A/N: Well, I fnially got the last chapter written, edited, post-edited, uloaded, and shuffeled into the structure edit. I have to say I have never been happier to be done with something in my life. Please forgive any mistakes, and tell me about them, changing this was difficult. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and try to look past the morbid nature of most of the story and wait for the end. It turns around, I promise.
disclaimer: We can put a man on the moon, but I still can't own AtLA. Unbelievable!
Sokka looked out on what was left of the horizon. Blue and white surf surged up, colliding with a profusion of reds and yellows that danced across the bleary sky. Slowly, his eyes began to drop, half from the light, but more because their flight had long since been far enough; he had been on the back of this beast since daybreak. He could feel himself slipping, longing for night to come, for him to be able to see the moon once again. It would be full by tomorrow night; Yue loomed in the deepest recesses of his memory, radiant gown flowing in his mind's eye.
He was almost gone, but a breach of peace, obnoxious and tired, emanated from his small, earthbending companion, "Are we there yet?"
Sokka rolled over on his back and put his hands over his eyes, "To-oph, you've said that like twenty times!"
"Twenty-five…" came the muffled voice of the pretty waterbending master not too far away from him. Presently, she had her face buried in her arms over the side of Appa's saddle and seemed just as jaded as her friends. The Avatar sat at the head of the beast, Momo lay sleepily on his shoulder.
Sokka blearily called to his friend, "Aang." No answer. "A-aang." The boy's head rolled over onto his shoulder, "Aang!"
Aang shot up, "What! What is – WUHAAA-AA!" The boy flailed his arms at the forehead of his bison as a startled Momo pulled at his collar, trying to get him back on board. With a gust of wind, the boy was back behind the horns panting and holding his chest. Something inside of him wanted to laugh, but Sokka was just too tired to accommodate this feeling.
"Aang, we need to land. It's getting dark." Aang had his head lolled back on the front of the saddle; he made a vague gesture with his arm to signify his agreement.
"You're right, Appa is getting tired anyway." He began to look around for an applicable scrap of land to settle on. Sokka looked out again from his side of the saddle, putting his hand up to block the glare from the sun. Far below, a miserable, crescent-shape patch of earth interrupted the endless tides; a heavily forested region to the east made dark by low, black clouds to the west. Momo blinked at it once before quickly walking over and curling up on the other side of Aang, blocking his view from the island.
"There's a good spot." Sokka pointed it out. Katara shuffled her way over to her sibling, rubbing her eyes. When she saw the island, a visible shudder ran down her spine.
She was suddenly very awake, "Are you sure that's a good spot?"
"It's the only spot." Sokka rebuked finally. "The place is fine. There's nothing evil or mystical about it. It's fine!"
"I didn't say that." Katara huffed.
"Well… you were going to, weren't you?" Truly she was, but that was beside the point. Even so, Sokka felt it too. An eerie feeling hung about the place, but his logical side would have none of it. It's just rainy there, and the wind's blowing west, so there's no problem. No problem at all.
"Any land is good enough for me!" Toph roared vehemently. Katara blew at a stray hair on her forehead and almost said something, but she seemed to decide against it and went back to her side of the bison. Appa began his sleepy descent towards the island as twilight settled in.
Immediately after they landed, Toph hoped off the bison and proceeded to make a lovely 'land-angel' in the middle of the clearing, proclaiming, "Ahh! Land, sweet land!" As the others departed Appa, she stood and grabbed her sack, "Well you've been a great audience," walking towards an open space by the forest line, she continued, "Don't forget to tip your waitress and watch for stray animals." She stomped the ground and sheets of rock arose in the form of an earth tent.
"Not so fast." Katara crossed her arms with authority. Toph froze, "You promised to start helping make camp."
Toph turned and put on her best puppy-dog (or what she had that was close to it) face, "But what if I said that I would really, really appreciate it if I didn't have to tonight?" Katara didn't back down an inch. The younger girl groaned in her surrender and tossed her bag in the tent.
"I'll take care of water!" called Aang from the other side of the campsite. Sokka acknowledged that he had heard him and watched as he spun his staff around, flaring the wings. With a gust of air, he flew up beyond the trees, his faithful lemur following close behind.
