Finally. She was finally, finally alone! It wasn't something that Risho ever thought she'd think- but here she was, thanking the spirits for leaving her all by herself again. Away from those...people.
She wasn't sure where she was supposed to be staying- but Azar and Chanda's house was huge enough that she doubted they'd care where she unpacked. She didn't care if they cared. She'd go to the bathroom in here if she felt like it. It was no less than what they deserved.
Risho threw herself onto the bed and slipped her nightgown on upside down. White. Like her wrists and ankles. Like the moon.
Risho shivered. It was scary, she thought, how powerful the moon made waterbenders. It was a wonder the Fire Nation had managed to capture them at all! She wrapped her arms around her legs and wiped her tears on her knees.
There was a knock on the door.
"Go away!"
The knock came again. "Pssst!" She was going to throw something. "Pssst! It's me!"
"Not in the mood, Azzie," she snapped.
The door opened anyways. "Chanda's making tea," Azar started, anxiously looking down at his feet as he spoke. "He's really a big mama turtle-duck when he's allowed to be. It will be up soon."
"I don't want it."
Azar's eyes widened. "You need to keep warm so your water-burn doesn't-" She'd had enough of this. She'd had enough of him acting like everything where she came from was backwards and strange. Waterlord. Water-burn. And so much else.
Risho summoned a fire in her right hand and shoved her left through the blaze. "Warm." Her voice was flat and calm, but Azar gasped and sucked all the air in from the room. Didn't he know that she couldn't feel a thing? She couldn't even feel the heat. He batted her hand out of the flame.
"Don't do that, Risho!" She raised an eyebrow. "You never know when you'll hit your limit with these...abilities of yours." She hated it when he looked at her like that- hated his never ending sobriety that didn't match his face. There wasn't an ounce of childhood innocence in Azar's expression. He looked at her like she was the child in the room. Like he didn't still have baby teeth.
Risho tried to let herself breathe, but her exhale came out in a wheeze. She did it over and over again until the tears came back and she was forced to hide her face. "Did...Did you know?" she asked, adjusting the skirt of her nightgown to keep from flashing Azar. "Did you know they were...that they-" Embarrassingly, she started sobbing again.
Azar tried to touch her hand but she batted it away, grimacing as he hissed in pain. She nearly called him a baby- but then she realized the reason for it. She gasped. She'd burned him. She hadn't meant for it to go that far- she'd only meant to scare him off so he wouldn't get himself killed. If there was one thing she knew about Azar, it was that he always overestimated himself. "Nobody told me anything. I knew as much as you," He caught her staring at his palms through her fingers. "That hurt, by the way. A lot. Thanks for that."
Risho politely sucked the snot back into her nose. "There wasn't supposed to be fire; but you didn't let go with the heat. I thought you would."
"I told you, it will take more than that." There was a smile in his voice. Risho took that as a good sign. She heard the bed sheets move as he shifted. "So, that was pretty scary, huh?" He didn't know the half of it. Risho's entire body was still sore from being thrown around like she did Yating when she was angry back home. And she was so, so cold. She grumbled a response.
Azar didn't seem to pick up on the fact that that should have been the end of their conversation. "Those waterbenders are terrifying at night- powerful- and crazy, too. I thought my dad was exaggerating! It's really horrible that the one on the beach got away. That one deserves to be incarcerated even more than the elephant-rat-killer. But don't worry- we know some of his features now, and his voice, so-" He sighed. "Look. Risho, I know you're mad, but-"
Risho spun around and glared at him. Mad? Mad wasn't nearly enough to describe what she was feeling right now. It wasn't even half of it. The Fire Nation was using her to keep the Earth Kingdom from using her, more specifically the Firelord was using her at the same time her kidnappers were trying to use her- and because of that, the people she thought were helping her were using her to find a group that was trying to use her against them. She didn't understand it much, either.
"What."
"It was our best chance at catching-"
"Hold on," Risho's hands fell from her face and onto her folded legs. "Are you justifying-They didn't even tell me, Azar! I thought I was going to die! I-"
"The Firelord trusted my parents with this. My parents knew what they were doing. They wouldn't have let you-"
"Oh, they wouldn't, would they?" she said bitterly.
"No, of course not. We're sworn to protect you while you're here. Why," He caught a glimpse of her expression. "Why are you looking at me that way?"
Risho felt her lips curl into an unhappy smile, felt her eyes narrow as she leaned in closer to Azar. "Boy, could I tell you a thing or two about your father, Az. I hope you know that he's not like...this off this island. He's not the person you think."
Azar blinked. "What do you mean?"
She couldn't take it any longer. Risho was like a kettle that was boiling over- and if she didn't want to scald everyone- she knew she'd just have to steam. "He's not NICE, Azar. Not like he is with you. Back..." She took a breath. "Back where I'm from...Back..when..before..." She pinched her eyes shut like a gate- but moisture still escaped. "He tried to burn me and another girl alive, Azar. Firelord Sozin wanted him to kill me and he did it...it didn't work...but- He tried to kill me, Azar. What you have here; it's all a lie. It's not r-" Her friend didn't say a word. He just looked at her, frowning, his eyebrows drawn together like he was trying to figure her out. She ordered him to say something.
