Looking forward to new readers as well as the old ones, I hope you enjoy this sequel to Saturno: A Traitor's Heart. And as always….here's a cookie!
Four Years Later
She was dreaming the same dream that had caused her so much ill sleep. The sleep of a broken heart that never mended. The same dream that had woken her up time and again from her bed screaming his name.
It had been four years, but she remembered it like it had happened the day before.
His father's broken body, the nod from his teacher in response to his own.
Then the horn...
And then, the screaming….
The screeching of the dragons…
The attack of the armies on the Fire Nation Palace….
It was utter hell….
Her vision was shadows, she could see the varajans, rushing around her like water. Butchering the soldiers and the people of the city caught outside their homes, without discrimination, the heat of the fires, the screaming. Oh yes, the screaming was the worst part. Screams of pure terror, of utter agony, screams of the damned.
Oh yes, the screaming, the sounds. Toph could see everything around her even the things in the sky, clearly for the first time. Clearer than she ever had before, she saw everything. But not what she would have liked. The dragons, swooping down with their otherworldly roaring, it sounded like a dying animal that was enraged.
The smell, of blood, of fire, of pain…..
She was swept up, by the charging army, she was ushered by its soldiers to wherever it was going. She didn't know where, but it was always a feeling she had she knew how it was all going to end. It happened every dream, she relived it like the first time, every time, it was just as terrifying, just as painful, just as black.
She was separated from the gang. The people around her, guided her somewhat haphazardly to the palace. The varajans tore through the formation and slaughtered the demoralized soldiers like lambs.
The gigantic Elephossus swung their massive tusks and tore battlements apart, goring and swatting away those foolish enough to get in their way.
The horses, rode down the people trying to escape….
The scarab-like Arkanic trapped the people in the city through alleys then tore them to shreds. Their riders, gleefully wielding their scimitars with precision as they went about their work, butchering the trapped.
She didn't know how, but she had found herself in the throne room where Azula and her father were. Aang was there too, she never figured out how amidst the entire battle he managed to find them in the bunker passage ways.
Probably through the trail of mangled bodies…
Then, there he was…
He stood like an unstoppable juggernaught, a thick gloss of blood burnished his armor. His greatsword, just as gory.
Ozai, he didn't even try to negotiate, he had accepted his defeat, but even then, Toph knew he had no idea of what was waiting for him. Truth be told, neither did she in its full scope.
His fate, was far worse than death…..
Afterall, four years since the Day of Black Sun, he was still alive…
The things the varajans did to him…
She knew she was better off not knowing….
The whole dream wailed, screamed and danced its macabre form in her head. Her heart fluttered and contracted, she began to sweat profusely. Every inch of her was purring in distress. She felt cold.
Her heart accelerated, the shadows danced in her mind, she squirmed, her mind spun and spun and spun, then she saw him.
Saturno
"No!" she screamed out.
She gasped and breathed deeply, reflexively dropping her breathing rate from hyperventilating.
The bed was soaked with sweat, she wiped her brow, the sweat, it was cold.
Toph shuddered, the dream's grip receding from her mind. The fresh jolt of adrenaline in her body began to ease. And as it did, Toph began to feel just how exhausted she was.
This dream, the dream, it came every now and again, but the mere thought of it made her lose sleep.
She shifted her mind as best she could. Trying to remember the better things that had happened to her in the past four years…
When she returned to her family, Aang and Katara's sixteenth birthday. Her sixteenth birthday, the first time Sokka and she kissed.
She smiled inwardly, Sokka was her boyfriend, the boyfriend, she could by law marry him. But neither of them were too eager for it, they did love each other but there was something that felt weird about marriage. It was besides the fact they were still young, it was something else entirely.
Perhaps it was that they were not each other's first choices…
Suki had never turned up from the Fire Nation prisons, or the camps either. The nation had been thrown into such a state of chaos that many people went missing, others came back, others died. Many a loved one's fates were uncertain. Toph knew that Sokka always jumped when he received a letter, thinking that it was from Suki telling him she had returned home and that she was fine, and that she could not wait to see him again.
She was dead most likely….
There were a lot of things still to be accounted for. The Fire Nation was responsible for that. Having lost its head so quickly, it dismembered itself as new warring kingdoms took their place, all, miniature tyrants looking to stake their claim to lands and power.
Only frightened of one thing…
The 13th and 9th Legions assimilated, and came to be known as The Black Legion, the single most terrifying army in the western world. They kept order in the lands and made sure the readjustment from the war came smoothly.
