Title: Crippled Kingdoms
Rating: T
Words: 3192
Summary: When their savior fell and did not pick up his sword, the children shed their smiles and fell to the lord. Aang isn't Found!AU. Gen fic.
a/n: Round 2 submission for the Pro-Bending Circuit tournament. It's AU week, and unfortunately I couldn't help but let things get a little dark. Also, for the sake of the judges and everyone else reading, assume that this is taking place three years after the war would have canonically ended.
Warnings: Gen fic (no pairings), angst, war, violence
Task: Aang isn't Found!AU (Katara and Sokka did not find Aang in the iceberg and end the war).
Prompts
/././ Fire Lord Ozai
/././ Classic by MKTO: ("Ooh pretty baby / This world might've gone crazy / The way you save me / Who can blame me / When I just wanna make you smile?")
/././ "Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light." -Helen Keller
Bonus: Include the element Earth somewhere into the story
OOO
Crippled Kingdoms
OOO
i. a lord to end all lords
The fall was absolutely exquisite.
He confided to his daughter that it would be aptly fitting in a play, or an orchestral symphony. Something grand and artistic that could simmer within their culture and remain a testament to the tenacity of his powerful reign.
Monuments. Citadels. Cities bearing his name. A world thriving on the noble blood and sweat of his people. Such a sweet nectar to feed this new age with, and such a pity the battle wasn't a tad more interesting.
Sometimes, a King's mouth watered for a challenge and hungered for a deadly fight. Sitting on a throne made one's blood grow restless, and nothing would please him more than to feel that blood collect in his mouth, or to feel his skin sing with pain. It would remind him that he was still a warrior that fought for the glory of his nation and sunk his spear into the hearts of the undeserving. It would boil his lust and make him shudder under the pleasure of snuffing out lives so much less than his own.
It would remind him that he had won.
He decided to shed the name Ozai. It reminded him of his father who had so underestimated him, and it reminded him of the man that he used to be. He wasn't merely a man. He was an Earthly God. He was a human deity that had brought about the End of Days and left the world to fester in a blanket of ash. But he, a phoenix rising from the embers, would bring about a Genesis so splendid in its vigor that future Kings would have no choice but to vie desperately for half of his glory.
Bards would sing. His visage across scrolls and history books. His very title causing tremors of awe to shake the bones of all those who bowed to him.
He settled back into his throne and sighed in sweet, delicious satisfaction.
Yes. Exquisite indeed.
.
ii. a prince lost in his sea of dreams
His uncle liked to keep him busy with frivolous words whilst they scoured the seas on deck.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light, he had told him whilst staring out at shorelines one foggy day. Remember that though you lack the faculties to move forward, you do not lack the companions to keep you upright.
Zuko could laugh at such a useless amalgamation of words. He was in the dark and could not see. And he had no one to help him walk.
So what could he do now?
His men knew the truth long before Zuko chose to admit it. The search for the Avatar was a fool's errand and would remain so. Years scouring the same seas, the same cities, and the same ports gifted him with a gnarled, brackish lump of hope that couldn't feed his resolve. Zuko would spend nights, a foolish flame flickering in his palm to light the inky waters, staring into nothing. He'd pray over the remains of his tattered pride that a miracle would rise like smoke from the waves. Perhaps the legends that the world had long stopped chasing after would appear and gift him with his birthright once more.
But now he knew what his men knew then. A grave that's been dug for one hundred years won't yield life because of a wretched prince's pleas.
They had slowly abandoned him and gone home.
His uncle remained valiantly like a dog licking the wounds of his half-dead master and nuzzling at his cold body in a fruitless attempt to keep him warm. Zuko realized that his uncle knew the truth. But his uncle would never dare squash what little light he thought he could see in Zuko's eyes.
But as Zuko walked along the burnt port of an Earth Kingdom town whose name he could not remember, he couldn't discern with definitivity what it felt like to carry so strong a light in his gaze. He knew that his Uncle's pleasantries, smiles, words of wisdom, encouraging tales, and patient training were bandages covering a rot Zuko couldn't hide.
It was why he had stood on the rails of the stern, his mind blank and his limbs ready, and stepped off of his ship.
His Uncle wouldn't find him on board in the morning. The man could finally go home where he was welcome. This wasn't his punishment.
He swam for an hour before finally reaching the scarred shoreline, and he was met with a wondrous sight. This epicenter of vivacious existence was leveled. Destroyed. Devoid of life. Nothing but charred remains of a world that no longer was. A testament to his father's victory.
Proof that the Avatar could do no harm.
Proof that Zuko's searching was worth less than nothing.
Zuko brought a hand up to his ruined eye. It was the realization he knew all along but refused to see, and it made him so tired.
What was the point of him anymore?
His Uncle had no advice for lonely people stuck in the dark. But Zuko knew that much already, and that was alright.
He breathed in the morbid silence around him, and he felt at home for the first time in years.
.
iii. a princess takes up a warrior's sword
She was worth 10,000 gold pieces dead, and 50,000 alive.
