Post by anmi48 on Dec 30, 2010 13:45:13 GMT -6
Thunk.
The dagger hit the tree with a muffled noise, chipping off bits and pieces of the bark. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the blade and dislodged it from the old oak, dragging it downwards; the tip left a long scratch behind, gouged deep into the wood, like a scar.
She backed up, fingers tightening around weapon, narrowing her eyes as she hefted it above her head before finally letting it fly.
Thunk.
“Smellerbee!”
The tomboy physically winced - both taken by surprise by the shout, and irritated that she hadn’t heard the boy coming up earlier - and whipped around, uttering a snappish, “What?”
The poor boy who’d been walking towards her - one of the younger Fighters that had never been part of Jet’s close posse - froze, his heel landing on a fallen branch, which cracked conspicuously. He regarded her with undisguised caution and alarm, palms raised in a distinct sign of surrender. “S-sorry, Smellerbee,” he stammered, “I didn’t m-mean to interrupt your training, it’s just…”
“Just what?” It was, alas, one of her downfalls; when Smellerbee’s temper was already high, it didn’t take much for it to reach the boiling point, and it was nearly impossible to bring back down again. Her hand twitched, her eyes narrowed, and the boy faltered again.
“… you’re n-needed back at camp,” he finished lamely. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he stumbled backwards in his haste to leave; he quickly turned and tripped through the forest, disrupting the hogmonkeys hiding in the trees and altogether raising quite a ruckus.
Idiot, she thought with little remorse. Young and stupid, huh?
But then again, he hadn’t looked much younger than her fifteen years; judging by his clumsy, gangly walk, he was just seriously beginning puberty - so maybe he was eleven or twelve?
Jet would’ve known, Smellerbee found herself thinking, yanking her dagger back out of the tree. Jet seemed to know everything about everyone.
An unprecedented wave of anguish exploded over her, and she teetered on the spot, her hands clawing at the tree for support. She ducked her head, her brunette bangs falling over her sharp brown eyes, despite the blue headband lodged in her hair. No tears came - they had been used up since the time of her leader’s untimely death - but she still shook on the spot, hating the fact that she was succumbing to these depressing emotions like a pathetic little girl.
Yeah, she got irritated when people mistook her for a guy - but she was equally irritated with the fact that she was a girl. Perhaps the reason she did get so annoyed was because she wished she hadn’t been born with soft, barely visible curves (entirely invisible under her armor), or the curse that caused her to bleed once a month, or - worst of all - the silly emotions that got the best of her. Guys seemed to plough through troubles without throwing fits or tantrums - but, despite her sometimes-stoic appearance, there was always an internal cauldron of bubbling, twisting feelings. Once in a while the cauldron boiled over - and most often in the form of the strongest emotions she possessed, like anger.
There was a time when she had been able to wear her emotions freely, like any other garment she donned. A time when she had been able to laugh and cry and not be afraid of being mistaken as weak. A time when her parents were still alive. No, she had never collected dolls - it was actually her father that taught her how to wield the knife and the dagger, a pastime she found far more promising - but she hadn’t been afraid of her own gender. After her village was overrun with the Fire Nation - the War had finally come around to affect her after all - and her father was shipped off to fight in the War, she watched her mother struggle every day with the creeping toxin that was depression. She watched her wait and wait and wait for him to come back, every day without fail standing at the door, his place set at the table… weeks and months and then finally a year passed…
… he never came back.
It was around this year mark that the men came. They came into her mother’s house in the dead of night, drunk on the sick joy of ruling a captive village (and probably various intoxicating drinks), laughing loudly and wildly as they thundered into her mother’s bedroom. With no man in the house - and it being unlikely that any man would come back - they figured they wouldn’t be prosecuted for their dirty deeds.
She watched from the darkness of her mother’s closet, struck with horror and fear as she watched the men take advantage of her in horrible ways. When they were finally done, her mother’s cold body lay broken upon her bed, her blood strewn about the room.
At eight years old, Smellerbee realized the world was a horrible, sexist place. She ran away from home that night - if it was even her home anymore - armed with nothing but her father’s knives she found by going through his dark room. She wandered for days, hungry, tired, unfocused, just attempting to put one foot in front of the other, until she collapsed on the outskirts of the forest.
