My life, at first was not interesting. I was very much like any other child of my tribe, running around the tents and playing with the other children when the tents were up, and sticking closer to my mom and dad when they were down. Sure, it's true that I was mute, but I learned the silent language of the tribes as any child did, and I was able to communicate that way. Sure, I met with Toph in my dreams, and to others that may have been special, but to me it was as normal as the winds that blow from the east. I can bend air, but that is the same ability that many of my people have.
Even when my tribe was attacked, and I lay on the sand, gasping against the pain of the slash that bit deep into my side, and yet still dropped me like I was a sack of stones, as the footsteps of Fire Nation soldiers crunch in the sand around me, I am normal. Just another tribe, just another of the many peoples to fall to the Fire Nation. I don't know if they found out that my tribe had more of the airbenders that they had tried to wipe out so many years ago, or if it had simply been decided that we were a hinderance to the expansion of the grand Fire Nation.
Toph, I reach, then I moan and throw up.
I dream. It's an odd feeling, after so many years of lucidity and Toph. My mind replays one of my people's stories for me, placing me as Ilesh, blessed of Dusk, and come to revive him. Toph is there as Avani, and the role fits her perfectly in a strange way, hiding sharpness behind fans, and a wealthy upbringing behind down to earth practicality.
I wake to silence and warmth. I can hear the gentle rustling of fibers, and when I open my eyes, there's a man dressed in Earth Kingdom greens, who is rolling a strand of string out.
I'm feel vaguely startled when he looks up, and his eyes are not the green of Manik, who had just woken me in the dream. His eyes are Fire Nation brown, and I can't even bring myself to feel scared. I feel wrung out - like the date-plumbs we leave out to dry whenever we find them.
"Are you Samir?" the man asks, and his fingers still. I nod. "Ah. That's good."
He returns to his string, and I watch him. I wonder if this is all just a dream. If I will wake up on my bedroll to the sound of my mother's absent humming, and children laughing outside.
There's a warmth on my chest, and I recognise Toph when I let myself relax and turn my head.
The man is gone when I next open my eyes, but there is a man with Ryung's mask sitting across from me and sharpening a sword. The sound rasps in my ears with an almost echoing quality. I watch him drowsily, still half asleep until I fade back out again.
I next wake up to words gasped in my ears and hands on my shoulders, and pale green eyes and hands patting me gently all over as someone tries to pull them away and "Let me go! Samir, Samir are you okay?"
"He's fine, girl! Now stop pawing at him! You might tear his wounds open!"
The hands abruptly go still, and the blanket is promptly yanked off of me as I blink at the ceiling. Toph - that's Toph in the arms of the man I had thought was Manik, and Ryung - the man with Ryung's mask is looking over me and shaking his head. I watch numbly as he gestures towards a lantern, and fire responds to his call.
He turns to me, and with his hands covered by the suddenly rainbow flames, he slides fingers along my left side.
I sleep again.
Flames surround me in my dreams, burning me over and over because I can't get away not matter how much I run, and my bending only encourages the flames as soldiers in red armour laugh and direct the fire to consume me.
Hey, silly.
I open my eyes to see Toph with a grin on her face.
. . . Toph.
How are you feeling?
I'm alright. When did we put a tent up?
Toph's smile dims slightly. Put up . . . Samir, we didn't put the tent up. We're not dreaming - this is the tent of someone from your tribe.
But . . . you're here, I say, turning to glance around the tent.
Yeah, I came for you.
"Toph, dinner's done," the man I had thought was Manik says, head sticking into the tent. He glances at me. "Do you want me to bring it in here?"
"No," Toph says firmly, and it's a shock to hear her voice. "We'll be right out."
The man nods and ducks out, leaving the tent flapping slightly in his wake.
Come on, Toph says, turning back to me. The blue spirit says you're healed enough to get up, so you should.
Who was that? I ask, allowing Toph to pull me to my feet. I stumble slightly, and she hands me a shirt. Who's the blue spirit?
I put the shirt on as I wait for a reply.
The man is Nuan - you remember him right? And the blue spirit is a man who's wearing the mask of some spirit and going around helping defend traders and other people from the Fire Nation.
Oh, I say before Toph is pulling me out of the tent and into the moonlight. There are two people sitting by a fire in front of the tent. I feel a shiver as I look around, in part to avoid looking at the fire. This is the only tent to have a fire in front of it. The rest of the tents are cold and dark, and I want to sink to my knees.
Hey, Toph says, her arm around my shoulders. You alright?
My hands are shaking and my finger nails bite into my palms as the truth sinks in. This isn't my dream. The empty tents do a better job of convincing me of this than Ryung or the Manik-lookalike - Nuan - because this isn't something I would dream up.
