Hello! I've recently begun a long-overdue rewatch of LoK and decided to write a few more missing scenes that have been rolling around in my brain. This set will be a three-shot and takes place during Book One, beginning right after Lin loses her bending. Please be sure to leave a review. I love to see what people think as I try to fill in the gaps for my favorite characters. Thanks, and I hope you like it!
Weightless.
The first thing that registered in Lin's groggy mind was that she felt weightless. Slowly coming to, and with her eyes still closed, she pictured herself floating among soft, white clouds, miles above the ground. Nothing pulling her one way or another. No tethers. No connections. It was far from her element, but somehow still felt comfortable. Serene, even.
She envisioned herself this way, suspended high above the sea, her arms outstretched and her hair fluttering around her face. She watched her own eyes slowly open, blinking in the sunlight and taking in her surroundings. At first glance, she appeared to be completely alone up there, with no other trace of human existence in sight. However, as she focused, she could just make out a small shape retreating into the distant clouds. The shape looked vaguely familiar, but it took a moment for the image clicked into place in her mind.
A sky bison, she thought. Then it all came rushing back. Tenzin! The kids!
And suddenly she was falling, her trance broken by the vivid images now flashing through her mind. Airships pursuing them. The airbenders. The children's frightened faces. Pema and her tiny baby. Tenzin, just trying to protect them all.
Lin jerked into consciousness with a huge gasp, but the falling sensation continued. She looked around in confusion and fear, trying to understand where she was and what was happening. It took several seconds, but she eventually gained her bearings enough to register that she was not, in fact, falling from the sky. She was actually alone in dark cell, laying on the dusty bottom mattress of an old bunk bed.
Ever the police officer, she quickly tried to sit up and assess the situation, but discovered a dull, pounding pain in her head that she had not noticed before. Instead she propped herself on one elbow and began to massage her forehead and temples with her other hand. Her back and joints were also stiff and aching, as if she'd recently come out on the losing side of a fight, and there was still that inexplicable fluttering in her chest, as if she was falling through air. Lin had never experienced anything like it in her life and it was that feeling that worried her more than anything.
Exhausted by even those small movements, Lin laid her head back on the faded mattress and tried to remember exactly what had happened and how she could have gotten there. Closing her eyes once more, she could picture herself flying on a cable toward the nearest airship. She felt grim satisfaction as she remembered the damage she'd caused, but then felt the memory of instant, excruciating pain coursing through her body. She'd been electrocuted by Amon's henchmen.
Amon. The image of a hooded, rainsoaked figure in a pale, eerie mask flashed across her mind. Lin's heart lurched and she felt her blood run cold in her veins. She suddenly understood the fluttering, weightless sensation she was still experiencing.
Her bending. It was gone. Just gone.
Where before Lin had felt as if she was falling, the horror of this realization felt like slamming into the ground, her heart breaking and her lungs collapsing.
She couldn't feel anything. Only now that she had fully awakened to the awful new reality did Lin understand the sensation. While she could physically feel the mattress beneath her, and logically knew that it must be held up by the bed frame, which was in turn supported by the floorboards, the foundation, and the earth beneath that, she couldn't feel any of it. Not the way she always had. The rhythms of the world around her were still and silent, and Lin felt a sudden sense of deafness and vulnerability.
Her fading vision of floating and clouds now made perfect sense. She was untethered. She had lost her most fundamental connection to the world around her. The one she'd always relied upon most and the one she'd given up so much for.
Gasping for air and trying to stave off an impending panic attack, Lin rolled off the lower bunk and stood up. Doing so felt like pressing hot knives into her eyes and temples, but she forced herself to swallow the bile that had risen in her throat and leaned heavily into the top bunk. She stood like that for several seconds, pressing her eyes into the crook of her elbow until the room stopped spinning and little stars stopped pinwheeling across her field of vision.
She tried to ignore the wetness in her eyes and began to pace across the room, from one set of bunks to the other and back again, trying to focus on taking deep, measured breaths. This is not the end of the world, she repeated to herself. Half the population lives happily without bending. Isn't that the point that psychopath is trying to make here?
Lin could not suppress her fury at the thought of Amon and reacted instinctively, punching forward toward the iron bars of her prison. A small, stupidly optimistic part of her had almost expected the metal to burst apart and free her from her cage, but nothing happened. It was at that moment that Lin felt truly defeated, for the first time in many years.
Her head aching more than ever, she slumped back onto the bunk she'd risen from and stared across at the unforgiving metal. Peering through the bars, she realized that she'd been in this prison before. The cell across the corridor from hers was identical in shape, size, and furnishings. The only noticeable difference, beside the fact that it was empty, was a large gap in the metal bars. It was a gap Lin herself had created only a day before, when she had pulled the bars apart with ease and freed her officers. There was little doubt in her mind that Amon had ordered her to be confined in that specific cell. He would have known that the visual reminder of Lin's former abilities would serve as an extra dose of salt on her wounds.
Yes, people live normal lives without bending, she thought bitterly, turning away from the cell opposite, but they don't have the name "Beifong" following them around or a bending career they've dedicated their entire lives to. She pictured her mother in the prime of her policing days and almost laughed aloud. Oh, what Toph would say now.
This thought would have been almost too much to bear, but Lin checked herself. She knew deep down that her mother would not really think any less of her because she was no longer an earthbender, especially considering the circumstances in which she had lost her ability. No, Toph would have sacrificed anything to protect the innocent, especially her friends, and would expect nothing less from either of her daughters.
For the first time since waking in this cell, Lin felt a small amount of calm come over her. Picturing that family of airbenders, three small children trying to be brave, a mother clutching her helpless newborn to her chest, and the man who had once been Lin's closest friend and confidant, Lin knew she would have made the same choice again. She was surprised to find how much relief that realization brought her. It was one thing to lose her bending, but at least she could move forward knowing that she had no regrets.
Bolstered by this thought, Lin closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. Then she stood once again and faced the bars that held her captive. She may not be able to bend her way out anymore, but she knew that Amon and his lackeys likely had more in store for her.
Bending or no bending, Lin Beifong would take none of it lying down.
There it is! Please be sure to tell me what you think so far! I'm hoping to have the second part of this three-shot up in the next week or so. Thanks for reading!
Another quick note: I had previously posted this first chapter with another set of LoK one-shots, but I decided to post separately instead so I can be more specific in my character tagging. So, if the first chapter seems familiar, that's why. Sorry about that.