And that was when Jet found her, barely a year older than her, and took her in… I was one of the first Freedom Fighters.
He was the one who gave her her current name - Smellerbee (apparently she’d smelled like honey when he found her). She couldn’t even remember the name her parents had given her, because after she joined the Freedom Fighters, that no longer mattered; this was her new life, and she gave up her name and her femininity to partake, donning shapeless armor and barking at anyone who mistook her for a guy, deciding that emotions were powerful, dark things and must be guarded at all times.
“Jet,” Smellerbee muttered bitterly, absently poking the tree with her dagger. “Why’d ya have to die, huh, Jet?”
After the Avatar had visited their woods - something Smellerbee was indifferent about (unlike some of the other Freedom Fighters, she had never speculated about the return of the Avatar or other such nonsense) - Jet had started to … change. It might’ve been the work of that girl, the Waterbender. It wasn’t a huge change, not very noticeable - except to Smellerbee and the archer Longshot (who had been, arguably, the closest to Jet). But there was something unfocused about the way he had started to walk and think… like he was questioning his status in life.
Smellerbee had been questioning as well… after Jet nearly drowned that whole town, well… when she thought about it… that sounded like something the Fire Nation would do; they had been acting like their own enemies.
Maybe, if he’d been more certain of himself, he wouldn’t’ve walked straight into that trap on the outskirts of their forest.
The Fire Nation had finally decided the punks living in the trees were a nuisance to take care of, and dispatched a team to dispose of their leader… They set up an ambush just outside the trees, where they’d all be less familiar with the territory… They planted rumors of a new Fire Nation encampment, and Jet went to check it out, taking with his two most trusted Freedom Fighters, herself and Longshot…
The ambush caught them all by surprise; maybe in the end they were just a bunch of kids after all.
Jet didn’t make it out.
Stop it, she thought, gritting her teeth. Stop thinking about that… it won’t do you any good now, stupid… Her hands scratched against the bark of the tree, scraping open, starting to bleed slightly.
She wished Longshot was with her. The archer was her closest friend - he and Jet had always been closest to her of all the Freedom Fighters. He was about the only person that could calm her down; just a deep look in her direction got her blood pressure down… well, in one way. For some reason, whenever she was around him, a pleasant sensation jumped around in her stomach, and a light blush dusted her cheeks; this was a recent development, however, because these feelings just started cropping up a couple of months ago.
Ugh, those damn feelings again.
It had been Longshot’s idea for her to take over after Jet’s death. He had figured, since he didn’t talk much, it would be easier if someone more vocal were to voice ideas. She had vehemently argued, of course, but Longshot’s logic had a way of getting around to one eventually… even Jet, in his rages, had seen the reason when the archer calmed him down.
She figured that as long as Longshot would be there to guide her, this leader thing wouldn’t be too difficult. She had been a Freedom Fighter longest, even if she wasn’t the oldest member (that would be Pipsqueak); she had been around when Jet died; and she had Longshot’s recommendation, which everyone considered credible.
Speaking of being the leader…
Quite a few minutes had passed now since the boy had come around and irritated her, and all the while Smellerbee had been leaning against the tree, reminiscing in the more horrible things of her past. The Fighters were probably wondering where she was… perhaps getting ready to dispatch a search party…
“Gotta get back,” she grumbled, tucking the dagger away in her belt. She pushed herself off of the tree, glancing at the scratch marks she and her dagger had left on the tree. Underneath the tough armor of the bark, there was the soft inside of the tree, full of sap, easily marked up yet still growing despite it all.
Smellerbee almost smiled as she turned from the tree. She was a lot of things - internally angry, confused, irritated - but she was also strong, independent, and above all, loyal. She’d never give up on her Fighters, and maybe one day - underneath the constant, never-changing, tough armor - she’d grow to become a real leader, one that Jet would’ve been proud of.
For now, though - and she hated to admit this - she’d need all the help she could get.
She set off to the camp, keeping an eye on the trees (the ropes that pulled one up into the camp often blended with the scenery), feeling lighter than she had only a few minutes ago.
She was still irritated, but… her friends were waiting for her.
((OOC: 1500 characters were not enough to fully describe everything that you were asking for... so I sort of exceeded that. I hope that's okay. Also, I talked with Toph about Jet's death and Smellerbee = leader thing, so... yes, I did get permission to put that in here, I didn't just do it willy-nilly.))
