A screaming shrill cry let out of a pale mouth. Blank cotton eyes stared up at the blood drenched sky. The world crumbled as the body began to convulse. Screams! Cries! The fell of fire peeling back the very flesh that binds one together.
With a tremor and a scream the young man sat up. Years of his life had been seeing other's pain, fear, and learning to live with his own. His hands shook as he frantically pulled his leather cases over his hands. Once the gloves were safely on he brushed his black hair from his face. His eyes wide and searching. The blue eye caught glint in the light and the black one only absorbed it. He pushed his hair back from his face again and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and focused. There. There was the girl with the cotton eyes.
Toph wiggled her toes in the mud as she took a deep breath. She sank down to the mud on her knees and smiled. The earth was so warm today. She felt Katara walk up beside her and stop.
"Toph, we need to go now."
"Yeah, yeah."The girl stood up and turned her head in Katara's direction. "I'm following you."
His eyes skimmed the land seeing the contours and the depth that it held. His mind hand zoned in on that dim green glow. Cotton. The only thought that constantly coursed through his mind. The girl's eyes looked like cotton. A tremor ran through his body and he fell to the ground on his knees.
Blank eyes staring up from a lifeless face. The porcelain skin like that of a doll with hair black like feathers. A single red stream broke the pale face in half as the blood rolled from the forehead down, dipping into the curve of the mouth and disappearing behind lips never to be known by another. The ground quaked with the jolting of the body. Pieces of earth tried to pull it in, tried to devour it.
Another retching scream, and the vision was gone. Leaving only the chills and bumps along his skin to prove that it had been there. His eyes looked around. But his mind was fogged. To many colors. To many auras. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. He opened his mismatched eyes and looked up at the morning light coming over the far horizon. He let all the air escape his body and he was still. Slowly, he calmed his heart until it was a distant thump in the back of his ears. He looked back down in the direction he was facing and again he searched. The dim green glow flickered. He frowned and shook his head violently. He focused his eyes back on the glow and found the entire reason for the interference. More glows had joined the green glow.
"Come on! We are going to be late." Sokka growled as he watched Toph merrily walk torwards Appa. Katara rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Where are we going to be late to?"
"We have to leave if we are going to make it before the eclipse happens." Aang popped up over Appa's ear and smiled.
"That's a week away. We have time."
A stabbing pain to him in the back and he fell his knees. The visions didn't invite there selves in this time. They forced their way in, pushing hard and breaking back pieces of him that he had fought for years to regain.
The arrow was red stained, but moving like lightening. Red-blue blurs in the night surrounded by ice. Death hung thing in the air as the sound of bodies clashing mingled with a cacophony death dries. The sound of someone drowning in their own blood was drowned by a shrill scream, Blood splattered across his vision and then there was nothing.
He pushed himself upward onto his elbows and let the seizure calm and finally stop. More then once he had tried to fight off the attacks but they only became more violent.
Toph stopped and went completely still. Katara turned and stared at Toph. She knew that when Toph went still like that it wasn't ever a good thing. Sokka stopped a few paces ahead of them and looked back. Aang jumped down off of Appa and walked over to Toph and looked under her bangs to get a look at her face.
"What is it?"
"Aang it's time for another lesson. Feel the Earth. Feel the vibrations and tell me what you see" Aang touched the ground with his hands. Slowly he flared out his fingers and pressed his alms flat to the ground. He closed his eyes and felt the Earth breath. He slowed his to set int tune with the it. When he felt like he was one with the earth, his powers that let him bend all of the elements, reached out like phantom fingers bringing into view the animals and creatures that moved along the ground. It wasn't but about twenty or thirty feet back in the bushes that a figure was watching them, following them. Aang clenched his hands tight and cut off the connection with the Earth.
Toph nodded.
"Yep. You seen it." She said and threw her hand back and then brought them quickly in front of her. The ground shuttered and lunged. A figure was thrown forward out of the bushes.
With a flash Sokka's blade-rang was in his hand and he was grabbing the man. Before anyone could say anything a scream started from Sokka's mouth soon echoed by another.
