#firebender levi

The scene wasn’t one of ice and water, of snow turned to ash falling from the sky.  This wasn’t the north or the south pole--it was a colony, located on the banks of the ocean, a prosperous trading town of people with lineages from both the northern and southern Water Tribes.  A water network spiderwebbed through the town strategically for message and parcel sending as well as ease of access to water, and further still in order to help irrigate the fields outside of and around the town.  At the moment, those channels weren’t being used to help in daily tasks--they were being used to feed into the defense of the villagers against the Fire Nation raid.

If the Fire Nation had their way today, those channels would probably disappear from a sudden lack of use.  If there were no waterbenders to utilize the channels to their fullest capacity, and to keep the channels clean, the town would most likely switch to other means that didn’t depend on waterbending.

Amidst the sudden waves and swirls of water and ice through the air, there were blasts of fire, screams from the normal citizens and chaos all around.  Buildings were on fire--occasional put out by a waterbender that could spend a split second to do so, which wasn’t often.  Any waterbender that appeared in the open was quickly surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers to subdue and capture, or to execute, the individual.  It was almost systematic how they flushed out the waterbenders, forcing them to step out into the open to defend themselves or the people around them, just to descend upon them in a concentrated show of force and drag them away.

Of course, that’s how it normally was supposed to go.  Something had changed recently, though he didn’t know what caused it, and there were far more executions than captures, like they were trying to carry out another genocide.  As if the extinction of the Air Nomads wasn’t enough, they were going after waterbenders now, too?

His task was not to burn down the village, or to necessarily fight against the waterbenders.  He did when he was faced with one, but for the most part he kept moving, going from house to house to carry out the task he’d actually been given.  His job was to round up any water benders or potential water benders that weren’t blatantly fighting, to catch any of the water benders that might slip through the cracks.  Normally they had him at the front and fighting in the worst of it, but recently, it seemed even his commanding officers could feel how close to his breaking point he was.

Levi had been on a few of these raids by now, and each time they left a sour taste in his mouth.  When he’d joined the military, as was expected of firebending boys in the Fire Nation, especially ones they’d picked off the street that didn’t have a wealthy family of any kind of position to protect their autonomy, this was not what he’d expected to be doing, even with his already low standards and reluctance to even be here.  His bitterness towards the Fire Nation and especially its military was growing, the pure indoctrination of the people around him disturbing.

And now, witnessing what was being done to the waterbenders was sickening.  He couldn’t imagine this happening to his own people, yet here they were, wiping out an entire integral part of their culture.  He wasn’t fond of where he came from, but that didn’t mean he wanted it wiped out, or an entire part of the culture that he belonged to eradicate so brutally like this.  Seeing it done to the waterbenders…

Again, even his commanders seemed to know he was just about at his breaking point.  Much more of this, and he’d be trying to desert.  He’d already come up with a few escape planes, all he needed was an opportunity...and the final push to take the risk.

Tuning out the chaos around him, Levi continued his check from door to door of the houses, looking for people that were hiding, particularly for anyone that ended up waterbending at him, or someone that held themselves like a bender.  If he found a bender, he would drag them out and hand them off to one of his superiors that was trailing not far behind keeping any fleeing benders from slipping past to the town’s outskirts.  If there was no bender inside the house, he’d mark the door with a fire blast and keep going.

The routine continued, as grueling and sickening as ever, Levi feeling like every step brought him closer to claiming he saw a bender dash off to the fields and taking off by himself, only to keep running until it was all behind him.  He opened the door to another house, stepped inside…

...and was immediately accosted by a splash of water to the face, knocking his helmet off but hardly doing much else.  He went on the defensive for a split second off a reflex, ready for a brawl in case it had been a warning shot, before he took in the full picture in front of him.

It was a girl, a couple years younger than him.  Old enough to have started training, but too young to have accomplished much unless she was a prodigy or forced by circumstance like he had been.  She was coming out of the ending stance of the move she’d just used to splash him, moving like she was getting ready to attack again if she needed to.  Her eyes were full of fear, but they were determined, and that wasn’t stopping her from attacking with what little she knew.