Azar shook his head. "No," he whispered, "that's not true. He wouldn't-"
"He did."
Azar slid off the edge of the bed. "No," he said, "my dad rescued you. It's like a fairy tale."
A fairy tale. Out of all the stories her father had told her, none of them had sounded quite like this one. It was almost enough to make Risho laugh. She scowled. "Rescued me? Is that what they're saying?"
"Yes, Risho, rescued. You belong here, with your own kind, and my father brought you back here so you could have a better life and-"
She laughed out loud, even though none of this was funny. "Oh, really? That wasn't how things were explained to me. You want a fairy tale, Azar? Well, I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a Fire Bending DRAGON princess who was locked in a tower by her sad, lonely papa. One day: a bunch of knights came to slay the dragon princess; but found that their swords couldn't pierce the her thick scales. So instead of killing the dragon princess, they took her away from the papa she loved and back home. They gave her to their king as a pet- saying that someday, the dragon princess would incinerate the king's enemies-"
"What are you saying? That's...that's abominable. You don't-"
"SHE NEVER WANTED TO LEAVE THE TOWER!" Risho screamed, unable to force herself to stop. "THE KNIGHT IS NOT A HERO, HE TOOK HER! FROM EVERYONE, AND EVERYTHING SHE EVER CARED ABOUT AND-"
Azar's eyes had darkened, and his head was still shaking. "He didn't. My father doesn't kill good people. Only the bad ones. They saved you, Risho. You don't understand."
"Five minutes, he cooked my hiding spot like an oven. I screamed the entire time- when they burnt it- when he swung me over his shoulder as I fought, as I screamed for my papa and he screamed for me. They took me on their boat, chained me to a chair and-"
A shadow had crawled over Azar, and suddenly, he didn't look so young anymore. He looked back at her with a scowl more terrifying than her own. "No," he repeated, "He didn't. You're lying."
"I'm lying?" Risho exclaimed, "Why don't you go ask him? Ask Chanda. He was there, too, and-"
"Exactly," said Azar, "You like Chanda. Chanda was not involved with this, and my dad was. That is why you are so wrongly attacking my-"
Risho's cheeks warmed. "I AM NOT ATTACKING YOUR FATHER."
"Both my parents, then?"
She wanted to throttle him. "I-"
Azar clasped his hands together and set them on his lap, pursing his lips and blinking hard. "Risho," he said "I know you don't like it here- but you've got to understand that you're better off. I mean, your parents were quite literally Chanda's age- do you think they wanted you? Did you think your dad was prepared to raise you alone? You--" His face froze when he caught Risho's expression. "Don't look at me like that. You know I didn't mean it that way. I didn't-" Risho slid off the bed and gathered her things from the floor. She had to leave before she did something she'd regret. "Hey," Azar tried, "I'm sorry- it wasn't supposed to come out that way. That's not what I mean-"
Risho whirled around. "My parents didn't want me? How else am I supposed to take that? It's funny how people always say exactly what pops into their head when they're angry, isn't it? Exactly what they mean: every time."
"I didn't mean-"
She was scarily close to chucking her baggage at his head. Risho was proud at herself for keeping her cool. "Yeah," she said flatly, "I bet you didn't." She slung her knapsack over her shoulder and cooly walked out the door.
For the second time that evening, she nearly ran into Chanda. ...Or, rather, he almost ran into her. He'd been watching the teacups in his hands instead of where he was going. "Sorry," she said. It came out sharper than she'd intended it to be.
"Something wrong?" Chanda asked.
She thought about just running past him, but decided that it would just make everything worse. "...Could you ask your parents to page my mom, please? I want to go home."
Chanda raised an eyebrow. "I would...but she's kind of already here."
A large percentage of the adults in Risho's life was gathered in the doorway with the bowing bamboo. Both unfortunately and entertainingly, the tranquility had been disrupted since she'd seen it last. Xue Lo's face was redder than Risho's first fire. She looked like she was ready to fight Indra and Aza. Like she was going to challenge them to a...what had Doctor Ishan called it? Agni Kai.
Risho couldn't help but smile at her mother's expressive hand gestures, the way she waved her hands around like one of those extinct-air benders. Risho wondered if she'd ever accidentally bent at someone before when she was this angry. She'd have to ask.
Behind her, Doctor Ishan's left eye was twitching.
"HOW COULD YOU?" Her mother screamed.
"SHE IS THE PROPERTY OF THE FIRELORD! NOT YOUR CHEESE-LURE!" Doctor Ishan shouted.
"THE FIRELORD HIMSELF SANCTIONED THIS!"
"AND I DID NOT! AND WHAT ABOUT RISHO? DID YOU ASK RISHO ABOUT THIS?" Xue Lo caught Risho's eyes and gestured sharply for her to come over. "Risho," she said "Come on! We're going home."
Risho didn't need to be told twice.
...
They left Doctor Ishan on the shore.
They didn't mean to leave him behind, of course. But halfway around the island Xue Lo had informed her that they had only a couple of moments before the last boat home took off. Her mother had asked if Risho wanted to race her...and Doctor Ishan told them it was stupid...and one thing left to another...
