction to having a sword pointed at his chest and they will be discussing that later.)
Reki sheaths his blade immediately, keeping the corner of his eye attuned for the faintest flash of blue in his peripheral. He’s not surprised when he finds none, but the frustration takes him off guard. He wasn’t done talking yet, dammit! But his favorite little prince is glancing warily at him as if Reki has lost his mind, and while that may be true in part, he would rather prefer not to be tossed in the madhouse. So.
“What are you doing?” Miya asks, thoroughly bewildered.
Reki runs a scrambling search through his frazzled mind for something that, ideally, won’t end with him being executed.
“I was… stretching.”
He’s not sure where the lie comes from. Or why. There’s no reason for him to be concealing information that concerns just about everyone within these walls. He should mention that there’s a water bender sticking his nose around the palace. But. He doesn’t. And if that leaves him squandering like a buffoon, then, he’s suffered worse fates.
It is, by all accounts, far from convincing. Even the man hovering past Miya’s shoulder at his typical, boring, respectable distance raises an eyebrow, and Reki’s seen him make maybe four facial expressions in the last three years.
(The Fire Lord’s shadow wouldn’t be very good at his job if he made much of an impression. And he doesn’t. Dark hair. Dark eyes. He’s as engaging as a brick wall and exceedingly easy not to take note of. So far the only thing Reki’s deduced about him is that the man gives him the fucking creeps.)
Miya glances at him oddly for a few seconds more, before shrugging in a manner most unprincelike and appearing to dismiss the spell of strange behavior altogether. (To be fair, if anyone should be used to Reki’s antics by now, it’s him, who is subjected to it with the most frequency.)
“Well, if you’re done being… weird,” Miya says, “then hurry and go get cleaned up. The gala is in three hours. I can’t have my attendant looking like he just took a roll in the dirt.”
This makes sense.
Reki looks around for where this unsightly attendant might be.
Miya sighs. A deeply pained sound.
The noise unlocks a burst of understanding in the shallow depths of Reki’s chest. He points at himself. “Wait, me?”
The bubbling koi pond babbles off to his right.
Reki wonders if it would be deep enough to drown himself in.
It is no secret that the Fire Lord seizes any and every opportunity to host the most lavish, enviable gatherings. (Anyone worth their lick of salt knows it’s nothing more than a pretense for him to show off his wealth, his power, and the honored guests eat it up like candy every time. Traveling far and wide in hopes of even a glimpse of their most charismatic and benevolent ruler.)
(And he is, certainly, charismatic.)
Parties like that are usually reserved for the wealthy, and the refined.
Reki is, thankfully, neither of these things, and has no reason to subject himself to that kind of torment.
Except, apparently, he does.
Fantastic.
Well. If he’s going to have to play nice with the stiff and rigid self-righteous folk who would sooner see Reki squashed beneath their pristine boots than speak to him, he might as well make Miya earn it.
Reki tsks, shaking his head. “Your highness, is that how you ask a guest to accompany you to such an important event? I’m appalled. Let’s try that again, shall we?” He asks sweetly.
Miya scowls. The tips of his ears redden under a ray of the slowly lowering Sun. What a pity. He’ll never have any luck with a fair maiden with a face like that. Truly, Reki is doing him a kindness.
He pitches his voice vexatiously high. A false falsetto. “Oh Reki, my very best friend and most trusted confidant above all others, won’t you please go with me to this awful gala and spare me from the inane droning of moronic aristocrats? If you don’t, I’ll surely go mad and set the entire palace ablaze!”
The redness at the edges of Miya’s ears has spread to the curve of his cheeks. As well as to the tips of his fingers, where the barest traces of sparks have begun to flicker out from his nails. “You’re incorrigible,” he spews, ground through clenched teeth.
Reki bites back a snicker. He’s just learned he’ll be sacrificing his evening. He deserves a slice of amusement for his troubles.
He should, perhaps, be careful letting his disdain for the nobility show so obviously in front of Lord Ainosuke’s second set of eyes and ears, but his tongue has always lashed quicker than his thoughts.
Besides, he won’t say anything. He never does. Sometimes Reki wonders if he can truly speak at all.
