[AUGUST 31] [AVATAR] SLIDE YOUR SMILE OUT

[fulselden.livejournal.com]

Title: Slide Your Smile Out
Day/Theme: Aug. 31 / the esthetic of lostness
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Jet, Freedom Fighters
Rating: G

 

Jet crunches his grass stalk between the teeth at the side of his mouth; spits expertly. He hooks an arm around the boy’s shoulders and gestures expansively upwards, into the streaks and skirls of red leaves.

“Well, kiddo? What’s the verdict?”

The kid looks up at him, white snot ringing each nostril, long dusty hair in his eyes.

“It’s a very nice place,” the kid says politely.

Jet puffs out a breath, hoicks a rope down from the branches above. All the little ties on the kid’s robe are still done up, all the way up to his neck; he isn’t even very thin, even though Jet won him over with a bowl of noodles.

“Well,” he says conversationally, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He grabs the kid in one arm, the rope in the other, and they shoot up through the branches.

 

Smellerbee crouches on the walkway waiting for him. She pats the kid down, not unkindly, puts him to one side.

“Come on,” she says, “you gotta see this.”

Beside her, Longshot inclines his head.

“It’s very nice up here,” the kid says.

“Fine, fine,” says Jet. He slaps the kid between the shoulder blades. “You’ll get the grand tour later on, kiddo.”

They whip through the treetops, red light around them. He hears it before he sees them, the neat sound of men marching in step down the dry dirt road. Rows of grey smoke rise from the town into the sky; a short trench is being dug outside the walls. Jet curves himself over on his branch, grinning around his grass.

“Well, well,” he says. “Now they’re in our back yard.”

 

They come back to the camp in the trees; the kid is where they left him, sitting with his hands together in his lap.

“Come on, kiddo.” Jet swings himself up beside him, takes out his knife.

“Gotta look sharp to be a freedom fighter.”

He saws away at the boy’s hair, the strands falling out into the air, drifting like sugar in warm red water.