I Am an Airbending Ice Queen

“So where is this ride of yours?” Lua half mocked as she tugged on the strap of her knapsack.

“Just wait,” Moshi said sternly.

Lua had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Moshi always got overly serious when they moved. She wouldn’t normally be behaving like this during trips, but they had put a good bit of distance between the town and themselves and she was starting to get impatient.

“Well he obviously likes taking his merry time,” she grumbled softly. Moshi shot her a look but she just turned her body away, facing the direction they came from.

It was quiet for a while. Lua sighed and leaned up against a tree trunk. She closed her eyes, listening to all the sounds. The wind whistled softly around her, making the tops of the trees shake. It was so quiet. Her eyes flew open as the realization hit her.

“Something’s not right,” Moshi said quietly. Lua jumped and nearly lost her footing. She didn’t even hear her walk over.

Moshi put a finger to her lips and started to walk into the woods. Lua scampered behind the tree trunk and peered out from behind it, like a little kid spying on her mother. She shivered, no longer being protected from the wind. Moshi crept along a line bushes, being careful not to step on any twigs. She raised her hands in an offensive motion as she approached the bush, but she suddenly stopped. Lua leaned away from the tree more as she struggled to see Moshi.

“Moshi,” she whispered loudly. “What is it? What’s over there?” Moshi stood still, her hands still raised up to her ears. “Moshi?” Lua called out again.

Lua’s heartbeat seemed to increase in volume. It soon became a steady pounding in her ears. It reminded her of the drums some boys in an old town used to play. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Her foot snaked out from behind the tree and took a step. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. The leaves under her feet made little crinkly noises as she crushed them. After a few more steps she was standing behind Moshi. She could see her body was stiff and rigid, like she had seen a ghost. She let her gaze travel over Moshi’s shoulder. Ba-bum.

There was a figure sprawled out behind the bush. Lua could tell he was dead, his limbs were twisted at odd angles and there was a dark stain on his torso. It was a man, too. As she squinted in the bad light she could make out strong cheekbones marred by dirt and muscular arms and legs. His hair was caked with dirt and dried blood and his fingers were purple and bruised, like he had fought back.

Lua couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horrible site. The erratic thumping in her chest seemed to have stopped and she couldn’t tell if she was breathing anymore. This man, this unknown man, was dead. There was a dead person right in front of her. Lua had seen a dead person only once in her life and it was when she was little. There were people standing around it and they chanted softly, a ritual to help the dead move on. Before they could finish, someone had scooped her up in their arms and led her away from the crowd. A strangled sound finally made her tear her gaze to Moshi, who was gazing at the corpse with an unreadable expression.

“I guess we’ll have to find our own way in the dark,” Moshi said after a long period of silence.

It took a moment for Lua to connect the dots and her mouth gaped open in horror. “You mean that guy…” her voice trailed off as she looked back at him.

“Yeah,” Moshi replied blandly. “It looks like someone found him hiding.”

“Do you mean the Fire Nation? Do you think they’re still here?”

“No.” Moshi swallowed and looked around. “Whoever did this is long gone.” She straightened her shirt and started to walk back the way they had come. “We have to keep moving.”

Lua stared at her in astonishment before heading after her. “We can’t just leave him there,” she protested.

Moshi swung her arm back and pinned Lua against a nearby tree. Her breath was hot against Lua’s skin. Lua squirmed under the pressure but Moshi didn’t release her grip.

“I don’t think you understand what is happening,” Moshi stated darkly. Her voice cut into Lua like daggers and she froze. When Moshi talked like this she meant business. “We have just escaped from a fire nation village. If they end up going into our house before dawn and find us missing they will send a search party after us, if they haven’t already. If we stay here then we die. The only way to survive is to keep moving.”

Lua nodded and Moshi straightened up.

“Let’s go,” she said and started walking.

Lua gazed back towards the bushes where the man lay. She didn’t even know him, not even his name. She didn’t know anything about him and yet she had an incredible drive to help him. Even if it was just cleaning his face or setting flowers around him, she had to do something. It felt wrong to just leave him lying there in that state. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she left now.

