Chapter 1 - The Southern Air Temple
"Aang, something's coming!"
"Are they Fire Nation?"
"Shh, hide behind the statues. That soldier won't know what hit him."
"Hey wait, it's -"
"Lemur!"
Darya opened her eyes slowly, the light from the doorway nearly blinding her. Wait, the door is open! Could it be?
She could see the bleary outline of three people, but one stood out because of his arrow tattoos.
"A-ang?" her voice rasped with misuse. She began coughing. Her throat burned, in fact everything burned. She was sore all over and she didn't want to move.
"Hello? Is someone there?" The voice she recognized as Aang's called.
"Here." Darya rasped. She made to stand up and felt several arms help her up. She turned around, using the statue of Roku as support. Before her stood two members of the Water Tribe. The boy was about her age but the girl looked younger. And then her eyes fell upon Aang who was staring at her like he was seeing a ghost.
"Darya?" Aang whispered, as if he was afraid to break a spell. Darya felt tears prick her eyes. She nodded and Aang sprang into her open arms. They both fell crying onto the floor, holding each other desperately.
"Uh, can someone explain what's going on?" The Water Tribe boy asked rudely. The girl elbowed him. "Ow what was that for?" He yelped in protest.
"How are you alive?" Aang asked as they pulled away from each other.
"What do you mean? Monk Gyatso locked me in here to protect me from the invasion, and then Roku was here. Something about suspension. But I'm having trouble remembering what happened after that. I guess I fell asleep." Darya shook her head, trying to clear out the cobwebs.
"Invasion?" Aang asked her. Darya looked at him in shock, had he not seen the destruction outside? From the way those firebenders were talking, the whole temple was slaughtered.
"Didn't you see outside! I heard some firebenders through the door. They murdered everyone Aang!" Darya yelled as loud as her sore voice allowed her too. Her anger was building again.
"What do you mean? Darya it's- I don't know how to tell you, but it's been 100 years since you fell asleep. I was trapped in an iceberg, Katara and Sokka found me." Aang muttered, unsure how his old friend would react.
Darya was stunned into silence. She could remember Avatar Roku's mysterious words now: " It takes an enormous amount of energy to suspend one person in time, let alone two." They made sense now. Somehow, Avatar Roku had kept her and Aang alive for . . .
"ONE HUNDRED YEARS!" Darya screamed, suddenly overwhelmed. Her heart sped up and she felt dizzy. She needed to breath, to get out, to run.
So she did. She took off, out of the sanctuary and out into the bright sunlight. It burned her eyes but she didn't stop. She climbed the spiral staircase to her right out of memory and didn't stop running down the winding corridors until she found herself at the door to her room.
Darya paused before the plain yellow door, not wanting to see how dusty and old her room looked, but needing to all the same. She pushed gently on the door but it wouldn't open. She pushed again a little harder and it still wouldn't open. Growing frustrated with the door, she stood back and shot a blast of air at it. The door swung open on rusty hinges and Darya walked in. The smell of rot and dust was pungent, but the smell of flowers and fresh air also surprised her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise at the five foot hole that now resided in her wall. It looked like a flaming rock had smashed through the wall, the ancient charred rock lay innocently against the opposite wall. The covered of her bed was rotted and frayed, and dust covered everything. Her once littered dresser was bare of its trinkets and papers. Nothing had survived 100 years, but she knew that before she had opened the door.
She turned to look into her dusty mirror. She was surprised to see that she looked exactly the same as she had a hundred years ago. Her blonde hair shimmered in the daylight that shone in from the large hole, and she took note of the little scar she had on her left cheek from when she fell off a bison during her first flying lesson. Her green eyes looked older than they had before the attack, but other than that, nothing had changed.
"Darya!" Aang yelled from down the hallway. Darya jumped, startled out of her thoughts. She looked over to see Aang looking at her with worry while the other two looked at her with something close to awe.
"What?" Darya snapped. She immediately felt bad for her tone. "I'm sorry, it's been a long day, and I've only been awake for like ten minutes."
"It's ok. We understand. This has to be an awful thing to wake up to. We're just surprised to find another airbender. All our lives we thought they were extinct." The boy with the wolf tail said.
"Well I think Aang and I are the only ones left." Darya sighed and walked further into her room. The others followed her.
"I'm sorry about your wall, Darya." Aang whispered. Darya stared at the wall and felt a cool breeze blow in. Suddenly, unwanted and unexpected, laughter bubbled up from deep within her and Darya fell into a fit of giggles. The trio looked at her in surprise and worry.
"I'm sorry," Darya said as she gained control of her giggling and wiped a tear from her eye. "It's just that I always wanted a window in my room. But Monk Gyatso said that I would sneak out and cause trouble if I did."
"Which you did even without a window." Aang said, walking up to Darya's side. Darya looked down at the boy and smiled.
"It's not like you were any better. I don't know how they let you get your tattoos." Darya laughed, feeling the panic from earlier begin to melt away. So what if she was suddenly one hundred years in the future without any signs of aging, the Fire Nation had murdered her people, and her room was destroyed. At least Aang was still here.
