Lush green canopies sway in the light breeze, dappling the earth with shapes of yellow light. They part and wither, burned by the sun.

An ocean waits at the foot of a loose hill, waving merrily and calling him to run faster and relish in its cool water, but it moves farther away, just out of reach, when he trips over his feet and tumbles down the hill.

He lies on the sand, squinting at the clear, blue sky. It's beautiful; the desert is beautiful in its untouched ity. Only the brave dare attempt to enter her. The brave and the stupid. The sun is her protector, burning her flesh clean and boiling foolish bravado.

His gun rests carelessly out of reach, but the usual itch of its familiar weight isn't there, anymore. He'd rather leave it behind, where its heated barrel and stock won't blister his fingers.

This may have been a bad idea, in retrospect. He's trained and strong, but taking on other humans is much easier than taking on the desert. His target has the right idea, hiding out here. Even the PHOENIX, with his purported inability to die and stay dead, doesn't seem able to reach him and is very likely to die. If so, so be it, but make it quick. He's already feeling like he's a part of the desert, with the sand coating his dry mouth and filling his nose. Each breath seems to send grains of sand popping around in his lungs.

Maybe if he stares at the sun long enough, he'll burn up and blow away with the rest of the sand. Eventually, he could make it to the ocean. The real ocean, impossibly deep and so blue it's nearly black. Bizarre fish and coral swimming through him, devouring him, transforming him into homes and underwater monuments. Or he could turn up at the roots of great trees reaching as high as their trunks and limbs allow, plunging through clouds but never reaching the outer atmosphere and staring at the mightiest of stars in envy. No matter how big they grow, how strong they are, they die and fall over and are reduced to dirt.

Everything's made from debris. Dirt, sand, particulates of detritus that were once thriving or dreaming in their own way.

As the PHOENIX's flesh peels away, he hopes he'll be reborn in a better place.

 

There's a man who looks as tired as he feels, heavy baggage beneath his eyes and many days worth of beard covering his jaw and over his upper lip. He's stitching some large cloth but looks up, apparently sensing budding consciousness.

Setting the cloth aside, he stands and approaches his bedside. “Welcome back to the world of the living.” Cotside is more accurate; he feels like he's suspended closer to the ground than a hammock would hang. He's in a tent, and it's hot. He's used to the heat, but he's not used to such a dry heat that seems to crack the insides of his lungs with every breath.

He gurgles and coughs. The man holds out a bowl, telling him to spit. It's gritty and dark brown. “You'll be spitting up a fair bit of sand for a while.” The man holds a cup of water to his cracked lips, managing to not spit any down his face. “What's your name?”

The water helps. “Chanyeol.”

“Well, Chanyeol, I wouldn't cal you lucky to have survived the desert with your lack of preparation and equipment. I'd recommend a hospital, if there were any.” He picks a small penlight from his pocket and pulls back the upper lid of Chanyeol's left eye. He scratches at something on Chanyeol's right cheek, uncovering his right eye that he hadn't realized was covered, before pulling back its upper lid and shining the light in it, as well. It hurts, and Chanyeol recoils as much as he can. “Corneal abrasion from the sand. It should heal, given time. It's bandaged, for now, to keep the light out and prevent anything else from irritating it.

“Do you know who I am?” He talks like he's used to not talking, trying to get everything out at once so the conversation is over and done with.

Eons ago, Chanyeol doesn't know what day it is or how long he's been where he is, but he was reviewing a file in his apartment outside of Ba Sing Se. A Dai Li agent waited the entire time for an answer to the request written in a letter that Chanyeol burns after reading it.

“Do.” Kyungsoo Do, a doctor and humanitarian known throughout all of the nations.

“My name—given by my parents with political motivations and ambitions. My name is easy.”

Chanyeol squints. His right eye hurts, now that he's aware of the injury.

“Here, the people call me Doctor. That's it.” He wipes Chanyeol's forehead with a cool cloth and wrings gray water into a bowl. “So, if you wonder why I'm helping you instead of leaving your in the desert—like you rightfully deserve, being such an ill-prepared —it's because I took an oath to do no harm. To my patients, anyway.

