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It had been over a month since Longshot had seen the crimson leaves of Hong Ye forest - from a distance, it had been just a brushy cloud hugging the horizon, but the closer he, Jet and their Fire Nation guest got, the more it unfurled itself into its familiar grandeur. Like a spill of red ink on paper, the forest overcame the sky, the breeze like breath sighing through the branches, cool and gentle on his skin.

Like her touch. As long as it had been since he'd seen the forest, it had been even longer since he'd seen his wife.

Since he'd seen Smellerbee.

He'd written the letters - not sure how many, exactly - and he hadn't heard back, not once (he clenched her headscarf, tied securely to his sash, unaware at the fact that his knuckles had turned white from the pressure). The thought, the dreadful suspicion, had touched the edge of his mind before the trial... had whispered in his dreams before they left the capital... had dogged every pacing step he had taken on the slow ship back to the home port: "Has something happened to her?"

Jet clicked his tongue at his ostrich-horse and pulled back on the reins, easing the eager beast back beside Longshot's more placid mount.  "Don't worry," Jet said , his wheat stalk arching upwards as he smirked, keeping his gaze on the forest, chin tilted up. "She'll be there. Bet Sneers and the rest had her on the run-around and she just didn't have the time.  Or maybe Messenger screwed up.  Or the provincial mail clerks went on strike again.  Hell, it could be she never even got one of your letters, and she's waiting with the ropes at the ready."  He grinned, as if amused by the proposed scenario.

For a moment, Longshot almost gave into Jet's teasing - his leader had obviously picked up on his worry, and was likely trying just as hard to conceal his own.  But the cold, scalp-prickling sense of wrongness would not be shaken off so easily.

Their "guest" from the Fire Nation (assigned to the Freedom Fighters by Aang himself) ,Ty Lee, cocked her head at the archer, riding just ahead of Jet, off to the side, eyes glistening with curiosity.  Unfortunately for the young woman, Jet saw the look and shot her one of his own.  There were few people who had the nerve to cross Jet when he was looking at them with that particular expression; Longshot could see her working out the situation internally, and let out a quiet sigh of relief when Ty lee decided that this was not the time to test the man's boundaries. (The boat-ride from the Fire Nation had pretty much settled that score.)  She cast her eyes over the ever-encroaching forest, undoubtedly wondering (as every newcomer did) just how leaves could be so red in the midst of summer.

Running interference from inquisitive women - Jet was worried about him.  He'd gotten a lot better at reading the archer over the years. Almost as good as...

"You make it too easy," Jet admitted with a shrug, breaking into Longshot's train of thought. "The way you've been carrying yourself for most of the trip back home. A blind man would have been able to see it. Where's the usual stoicism? You gotta stop slacking off, I tell you."

Longshot sighed, finally allowing himself a small grin. Oh, of course, O Wise Leader. He'd make sure to get back on his training regimen.

"You'd better," Jet shot back, chuckling.

(The archer was thankful for his leader and best friend's jocularity, though. He used it like a healing salve, covering over a sore, quelling the jitterbugs bouncing around from his throat down to his stomach and back again. Kept his hands from shaking, throat running dry. 'Never focus on the what-ifs or what-could-have-beens;' it was one of Spatula's favorite sayings, a surprisingly sage nugget of wisdom coming from the man.)

"Your wife sounds like a wonderful person," Ty Lee said, clasping her hands over her chest and beaming, clutching her ostrich horse's reins. "I can't wait to meet her!"

Ty Lee was...an optimist. Excessively so. In any other context, Longshot would have found it obnoxious, but he needed all the happy thoughts he could get right now. He remembered Jet talking to her shortly after they'd disembarked from the ferry...telling her, point-blank, that he'd have to keep the fact that she was Fire Nation under wraps. Only a few other Freedom Fighters would know the truth - to the rest, she would just be a visitor from Kyoshi Island. It would be better for group morale that way. Ty Lee had pouted in response, but agreed in the end.  Likely, she took Jet's bluff that he would send her back to the Fire Nation at face-value.

