shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

hibym a jona,
iroh

(no subject)

They scrub her up, dress her all nice in dirty grey, tie her hands behind her back and lead her blind out of her cell with the black hood knotted closed at the front. She can't breathe in the smoky street air, can't hear over the press of boos and cheers and chatter that erupts on her ears.

This is it. She's going to die.

The hangman's hands are surprisingly gentle -- but then they have to be, don't they? The crowd needs to be told who's the hero and the villain of the scene -- it's just like a play, she realises, just the endlessly-retold fable of the Bad Little Thief who was Brought To Justice. She's blithely accepted it hundreds of times as part of the gleeful crowd.

This is it. This is it. She's going to die, and they're going to mince her body so she can't come back, and--

--there's a split second's nothing as the hangman pulls the trapdoor lever, clunk, and--

--SHE SCREAMS as the wood beneath her feet vanishes, crack, and--

--hits grass, crumples, struggles, falls, screams again, is she dead?, screams again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Iroh will take time later to figure out why he is no longer in a cell. Not that the question isn't a fascinating one, but there is, after all, screaming going on. That's the sort of thing one must attend to first.

His bare feet pound across the grass as he runs toward the screaming (hooded?) figure. He stops to examine this person before leaning forward to set a gentle hand upon a shoulder.

With the execution hood over her face and her bound hands and panic foiling her efforts to stand, Jona's under the impression that she's somewhere under the scaffold in her own world -- maybe the noose wasn't tight enough?

What else could a hand on her shoulder be than the guards coming to have a second go at the sentence? She kicks out desperately (and screams for her mother in their own language; the detatched calm of a few moments ago might as well have never been) and discovers that retreating is hard when you're on your back with your wrists tied.

Of course, as she can't see, it's entirely possible that she's kicking in completely the wrong direction.

He doesn't block the kick that comes at him, he simply lets it land and grunts. "Be calm," he says gently, "No one will hurt you."

Jona's reaction to total confusion? Freeze!

Well, at least it's not violent.

"Who's that?" she demands, after a moment in which to mentally shift out of Sawsnak.

"Just an old man wandering by," Iroh says, voice still gentle. "Do you mind if I remove your hood?"

Does she mind? Does she mind?

"Gods!" she exclaims. "Please -- please take the thing off!"

His movements are sure and gentle as he pulls it away from her head. The face that looks down at her is worn and weary, but smiling for all that. "Your hands as well?"

Then they're about the polar opposite of her movements, which seem to be an uncontrollable expression of the mile-a-minute rate of her heart. She stares up at him, unabashedly scared.

But he looks-- kind. And he took off the hood (fresh air has never been so delicious). She doesn't take in her surroundings, for the moment, but nods quickly and silently and tries to shift her hands so that he can reach them more easily.

Iroh moves quickly, only hesitating for a moment when he reaches her hands. They are, after all, rather odd. But a touch of flame is enough to burn through the ropes so that he can pull them away. "Are you hurt?" he asks.

She couldn't quite see what he did, but she felt the brief heat and the slackening of the ropes and puts two and two together. However, she comes up with five, and wonders why she didn't see the flint he must have used.

...For 'hurt', would the man be willing to substitute 'fresh from two weeks in a ridiculously tortuous prison on starvation rations and under a death sentence'?

She numbly shakes her head. And, in a small portion of her mind that's swiftly growing, wonders where the hell the crowd and scaffold have gone.

"In that case," Iroh's voice holds a hint of a laugh, "Perhaps you could tell me where we are?"

"I..."

It occurs to her to scramble to her feet: it's natural to feel safer when you're more able to move. It's not that she finds the man threatening (he helped her, after all), but that:

"...I have not got the faintest, I -- I swear I wasn't here a second ago."

"Ah," Iroh says unperturbed. "It seems that you and I share that at least."

It's quite difficult to panic with the man acting so calmly, thank Gods. "What? --Were you at the--" (her tongue wants nothing to do with the word 'execution') "--the, the square?"

"No, I am afraid I was not." He was in prison, as it turns out, but that probably won't reassure her, so he doesn't mention it.

"Oh."

Pity; then they'd have another thing in common!

Jona has no idea what to say next, so she settles for staring about them. There's a bewildering lack of close and leaning houses, grimy cobbles, and the constant noise of people. On the other hand, there's also a lack of angry guardsmen, which seems a fair trade.

"It's so open," she says, half to herself.

"So it is," Iroh grins. "There are parts of the Earth Kingdom that are sort of like this. Only... more rocks." Cause it's the Earth Kingdom.

"Is that up south?"

Because living in a technology-starved slum? Not conducive to knowledge of world geography.

"Er, no. That's in the west." He's eying her curiously now. "Where did you say you were from again?"

What, he can't tell by the blue tongue?

"I'm from Tryst. And my parents." This is important! "...Before that we're from the tundras, though."

All he can tell from the blue tongue is that the hands aren't her only birth defect. Not that it matters since she seems to get along fine.

Other than the hood thing.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Tryst. What is that near?"

Wait till he sees her feet!

"It's... um," says the girl who hasn't seen all of the city, let alone travelled outside it. "It's sort of..."

She waves her hands in a vaguely indicatory way, and gives up.

"...Mister, you should know it, it's huge. It's got canals."

Iroh shakes his head, "Sorry, I'm not familiar with it." And if he doesn't know it, then it can't really be a huge city.

Jona frowns a little. Everyone should have heard of her home! Because... it's her home, that's why, and she's proud of it! Um, even if it does have capital punishment.

"Then where d'you from?"

Bet she hasn't heard of it! ...Actually, with her knowledge, that wouldn't be a mark against it.

"I was born in the Fire Nation," Iroh answers simply.