A hefty bounty for a young girl, and The Boulder had told her that much, worrier that he was. But Toph took in the news with a note of pride and smirked at the infamy she had acquired. Although never one that wallowed in her wealth, she wished that she still had those gold, gilded picture frames from the drawing room. The wanted poster would have probably felt right at home up there.
It was a thing to be proud of: a token to flaunt. Earthbenders had little of that nowadays, so she took what she could get.
"Grab what little pleasure you can, boys. There's not much of it left in this dump!"
Haru had just returned from the hidden Refugee Camp down South. His father was safe, and so were her parents. Toph could imagine that they were clutching the broken pearls and emerald rings they had deemed pertinent enough to fill their pockets with, and were bemoaning the privilege they'd been struck down from. They were the epitome of selfish old money.
Toph couldn't help but find some humor in the situation. Her mother would have rather let the Firebenders at their doorstep burn her down along with their estate than to abandon her priceless diamond collection. She barely had enough time to pull her mother down into the tunnel she bent that snuck them out of Gaoling and to relative safety.
Oh well. At least the woman had something to coddle.
The Boulder was still frowning at the poster, mumbling prayers under his breath. Toph was worried about more important things. "Any soldiers?"
Haru shed himself of the stolen Fire Nation armor and nodded. "A patrol four miles west of here. They heard rumors of Earthbenders sparking up rebellion." He finished with a small smile that Toph matched with a wicked grin.
"They've noticed us." It was the best news she'd heard all day.
"Seems so." He looked pitifully around their bunker, hidden a mile underground thanks to the help of a couple hundred benders, some of whom were probably halfway to the Fire Nation by now. "But still. We've lost a lot of people. We're weaker. We need to be careful."
Careful was an understatement. Toph's nightmares were filled with metal shackles and iron cages suspended fifty feet in the air. Prisoners of war were rewarded with no less, and rebels wore targets on their backs in the name of snatching their glorious kingdom back. She had told her companions this. Fighting for the name of your broken pride came with a tall price to pay should you fail. But they all had little else to lose, and sacrificing small freedoms didn't seem so taxing anymore.
Toph nodded, but her spirit hummed with vigor. She dug her heels into the Earth. "We'll wait until they're in my sights. Then we'll wail on 'em with all we've got."
Going topside was always painful. So much of the Earth Kingdom was burnt to the ground during the comet, and what cities and towns remained were littered with the soldiers that Toph had grown to despise. They thought they owned the world. Haru liked to correct her and say that they did, but she'd punch him firmly in his gut and decree that as long as she could bend, those honorless leeches hadn't won.
It was easy to fall to her knees, let her fight drain out onto the blackened Earth, and bemoan the deadened vibrations that echoed pathetically through the ground and back to her feet.
But come on. The Blind Bandit—confirmed Earth Kingdom rebel and highly-skilled Earthbender—was worth more than her weight in gold.
That was something to smile about.
.
iv. a brother marches with blades for hands
When his father had given him his first knife, he told him that warriors fall subject to nature when they decide to fight.
He'd hardly understood such archaic responsibility, and merely marveled at the curve of the weapon and the glint of its blade. He was a simple boy who grew up in a simple village, and had very little to look up to other than their warriors. With war paint spread across their jaws set in obstinacy, they appeared the picture of strength and wonder to a young, impressionable child like himself. Nothing was more beautiful than the way their spears cut through the air, or the way their scimitars flowed with their bodies.
No one had explained to him the realities of such an existence. Now he was learning them all too swiftly.
He hadn't listened to his father's first lesson, but now it all made sense to him. He remembered the first fish he had ever speared, and how he had stared at its violently flapping body that tried so gallantly to free itself of the tip of his spear. However, such struggling ceased quickly, and the fish was merely a meal.
Humans fought for life with that same gallantry, and functioned with a single-minded desperation to survive.
Sokka was hardly the youngest warrior trapped in these icy North Pole trenches. When it became apparent that the Water Tribes were buckling under the strain of literal fire power, all men were sent to protect their tribes. Unfortunately, most boys were forced to become men very quickly.
A howl erupted into the air above their heads, and Sokka flinched violently at the sound, feeling the pain ricochet through his own nerves. A similar reaction blasted through the steely gaze of the warrior next to him, and Sokka could see his strength crumbling like snow between his fingers.
"That was Kanguq." The definitive admission was what broke Sokka's heart the most. "That was his voice. I'd know it anywhere."
He was from the North Pole. Sokka didn't recognize him as being part of his own tribe. Before, he would have left the man to suffer on his own, uncomfortable with offering consolation to strangers. His heart never used to reach that far. But the Northern Water Tribe had suffered such violent attacks over the years, and they were so close to toppling down in a melted heap of nothing. Hundreds of men were dead. Waterbenders were practically extinct. Their tribes had no choice but to join forces, and Sokka had no choice but to fight alongside these people in order to save everything they still had.
It was this knowledge that prompted Sokka to reach across the narrow trench and grip the grieving warrior's shoulder with a stable ferocity he didn't know he possessed.
"He died a warrior. His family would be proud of him." These words comforted him in the beginning, but now they simply became an empty script that was meant to take the place of the agony that they all held inside their chests that were about to burst. "Get it together. We have to help soon."