Their Black Ships, were an unsettling, but familiar sight on the horizon. The only challenge to their power came with a regiment of the Fire Nation Royal Army refusing to free an Earth Kingdom city they had still hold of. Those who deserted were spared. When the varajans took the rest, they crucified them in every major city of the Fire Nation.
No one dared to cross them. Not after what they had done….
And as for Saturno, no one knew what had happened to him. After the day of Black Sun, his generals and lieutenants had split up and crushed all opposition from the Fire Nation. The Soldadus himself had disappeared.
Some thought he had died, others that he returned to Varajo, no one knew for certain….
That was what had especially hurt Toph. It was half and half, she didn't say goodbye to him. She was taken by the gang away from the Fire Nation, because of the things they had seen. They had had enough. But in truth, she had never sought him out to say goodbye. She knew to where she could send a letter to talk to him. But for four years, she hadn't.
She was more than certain, wherever he was, that he had no idea where she lived. Then again, he could have found out, but she never received a single letter from him…
At any rate, the norm was settled…
Let the varajans deal with the Fire Lord and his people, the westerners had no desire to go back there and see what those outlanders would do next, what new form of cruelty would be spawned from their madness.
But regardless of shut ears, news came every month…
Every month the varajans crushed some new rebellion and set new rules. The seemed intent on making the Fire Nation pay for its tyranny, which was strange, they hated them as if they themselves had suffered by their hand.
In truth, no one cared anymore, one hundred years of war had ended. Everyone could breath and sleep and live in peace now. And the varajans were making sure the Fire Nation was getting what it had earned. However, the gang, and certain other notables were concerned about the varajan methods.
But, the Fire Nation, it had earned it…
They deserved it didn't they?...
That was something they had asked themselves many times, but at this point, it was irrelevant.
What's done is done….
The varajans placed certain governors and kept the Fire Nation Kingdoms separate and weak. They didn't fear them of course, but it was a much more efficient system to control an area than to crucify an entire nation. And of course, they were allied with Fire Lord Zuko and Queen Mai, they had of course been denied their rightful claim to the throne as Zuko was a traitor and a banished prince. Regardless, he had a kingdom and subjects over whom he had to rule over.
He did however, resent the outlanders for what they had done. His father had to fall, and they achieved that, but they were invaders. How could he not resent and attempt to ease their rulings and harsh punishments.
They were under the sword of a people nearly ten thousand miles away, in another kingdom.
The varajans took a great southern part of the Earth Kingdom as their new western nation. A kingdom, named Dragadros. After its founding by Saturno, he named Aksavit queen and Mouth its Steward.
Then as the story goes, he went back through the Bakrian Ocean and disappeared. No one knew what had become of him. He became something of a legend. A legend that outweighed Aang's, after one hundred years without him, the world had adapted to life without the Avatar, but just when it was getting to accept him. The varajans came, and did his job for him. Much more efficiently, but brutally than Aang would have, no one complained though. When it came to war, the varajans did not mess around.
Saturno of course, had dethroned Ozai and defeated him, that was what everyone knew. And instead of cheering Aang's name, they cheered Saturno Aeleas…
Neither had ever spoken of it, but Aang resented what Saturno had done to no end. He had cheated Aang of his purpose, of his mission.
That bloody war had taken or altered everyone in some way….they all just wanted to forget…
Toph leaned on her elbows for a moment, her mind in blank. She then placed both her hands on her face and then snaked them down to her knees.
Had it really been four years? She and the others had grown so much. She could look eye to eye with Katara now, who was no slouch; she had several boys after her. She was single, she and Aang never had hooked up, and things were in too much of disarray in the world and their nations needed time to find balance again.
And on that note, she remembered, Sokka and Aang and Katara were in her manor. And by the smell outside and the birds singing, it was just about dawn.
She smiled, it was time for a new day. The war was over, she and the gang could act like children and relax and play and sing for once.
She hopped out of bed and wrapped herself in her usual robes and bound her shoulder length hair in a pony tail. Ready to wake her brothers and sisters she happily jogged down the halls of her home, maybe she would give them all five more minutes, maybe.
It was time to wake up! It was a bright new day and the future was looking bright.
As she went down the hall, she unconsciously fingered Saturno's ring. A little token he had never asked her back for. Reluctant to admit it to anyone, even herself, she had to admit.
She missed him….
And on more than one occasion she asked herself….
Did he miss her?...
Good prologue? I hoped you enjoy this story as much as I did! The sequel to Saturno: A Traitor's Heart! Here's a cookie!