AN: So I've tried to upload this thing before, but fell bar behind with the uploads and the writing. So take two, and this time I'll get it all out trust me. Any questions please don't put them in reviews, please post positive words and criticisms. If you do have questions just PM me. I've also done this with Atlantis. I called it 'The Lost City of the South'. Also if you want to commission me, PM me. And check me out on AO3 at 'Valkurion' because people are hellbent on kicking me off of this site.
The Loot of a Thousand Nations
Chapter 1 - May Her Spirit Soar
The little girl opened the book, as she did every single night without fail and always as the sky and thus her room changed to a particular shade of darkness.
Always, on every single night, she brought out the same binding of pages with the holographic interface to allow the images to pop out of the parchment like a home movie before her child lime green eyes. It was always spectacular and always made her blissfully content enough to fall asleep within moments after the conclusion of the tale. She loved it, as of course a child at near enough the age of seven would. It was pretty much all she lived for; the rawness and unadulterated truth within the pages and the colorful pictures. It was real, to her at least.
Her tale always started, as many others usually did, on a starry night deep in the swirling abyss of the deep Celestial when the winds were calm and contrite with very little in the way of disturbance and nothing to ruin the blissfulness of the galaxy. It was beautiful, the lack of atmosphere and therefore the abundance of it that made Opal Beifong truly believe she was a disembodied consciousness in the middle of the heavens to observe the tale.
On the clearest of nights when the winds of the Etherium were calm and peaceful, the great merchant ships from the sprawling empire of the Fire Consulate with their cargoes of gold, silvers, and other such riches from the upper classes felt safe and secure. Little did they ever suspect that they would be preyed upon by hordes of vicious cutthroats and… Pirates.
And the most feared of all these pirates, was the notorious Captain Noatak, the infamous 'Amon'.
"Fire!" The Captain ordered across his deck, signaling his crew of vagabonds, cutthroats, and rogues to begin bombarding the large and illustrious freighter. The smaller and agiler attack ship moved alongside the large hulk in an attack pattern, blasting key locations along the starboard side with the largest plasma cannons and then crippling the main propulsion systems with the smaller machine guns to ensure the freighter was not going anywhere at all. The elite and prestigious guests in the ballrooms and fancy gathering halls were subdued into perpetual darkness and frenzies of panic while the pirate craft rose up to engage in a broadside with the main deck of the larger ship, the cutthroat bandits brandishing gleaming cutlasses and powered firearms fully loaded with plasma rounds, blasting the enemy sailors and crew with shots to the chest and head, cutting up the crew in minutes and easily overpowering the civilians crew, carving their way to the true goal; the loot.
Like a Candarian zap-wing overtaking its prey-
"Opal Toph Beifong!" Her mother yelled as she quickly opened the door to reveal herself in her nightgown and slippers with her short bob of trailing and slightly graying black hair flowing down her right cheekbone. She had a stern look on her face but she was hardly angry; Opal was her only daughter and her entire world. "I thought you were asleep an hour ago" she scolded, still obliged to be a mother to her daughter.
The little girl tossed and turned in the bed, putting the book to the side for a moment to pull one over on her dear mother. She was too adorable whenever she wanted something.
"But Mom, I was just getting to the best part" she moaned, rolling over onto her back. She was simply so small and her short bob of black hair kept on getting in her face and mouth, her eyes gleaming in the faint trail of dimmed light behind her mother in the nightgown. "Pleeeeaaase?" She asked with the biggest eyes and most adorable face that looked like it was made of dough or something equally as soft.
Of course, her mother could never deny her something when she pulled a face like that. "Oh, can those get any bigger?" Suyin balled rhetorically before closing the door and moving to her daughter on the bed, grabbing the book and opening it to the right page with her Opal in her lap.
She opened the book and the little film resumed with the same dramatic vigor and tone at the voice of the narrator.
Like a Candarian zap-wing overtaking its prey, Amon, and his band of renegades swooped in out of nowhere. They decimated the civilians crew, seized the gleaming cargo or gold, silver and jewels. Then, gathering up their spoils vanished without a trace.
Amon's trove was never found, but stories have persisted throughout the galaxy for years that it remains hidden somewhere in the farthest reaches of the Etherium, stowed with riches beyond imagination.
