Chapter Text
Years ago, 8-year-old Nathaniel Wesninski heard whispers that his father intended to kill him for the first time.
Maybe first time isn’t accurate. After all, his own father had been threatening him since he was old enough to form memories. The cruel words had coupled with molten-hot metal burning against his skin or the clean edge of a knife to leave his formative years a haze of fear and pain. The cruelty, though, had always been kept a firm secret between him, his father, his father’s inner circle, and his mother. Nathaniel’s 8th birthday came with some changes.
He woke in the morning and immediately felt something tense in the air. The unease of it crawled across his skin as he walked down the long corridors to where his attendance at the court breakfast was required most mornings. The servants had glanced at him furtively, and the nobles avoided his gaze entirely. Before approaching the towering double-doors that led to the court’s dining room, he had pressed himself against the wall around the corner from where the guards stood at their posts. They were quiet, but in the formidable silence of the castle in the early morning and with the echo of the architecture, Nathaniel could hear them easily.
“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?” one of them had asked. Nathaniel was never sure of their names, as he was hardly allowed to socialize with people outside of his own mother.
“Of course not! Jesus, even I had to ask twice if she was sure of what she heard. But she’s the personal servant to the queen. She’s sure of it.”
“Still–I can’t believe–they seem like such a pleasant family. Why would His Highness suddenly want to do something like that?” the first guard asked. Their voices were getting increasingly nervous and furtive, as though they feared the king himself would overhear.
Nathaniel had to risk leaning around the corner to hear what the second guard said next. “I mean, they seem pleasant on the outside, but–have you really never felt uneasy around them? Somehow, it’s not impossible to believe that the King would want to do something so heinous as to kill his own son.”
Nathaniel sucked in a sharp breath and leaned quickly back around the corner. It must have been louder than he intended, too, since the guards abruptly cut off their speech. There was a rustling as if one of them was approaching his corner, so made sure to keep his quick footsteps quiet while he retreated farther back into an alcove.
He could barely breathe. Somehow, between high noon the previous day and the current morning, something had changed. A cold fear shot down his spine as he wondered how their eight-year secret of violence and cruelty had suddenly slipped through the cracks of their public personas. The perfect royal family, a lie.
Little Nathaniel’s expectations were certainly nothing good, but he had no idea of the reality he was about to face. The kingdom’s destruction was coming, and he had stood shaking in the alcove of the silent castle that morning, completely unaware.
Later, while he sat waiting much longer than usual for his parents to arrive in the dining hall for breakfast, it happened. A crash so loud echoed throughout the entire castle that Nathaniel flinched hard enough to land on the floor. They continued, and continued, until shouting started to emerge from the depths and he could hear the sounds of the castle’s soldiers running down the halls. Glass shattered, metal clanged and slashed, and Nathaniel had no idea what to do. He could only stare at the tall double doors, knowing there was no other way out but to jump from the fifth-story stained-glass windows.
He glanced at them, and the morning sun had shone through them, deceptively warm and painting the floor of the dining hall in ocean-like shades of yellow and red. Its images depicted the sun spirit themself, vibrant and searing, blessing the symbol of royalty underneath it with the gift of the flame.
The noise of the chaos grew closer, and then the doors burst open hard enough that they cracked against the walls on either side. Three men immediately filed inside, dressed in black and red dark enough to resemble bloodstains, adorned heavily with weapons. Their guns immediately zeroed in on Nathaniel.
He wanted to cower in fear, but a lifetime under his father’s reign had made him grow much too used to the idea of death. Nathaniel, eight years old, had held his head high and waited for the shots to come.
The man in the middle’s trigger finger began to tighten, and despite the chaos outside Nathaniel could swear he heard the metal shifting against itself in preparation for the kill. He held the man’s gaze as he waited. When the gunshot came, though, the man himself collapsed onto the floor and Nathaniel, several meters away, was victim to the splatter of blood as the bullet ripped through his skull. The other two men barely had time to turn and shoot back before they, too, were dead on the floor.
The warmth of the sun spirit settled over his skin as he looked up to his mother, still holding a smoking gun in her hands.
“Your father’s reign is over,” she said, as if he cared. Nathaniel was only eight and knew his family never cared for the throne. What was more important was what she said next.
“We’re leaving,” she said. She turned her gun at the window and shot straight through the glass, and as it shattered outward and the sun began to glare even harder through its gruesome cracks, his mother came over and gripped fiercely at his arm. “Do you trust me?”
