It’s strange how the heat can play with your mind. 

It makes fleeting images flicker across your eyes, vision blurred by the waves of fever emanating from the ground like a contagious sickness, poisoning your reality. 

The silhouettes of dead trees scattered along the golden horizon morph into figures resembling moving spirits, shifting and swaying in the waves radiating from the dust. Here, they constitute modern folklore, their names unspoken yet painted in the whispers of children after dark. The fields they stand in have laid untouched for thirty-seven years, smouldering still.

In their ashes, you can see the clouds of black smoke. Weeping with tar and oozing with a stench so palpable it threatens to empty your already-depleted stomach, it spreads across a pine-clad land, devouring every organism in its path and leaving behind an all-consuming sinkhole.

As though vibrating against your eyes, the air seems to push into you, submerging you in pressurised heat. Up here, from the modest room that constitutes your current lodging, your view extends all the way to the edge of the town; past the fields, to the ascent where the ground disappears and meets the azure.

You’ve been feeling faint lately. You’d be forgiven for attributing your ailment to the persisting climate, but this doesn’t feel like the bouts of sunstroke you used to endure as a child. In an effort to soothe your nausea, your subconscious conjures phantom scents of aloe vera jelly and boiled ginger, but it only makes your stomach turn. 

Nonetheless, the world does not stop on your behalf, and you have errands to run at the market before it is time to open. The metal hook that locks the panels in front of your window creaks shrilly as it slips into its loop, and the floorboards groan as you make your descent to the lower level. Everything feels slow today. Tired, unmoving, and reluctant. The seven tables stationed throughout the room stand undisrupted from where you left them yesterday evening, and yet they have an unnervingly strong presence in the quiet room, as though the ghosts of their occupants have decided to linger. Delicate cloths, carefully pressed and uniformly straightened, line the heavy wooden surfaces. You can’t put your finger on it, but something about them comforts you; like a tapestry hung straight and even against a wall. 

The sweltering air hits your face like a fur swung against your head with the force of the opening door. It stings in your nose, forcing your eyes shut as you shift the handle of your woven basket from your hands to the crook of your elbow. The coarse reeds chafe against your bare skin, dry and golden as the sand and dust that coats the stone under your feet. 

If anyone asked, you would be convinced you eat, sleep, and breathe that dust. Morning, noon, and night. It weighs heavily in the air. Invasive. Foreign. Sometimes, on days like today, you’re reminded of your mother. Gentle fingertips through hair, smell of cured fish in the air, and the sun beating down on your skin. 

Not like here, not this kind of heat. A softer heat. The type that disappears temporarily when you step into the shade. 

Not like here, where there is no shade to step into because the heat doesn’t come from the sun, it comes from the earth; pounding. 

The walk down to Market Square is heavier than usual; your lungs feel small and weak, your mouth feels dry, and your head throbs in tune with your footsteps. It seems, however, as though you’re alone in being bothered by the climate. Foot traffic in town has been unaffected. If anything, it seems even busier than usual. You’re not exactly certain how long it takes migrants to acclimate to their new settlements, but you suppose it must be longer than five moons, seeing as you’re not even remotely close to operating at your usual pace. 

Fortunately, you don’t attract any particular attention. So many migrants have settled on the merchant island of Andaar over the course of the past one hundred and seventy years that traditional fire nation attire is only ever really worn by the official guards who patrol the town. Even those patrolling the coast wear different uniforms to indicate their rank. 

As for your uncomfortable demeanour, people have more important things to care about. Food is scarce. Despite being a regional hub for trade, the benefits of these practices are reserved for a few. Goods flow through the ports, but they never stay for long. 

By the time you return to your humble abode, your skin is layered with dust. There is no water for a wash. So, you begin to organise your purchases of the day into the brown clay pots lined along the wall, on the table that serves as a counter at the far end of the room. The scents of their contents are faint and weak, barely lingering on your fingertips as you strip the dried stems of their needles and leaves. 

Then, you wait.