Though to be honest, Longshot was not entirely certain it was a bluff.

They fell into silence, and Longshot again tried to keep himself away from his thoughts... focus on the senses, on the aroma of cinnamon lurking just below that of honey, signalling the change of the seasons, the way the leaves rustled and whispered at each other, the way the children laughed. Yes, he could hear them clearly, and it had been so long since he'd played with them, but the sound, almost a chorus, had not grown unfamiliar. He missed the natural song of the forest. There hadn't been anything like that in the Fire Nation, where everything (that he'd seen) was artificial and packed to overflowing with people who really didn't want to be there (Longshot and Jet amongst them).

Thinking back to That Place, though (the nation that had given birth to the Freedom Fighters and still haunted many of them to this day), it had been stuffy, almost suffocating, partially due to the weather, but mostly because of the tension and the red tape surrounding the conference. Not a single person who had been there had forgotten what the Fire Nation had done (although interpretations of those actions varied, in no small part thanks to squabbling bureaucrats who had nothing better to do with their time), and when the conference had ended - when he got to string his bow and knock his first arrow - it hadn't been relaxing (ohhhh-ho-ho no), but it had been a relief to be away from the political end of things. It had been a promise of what lay ahead. Of the ferry ride back to the Earth Kingdom (with 100% less fist-fights, thankyouverymuch), of the journey across the mainland to the forest...

To Smellerbee's arms, their bed, and it would be nice just to sleep, to let all of the tension, the worry, just flow away, out, gone into her warmth. When he was tense, she would snake her arms around him, and he swore - he swore - all of that concern, the pent-up negativity, flowed out from her hair. If he dared tell anyone (he never did), they would think he was being weird, but it was true. And Jet was right, she'd be back, she'd be okay, and he'd kept himself together up until this point.

Just the thought of that made Longshot's heart beat a little faster, and the cinnamon-honey aroma especially brought weight to his thoughts like words, and he had no doubt Smellerbee would have had returned by now. Autumn was just around the corner - Bee's favorite season.

Lost in the thought of his wife, Longshot hadn't realized they'd entered the forest proper until Jet held up a hand, making the archer reign in his ostrich horse so quickly the poor animal squawked at the rough treatment. He glanced up ahead - a figure moving through the brush - could it be - ?

...Sneers.

The Freedom Fighters' spymaster had emerged from between a set of trees, stopping short, eyes wide as they fell over the returning Freedom Fighters; he had a towel draped over his shoulders, and his entire body glistened with sweat, his face flushed and knuckles dirtied. He'd just finished a workout, Longshot figured, and - well, Sneers wasn't exactly the first person he'd hoped to encounter upon his return, but at this point any familiar face was welcome. He'd had it up to the brim of his hat dealing with strangers and their bass-ackwards priorities, or Fire Lords that were once refugees heading to Ba Sing Se, or ambassadors of the Water Tribes who conveniently blinded themselves to acts of redemption in the face of past mistakes.

"Well, looks like you survived." Jet crooked his head to the side and smirked, hiking an eyebrow. "Here I was, expecting to find your corpse nailed to a tree."

He was joking, of course - maybe a bit ham-handedly, even by Sneers' twisted sense of humor - but the man had just returned from a trip to the Fire Nation. Longshot was willing to give him the pass with that reason in mind, especially because Sneers would return fire in kind, something like, 'Funny, I thought I'd see Longshot carrying what's left of you in a box.'

But...

...Nothing. Sneers didn't smirk, didn't cross his arms over his chest and toss his head back - looking all smarmy, returning Jet's volley - no. He just - he looked to the side, looked away, and Spirits help him, Longshot saw - concern, raw, unmasked, flitting across Sneers' face.

No. No, it couldn't - he - there was no way...!