No, I manage to reply to Toph. No, I'm not alright.
"Hey Toph, is your friend alright?" Nuan asks, and I look up at him, and catch a glimpse of his Fire Nation brown eyes, and I growl.
I leap forward, and the next thing I know, I'm throwing myself at him, howling wordlessly as Toph tries to keep me back - she's only using her arms, but she's just that much bigger than me that it matters, and in a corner of my mind, I know that she could have easily let me go and just used her earthbending. I'm close enough to the stupid lying Fire Nation - Fire Nation jerk that I can almost touch him, and yet he looks so relaxed, as if I pose no threat to him at all -
He smiles at Toph and says, "Let him go."
She hesitates for a moment before she releases me, and I fly at Nuan, swing my fists at his face like my mother taught me but I meet is block after block as I try to hit him, with his stupid Fire Nation face, and his stupid Fire Nation eyes, and his stupid earthbending that he could probably take me out with in a moment because I haven't been taught how to really do anything other than control myself.
My fists get slower and slower as I tire myself out against Nuan, and all he does is keep blocking me with an odd sad expression on my face until I collapse against him. Tears are streaming down my cheeks - have been for the past couple minutes - but Nuan doesn't say anything, simply letting me cry into is shoulder as I keep hitting him - not that there's any force behind my fists any more.
Why? Why did they choose to target my tribe? I sign, hands flying. Why didn't I die with my tribe? Was this my fault? Was this because I'm an airbender? Why did I have to be an airbender? Lady Kun, why couldn't I have been one of yours instead?
"It isn't your fault."
I glance up at Nuan. He eyes are distant as he repeats himself. "It isn't your fault. Most likely, nothing you chose to do cause this."
I push myself backwards, breaking the circle of his arms. "Most likely? Hah! I'm an airbender! Someone probably saw me, and word got passed around until the Fire Nation hear and said, 'Oh hey! Look, here's another airbender that we need to squash!' So don't go telling me it's not my fault!"
I can vaguely hear Toph behind me, repeating the words that I had just signed as I glare at Nuan. His eyes narrow.
"Sure!" he exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. "Someone could have seen you bend. But there are a million other things it could have been - you're clogging a trade route they wanted or some commander simply wanted your people dead to prove himself to the Fire Lord. Each of those is just as likely - if not more so! At least you weren't expected to save your tribe - you're young enough that you would have been told to run! I didn't have that luxury! I failed -"
His voice breaks, and he looks away and for a moment I feel so impotently angry that I want to scream. "I failed, and I didn't even manage to do what he always told me to if he died . . ."
"Nuan," Ryung breathes, breaking the silence after a moment, and the man before me jerks, glancing over at the masker figure. Ryung is leaning forward, and though I can't read his face with the mask, it's clear enough that he's not just guessing.
"Who?" Nuan asks, his voice not betraying the lie, and Ryung's mask tilts ever so slightly, like he's looking to someone just beyond me. I glance back reflexively, and shiver at the empty darkness. Whatever he was looking at seemed to have made up his mind, because when I look back at him, Ryung is speaking again, this time with confidence.
"Nuan. It's nice to see you again. I thought you were dead. They said you died with Lu Ten. Is he alive too? Did you ever find Rakesh?"
"Come on," Toph whispers, tugging me away from them. "This is something they need to deal with by themselves."
"Who are you?" Nuan asks behind me, but his voice trembles.
"I'm Zuko," Ryung says, and I glance back as Toph pulls me into the tent. I wipe the tears from my face and follow her away from the fire I'd been avoiding. Under his mask, Ryung isn't that much older than us. I hadn't realised that. "Who else could I be?"
Isn't that . . . the missing Fire Price?
Life moves on.
I learn that I can't really stand any fire bigger than a lamp or an candle any more. My heart picks up whenever I look at the fire that is set of for warmth and cooking. Toph must have noticed, because after the second night I spent huddled under piles of blankets, my face turned steadfastly away from the entrance of the tent where the fire was visible, the fire was built off to the side so that I could come out without having to look straight at it.
All of my tribe's things get packed up, and everything that I can't bear to leave behind I carry. The rest of the things get put into the seasonal caves for the other tribes to take or leave as they will. I'm not about to go violating that common courtesy for some petty reason such as trying to keep my clan's memory. I didn't want the blood stained tents, the reminder that my tribe is dead.
The only tent I take is one that was never used. It had been meant for Shiel and Anju, for when they felt they were ready to actually get together. It was meant to last a family or decades, and it was easily large enough for our group of four.