Many arbitrary decisions led to you finding yourself here, in a small tea shop in the Western quadrant of a Fire Nation merchant island, waiting for your first customer of the day. You don’t earn a profit; any income goes directly to your landlord. In turn, you receive accommodation and a small allowance.

You find yourself here, hoping it will be the last place they look.

It’s days like this that make you feel nauseous. The profound vista of the setting sun devours you, reminding you of your inherent insignificance. The beauty of its colours taunts you, teasing you with temporary luxuries that evaporate with sundown.

Now, when you are at your lowest, when you feel like you’re in the place farthest from anything and everything you know, the spirits strike you with yet another bolt of humiliation. 

There is a woman. At least thirty summers old. She sits against the wall outside the tea shop, selling snails. She wakes at three in the morning, every morning, wraps her daughter to her chest, and walks the distance to the docks in time for the first shipment to come in. All she gets are scraps; the docks are import/export, nothing ever fully lands, but there is always a loophole for those who keep their eyes open. They’re sloppy when they load the nets off the boats for repackaging; the odd snail slips from the grasp of the net and falls with a gentle plop into the shoreline. And she sits against the wall until dusk, selling steamed snails to the officers. They’re the only people who can afford the luxury. 

You catch slight glimpses of her throughout the day while you work. The way she holds her babe to her chest, lips moving in silent whispers… It strikes a pang within you. 

Not because you have any desire for a child. That is a luxury you certainly cannot afford. Nevertheless, you can’t help but envy the company she must have, sitting outside those long hours. You don’t think you’ll be able to get away with muttering to your cups and pots under your breath for much longer. One of your customers will undoubtedly pick up on it sooner or later, and you’d rather it be later than sooner. 

People don’t talk much here. You can’t even begin to recall the last time you had an ordinary conversation with someone. People don’t engage in small talk, or find any excuse to utter any words that aren’t strictly necessary. Your childlike urge for recognition, your desire for attention sits deep in your stomach like a pit, but it’s old now. Old and worn down.

At this stage, your suspicion for anyone who lays eyes on you is excruciating. Occasionally, a heavy gaze will follow you as you manoeuver the shop, though it never lingers for too long. Despite its temporary presence, it sparks nausea.

No, people don’t talk much here. And yet, you step one toe out of line, and they’ll all know about it. 

Even standing here, lingering at the docks as you stare out at the waterfront, is risky. You have no business standing here. Men who lug nets and crates and sacks don’t appreciate you standing in their way. Their skin lies coated with sweat and grime, caked with dust that never seems to settle. From the sun breaks in the sky in the morning till it slips below the horizon at night, they work. 

Part of you has no desire to stand here, either. The odour of decomposing sea creatures hangs as a heavy stench in the air, the smoke from the cast iron fire pits stationed along the coastline seeping into your lungs as you begin to feel drowsy. 

But fate deals you yet another blow of humiliation as you stare into the murky, grey water. 

There’s a spirit in folklore, a spirit which takes the form of a young woman of extraordinary beauty. Everything she touches, everything around her, shines like a summer’s day. Young men will scarf down anything, creatures that creep, slither, and crawl, fruits infested with rot, as though they were at the Emperor’s great banquet hall. With hijacked eyes, they are led into the deepest crevices of the wilderness, never to return. 

You feel her hanging over you, slipping the stained glass over your lids as you stare into the water. It’s opaque; a dark, lifeless water that looks as though it poisons whatever it touches, but to you? To you, the waves look a crystal green. If you concentrate, you can just about see the lion crabs scuttling along the white sand below. Your skin itches with the urge to dip your toes in the water, to feel the cool waves extract your fever like a syringe.

You stand less than an arm's length away from the edge, so unfathomably close to the waves below, and yet, for all the good it does you, you might as well be sitting in your quarters, looking out of your window. It taunts you, poised and pretty in your stained glass lenses, knowing you will come this close and no farther. 

