In honor of Salvage Ch. 18, I have prepared the first chapter of my Phoenix Salvage AU. @muffinlance , there’s one scene that’s 100% an improvement in my overall writing structure I pulled from you, and I bet NOBODY can tell which one it is.
The young soldier must have somehow heard the blade coming. He didn’t have time to cry out, but the panic stains his face. Not quite the easy death Hakoda wanted, but unavoidable, and still far kinder than leaving him to the sea.
Two years of fighting had left many too-young Fire Nation soldiers dead on this deck, but this was different than a battle. Different even than a mercy kill, back when they thought maybe Fire Nation prisoners would simply accept a fate other than death.
The soldier wouldn’t have left them any choice in the end. But he hadn’t forced their hands. Not yet.
One of the men murmured a prayer, a simple benediction for the journey to the next life. This wasn’t the clean up after a battle, and there might not Fire elders speaking rites for the kid somewhere across the sea. The soldier might only have what they give him, and they're pragmatic people- not cruel.
The Fire Nation burns their dead. That would be kindest, but if they could safely build a pyre, then they could have safely kept a firebending prisoner. The young soldier have a sea burial.
The corpse vetoed this. Violently.
Akake and Tuluk yelped, dropping the suddenly burning body onto the wooden deck.
Fire shouldn’t be green and purple, Hakoda barely had to think, and the fire disappeared. He blinked the sparks out of his eyes, and the deck was as clear. No fire, purple-green or otherwise. Just a vaguely soldier shaped mound of ash.
Hakoda reached down to touch it: barely warm, and not so much as a soot mark beneath it.
Something stirred. Something tiny. Hakoda grabbed it without giving himself time to think about it. Whatever it was squirmed frantically in his hand.
Hakoda looked down, expecting- something. A still beating heart, perhaps. A reptile or worm, at the very least. Something repulsive and macabre. But a tiny, down-feathered bird trembled in his hand. He brushed ash off of soft, orange wings. Even filthy, the fledgling glowed like sunrise.
“It’s a bird,” Hakoda said, dumbfounded.
“A bird,” Tuluk repeated.
The bird cheeped in distress. Hakoda started to pet it, but it nearly fell to the deck in its effort to escape his hand. He quickly cupped it with both hands instead. The bird pecked at his fingers.
The entire deck stared in stunned silence. What were they supposed to do with a bird?
Tolko presented a box hastily stuffed with hay from the albatross-pidgeon coop. Hakoda carefully dropped the chick inside. It burrowed down into the loose “nest,” still cheeping incessantly.
“He’s so cute,” Tolko gasped. “What are we going to do with him?”
Tolko stared at the bird with love already in his eyes. The bird stared back with… suspicion. At the very least.
Hakoda’s temples begun a warning throb.
“Ask Kustaa if he can… find anything,” he finally said.
Tolko cooed at the bird as he walked away.
Hakoda felt a dreadful portent hum in his bones: this would not end well, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
“What is that?” Kustaa asked.
“A bird,” Tolko said. And held the chick up to Kustaa’s face, as if not seeing the puffball was the problem.
“Which might also be a Fire Nation soldier. The Chief wants to know if you can find anything.”
“Yeah. He was drifting past, we fished him out, but he was. You know. A Fire Nation soldier. And he said he was a firebender. So.”
“He kind of...died. And spontaneously combusted. The bird was in the ashes. See?”
Tolko brushed the bird’s head and held up a sooty finger. The chick couldn’t really floof in anger- it was already at maximum floof- but it gave its best impression of outrage anyway. Tolko hastily placed it on the table before it could tumble out of his hand.
“This is a bird,” Kustaa said. “I’m a healer, not an ornithologist. Or a shaman. All I’m qualified to say whether or not YOU have brain rot.”
“Any headaches? Blurred vision? Acute pain in your arms or legs? Motor difficulties?” Kustaa asked as he prodded Tolko’s arms.
“Then we’ll work with the assumption that Spirits were involved, not Swamp Fever. Hopefully, a minor Spirit.”
Kustaa leaned down in front of the bird.
