A.N. This story started out as an assignment for school. I imagined these characters and fell in love with them in my head. This is a story of a group of people fight the fire nation before the gaang came along. It will not have a happy ending for what I hope are obvious reasons. If you aren't cool with that, don't read it.
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The memories screamed.
Memories of red robes and tattoos and smiles and the wind blowing on her face and flowers and peace and monks who always knew what to say but were no longer here to say them. Memories of mountains, of rock and of statues, and memories of icicles and penguins and the feel of animal pelts sliding over her cheek, and memories of warmth and fire flakes and bright, burning festivals.
And now she watched, face burning, tears streaming, burned edges of her dress flapping in the wind and the eastern air temple crackled and fell below her.
--
After the fire had subsided, the once beautiful and empowering eastern air temple was gone, and in its place were smoldering pieces of shattered statues and the whooshing sounds of cold air through empty buildings. A lonely breeze blew over her and tousled her hair, and an air temple flag flapped forlornly, pathetically, in the wind.
She found the healing hut, and found gauze that had been mercifully untouched by the flames. She pulled her gown down to the her hips and unwound the roll of gauze slowly, deliberately, focusing on the task in front of her and nothing wrapped it clumsily around her chest and her stomach, where the long, diagonal scar was still burning angrily, a violent red against her pale skin.
She rubbed her hands. It was cold.
She fixed her dress and tied her sash, felt a flash of panic, and then sat in a calmingly familiar meditating position and took deep breathes.
Alright, Qin. Let's think about this.
The eastern air temple was attacked. No biggie. The monks had always said they could handle this. Monk Syatsu doubted it would happen, but it did. He told me to run. He told me it would be fine. He's never lied to me, except that one time with the cake, but I got his back for that.
Where is he, anyways? It's so quiet. Where are the birds? The Bison? Did they leave without me? They couldn't have. Monk Syatsu wouldn't let them. They'll be here any minute, I just have to wait.
Something, somewhere fell, hitting the earth hard, and with a gasp she was brought out of her meditation, and for a second she remembered. She shook and took fast, harried breathes and told herself to calm down, just calm down, Qin...
But she couldn't because she knew they weren't coming back and she had seen the burning faces of her friends and the monks being outnumbered by hundreds and the skeletal mask of a fire nation soldier running towards her, brandishing a growing, deadly whip of fire and she had ran and screamed but there were screaming everywhere and there was nothing she could do so she kept running and running...
And she had seen a dead man's eyes. They were so empty.
All she'd ever learned, everything the monks taught them about peace and the dangers of violence was being replaced by visions of burning corpses and the cold sound of metal.
"No..." She said to herself, leaning against a wall and holding herself together. She felt so guilty she couldn't stand it. She killed a man, God, she killed a man...
True, the man was trying to kill her, but the monks had always taught her to show compassion to her enemies. And it was accident, of course, but that didn't take away the cold, lifeless look in his eyes, didn't change the fact that that man probably had a family somewhere, a wife and kids who were waiting for him to come home and now they would have to wait forever.
She felt a wave of anger, because she would have to wait in vain as well, but she smothered the anger in a way that would have made Monk Syastsu proud. But that did not bring her happiness.
She sobbed and allowed herself a moment of self pity (she was never going to see her friends again, never sleep in her bed, never play air ball, never chase lemurs, never get to pick out her own bison) before she got up and wiped her face on her sleeve and turned away from this temple that was not her temple and ran without looking back.