And then Doctor Ishan was firebending signals at them, yelling things neither of them could hear from the beach as their boat got closer and closer to Risho's island. She knew it shouldn't have, but it brightened Risho's night just the tiniest bit.
She watched until Ishan's firebending was just a candle flickering in the distance.
"Sooooo," drawled her mother, her eyebrows raised, "I heard about..."
"I don't want to talk about it, mom."
"I think-"
Risho put up her hand. "Come off it."
Her mother sucked in a breath. "Excuse me, young lady!? What's got you in such a foul mood?"
'I don't know, maybe being tossed around like-"
"Other than that!" said Xue Lo, "You weren't this shaken up yesterday."
She tried to hide her sniffling, but ended up making it worse. She decided it would be better to just fess up and get it over with. "Azar said that my existence was accidental on the part of you and papa." Risho heard her mother swallow. True. Correct. "I knew he was pathetic...but I didn't think he was pathetic and a jerk."
"Oh, Risho..."
"Is it true?" She knew the answer. She just wanted to be told she was wrong.
Across the boat, her mother chewed on her fingertips. "You have to learn to ignore comments like that...but....Risho,"
"Save it."
"I did think...at that point...that I'd have a life with your papa in the Water Tribe. I was there for almost two years, you know, before they came back for me. My time with Haona, and you, though you probably don't remember me then....It was the happiest I've ever been."
It was sweet- but it didn't answer her question. "Oh," she said.
Xue Lo strode across the boat to her bench and sat down beside her, swinging an arm over her daughter's shoulder. Risho rested her head on her mother's sleeve. "It was an awful thing for Azar to say, but you shouldn't blame him, okay?"
Risho choked on her own saliva. "Blame him? What else am I supposed to do? I seriously had to hold back to keep from torching him! And he meant it, really- I could tell-"
"I don't doubt that. But what you need to understand is that it wasn't Azar talking there, it was his parents. Your friend-"
"He's not my friend."
"-Your friend is growing up in a household of people whom I remember to be incredibly prejudiced and...do you know what that means?" Risho nodded. Her father used to use that word a lot to describe why none of their neighbors ever came to visit. He stopped when she'd begun to understand what it meant. "You've got to keep that boy from slipping under, Risho. He's a good boy, I think. You've got to keep him from rotting." Now that, was something Risho didn't understand right away. She had to sit, mulling things over for a good few minutes before she found something relevant to say.
But when she turned to look at Xue Lo, Risho found her sound asleep. It occurred to Risho that her mother would have been at work before she was called to come get her. Midnight was only just approaching. Soldiering, Risho thought, must be some taxing stuff. The train of thought crashed into a wall, and Risho startled to attention. Soldiering. Her future. Her future unless-
Risho prodded her mother's shoulder, just checking to be sure that she was really asleep. It made her crazily excited to have a chance to sneak around again. She'd really missed it.
The sky was dark, the moon as bright as it had been just hours ago- bright enough to see the secret she'd been keeping for the last couple of days.
Risho reached into the leggings she'd slipped back under her nightgown. She felt her hand close around something wooden.
Small, very small...and round. Risho frowned. She couldn't name it.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Risho pulled the kidnappers' calling tile from her pocket like weeds from a garden. She held it in her closed fist for a moment or two before releasing both fist and eye. She sighed and looked at the wooden disk- no! Not a disk. Not a just any tile-
A Pai Sho piece.
They'd taught her to play the game in school. Risho had found it rather boring, but her teacher had told her that the game was an elite art- and it was expected of Royal Fire Nation Academy girls to develop a taste for it.
This tile, a delicately painted white flower- was virtually useless. Apparently, it had a function in ancient games- but served no purpose to those who didn't know the game's secrets. They couldn't be controlled by the unenlightened.
Risho prepared to toss it into the ocean- to vow to herself that she'd never help them after what they'd done. She'd pretend to discover the lotus tile in front of a crowd- present it to the Firelord and be crowned a hero. She'd take this new life of hers by the horns. People would flock to her. It was enough to revive Risho's smile...and then to take it away again.
She thought about the advice her attacker had given to her....the promise her kidnappers had made in exchange for her assistance.
The boat was drawing nearer and nearer to the docks, and the lessons on writing poetry snapped back into Risho's head.
She was at a crossroads.
She could stay on this boat forever.
She could jump off now and swim to shore.
Or...she could use the boat to take her anywhere she wanted to go.
She knew that it would be difficult- and dangerous- a life of pain and sorrow and discomfort...but she knew that it had the potential to turn out all the greater in the end. She could do this. She knew exactly the person they needed her to be.
Risho smiled, and put the tile back in her pocket.
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So....that took longer than it should have. But...hopefully, during my days off in exam-week, I'll be able to publish more! Yay!
So, yes, the picture at the top is Azar. I realized that there were very few drawings (and not very good ones) out for you to see. I'm not a very good artist, but I tried to draw him in the ATLA style. Why did I decide to publish it now?
Because this is the end of the first part of Risho of the Black Snow.
These kids don't stay ten all the way through!
(No hiatus or anything)