She remembered Roku and Gyatso telling her to guide and guard him. How was she supposed to guide him when he was a better bender than her and the Avatar? She would be sticking with him from now on though, that was certain. After all, he was all she had left. Darya was about to leave her room when the sun glinted off of something shiny under her bed. Darya gasped and shot forward.
"What's that?" Aang asked as Darya removed two short swords from under her bed. Darya stared at her beautiful blades, her heart swelling with happiness that her most prized possessions had survived for her to find them. In that moment, as she felt the leather of the hilts and the weight of the steel in her hands, Darya knew everything would be ok. The blades were no longer than her forearm and they were thin with twin dragons etched across the blades. She turned and smiled at Aang, who looked furious.
"What are those, Darya! You know that there aren't supposed to be any weapons here!" Darya was a little surprised at Aang's fury, but she knew he was right. The Monk's didn't believe in violence, so no weapons were allowed. But Darya had never felt right about that. For years there had been rumors of war in the Fire Nation, and Darya felt a deep need to learn to fight. She had told herself that it was for self defense, but in her heart she wanted to fight. She didn't know how to fight using airbending, so she took to a double sword.
"This is why I was always sneaking out. I needed to learn to fight Aang. Monk Gyatso forbade me, and look where the airbenders ended up!" Darya said, defending herself. Her sorrow at the loss of her people fueled her.
"Violence is never the answer!" Aang shot back. "Did Monk Gyatso teach you nothing!"
"Don't bring him into this Aang! Only one soldier was injured during the massacre, and that was from me!"
"You killed someone!" Aang stepped back, looking sick.
"No, I just knocked him out is all. I couldn't kill someone." Darya said, stepping back from him slightly.
"What do you think those are designed to do." Aang said, it wasn't a question.
"They were supposed to protect our people, and now they will protect you." Darya said, conviction in her voice.
"What?" the trio said together.
"Monk Gyatso and Avatar Roku charged me to take care of you Aang, and I will do just that. I am no longer following the code of this temple, I am following new orders. I never fit in here anyways." Darya said, her sentence slowly dying off into a mumble.
"What do you mean? Is it because you don't have the weird arrow tattoos?" The boy asked. The girl elbowed him in the ribs. "What?"
"That was rude!" The girl scolded him. The boy looked uncomfortable and rubbed his neck.
"Actually yeah." Darya nodded.
"I was right!" The boy cheered, and then he realized he was about to get another elbow in the stomach. "Oh, I mean, uh, sorry."
"It's ok, I'll tell you about it after we leave." Darya said, waving her arms to dispel her sullen mood. She wanted stop feeling so awful and get back to being the joyful person she was a hundred years ago. "I want to see if anything else survived here first."
"Yeah where are we going now, Aang?" The Water Tribe girl asked gently while Darya poked around in the corners of her room.
"I want to explore around here more, if that's ok." Aang said. Suddenly the lemur that had been in the sanctuary earlier appeared in the hole in Darya's wall. It had a fruit in its mouth which it began to eat ferociously.
"Dinner!" The boy yelled and pounced on the lemur. Of course, being a lemur, it was much faster and flew off with the boy giving chase.
"Wait, Sokka, Aang!" The girl yelled as Aang took off after the two. The girl sighed and shook her head. "Those two are going to give me a heart attack."
"Please, Aang gives everyone a heart attack." Darya laughed. "So it's nice to meet you, Water Tribe I'm guessing?"
"It's nice to meet you too. I'm Katara, and that was my older brother Sokka. We're from the Southern Water Tribe." Katara introduced herself and the girls shook hands. Darya figured this girl must be a little younger than her, putting Sokka at around her age.
"Are you guys benders?" Darya asked, curiosity always getting the better of her.
"I am, but Sokka isn't. I'm not very good though. We're on our way to the Northern Water Tribe to find us teachers."
"This is a long way from the North Pole." Darya said, raising an eyebrow.
"Aang has us taking some detours…" Katara said, not looking particularly pleased with these detours.
Darya was about to ask about the detours when she felt the wind speed up unnaturally fast. She looked at Katara and could tell that the waterbender had felt it to. The two girls leapt to their feet and ran out of the building. They found Sokka staring at Aang in horror. Aang was enveloped whirlwind while his eyes and arrows glowed unearthly blue.
"What happened?" Katara shouted over the wind to Sokka.
"Aang discovered that the Fire Nation killed Monk Gyatso." Sokka yelled back, fear in his eyes.
Darya felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Monk Gyatso, her teacher, friend, and guide, had been murdered. Deep down, she knew he must have been, just like the rest of their people, but to hear it confirmed was something else. Darya looked at Aang and could understand his rage, it was building in her as well. The white hot anger she had felt the day of the invasion returned and there was no Avatar Roku to calm her down. However, the only thing to lash out at were her new friends, and the thought of hurting them was the only thing that kept her anger in check. While she wrestled with her anger, Katara tried to calm down Aang.