“The boys at the door, though,” he nods to a pair of young men wearing greens and reds of Earth and Fire holding Fire Nation weapons across their chests. “They are soldiers. They believe in harm for the greater good.” Kyungsoo lays the cloth over the lip of the bowl, and a child takes it away. Chanyeol watches the little girl scurry between the guards and through the flap of the tent.

Kyungsoo leans over Chanyeol, knuckles pressing into the thin material and rolling Chanyeol towards him. “Heal. Regain your strength. Then leave,” he instructs lowly. He passes Chanyeol the water when he reaches for it. “Whatever you've been paid, it's not worth your life.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Chanyeol accepts the molded cup of water but can barely swallow. A lot of it he coughs onto himself.

“It is easy.” The doctor wipes his face and refills the cup of water. “Do or don't do whatever you want. It's the consequences that will be hard to live with.” He flattens the bandages on Chanyeol's face. “Rest, now. It's what your body needs most.” He leaves, and the guards follow, but Chanyeol is sure they stand right outside.

If he was stronger, he could make a run for it. He's fast. Against the uneven sand and unforgiving expanse of desert, though, he's more vulnerable than a baby. It's a miracle he even found the doctor; it was an impossible mission to begin with, but he wanted the element of surprise that any flying machine would have given away.

The only thing to do now is sleep. He's tired. He's sore. He doesn't want to think for a while.

 

Chanyeol dreams about the ocean. He lived on the coast with his family, following his sister everywhere and mimicking her training whenever he could. Before, after, and between their educations, they would make their way to the cliffs and watch the Navy's ships enter and leave port.

“I'm going to be on one of those ships one day,” Chanyeol says. “I'm gonna see the world.” His sister laughs and singes the ends of the hair that falls before his nose. Her control is such that he doesn't even notice the heat until he's swiping at the curled ends.

“You'll have to get a haircut. Do as you're told when you're told to do it.” His sister scoffs and throws an arm around his shoulders. “You're a people-pleaser, little brother, but you are no soldier.”

“Just watch! When I grow up, I'm leaving here and seeing the world.”

 

His stomach wakes him up. A different girl than before is trying to smother her giggles at the noises coming from his gut. She gasps when he looks at her and runs away before Chanyeol can say anything.

The guards visit him soon after. Their weapons hang from a strap on their backs, and the boy from the Fire Nation stays at the opening.

“Hey.” The other boy carries a bowl with a plate balanced on top. “My name is Jongin. The smiley guy at the door is Sehun.” He lifts the dishes a little. “We brought dinner.”

Chanyeol sits up and folds his legs. “Are you sure?”

“What can you really do?” Jongin asks. He doesn't seem to see Chanyeol as any sort of threat. “Besides, Doctor's orders. You need to eat.” He passes the bowl and plate. The plate appears to have some sort of flat, unleavened bread and a leafy vegetable.

The bowl is unapologetically filled with bugs.

“Uh...”

“Just eat it.” Kyungsoo says, followed by and immediately assaulted by a set of twins when he sits on a pile of cushions across from them. “The insects carry invaluable protein and nutrients that you, in particular, lack.”

One of the twins crouches beside Chanyeol's cot and helps himself to the bug bowl. He smiles and motions with his fingers to his mouth, Eat!, before tossing the bug back into his mouth. It crunches between his teeth.

“If you don't want to eat, feel free to insult these people and starve, although I don't take kindly to being embarrassed.”

It sounds like death no matter what.

The twins are watching him, probably wondering why the starving man won't eat.

“If you wrap it in the leaf,” Jongin says, “it's really not so bad.” Sehun snorts.

There is no way to trick himself into believing he doesn't have a handful of insects inside a lettuce leaf, but Chanyeol stuffs it all into his mouth, chews twice, and swallows the lot.

The children cheer and celebrate with bug wraps of their own.

Kyungsoo is actually smiling—sort of. He's watching Chanyeol with a funny look, popping bugs into his mouth like he's casually eating nuts.

 

It takes a couple days, but there's a time when Kyungsoo listens to his lungs, checks his eyes and removes the bandages, and puts some kind of salve on his burns. Chanyeol may or may not have picked a tiny insect leg or two out of the slick paste—he doesn't want to think out it. Then, the good doctor rolls Chanyeol out of his cot and pushes him out of the tent and into the moonlit desert night.