Nathaniel looked up at her, her wild eyes and her grip already bruising his skin. “Yes.”
“Then jump,” she said, and he did.
“Kid!”
Neil was hardly willing to admit the gruff shout had actually snapped him out of a daze. He kept his stature the same and made sure to keep the same sawing rhythm he had been keeping up for the last–it must have been more than two hours. Sawdust covered his hands and arms, a gritty and uncomfortable film that felt like it was sinking far below his fingernails and biting into the flesh underneath.
He had only begun this temporary job a week ago, and Neil was already convinced he’d be finding sawdust in unexpected places for the rest of his life.
“Hey punk! What’d I hire you for if you don’t listen to a damn word I say?”
Neil continued his sawing rhythm and shifted his gaze to the old man who he had watched reluctantly acknowledge that his joints were aging too much for him to be able to handle the woodwork on his own.
Do I look like I’m swimming in fucking money? the old man had asked that day. Neil honestly wasn’t sure of his name, and he was certain the old man didn’t know his. You’ll take what I give you and nothing more.
Okay, Neil had said, because he was much too tired to argue these days. He’d been put to work barely fifteen minutes later, after a hurried walkthrough of the old man’s shop and an even briefer walkthrough of safety precautions. It was a good thing this wasn’t his first time taking on a temp job just like this one–it was the reason he’d bothered to approach the old man at all.
Something akin to contempt must have been in his eyes, because the old man stood from his workbench and pointed a finger at Neil. “Glare at me one more time and you’re on the streets. Nobody in this town will hire you if you can’t respect your elders. Who fuckin’ raised you?”
Somehow, Neil couldn’t take the threat or the insults seriously. The old man had truly been cold on the first day, but soon after Neil had stopped feeling unsafe in his presence. Though he was a similar height to his father, the similarities ended there. He was graying and far more frail, sun spots decorating his hands and face.
“Didn’t hear me earlier, did you?” the old man said. He began to make his way to Neil and by instinct he backed up a little, finally leaving the saw where it was. There were large red marks where he hadn’t moved his right hand from the saw for hours. Neil looked up, waiting.
“Take a break,” he grumbled. “Wash up and drink some goddamn water. So small you look like you’ll melt away under the sun.”
Neil, silent, left his things by the workbench and began to hike over to the river. He glanced up at the sun, which gleamed over them with all the intensity of a central earth kingdom summer. Sighing, he resisted the urge to rub at his eyes in exhaustion before he made it to the river to rinse the sawdust off his hands.
The first thing Neil did when he arrived at the water was shove his face straight into it. Years of being on the run with his mother hadn’t adjusted him any more to withstanding the summer heat, and he was suddenly glad that he hadn’t firebended for months. It was too risky, and it always made him feel warmer from the inside. With how intensely sweaty and pulsingly hot he felt now, that feeling that came with firebending felt like the last thing he needed.
He rinsed his hands, his arms, his face, his neck. He even took off his shirt after checking for anyone nearby and shook it out over the grass before replacing it. After he finished rinsing his hair, too, a group of people began to approach the narrow river bank from the opposite side.
“--money on it?” one of them said. Neil immediately began retreating, and only caught a glimpse of a tall man with dark hair before he ducked out of sight. As he continued walking away, back toward his job, a burst of laughter broke out between the group, bright and booming.
Something in Neil ached as he heard it.
When he arrived back, he realized he had truly begun to work on autopilot before. He was much closer to being finished with today’s projects than he realized. He only had two boards left to saw before he could sand everything and go home. The old man must have retreated into his home for the time being, too, since he was no longer at the workbench. He was glad to be able to work alone, even if the two of them didn’t interact much while in each others’ presence.
An hour later the old man showed back up, and only another hour later Neil was finishing his sanding and was able to collect his money for the day’s work and leave.
Something about this town kept him on the precipice between exhausted and completely on edge.
“You’re early,” his mom said as he arrived.
“I’ll put the money from today with the rest,” he answered. She seemed to understand his implication–that he may be early but he still earned his full pay for the day–because she nodded curtly and continued to do whatever it was she was doing.
