Title: Exiles
Author: amyraine
Rating: K+
Words: 487
Genre: Gen
Char/Pair: The Lieutenant, The Protestor
Summary: Everything's back the way it was. Too bad for them.
“Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned.” -Anatole France
In the mountains outside of Republic City, a campfire burns.
A man pokes the flames with a stick and sparks fly up. Without his goggles, crow's feet are evident around tired, faded blue eyes. He has shaved off his moustache.
On the other side of the fire is a gangly man with a narrow face and a mouth curled into what might be a permanent scowl. “Never slept outside before.”
The blue-eyed man, who was once called the Lieutenant, does not respond. The scowling man had been useful as a voice for the movement but now...He's not sure why he lets the man follow him. A lingering sense of duty, perhaps.
The scowling man's still talking. “Least we're not in prison.”
The former Lieutenant scoffs. “Yes, the mercy of the Avatar. 'Let them go, they were tricked, it wasn't their fault.' As if we were errant schoolchildren. And that woman was so grateful to bend again that she went along, though she'd rather see us hanging from scaffolds in the park as a warning.”
“Bending,” says the other man with a sneer. “So damn important. Never mind those who starve in the streets.”
The blue-eyed man gazes at the stick in his hands. “Like we did much for them.”
“We were going to.” He sounds doubtful.
“That's what we kept telling ourselves.” He passes the stick from hand to hand, imagines a blue current crackling through it. “That's how we started out, protecting non-benders who were in danger. I saw a lot of rape victims, beaten spouses and abused kids, people who had lost their livelihoods to flame or rockfalls or floods. And we helped them. But I wanted to do more than help. I wanted it to stop. Chi-blocking takes so long to teach, even longer to master. And you can't carry a weapon around or you get arrested.”
“Amon promised change.”
The ex-Lieutenant's shoulders slump. He nods once.
For a time, only the crackle of the fire breaks the silence.
“Know what I don't get?”
The ex-Lieutenant lifts his head just enough to eye his companion.
“Why it was so bad that Amon...Noatak, whatever, took people's bending away, but when the old Avatar did it, it was fine.”
“Because bloodbending is evil and the Avatar's methods are good and just.”
The man's scowl deepens even more. “I fail to see the difference.”
The ex-Lieutenant tosses him a blanket. “Go to sleep. In the morning we go our separate ways.”
His companion looks worried at that but doesn't argue. He wraps the blanket around himself and curls up on his side.
The blue-eyed man lays back on the grass and stares at the patterns of stars, but his attention is on the ground underneath him. Not for the first time, he wonders what it would be like to make it move.
Like a drug, he thinks.
And he sleeps.
- Tags
- 2011 winter break — 3 uses
- 2011 winter break option 2 — 3 uses
- affiliates — 2 uses
- all of the prompts equally — 9 uses
- author: abraxas — 29 uses
- author: amanda91 — 15 uses
- author: amyraine — 24 uses
- author: andromeda3116 — 11 uses
- author: anon616 — 2 uses
- author: attackfish — 79 uses
- author: azardarkstar — 23 uses
- author: beckyh2112 — 4 uses
- author: betony — 1 use
- author: blue_lacquer — 8 uses
- author: bombalurima — 10 uses
- author: c3childs — 21 uses
- author: chante-chan — 1 use
- author: chordatesrock — 6 uses
- author: crystaldrake — 1 use
- author: daythirtynine — 5 uses
- author: dr_professor — 9 uses
- author: emu — 2 uses
- author: firehawk05 — 1 use
- author: ghostecho — 1 use
- author: hanakoanime (abyss) — 1 use
- author: harlow r — 1 use
- author: honestly_sangi — 8 uses
- author: lavanyasix — 54 uses
- author: medomai — 1 use
- author: miss_sanguine — 5 uses
- author: moonyalice515 — 21 uses
- author: nuitsongeur — 2 uses
- author: omoni — 31 uses
- author: onyx — 2 uses
- author: overlithe — 24 uses
- author: owldee — 3 uses
- author: rickashay — 5 uses
- author: scdsam — 2 uses
- author: sensei — 2 uses
- author: shadowsong26 — 2 uses
- author: silvermoon — 1 use
- author: somariel — 14 uses
- author: spyridona — 1 use
- author: the_flowergirl — 2 uses
- author: thequenchyest — 1 use
- author: tsukiryuu — 3 uses
- author: wolfs_lament — 5 uses
- banners — 69 uses
- mod!bending — 455 uses
- prompt — 77 uses
- prompt 01: element — 12 uses
- prompt 02: doubt — 10 uses
- prompt 03: undying — 12 uses
- prompt 04: obstacle — 10 uses
- prompt 05: tyrant — 12 uses
- prompt 06: outdo — 8 uses
- prompt 07: neglect — 14 uses
- prompt 08: token — 14 uses
- prompt 09: honor — 10 uses
- prompt 10: monk — 10 uses
- prompt 11: teach — 19 uses
- prompt 12: devour — 14 uses
- prompt 13: memory — 17 uses
- prompt 14: supernatural — 13 uses
