HELLO! My very first fanfiction upload... Scary O.o Mostly, I hope everyone likes it! Avatar is a big part of my life so I hope you enjoy!

~Sensei


Chapter One: Imprisoned


EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE WAR

The prisoner counted her time in variously labeled increments of unconsciousness.

The days- or nights, she wasn't able to tell- were always quite long and sunless. With no windows or visible doors in the room the time spent awake felt like unending eternities, only ever brought to a close by the shutting of her eyes.

Without the ability to tell the time, the prisoner was never sure when Sleeping was appropriate. She couldn't remember the feeling, the feeling she used to get when the Sun went away; it was like the blindness reached after a candle flickers out in a dark room, except deep in the pit of her heart. But she couldn't call that feeling back from the past, only could she remember once feeling it.

Down here, below the ground in a metal box, the sun was always away, and that candle was always out.

She had spent many months in the beginnings of her imprisonment creating titles for her time spent dormant.

Her longest spell of sleep was only surmountable by the fact that it was the longest uninteruppted stretch of time in the prisoner's daily agenda. She assumed her keepers had allotted this period specifically for sleep, as though she didn't do enough of that throughout the day. She very simply called this Sleep, and tried as hard as she possibly could to avoid any sort of dreaming while the act transpired.

After a long while of Sleep, she was roughly shaken awake with a metal rod. It prodded into her ribs with unending and painful precision until she was fully awake. Once alertness was ascertained, the large metal cage that rapped around her mouth was removed, at great risk to those burdened with the task of keeping her.

She would gulp in air as though she had just resurfaced from a great depth, and, head down, lap from the pale of fresh water that was presented for her consumption. A meal of gray mush was pushed under her nose next; she tore into it daily with her teeth, pretending she was stripping flesh from a dead animal.

The cage went back on, and her eyelids got heavy, beginning her shortest juncture of rest, the After Food Snooze. This lasted only a few hours from what she could tell, because she was awakened not by persistent jabs, but by hunger.

Before the keepers allowed her to eat again her chains were fully unlatched, the metal mask removed. The locks clicked and huffed with the demeanor of an angry dragon as they released, and she watched through her eyes like faraway windows as she was lifted from under her arms onto feet like jelly. With escorts surrounding her- guards from all nations come together to keep this one prisoner contained- she was shuffled out off the hunched position she remained in all throughout the day and night, and walked steadily in a circle for a very short while.

The time she was appropriated for this sullen form of exercise was nowhere near enough, as far as the prisoner cared. Her former training regiment had once been so strict that her Walking-Around seemed a mockery of it.

The keepers kept their hands so tight around her arms. She hated it, the grip they used. She was no longer strong enough to break it, and her spirit was buried so deeply the prisoner wouldn't try if she could. Not like in the beginning, when she could thrash and scream and fight the grip they had around her arms. Now she only ever slept, ate, and stared blankly into nothing.

Once her Walk-Around was through they fed her once more, and she drowsed again; surely they put something in the gray mush to make her so tired... But no, she did not sleep now. She silently pondered, her breath mechanically raspy when filtered through the metal cage that belted around the back of her head. There were small holes in the front to allow her continuous respiration, but otherwise it was crushed to her face, disallowing any resistance from the dangerous, toothy area.

This hazy, barely-conscious state was referred to by the prisoner as the Mid Afterday Nap. It stretched however long it needed to, and often times melded back into Sleep, thus continuing in the cycle of her daily life.

Life spent bound by metal snakes, twisted around her wrists, ankles, neck and face. Two black metal posts were on her either side; from them chains sprung and clasped to big, round metal gloves that enclosed her hands. The prisoner's ankles were clamped to the ground in similar confines. There was a heavy collar around her neck with chains sprouting to the floor in five places around it.

Her constant and only position was to crouch on her knees, with arms spreadeagled and pulled away from her body, leaving her dull heartbeat vulnerable to any sort of attack. Her spine was curved in an ache of a hunch; there was no other way to perch, covered in limiting tethers as she was.

All the devices set in place had two functions, firstly restrain the prisoner from damaging her had seemed to be priority when she had first arrived in the asylum, the safety of those who took care of her.

Secondly, if ever she attempted an escape, her abilities would be reversed and thus thwarted; any heat she could conjure would be trapped inside the limb-cages, burning her own fingers and crisping her own flesh.