But, even if he did tell Lord Ainosuke, Reki doesn’t care. He’d paid for the first smile he’d ever wrought out of Miya with blood, sweat, and a broken arm. The dungeons are hardly a heftier price.
“No,” he corrects his prince. “I’m late. Really, your majesty, what manners you have keeping me here when I need to be off making myself presentable.”
The sparks intensify. Miya’s emerald eyes flare with the barest tint of orange.
Ah. Reki better take his leave. It would be a shame if the garden was reduced to cinders because of him.
The familiar drone of furious curses follows him on the backs of the leaves as he makes his escape. Such a temper, his charge has. They’ll have to work on that. Being blessed with the flames doesn’t account for rudeness.
He’s about to slip under the arch leading to the corridors of the servants’ chambers, when the weight of eyes on him prickles like a knife tracing the dip between his shoulder blades. He stops dead in his tracks.
The feeling grows. Sharpens. Heavy as the ocean.
Reki whirls on his heel, unsheathing his blade yet again, scanning desperately for a damning flash of blue.
But when he looks, he sees nothing.
“Do we have to go back to the Earth Kingdom?”
Reki takes a long, deep breath, and holds it.
Patience, his mom used to tell him, back when he was young and small. Before everything changed. Just because we have fire in our blood doesn’t mean we can’t learn to control our tempers.
(Except he doesn’t have fire in his blood, and so what excuse does he have for this hot, viscous, useless anger that erupts at a moment’s notice? Sadly, patience has never been one of his virtues.)
He’s trying his best to keep the burning irritation cooled to a lower, manageable simmer. Langa’s whining does not help matters.
No, technically, they do not have to go back to the Earth Kingdom. Or anywhere, for that matter. They’re fugitives. They hardly have a strict itinerary. However, Langa is being so insufferable about the idea that now, Reki is leaning into it out of spite.
“Why do you hate the Earth Kingdom so much?” Reki asks. He genuinely doesn’t understand. They had food in the Earth Kingdom. That they didn’t have to pluck out of a bush or gut and cook over a campfire. And they got to sleep in an actual bed (with blankets and pillows) that wasn’t inside a tent. It was the best night’s sleep Reki had in ages. In spite of Langa’s incessant snoring.
“Why do you like the Earth Kingdom so much?” Langa counters.
Somehow, Reki doesn’t think Langa would be all that impressed if he brought up the pillows, so he doesn’t. (They were very soft.)
“Maybe because it’s one of the few places that doesn’t want our heads on a pike?” Reki offers. Which is also true, and seems plenty good enough reason for him.
Langa scoffs. “You just want to see Joe again,” he accuses sourly.
Reki’s hands twitch, wrapped up in the reins. He untangles one of them to adjust the ribbon strung around his neck, mindful not to let the delicate pendant catch between his fidgeting fingers as he clears his throat. It doesn’t need to be adjusted, and he doesn’t deny it. Because alright, maybe it’s a little bit true. So what? Joe is cool.
A dark cloud passes in front of the glare of the Sun. Reki sighs.
Great Sun, what in the world is Langa upset about now-
Reki blinks, suspicion settling heavily in his stomach.
“Oh Ancestors, please tell me you’re joking. Is that what this is about?”
Langa’s shoulders hunch. Pointing towards the possibility that Reki’s hit the nail on the head. “You said he was a better bender than me!”
And that single passing comment has been one of Reki’s gravest errors in judgment to this day. “Yes,” he says, not giving in to appease this child. He refuses. “A better earth bender. Because he’d been doing it for years.”
“I don’t know how to earthbend yet!”
“Exactly, because you wouldn’t let him teach you!”
Langa’s face twists with patently unearned offense.
Reki buries his face in his palms. He needs a moment, or he’s going to incinerate something. No firebending required.
Beneath the edges of his fingers, curled, gnarled claws sink into dry, brown grass and rip it from the ground as they move. (Always, always moving.)
Wait.
The grass?
Reki lowers his hands.
That can’t be right. The grass should have given way to gravel, by now.
