The young man’s attempt to defend himself was rather pathetic; two flimsy sticks clutched in his hands as a poor excuse of a weapon, his poorer sense of balance left him at an even greater disadvantage. If Pocahontas had been an actual threat to the boy, there was no doubt that he could have been cut down in seconds. She felt a brief twinge of pity for the boy, he was obviously trying hard to appear ferocious but failing miserably. But the hilarity over the whole situation outweighed any sympathy she might have felt for him. She didn’t laugh at him—she wasn’t that cruel— but merely raised an amused brow at the feeble attempt to defend himself against her, an unarmed woman with no training in weaponry whatsoever.
She stepped cautiously, much like one would approach a wounded bird, raising her empty hands to show she was unarmed and meant no harm to the boy. “I am Pocahontas,” she answered, circling about the measly pile of twigs, curiously poking it with a bare toe “Who are you?”
The pile was obviously meant to be the source of some sort of fire, but from the appearance of the heap of twigs at her feet, it would be a very short lived one at that. There was no kindling, no source of real fuel, and the boy had carelessly forgotten to dig a shallow hole in order to protect the surrounding area. Grass and dried leaves were scattered about the meadow in abundance, and it would only take a gust of wind to spread the fire quickly. This man must have never made a fire before in the woods to make such a careless mistake.
“Do you need help?” she asked, although she didn’t wait for an answer before she was bending down gather up the pile of sticks in order to dig underneath. Having made plenty of fires in her days, she was willing to offer her assistance, not just as an act of kindness, but as precaution. Fire spread quickly, and if the boy didn’t tread carefully the forest could light up quickly. She managed to move the pile to the side, and was now clawing at the earth to form a pit of sorts. She didn’t even look up as she said “ If you’re trying to build a fire with just this, I can help.”
Ping was embarrassed. He would have liked to have thought that if the others were here, they would have agreed Ping was wise to be wary when Pocahontas had appeared…but deep down, the recruit was certain that they would have been too busy laughing at his tumbled, disheveled state to think that way. Then they would have noticed Ping’s sorry excuse for a fire, and the teasing would never have ended.
The problem was, of course, that you could only persuade your guardian dragon to provide fire for you so often, and that only in private. Mushu kept threatening to let Ping eat cold, raw potstickers next time, and Ping didn’t want to wait to find out. Captain Li had refused to pass out army-issue flints. "One day you may be trusted not to set your tents on fire,“ he’d suggested, "but first, those of you who cannot make a fire without flint should learn. A soldier is only as good as his body. What good is training in weaponry when you lose your sword in combat? What good is the fire you’ve built if you cannot make it without a flint?” It was the sort of mildly-worrying logic that had sent Ping out into the woods, determined to make a fire by himself.
In perhaps one of the wisest decisions the teenager had made since coming to Wu Zhong, Ping stepped out of Pocahontas’s way as she knelt to fix the fire. "Um, thank you…Pocahontas,“ Ping told her shyly - but no less fervently. The name had a certain rhythm to it, if an unfamiliar one. "My name is Ping.” Soon, he knelt next to Pocahontas, because there was no point in her helping him if he didn’t watch very carefully. "Why are you digging up the ground?“ asked Ping hesitantly. He did his best not to sound critical, because Ping had learned quickly that some people used any excuse to pick a fight. Even if Pocahontas wasn’t a belligerent soldier, Ping was so grateful to her that he would have hated for her to think he wasn’t grateful.
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