Even now she crouched in a basin filled with an amount of water, just enough to annoy the girl constantly. Any electricity she could bring into the world would fill the pool and be shot back into her body before she could hurt anyone else.

And the prisoner only knew these things because, of course, in the beginning she had tried.

Tried to melt the chains, to breathe her flame at the guards. The scars on her knees were the worst, the ugliest. She regretted those most. Her legs used to be so beautiful. Her unfocused eyes narrowed now, at the thought of her self-ruining, her unfixable idiocy. She would never go to the beach again-

-if ever she were to leave her cell in the first place. And from what she could tell now, crouching in a puddle and covered in shackles, the odds did not seem to be tipping in her favor.

If she could leave her cell in the first place, she definitely wouldn't go to the beach, of all places. No, she would firstly run, run as quickly she ever could on her jelly-legs. Run until the asylum was nothing but a bad memory. Go and go until she could see the sun and let its power flow through her once more.

The tired murky eyes of the prisoner dilated, first wide then small, and her lip twitched inside the metal mask in the ghostly hint of a smirk.

The asylum was on an island, after all. Maybe a trip to the beach would be necessary, if she were to actually reach what she desired:

Freedom. The freedom she required to seek revenge for the injustice she had been dealt so many years ago.

The smirk appeared fully now, and beneath the cage, it looked far more like the snarl of a feral beast, preparing to rip flesh from bone with bare teeth.

The prisoner's thoughts twirled evilly like this for some time, her eyelids drooping with the exhaustion of her Mid Afterday Nap. She hadn't managed to think up a very original or interesting plan for decimating her enemies in some time, but of course there wasn't much to consider when one was so heavily medicated.

The cell's walls were paneled and copper colored, with big ugly bolts at the corners of each metal slab. Many of them overlapped, and the prisoner assumed this must be what patched clothing looked like.

Of course, she had never worn anything less then perfect, silken uniforms. Even now she was dressed in royal apparel, her matted hair in a tattered topknot. Her crimson robes were doused with the water she knelt in, and the heavy mantle on her shoulders was stained with the tasteless gruel she consumed every day.

In character, she had never been anything less than perfect, either. Only once had she truly slipped up, aside from the little things, the small errors that irked her eternally, ghosted along in her mind forever. No, only one blunder was outwardly visible, and she payed for it every single day of her life.

She had been defeated. Only once in her whole life, but it was enough to land her in a metal box, far beneath the surface of the earth.

She sighed now, the sound gravelly and bold in the silence. She shifted her knee; her joints ached often due to the water. The splashing sound was resonant, too. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness of the cell, and she watched the liquid ringlets travel away from her, and finally meet the wall of the basin.

Goose-skin raised the hairs on her arms beneath the royal silk. There was something to be said about how sinister this loneliness was, how the quiet was nightmarish and the darkness sneaky.

Silence was the embodiment of life in a cell. It surrounded her with isolation, and dropped her deep into desolate, personless land. Never before her imprisonment had the girl felt quite so alone.

She splashed again, to fill the air with something other than her contemplation.

There was an intake of breath behind her. The prisoner froze, ears pricking, eyes widening, clammy fists clenching.

"Don't move." a male voice whispered from behind her, where the door to the cell was located. She swallowed hard, waiting, wondering. What would a guard want at this hour? The Mid Afterday Nap oftentimes fused with Sleep, and they never bothered her when she slept.

The man took four steps, and the clamor reverberated throughout the cell for a moment after he had finished walking. He was directly behind the prisoner now, his toes probably at the little wall that kept the water in its basin.

"Don't say a word. Don't breathe," he said.

Although she did not stop breathing, her respiration became far shallower, and she waited for this odd apparition to show himself properly. She was suddenly tempted to call him a coward, to dare the man to show his face. But no, she wouldn't do that. She never spoke, anyways, unless to ask what the date was.

After the longest of long moments, the man breathed deeply, and the prisoner heard his knees crack, as though he was kneeling.

"I haven't much time." the voice murmured. "Know, Princess, that your supporters still surround you. I am loyal only to you, the True Heir to the throne. I will see to it that you are freed."

Stunned even further into her hush, she swallowed, eyes wide, pupils narrow. The prisoner remained mute until the noises of the faceless man backing away and leaving the cell were long gone. Finally in solitude again, she let go a deep breath she hadn't been aware of holding, and let the medication they laced into her meals activate. Her eyes drooped, and her head bobbed downward with confused, distrustful unconsciousness.

