Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Title alludes to Emily Dickinson's poem, "Hope is the Thing With Feathers." You shall see why.
"My name is Liu Ke Nan," I say to Beifong. "I was Amon's lieutenant. I was an Equalist, and I still believe everything we did was right."
She quirks an eyebrow. "Then why are you turning yourself in?"
I collapse limply into the arms of the guards behind me. They stagger, barely holding me up. They're not used to their prey placing itself directly in their palms.
"Because Amon is dead," I say wearily.
Chief Beifong seems relieved, then immediately fatigued.
"Take him away… I suppose," she says to the guards, waving a hand in dismissal.
My prison cell is dark and quiet and odorless - at least for now.
It is a dark shape at the water's edge, a jumbled mass of black rubble that rocks slowly with the weight of the tide. I start running toward the wreckage before I even see clearly what it is. I only know that I can't let the ocean pull it back into its grasp; whatever it is - if it is lost, then I will be gone forever with it. There is a strange sense of homecoming as I reach the remains of the motorboat. But it is a bitter and crooked and warped sensation, as it always is when you have returned home after two interminable years. And as I scrabble at the cluttered debris, I know that nothing will ever be the same.
A body emerges slowly among the wet blackness. It is small and misshapen in death, charred beyond recognition, and coldly unfamiliar. I roll it aside and continue digging, wading into the burnt rubble. My nails turn raw, then bloody, and my clothes become filthy. But I don't stop. I am at the edge of the world, and if I let go, if I give up, then I will fall away into emptiness and oblivion.
The wind rises in pitch from a low rumble to an ear-splitting shriek. Its howling drives away the clouds shrouding the moon, and light strikes suddenly like a beacon on the beach, casting everything into shades of blue and silver. It's with the help of the moon that I see him.
I don't recognize him immediately, but it feels like the thump of an arrow hitting its mark when I touch the white bone of his arm. My hands travel up to his shoulder, where soggy strips of rotting flesh cling stubbornly to his frame, and then to his face, turning it toward the light, cupping it carefully with my palm. The moonlight strikes it harshly. It's half-burned, half-chewed, and half-eroded by the unforgiving sea, and yet it is still unworthy of his mask.
"Amon," I whisper, and it sounds like a broken promise. "Amon."
He's dead, dead, dead.
I hold his head in my arms and sob, and my tears nearly send Amon back into the sea.
There is an old man in the cell across from mine who has committed murder more times than I have nearly died. He is almost as old as the prison itself, and I have learned from him that everlasting and irrational hope is one of the perks of insanity.
"They sentenced me to six lifetimes in prison," he tells me cheerily. "I'm going to live through them all and be free again."
"And then what will you do?" I ask, partly because I'm bored, partly because I'm curious. Lines are constantly blurred in prison in the presence of a serial killer.
"Do what I do best. Except this time I ain't getting caught," he replies with a savage grin. "I hear the young ladies these days are prettier than ever."
"I wouldn't know," I say, and I lie down, hands behind my head.
He wrinkles his nose until he gets it. "Oh, so you're that way. I see now."
But mostly, he likes to hear about the Equalist movement. It's hard to believe that he's spent the entire revolution locked away and that he's never seen a chi blocker, a rally, or the mask of Amon. To me, it feels like the revolution lasted an eternity and began before I was born. But really, the Equalists are as insignificant as a stray blot of ink or a fly splattered against a Satomobile windshield. We are next to nothing in the grand scheme of history, and we will soon be eradicated from everything except the most adherent memory.
The old man likes to laugh at my naivety.
"So you and this… Amon," he says slowly, choosing his words with care. "You two were… an item?"
"You could say that." I turn away from him. I don't want to talk about Amon.
His smirk is so wide I can feel it. "I can tell by the way you talk about him, the way your voice goes soft, the way your eyes turn weak."
"Stop," I say feebly.
He chuckles; the sound raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
"Amon's dead," I spit out. "And I was a fool for ever loving him."
"But you still do. I can tell-"
"That's not the point."
The creaking of springs announces that the old man has climbed out of bed. I hear him walk to the door of his cell and rest his head between the bars.
"What'd he do?"
I grind my teeth. "He betrayed the Equalists, that's all. I don't want to talk about it any more."
"But you said he was your leader. How'd he manage to do that?"
"I said, I don't want to talk about it!"
"All right." His footsteps fade away, and his voice becomes faint. "All right, Ke Nan."
Everything is silent for a few moments until a prisoner far down the hall begins to bang his head against his bars. The old man laughs until the metalbending guards take the prisoner away.
"You know why I did what I did?" he says when it is quiet once more.
I don't reply. My ears are ringing, and my stomach is churning violently.
"You want to hear why I killed all those women?"
I would rather not, but I'm afraid that if I open my mouth, my lunch will spill out.
The old man grunts in disapproval at my silence, but he continues nonetheless. "It's easier that way. You fuck them, then you kill them, and you don't have to worry about commitment. And sometimes the killing is funner than the fucking."
"You don't understand," I force out.
"There's not even a chance for betrayal - or love, for that matter." He pauses. "Love's overrated, anyways."
"Please." I close my eyes. "Shut up."
"Sorry."
"You're not sorry."
"No," he agrees. "It's just an expression."
The old man dies in his sleep a few months later; he had nearly lived out his first full life sentence. The metalbenders take out his body by floating him down the hall on his rusty cot.
"Good riddance," one says.
"Finally," grumbles the other.
I decide to commemorate him by carving a gravestone into my cell wall. He would have wanted to be remembered, I decide. Everyone else seems too eager to forget about him.
It is only when I finish inscribing the letters RIP that I realize I never knew his name.
And now the roughly rectangular shape on the wall beside my head seems to be urging me to forget myself.
Amon comes for me at dawn. He bends the door of my prison cell aside, strides in purposefully, and reaches for me with his glowing hand. His fingers brush against my face, but I can't feel his touch. I'm too numb. I'm too cold. But the sight of him is enough. He's golden and effervescent and beautiful, and his robes smell like water and wind. In his presence, all of my fears are dissipated, and I have hope, hope beyond measure and reason.
"Amon," I breathe, and there is nothing more I can say. I am finally alive.
"I'm here." His lips brush my ear, and his words send a shiver through me. "I'm here. I'm sorry. I love you."
And there is nothing more I need to hear.
I hold on to him with all my waning strength, and he carries me on as the sun drives away the night.
fin.