She was sitting in the center of a couple dozen scattered papers, and she looked just as on edge as Neil had felt since they moved here. With his mother, though, it seemed to just be in her disposition these days to be overtly paranoid. Neil’s spine hurt just watching her hunch over the papers to pore with narrowed eyes at what he was assuming was the intel she said she was going to gather from an acquaintance today.
Neil had been surprised when she told him–first, because she had a habit of keeping him in the dark from what she was truly doing. Second, because his mother was much too paranoid to trust a single person except Neil when it came to revealing their true identities.
What makes you trust this man? Neil had asked her after she told him her plans.
He owes me a favor, she had answered.
Neil thought it wasn’t enough; it didn’t sit right with him. Clearly, after meeting this contact in person, his mother had begun to feel the same way.
Abruptly, Mary gathered all the papers and shuffled them into a pile. Her jaw was clenching.
“We need to leave,” she said.
He had kind of expected this. All he did was nod. “When?”
“We will need at least one more day’s worth of pay before we can afford to travel discreetly. We’ll leave tomorrow evening.” She dropped the papers next to her cot and made her way toward the makeshift stove to start up a fire. “Don’t stir up anything tomorrow. Come straight home after you get your money.”
When she glanced his way, her gaze was threatening.
“Yes, Mom,” he said.
When they first went on the run, they were able to stay in one place for months at a time–one place, they had even stayed for over a year. Recently, the moving seemed to be getting more and more frequent. They had been here for eighteen days.
It didn’t bother him much–maybe his mother was rubbing off on him. This place was unsettling, and Neil would likely feel less like a sitting duck if they just packed up their things and started running again. He fell asleep that night with that thought on his mind.
***
The next day was tense as usual. They skipped eating in the morning since they needed all their money and supplies for their upcoming travels, and his mother reminded him with her nails digging into his upper arm that he was only to work and come straight home today. He rubbed at the deep red crescents her nails had left as he trudged his way back, and he wasn’t sure whether it was in his head, but everything felt quieter than usual this morning.
Neil passed the same houses as usual–if there was more than one path to get from where he and his mother were staying to the old man’s house, he probably would have alternated between them. Over the nine days of going back and forth from work, he had figured out the morning and evening routines of most of the people he passed–one old lady who cooked eggs for two over a fire every morning, one young man who prepared tea. A few people went on runs or walks in the morning before the sun could rise to its peak and make the task unbearable. By every observation, everything was as it should have been. Except one thing.
“You can take the day off,” the old man said when Neil arrived.
Neil stared at him.
The old man stopped shuffling around for a few moments when he realized Neil hadn’t moved. “Go home, kid.”
“Why?” Neil asked. He needed the money, and he could only imagine the kind of wrath his mother would incur on him if he showed up in the afternoon empty-handed.
“I’ve got a visitor on the way,” he said.
Neil shuffled anxiously. Looking around, he could tell the old man had cleaned up for the occasion. The heaps of sawdust usually present around his workbenches were almost entirely gone, and his ongoing work-orders had been stowed away.
He wasn’t about to argue. The old man clearly had no intentions of dirtying up his place again when he had put so much work into cleaning it. And though it went against his instincts to ask for help, Neil thought it was worth asking, “Where do you think I can make a day’s worth of money?”
The old man crossed his arms and assessed Neil. Neil didn’t move until he said, “Start at the market. You’re lucky it’s Sunday.”
“Thank you,” Neil said. “Um. Good luck with your visitor.”
As Neil turned to walk away toward the direction of the market–he wasn’t sure exactly where that would be, but he figured heading toward the heart of the town was a good start–the old man spoke up. “Wait, kid.”
Neil waited expectantly.
“What’s your name?”
Neil’s jaw clenched. Something in Neil trusted the man, but having no history with him and no proof he wouldn’t be willing to give him up to the first person to come along asking, Neil stayed silent.
“Nameless, then,” the old man said. He stood from his bench and crossed over to Neil, who took a couple cautious steps back. Considering how much taller he was, he had to crouch to really look at Neil in the eyes. Neil took him in–the brown eyes, the fading spots on his aging skin, the white-tinged eyelashes. “My name’s Hugh.” He took something from his pocket, and it was just a sealed pouch that Neil couldn’t see through to the contents. Before he could even ask, the old man–Hugh–took Neil’s hand rather gently and folded his fingers over it.
Neil obeyed the silent command and slipped whatever it was into his pocket. He could investigate it later–whatever it was, it didn’t feel like it could be dangerous.