Jet must have felt it too, because Longshot heard him draw a sharp, low breath. Suddenly, all the warm, familiar things about the forest, the smell, the sounds, the laughing children - they turned away from the three Freedom Fighters and their guest, alienating and distant, a foreign, unwelcoming thing, and the archer found it difficult to breathe. He tried to - to actually say something, to - for once - verbalize where it wasn't necessary, but his tongue felt heavy and his lips went dry, and his stomach did flip-flops inside his torso. The jitterbugs came back, gnashing and bouncing and having their way with him, and, and...

At last, Sneers broke the chilled silence. "She..." A pause - and, finally, he looked up, not at Jet, but at him, at Longshot, "...she never came back."

Longshot registered the tone of Sneers' voice before the words - quiet, humbled, not broad or boastful, come on, Sneers, where was the joke, the comeback, where was - be, be snarky, please, no, this, this was a joke, it had to be a joke - throat tight - the words finally hit home -

Gone. Dismounting the ostrich horse, running before he realized, his back so much lighter (he'd dropped his travel gear and weapons?), but his feet, chest, legs, so much heavier, like iron, every footstep, every breath, labored, raw, hot, even though the air was cool against his face. Trees rushed past in a blur of brown and crimson, cut through a clearing, there, a dropline - he lunged for it, gave a sharp tug, it drew him up, up into the trees, into the canopy, jumping away as soon as he arrived at the landing platform above, and - shoving past, past people, faces just blurs, they were unimportant, they didn't matter, Sneers had to have been joking - a cruel and even more tactless jab than Jet's - somebody called his name, he thought, but the voice got swallowed up by the wind howling in his ears, his pulse hammering just behind them, and, and, past houses, past the dining hall, past other tree-top installations, and at last, there, at the end of one bridge, a single house, a familiar house, his home within home - wood thundering beneath him with every step - panting, out of breath - grabbed the door handle, the wood heavy and cold under his grasp - threw it open, and...

Description
It had been over a month since Longshot had seen the crimson leaves of Hong Ye forest - from a distance, it had been just a brushy cloud hugging the horizon, but the closer he, Jet and their Fire Nation guest got, the more it unfurled itself into its familiar grandeur. Like a spill of red ink on paper, the forest overcame the sky, the breeze like breath sighing through the branches, cool and gentle on his skin.

Like her touch. As long as it had been since he'd seen the forest, it had been even longer since he'd seen his wife.

Since he'd seen Smellerbee.

He'd written the letters - not sure how many, exactly - and he hadn't heard back, not once (he clenched her headscarf, tied securely to his sash, unaware at the fact that his knuckles had turned white from the pressure). The thought, the dreadful suspicion, had touched the edge of his mind before the trial... had whispered in his dreams before they left the capital... had dogged every pacing step he had taken on the slow ship back to the home port: "Has something happened to her?"

Jet clicked his tongue at his ostrich-horse and pulled back on the reins, easing the eager beast back beside Longshot's more placid mount.  "Don't worry," Jet said , his wheat stalk arching upwards as he smirked, keeping his gaze on the forest, chin tilted up. "She'll be there. Bet Sneers and the rest had her on the run-around and she just didn't have the time.  Or maybe Messenger screwed up.  Or the provincial mail clerks went on strike again.  Hell, it could be she never even got one of your letters, and she's waiting with the ropes at the ready."  He grinned, as if amused by the proposed scenario.

For a moment, Longshot almost gave into Jet's teasing - his leader had obviously picked up on his worry, and was likely trying just as hard to conceal his own.  But the cold, scalp-prickling sense of wrongness would not be shaken off so easily.