After several tense moments and comforting words, Aang was able to calm down enough to leave the Avatar state. He collapsed from exhaustion into Katara's arms.
"I'm sorry." He said, his voice hoarse.
"It's ok. We're here." Katara murmured as she stroked his back. Sokka moved over near them as well and put his hand on Aang's shoulder. The two boys smiled and Aang rose.
Darya watched as the last bits of her anger died away, leaving only sadness in its wake.
Before leaving, Darya had ran back to the sanctuary to grab her glider which had fallen there so long ago. She brushed off the dust and watched as the polished wood glistened. It was a bit larger that Aang's and much more decorative. Like her swords, Darya's glider had a dragon carved into it. The whole staff made the dragon, with the end being narrowed into a tail and the top had the head of a dragon snarling. Darya used airbending to open it to make sure the wings were in tact. Three pieces of red fabric burst out from the sides and the bottom. Darya grinned impishly at the pristine fabric, not a tear at all. The gliders wings were also shaped like a dragon's, creating a beautiful work of fierce art.
After packing up their gear and naming the lemur Momo, the four teenagers found themselves once more on top of Appa.
"I can't believe there's still a flying bison!" Darya shook her head in disbelief as they took off. As they leveled out, Darya stood up and whooped, spreading her arms wide.
"I'm so happy I could fly!" She laughed.
"Boy your emotions are all over the place." Sokka muttered.
"I heard that!" Darya growled, but then she laughed again. "What do you expect to happen when you wake up to find that all your friends and family are dead and you've been asleep for a hundred years? Oh and my people are the enemy now."
"Your people? But the airbenders are all gone." Katara said quizzically.
"Yeah what do you mean by that, Darya?" Aang asked as he climbed into the saddle. Darya looked slightly uncomfortable.
"Gyatso never told you?" She asked Aang. Aang shook his head.
"Alright hold onto your socks." Darya sighed as she settled down into a comfortable position. "My mother was an Air Nomad. She traveled in a caravan that went around the world to every nation. From what Gyatso told me she was very beautiful. She met a noble in her travels and ended up getting married and she stopped travelling."
"She stopped traveling? I've never heard of an airbender settling down other than at the temples. Even then they travel a lot." Aang interrupted. Sokka "shh'ed" him.
"Yeah she must have loved him a lot. I never met her though, because she died giving birth to me." Darya paused.
"I'm sorry about that." Katara said and put a comforting hand on Darya's knee. Darya smiled at her in thanks.
"Well anyway, she died so I spent the first five years of my life with my father. He lived in the capital city and was pretty important so I didn't see him much, but I remember that he was nice. It wasn't until then that we found out I could airbend. I don't remember how we found out but my father thought that it would better for me to live with airbenders. I was brought to the Southern Air Temple the year before you were born Aang. I think my father was probably disappointed I wasn't like him." Darya paused again, letting that sink in. Aang was the first to catch on.
"He wasn't an airbender?" Aang asked.
"My father was a firebender." Darya said. The trio gasped and launched a barrage of questions.
"Your dad was a firebender?"
"Wait if he was a noble didn't he know the Fire Lord?"
"You're Fire Nation!?"
"Stop!" Darya cried out, a headache growing quickly. "Yes I'm half Fire Nation. And yes he did know the Fire Lord, and yes he was a firebender."
There's was a silence then.
"So that's why you never got your tattoos." Aang said.
"Yeah", Darya nodded. "And no. I mastered all of the moves, and even came up with a few of my own, but The Elders didn't think I fully understood the ways of an airbender. And they were right. I mean I snuck out every night to practice with my swords, not to mention all of my airbending moves are more aggressive than normal."
"So when the Elders would tell you to calm your fire-" Aang asked.
"They meant my inner fire that I carry from my dads side, yeah." Darya finished.
"Well I'm just glad I'm not the last airbender." Aang said, sitting back.
"And we could use another warrior." Sokka added.
Darya smiled and felt a tear sting the corner of her eyes.
"And it's nice having another girl on board." Katara said, causing Darya to laugh.
"Thanks guys. Now, it's been a hundred years since I've been on a bison, but I want to do some flying of my own." Darya grabbed her glider from its place tied to her small pack. She only had her swords, glider, and a set of clothes that were in decent shape.
She bent it open and the dragon's wings unfurled. Sokka's eyes bulged out of his head.
"Woah that's a seriously cool glider!" He said as he examined it closely.
"Thanks, Monk Gyatso knew how much I missed the Fire Nation so he made me this to remember it." Darya smiled at the memory.
"I'm just going to fly alongside you guys for a bit." Darya said as she jumped off of Appa and into the air. They flew for several hours before Darya landed back on the bison again. The rest of the gang were curled up asleep in the saddle.
"It's good to fly again." She sighed and found a spot in between Sokka and Aang. As she closed her eyes, her last feeling was of the wind I her hair and the smell of the leather saddle.