Maybe things are different on the other side of the island, beyond the deep, tangled forest and the deserted plains. Maybe it’s the soot, the same chalk that stains your skin a dark black, that poisons the water that lures you to this part of the town at this late hour.

Nevertheless, the nausea that floods you in waves is a sickeningly bitter invasion of the brief, ever-so-small relief you find in the sea air that works as a cool contrast to the humidity of the shop. You feel as though your skin may never learn to breathe again.

“Hey, lady.”

The words ring in your mind with such profundity that you’re convinced you imagined them. You’ve become so estranged that the thought that someone might be talking to you does not even cross your mind until they speak again. 

“Hey!”

He’s right behind you, now. Whoever he is. 

When you turn, you see the owner of the voice; a man with dark features, shoulders broad and strong from heavy lifting. He carries timber across his shoulder, one arm wrapped around the load to steady it. He doesn’t look happy, though that doesn’t come as a surprise. 

“Get going.”

His voice is gruff, yet oddly quiet. You can tell by the way he’s positioned that you’re not on his route; he’s taken a detour to speak with you. Judging by the way he continues to glance over his shoulder, you assume he’s not supposed to. 

“The lumber yard is that way,” you say bluntly, gesturing apathetically to your right. 

You turn away from him again, and cast your gaze back to the water. 

“It’s getting late,” he says plainly. “You’re in the way.”

He must have taken a step closer. In the interest of not placing yourself in a position where you’d be easy to knock, you turn to face him fully. You catch him glancing over his shoulder again, this time in the direction of two men who stand by one of the huts further inland. Their features are poorly illuminated, though they don’t strike you as anything out of the ordinary. One of the men has a sack almost the size of his own body slung across his shoulders, his hands resting firmly either side. The other holds a great iron hook with three razor-sharp prongs, attached to a thick and heavy chain. The man with the hook turns it over in his hands, as though with muscle memory. It’s longer than his forearm and as thick as the horn of a ram, but he carries it as though it weighs less than a feather. Their eyes are fixed to the west, almost unmoving. 

“Listen,” he speaks again, stepping even closer. You quell the urge to step backwards just in time to remember how close you are to the water’s edge. “You don’t want to be here when the sun sets. Not tonight.”

You draw yourself up until the two of you are almost even in height, fixing him with a stare designed to conceal anything he might be looking for. Although, you must admit, his eyes don’t appear to be anything less than sober. 

“Hm.”

It’s amusing, how the sun sets. In the beginning, when it starts, you cannot imagine that the light might seep from the day. You cannot even picture what it looks like. Then it goes on, gradually, painting deep, entrancing colours and shapes in the heavens that seem to go on forever. 

And suddenly, in an instant, it’s all gone. And when you take your eyes off the man in front of you for a split moment and dart your eyes in the direction of the horizon, you can see that the point of blindness is almost upon you. 

But with this blindness comes the unmistakeable feeling that something is wrong. 

“I suggest,” the man says, voice low, “you get going.”

You can’t tell quite yet how you feel about how his eyes linger heavily on you as you leave. 

The scrapes on your knees and shins burn almost as hot as the petulant rage that fills you as you all but stomp back to your quarters. It wasn’t until you reached the brush, the hard, prickly remains of whatever godawful shrubs used to grow before the air became poisoned, that you began to seethe with a childish fury.

Your skin prickles with the flush of an odd mixture of guilt, regret, embarrassment, and something you can only describe as… fear. With your head in the clouds, shrouded by rainbow illusions, he took you by surprise. Like a child, told off for stepping out of your lane. It’s a foolish thing to get aggravated over, you know this, but you’ve never been known for your balanced temper. 

Nevertheless, the interaction has your blood boiling. So much so that you stomp through the bristles without a second of thought, ignoring the way their shards tear at your bare skin. Anger is an excellent anaesthetic; it isn’t until you lie down on your makeshift mattress that you feel the throbbing begin.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the throbbing in your legs is matched in pace to the beating of your heart, but rather than remaining an inconvenient nuisance, it amplifies the anxiety bubbling under your skin like an echo. As you stare into the wooden beams that cross the ceiling, you realise with a start that it’s the first time anyone’s spoken to you outside of marketplace trades and orders of tea in five whole moons. You’ve become so isolated from social interaction that the slightest confrontation has you drawing your breath as though you have to force it through a punctured hole in your lung.