Their "guest" from the Fire Nation (assigned to the Freedom Fighters by Aang himself) ,Ty Lee, cocked her head at the archer, riding just ahead of Jet, off to the side, eyes glistening with curiosity.  Unfortunately for the young woman, Jet saw the look and shot her one of his own.  There were few people who had the nerve to cross Jet when he was looking at them with that particular expression; Longshot could see her working out the situation internally, and let out a quiet sigh of relief when Ty lee decided that this was not the time to test the man's boundaries. (The boat-ride from the Fire Nation had pretty much settled that score.)  She cast her eyes over the ever-encroaching forest, undoubtedly wondering (as every newcomer did) just how leaves could be so red in the midst of summer.

Running interference from inquisitive women - Jet was worried about him.  He'd gotten a lot better at reading the archer over the years. Almost as good as...

"You make it too easy," Jet admitted with a shrug, breaking into Longshot's train of thought. "The way you've been carrying yourself for most of the trip back home. A blind man would have been able to see it. Where's the usual stoicism? You gotta stop slacking off, I tell you."

Longshot sighed, finally allowing himself a small grin. Oh, of course, O Wise Leader. He'd make sure to get back on his training regimen.

"You'd better," Jet shot back, chuckling.

(The archer was thankful for his leader and best friend's jocularity, though. He used it like a healing salve, covering over a sore, quelling the jitterbugs bouncing around from his throat down to his stomach and back again. Kept his hands from shaking, throat running dry. 'Never focus on the what-ifs or what-could-have-beens;' it was one of Spatula's favorite sayings, a surprisingly sage nugget of wisdom coming from the man.)

"Your wife sounds like a wonderful person," Ty Lee said, clasping her hands over her chest and beaming, clutching her ostrich horse's reins. "I can't wait to meet her!"

Ty Lee was...an optimist. Excessively so. In any other context, Longshot would have found it obnoxious, but he needed all the happy thoughts he could get right now. He remembered Jet talking to her shortly after they'd disembarked from the ferry...telling her, point-blank, that he'd have to keep the fact that she was Fire Nation under wraps. Only a few other Freedom Fighters would know the truth - to the rest, she would just be a visitor from Kyoshi Island. It would be better for group morale that way. Ty Lee had pouted in response, but agreed in the end.  Likely, she took Jet's bluff that he would send her back to the Fire Nation at face-value.

Though to be honest, Longshot was not entirely certain it was a bluff.

They fell into silence, and Longshot again tried to keep himself away from his thoughts... focus on the senses, on the aroma of cinnamon lurking just below that of honey, signalling the change of the seasons, the way the leaves rustled and whispered at each other, the way the children laughed. Yes, he could hear them clearly, and it had been so long since he'd played with them, but the sound, almost a chorus, had not grown unfamiliar. He missed the natural song of the forest. There hadn't been anything like that in the Fire Nation, where everything (that he'd seen) was artificial and packed to overflowing with people who really didn't want to be there (Longshot and Jet amongst them).

Thinking back to That Place, though (the nation that had given birth to the Freedom Fighters and still haunted many of them to this day), it had been stuffy, almost suffocating, partially due to the weather, but mostly because of the tension and the red tape surrounding the conference. Not a single person who had been there had forgotten what the Fire Nation had done (although interpretations of those actions varied, in no small part thanks to squabbling bureaucrats who had nothing better to do with their time), and when the conference had ended - when he got to string his bow and knock his first arrow - it hadn't been relaxing (ohhhh-ho-ho no), but it had been a relief to be away from the political end of things. It had been a promise of what lay ahead. Of the ferry ride back to the Earth Kingdom (with 100% less fist-fights, thankyouverymuch), of the journey across the mainland to the forest...

To Smellerbee's arms, their bed, and it would be nice just to sleep, to let all of the tension, the worry, just flow away, out, gone into her warmth. When he was tense, she would snake her arms around him, and he swore - he swore - all of that concern, the pent-up negativity, flowed out from her hair. If he dared tell anyone (he never did), they would think he was being weird, but it was true. And Jet was right, she'd be back, she'd be okay, and he'd kept himself together up until this point.

