Lay Me Down

The Beginning

"You imagine it just as it is to begin with, a cloud. Then it shapes itself into whatever your mind's eye sees."

Lu Ten pointed into the sky, his head pushed close to mine. I relaxed and did as he said- the white puffy spots in against the infinite blue are only clouds. Just clouds.

Suddenly, it became more than a cloud.

I sat up off the ground quickly, panting as tears came to my eyes. My father's pained face was etched back into my head as he covered my mother in their burning house, in a desperate attempt to protect her from a Fire Nation warrior. I hated crying in front of Lu Ten about these things, because he always felt partially responsible and it made him sad. I picked furiously at the grass and wrestled with my tears, unable to keep a few back.

I felt Lu Ten sit up beside me. His arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. "I'm sorry, Iwa," he whispered. I just leaned into him, reveling in the nickname and the resonance in his voice and his warmth. "I'm very sorry. My father is very sorry. We'll care for you..." The Fire Nation General's image surfaced in my distraught thoughts. Pleasant. Cheerful. But his eyes sometimes revealed the burdens that war places upon a man. He gladly and without question accepted me, an earth bender and a useless child, as a servant into his household.

Even though he led the attack that killed my whole village, I could see the pure intention and the remorse in his heart. I could also see it in his son, when he found me nearly crushed beneath the beams of my fire-lit house. I remember his hand reaching out to me, the same hand comforting me now in this embrace...

My eyes shot open. The bright blue sky and neon-green grass were replaced by a stone roof and a rock-hard bed. The small barred window at the top of the wall revealed that it wasn't yet light out. I sat up anyways, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and sighing heavily. Of all the memories turned to dreams, that one makes me the saddest. I pushed off the bed and opened the chest nearby to put on my everyday clothes in the dark. There's no need to waste a candle if I'm leaving soon. And besides, the landlady in the ground-floor home above me complains about the light this early in the morning.

When they heard my quiet movements, the stray cats in the next alley sauntered up to the bars of the window, greeting me with soft purrs and winking faces. I smiled and shook my head as I poured some milk into the usual small bowl and pushed it through the bars for them. After pulling the non-shaved half of my hair into a loose ponytail, I climbed up the few steep stairs to the small trapdoor that led to the outside of the earthen house, right by the cats. No one else was yet awake. I could feel it from the chill in the air, the silence of the night, the lightless streets. If I focused extremely hard, I was able to hear the soft heartbeats of everyone sleeping safe in their houses. They all breathed as one, which I found unsettling. Like one giant machine.

I walked slowly through the shadows to the fruit stand. Nirou didn't like it when I came too early. He felt like I was rushing him. Of course, he never said this to me. He was too polite. But I sensed it. So I meandered my way through the empty streets, earth bending the scattered dust-like particles on the street into small dust clouds. It's something I've been practicing- precision, that is. Controlling the smallest pieces of earth. Because I'd noticed that my bending was choppy and sloppy, uneven. I'd almost fixed it: I could concentrate on bending small particles by themselves, but it was hard to remember them when bending large earth.

By the time I made it to the stand on the other side of Ba-Sing-Se, the sun was just rising. I approached the only light on the street, where the sounds of grumbling and unhappy grunting could be heard. A slightly overweight man in his late 50's shuffled out of the back of the tent, a heavy crate of apples in hand. I quickly took them from him and set them on their designated table. "Ah, Iwa-" His yawn cut off the rest of his sentence. I nodded in return, going into the back to grab the next crate. "The first three orders are ready to go, though I doubt any of the recipients are awake yet."

I again went into the back, this time to grab three sacks of fruit to sling over my shoulder. After smiling briefly at Nirou, I set out down the road, watching other vendors groggily begin their day. Chouko, the daughter of the wicker worker, waved at me as I passed. I winked, and she rolled her eyes before getting back to work taking care of her younger brother. Half an hour later when the sun has awoken the citizens, I reach my first destination.

"Ms. Hachiko!" I whisper-shout into the open doorway. I don't understand Hachiko. For one, she never talks- well, not to me anyways. Only to herself. And she always tries to feed me. I'd be stupid not to take the food, of course (it's more recently becoming hard to come by). But I have no idea why she gives it to me. I knocked twice on the doorframe, careful not to step onto the freshly-swept floor. The single window allowed a little light into the dark interior. I just barely saw her hobble in from the back room, flashing her gums at me. She muttered something about food and headed for the cabinet. I slid my shoes off and walked barefoot under the roof, placing one of the sacks on the counter gently. She patted my hand a moment before stuffing it with bread and cheese and a few coins, then pulled me in for a kiss on the cheek before shooing me out the door again.

I gave her a small smile back, chuckling as she threatened to slap me when I didn't put my shoes on fast enough. "Such a nice boy..." I heard her whisper to herself as she headed back inside.

I crossed the street through the now bustling crowd to the herbal shop. A black-haired boy with pale skin and the brightest green eyes I've ever seen quickly left the customer he haggled with to come greet me. "Iwa! Thanks for the groceries. Early, as usual." He leaned in to heft the bag from my arms, his breath warm against my neck. Sometimes I wondered why he got so close. Though physical touching wasn't really my thing, his proximity wasn't exactly... disliked. I watched as he bustled about, putting the fruit in the back and trying to sell the goods and attempting to maintain a conversation with me all at once. I helped make a few of his sales while he was busy. "The 'rents are out shopping, so I'm holding down the fort right now. They're talking about a new tea place coming in soon. That means more business for us, right? So my parents have to go give the buyers of the place our information and talk up our herbs-"

Little did I know that the subject of Rin's mindless chatter would actually be the biggest change of my life.