Curse the man from the docks. You can’t even fully remember his face; his features shrouded by the setting sun and the heavy soot and your own lack of attention to the present. That proves no obstacle for your mind, though, as it begins to transcribe page upon page of insult to hurl at him.

But they don’t do confrontation here, and judging by the quick thuds you can feel against your flesh as you press your palm under your breast, you should be grateful. So – after much deliberation and progression through the five stages of grief – you allow the slumber that’s been blossoming in your chest to consume you. 

It tingles. Burns, might be a more appropriate way to describe it. Business has been so quiet this morning that it leaves you little to be distracted by. You made the mistake of subconsciously rubbing your calves together as you were waiting for your first customer, and the enraged throbbing still has yet to subside. 

You afford yourself a deep inhale of the blend you’ve gathered together, picking up the pestle and beginning to grind. It’s borderline painful, handling the scarce commodity without being able to spare a single cup. The tea you serve is weak as it is, and if you want to avoid losing what little clientele you have, you have no choice but to let your mouth water. 

Now that you’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the events of last night, you find yourself a bit on edge. Something in the air has shifted. The anxiety sowed with his confrontation has bubbled with ease under your skin, keeping your heart rate up and your palms sweaty. The fact that you were perceived, that he came up and spoke to you, has triggered an anxiety even deeper than you originally thought existed. 

Very simply, your bubble has burst. 

Because it’s not just him, you think, as you add the powdered leaves and herbs to the water and mix slowly. It’s not just him. With your increased wariness, you decided against leaving the house this morning. Strictly speaking, you don’t need to run errands until tomorrow, and as you sat at one of the few, pristine tables in your keep, you began to take note of the number of patrols outside your door. 

Just in the few moons that you’ve been here, they have increased five-fold.

The air feels heavy with tension, and you feel the fool who only just noticed. It has been a steady development, and had you been more preoccupied with observing rather than just keeping your head down, you might have avoided an unpleasant truth.

No use wallowing in should-have’s and would-have’s now.

You remember his words from yesterday - 

“You don’t want to be here when the sun sets. Not tonight.”

What did he mean, not tonight? What was happening, ‘tonight’?

Days trickle by, and you feel the pressing weight of your curiosity growing steadily. Things in the town remain largely unchanged, but you feel a desire to learn more. What you’d be learning more about, you cannot possibly say. 

But someone else can.

Though, no matter how many times you walk past the docklands on your errands, you never catch a glimpse of him. You even make up excuses, detours you cannot afford to take, just for the opportunity to spot him because at this point – at this point, your curiosity has exceeded your anger. You pass by, at hours outside your ordinary schedule, but still, he eludes you. 

And with this little to do, outside of running your errands and working the shop, you become fixated.

You must be stupid. 

Why else would you repeatedly attempt to prod at the open wounds on your legs? They haven’t begun to cool yet, still red and itchy, skin swollen and tender and over-sensitive. It becomes one of those relatively mild inconveniences that is just mild and just inconvenient enough to fill you with pettiness. Bested, by your own foolishness. Your own damnable petulance, that led you to trample through the brush like a child with a tantrum rather than walk the extra stone’s throw around the hill. The fact that the prodding hurts causes greater damage to your pride than it does to the cuts.

With a heavy sigh, you pick up the crisp, thin piece of parchment you haphazardly tossed on the tabletop a few minutes ago with your fingertips and bring it to your eyes again. 

           “Payments outstanding. 

           Failure to provide adequate payment will result in eviction. 

           ~ Lim Goro”

You sigh again, folding the sheet in half and pressing the crease meticulously. It’s no fault of yours that prices have increased; if people do not have wealth to spend, you cannot earn what you ordinarily would. It’s more of an incentive for you to earn him more gold rather than a legitimate threat of eviction, but your landlord is not beyond replacing you with someone else. There are plenty of potential replacements, after all. 