She looked back over at Moshi’s disappearing form, the decision in her mind already made. She took a deep breath and crept back over to him, peering over the bushes that concealed him. Lua didn’t see any flowers around so that option was out, but she could still clean him up. Making her way past the bushes, she swung her knapsack around and dug through it before pulling out a small, square piece of cloth. She closed his eyes and wiped the grime away from his face, being unnecessarily gentle around the damaged parts of his face. It looked like he had taken a real beating. His lips were cut and swollen and his left cheek was darkened by the first stages of a bruise. She touched them softly before sighing. There wasn’t much she could do besides straightening out his clothes, and she took care to avoid the dark stain in the middle of his chest. Lua rocked back on her heels and took his limp hands in hers. With a small sigh she recited the words her mother taught her for releasing the dead.

“It is with a heavy heart that I guide you from your earthly body and release you into the planes of death. May the spirits there protect and guide you. Let them lead you into a beautiful new world filled with peace. Let your soul be free and let it be forever immortal.”

There was a moment of silence after she spoke. A tree branch rustled and she let her eyes wander around. She saw a small animal peeking out from behind the branches’ leaves, trying to see what she was doing. It was then that her fears of firebenders being in the woods melted away. The forest wasn’t quiet because there was danger, she realized. It was quiet because there was death in it.

“Did you want to bury him?” Moshi asked quietly and Lua jumped at her sudden presence. The hostility was gone from her voice. It felt like the effects of loss had hit her, like it had everything else in this forest. Lua nodded.

Moshi stepped forward as Lua backed away. Her throat swelled up, constricting her vocal cords. She was never that good at dealing with death. Moshi’s lips moved but she couldn’t understand what she was saying. She had a bet that Moshi was behind her that whole time she was tending to him and had heard everything she said. Suddenly, the ground opened up and swallowed the man whole and in that moment; it felt as though some of her was swallowed up as well.

The swelling in her throat lessened some as Moshi started back towards the path again. “What was his name?” she asked softly.

Moshi stopped for a brief second and murmured, “Gopan,” before heading off into the forest.

-

They walked through the woods in silence, the fears and worries of being caught by firebenders still hidden deep among their other emotions. Soon it was morning and they were still trekking through the trees. They had not yet found another town and a twinge of worry formed in Lua’s mind.

She was relieved when they finally stopped in a small grassy clearing and made camp. Lua dropped her bag next to a deformed tree stump and pulled out a small blanket. She laid it on the ground and flopped on it, fatigue weighing on her eyes heavily. Her eyes had almost closed when the smell of dough entered her nose. She turned and saw Moshi with a small roll of bread, a chunk of cheese, and two apples. She sheepishly broke apart the bread and cheese and tossed it to her along with one of the apples.

“You’ll sleep better with a full stomach,” Moshi said quietly. “You’ll need your strength too.” She bit into the bread and wiped a crumb from her mouth.

Lua should’ve been scolding Moshi about rationing, but truthfully her own stomach was having a parade right now at the sight of all that food. The aroma filled her lungs and reminded her how long it had been since she’d eaten. That first bite of the apple was like heaven to Lua and she greedily ate the rest of her food. Moshi said nothing; she only had an amused look on her face as she handed Lua a small canteen. Lua drank only a few gulps, not wanting to hog it all in case Moshi wanted some, and gave it back to Moshi.

“Sorry,” Lua said shyly as she wiped the excess food from her mouth.

Moshi laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it. You haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.”

Lua smiled and fell back on the sheet, her stomach satisfied and the tendrils of sleep slipping back into her body. With all that had happened so far, she gladly let the weight pull her eyelids down.

Lua felt a tug on her arm and woke up with a start. She twisted around to see what was there but she didn’t see anyone. A few images popped into her mind. She was being pulled along a path, a wave of silky, brown hair bouncing before her. Something about it looked familiar…

“I thought you would’ve slept longer,” Moshi said.

Lua turned to look at her and saw her squatting next to her pack. She shoved a few items in and began rolling up her blanket.

“How long was I asleep?” Lua felt her hair matted to her scalp with sweat.

Moshi shrugged. “It was only a few hours. I suppose it’s mid-afternoon now.” She tied the string on her knapsack to a loop around her rolled up blanket. “What did you dream about?”