I let Toph and Nuan have a choice of a new mount from the ostrich camels we'd managed to round up, then I set the rest of them free to roam the land around the caves. There's a stream originating from somewhere in the depths of the caves that pools to the left of the entrance, and supports enough grass that the herd should be fine until they're all taken in.
I have trouble saying goodbye some of them when we leave - my mother's Girilal; the gentle giant Charan, who was my family's pack animal for as long as I could remember; my father's Kavi. In the end, I only kept my Mi Shin. Zuko was . . . impatient throughout the whole ordeal, and I saw him sitting a couple feet away from the tent he was using and staring at the sky. I watched him in the late evenings, fingers automatically twisting the fiber in my hands into thread.
Once just who Zuko was sank in, I panicked and frantically asked Toph if she'd repeated the part about me being an airbender out loud.
What do you think I am? Toph asks me as she adds another stitch to the half sewn robe on her lap. Of course I didn't tell them, I thought that you would regret it later if I did that.
Thank you, I sigh, sitting back and staring at the ceiling of the cave. What are we going to do now? I don't think . . . I don't think that I could continue living the the desert like I do now. Too many memories. But, I don't have a clear goal.
Well, we could all go and follow Zuko's example.
His example? Oh, you mean as blue spirit. I stare at the ceiling as I think about doing that. I . . . I actually like that idea quite a lot.
I glance down to Toph as she frowns at the cloth on her lap, then puts in another stitch. Zuko's already got a mask, so how do you think we should disguise ourselves?
Considering that I can't see, I probably shouldn't have any say in that decision, Toph says.
Right. I think for a moment, and remember the nebulous thoughts that I'd had, and my dream. I think I have an idea.
When we're done packing everything away into the caves, Zuko asks what we're planning to do. Toph and I exchange - well, not a glance, but an awareness of what we're about to do - before we pull out the masks I'd instructed her on making. It had been hard to get them the right colors, but I'd managed to find all of the right minerals while we were at the seasonal caves.
"That looks like my mask," Zuko said reaching forward to brush his fingers over the mask I was holding. He glances up at us. "You want to be defenders. Like me."
He glances over at Nuan, who is watching with a blank face, and beyond us in a way I've come to be familiar with. There's never anyone there when I look.
"Alright."
Zuko is patient with us, and with his help, we slowly manage to actually stand our own ground against the roving Fire Nation patrols.
About a week after we present the masks, Zuko asks Toph and I what they mean. "At first I thought the you just copied my mask. But, I've been looking, and you didn't did you?"
Of course not. Have you never heard of Ryung and Shalim? I ask.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Toph says from the other side of the still unlit fire once she's done translating. The others have picked up some of the trade language, but not enough to understand most things I say yet.
Then . . . I'll tell you, I sign. I hesitate for a moment, trying to find the words. Once, there was a spirit who killed Dusk.
. . .
And he said to his friends, "Should my parents ask, it's too late. I stood and I bled indigo skies." Then he left, and the sun set.
"I can see why we never heard it," Zuko says slowly, once Toph's finished translating. "In a way, it's about fire trying to gain control over the world, the consequences, and the defeat. Not something you want to have known when you're trying to take over the world."
I nod in response. I hesitate over my next words for a moment, before I slowly sign them. Could you . . . can I see your fire?
Are you sure? Toph asks me, and I glance over at Zuko, who's repeating the gestures I'd made and putting the meanings together.
I've thought about this, and I know that I can't keep being scared of fire. If we're going to be fighting against the Fire Nation, we're going to be fighting against Fire Benders, and I'll be worse than useless if I freeze up the moment a soldier bends. I can't be scared of cooking fires for all my life either, one day, I'm not going to be with someone who understands my fear, or I'll be alone, and need to cook for myself. Far better to desensitize myself now, with people I know, and someone I trust ready to help.
I'm sure.
"You want me to fire bend?" Zuko asks slowly, before Toph has a chance to tell him what I meant. I nod decisively. Zuko looks uncertain for a moment, glancing at someone who isn't there, like he always does whenever he hesitates. Momentarily, I wonder what it is that he sees when he does this. Then a look of comprehension spreads over his face, and my attention snaps back to him. "Alright."
His eyes shift down to me, and he repeats himself. "Alright."
Toph gets up from her position on the other side of the unlit fire, and come over to sit next to me, her shoulder providing support as Zuko extends his index finger. He takes a deep breath much like the one I take before bending, then lets it out. I take a shuddering breath when the fire flickers into existence between one moment and the next. Toph leans into my harder, but flame flickering in Zuko's finger isn't much more than candles that I've been using, and my next breath is more sure.