Sokka lost track of his father earlier. The man was exhausted, but his eyes blazed with a brutality that rivaled the flames that licked across their warriors' backs. He had stopped worrying for him. He realized quickly that worrying for Katara and Gran Gran made his blows falter. That he couldn't afford.
They were all okay. His family was going to be okay.
Sokka clutched his boomerang and his machete tight in his palms, jumped out of the trench, and brought his blade down on a Firebender's neck.
.
v. a sister kills her shreds of hope
Katara didn't bother waiting anymore.
After her mother died, she haunted the door of their hut and waited for her mother to jump inside, declare that the entire raid had been an awful and silly joke, and that everything was well.
Dead things don't come back to life.
So she thought she'd wait for those who were still alive. But her father had been gone for years, and Sokka had left her six months ago and had not returned to her either. They were as good as specters: beings that half of herself knew still had beating hearts and that the other half of herself had long given up ailing for. Still, she sat at the docks every day, lifting precarious blobs of water from the sea, and waited for their boats to poke out the horizon.
Nothing.
Katara looked to her left and saw that a little girl's sobs had finally ceased and settled into a quiet sort of blubbering that came with pure exhaustion. Sokka was friends with her older brother. Both of them had left to go fight at the North Pole, off into a land too surreal for the women to touch. The mother looked on at the whipping sea with a somber gravity that should never have to wither away at the bright zeal of such a young woman. Her boys were gone and the ache weighed her down. Katara knew the feeling.
She had picked up her sniffling daughter and forced herself to smile. "Oh, pretty baby." She cooed, her voice sounding like something broken trying to piece itself together. "This world might've gone crazy," she began sadly. "Ah, but the way you save me…"
The mother peppered kissed along her daughters knuckles until the little girl started giggling. She squealed a delighted response that only an innocent girl would ever be capable of. "You're so silly."
"Well, who can blame me when I just want to make you smile." More kisses to her cheeks and eyelids. The woman treated the girl like a snowflake that might blow away, trapped in a whirlwind of other lost children she couldn't get back.
Katara's mother used to do that to her. She really missed that treatment. Gran Gran was too weathered to bother with such childish affection. The two of them had too many burdens to bother with such light hearted play. Katara wished she could reach into the past and pull some of it back and spread it in front of the old woman's eyes. Sometimes silliness was necessary to lift a heart for even a few scant seconds.
But their village was dwindling and entire cultures were dimming under the haze of a blazing inferno. There was little left to smile about. There was just waiting.
Katara was utterly weary of it all.
The village looked at her waterbending with a mystic sort of awe, as if she were a relic long extinct or a fanciful legend finally materialized in a package of flesh and bone. She was the survivor of a layman power that was almost snuffed out like a tiny, flickering candle flame. That meant something. It had to have meant something.
She wasn't an invalid for one thing. Her existence didn't have to be a lagging stretch of whimpering for familiarity that was never courteous enough to just land in anyone's lap. If only she could leave, perhaps learn and get stronger...she wouldn't have to wait.
She could help.
Another obstinate soul to add to the battle would hardly hurt. They were backed against a wall. You could only go forward from that.
After all, who else was left to wait for? The Avatar?
No, that was foolish.
Everyone had stopped waiting for him eons ago.
.
vi. a savior lost that can't be found
He drowned in water to wake up in ice.
He was sopping and he was chilled. His head had cracked against the surface where he fell. But only living people could feel those things, and suddenly being miserable was a thing to be grateful for.
He was sure that storm would kill him.
Grunting erupted behind him, and he noted with warm relief that his bison had survived as well. Warm breath dusted across his face, and his numb hands reached up to nuzzle familiar fur that was frosted over from the cold. Such a simple touch never before filled him with such zealous flares of relief, and he had to stop and stare at the sky to let them simmer down inside his body and allow him to think and move.
He felt like a wooden puppet slowly trying to work his joints to life. The Air Temples never felt like this. He didn't know what to do with all this cold. But he was on his feet, knees buckling under his weight as if they had never gotten practice doing so before. Strange. Surely it hadn't been more than a day.
He glanced over his shoulder. So it was ice after all. A large otherworldly structure of crystal curled and twisted into a heavenly and breathtaking display of beauty. He'd only ever read about glaciers and didn't think he'd ever see one, but surely this is what he was setting his eyes on.
He must have crashed on it.
Had he really flown that far?
Smoke was billowing over his head, and he followed the murky trail to a horribly pointed, dark, threatening vessel glossing across the surface of the water surrounding his glacier. It was quickly moving away, but he could just see the distorted crunch of damaged metal on the bow of the ship. Men dressed in red and black were collected on the deck, peeking over the rails and staring at the damage as if it had just happened...as if they had just hit something.
The ship looked unfamiliar and the waters even more so. The crew was too far away to hear his cries for help, and there were no discernable masses of land for what seemed like miles. It was a wasteland of water.
Appa had nuzzled his head under Aang's hand and made a distressed noise. Aang nodded sympathetically.
"I know, boy. I know. I don't know where we are, either."