Lua thought back, trying to remember. All she could see in her mind was that oaky hair dancing before her. She furrowed her brow, frustrated.

“I don’t remember.”

Moshi hesitated a moment before asking, “Do you think it’s starting again?”

Lua bristled at the comment and her eyes narrowed. “We agreed not to mention it ever again.” Her voice came out in an uncharacteristic growl. She wasn’t usually like this but talking about that night always put a chill down Lua’s spine. She would not talk about it. She wouldn’t even think of it.

Moshi smiled apologetically and Lua felt a twinge of guilt under her anger. Moshi didn’t deserve to be treated like this, especially after everything she’d done for her.

“I’m sorry,” Lua said quickly. “I’ll let you know if it starts hurting me again. I promise.” She smiled weakly, relief flooding through her when Moshi smiled back.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Moshi said changing the subject, “But I heard some voices while I was scoping out the area. It could be a town.”

“Do you think it has firebenders in it?” Lua bit her lip in worry. She was also glad for topic switch.

Moshi shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s a high possibility since the last one was and they’re not that far from each other.” She took a long, sweeping look at Lua like she was just noticing something for the first time.

“I really hope it’s not.”

Lua finally remembered her hair and looked down, her eyes growing wide in astonishment. Patches of white peeked out from the dark brown hair. She glanced at her blanket and saw that the color had been distorted by the running chemicals. Oh no, she thought. This was really bad. If the town did have firebenders she’d be singled out for sure. It wasn’t normal to have white hair around here. Come to think of it, she didn’t think anybody had white hair except for old people.

“Moshi…” Lua’s voice cracked. She felt her throat tighten up again.

Moshi pulled out a small container and opened it. She tilted the container and stared into it before dipping her fingers in.

“There’s hardly any left. I’ll just go over the top layer since that’s what everybody sees.”

She walked over to Lua and crouched beside her. After lathering her fingers, Moshi ran them down a thin section of Lua’s hair, making sure to rub it in good so it wouldn’t come out. Lua stayed still as Moshi worked, gazing out into the forest. She saw an animal scurry by. It stopped to look at them, its nose twitching as it did so. A memory tugged in the back of her mind as she stared back, perplexed by the creature’s light gray eyes. Just like her mother’s…

Suddenly she wasn’t sitting down next to Moshi. She was standing outside a tent, the chilly wind whipping her shoulder-length white hair around. She clutched the shawl around her shoulders with small hands and drew it tighter around her torso. Her teeth chattered loudly but she didn’t go back inside. A few minutes later a woman came up next to her and knelt down to her level.

“Lua, you must be freezing,” the woman exclaimed. “Why aren’t you in your tent?”

“I w-was wa-waiting for you t-to get back,” Lua answered.

The woman smiled softly, her long, brown hair flowing out into the wind and Lua stared, entranced by it. The strands of hair always looked like it was performing a dance as the wind blew it around. The woman’s gray eyes warmed as she stared at Lua and ran her fingers through the little girl’s short hair. Lua looked away from the dancing hair and looked into those welcoming gray eyes, her thoughts becoming darker.

“Dad says he’s going to cut my hair again,” she said in a small voice. Her eyes filled with tears. “Mommy I don’t want him too.” A sob broke out of her chest. “I want pretty hair like yours.”

“Shh,” her mother soothed. “I know sweetheart. We’ll let it grow out this time. You can have hair just like mine.”

Lua’s eyes gleamed brightly through the tears. “Really?” her high voice squeaked. “I get to be just like you?”

Her mother smiled warmly as she answered, “Yes, just like me.”

“Lua, are you all right?”

Moshi’s voice snapped Lua back to the present. She was sitting on the ground with Moshi hesitantly hovering over her. There wasn’t a tent or a woman comforting her. She looked down at her hands. They weren’t small anymore.

“Hey, are you all right?” Moshi repeated, worry flooding into her voice.

Lua opened her mouth to answer but a noise made it clamp shut. She looked around, straining to see something. Moshi seemed to have noticed the sound too because she took an offensive position. The sound grew louder and Lua realized it was human.

Someone was in the woods.

And they were getting closer.