You look upon the empty tables in front of you with a blank stare. There are no more chores for you to do, no more preparations to tend to, nothing to do except sit here and listen to the sound of your own sighs. 

The day slips by, the sun climbing high, high, high in the sky until it hangs directly over you, glaring. So far, you have had a total of one, singular customer. The old man had taken one sip from his cup, looked you up and down, grimaced, and left, leaving a few pieces of copper coin behind on the tabletop. Already, you’re formulating plans for movement. Today has been ridiculously slow, and your newfound anxiety has you wondering whether this is now likely to become the norm. You are in no mood to find yourself evicted, you know you will not find alternative employment anywhere on this godforsaken island. 

You will have to travel on. Which isn’t a problem in itself, more of a mild inconvenience at this stage. It’s just tiring. And you’re already tired. The old man’s presence lingers uneasily at the table despite his having left hours ago, taunting you as you shift your weight from foot to foot. You grow restless in your boredom, picking at threads and scratching your nail against the counter’s rugged surface. Maybe you should just call time of death, move on at your own leisure and on your own terms. Get yourself the hell out of here, away from all these people, and away from whatever’s brewing on the shipyard. 

Or maybe you’ve been too hasty. Because there, just outside your front door, is not the man you’re looking for – but his friend. He hasn’t donned his hook today, instead opting for a burlap sack slung across his shoulder. The sleeveless tunic he’s wearing cuts off at the corner of his shoulder, the light blue textile contrasting the deep, golden hue of his skin. You almost didn’t recognise him. You have only seen him from a distance, after all.

Your hands still as you watch. He tosses something in the air with his left hand, muscles flexing dangerously in the sunlight. Your eyes fixate on the small object as it leaps and sinks in the air. He’s talking to someone, someone out of your line of sight. His jaw flexes as he grins at his companion, tossing the object in their direction. Then, he raises his hand in farewell and shifts the sack farther up on his shoulder, before turning and heading down the street. Your eyes linger on the phantom of his presence, frozen in thought. 

And you do something you ordinarily never would, but which you have found yourself doing increasingly as of late: you make a split second decision. Tossing the rag in your hands haphazardly on the counter behind you, you bolt the front door shut, and begin to follow him.

He turns left, leading you onto the path that ends at market square. It’s a long, slack street on a distinct decline, passing through the abodes of merchants who can afford the steep price of permanent establishments. The path is packed with people and the dust swirls heavily in the air from endless heels kicking up sand. Fortunately for you, he’s taller than most; deep, dark brown hair visible over the crowd. You weave through the mass as best you can, but his strides are longer than yours and somehow someone manages to get in your way with every step you take. 

Your shoulders knock into passersby as you shuffle through the crowd, eyes not finding much sympathy for the endless people who come at you with baskets, sacks, carcasses, and boughs. Your heartbeat thrums under your skin. There are no back streets or paths diverging from this road; it leads directly to the marketplace, so you don’t run the risk of losing him. 

That is, until you reach the end of the road. Any satisfaction you felt at having kept him within sight is immediately quashed by the throng that greets you at the square. You almost trip over your feet as you lurch to follow him, senses working overtime to process the pungent odour filling the air. 

The complete absence of customers at your shop seems less strange, now; men and women with painted faces twist and contort themselves in rhythmic waves across the sands that form the outskirts of the square, near the mouth of the Southern quadrant. They’ve attracted quite a crowd, stunting the masses that charge towards the market stalls on their daily errands. There’s a commotion to your right; from the corner of your eye you see the black spears with glinting, golden tips bobbing above the heads of the crowd, manoeuvring determinedly southwards. 

