Fan Fiction ❯ Her Last Will ❯ Gypsys ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

( A/N -sigh- Finally. A moment of peace- damnit. My friend Nargul just called. I mean, not right before I typed this- no, no, that'd just be too good. No, she had to call RIGHT after I typed 'Finally. A moment of peace.' -sighs again- oh well, now
-looks around to make sure no one will interupt her this time- I can type the story. Hope this chapter is better!)



Chapter Four: Gypsys


It was dead quiet when Sokka and Emi finally managed to make their way to the clearing where Appa was, arms filled with supplies (and other random stuff they had wasted money on.) Night had fallen, and Katara and Aang just sat there staring at the fire. Had she looked up, Katara would have noticed one of the things Emi carried was her blue dress; Emi had gotten new clothes. Her new outfit was an incredibly short, bright-emerald colored dress that matched her right eye perfectly, and a necklace made of a black velvet choker and a symbol cut out of jade that rested in the hollow of her neck. The symbol was like a cross, but what would usually have been a horizontal line was curved up into a half circle. It resembled a triton on closer expection.

"Here," Emi said, throwing Katara's dress down in her lap after she had set down the rest of the stuff. She plopped down on the ground between Aang and Sokka.

"No thanks needed," muttered Katara, glancing at Aang who nodded an encouragement. "We made an interesting discovery today, Aang and I," Katara directed towards Emi.

"Oh?" Emi asked, trying to sound casually interested. But her voice cracked; she could tell it would be something about her, by the tone of Katara's voice. Katara’s voice usually sounded sweet and kind, but now it had a certain.... false cheerfulness about it, very much like the kind a parent's would take on while addressing their child who had snuck out the previous night. Emi gulped.

"Yes. We did," Katara said firmly. "We went to the graveyard." Here Katara paused, as if waiting for Emi to start explaining on her own. When she saw she wouldn't, she continued.

" Aang and I were looking for a place to eat lunch, and came across it. We jumped the back fence, and read a few grave markers. One of them was yours. A few of them.....had your last name, Takahashi." Katara finished. Aang looked kind of nervous, Katara looked expectant, and Sokka was just staring at Emi wide-eyed.

"It's.....a long story," Emi said uncertainly. SHE looked as if she was about to get up and run.

"We have time," Sokka said. "But before you tell us anything else.....are you really dead!?" Emi bit Sokka again, for being such an idiot. "Ow! I was just asking....could you at least start biting my other arm for a while?" In response, Emi smirked, bent over, and bit Sokka's other arm. "OW!"

"Ok, ok, break it up," Aang said smiling. "On with the explanation!" At this he pretended to play a trumpet, fairy tale style. (A/N you know, that tune people play when kings or nights ride up on their noble steed?)

"I suppose it all started when I was five....," Emi stared intently at the fire, as if she were talking to it. The theory was if she didn't look at her friends, or acted as if she were just telling a campfire story, maybe the memorys wouldn't be so painful. The theory was working like crap. "That was when my family was kill- ..... well, that was when they were 'killed' in the fire... When the villagers didn't find any bodys, they just assumed we had all perished in the fire.

"I had been out gathering something for my grandmother when the fire started, but made my way back to the house somehow. The smoke made me pass out, but a gypsy girl found me before it killed me. She had been around my age, Senny was. That was her name, Senny. Senny called to her older brother Kienay, and the two managed to carry me to where the caravan was. After that, the gypsy's raised me. That's how I learned to heal. Things went great until....until one day when I was twelve, four years ago (A/N since I just realized, so far as I remember I haven't told you Emi's age yet. She's sixteen, for those of you who can't figure it out > _<) when the Fire Navy raid happened. We had been on the beach that night, and everyone just.........scattered. I haven't seen any of them since.

"After I ran away from the group, I got lost in the woods. One of the soldiers found me, and to make a long story short ( "as if the whole thing wasn't too long," Sokka whispered to Aang. Everyone was surprised when Emi didn't even pause her story to bite him.) I was sold to a slave trader, ran away, and ended where we met," Emi concluded.

"But....that still doesn't explain a few things," Katara said. "The town leader had said that you had lived there as long as anyone could remember."

"Three and a half years. He was probably drunk off his ass when he told you that."

"So you don't think your family was killed in the fire?" Katara asked.

"Why do you say that?"

"You used air quotes when you were talking about you family's death."

".....did I?" Emi asked, thinking back to a few minutes before and struggling to remember the accused air quotes.

"Pretty sure," Aang said with a laugh.

"Oh."

"Yea."

"Uh-huh."

"Sure."
"Why not."

"Why the hell are we talking like this?" Sokka finally asked. They all laughed in a tired sort of way.

With a yawn Emi said," How 'bout we all just go to sleep?" In response everyone ran to get their sleep gear, except Aang who just curled up into a ball on the ground where he had sat. He was out and snoring like a lightbulb. Well, he wasn't snoring like a lightbulb, he was snoring like a twelve year old monk with an arrow on his head. But that's besides the point.

Sokka lay on the end, cocooned in his sleeping bag and dead to the world, Katara on the other side of him, Emi next to her with a thin blanket, and Aang on the far left. They were all out within seconds.