Behind the girl, there was an older woman, the mother most likely, reaching out with a hand on the girl’s arm as if to try and stop her, far more unbridled fear in the woman’s eyes as she realized the weight of what her daughter had just done, revealing herself like that.  In the woman’s other arm was a young boy, his head turned inwards into her chest so he couldn’t see what was happening.  Despite the mother’s insistence, the girl was standing squarely in front of them, trying to protect her family with the few waterbending moves she must have been taught.

Levi locked eyes with the girl, staring intently at her and feeling everything stop for a single moment, felt himself staring down at the edge he’d just about fallen over, felt like everything was holding its breath to see what he would do.

“Lieutenant!  What’s going on in there?  Is there anyone inside?” came the impatient voice of his superior from outside.

If he acted right now, he could brush off the delay as searching the hiding places before he left.

Still holding the little girl’s eyes, Levi picked up his helmet, seeing her tense and the puddle of water that was on the floor now from her first attack start to rise.

“It’s empty!” he called back, and the water fell back to the ground, mother and daughter looking at him with shocked, wide eyes as he quickly dried off his helmet, put it back on to hide the water on his face, and pointed towards the baskets in the back corner that would be much better hiding places, especially if they put cloth or something similar over their heads.

He turned and left the house without even looking to see if they’d accepted his suggestion of a better hiding place, walking out the front door at a brisk pace and shutting it firmly behind him.  With a strong punch towards the wooden surface, he left a blackened scorch mark on the door before he moved on to the next one.

He couldn’t do that for everyone, his superiors would catch on if he didn’t find anyone, but...he had reached his breaking point.

No more.

“Lieutenant, aren’t you supposed to be on watch next?  What are you still doing here?”

Levi straightened from where he’d been enjoying the last of his tea, setting the saucer and cup aside with a cool look towards the one who’d shouted at him.

“Finishing up.  I’ll be there before the shift change,” Levi returned flatly, watching the one who’d called him out slink away under his gaze.

He wasn’t in a hurry to get to his post for the watch around camp.  The last thing he should be, tonight of all nights, was clearly in a hurry or in any way eager to get to his watch along the perimeter of the camp.

His tea finished, and the man who’d called him out sulking away, Levi put his helmet and face mask back into place, heading towards the section of the camp perimeter he was supposed to be stationed at tonight for the watch.  His pace was casual and relaxed, and when he reached the point he was to be watching, he did in fact stand there, staring off into the trees around them, eyes narrowed, looking for danger…

...watching people slowly trickle into their tents to sleep...glancing around to see less and less people paying attention to him, sucked into their own watches or trying to hurriedly finish their tasks for the night so that they could turn in…

He waited a few more minutes, listening to the natural sounds of the forest around them...and when he was certain no one was looking at him, he simply walked right into the trees.

He didn’t run, he didn’t want to draw attention.  He just slowly and quietly slipped into the cover of the trees.  As soon as he knew he would be hidden by the brush and the darkness of the forest, he started peeling off the uniform in swaths, dropping the face mask, the helmet, the exaggerated pauldrons, all of it came off him piece by piece until he was in casual fire nation clothes he wore underneath.

Able to move much stealthier in the dark now, and aware that it wouldn’t take long for someone to notice one of their watchmen was missing, and even less time to realize it had been the one they were already watching for some kind of act of defiance, Levi moved quickly to get what he needed and start putting distance between himself and the camp.

Back along the main road they’d traveled to find this clearing that would fit their camp, Levi had tossed a pack with supplies he’d been carrying and had mixed in with the other supplies he’d been in charge of so it wouldn’t look out of place.  Tossing it into the woods gave him the chance to come back to that same place and re-find the bag, grabbing it and then simply running, now that he was far enough from camp he felt he could afford the little bit of extra noise in favor of putting more distance between himself and the Fire Nation Army.

He had his plan, he knew what he needed to do in order to blend in, and he already had the best place to lie low once the army moved on from this particular area.

And not once did he look back.

Next Chapter---->