The dagger hit the tree with a muffled noise, chipping off bits and pieces of the bark. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the blade and dislodged it from the old oak, dragging it downwards; the tip left a long scratch behind, gouged deep into the wood, like a scar.
She backed up, fingers tightening around weapon, narrowing her eyes as she hefted it above her head before finally letting it fly.
Thunk.
“Smellerbee!”
The tomboy physically winced - both taken by surprise by the shout, and irritated that she hadn’t heard the boy coming up earlier - and whipped around, uttering a snappish, “What?”
The poor boy who’d been walking towards her - one of the younger Fighters that had never been part of Jet’s close posse - froze, his heel landing on a fallen branch, which cracked conspicuously. He regarded her with undisguised caution and alarm, palms raised in a distinct sign of surrender. “S-sorry, Smellerbee,” he stammered, “I didn’t m-mean to interrupt your training, it’s just…”
“Just what?” It was, alas, one of her downfalls; when Smellerbee’s temper was already high, it didn’t take much for it to reach the boiling point, and it was nearly impossible to bring back down again. Her hand twitched, her eyes narrowed, and the boy faltered again.
“… you’re n-needed back at camp,” he finished lamely. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he stumbled backwards in his haste to leave; he quickly turned and tripped through the forest, disrupting the hogmonkeys hiding in the trees and altogether raising quite a ruckus.
Idiot, she thought with little remorse. Young and stupid, huh?
But then again, he hadn’t looked much younger than her fifteen years; judging by his clumsy, gangly walk, he was just seriously beginning puberty - so maybe he was eleven or twelve?
Jet would’ve known, Smellerbee found herself thinking, yanking her dagger back out of the tree. Jet seemed to know everything about everyone.
An unprecedented wave of anguish exploded over her, and she teetered on the spot, her hands clawing at the tree for support. She ducked her head, her brunette bangs falling over her sharp brown eyes, despite the blue headband lodged in her hair. No tears came - they had been used up since the time of her leader’s untimely death - but she still shook on the spot, hating the fact that she was succumbing to these depressing emotions like a pathetic little girl.
Yeah, she got irritated when people mistook her for a guy - but she was equally irritated with the fact that she was a girl. Perhaps the reason she did get so annoyed was because she wished she hadn’t been born with soft, barely visible curves (entirely invisible under her armor), or the curse that caused her to bleed once a month, or - worst of all - the silly emotions that got the best of her. Guys seemed to plough through troubles without throwing fits or tantrums - but, despite her sometimes-stoic appearance, there was always an internal cauldron of bubbling, twisting feelings. Once in a while the cauldron boiled over - and most often in the form of the strongest emotions she possessed, like anger.
There was a time when she had been able to wear her emotions freely, like any other garment she donned. A time when she had been able to laugh and cry and not be afraid of being mistaken as weak. A time when her parents were still alive. No, she had never collected dolls - it was actually her father that taught her how to wield the knife and the dagger, a pastime she found far more promising - but she hadn’t been afraid of her own gender. After her village was overrun with the Fire Nation - the War had finally come around to affect her after all - and her father was shipped off to fight in the War, she watched her mother struggle every day with the creeping toxin that was depression. She watched her wait and wait and wait for him to come back, every day without fail standing at the door, his place set at the table… weeks and months and then finally a year passed…
… he never came back.
It was around this year mark that the men came. They came into her mother’s house in the dead of night, drunk on the sick joy of ruling a captive village (and probably various intoxicating drinks), laughing loudly and wildly as they thundered into her mother’s bedroom. With no man in the house - and it being unlikely that any man would come back - they figured they wouldn’t be prosecuted for their dirty deeds.
She watched from the darkness of her mother’s closet, struck with horror and fear as she watched the men take advantage of her in horrible ways. When they were finally done, her mother’s cold body lay broken upon her bed, her blood strewn about the room.
At eight years old, Smellerbee realized the world was a horrible, sexist place. She ran away from home that night - if it was even her home anymore - armed with nothing but her father’s knives she found by going through his dark room. She wandered for days, hungry, tired, unfocused, just attempting to put one foot in front of the other, until she collapsed on the outskirts of the forest.
And that was when Jet found her, barely a year older than her, and took her in… I was one of the first Freedom Fighters.