Minutes past and Aang didn't return. Sokka waited longer still, a slow prickle of worry creeping into his mind. The others felt it too, every crack of a twig was a return approach, and every animal call was the boy's certain doom. As the last bits of light threatened to disappear completely, Katara had had enough, "I haven't seen Aang in a while now; I'm getting worried."
Toph lay with her head against the outside of her earthen quarters chewing a twig as she spoke, "Twinkle-toes can handle himself. I mean, he's the Avatar! And besides, I taught him how to earthbend." As if correcting her, a huge explosion sounded in the distance. The group jumped up, now able to see smoke and flame rising from the dark treetops.
Sokka took command, "Aang's in trouble, lets go!" The threesome bounded into the woods; a cold sweat began to run down Sokka's brow, making him shiver in the dusk air. The clamorous sound of battle grew in their ears the closer and closer they drew. Finally they broke the tree line, revealing a small encampment of three disheveled tents and a spent fire beside the bank of a stream running parallel to the group.
"Aang!" Sokka shouted, and then he saw him. High in a tree above the battle, the young Avatar dodged the fire blasts sent at him from a group of three masked Fire Nation soldiers. Much of the upper foliage had already been ignited, and it was spreading fast. Sokka started to bark out an order, but Katara was a step ahead of him. She ran to the edge of the stream and swung her arms up in the direction of the flames, creating a fountain of sorts that worked to quickly douse them. The soldiers took immediate notice, and directed their attention at their new foe.
Seizing the opportunity, Momo leaped down from his secluded position in the trees onto one of the soldier's helmets, spinning it around before flying away. As the soldier righted his helmet, Sokka ran in front of him, catching him off guard. With a solid swing to the side of the head with his bone knife, Sokka sent the soldier reeling back. Aang leaped out over him from the branches, spinning in mid-air to face his enemy. As he hit the ground, he swung his staff down in front of himself, creating a formidable gust of wind that tossed the soldier into a nearby tree and knocked him out cold.
The next firebender prepared another blast for the two of them, but he was sent flying forward by a spear of rock from behind. The dim witted man landed on top of his companion with a string of moans and low curses. With only one left, the group made a semi-circle, enclosing the enemy. On his side farthest from the river stood Aang, then Sokka, Toph, Momo, and Katara, all drawing a fighting stance and glowering fiercely. The man's knees shook violently, threatening to give, "I don't get paid enough for this!" and with that he did an about-face and ran into the woods, tail between his legs.
Behind them, the conscious remainder of the pack was dragging his friend along after the first one. As the tension was released from the abandoned campsite, Toph let out an uproarious whoop, "Yeah! We showed 'em!" Katara and Aang smiled in common agreement.
Katara's smile dropped, "Where's Sokka?" She found him standing by the ruins of one of the tents, clutching something in his hand. When he turned around, he bore a morbid expression. Katara and Aang were there in a flash while Toph remained in the same general spot, looking on with polite concern. Wordlessly, Sokka opened his hand to his friends. In it lay a torn scrap of blue cloth – bearing a Water Tribe insignia. Katara gasped.
"But Sokka, isn't your father supposed to be stationed just a few miles from here?" Aang asked. Sokka just nodded, not looking at the young airbender.
Katara's eyes began to swell and water and she turned towards the forest, "They can't have gone too far," she said, voice cracking slightly as she started for the tree line, "We can still catch them if -- "
Sokka grabbed her by the arm, "Katara, you can't save him."
"Let go of me!" she screamed ripping her arm away, "We have to try! He's my dad, Sokka!" Tears were steaming openly down her face now and she shook through clenched fist and jaw, fighting back sobs.
"If there were enough to destroy all those ships, we would just get slaughtered." Sokka put his hand on her shoulder, "I know it's hard, he was my dad too --"
"Don't say that!" She shouted, swatting his arm away and slamming her fists into his shoulders, "He is your dad!" She stared straight into her brother's eyes for a moment before collapsing into him, sobbing uncontrollably, "He is. He is…" Sokka held her close, unable to find the right words for comfort. Aang went to her and she released her brother to clutch Aang, who held her back ten fold.