Trepidation trickles down the back of Reki’s neck. “Langa, let me see the map,” he says. It’s not a request. The way Langa’s hunched shoulders go conspicuously still does not set him at ease.
“Why?” Langa asks, a touch too defensive.
Patience.
Patience patience patience.
Yeah, not Reki’s strong suit. “Because I said so,” he snaps, jerking his reins and snatching the map out of Langa’s pouch despite the ensuing protests.
The lines etched before him trace a confirmation of his greatest fear.
They should have passed the border to the Earth Kingdom ages ago. But if Reki is reading this right, and he is, they are nowhere near where they’re supposed to be.
“So, this is just a question,” Reki says conversationally. It is not a question. “But did you know we’ve been going in a giant circle? Or was that a coincidence?”
The fleeting glimpse of surprise flashing across Langa’s face tells him everything he needs to know.
Hours. They have been traveling for hours. Days, really. With nothing to show for it except saddle sore legs, and a few firebending scrolls with no firebenders in sight. The graceful strokes of the inked illustrations are as pretty as they are useless without someone who truly knows how to interpret them.
Reki laughs. Once. But the sound topples like dominoes against his ribs and cracks open the dam that had, until now, been valiantly attempting to hold back his hysteria. The choked hiccups swarm him, wringing his lungs out like a dishcloth but he can’t stop.
Langa pulls on his reins and Chi’ comes to a stop, braying a short, irritated whinny through her smooth, glistening nose only a shade lighter than her iridescent hide. “Reki?” He asks, sounding quite terrified that Reki has finally lost his mind.
As if Reki hadn’t gotten rid of that pitiful trinket ages ago. He guides Rui to a halt as well, her obsidian scales glinting golden in a reflective tribute to the burnt straw surrounding them that would be grass if it hadn’t withered and died. It crunches under his feet like crinkling paper as he slips out of his saddle.
His legs burn as his stagnant muscles stretch beneath his weight. No one is meant to sit still for so long, but especially not him. It’s inhumane.
Langa eyes him with the careful apprehension one might afford to a powder keg about to explode. “Reki,” he asks, brushed in tentative concern, but his voice falls to silence when Reki raises his hand to stop him.
Beside him, Rui gives a soft, nickering snort of alarm. Reki runs a soothing palm down her smooth snout and murmurs his apology until she settles. She is a good girl. It’s not her fault. The poor thing’s distress also reinforces his decision. This is for everybody’s own good.
“I. Am taking a break,” Reki informs Langa, flashing a grin that’s more teeth than smile, daring him to object.
Langa does not.
A wise choice.
And with that happy compromise established, Reki promptly lets gravity have its way with him, collapsing backwards onto the thickest-looking patch of dead hay he sees. It’s farther down than it looks, and it is not a soft landing. The earth striking between his shoulder blades leaves him airless, winded, and twinging. He does not care. This little patch of dirt is his home now. If he has to spend one more second in that saddle he will scream.
The sky overhead is big and blue and beautiful. It wraps around him like a blanket, cradles him like a wave, and the enormity of such a vast guardian watching over him helps some of the tension loosen its tangled knots from around his ribs.
He used to do this all the time. Lie back and stare up at the sky. For hours, when he could get away with it. First with his parents, then with Koyomi, then with Koyomi and the twins. (Although these instances tended to be cut short by the dire kidnappings of Princess Koyomi, in desperate need of rescue by her loyal knights, Nanako and Chihiro. Obviously, Reki dutifully took on the role of the dragon, as was demanded of him.)
Staring into something so unfathomably endless made him feel small, but, not in a bad way. It was… safe. The sky didn’t care if he couldn’t control fire like his mom. His sisters. Not when it had so many other, far more important things to worry about and look after. He could admit to it how pathetic he felt not being able to do something toddlers could manage, and it wouldn’t tell another soul. Wouldn’t share the shame he prefers to keep to himself.
The bottom of the sky has always been one of the only places he can simply. Exist. Be something besides different.
He hasn’t just stopped to lie under the sky nearly often enough, lately. He’s missed it.