He was the one who gave her her current name - Smellerbee (apparently she’d smelled like honey when he found her). She couldn’t even remember the name her parents had given her, because after she joined the Freedom Fighters, that no longer mattered; this was her new life, and she gave up her name and her femininity to partake, donning shapeless armor and barking at anyone who mistook her for a guy, deciding that emotions were powerful, dark things and must be guarded at all times.
“Jet,” Smellerbee muttered bitterly, absently poking the tree with her dagger. “Why’d ya have to die, huh, Jet?”
After the Avatar had visited their woods - something Smellerbee was indifferent about (unlike some of the other Freedom Fighters, she had never speculated about the return of the Avatar or other such nonsense) - Jet had started to … change. It might’ve been the work of that girl, the Waterbender. It wasn’t a huge change, not very noticeable - except to Smellerbee and the archer Longshot (who had been, arguably, the closest to Jet). But there was something unfocused about the way he had started to walk and think… like he was questioning his status in life.
Smellerbee had been questioning as well… after Jet nearly drowned that whole town, well… when she thought about it… that sounded like something the Fire Nation would do; they had been acting like their own enemies.
Maybe, if he’d been more certain of himself, he wouldn’t’ve walked straight into that trap on the outskirts of their forest.
The Fire Nation had finally decided the punks living in the trees were a nuisance to take care of, and dispatched a team to dispose of their leader… They set up an ambush just outside the trees, where they’d all be less familiar with the territory… They planted rumors of a new Fire Nation encampment, and Jet went to check it out, taking with his two most trusted Freedom Fighters, herself and Longshot…
The ambush caught them all by surprise; maybe in the end they were just a bunch of kids after all.
Jet didn’t make it out.
Stop it, she thought, gritting her teeth. Stop thinking about that… it won’t do you any good now, stupid… Her hands scratched against the bark of the tree, scraping open, starting to bleed slightly.
She wished Longshot was with her. The archer was her closest friend - he and Jet had always been closest to her of all the Freedom Fighters. He was about the only person that could calm her down; just a deep look in her direction got her blood pressure down… well, in one way. For some reason, whenever she was around him, a pleasant sensation jumped around in her stomach, and a light blush dusted her cheeks; this was a recent development, however, because these feelings just started cropping up a couple of months ago.
Ugh, those damn feelings again.
It had been Longshot’s idea for her to take over after Jet’s death. He had figured, since he didn’t talk much, it would be easier if someone more vocal were to voice ideas. She had vehemently argued, of course, but Longshot’s logic had a way of getting around to one eventually… even Jet, in his rages, had seen the reason when the archer calmed him down.
She figured that as long as Longshot would be there to guide her, this leader thing wouldn’t be too difficult. She had been a Freedom Fighter longest, even if she wasn’t the oldest member (that would be Pipsqueak); she had been around when Jet died; and she had Longshot’s recommendation, which everyone considered credible.
Speaking of being the leader…
Quite a few minutes had passed now since the boy had come around and irritated her, and all the while Smellerbee had been leaning against the tree, reminiscing in the more horrible things of her past. The Fighters were probably wondering where she was… perhaps getting ready to dispatch a search party…
“Gotta get back,” she grumbled, tucking the dagger away in her belt. She pushed herself off of the tree, glancing at the scratch marks she and her dagger had left on the tree. Underneath the tough armor of the bark, there was the soft inside of the tree, full of sap, easily marked up yet still growing despite it all.
Smellerbee almost smiled as she turned from the tree. She was a lot of things - internally angry, confused, irritated - but she was also strong, independent, and above all, loyal. She’d never give up on her Fighters, and maybe one day - underneath the constant, never-changing, tough armor - she’d grow to become a real leader, one that Jet would’ve been proud of.
For now, though - and she hated to admit this - she’d need all the help she could get.
She set off to the camp, keeping an eye on the trees (the ropes that pulled one up into the camp often blended with the scenery), feeling lighter than she had only a few minutes ago.
She was still irritated, but… her friends were waiting for her.
((OOC: 1500 characters were not enough to fully describe everything that you were asking for... so I sort of exceeded that. I hope that's okay. Also, I talked with Toph about Jet's death and Smellerbee = leader thing, so... yes, I did get permission to put that in here, I didn't just do it willy-nilly.))