“I’m here when you need me,” Hugh said. A rare smile crossed his face, and he looked more tired than ever. Neil didn’t get a chance to say anything before Hugh retreated into his house and shut the door behind him.
The sun was already rising enough for the majority of people to be leaving their houses and heading, Neil assumed, to the market. Neil let his hand rest over the gift as he followed in the direction of the townspeople, trying not to think of what his mother would do if she found out he was changing plans so suddenly. The townspeople around him had their bags and baskets prepared for what Neil assumed was a pretty popular Sunday market, and as he approached the increasingly densely-placed buildings, he could kind of see why.
His mother had been here several times already for supplies during the day while Neil worked, while Neil had only been here once on one of their first days. It was different, though, when there were so many people and the market booths were set up in rows in front of the regular shops. Brightly colored banners hung from them, and stands consisting of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and even silly things like jewelry, tapestries, and blankets were arranged in neat shelves around their vendors. Their faces were bright, too–brighter than Neil had really seen anyone be in this town.
The woman at the fish stand smiled at him as he passed, and then so did the man at the meat stand, and the man at the stand with various bracelets and earrings. Neil smiled back because it was all he could do–he had no money on him, after all. He wasn’t even sure where to start when it came to asking for a one-day job here. Everything seemed so rehearsed and put-together that Neil felt as though he’d be more intrusive than helpful if he tried to do anything of the sort.
“Hey kid!” someone yelled from across the market.
Neil was so used to just being called kid by the old man that he turned instinctively thinking the call was meant for him, but he saw an old lady hailing a young man over to her stand. The guy wasn’t much older than Neil, and clearly much taller and buffer.
“Yes ma’am?” the guy said. He leaned down a little since he was tall enough for the cover of the stand to obscure his view of the old woman if he stood up straight.
The woman crooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Help me haul some boxes out here from my store and I’ll pay you a few bucks?”
The young glanced back as if a bit conflicted–but just as he was about to agree, Neil rushed over and blurted out, “I’ll help!” before the young man could even get a word in.
Startled, the woman stared at him for a second. “Help’s help,” she shrugged. “Follow me.”
Neil immediately followed her but noticed the guy she asked before was trailing them inside anyway. He was even taller than Neil thought, now that they were standing so close to one another.
“New around here?” the guy asked.
Neil barely managed to say yeah before the guy continued, “Eh, it wasn’t really a question, I grew up here so it’s easy to know when a new face pops up. You in need of some cash or are you just this eager to help? I’m Matt, by the way. Matt Boyd.”
Not exactly enthused to make conversation with a stranger, especially on the same day he was meant to be leaving for a new town, Neil was relieved when the woman began pointing to boxes for them to pick up. He began with some of the full crates of water jugs–the woman seemed to be running a drink stand. As he hauled boxes between the woman’s store and her stand just outside, Matt Boyd seemed to be hovering a little too much. It made Neil’s skin itch.
“Where are you from?” Matt had asked, to which Neil was silent. “Are you staying long? If you’re here for at least a few more days, I could show you around. My girlfriend would love to meet a new face, too–we all get antsy being stuck here for too long.”
“I do need cash,” Neil said suddenly. It was an answer to a question Matt had asked probably five minutes ago. He took a second to shake out his arms after setting the last box down at the woman’s stand before looking back to Matt.
“Well then,” Matt said smoothly. “I can help you out.”
Neil could count on one hand the number of times someone he didn’t know at all was willing to help him throughout his entire life. Why was it that in this town, of all places, people were suddenly willing to pay him for work and give him advice and help him when he wasn’t sure where to go or what to do? He couldn’t help but look suspiciously at Matt, as if someone so curious and with such a kind look on his face could possibly have any ulterior motives.
“Here you kids go,” the woman said. She was holding several bills of earth kingdom currency out to both of them–nothing much, just less than a cup of tea’s worth for each of them. They took their bills and gave their thanks as the woman waved them off with a smile. Matt handed him his own bills when they were a little further away, and only smiled innocently when Neil stared at him.
“I don’t need it, really,” Matt said. “Every Sunday she asks me to help her and I always tell her she doesn’t need to pay me.”
“Oh,” Neil said. So it had been a routine, and Neil had interrupted just as he felt he would. All of this–being in the market on their busiest day in the first place, drawing attention to himself, actually humoring Matt by listening to every word he said–his mother would be furious. He should go home and just tell her that the old man had sent him back for the day without money.