You’ve lost him. How have you lost him? You only looked away for a moment. You squeeze your way between stalls, eyes darting around frantically. Finally, you spot him at the seaweed merchant’s, talking to the middle-aged woman who sits cross-legged by the small stack of baskets. Retreating a couple steps to maintain some distance between you, you watch as he passes her a couple of copper coins. She lifts the lid covering the largest of the woven baskets, a small smile on her lips. Now that you’re standing closer to him than ever before, you can understand why. He is, beyond all doubt, a very pleasant-looking man. His smile is wide, eyes crinkled, and you find yourself staring at him as though-

Oof. 

The sharp yells at your ear echo in your head for a moment before you register the pain in your shoulder. With wide eyes, you squat to recover the dry strips of bark that have spilled from the man’s hamper. Uttering quiet, yet firm apologies, hands moving hurriedly to save the strips from being trodden on, you feel your heart begin to race. He continues to berate you, voice nasal and high-pitched. 

You stand to give your knees a rest and you’ve lost him. The man’s carping follows you as you begin to weave through the crowd in the direction of the seaweed merchant. Waving the man behind you away with an unsympathetic grimace, you move to stand directly in front of the stand. The woman eyes you unimpressed; you’ve practically stormed into an exchange between her and another customer, chest heaving and eyes wide. 

Quickly, quickly, you pull away and begin to skirt the masses. You catch sight of him after a short while, near the mouth of the Eastern quadrant, reaching into the sack that used to hang off his shoulder. He hands some of its contents to an older man smoking a pipe who sits on a wooden pail near the mouth’s gate; a tall thing made of sand-coloured stone with the Emperor’s emblem carved into its top. A big, bronze gong hangs suspended from the head. The old man hands him something in return, though from this distance, you can’t see what it is. 

With hurried feet, almost tripping over yourself, you move to the gate only to find him gone. You’re on the outskirts of the crowd, now, caught in the debris that circles the swarm. Squinting, you take a step back. Your eyes scan a million faces, searching for distinct braids, but you come up dry. With a heavy sigh, you move around the wall, past the gate. There’s a bit of shade there, sweet, sweet shade, though it has no affect against the heat. Instead, it feeds your imagination. Memories of cool waves and sugary fruits, sunlight that sparkles against the green ocean, salt stinging in your nose and peace pumping through your veins.

You heart catches in your throat as a firm hand latches harshly onto your shoulder and pulls you backwards. You stumble, tripping in the sand. Before you can put your feet back under you, the same firm hand grabs your arm and hauls you up, up, up, into one of the dim alleyways off the main street. 

You can’t decipher the expression on his face, but the slightest trace of a sneer laces his upper lip in a way that almost makes you shrink back into yourself. But his eyes, there’s something in those piercing, blue eyes that truly makes your skin crawl.

“You wanna explain yourself?”

He’s ditched the sack. It’s a good question, actually, because when you think of it, you don’t think you could explain yourself if you tried. What were you planning to do? In all honesty, you were probably planning on following him until you saw something - anything - interesting. You have a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate that as an answer if you gave it. 

His eyes look over you as the silence stretches on, narrowing as the grip on your arm loosens ever-so-slightly. 

“I know you. You’re that teamaker from the Western quadrant.”

Then he frowns. 

“You been following me all the way from there?”

Something in his voice puts you at a greater ease than is reasonable.

“Following you? I… who do you think you are? Why would I follow you?”

“Try again.”

You scoff.

“And how do you know who I am?” you jab, wrenching your arm loose from his grip. “By all accounts, it appears I’m the one being followed. And dragged into some dim alleyway!”

“Careful, girl, you’re not out of here yet.”

“So you admit it, you are following me.”

But his words ring a scary truth; for all the good your sharp tongue does, you still find yourself in a dark alleyway at the mercy of a complete stranger. Shouts grow louder in the square as you size each other up, followed by the unmistakable roar of a blaze. 

Your assailant’s attention snaps to the mouth of the alley. You could slip past him, you think. One swift moment is all it would take. But the orange glow has reached beyond the sand of the gate, seeming so far in the distance and yet so, so close. It won’t be long until its creators follow. 

