Chapter 4 is here; I hope everyone enjoys it. I'm dedicating this one to Ryo Kaida, thank you for the Fave!

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Chapter 4: Broken Spirits

Suki

I was walking along the mountain side. There was a storm and the mountain paths were damaged. I volunteered to investigate the passages, we needed to know if any had been damaged or not. They were all clear, but one looked dangerous. The rocks had become unstable. Several of the other girls had come with me to help shore up any paths that needed it. We worked through the day and night, shoring up the hillside. We were almost finished when everything went wrong.

San was moving a larger boulder out of the way when it shifted against her, and slid down the hill. She threw herself to the side as she cried for help. I ran with Ellyona to stop the boulder.

We each grabbed one end of it and pushed back to hold it place. "Suki, I can't hold this, it's too heavy, we have to let it roll!" cried Ellyona, the immense strain of helping to hold the boulder back making her voice crack as we both heaved against it. I tried to keep my own desperation form my voice as I responded;

"No, we have to stop it; it could destabilize the entire hillside."

I scrambled to find purchase on the hill as while were slowly being pushed downwards. I heard several of the other warriors cry out for me to let go. San slipped and fell to the side of the rock, I slid back faster.

I began to panic, when my foot caught on a rock, giving me a solid platform to push against. Suddenly it seemed as though the boulder got lighter, and I was able to force it aside, pressing it into the wall of the pathway until it became stuck against several smaller rocks. I looked down to see San looking at me with wide eyes; "what, is there something on me?" I had no idea what it was, but she looked like she had seen a ghost.

I sat up trembling. I was freezing cold, and wanted to go back to the dream I was having; it was of my time at my Island before I was captured. It was a lot better than the dreams I had been having as of late. Most of them were nightmares now.

I realized that I was alone; I couldn't hear the breathing of the others. It was then that I began to panic; what if they had escaped and left me here? What if they were all hurt? What if… what if they were all dead? I shook my head, trying to chase off those thoughts, I couldn't afford them now anyway. If I panicked then I was of no use to anyone.

I cast about the cell I was in, and soon learned that it was about five feet square. The door was made of metal and had a small indentation at the bottom, which I surmised was for food to be delivered. In frustration I slammed my arms against the door and cried out as pain lanced through my right arm. I held it close to my body, and gingerly felt along my bones, hoping I hadn't broken one of them.

Relief flooded through me as I didn't feel any pain, indicating that it wasn't broken, but I did find a cut. It was from one of the darts that pinned me to the wall; it must have torn into my arm. As well as that the cut on my side had begun to throb painfully. I could feel a light dressing over it, which made me smile to myself; Azula didn't want me to die just yet it seemed. That however, was a mistake. The side of my face hurt worse than my other injuries combined. Gingerly I reached up to touch it, and pulled my hand back immediately.

I forced myself to take deep slow breaths. It wasn't easy; I was sore and aching and locked in a dark cell. I couldn't hear anything from the other side of the door. I was completely cut off from the outside world now. It was then that I realized that I wasn't wearing my armor, or clothes. I had on the clothes of a fire nation prisoner. The shock of that simple fact, that I was a prisoner of the fire nation hit me right then.

I felt the tears roll down my face and dashed them away angrily. "I can't cry now, I have to be strong… come on Suki, you can find a way out of this hell." I tried to hold them back, and they stung the skin on my cheek when they rolled over it, but it was just something I couldn't do. I had given my all, everything I possibly could have and it hadn't been good enough.

We all knew the stories, about the cruel and terrible things the Fire Nation with and to its prisoners. They were like the campfire stories we told each other, trying to act like the dark didn't hold any sway with us. But deep down you knew that what you heard was true.

Water-benders caged in cells like animals, kept on the brink of fatal dehydration, blasted with steam to dry out the air around them, cruelly deprived of their element, Earth benders whose hands and feet were burned so they couldn't feel their element, or taken out to floating prisons at sea. Soldiers were executed, or paraded in the fire nation capital, before being put to work in mines feeding the war machines with coal for the rest of their lives.

I don't know how long I lay there, come to think of it I had no idea how long I had been in this cell. I didn't know anything about this cell, other than the fact that it was small and dark.I looked around and began to carefully feel my way around my new home, looking for anyway to gain an advantage if I had to fight again.

