(A/N: I own nothing.)

The End

(Part Two)

"Mali?" Something pushed at her side. "Please wake up, Mali!"

She did, with a start, and found herself in a room she'd never seen before. Jampa, though it took her a moment to recognize the familiar baldhead in the dark, continued to tap her until she pushed the hand away. "I dreamt—"

Jampa's face reflected nothing and everything all at once. She didn't cry but it sat heavy all the same. "No, you didn't."

"Where are we?" said Mali. It was easier to think about. The room was empty of decoration but it couldn't be a Temple room. It was built wrong. All steel and closed in on all sides. Jampa shrugged her shoulders. "How long have we been here?" Jampa shrugged again. "Is there anything-"

Jampa pointed to the wall. Mali sat up and looked at it, really looked at it now that her eyes had adjusted, and saw something hanging off the side. Like a cut. Jampa reported the information quickly and factually. "Something in the wall. I don't know."

Mali walked over and examined it closely. It wasn't big enough to fit much through— only about the size of a lemur at most. She pushed at it, kicked it, bent a gust of Air, but it didn't budge.

But it did open, suddenly from the outside, and Mali jumped with Airbender grace to the other side of the small room in her surprise. Two red bundles were pushed through and it was sealed again with ease. Jampa pointed as if to say See? See?

She should have pushed at it with Airbending and figured out who it was. She should have grabbed the hand while she had the chance or something. How could she be so stupid? Mali pushed herself up and knocked on the ceiling. The walls. Stupid stupid stupid.

"Stop it," Jampa hadn't left the ground the whole time Mali had been awake. "Just- don't get distracted. I want to go back."

There wasn't anywhere to go back to. Maybe they could go to the Eastern Temple or the Northern or Southern. Mali imagined Monks and Nuns together to the rescue but put the thought aside. They were still gone and they were still stuck and she was still stupid. She went to look at the bundles instead.

Fire Nation robes, like the ones their friends had once worn, comfortable and confining. Mali looked down at her own robes. They smelled like ash and somewhere along the way the seam on her arm had split open. The black was still under her fingernails and in her hair. But why would anyone give her Fire Nation clothing? It wasn't right. But it did make it obvious where they were. It was only the way that needed answering.

Jampa looked at the pile carefully before slowly starting to disrobe. Mali felt the frustration coming back. The fear as well. "What are you doing?"

"I have Sister Nima in my clothes," and for the first time it seemed Jampa might sob- but her face went hard again and she slid herself into the new clean robes without fuss. "I can't." She bit her lip lightly. "And I won't."

Like a weight had entered the room the two of them sat on either side of their cell with the remaining clothes in the middle. Meli tried meditating to clear her mind while Jampa pulled at herself and fidgeted. Meditation yielded nothing. Her mind stayed less a calm sky and more a stormy sea. Somewhere in a pile they were burning her glider. She'd made it herself- though a few of the Nuns corrected the balanced. Her homework for history class- she'd never know if she'd gotten Avatar Yangchen's biography right. They were going to rip the Temple down stone by stone; she just knew it and the feeling it left in her stomach felt just like falling. She was hungry and tired despite all the sleeping and—

A wall opened and flooded the room with light. Four solders looked in at them from behind their full face masks. One motioned for the two of them and the rest seemed ready. For something. An attack?

The two Airbenders exchanged looks. Mali imagined they could fight. They never had before but they could get away. From wherever this was. Fly off into the sunset and get help.

"If you resist," began the shortest lightly. Mali remembered his voice from her dream. The one who had carried her here. "It's the smallest one who will suffer for it."

Jampa looked at the two of them as if trying to see which was shorter but Mali knew exactly what he meant. "Dorje."

How long had it been since it happened? How many of her people, some even smaller than seven, had he crushed under that large red boot? Mali shivered to herself.

The man held out his arms as if they had a choice and the two girls, one at least feeling smaller than ever, walked out of the room as carefully as possible.

It was a corridor that went on for a while. They stopped three more times to open locked doors before the venue changed entirely. Instead of stark walls of steel it was a decorated Fire Nation room. It was too much. Like someone had crammed everything Fire Nation into one room. The painting of Fire Lord Sozin stared down at her from the ceiling and the rows of cushioned couches looked comfortable and inviting. There were images of dragons in the wallpaper. But oddest of all was the prettiest woman Mali had ever seen standing to the side with a large book.