You count down in your head. Three, two-

The heavy tolls of the Bells of the Gates ring through the air, causing your very bones to vibrate like a tuning fork. The shouts increase even further, both in volume and proximity. A general feeling of deep unrest spreads with the echoes of the Bells. You feel it creep through your body as you inhale, like a heavy gas.

“I have business to take care of in the Western quadrant. You either come with me, or you make your own way back.” 

You blink. The deep, quiet inflection in his voice stands as a considerable contrast to just moments ago. The Bells indicate curfew, effective immediately. The square is undoubtedly in lockdown, which means that your only way home involves navigating your way through either the Southern or the Northern quadrant. At this hour, it’s not a journey you would particularly enjoy making on your own. 

Should have just stayed in the shop, you think. 

“Suit yourself.”

You blink again, watching as he turns his broad back on you and starts towards the gate. The thuds of feet running through sand echo from the street ahead in the walls that encase you. 

“Hey- wait,” you say, scrambling after him. “Hey!”

He scowls.

“Change your mind? I don’t entertain hysteria.”

Now it’s your turn to scowl. 

“I’ll show you hysteria, how-”

“Are we going or not?”

You drag your feet in the sand. You’ve not spoken two words to each other since the Eastern quadrant, with the exception of the occasion where he berated you for kicking up too much sand as you walked. It draws attention, he’d said. You’d bitten your tongue to refrain from telling him anything he didn’t strictly need to know.

You find yourselves on the outskirts of the Western quadrant, now, on a path lovingly referred to as ‘Arson Lane’. Fire nation patrols linger on its corners, keeping a keener than normal eye out for wrongdoers. You stick to the walls, pausing at every corner and listening for voices. The blindness is upon you, darkness shrouding every detail.

“I think we should get off this path,” you murmur under your breath, holding a hand out against his chest in an effort to stop him.

“This is the quickest way through,” he whispers. His voice is close to your ears, the consonants clicking loudly against his tongue. The intimacy of your situation only fuels the fire that boils your blood.

Your passage through the Northern quadrant, though in complete silence, has put you on edge. Heavy, black boots kicking bodies down the streets mar at your senses. You cannot hear any nearby patrols, no orange hue decorates your route, and yet…

“I think we should find another path,” you whisper.

“What would you know,” he grunts. “You’re just a teamaker.”

You jump at the volume of his voice. It’s not particularly loud, but it rings in the silence. You see no movement on the road, nothing to indicate anything is wrong, no…

You grab him by the tunic and pull him, with a surprising amount of force, to the other side of the road. The wall there is short, and easy to climb over. Squatting low, you listen intently. Sure enough, the muted thuds of spear shafts against sand approach in the distance. You can feel his breath on your cheek, restrained like yours, his side pressed against the naked flesh of your arm. 

You hear the patrol as they pass, throwing vulgar quips to each other and letting out drunken laughs. You share a look you can’t quite place with your unlikely companion. It’s strange, seeing him so close. He’s not as young as you are, though exactly how many summers he’s seen, you couldn’t say. Maybe six, seven more than you? 

You stay huddled behind that short wall for a good while after their voices disappear into the night. 

“Have they gone?” he breathes. 

You glare. 

“How would I know,” you mouth. “I’m just a teamaker.”

His features slip back into his scowl, and he pulls himself to his feet and climbs over the wall.

By the time you reach the crossroads that leaves you on your street, you’re not speaking. You push past him and don’t look back. 

But you’ve always been too curious for your own good. Standing in front of your door, you spare a glance in the direction you came. Once again, you make a split-second decision. Darting after him as quickly as you can without attracting attention, you spot him creeping against the walls of a street perpendicular to your own. Peeking your head out from behind the corner, you watch as he slips from the shadows of the walls to knock gently against a wooden window shutter. Not even a moment later, the door glides open. The little light that slips through the crack paints the figure of an old woman, shorter with her years. Without hesitation, he ushers her inside the room and closes the door after himself. 

Your knees feel weak as you trudge up the steep steps of your abode.

part two