There was nothing, the bricks were all uniform, and well mortared, I could do nothing, so I lay down and curled up for warmth and tried to figure out what had happened to the others.

Azula

Mai and Ty Lee had subdued the Kioshi warriors by the time I reached them. I had the guards throw the two that had actually fought back in solitary cells. I then had the other one, and the badly wounded one brought to the room I took their fiery leader Suki to.

We changed the girls into the dress of prisoners, as that is what they were now. We stood watching the uninjured girl as she lay on the cot, with Mai and Ty Lee strategically positioned to keep the wounded one out of sight. I signaled Mai, who doused her with a bucket of cold water.

She awoke immediately, coughing and spluttering. She sat upright and looked around confusedly. She focused on the three of us. "I… where are we… Suki? Is that you?" she rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times, obviously unaccustomed to the bright light around us. She shrank back when she recognized us; "What do you want now?" I smiled in what I hoped was a disarming manner and she seemed to relax a little.

"I don't want much, it's almost a simple nothing really; I just want you to show me the correct way to apply my makeup so I look just like you do."

She looked at me questioningly before she glanced at Mai and Ty Lee. Mai nodded and Ty lee smiled her huge idiot grin; "yep, that's all we want. Then we can sneak around and pretend to be like you when we get to Ba Sing…" a shock went through me as she spoke and I turned and glared at her, forcing her to stop immediately. I turned around to face the girl and found her staring at me wide eyed; "You want to attack the earth king and blame it on us! I'll never help you!"

I flicked my hair aside and glanced at Ty Lee. "Well now that my clumsy friend here has revealed my evil plan, I have no choice but to try another way… hmm what could I do?" I tapped my chin and pretended to think hard about what I was going to do. "Ah I know; if you help us, then we'll help you."

"I don't need your help, none of us do!" she glared at me, and looked like she was trying to convince herself of this. I motioned for Ty Lee and Mai to move aside, and as they did, they revealed her friend to her, the one I had burned.

Ira

Her friends parted and revealed San to be behind them lying on another small cot. I leapt off of the cot I was sitting on and pushed past the two girls before falling to my knees next to San. Tears flowed unbidden from my eyes as I gently touched her cheek, causing her to twitch.

She was awake, but wasn't lucid. She responded to touch though. I brushed her hair from her face and made shushed her. "San, I'm sorry." I pressed my face into her shoulder and sighed. I stood and faced Azula; "fine, I get what you're implying, you help San and I'll help you with our makeup."

Azula smiled, though it wasn't a smile that I was accustomed to seeing, it actually scared me quite a lot. She gestured to her friends and they picked up San and carried her away. I started to panic for a moment as they left the room. "Don't worry; she will be taken care of, nothing bad will happen to her."

Her voice was reassuring, but something about the way she spoke made me want to go back on my deal with her. She walked to the door to the room and rapped on it once; "you will take the prisoner back to her private cell for me, and feed the quiet one."

I was quickly grabbed by two burly guards and hauled roughly out of the room and down the hall. They dragged me unceremoniously through the halls. I let out a small protest as we passed the cell that we had been originally put in, but the guards just laughed; "you all get private cells now dear, we can't have you try anything tricky now can we." They threw me in a small cell and slammed the door closed.

I was in total darkness, I had never experienced something like this, there was absolutely no light I was so completely cut off from everything I did the only thing I could think of; I panicked and screamed for them to let me out. It wasn't long before my voice was worn ragged and I felt like I was worn thin. I thought I heard someone talking through the wall. I slid over to it and put my ear against it; "what was that?"

I was breathing hard; I had never been more terrified in my life than I was now. "Ira, what did they do to you?" It was Ellyona; she was in the cell next to mine. I had to make myself remember that I wasn't truly alone. "Where is Suki, is she alright?"

"I don't know, I think they put her down lower in the dungeons. I think Azula wants to do something to her." I sighed; I had to tell her what I had done, as it burned my conscience. "Ell, I… I agreed to help her and her friends look like us, so they could sneak into Ba Sing Se and kill the earth king." My statement was met only with silence. I curled up into a ball and began to cry, what I had agreed to do had just hit me, if I didn't then she would probably kill both me and San. After a short while I managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

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