Toph stood stark still, absorbing the sadness of the air, but unable to understand all of what had happened. Sokka just concentrated on a spot on the ground by his feet, gripping the scrap of cloth…
The moon showed very brightly that night. It cast playful shadows about the campsite that accompanied the happy song of the night critters, deceiving the sorrow of the air. Hours had past since the discovery and most of the camp lay in a fitful sleep, but Sokka stared openly at the moon with a placid expression. All night, there was but one thought ringing through the corridors of his mind: I won't let it happen again. He wanted it to stop, just for a moment, so he could absorb the enormity of his contemplation. What was he supposed to do? Stop an entire army of Fire Nation thugs – thugs that had defeated his father? Perhaps a more urgent consideration was: How could he not?
With morbid consent, he stood up from his chilly mat, eyes still on the happy decadence of the moon. It was nearly all he could muster to look away. In stealthy haste, he gathered his gear, drawing twine around his holsters and things to prevent their usual clanking. He came to a rest beside his sister; her skin glowed brilliantly in the soft moonlight. The serenity of her expression mocked the glossy streaks running down her face. Sokka went down to one knee and brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. He pulled her blanket up around her shoulders and allowed his stare to linger for a moment. He bent down, kissing her temple lightly and whispering into the calm, "I promise I'll come back."
Sokka trekked back down the path towards the clearing by the stream. When he reached it, he found the site exactly as it had been left, but there was a complication. Beyond the tree line on the other side of the clearing lay a vast expanse of forest, all but make invisible by stark, black clouds looming overhead. Apparently, the wind had changed course in the hours since their arrival. He found courage in his bone knife, unsheathing it and stalking cautiously into the unknown. The inky gloom descended upon him like a curtain. The cheery resonance of the night bugs was replaced with eerie whoops that echoed around the trunks and cracks that stood his hair on end.
He ignored them as much as he could, walking deeper and deeper into the cool blackness. Chilling wind howled forbiddingly through the dark branches, carrying with it the faint odor of rot – and blood. He strained his eyes in vain against the ubiquitous darkness, and more than once he stumbled over large roots jutting up from the forest floor. The ghostly screech of some unnamed beast echoed through the black woods; Sokka turned fervently in all directions, his weapon at the ready. He backed up, his foot became tangled in a thrash a tall weeds and he fell to the ground with an ominous thump. It was becoming startlingly obvious that the boy did not know where he was going – or how to get back.
Suddenly, a pinprick of light shined from far off in the distance. It grew in intensity until it nearly blinded him, and just as quickly faded into nothing. He stood, continuing with an apprehensive gait in the direction of the light as it continued to illuminate, grow to an intense brightness, and fade out. He was cut off abruptly by a tangle of bushes and brambles; the light was coming from the other side, entering his view through a hole in the foliage. With a deft slash from his bone knife, he ripped down the curtain and saw immediately the source of the mysterious glow: a large, circular device lit from the inside and opened at one end, creating an oscillating searchlight.
But it was not this that coaxed an astounded expression from the boy, but rather what it sat atop. Below the searchlight stood a large steel pillar adorned with a long, decrepit tapestry bearing the Fire Nation insignia, and connected to that was the eastern side of a great, square, walled fortress. Each corner of the fortress had a pillar much like this one, equipped with a similar light. There was no roof, and the inside wall seemed to be lined with steel structures of all shapes and sizes. The middle part of the fortress, however, was open, giving the appearance of a stadium. The main difference being that in the center of the stadium was an enormous bonfire, from which poured black smoke that reached up into the sky in a deathly spire, adding to the apparently artificial cloud cover.
Sokka stared open-mouthed and wide eyed down from his elevated position on top of a cliff overlooking the stadium. All around it, he could see where forest had been leveled; singed tree stumps and black foliage showed faintly in the shadow light from the bonfire. He turned his head and squinted as the searchlight roamed over his face, obscuring his vision. When the beam had retreated and he opened his eyes, he made another discovery: there was a series of switchback trails descending the cliff face not half a mile to the northwest of his hiding spot.
