Yaosen awoke to hearty laughter that he had only ever heard once before. Torun was chatting merrily with what appeared to be a green hedgehog. He was pretty sure Torun only used that tone when he was talking about fighting, or setting up defenses, but he seemed to be saying something about mintbark, whatever that was.

“Torun,” Yaosen tried to say, but it came out as a pained rasp.

“Oh,” said the green hedgehog. And when it turned, Yaosen saw that it was a girl covered in spiky looking moss.

“Don’t try to speak. You breathed in a lot of fire,” said the moss covered girl, then she grew suddenly somber, “We lost a lot of good roots pulling you out. I’ll get you some water.”

Yaosen looked questioningly at Torun, who just gave a dubious expression and held up a hand to wait.

The girl picked up a bowl crafted from some curved bark and departed.

“You have a lot of questions, I’m sure,” said Torun before Yaosen could try to speak, “And I’m trying to get answers. For now, all I know is that we’re all hurting but we all made it out.”

Torun gestured to Grunt, who still hadn’t moved much.

“Gun,” Yaosen rasped.

“No idea. No reason to believe he made it out, but no proof one way or another.”

Yaosen struggled into a sitting position, then inspected the vine stitchwork. He gestured after the girl. “Bender?”

“I don’t think so. She speaks in strange phrases, has weird names for things. I don’t yet know how we’re alive. But somehow we made it to the river and then made it here before any of us woke up. She seems to be alone here.”

“Bender,” Yaosen nodded to himself.

“We don’t know that yet.”

Yaosen lay back. And when the girl returned, he drank, and then slept for a long time.

***

The girl, Duu, wasn’t very forthcoming, and when she did speak, she was often incomprehensible. Yaosen suspected that the girl had lived alone a long time, because no one else came to treat, feed, or question them.

The girl spoke of her grandfather as if he were nearby, but Yaosen suspected that this man was likely an invalid, Duu caring for him the same way she cared for Torun and Yaosen.

The girl never exhibited any obvious signs of bending. But her knowledge of the forest was uncanny, and Torun would sit with her for hours pointing out herbs, matching the names Torun had for them with the names the girl had given them. Torun knew most of their uses, but anytime he asked Duu where to find them, Duu would use a series of names like The Three Sisters or Froggy Bog that meant nothing to the outlanders.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Over a few days Yaosen’s throat healed enough to speak without damaging it, though the hole in his stomach and Torun’s broken ribs were much slower going.

Once, while Duu was out foraging, Torun laid out everything they knew about their present circumstances, and their strange caretaker.

“We’re likely well downriver of our meadow,” said the Meteor Knight, “Which means we’re that much closer to the Earthbreaker’s city. It's only a matter of time before one of their scouts finds us, no matter how well hidden this hollow is.”

“But what choice do we have? Neither of us can move, and we still don’t know whether she’s a bender or not.”

“What difference does that make? We can’t leave her here alone either way. We’ll take her with us as we move north, away from what will no doubt become a new territory for the Earth Kingdom.”

“Why? She’s got on well so far. What right do we have to take her with us?” the monk refuted.

“She needs people. She needs community. And don’t tell me she has her grandfather, because we both know that’s a pleasant fiction.” Torun spat the last two words, as if it indicated some weakness on the girl’s part.

“If she’s a bender, she could help us understand what’s possible in the Farwilds. Whatever she knows could be the secret to finding the avatar. We could oteach her, but if she’s not a bender we don’t have anything to offer her that her grandfather cannot.”

“She’s not a bender,” said Torun, attempting to cross his arms, but wincing at the motion, “Everything I’ve heard from her suggests that she tells herself stories. I don’t know how hard it had to be for a kid living alone out here, and I don’t know what happened to her parents, but the kid’s healing us the natural way. She survives by her wits.”

“Why are you so adamant about this? You know as well as I do, that she couldn’t have gotten us here all by herself, unless she were a powerful bender for her age.”

“Maybe Grunt carried us.”

“Grunt hasn’t moved in days!”

“Hmph.”

“Look,” said Yaosen, knowing that this particular grunt meant Torun had dug in his heels, “It doesn’t matter if she’s a bender, because we’ll take her with us either way.”

“Hmph.”

“If!” Yaosen continued, “And only if, her grandfather doesn’t need her here.”

Torun opened his mouth to object, but seemed to reconsider.

“Yes,” Yaosen laughed, “In all likelihood, you get your way on all counts. If her grandfather is a story, and so are these roots that carried us, as you say, then the girl is not needed here and we take her north with us. But we at least have to make sure.”

“Agreed,” said Torun, “We ask to meet her grandfather when the girl returns.”

“Agreed,” said Yoasen.

“But the girl’s not a bender!”

“Ugh!” Yaosen threw up his hands, not bothering to argue in circles.

“There’s no bending art that can control roots and moss,” Torun plowed ahead regardless of resistance, “There’s one recorded case of swampgrass bending but swampgrass has far more water in it than the roots in our meadow, and that was an old man besides.”

“I admittedly only had a little time to study between exile and shipwreck,” said Yaosen, “But every prevailing theory on possible benders in the Farwilds suggest that with no bending schools or ancient traditions of bending philosophy, any wild benders might express their powers in strange, unpredictable ways.”

“But Duu would have to be incredibly powerful. A once in a generation water bender.”

“The Wild Bender Theory suggests that if she’s able to express her bending at all, without benefit of any tutelage or texts, she would have to be incredibly powerful. And her knowledge of bending arts would have to be innate. In short, to learn to bend out here, you would have to be a savant, as powerful and as brilliant as the first waterbender to mimic the moon, or the first firebender to survive the dragons.”

“The girl’s no bender.”

Yaosen sighed, “Maybe this grandfather will know more. But if he doesn’t, or doesn’t exist, I can test Duu on the journey north.”

“Hmph.”