“Go on,” Kyungsoo says, tossing the bandages in a bin and cleaning his hands. “Get some fresh air.”

“You're not afraid I'll run?”

“You'd be a fool if you did. Although,” he muses, “only a fool would venture into the desert like you did, so...”

Chanyeol hears music. He thought he was hallucinating it, being unable to see outside the tent, and it abruptly stops when he walks farther into the clearing encircled by a ring of tents and sandsailers. Whether from his height or his distinctly golden eyes, a sure feature of the Fire Nation, he's an oddity among these desert people. The children who brought him food gleefully take his hands and drag him to play. This is enough to reassure any of the adults, and the music starts up again. Some of the younger people dance. Under the night sky, they don't have to wear as many layers or their usual protective goggles.

Chanyeol manages to escape the excited children and find Kyungsoo on his own, sitting on a sand dune where he could watch over the tribe.

“Do you regret coming here?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“What about your family?”

“Family is what you make it. My birth parents just went through the motions. Beyond my conception, my parents mean nothing to me.” They sit in silence, listening to the breeze blow across the sands and the instruments as musicians play their own songs but still find harmony. “Do you understand why my father sent you, now?” Kyungsoo asks lowly.

“How long have you known?”

“Since your arrival.” The doctor digs his bare feet into the sand, looking out over the desert landscape with narrowed eyes. “I saw your scars when bathing you and dressing your wounds.”

Scars discolor his back like red wings, imitating his PHOENIX namesake.

“And you still healed me, knowing I was sent to kill you?”

“Unlike my father, I believe people can change, given the chance.” Kyungsoo shrugs and picks up a scarab. “Also unlike my father, I believe you're not as dumb as you seem.”

“Excuse me?”

The beetle walks up Kyungsoo's arm, stands on his shoulder as though admiring the view, and turns around to walk back to the sand, and the doctor angles his arm like a ramp. Kyungsoo hooks his fingers like rigid claws and s them into the sand, pulling it out sharply and drawing out a thick column of sand beneath the beetle.

“You're a bender?!” That part must have been missing from the file he was given. There were pages of his academic achievements, glowing praises of political promise, but nothing about bending.

“Yes, I am my father's greatest weapon—dirt, sand, and metal all bend to me.” He raises his hands and sits straight. The sand falls. The scarab runs away. “But I was never a soldier. My talents in medicine and success as a doctor couldn't even begin to balance out his disappointment.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Only my father would find someone willing to brave the desert, armed with a gun, to assassinate someone with the ability to manipulate any quality of earth.”

Chanyeol can't be too offended. He really didn't investigate the doctor all that much. He discovered his supposed hiding place—the very very general region, at least—and set off, confident and unapologetic. He'd never been to the desert before, and it really is a lot like the ocean. Infinite but not lifeless, if one knows where to look.

He was just ready for an adventure, after his dreams of the Navy were destroyed.

“If you want, I can ask a couple people to take you to the nearest city, and you can make your way to wherever. Or, you can try to fulfill your contract.”

It's a life or death choice, it always was, but it was never Kyungsoo's. Chanyeol was approached with an offer he couldn't refuse and a task he could never complete.

He was never meant to be free.

 

---

a/n: Written for Takostation round 3. (prompt no.11: Chanyeol dreams of oceans, cold and deep under his fingertips. He dreams of forests, trees casting shadows overhead. But there's only sand and heat and despair. The sound of silence and the taste blood on his lips his companion a rifle and four bullets. One for the target, two for the guards, and one for him. Aim, shoot, disappear. That was his mission, so why then does the man on his file nursing him back to health? aka chanyeol is an assassin who got lost in the desert and kyungsoo is his savior as well as his target. Can have mentions of violence, maybe death.)

 

I was binging all of A:tlA while planning/writing this. (I haven't read any of the comics, yet.) It could be said to take place after The Legend of Korra, so the Earth Kingdom is no longer a monarchy. Spoiler alert: Kyungsoo's dad is an official who wants things back the way they were, because there are always rich old folks who don't want change or progress that could help the lower classes. I really wanted to get into the politics more, but I got hung up on the world and technicalities and annoyed myself so much I just had to end the story and move on. I wouldn't say no to revisiting it, though.