Blood. So much blood. Small hand covered in the red hot fluid. Those crystal blue eyes of mother shown up at the sky in terror. But no fright hadn't killed her. Fire blazed in the background. A child's screams filled the air. So much blood. So many Screams.
With a sound close to that of a fox-lion scream, the two young men flung themselves from each other. Sokka grabbed his head but his screaming hadn't stopped. The other man sat panting against a tree trunk, his eyes closed tight as his legs jolted. Katara fell down next to her brother and shook him. His eyes flew open wide and they were lost. They weren't seeing her but there were seeing something. Katara shook him hard.
"Sokka!" Katara shook him again. Sokka turned wide eyes to his sister and stared at her for a moment, before he collapsed onto the ground. Katara grabbed her brother and pulled him into her lap. She jerked her head up and looked at the other man.
"What did you do to him!?" The man didn't answer. Katara huddled over her brother leaning closer to the man.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?!" She screamed louder. The man didn't look up. His black hair fell in strands over his down tilted face. He raised a shaky hand, palm up facing her then shook his head.
"Nothing that I have done, will have any further effects on him, other then the damage done before." Aang stepped towards the man.
"What is that supposed to mean?" The man didn't answer as the jerks in his legs smoothed out. Aang went to grab the man, but the man jerked back.
"Don't touch me!" Ang frowned and pointed at Sokka.
"Then fix him."
"I cannot fix a mind in which I did not tamper." Aang growled and grabbed the man by the shirt.
The man grew very still. The young avatar may have been strong but the man was twice his size. The man slowly looked up at the boy, his hair falling away from his face, until the avatar stared into a pair of mismatched eyes.
"Take your hands off of me."
"Fix him."
"Let me up and I will try." Aang let go of the man's collar and stepped back. The man slowly stood up, leaning against the tree. Once he was able to stand on his own he stood up straight. Aang looked up at the man and felt his chest involuntarily puff up.
"I didn't cause the flash back. He did." The man said pointing a gloved finger at Sokka. Toph stepped up and frowned.
"Flash back? What is that supposed to mean?" The man glanced at her only for a second then looked back at Sokka. He walked over and knelt down beside the boy on the opposite side of Katara. Katara pulled her brother in closer to her.
"Don't you dare touch him!" The man looked slowly over Sokka then looked up at Katara. He looked over her face until her eyes met his. She gasp as she stared into his eyes. The man looked back down at Sokka and pulled one of his gloves off.
"I said 'don't touch him'!" The man looked up at her again and in a jerk faster then Katara could react, his hand gripped her wrists.
Screams sounded through the air. Blood covered the dead woman laying on the ground in front of her and her brother. His eyes were lost. The heat was tremendous and the fire cracked all around her.
The man broke his hold on Katara and she stared at him with tears in her eyes. She stared at him as he stared at her. He was silent and watching her closely. She blinked the tears from her eyes and shook her head.
"How...?" The man smiled softly.
"I'm clairvoyant. Some people call them shaman, soothsayers, psychic. Which ever term you prefer." Sokka groaned and rolled his eyes open and over to look at the man.
"Devil..." His whispered. The man tilted his head to onside and smiled at Sokka.
"I have been called that as well." Toph stepped forward and stopped next to him.
"Why were you following us?" The man looked up at Toph and truly looked at her this time. He stood up with a jolt as he met her eyes.
"Cotton." Toph stepped back away from him.
"What?" The man stepped closer to her again.
"You have cotton eyes."
"Yes, dumb ass that's because I'm blind."
"Then you are the reason I was following you and your friends." But before he heard anything else his world went black and his ears filled with sounds of cracking earth.
The Earth shook and cracked. It tore apart and ripped. The sound of the earth breaking mingled with the sound of ripping flesh. The smell of blood was heavy and metallic on the tongue and the feel of fire and death burned across his skin. A raven fell to the ground with wings half torn from it's body. The bird stared up at the sky with fogged blind eyes.