When the prisoner's dreary eyes focused into alertness, it was a simple task to convince herself that the previous evenings events had been nothing but a dream. Annoyed momentarily that she had allowed herself such a foolhardy release, she began to ponder some way to punish herself.

Dreams were a useless circumstance that infected the girl's rest time. There was no point to it; once before she had heard dreams described as an expression of hope. The girl had no use for hope, she never had. Hope made people blind and ambitious; wasn't it better to have a plan for ascension to acheivement? The prisoner had once been great and powerful, no thanks to hope, no thanks to anything besides her own brilliant mind.

The girl had never had hope, nor should anyone else have.

The voice had been part of a frail begging for freedom, and it was a despicable idea that anyone else should escort her to liberty. No, if the prisoner ever was to be discharged from the asylum, it would be by her own hands.

The day passed fairly quickly and normally. The formerly royal inmate drowsed throughout, only truly reaching cognizance as the mouth-cage was buckled back into place. The guard securing the belt was pulling it far too tightly; she felt as though the leather strap was going to cut into her cheek if he went any tighter.

She made a guttural sound of annoyance at the back her throat, refusing to speak civilly with those who constantly restrained her.

The keeper said nothing, gave one more mighty tug on the strap, buckled it and left. The annoyed noise surfaced again as the cell door slammed shut. The prisoner couldn't twitch her face without some part of the leather strap digging into her flesh; she found it quite irritating. It had been many years since the guards had been outright mean to the girl. Many of them had released their vendetta against her years ago, maintaining a stoic and professional attitude while on the job.

But the belt was crushing her ears to her skull, the metal cuff binding her lips into a hard line, the cartilage of her nose into a numb, squashed lump.

It was positively irksome.

There was a booming echo, and the prisoners compressed ears focused on the cell door. It was opening, slowly, and for the second time in two nights, the girl noted the late hour of this guards arrival. Perhaps it was someone come to assist with the loosening of her bondage, she thought, pleased.

A male voice cleared its throat.

Through her teeth, the prisoner hissed, recognizing immediately the deep timbre. But no, that had been a dream!

One of two options arose as an explanation. It had been a dream, pitifully begging for escape while at the same time impossibly clairvoyant, or...

Or it hadn't been a dream. It had been true and real and clear as day, and this traitorous guard- or whatever he was- had come to save her. Well, the Ex-Princess would definitely have something to say about that! Her fall from grace had apparently become a laughing matter, if men who claimed to follow the girl also insisted upon saving her.

No. The prisoner would surely rot before she allowed anyone to assist in her departure from the cell.

"Princess." the timbre murmured. "I wish to speak with you."

"Show your face, Traitor." the prisoner croaked, her voice dreadfully lousy with lack of use. It came out as a breathy echo through the mouth cage that so tightly wrapped her face.

The silence held for nearly a minute, and the girl grew impatient.

"... I'm afraid I can't. Not yet, Your Highness." said the man, finally.

"Then you are no servant of mine. You're ban-" she paused, swallowing. "Be off."

"I'm afraid I can't do that either. I will not leave you, Princess. Not until you see the light of day again. Not until your lungs breath pure, clean air. Do you remember what it tastes like, fresh air?"

"Be off I say, Traitor!" cried the former princess, no longer attempting to keep her voice low.

Suddenly, there was stomping outside the cell door, and it was blasted ajar- from what the girl could hear- by three or four ready guards.

"Tohei!" a woman's voice cried. "What are you doing here?"

The deep male voice was facing the door now, and the throat cleared before speaking. "Only loosening the prisoner's mouthguard, Warden. I fear I attached it too tightly when I was in here last. No need for alarm."

"Let me see that." the Warden snapped, stomping further into the cell. She did not hesitate by the sounds of her footsteps, before stepping into the water, and stopping directly behind the girl's back. With one swift movement, the belt was unbuckled.

The prisoner let free a deep breath, blood suddenly flooding back into her face. It was tingling, and she twitched her lips back and forth while feeling returned to them.

Too soon, the belt was latched again; less tightly this time, but tightly enough. The Warden turned from the prisoner, stepping out of the basin of water.

"Alert someone next time, Tohei. You are not to enter this cell without backup and supervision, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Warden."

Silence fell, and after a moment, they all began to filter out.

The footsteps grew farther and farther away, until the cell door slammed shut behind the Warden, her fellows, and the strange, timbre voiced man. Tohei.


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