(A/N: This is not a happy story. I don't own anything. I was just thinking about the tragedy of the Air Nomads at the same time as how people destroy cultures. And I thought if the Fire Nation was as smart as they seem they wouldn't stop at just killing them all. They'd be nastier than that.)
The End (Part One)
Mali knew about war. It was something the other peoples of the world did. Air Nomads, the Sisters had told her, knew how to let things go. To forgive.
The Western Air Temple has been the closest to the Fire Nation. They were first. Mali had woken up one day and the world was ending all around her: with ash in the air and a smell her mind would not place. Death, she'd decide later. It smelled like death.
A rush then, her instinct was to fly but her head caught up, there were too many already. Gliders burning bright fell hard back to Earth. Mali ran- away from the solders in Fire Nation red and into the Temple. It was a Holy place. No one would hurt her in there.
Something grabbed her leg and Mali jumped, but it was only Dorie. Dorie who was only seven, whose arm was singed, who cried silently, with a string of beads meant for a fully trained Sister wrapped tight around her neck. No time to question how; Mali yanked her forward and then there were two running. She tried not to listen to the sound. There was too much screaming. Too much everything and-
The doors to the main Temple were burned and closed. A swerve then, Mali kept panicked feet running with no destination in mind. The Bison? They were far away from here with solders in between. Anyone on a glider was blasted out of the sky. She could climb, though she'd never had to try before, or hide in her room. She wanted a Nun desperately but she couldn't see them or find them, every friend and every enemy blurred together into streaks of orange and red. There was nothing to be done but—
Dorie shrieked and Mali turned back: three Fire Nation Soldiers dead ahead. They followed, of course they did, but with air on her side she had to be faster. Had to. But the fire moved them forward and the shortest of the three grabbed her hair. Her hair, her stupid hair that she was supposed to cut short soon but had liked too much. Mali thought about all the haircuts she wasn't going to get, and the arrows she might have earned to help change the shape of her face, and how much it was going to hurt to burn. She cringed away from his hands and hoped Dorie's death would be faster.
But instead of fire there was a rag and instead of death came sleep. Mali dreamt it was a nightmare and felt relief.
When she woke up there was a calm that sat heavy on the world. They were burning the bodies. With funeral rites for a Fire Sage her people were burned into dust. But she wasn't alone.
Dorje leaned against Mali gently. Jampa, the best at Air Ball at thirteen, sat looking up at nothing in particular. Sister Nima was always telling her not to be so serious. Khalama and Lasya, who looked so alike it made people wonder, still had their eyes closed for sleep. They were tied together in a long row with mouths shut tight with cloths and arms and legs held tight. No movement.
There were five of them left. Mali the oldest at fourteen closed her eyes and tried to remember how to breathe. She didn't question why. It was too large to contemplate and they'd never done anything wrong. Not ever. The Fire Nation was supposed to be closest to them- because Air and Fire both depended on breath and now no one was going to ever breathe again and Mali, watching another added to the pyre, found herself crying openly. Some of them were so small. The sound alerted a soldier and she was put to sleep again. She felt herself undone and picked up, the way he'd picked up the bodies of her people, and he carried her off to someplace unseen.
"I'm sorry," he said. Or maybe her dream said. "It's better this way."
It still smelled like smoke and she would not be comforted. Mali cried in her sleep.
