To Take Shelter in Peace an ATLA Roleplay (Cyrano x _writers_block_)

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Taza's caravan made camp not far from the ruins of the city of Taku that had been destroyed by the Fire Nation a few years before. They were behind Fire Nation lines now, with refugees mostly moving farther east, but the caravan was travelling south and it was safer and easier to just pay the additional tolls that came with travelling through Fire Nation territory instead of travelling through potential war zones. It also meant that there were less bandits to worry about, but Fire Nation deserters could also cause problems for a caravan like theirs. Taza was an older Earth Kingdom man with a gut, a booming laugh and a grey beard. he seemed amiable enough and had welcomed the Wanderer into the caravan with few questions asked. there were many traveling in these times who did not like their stories questioned.

The Wanderer was a tall, thin man, wrapped in dark brown robes that covered most of his body. His wrappings went down to his fingers and covered him from knuckles to elbows and went up under the sleeves of his tunic. His hair was shaggy and mirrored his face which had a several days old beard on it. His eyes were brown, which made his statement that he was from the Earth Kingdom more believable. When one person had nagged him enough he had given her a name, Sarambha, it was not the name he had been born with. it was not the name the other children at the Northern Air temple had called him when they played games, the name he had introduced himself to his sky bison as all those years ago, that man had died in the Air Nomad Genocide three years ago. It had been burnt away in the light of Sozin's comet.

The thought of it brings the memory to mind, the ash falling form the sky, the screams and the smell of fire. The sound of lightning and the screams of his sky bison as lightning struck through his body and into Sarambha's shoulder. Sarambha's hand moved to his left shoulder for a moment, feeling the spot beneath his clothes where the blue lightning had torn through his body and left him nearly dead. his bison had struggled and fallen from the sky and crashed into the forests and mountains below. From there he had ran, body bleeding and broken and he had not stopped running ever since.

"Wanderer! Come to dinner!" Taza called loudly from the large fire that the women had built and cooked dinner over. Sarambha had long ago abandoned the vegetarianism of his people in order to survive while on the run, it was not the only thing he had abandoned. "Thank you Taza! I will be there in a moment!" Sarambha called from hsi spot beneath a tree, using his quarterstaff to rise and began to walk over to the fire and see what was for dinner tonight.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

After Sozin's Comet the man who would become Sarambha had dragged himself through the mountains of the north-western Earth Kingdom until he found an herbalist who took him in and helped him heal from his ordeal. His arm still ached during storms and did not feel as well as it used to. Occasionally he would lose feeling in his fingertips and of course there was a scar where his left shoulder met his chest. If it hadn't been for his bison, Bopo's, sacrifice he would have died for sure from the lightning bolt. Instead he had a scar on his shoulder and back and an arm that didn't work as well as it used to. Ther herbalist had saved his life and by the time he had fully recovered the Fire Nation had moved past and gone deeper into the Earth Kingdom.

His staff had been lost in the battle as had much of his airbender attire; his hair had grown out and his new clothes needed to cover up his blue arrow tattoos that had marked him as a master of airbending. When he had tried to bend in those first few weeks he had found his bending weakened, as he had been taken with anger and despair. That had changed when he found himself trapped in a storm beneath a plain, terrified by the lightning that struck through the sky. He hid there beneath a tree and found that while he had learned to be like a leaf on the wind, now he saw that he would need to be a storm in the plain in order to survive. He meditated there, in the storm and found his center again, though in a different place than it was before. It was in that storm that he found who he would be from them.

In that moment he ceased being who he had been and became Sarambha and brought great violence against the Fire Nation soldiers when he fell upon them. He had made it his goal to survive, because as far as he knew he was the last airbender and he would be needed to teach the Avatar airbending as he knew it. Somewhere in the world there might be other airbenders and he would find them, or failing that he would need to continue the legacy himself.

These thoughts went through his mind as he watched the small boy suffer from his burn, remembering the pain of the burn from the lightning. None o f his firebending opponents had so much as reddened his skin in the battles they had fought. The pretty woman questioning if he was hungry rbought hie back though, his haunted eyes returning to normal. " Thank you, yes I am hungry." He says not smiling at her, but bowing his head slightly to show he was not being rude and did appreciate what she did.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Taking on the garb of a sandbender had made the most sense once he had decided to attempt to hide among people again, and not in the woods and caves of the mountains. True they were far to the north of the Si Wong desert, but few people were questioning travelers in these trying times. Sarambha had traveled through the Desert several times on his journeys from the Northern Air temple to the Southern Air temple and had even stopped at one point in Wan Shi Tong's Library. This gave him enough experience to make the accent work, at least enough to cover up the neutral accent of the Air Nomads. When she placed the clay bowl with the large piece of bread into it he bowed his head to her slightly, there was gratitude in his eyes but no smile.

"He has, an extra pair of strong arms is always welcomes on roads like this." He answered as his eyes took her in for a moment examining her both out of curiosity and as a man looked at any beautiful woman. " I am a simple wanderer used to sleeping beneath the trees and stars. I was simply going to set my kit beneath that tree and shut my eyes until they oepn again. Would you like to eat with me?" He asked, he had grown to be quite skilled in lying in the past few years and right now he was lying. He did not care if this woman ate with him, he did not care if she beleived his statements. But he was lying and pretending that he did. It was the thing expected of him, and being standoffish and refusing company from the people he was traveling with would lead to him being more notable and suspicious than simply travelling on as a normal wanderer.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

He followed her and sat down facing the same direction as her, naturally sitting in the lotus posed when he went and took a seat. It was more comfortable for him than just sitting cross-legged at this point. When she mentioned sleeping in a tent he looked up at the sky and saw that it looked to be a clear night. "Thank you for letting me know, but I don't believe it is going to rain and I enjoy sleeping beneath the clear skies." He answered as he ate his first spoonful of stew. He had grown more used too the taste of meet in the time that he had also grown used to the sight of blood and taking life.