- prompt 15: defeat — 15 uses
- prompt 16: mad — 14 uses
- prompt 17: stir — 11 uses
- prompt 18: cut — 13 uses
- prompt 19: light — 15 uses
- prompt 20: spontaneous — 14 uses
- prompt 21: crack — 13 uses
- prompt 22: knight — 15 uses
- prompt 23: soothe — 13 uses
- prompt 24: contest — 11 uses
- prompt 25: jail — 12 uses
- prompt 26: glow — 14 uses
- prompt 27: sky — 14 uses
- prompt 28: free — 14 uses
- prompt 29: travel — 9 uses
- prompt 30: pirate — 11 uses
- prompt 31: mirror — 10 uses
- prompt 32: empty — 14 uses
- prompt 33: trust — 13 uses
- prompt 34: red — 9 uses
- prompt 35: water — 13 uses
- prompt 36: lost — 10 uses
- prompt 37: feel — 8 uses
- prompt 38: road — 11 uses
- prompt 39: captive — 9 uses
- prompt 40: give — 9 uses
- prompt 41: window — 7 uses
- prompt 42: music — 8 uses
- prompt 43: never — 8 uses
- prompt 44: yellow — 7 uses
- prompt 45: earth — 9 uses
- prompt 46: hold — 7 uses
- prompt 47: charm — 7 uses
- prompt 48: finish — 3 uses
- prompt 49: lake — 9 uses
- prompt 50: return — 12 uses
- prompt 51: door — 8 uses
- prompt 52: party — 9 uses
- prompt 53: rules — 10 uses
- prompt 54: blue — 8 uses
- prompt 55: fire — 9 uses
- prompt 56: celebrate — 5 uses
- prompt 57: mercy — 8 uses
- prompt 58: silence — 7 uses
- prompt 59: escape — 6 uses
- prompt 60: fanatic — 6 uses
- prompt 61: speech — 7 uses
- prompt 62: anonymous — 5 uses
- prompt 63: between — 3 uses
- prompt 64: green — 3 uses
- prompt 65: air — 12 uses
- prompt 66: regret — 8 uses
- prompt 67: world — 8 uses
- prompt 68: revisit — 6 uses
- prompt 69: temple — 2 uses
- prompt 70: chakra — 7 uses
- prompt 71: equal — 7 uses
- prompt 72: patience — 2 uses
- prompt 73: revolt — 6 uses
- prompt 74: isolation — 2 uses
- prompt 75: thrill — 2 uses
- rating: k — 120 uses
- rating: k+ — 154 uses
- rating: m — 15 uses
- rating: ma — 2 uses
- rating: t — 149 uses
- rating: t+ — 15 uses
- voting — 69 uses
- winners — 64 uses
Powered by LiveJournal.com
2012-07-17 05:07 am (UTC)
The no-weapon rule is something I can believe of this setting, and of course it's blatantly unfair when a significant percentage of the population goes around armed every moment of every day.
It's a good comment on the original source material that neither of these characters has a name. How much more unbalanced could the creators get? *grinds teeth*
All in all, this is short yet effective and gives me a real sense that the Lieutenant's story will go on, something I hope will happen in better works than LoK has proven itself to be so far. (i.e. fanfic)
2012-07-17 02:32 pm (UTC)
I couldn't believe that other than the Equalists, no one tried to protect themselves from bender aggression when there were lots of competent non-bender warriors in AtLA. So I figured the reason was that it was against the law. That would also be one reason why all the manufacturing of electric gloves and the like was done in secret.
2012-07-17 02:48 pm (UTC)
Another possibility is that the loss of culture and tradition resulted in a lot of traditional fighting styles being forgotten. Even bending isn't the same as it used to be, with less distinct movements and more of an "arena" style of straight, quick punches and kicks. If non-bending martial arts similarly deteriorated, especially as the world entered a peaceful industrial age, that could explain why benders (who in any case still have inborn powers) could push around non-benders so easily.
2012-07-17 03:01 pm (UTC)
It seems to me the non-benders are the real cogs in the machine age--bending is great for raw power but not for fine control, and we've seen from ATLA onward that non-benders have the greater interest in science and technology. Also, much better to have people in the assembly lines who won't burn up machinery in a fit of temper.
Then, when these workers get such dangerous ideas as "unionization" or "labor regulation," unleash the professionals on them. Labor dispute solved!
And in order to make the benders willing to take on that kind of work, encourage poverty, desperation, and an idolization of physical force in that population. Maybe discourage them from technical works that will give them alternatives, from abstract education that'll have them thinking with more than their muscles, and encourage a cult of violence while giving them the dream of a way out--the pro-bending arena. Non-benders will love it, too, since it distracts them from their own lot in life.
The Equalists, under this hypothesis, addressed and actually solved the visible problem--the disparity in physical force between benders and non-benders--but remained completely blind to the deeper problem that set benders and non-benders against each other, a political system that is only interested in the wheels of commerce and not social peace or prosperity.