Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Crackpot ❯ Silver Silence (Smellerbee Longshot) ( Chapter 9 )

Written while my eyes were dilated. Could barely see the page I was writing on.

 

Silver Silence

 

It was dark in the small room they had managed to scrounge. Ba Sing Se was a city to make a start in, a city of opportunity and hope and a place to live again. That was why they'd come as refuges, and refuges were given houses to stay while friendly neighbors scoped them out before suggesting jobs. They had let no one in, not quite ready for a different life just yet.

 

Smellerbee was lying down in the bed, feeling as comfortable as she would on a bed of nails. Longshot was across the room—a small square but it still felt miles away—head bent low. She knew he wasn't asleep. His silence was too loud then, a nervous almost angry silence that was itching at her. She sat up, finding the bed to sink like a bag of sand.

 

“Did we do the right thing?” she asked.

 

He lifted his head. There was no question to the person she was referring to.

 

“I mean, we just left him. We've been following him since we met him. Shouldn't we be helping him out or something?” The armor she wore over her chest was suddenly too heavy. She'd never taken it off except to bathe herself. The world had taught her to be prepared—it taught all of them. But now it constricted her, and as she waited for any kind of answer, so did his silence. “We should find him,” she repeated frantically, pulling at her clothes. “We should help! We should—should…”

 

The silence changed, filled with his own worries.

 

“I know he was acting crazy. I know it was better if we just let him worry on his own. But it's Jet. What would we do if he couldn't lead us? I do not rely on him too much!”

 

She felt like she couldn't breathe. Suddenly Longshot was embracing her, filling her whole world. Unspoken words lingered in his scent, in his touch, in everything that was him. Everything that had been panicked and off-set was now right. What she'd felt—because as a girl she was still prone to these emotions that haunted her—suddenly came out in large unhappy sobs.

 

He did not let go until the dark room filled with light.