"The Loot, of a Thousand Nations" Opal joined with the narrator for the final words, she had memorized it so and head read and viewed the book so many times. It was, of course, her most favorite thing in the world. She enjoyed and lived for the tale more than anything, more than watching and obsessing over gliding or sailing or the vids of those solar sailors traversing the Spirit Winds or anything else that made her little seven-year-old life.
Suyin pulled her handkerchief from the pocket of her nightgown, doting upon her daughter who by now must have been as tired as possible with a hyperactive seven-year-old following the energy spike. "Okay sweetie, blow your nose" she checked, one of her usual things she would always check with all her children. Opal did as she was told and blew harshly in the cloth piece but then as her mother was folding it back into her gown the little rascal escaped into the folds of the bed sheets.
"How do you think he did it, mom?" She wriggled upwards and under the pillows to the headboard. "How he swooped in outta nowhere." She leaped from the wooden board onto the bed, only just missing the wrapping of her mother's arms as she tried to catch her in mid-air. "And vanished without a trace" she quoted from the book and hid under the layers of bedding from her matriarchal pursuer.
Her mother acted none the wiser, brushing her strand of blackened hair behind her ear and smiling at how proactive and full of life her baby girl was. It was such a lovely household to live in Suyin had to admit. She had a powerful and loving husband who was brilliant at his occupation and the perfect man to be married too, even if he was a little distant at times of intense stress which could happen for long periods of the year. She had a brilliant and full bundle of children, Opal being the youngest of five in total with two being more than her two handfuls and the other two boys being polar opposites. She, of course, loved all of her children but Opal Beifong was the biggest source of sunshine in her mother's life and always would be.
"I have no idea sweetie" she popped out swiftly before reaching playfully to grab her little girl. "Come here. I'm gonna get you!" She called out as she wrestled for her child, grabbing her by her rather chubby ankle and dragging her over her knee. She whipped away Opal' pajama top to expose the chubby flesh of her stomach and, as a playful mother would she blew grapes against the tender skin, tickling her daughter to no end and forcing her to laugh sweetly. "Okay. Now it's time for this little spacer to go to sleep" Suyin told her with a loving touch of the nose before tucking the seven-year-old back into her bed peacefully.
"You think anyone will ever find The Loot of a Thousand Nations?" Opal asked while her mother reached behind the pillow to pull something that had been making her uncomfortable while reading the story. It was, of course, one of Opal's many toy Bison that she loved to collect; she had a faint obsession with the culture and attire of the old Air Nation.
She placed the Bison back up with the rest on Opal's shelf. "Sweetheart. I think it's more like a legend," she voiced in a very adult way, the way someone may tell their child that a holiday figure is real as they grow older. Like a father would tell their child of nine that Santa doesn't really exist or that the Tooth Fairy is a device to reward infants for losing a tooth and growing up.
Opal, however, was adamant that her fairy tale was nothing but the unfiltered truth. "I know it's real Mom."
"You win. It's real" Suyin presented as a mother would. She planted a soft kiss on Opal's forehead, brushing away the black bangs from her face and moving to the door in order to let her girl sleep at last. "Night sweetie" she voiced, blowing a second kiss.
"Night night Mom" Opal breathed while her mother closed the door slowly and returned to her own room. It took a whole ten seconds of hearing her mother's footsteps followed by a light switch turning off and then a door opening and closing before she could make her own move; she certainly knew her mother's routine while moving to the bed. She grabbed her book and moved under the sheets to read the rest of the story, there was not much left.
There are nights when the solar winds of the Etherium, so inviting in their promise of flight and freedom, made one's spirit soar!
Years Later…
It was the late afternoon, the wind was on her side and the wasteland of the Industrial District of the Planet Zaofu was void of all life and machinery, all buildings and transport, all industry and refinery and therefore she was completely in her element. Opal Beifong, her bangs still in the way of her face threatening to enter her mouth, grew the most exhilarated and defiant grin in her life; her fingers gripping tightly on the wooden handles of her self-made glider, allowing the wind to pass through its sails and herself to be the leaf just as her friends taught her before eventually leaving the planet themselves. She was alive, alive and high in the sky like a bird or an actual leaf caught in the wind. She was nineteen, strong and a determined woman to do whatever she wanted to, to keep her personal freedom at every cost.