Just the thought of that made Longshot's heart beat a little faster, and the cinnamon-honey aroma especially brought weight to his thoughts like words, and he had no doubt Smellerbee would have had returned by now. Autumn was just around the corner - Bee's favorite season.

Lost in the thought of his wife, Longshot hadn't realized they'd entered the forest proper until Jet held up a hand, making the archer reign in his ostrich horse so quickly the poor animal squawked at the rough treatment. He glanced up ahead - a figure moving through the brush - could it be - ?

...Sneers.

The Freedom Fighters' spymaster had emerged from between a set of trees, stopping short, eyes wide as they fell over the returning Freedom Fighters; he had a towel draped over his shoulders, and his entire body glistened with sweat, his face flushed and knuckles dirtied. He'd just finished a workout, Longshot figured, and - well, Sneers wasn't exactly the first person he'd hoped to encounter upon his return, but at this point any familiar face was welcome. He'd had it up to the brim of his hat dealing with strangers and their bass-ackwards priorities, or Fire Lords that were once refugees heading to Ba Sing Se, or ambassadors of the Water Tribes who conveniently blinded themselves to acts of redemption in the face of past mistakes.

"Well, looks like you survived." Jet crooked his head to the side and smirked, hiking an eyebrow. "Here I was, expecting to find your corpse nailed to a tree."

He was joking, of course - maybe a bit ham-handedly, even by Sneers' twisted sense of humor - but the man had just returned from a trip to the Fire Nation. Longshot was willing to give him the pass with that reason in mind, especially because Sneers would return fire in kind, something like, 'Funny, I thought I'd see Longshot carrying what's left of you in a box.'

But...

...Nothing. Sneers didn't smirk, didn't cross his arms over his chest and toss his head back - looking all smarmy, returning Jet's volley - no. He just - he looked to the side, looked away, and Spirits help him, Longshot saw - concern, raw, unmasked, flitting across Sneers' face.

No. No, it couldn't - he - there was no way...!

Jet must have felt it too, because Longshot heard him draw a sharp, low breath. Suddenly, all the warm, familiar things about the forest, the smell, the sounds, the laughing children - they turned away from the three Freedom Fighters and their guest, alienating and distant, a foreign, unwelcoming thing, and the archer found it difficult to breathe. He tried to - to actually say something, to - for once - verbalize where it wasn't necessary, but his tongue felt heavy and his lips went dry, and his stomach did flip-flops inside his torso. The jitterbugs came back, gnashing and bouncing and having their way with him, and, and...

At last, Sneers broke the chilled silence. "She..." A pause - and, finally, he looked up, not at Jet, but at him, at Longshot, "...she never came back."

Longshot registered the tone of Sneers' voice before the words - quiet, humbled, not broad or boastful, come on, Sneers, where was the joke, the comeback, where was - be, be snarky, please, no, this, this was a joke, it had to be a joke - throat tight - the words finally hit home -

Gone. Dismounting the ostrich horse, running before he realized, his back so much lighter (he'd dropped his travel gear and weapons?), but his feet, chest, legs, so much heavier, like iron, every footstep, every breath, labored, raw, hot, even though the air was cool against his face. Trees rushed past in a blur of brown and crimson, cut through a clearing, there, a dropline - he lunged for it, gave a sharp tug, it drew him up, up into the trees, into the canopy, jumping away as soon as he arrived at the landing platform above, and - shoving past, past people, faces just blurs, they were unimportant, they didn't matter, Sneers had to have been joking - a cruel and even more tactless jab than Jet's - somebody called his name, he thought, but the voice got swallowed up by the wind howling in his ears, his pulse hammering just behind them, and, and, past houses, past the dining hall, past other tree-top installations, and at last, there, at the end of one bridge, a single house, a familiar house, his home within home - wood thundering beneath him with every step - panting, out of breath - grabbed the door handle, the wood heavy and cold under his grasp - threw it open, and...