oh my! it's an update!

[shadowsong26]

Title:  Buried Child
Rating: M
Genre: General
Summary: Four years after his village is destroyed, Jet begins to make a new family.
Warning: There will be fairly graphic content later in this story.

Jet had left Lee in the campsite they'd been using for the last three days. He'd helped the younger boy steal boots and a thick heavy coat, ludicrously big on him, but it hadn't done him much good. He was still coughing, no better than he had been when they'd first met, maybe worse. So he'd built up the fire and gone off to try and find blankets or medicine or someone else to recruit to help him take care of Lee. Because I am not losing my army before it's even started.

Hearing footsteps, he went up a tree to watch. The source of the footsteps proved to be a little girl, about his and Lee's age. She had a basket, and was stripping the inner bark from the dormant wild cherry trees and placing it in it.

Is she alone, like us? Maybe I can recruit that girl, she can help me take care of Lee...Jet waited a few minutes, then came down from the trees and approached her.

When he stepped on a twig, she spun around, holding out the knife between them. She relaxed slightly when she saw the stranger was a kid her age, but only slightly. She didn't lower the knife. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Jet held up his hands, the way he had with Lee when they'd first met, to show he wasn't reaching for or holding any kind of weapon. "My name's Jet. I need help, my friend is sick."

The girl studied him, her knife not wavering even a little bit. "You're refugees?"

Sort of. "Yes."

"You're alone, you and your friend?"

He nodded.

She was silent for another minute. "Put your swords down and kick them over to me."

Aak! Jet hesitated, in no way comfortable with being unarmed. She won't help you unless you do it. And maybe she can use that knife for more than carving up trees. And Lee needs the help. He dropped his swords onto the ground and kicked them over to the girl.

She bent down to pick them up, not taking her eyes or her knife off of him. "Okay," she said, balancing the swords in her basket and the basket on her arm. "Show me your friend. Keep your hands where I can see them."

Nervously watching the trees for any type of enemy, Jet cautiously started off, keeping his hands open and above his shoulders. The girl got much closer; he felt a point of pressure through his clothes, between his shoulderblades. He swallowed. Maybe I asked the wrong person to help me...

He said none of this aloud, just led her to the campsite where he'd left Lee. The younger boy was still there, huddled next to the fire in his overlarge coat. He looked up when he heard them coming and launched to his feet, pulling out his knife and watching the girl, wide-eyed. The effect of this attempted defense of his friend was somewhat spoiled when he started coughing again and nearly dropped his knife. Finally, the girl lowered her own knife. She ran over to Lee and started looking him over, checking his temperature and resting her head on his chest to listen to him breathe. She looked like she knew what she was doing, at least.

After a couple minutes of this, she looked up at Jet. "I need to take him home with me. My mom's better at this than I am, and that's where the medicine I think he needs is, anyway. Plus, he shouldn't be living outside like this while he's sick and it's this cold and wet out. You can come too, I guess."

"Okay," Jet said, relieved and a little disappointed. She's still got her mom. She won't want to come with us.

Lee, however, shook his head. "No."

She stared at him a minute. "You're sick. You need to be taken care of."

He shook his head again. "No. Th--" He started coughing, interrupting himself.

"I told you, Lee," Jet said. "I'll protect you from whoever's chasing you. Okay?"

"And I have a place where you can hide anyway," the girl said firmly. "But you're not staying out here in the snow until you're better."

Lee flinched, and caved. Jet helped Lee up. "Lead the way?" he asked the girl, who nodded and led them off towards the town.