Matt leaned over to make eye contact with Neil as he chucked. “It’s alright!” Matt assured him. “She seemed happy to help you.”
Neil had no idea where they were walking to. He began to observe the market and its people when Matt continued, “I know several more people who are willing to pay something small for a little extra help. Just stick with me, huh?”
“Okay,” Neil said.
The next stand Matt took him to was a stand selling vegetables, where Neil helped with hauling a few full boxes of them nearly all the way down the market. Next was helping a woman with a brace around her torso and left wrist reach the upper shelves to stock her sculptures–for which Matt teased him, considering the woman was a little taller than Neil.
The woman had a lighthearted tone to her voice when she scolded Matt, “It’s about the mobility, not the height! Look at this, I can't even bend over without snapping something!”
Neil had no idea how the young woman could sound so joyful when it was obvious to him where she got her injuries. Fractured ribs and a fractured wrist don’t just happen while working on the kind of mini-sculptures she made for a living.
He made a couple more bills off that job, and two jobs later his pocket was nearing what little he would normally be paid for a day of woodwork at Hugh’s.
“Last job!” Matt said delightedly as they made their way toward the end of the market. “This guy’s kind of strange, don’t mind what he says too much. But he’s pretty well-off for a town like this so he’ll be willing to pay you if you help pin his flyers up around the market.”
Neil only shrugged.
They approached the stand Matt proclaimed as the last, and the stand itself was covered in the flyers. Three full boxes and one almost empty box of flyers were sitting around the stand, and some of the papers were simply being picked up by the wind out of the top of the boxes and fluttering away at people’s feet. None of them thought of this as out of the ordinary–Neil surmised that this was a regular occurrence at every Sunday market. The other townspeople simply ignored the flyers as they brushed past their legs or as they stepped on them while they wandered through the stands.
The man behind the stand was a spectacle by himself.
“Portraits of the Avatar!” the man boasted. His hair was long, a little scraggly, and white. His gestures were broad as he yelled, nearly whacking his hands and elbows several times into the poles of his market stand. “They’re completely free! The more people who know the face of the Avatar, the more likely we are to end the war!”
Neil thought that was quite a jump in logic. He was also under the impression that the current Avatar’s identity was completely unknown, ever since the death of the previous Avatar nineteen years ago. Neil didn’t care enough to protest, though–he was nearing enough money to appease his mother when he got home, and if the man was willing to pay him then so be it.
As Neil approached, he could see the posters more clearly–the portrait of the Avatar depicted a man with a shockingly similar visage to the stand-owner in front of him. Neil, for the first time in what he felt was many years, almost laughed out loud at it.
He looked up at Matt, and Matt just shrugged back.
“Hey! You mind if we help you out with hanging your fliers?”
The man turned to them and face lit up. “Young Matthew! You’re back! Did’ja finally change your mind about the Avatar’s role in this war?”
Matt grinned. “It’s the same as always! But come on, man, I tell you this every week. This guy’s too old to be the Avatar!” Matt gestured broadly to the flyers sitting in their posters, and looking down from the man’s face Neil could only find more resemblance between him and the flier-Avatar.
“Ay, with what evidence? The world is large and wide, we don’t know what goes on inside it. The Avatar looks like this for sure–I’ve met him.”
“What, when you look in the mirror every morning?” Neil said. He felt a smile creep onto his face as he perused the boxes.
“Ha!” the old man said. “You flatter me. I couldn’t claim to be this handsome!”
Neil looked back at the man, flat, and the only effect was for him to laugh even harder.
“Well, well, go on! I guess you’re here for money. I’ll pay you a couple bills if you manage to post the rest of this box.” He leaned down and produced a small bucket with a brush. “Here’s some paste to help you stick it! Here! Shoo!”
Neil took the bucket the man ushered into his hands while Matt picked up the box. The two of them wandered around with Neil swiping some sticky paste onto various surfaces followed by Matt slapping a flier onto it.
“Do you believe in the Avatar?” Matt suddenly asked. He had been chattering on about other things, but this question in particular stopped Neil short.
“Does the Avatar exist?” Neil said. “Of course.”
“No–I mean, do you think the Avatar could help stop the war?”
Matt had just slapped a poster onto a wall and was staring at it distantly. Considering it essentially depicted a portrait of the old man at the stand, Neil couldn’t help but find it a little comical.