It was pitch black in the shadow of the stadium wall. Sokka pressed his back up against the cool steel and held his breath as a bright circle of yellow light passed only a few feet in front of him. With urgent steps, the boy crept farther along the wall until, at last, he reached the base of the northeast tower. His palm sweated on the grip of his bone knife as he peeked cautiously around the corner of the entryway cut into the metal. He saw no one.
Sokka stole into the dim room expecting anything and everything around every corner. An eerie silence was punctuated by a low noise in the background: a roar that grew and faded like a steady tide. He drew closer to the sound and found himself taking no heed of the corridors around him, knowing somehow that there would be no one there. At the end of the walkway was another opening that mimicked the first, but with a bright light on the other side of it, instead of darkness. The roar was getting louder, pounding on his ears like a drum.
As he rounded the corner, he discovered the source of the commotion – cheering. Though, it was not precisely cheering – but a bloodthirsty tumult coming from a congression of black-cloaked spectators. They sat atop roofs and in windowsills of the buildings and on benches that set in no particular place, all directing their various jeers at some show of sorts in front of the bonfire. Nearest the fire was a group of three stakes, to which were tied three dark masses, and at the very center of the circus of horrors was a man of obvious importance. He was tall and solid in stature, but his facial features were unknown, shadowed as they were by the backlighting. He too wore the black cloak, but his had a large Fire Nation insignia borne on the chest, flickering stark red in the firelight.
"Calm! Calm!" He was shouting with hands raised at the crowd, "This is a night of grandeur, to be sure! But there are matters to be dealt with yet!" The roaring lowered to a dull rumble, punctuated by the occasional shout from a particularly excited bystander. "Listen closely, my brothers. There is a story to be told. A story we have only known in bedtime stories from long ago."
The crowd was eating out of his hands. His voice rose, cutting the air like a knife, "These men have claimed to see the Avatar!" the tone turned, becoming a low drawl, "The downfall – of us all." For a moment, not a sound was to be heard save the crackling of the fire. Then, with intense vigor, the man started to laugh. The crowd followed suit, making an uproar fit for a parade, "Fools! Every one of them! The Avatar is long dead – We have nothing to fear!" His voice rose insanely, feeding the malice of the air, "Nothing can stop the Fire Nation! Nothing can stop the great Lord Ozai!" The throng reached an unheard of din as the man gesticulated wildly about in a frenzy.
"Can you feel it brothers?" he screeched, "Dawn is approaching!" Sokka snapped out of a sort of trance; he could feel it too. There was no light, the smoke made sure of that, but suddenly the whole arena was struck with an oppressive heat. It swelled until the very air around him began to deform and blur the outlines of the various people about the stadium. Likewise, with every second the jeers of the firebenders became more and more fervent; passion – bloodlust – erupting from their gaping mouths.
"These man are dirty, filthy, loathsome liars," The man was saying in a grim tone, "Theyare traitors to the Fire Nation – enemies to the brotherhood of the dark woods!" His voice grew in ferocity with every statement, finally hitting a pinnacle with another uproarious and sinister laugh. "I believe we all know what we do to liars!" He turned on the figures behind him, sending out a wave of fire, causing them to fall to the ground. "And what –" He stomped in front of himself with his right foot, shooting fire from the sole of his boot, "We do –" the other foot crashed down in front of the first with still more fire, "To traitors!" He finished dramatically, throwing his hands up and wrapping himself in a ball of fire. The last word sent the crowd into a chaotic tumult; those able took to their feet and all whooped loudly, waving various limbs in the air.
The large man's cloak burned and fell away, revealing black armor much like its red counterpart that a Fire general would wear. On either side of his waist were two, heavy knives, cased in singed leather. The fireball died away leaving only scarce wisps of fire that danced around his body, growing and dieing in turn with his breath. He stomped maliciously towards the men standing at the foot of the fire, none moving, but looking obviously shaken, even in the shadows of the night. As he neared him, the man in the middle stepped back, eventually having his progress halted by the stake he had previously been tied to. The large man did not stop, however, and upon reaching the frightened bender, he grabbed him by the forehead. With a dull crack the man's head was slammed against the stake, causing him to stagger away towards the rightwards soldier when he was released, apparently faltering on the edge of consciousness.
The general turned to face the other men…