I glance up at Zuko's eyes after a moment to see him watching me intently. I can handle this much. I nod. His eyes flicker down to his hand, and I follow them to see that he's extended the rest of his fingers. It takes me a moment to realize that the fire is spreading out to cover all of his finger tips. I start to feel dizzy, but I force myself to keep watching the fire. It doesn't grow any bigger.
Logically I know it doesn't grow any, I can see the lines on the back of Zuko's fingers that indicate his first joint. But suddenly, pain hits me, and I find myself gasping, trying to draw in arm as my hands fly to my side. I can hear Toph talking to me, trying to get me to respond. She moves to look at me, and I collapse backwards without her support. Voices of the Fire Nation soldiers that cut down my people in cold blood overlap with her voice, and and even tough I can see her leaning over me, the white skull faceplates of the soldiers hover before me. Sometimes I'm running, trying desperately to get away, and sometimes I'm laying on the sand and resigned to death.
"Leave him alone," echoes a voice, and I blink to see two soldiers standing over me. The one on the right has his hand flattened, and flames dancing along his finger tips. "He'll die soon enough from that gut wound."
"Koh take it," the boy to my left curses. The two soldiers don't seem to hear him as they turn away from me. The boy to my right grabs my hand, and the two soldiers overlap with him oddly as they keep walking back to the screams of my people.
"Samir, listen to me, you're safe. Toph is here with you - look, she's right there, holding your hand. It's alright. You're - " his voice breaks, and suddenly I remember him. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, runaway, bandit, friend. I push myself up before he can continue, and turn as my stomach rebels to throw up onto the sand.
"You feel better?" Toph asks gently as she settles down next to me. I nod and pull the blankets tighter around of the earth within a couple of steps distance is charred and ashy, and beyond that, I can see the singed bark and leaves of the trees that surround the small clearing. I shift slightly to brace myself as Toph leans closer, and ash falls from the folds of the blanket. I can't even bring myself to shiver at the reminder of the fire that had blazed hot and bright for moments.
"Have you ever hear of a firebreak?" Toph asks contemplatively after a while of just observing the land around us. I shake my head. I glance over at her to see her playing with some ash, compacting it in the air and making it take of a variety of shapes. Her eyes stare sightlessly out as she abandons any pretense of needing them, and her three free limbs are all touching the ground. Her lips are twisted into a wry smile, and when she next opens her fist, the ash has take the form of flames. "Right, you live in a desert. There's not enough vegetation for a flash fire."
"Well, in Goaling, we were surrounded by forest, you remember? And on the hillsides, there was lots of grass. Three years ago, back when I was four, we had that bad drought. I was worried about my servants - it got bad enough that most of the local farms didn't even bother planting that year, there wasn't enough water to even try it.
"We were still a major trade port, and we managed to survive off of that, but no one carries enough fresh water with them to trade in. I remember the grass on the hills went so dry that it crunched under my feet - the nanny they assigned to me told me how beautiful it was one time, like the hills had been covered in white gold.
"The thing was though, that this meant they were dry. Dangerously so. Mother and Father worried over it almost constantly over the last month, worried that something would happen, and the hillsides would go up in flames right over our heads, and what do you know, they did." Toph chuckles bitterly. "I remember it happening. I didn't know how to see with my earthbending then so all I can remember about that start was my nanny suddenly yelling and picking me up. Then came the smell. It smelled nice at first. Then the air started to get hot. There was a roaring sound, like I've always imagined dragon's roar.
"My parents had dug a shelter, just in case. That's where the nanny was running to. The air grew hotter, and I remember gasping because even though I was breathing deep, I couldn't get enough to breathe. Then suddenly the air grew cooler. The nanny had stopped running, though she starts walking again after a moment.
"Later, she told me what had happened. The hills caught on fire, and it spread quickly because all of the plants were so dry. It managed to spread all the way around the valley, and the only reason it didn't manage to spread down to the floor was because of the fire breaks that my parent had insisted upon.
Toph closes her hand over the ashes.
"A fire break is something that stops a fire from crossing over to the other side. You can do it with water, if you have enough of that, or earth." She pauses, her left hand coming up to inspect the shape of the ashes she'd been manipulating. "Or, you can do it with fire. A fire won't go back over an area that's recently been burned. There's nothing for it to consume because the first fire consumed everything that could be consumed."
I turn to look at the circle of ash and burnt plants around me.
A fire break. Well, I've already been burnt. Mayben I can save someone else from that fate.
Toph's smiling when I glance back at her, and she stands, then turns to offer me a hand up.
I'm still going to be scared of fire when I wake up. I know that, and I know it won't go away quickly. But I can fight, and I can stop this from breaking me.