"I am Sarambha." he answered when she asked for what to call him. No thank you or nice to meet you for the introduction. Just a short and simple answer to her question. "Though your uncle has taken to calling me Wanderer. I suppose one fits just as well as the other at this point." Sarambha answered as he soaked his bread in the stew, letting the liquid of the stew soften his bread so that it would be easier to eat. He understood that he might be a little rude to this girl who had done nothing wrong tohim, but he had lost most of his social graces in his time alone in the mountains. That and having everyone he knew murdered, including his beloved sky bison gave him just as much of a reason to be rude as anyone else. Of course, he could not know that she had almost as good of a reason as he.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

One of the techniques that Sarambha had more than mastered in his time on the run was the air blade. Before he would have needed his staff, or the quarterstaff he had carved, in order to have a low enough profile to create that edge in the air that was needed to cut through stone or timber. Through practice, determination and sheer cold rage he had been able to make the blade with as little as two fingers, carving through the air would let the wind slice through a human body as easily as a knife cutting through butter. As Suyin started to examine the flaws in his disguise the fingers on his left hand began to move to form the blade, it would just take a quick movement and a blade of air would cut her from shoulder to hip. Of course he would need to run, and it would be another person who was on his conscience, but it was more important for the world that he remain undiscovered than this girl continue to live. These were the ideas he had been forced to accept since his one man war against the Fire Nation began.

When she returned her attention to her food though he relaxed and returned to eating his own. "Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. I imagine I'm not the only one who has needed to change in order to survive with the changing times." He commented not necessarily digging for any information on her past at all. "Balance is gone from the world, and the balance keeper is dead. The Avatar is dead and we are alone and adrift until the cycle moves on again." He commented looking up at the night sky as he ate some of his bread. It was just the type of thing that a person might say in these times, though experience has made him more world weary and wiser than many men his age.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Sarambha listened to her words without comment as he worked through the rest of his stew and bread. It was good, but he assumed she did not cook it so he neglected to pass on any compliment through her. When she told him to speak with her uncle he just grunted and handed her his empty bowl and spoon assuming that they had people in charge of washing the dishes and reusing them. When she stoo dup he did not look at her, still looking to the north and the stars. Somewhere that way was the only home he had ever known, laying in ashes and with none to bury the dead.

"I can hold my own." He answered her when she asked if he could fight. He could do more than that, but when their were witnesses, or people who might see the bodies he found that he had to pretend to be a sandbender or acquire a bladed weapon in order to use some of his most effective moves. Air punches and enhanced blows could only do so much and some times speed was more needed. Someone might question how a person asphyxiated in the middle of the battle as well. But if he could draw opponents off and away he could finish them quickly and leave the bodies somewhere where they would never be found.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Taza sighed at his niece's words. He knew that it would be hard for her to trust anyone with all she had lost but he had hoped that she would at least be a little more circumspect about her distrust. Their caravan had been traveling through the Earth Kingdom trading and seeing the world for generations. families had been formed and grown up on this trail. Taza did not say it, but he feared that this would be the last trek of the caravan. With the Fire Nation and the war it seemed as if there was no truly safe route left for the journey. They had been fortunate so far in that the soldiers they had run into had been in a hurry and relatively scrupulous, choosing to take a bit of food or money instead of anything more. Each time they had come Taza had insisted that Suyin hide with the women despite being an earth bender, not because he did not believe she could fight, but because he did not doubt that if the soldiers or bandits saw her they would want her. He had been talking with the heads of the other families in the caravan and he was planning to take the caravan to the Great Divide and to Omashu and safety.

"Suyin, niece, there are all kinds of people in this world, and spirits know the Earth Kingdom is big enough for all of them. He's no firebender, you can be sure of that, and he seems to prefer being by himself more than anything." Taza gestured over to Sarambha who was now resting beneath the tree he had chosen as his own. "He has the look of a fighter about him and we need all of the fighters we can get on the Trail. If he did or said somethign untoward that's one thing, but I can't be turning away folks in need just based off your feeling that there is something strange about him. I'm sorry Su." he says patting her on her shoulder trying to be conciliatory.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Sarambha sat apart from the rest of the caravan, he had few earthly possessions due to his vagabond lifestyle. All that he possessed had to be either easily replaceable or easily transportable. Preferably both. He laid a down his bedroll beneatht he tree he had chosen and then set his staff against the tree. he did not beleive it would rain tonight, the sky was clear of clouds and he still recalled enough of his connection to the air to detect large weather patterns, so he saw no need to hang the Turtle-duck feather shell that he sued to keep the rain off of him at night. Setting his pack as a pillow beneath the tree he lowered his head on to the soft contents that constituted all of his earthly possessions and then eased himself to sleep.

His nightmares woke him before the sunrise and before the cock crowed. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow and then drained the neck of his waterskin on his dry throat. Fortunately he had not screamed in the night to alarm anyone; though in these troubled times no one would question why a stranger like him had reason tohave nightmares.They all had their own nightmares these days. Packing up his bedroll he hung it over his shoulder and took up his staff walking away from the camp and towards the sound of water. Finding a likely looking clearing along the way he set his bag aside adn began to work through the forms of fighting with his staff, before setting aside the staff and practicing the forms of his 'sandbending' without moving any earth. his technique was enough that if anyone saw him and had witnessed actual sandbending or airbending they would notifce the diference.