DEAR DICTATOR → zuko

╸twenty six : tooth and nail

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❝ tooth and nail ❞

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     ASIDE FROM HER apprenticeship as a herbalist, which to Ryo is just sweeping floors and cleaning vials, Nari is put to work. And it is not the kind of work where she'd run errands and complete every minuscule task asked of her, instead, it is muscle-tearing training and teeth gritting workouts. It's getting her used to being smacked by a boulder and struck by an arrow, maybe even a little touch of slowly poisoning her to build tolerance somewhere in between.

     It doesn't matter how injured she gets. There's a healer on sight for all her cuts and bruises.

     She currently buckles under the weight of two filled water pails on opposing sides of a staff, her task being to fill a barrel up at the top of the mountain before bringing it back down without losing a single drop. It was a tough task, and Nari finds she'd prefer fire-bending whips against her spine over this any day.

     Her shoulders burn, a wooden stick digging against her sinews, paving a dent into the back of her neck, and her knees wobble under the burdensome weight. With each step, her leg muscles tore and snapped, sending signal after signal to her brain: stop this madness! But she can't. It's part of her training, after all. If Nari wants to go on missions again, she'll need to complete every tireless task of Ryo's.

     He stands straight with an identically weighted staff balancing on his shoulders, and a smug look balancing on his face. "I ain't sending you out 'till you keep up with me." His voice has nothing similar to strain, instead a blatant cockiness coats his voice like sap on tree bark. "So far, you ain't lookin' too good."

     Nari wants to punch him in that snarky face of his. Maybe she would, if an anvil wasn't thrown down on her back. "Shuddup," She says, one foot taking a step that took the effort of a million. Her heel drives into the ground with a stomp, water sloshing in her pails as it threatens to spill. She prays it doesn't– then she'd have to start all over. "You're the one with these stupid ideas."

     "Not stupid." Ryo walks along their path with ease. His waterbuckets don't even sloosh around. "It's training your strength. You've lost it, and either I help you get it back, or you die out there. Your choice."

     Nari takes another large step. Her back threatens to give out. "Starting to think dying would be easier,"

     "It is. Living is what's hard."

     She rolls her eyes– Nari has had enough life lessons and strange metaphors for Chyou, and Ryo isn't the type to throw these out. He's the type to throw out impossible tasks, though, or throw out useless nobodies that waste his time. Clearly, she isn't one of those.

     So with the sun beating down on her forehead, dripping sweat down her hairline, neck, armpits, and all the places sweat loves to be hated, with her face flushed red from effort and stomach clenched in strain and hunger, Nari pushes on. Hefty step after step, soon she knows this will get easier. That is how the body gets stronger, by breaking down on a cellular level, by rebuilding stronger. It's how walls get thicker, how nations grow, and how armies become terrifying units. The mind works in this way, too.

     Unfortunately, with all her hard work, Nari trips three-quarters of the way up the jagged mountain. Her legs give out, and her buckets spill. Nari looks up through her bangs, matted to her forehead from sweat, to Ryo. His buckets are effortlessly balanced, form near to perfect, and his face is twisted in disappointment.