He doesn’t look away; drinking in the expansive stretch of a familiar sea until his eyes burn. Not even at the soft crinkle of brittle grass breaking as a second presence sinks to the ground beside him.
The heat of Langa’s body is. Closer. Than either of them should probably be comfortable with, considering how briefly they’ve truly known each other.
(It doesn’t feel brief. Lifetimes have passed in the last couple of months. He forgets, sometimes, that there was a world before Langa. Until he remembers.)
The awareness of Langa’s hand in relation to his own, how small the token distance between them has become, presses into his lower stomach like a brand.
Reki could move away. Would, if he were smarter. But. He doesn’t want to.
“Are you done being mad at me?” Langa asks curiously, giving his voice to the gentle, teasing breeze and letting it carry the sound to its destination.
Reki thinks about it for a second, and decides, “No.”
“Okay.”
Reki hides his smile behind his teeth. Pretends he does not hear the soft rustling of Langa shifting closer. Keeps his breath careful and still when the deliberate slide of Langa’s hand brushes the edge of his own and stays there, too intentional to read as a mistake. He doesn’t think about the unsteady sway of the pulse pittering in his chest, for fear that acknowledgement will make it louder and then Langa will hear.
A terrible idea. By many accounts.
Reki tucks the sound below the nails that curl into his palm until it is quiet. And with his other hand (because he is too weak to break the connection and too afraid to complete it) points at the air. Traces the outline of a passing cloud too far away to be reached.
“That one looks like a platypus bear.”
Langa follows the path of Reki’s finger and hums. A rumble of contemplation that echoes in Reki’s chest and sends his toes curling in his boots.
“It looks more like a spider monkey.”
Reki snorts, and his incredulity tilts his cheek scratching against the dry, hard ground. “What? It does not. Look! It has a tail!” He glances over his shoulder to see where Langa’s even looking, since it’s either at the wrong cloud or he’s simply blind, and
Langa is looking at him. A tiny smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. Transforms his face from its typical vacancy into something… indulgent. Content.
The warm air catches in Reki’s throat, like a thick glob of sticky honey. He turns back to the sky, which has much less of a chance of killing him than that.
A soft exhale of air. Langa’s version of a laugh. “I see. Guess you’re right.”
Liar.
“You’re just agreeing with me so I forget you got us lost,” Reki says, a few notes too tellingly breathless for the lightness he means. (Get a hold of yourself.)
“Is it working?”
Minx.
It might have. Too bad Reki already knows most of his tricks. He stretches, sits up, stands. A chunk of the sky falls out of view. He makes a silent promise to visit again soon.
“Maybe. I’ll decide after we get to the Earth Kingdom.”
Langa groans, rolling onto his side in apparent, abject misery. He’ll survive.
“Get up. It’s not as bad as when we visited the Northern Water Tribe,” Reki points out.
They both shudder. Nothing is as bad as when they visited the Northern Water Tribe.
Eventually, Langa accepts his fate and picks himself apart from the ground. It’s a graceful, fluid motion. (More than Reki managed, anyway. He wonders if Langa knows he moves like water. What face he’d make if Reki told him that.) He never stops his grumbling.
For the love of the Ancestors.
“Quit whining. It’s on our way to the air temple, and we need more supplies. We’re stopping.”
He’s being so dramatic. All this fuss while they’re only going to stay for one day. (Maybe two, if the pillows are as comfortable as Reki remembers. But he won’t mention that part just yet.)
Reki holds out his hand to help Langa up. He can act like a child if he wants, but that means Reki gets to treat him like one.
Langa’s eyebrows raise, an amused tint casting a shade that he knows exactly what Reki’s thinking. He usually does. Yet it does not stop him from accepting the offered hand.
The warmth of his palm creeps between Reki’s fingers and crawls to the very core of his being. A slow-moving flash of lightning. He wonders how lethal it would be if he weren’t wearing his gloves. Brushes that silly thought away because, as always, they don’t have the time.
He pulls Langa to his feet, and pretends he does not see the way his fingers chase Reki’s after he lets go. He might get the wrong idea and start thinking Langa feels…
things he doesn’t.
They can’t have that.
“And Langa?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll hold the map, this time.”