“Can you understand us: peck two times, then three.”
Low and behold, the bird did… then stared at them and pecked a deliberate pattern of some sort.
“I don’t understand that,” Kustaa said.
A storm of outraged peeping.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Are you a Spirit, one peck for yes, two pecks for no.”
Two pecks, and more outraged peeping.
In hindsight, it was incredibly bold of them to assume Zuko knew more than they did about anything.
Tuluk entered Hakoda’s office after a single knock, and Hakoda’s temples immediately resumed pounding.
“Apparently, the bird insists he is the soldier, and NOT a Spirit,” Tuluk said.
Hakoda pinched the bridge of his nose. And resolved to make an offering soon. There were stories about shapeshifting Spirits who forgot they weren’t human.
“Keep an eye on him,” Hakoda said. “We’ll head to the nearest port and find an Earth Sage. This is exactly the kind of trouble we don’t need.”
A thought struck Hakoda. “How did…?”
Tuluk sighed. “Lots of questions. Lots of patience. Kustaa is positively charmed with the little menace.”
“A mean one,” Tuluk agreed. “But he’s warmed to Kustaa and Tolko, for stars knows why.”
Hakoda didn’t like the idea of a Spirit getting… attached to his crew, but he liked the idea of an upset Spirit on his ship even less.
“Keep an eye on them, please,” Hakoda said.
Tuluk nodded, understanding in his eyes.
“I’ll do my best, but that’s a conversation you need to have with Kustaa and Tolko. Probably the rest of the crew, too.”
Hakoda’s headache sharpened with knife-like intensity. Tuluk eyed him with concern.
“Chief. Nobody will blame you if you need a drink before that. Kustaa’s almost ordered a shipwide medicinal order.”
“After,” he promised. And didn’t clarify after what.
Their youngest crewman tucked the surly creature into his parka, from where it eyed everyone and everything with deep suspicion. Tolko kept up a mostly one-sided commentary, which the soldier-bird seemed surprisingly engaged with.
“Do you know his name?” Punuk asked as Tolko showed the bird their snack break offerings.
“No,” Tolko said through a mouthful of salted fish. “It’s the character for ‘righteous rule,’ but we couldn’t figure out the pronunciation. So Birdie it is.”
“Birdie” cheeped aggressively enough to attract the other crewmen’s attention for the first time in hours. There was still work to be done, and his constant noise quickly faded into the background.
“That’s terrible. How about… Sparky? Ember?”
“You can’t call him red, he’s pink.”
“He’s definitely more orange than pink.”
“Orange still isn’t red.”
Ragnalok tossed an empty water skin at the pair.
“Stop torturing the poor guy. He already died once today.”
“Way too soon, man,” Panuk said.
Birdie was… worryingly quiet for several hours after that.
Tolko roused in the middle of the night, awakened by a faint stirring of downy feathers and soft cooing. Birdy was awake. Tolko couldn’t see it, but dawn must be on the horizon.
Birds liked dawn. So did firebenders, presumably. It was early, but Tolko wasn’t tired-tired, so…
Tolko scooped Birdy up in one hand and slid out of his hammock. “We’ll go top deck,” he whispered as he tucked Birdy into his collar.
Birdy cheeped in a maybe grumpy, maybe affirmative way. But it was soft, so Tolko didn’t think he was upset. Birdy was very, very good at communicating when he was upset, bird or not.
It still seemed uncharacteristic. And Birdy was slumping on Tolko’s shoulder in a way he hadn’t yesterday.
Tolko scooped Birdy back into his hand, and Birdy just… cheeped quietly. Cheeped once and fell silent.
Okay. It was early: Birdy might just be tired. It was a Thing, that birds got sleepy when it was dark- even if it wasn’t actually night. They’d go topdeck and watch the sunrise, and if Birdie still seemed off he’d come back and wake Kustaa.
Tolko climbed the last stair just as the sun broke free of the horizon. Birdie chirped softly again, and Tolko held him out into the light.
“It’s beautiful,” Tolko said.
And Birdie once again caught fire on the Spirits damned deck.
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
2087
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
gummygunk