Opal always loved gliding in the late midday, just as the sun was beginning to retreat beyond the horizon she always sought to race it, to catch the orb of light burning across the sky. It was how her life found excitement, to escape from being the daughter of a single mother whose children had all left the planet in search of better surroundings that weren't the same four walls of a simple port tavern. Opal had to stay behind but not by choice, she was too broke and had no opportunity to leave the atmosphere for another with more action and freedom. She wanted to desperately to leave, to see the stars and stand on the deck of a vessel traversing the heavens and see all that the galaxy had to offer to her. She wanted to see the distant worlds that made up the Earth Government; the sandstone ruins of modern day Omashu, the grand capital of Ba Sing Se, the scattered islands and sea creatures famous to Kyoshi Prime, all the wonder of the galaxy that was so far away to the metal industrial world of Zaofu. But for now, she was stuck planetside, with her glider keeping her in the air and above the rocky surface of her home, of her mother's home.
She looked down at the terrain and spotted an area for traversing, where could test her flying skills; it was a canyon, vast and varied. She had an idea, crazy and purely insane, one that could just kill her if she didn't execute it correctly and with the right precision. This was what she lived for, the death-defying stunts that could end either way and she would be happy with performing the feat. She was a certain daredevil.
Okay, Opal girl, time to show what you're made of. She steered and jerked her body to the side and upward, catching the wave of the wind that would take her entire body upward and into the cloud layer. Just like a leaf as she wanted so much to be she rose higher and higher, flowing with the wind until she knew she was high enough. Then, in her usual daredevil way she closed her lime green eyes and closed the sails of her glider, turning it back into a staff and ceasing all motion of her fluid and seemingly weightless body and all once she began to fall, hugging her wooden glider closely to her chest while her bangs flowed back to cover her face.
It was electrifying, light riding the lightning of a storm the way she fell so absolute and final as if she were a meteor during a star fall. You can't kill me. I'll never die here. It was something she always said to herself in the solitary moments she had before she would have to deploy her glider again. She was falling head first and when she opened her eyes again to see the ground rapidly approaching her her heart skipped a beat and she maneuvered in the air, flicking out the sails of her glider again and catching the current of air to allow her sail in a curve along the ground, close enough to run her fingers along it if she wished; she didn't.
With a large yell from her mighty lungs and a jerk of her whole body she gained some height, spotting a split in the canyon; to the left the path jerked and led to some salt flats and the settlements that would lead home and to the right there was the refinery and foundry complex, a place of work and a restricted area to the law but of Opal Beifong it was another challenge and an obstacle.
She licked her lips determinedly and jerked her body right, heading right to the foundry. If she was caught inside another restricted area then the cops would be on her faster than she could escape them, it may even mean a final trip to detention that her mother had threatened her with a few ties when her liberal personality clashed with the matriarch's lifestyle of capitalism, or rather attempted capitalism, for Suyin life wasn't easy. Opal pushed all thoughts of home from her mind and snapped back to reality as she trails blazed through the main gate, catching her foot on a wooden plank and smashing it to splinters; still, the alarm sounded and she was compromised. Now she had to pick up the pace and escape before security could find their intruder.
There was a large disk grinding drill carving its way into the cliff ahead of her, two disk with vents keeping the staggered saw blade in the center. She could see that there was an interval of when the jaws of the blade crashed into the cliff where the vents were completely clear, allowing a small projectile to pass through if it was fast enough. I'm definitely fast enough.
She got really close, so close she could almost feel the waves of air come off the grinder and with another roar from her lungs she closed her sails and turned to hug the staff again. Like a bullet she passed through the vent laughing at how talented and smooth she was. Quickly so she didn't fall right to her death she flicked open the sails a least time and began to climb up the air currents again like a bird, cheering and whooping herself as she felt so great to be alive again. She loved it plain and simple, she loved gliding and she loved the open sky as much as she loved the stories of the Etherium up above with so much life. If only she could just push herself far enough, if only it was possible for the wooden glider to simply push itself past the atmosphere and into those solar winds, for her escape.
There was a faint ringing in her ears, the ringing of doom she was already accustomed to; the ringing low and high tones of a damned police siren.
Opal looked quickly behind her to see them, two mechanic goons with bucket for heads on hovercraft with beeping blue and red lights to match their siren pitches; one was gesturing with its gloved finger downward, they wanted her to land so they could at least detain her and take her home safely.
"Oh, great. Mom's going to love this one" she said aloud almost biting her tongue. If only she weren't a slave to thrill chasing and defying death on a weekly basis.