The two of them were forcibly plopped down on the third couch. The woman smiled at both of them, taking the time to eye Jampa's head, but said nothing. Mali focused on her breathing. In and out. She was somewhere far away.

"Mali! Jampa!" Dorje had her own guards- the only thing keeping her from rushing to the older girls for support. She wore the Fire Nation robes and was set down in the first row. Jampa made an effort to smile but it was the least believable thing Mali had seen in a while. Nothing like the ones at the Temple when they played. She reached out her hand and Jampa took the little bit of strength it carried to tide her over.

Khalama and Lasya were brought together and put in the second row. They wore the Fire Nation robes too and Mali couldn't help but feel betrayed. Lasya sobbed the way Mali wanted to but they were still all in enemy colors. She was alone even with hands held tight.

There was an odd moment where things were silent and the woman stared at all of them like creatures rather than girls. The only sound was Lasya's crying and the shifting of fabric as Dorje tried to navigate a dress a bit too long. The woman tapped her foot lightly.

Then, like it was a story, Khalama raised her hand. Like they had to when they visited that Earth Kingdom School with the Nuns. It had been a lovely trip. It was out of place here. But like dream logic the woman brightened and leaned out her arm to call on her. "Yes?"

"What is this, why are we here, who are you, and everyone in the world is going to hate you!" each statement was thrown out at rapid speed and the mood changed in the room. Every question Mali had wanted to ask was now out in the air- and she didn't need to know. Now that they'd been asked all she needed was out. But the two guards just for her rushed forward as if they could sense the mood too. The woman walked with new purpose, like a fire had been lit in her veins, and Khalama was slapped hard enough that she cried out in hurt and surprise with the book the woman had been carrying. No Nun had every struck them. Not ever.

The woman smiled. "Those were some very good questions."

She walked back to the front of the room and opened the book as if nothing had happened. "This is the first day of your new lives, you're here because not everyone in the Fire Nation believes a good Nomad is a dead nomad—" She paused for a moment. "Some of us simply believe you have to kill the Nomad inside of them."

It was insanity. She was an experiment. Everyone was dead and she was an experiment for some madwoman who wasn't making any sense. Kill the Nomad inside of them? It wasn't inside of them it was who they were. They couldn't stop being Air Nomads anymore than they could stop Airbending. Lasya began crying harder and Jampa stared down at the carpet to avoid any of their eyes. It was Dorje this time who raised her hand and all the older girls went white. If this woman would hit eleven year old Khalama she'd hit Dorje just as easily.

But this time the woman simply patted her on the head. Lightly. "Hm?"

"Who are you?" asked the youngest girl. "May I go home now?"

"I am your new teacher Ms. Lin and you are home, silly," she went back to smiling again and Mali could only listen with growing horror. "You're all wondering why I'm telling you this. Why I don't just let things happen as they will."

Mali was more concerned this woman would murder them all in their sleep but nodded all the same. It seemed safest.

"I need you all to understand I, and the other teachers here, are not liars. We're doing this for your own benefit and for the hope of a better future. If this succeeds there'll be no need for members of the Water Tribe to die when their time comes the way your people have. Only improved…"

Hope. The Nuns said it was a distraction from the truth— how right that the word should appear in this place. The implications of the speech made her dizzy, Mali tried to focus on what the words meant but it only made her sicker, she joined Jampa in staring at the floor.

"Anymore questions?" The room was silent as a gravesite. Ms. Lin flipped to another page in her book and wrote something down. "Very good. Those of you who put on your new clothes may join me for dinner."

With two to each girl the soldiers hauled her friends up and out another door. She was left alone with her two and Ms. Lin. The room suddenly seemed smaller than ever. No one had time to say goodbye to her.

"As the only girl to keep that ugly thing on you'll have no dinner and no opportunities for rewards," said Ms. Lin. "A shame for you."

"Wait!" said Meli, who couldn't remember her last meal after all that had happened, but she was hauled back through the corridor, back through the doors that locked and into her cell once more. It felt darker than ever.

Meli pulled at her hair and thought. Kill the Nomad inside. That's what the madwoman had said. Well that would never work: there were still the other temples to come and rescue them. She'd probably lied to keep them from escaping. "My name is Meli and I'm an Air Nomad. I can bend. I'll earn my arrows soon. I'm not alone."

She meditated with that as her mantra to ignore the growing hunger. Didn't put on the clothes that still sat in her space.

It couldn't have been more than a day but everything had changed. She wouldn't change with it.