“If the Avatar really is that guy back there, then probably not.”
Matt blinked and laughed. “I guess so, man. Looks like we’ll have to rely on ourselves.”
Neil looked up at him. “Are you a soldier?”
“No, no–I just meant, ourselves as a nation. Or nations. As nations.”
Neil moved on to what he deemed as an acceptable surface several feet down for a new flier. As he dipped his brush into the sticking paste, Matt continued, “I think I really do believe the Avatar could help us end the war, though.”
“The Avatar is fire nation,” Neil said. “The odds are they help the Moriyamas and not the rest of the world.”
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “The Avatar is meant to have the wisdom of hundreds of past lives. Do you really think they’d support a war like this?”
Neil, having seen the kind of destruction the new fire nation rule had wrought on the world in such a short time, didn’t exactly have enough faith in the spirits to hope for something like that. Even in this town, so far and far removed from the fire nation, people were clearly hiding their bending in fear of being reported to the fire nation scouts that prawled at their borders. Matt himself, mostly likely, was hiding it too–Neil could almost feel it somehow. If the Avatar was really against the war, wouldn’t the fire nation already have put a target on their back for the world to see?
Neil kept silent in answer. He wasn’t sure.
“Hey,” Matt said on their way back to the stand. He was holding the now-empty box loosely in his fingertips, swinging it back and forth along with his arms as he walked. “Come by tomorrow and I can introduce you to Dan? She’d love to meet you. Or we could meet at the river? I swear I saw you there the other day.”
“Dan doesn’t know I exist,” Neil said.
“She will! And she’ll want to meet you!”
Matt was so goddamn friendly that it hurt. A couple hours on his very last day in this town, and Neil already felt regret at the fact that he was probably never going to see Matt again.
“Yeah,” Neil said, because the thought of what his mother would do if she found out he’d implied that kind of thing to a complete stranger stopped him from telling Matt he wouldn’t be able to go. “Sounds nice.”
“I’ll see you at the river tomorrow! I have to help my mom out with her shop, so we should all meet when the sun is starting to set. Okay?”
Neil, unable to say anything, just nodded. The flier man interrupted them with a shout of excitement and Neil looked up to see him waving a handful of money at them. Matt gestured for the man to just give it all to Neil, and before Neil could do much else Matt was hopping off down toward the market entrance, winking at Neil when he caught Neil staring as he left.
He closed his eyes and clutched at the money. This–this was nothing different from what he’d done probably a hundred times before. Pick up and move without leaving a trace–nobody in this town even knew his name, fake or otherwise. Matt would forget him quickly, and so would old man Hugh. The only constant in his life was his mother.
Neil walked back slowly, not wanting to be suspiciously early for a second day in a row. He wondered if his mother knew they couldn’t stay here long, considering neither of them had come up with a fake name to live under for their duration. When he was younger, he could stay somewhere long enough to become completely fluent in the language of a new nation and to blend in perfectly with its children. Their nineteen days here were nothing in comparison–Neil barely had time to get used to their particular earth kingdom dialect.
Something cold settled over him when he realized his mother had not even tried to blend in here. Not once–not by insisting Neil study the dialect or by insisting he dye his hair a similar color to what the majority of the locals had. Not by sending Neil to school or to a job that normal teenagers would work. He wondered what on earth had kept her from doing so this time, and what on earth kept Neil from questioning it until now–
A scream came from up ahead.
Neil recognized the voice immediately and broke into a sprint. His inner flame burned bright for the first time in weeks, at the ready for the anticipated fight.
The shack he and his mother had taken to approached much too slowly from around the corner, and he could immediately recognize his father’s henchmen standing outside in wait. Neil’s heart pounded in his chest and his hands curled into fists as he ran, and when the henchmen spotted him they promptly stood their ground and settled into firebending stances.
He hadn’t met them in years. He hoped they hadn’t done much improving like Neil had.
Once he got close enough for their flames to meet, Neil ducked the first attack and deflected the second with a wave of his hand. Henchman Two’s eyes were furious at the sudden ease with which Neil could dodge them, and his bending became more aggressive as they went on. Neil got close enough to kick Henchman One in the chest and while he stumbled back, wheezing, Neil turned and, feet planted, swiped his arm through the air with his fingers splayed to deflect and then steal the flame of Henchman Two. Chest heaving, he grew the flame and sent it back stronger. The henchman took his own flame to his face and Neil, relentless, gathered another flame to send him flying backwards in pain.
