Hermitcraft Oneshots

Bloodbending

The smell was the first thing that struck the water-tribesmen's nose, a putrid mix of all the things wrong with the world, morbid curiosity pressing his limbs through the front door.

If he had arrived a day later, the girl surely would have been just as dead as her impaled counterpart, ice long since melted to liquid, since evaporated.

The only remnants of the murder weapon laid collapsed in a heap on the carpet, blood staining her thin golden hair.

Doc scooped the fragile figure from the violently stained carpet.

Who was the corpse?

Brother? Uncle? Father? Friend?

It didn't matter now, Doc was the one who had come to save her.

Fingers curled around fabric, shaky, covered in blood, yet pale as if without it, worn damn near to bone.

The girl lived, though in the most hollow sense of the word.
———

When Doc first asked for her name, she said it was unimportant.

After threatening to call her Doccette, she gave in.

When Doc asked how old she was, she told him to guess.

12? 13? She'd open up in time.

When Doc asked who she had killed, she said it didn't matter.

When he asked if anyone else knew, False nearly impaled him as well.

When he finally got the name, it was the only word she spoke for a week.

Xisuma.
———

It had been a month before False saw anyone but Doc, and in that time, the two had become inseparable.

They both came from the north, Doc water tribe, but not a bender.

False could bend blood without the aid of a full moon.

That's exactly what she did when a stranger banged on their door.

5'10", skin the color of treated wood, hair ebony, eyes to match. Younger than Doc, two decades ahead of False, and while he didn't appear to be threatening, False hadn't been afraid since she had learned to play puppet master.

Blood bending was truly a terrifying skill.

BDoubleO, a versatile earth bender who fled Ba Sing Se to live free of walls. He preferred to go by Bdubs, and in time, False warmed to him.

A friend of Doc's was a friend of hers.

It had been sixty days, False had counted, before she was finally able to leave their home- a mess of stone and ice that smelled of rotting fish and nostalgia.

They needed to pick up food, and perhaps find False's parents, though by the look the water bender gave, the two men knew they'd be stuck with the girl until she grew of age.

When they returned, their reputation was ruined, and Fasle was no longer welcomed by the icy embrace that was the northern water tribe.