0o0o

"Heads up!" Kienay yelled to Emi, throwing a boomerang at her. It hit her in the head as soon as she turned around, hit Senny hard in the back as it curved in mid-air, then landed miraciously back in Kienay's hand. The dirty bastard. Both Emi and Senny were twelve, while Kienay was fourteen; the caravan was parked on a beach that night, and after days of traveling they were all winding down a bit with a mini festival type thing. There was beautiful exotic music that none other than the gypsys (and obviously Emi) had ever heard. People danced around the fire, all keeping up perfectly with the music, limbs lashing wildly all over the place, the fire casting a mystirious glow on their dark skin. The smell of roast rabbit hung in the air even hours later.

"KIENAY!" Emi and Senny yelled. It was obvious the two were best friends. Senny was beautiful, with the golden brown skin that came naturally with gypsy blood, and raven black hair that fell in waves to the small of her back. She was two inches taller than Emi ( Emi's was short, even then ) with kind slanted eyes so dark they almost looked black. Senny wore a voliomous brown dress short enough to reveal two mismatched petticoats, one purple and the other blue with green poka dots. She had a large golden loop threaded through her left ear. Emi wore what had turned into rags by the time she met Aang and co.,. It was a simple brown dress (hers and Senny's were made of the same material) that matched Senny's almost perfectly, petticoat wise. But the purple was on the bottom in Emi's out fit.

"Well don't blame me, if you had been paying attention you wouldn't have been hit!" Kienay said. Kienay was the tallest and oldest of the three, at least three inches taller than Senny. He had long-ish curly black hair and a dark complexion; but his eyes contrasted deeply and were surprising to anyone who didn't know him. They were a golden flecked dark green. But the most important thing about Kienay, and the only thing Senny didn't know about Emi, was that Emi had the hugest crush on him. No one who knew Emi now would recognize her then. She looked happy and care free, not like the kind of person who stared friendly people down till they were scared for fun.

"Just wait until tommorrow morning, you won't be feeling so cocky when you wake up a girl!" Senny exclaimed, running of with Emi while the two of them giggled. (A/N preppy kodac moment!) It was a sight worthy of frightening Sokka. They ran over to a sand dune a few yards away from everyone else, then plopped down behind the huge sand baracade.

"Senny....," Emi started nervously. She didn't want anyone to know she liked Kienay, but Senny was, after all, her best friend.

"Hmm?"

"Well....It's about Kienay....," Emi paused for a few minutes. Senny raised an eyebrow, then jumped up a started screaming. She looked kind of like she was head banging.

"Omigosh you like him, don't you?!" Senny whispered excitedly, her eyes lit up. Emi nodded fast enough to get a worthy head rush, a smile slowly creeping across her face.

"KIE-," Senny started to yell, but Emi quickly clasped a hand over her mouth.

"What? You don't want him to know?"

"Not yet."

"Why-," But Senny started but was cut off by the sound of a large ship landing on shore and blood curdling screams.

0o0o

"Whoosawhatsit?" Emi asked sitting up too fast for her own good, rubbing her eyes groggily. Everyone else appeared to still be asleep, but she could hear the faint sound of music in the distance...

"Damnit, I was having a good dream!" Sokka whispered, sitting up and yawning. Emi stared at him.

"You actually woke up."

"Thanks to you."

"But you usually sleep through Aang putting snakes in your sleeping bag!"

"I do not usually sleep through Aang- AANG DOES WHAT!" Sokka yelled, effectively waking everyone within a ten mile radius up.

"Did someone die?" Aang asked, stretching out on the ground in a very cat-like manner and also yawning. Katara surveyed the situation, yawned, and said something about breakfast everyone was too tired to really hear.

"Hey....does anyone else hear music?" Katara finally asked. So Emi didn't dream that part up.

"It sounds like gypsy music...," Emi said wistfully, standing up and walking in the direction from which the sound of drums and tambourines came from. "Where are you going?" Sokka asked, getting up and following her. Katara and Aang managed to force themselves to get up and follow as well.

0o0o

When Emi finally got up to the clearing where the music was coming from, she decided to watch through the bushes first; they might, after all, not be HER gypsys. But they were definitely gypsys. She found a little hole in a nearby bush and carefully peered through it. No mistaking her: beside the fire, center of attention, danced Senny, more beautiful than ever. It seemed that every male there wanted to dance with her, with her curvy figure and sleek long hair, long graceful neck. Every male but one....Kienay. Just then Sokka, Aang, and Katara made there way through a patch of brambles to where she sat on the ground.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Sokka asked angrily. And apparently a bit too loudly, because a few seconds later a group of young men stuck there heads around the bush.

(A/N hem hem -trumpet plays loudly from somewhere in the background- What the fuck?! Oh well. On Friday, June 3, 2005, at 4:36 pm, Nathaniel Alexander Kershner (my new nephew X D) was born. He's 22 1/4 inches long, weighs 9 pounds, 9 ounces, and according to the reports I have received from my sister has a full head of three inch long black hair. OH HAPPY DAY!!!! Sorry this whole gypsy thing kind of went against the grain of the first chapter, I'll start planning the big stuff out now. Over and out! (please review! for Nate!!! lol, j/k)