Just as Henchman One had stood again and gathered his flame to attack, Neil turned and kicked him again in the chest. As he stumbled back again, Neil threw another flame for good measure. Both of them were finally on the floor and Neil wasted no time in wrenching open the door to get inside to his mother–his mother, who was bleeding on the floor with Neil’s father standing over her.
Lola laughed wildly when she spotted him, and DiMaccio was nowhere to be seen.
“Nathaniel,” Nathan Wesninski said. His voice was low and it brought Neil immediately back to being a child barely into gradeschool and constantly under his father’s knife.
They were across the room from each other. Neil could run. He could run but his mother was right there and blood was already beginning to pool around her chest on the floor. Mary would have him bruised for weeks for a decision like this, but despite everything his mother had beat into his head about self-preservation and trust, he couldn’t leave her to die like this.
Nathan Wesninski gazed coolly through the window. “You finally learned to bend.”
Neil’s throat was completely closed. Lola began to approach him and he was too afraid to think of running now. Her nails raked down his upper arm and then back up to his neck, where she gripped at it until he felt his nails pierce the skin near his carotid. Neil didn’t look her in the eyes, but he could tell her grin was as feral as ever. Coldness settled in his veins as he realized he had just trapped himself. He couldn’t tell from here if his mother was still breathing.
Nathan stepped over his mother’s body to approach him. The blood squelched underneath his heavy boots and left footprints in their wake. Neil desperately tried to tell whether his mother was still breathing, but he was too shaky from the fear of his father approaching him like a predator to be able to observe anything. Blood rushed in his ears.
“Look at me,” Nathan ordered.
Neil looked up.
Nathan settled a hand on his shoulder in a gross approximation of what could have been a fatherly gesture. Neil could feel Lola’s fingernails leave his skin as she stepped back to give him space, and out of the corner of his eyes Neil swore she raised her hand to her own lips to lick at the blood left on them. He couldn’t look away from his father, after all. He was given orders.
Nathan’s hand traveled up to his neck, too. His gaze, malicious, never left Neil’s as he said, “I would have killed you at birth if I knew what you were.”
Neil had no fucking clue what he meant. He was shivering.
“Instead,” Nathan said, and he grabbed at Neil’s hair and wrenched his head back painfully before continuing, “I’ll skin you alive for it.”
Suddenly, Neil’s mother gave a wheeze from the floor, and something desperate and terrified in Neil broke. He felt the rage boil from within, and before he knew it, both his father and Lola were tossed through their wall and straight outside–not a single flame in sight.
Without a second to think, Neil rushed forward while his father and Lola recovered from both their pain and disbelief. Neil picked up his mother and rushed out front to drape his mother over one of his father’s horses and wasted no time in mounting the horse himself. He spurred it forward and chanced only a brief glance back as they left to see his father just standing there–and Neil thought it was almost worse that Nathan had given up so easily this time rather than chasing after them. His breath came quicker the farther they got away, and after what felt like hours Neil finally stopped somewhere concealed enough for his to lie his mother down for treatment, but–
He had no supplies. He couldn’t do anything here but stop the bleeding with his own hands, his own hands which had just–
“Av…Avatar…” his mother wheezed out. Her eyes were almost completely closed now, her skin pale and sallow from the blood loss. A sheen of sweat had settled over her and Neil almost sobbed at the sight of it–his mother, who he couldn’t save, who had kept his safe for all these years and who he was just going to let die in his arms like this–
“You’re…Avatar…” Mary said.
“Mom,” he said. “Mom, I don’t care. Just please–please just–tell me what to do. Please stay alive.” He fumbled desperately to stop the bleeding, but even the bleeding had seemed to begin to slow by itself–and no, that couldn’t be fucking right, because that meant his mom’s heart was beating slower and slower–
“Stay…al–alive,” she breathed. Her eyes were closed and her breaths were shallow enough that Neil could barely hear them. “Swear it.”
Neil was beginning to feel numb as the tears fell down his face. Her voice had gained strength for the ask of a promise. Neil had never been one to make promises and she knew it–so he stopped his fumbling at last and made one last promise to his mother. “I swear.”
He didn’t even know if she was still alive to hear it. She had stilled her movement completely.