A/N: Here we go, much sooner than my last update thank goodness. I have a lot more free time this semester than I did previously, so I'm going to push myself to actually work on chapters at a reasonable time. Granted, last time I made a similar statement it backfired, so forgive me if I don't manage to keep true to this. Life has a habit of getting in the way of my motivation :P

I know I left the last chapter at a cruel cliff hanger, so I'm thankful that none of your reviews were particularly angry! I appreciate every one of your comments and messages though, so thank you very much :) I hope none of you will suddenly be struck by the desire to injure me after this next bit... I type as I nervously chuckle to myself. I promise I do also have a plot intended for this story, there's just a bit of buildup we have to cover before the ball really gets rolling. By which I mean, of course, a little more danger for poor Bolin, and yet another cliffhanger. Whoops, heh. Again, please let me know what you think so far, this is a shorter chapter so I'm a little bit nervous about it and I would definitely appreciate the input! I apologize about how short all of these updates have been, when the plot gets a little clearer I will write more, at the moment I don't want to give too much away haha

Well, without further adieu, enjoy!


Bolin was pretty sure he was dead. Or at least, that something was very, extremely, wrong.

He didn't really have the capability to form coherent sentences, they all seemed to sway in and out like heat waves, rolling over and around him and eventually drifting away. Something was wrong. He didn't know what.

There were dark walls around him, they were dripping down like wax and melting, landing in pools on the scorched earth below. It was unbearably warm, and yet Bolin felt nothing. The walls drooped and pushed together before cascading ever so slowly downwards, more waxy rock surface filling in its place above. I shouldn't be here, Bolin grasped desperately at the wisps of his own thoughts. Where else would I be? He wasn't sure where exactly his body was, or if he had one to begin with. Was he floating? He made a move to turn his head and look around, before suddenly forgetting what a head was. I can't be here. And yet, he was, while he also seemed very much to not be. Where ever here even was.

Something was very wrong.

Another gooey rock slid free from the stalactites above, making a noise as it rolled on the charred floor. Steam hissed from the cracks and gaps, and a wave of heat erupted upwards. For a moment, Bolin imagined a voice calling his name, bubbling and slithering through the wet heat. "B-boolinnn..." He saw rather than felt his chest rise upwards and down again in a sigh. The ground was beginning to crack apart as the heat increased, a molten gold light spilling upwards and bathing the cave walls in an orange hue. Bubbles popped and fizzed as everything boiled around him.

"Bolin," The steam whispered to him. "Please." Please what? He had nothing to give, he wasn't entirely sure he was a something to start with. He could remember a few faces, some words that he thought might have been names. Things that probably had meaning outside of this heat, like 'friends', and 'avatar' and 'brother', but meant nothing more than dissipating thoughts to him now. He supposed that was a something in its own way, but it was lost to him now. Maybe the steam took it long before.

It was getting hazy, even harder to keep track of his own trains of thought, and he found himself less willing to work up the energy to try. Things that might have been memories washed over him, a birthday, a smiling face, a girl in blue. Fragmented images swirling away and up into the air.

"Bolin!"

The steam had an urgency to it that confused Bolin mildly, the cave was melting, everything was melting, he was nothing. What did the voice want from him? It should let him go, let him sleep. It should give up.

Bolin was suddenly aware of a desire to close his eyes that hadn't existed before. He wasn't aware that he'd had eyes to close, but the concept of closing them and drifting off like a heat wave seemed so appealing. He could fade out like a candle, like heat from pavement on a summer day. Bolin was evaporating at a snails pace, loosing words and meanings. He was nothing, everything was nothing. His chest stopped its rising and falling, a sound like a light breeze sweeping out of him.

The floor quaked and lava burst forth in a plume of white hot heat, and Bolin forgot his own name.


Since they were kids they'd been inseparable, the dynamic duo, brothers against the world. Even before their parents had died, the two had been close. It was rare, people said, to see two brothers of such different bending to be so tightly knit together. Fire was such an emotion based element, full of passion and speed, whereas earth relied on strength of will and muscle, it depended on solid steps and firm, unyielding drive. And yet, Bolin had been the one with the wide open heart and emotions constantly near the brim, and Mako had been the stubborn one who was so sure of his ways. Their differences brought them together and helped each other push farther with their skills, something the two of them seemed to always intrinsically know better than anyone else. They needed each other to be better.

When their parents had been killed, something had changed in their dynamic that never quite recovered. Mako took it on himself to be the role model, to forage ahead and clear the path for his brother rather than depend on him as well. He stopped looking to learn from his brothers successes and failures, instead opting to ensure his brother only met success, taking the failures on himself. Bolin had been too young to truly be aware of the difference, and adapted to see his brother as his guardian easily.

They were a dynamic duo, just led mainly by the older brother. It was the two of them against the world, but mostly Mako versus everyone else except Bolin. Mako became bolder, more outlined in his determination, and Bolin became softer, blurred by his love for life and others.

The two cared immensely for each other, they loved each other, and they were closer than most other family members, and yet not. A barrier had formed between the two, steadily building itself up with the hardships and the stresses of their day to day lives. When Korra came into the picture, the rift sealed itself as insurmountable. Outwardly they were the same, but the paradigm had set itself and neither knew quite how to break it without destroying everything. Mako was the tough one, Bolin was the goofy one. Mako forgot how to rely on his brother, and Bolin forgot how to rely on himself.

And the crevice widened.


The land was barren, burnt apart and stale with the smell of charcoal and ashes. A dry heat had settled its way into the ground, the air, into the seam of the atmosphere itself. Lava sputtered forth in plumes, slowly caking sections of the destroyed earth before cracking apart and seeping back into the crust. The remains of a rocky mountain simmered and bubbled, and Bolin's eyes drifted closed.

Wake up

You have to wake up

A faint breeze drifted lazily over the wastes. Bolin did not stir.

Bolin, breathe!

Suddenly, a gust ripped through the dead heat, pulling ashes and charred earth up and away into nothing. It pushed its icy fingers towards Bolin, forcing inside his lungs and his veins and his bones, bringing with it thoughts and solidity and purpose.

Bolin gasped, eyes flying open and a scream trailing along with it.

He wasn't dead, not yet. He was hanging on with his fingernails and the barest sheen of his teeth, but by the spirits he was alive. But something was wrong. There was still a great ominous something terribly, awfully wrong.

"I can't-" the words choked themselves off as smoke once again rose from the earth, he coughed and tears streamed from his sore eyes. The dark walls were melting.

He looked down at himself, at his twitching thumb and shaking arm. He was breathing, he was alive, and suddenly as the pain enveloped him once more and the heat drowned out the sound of his name, he wished more than anything that he wasn't.

"Please," he was shaking apart, boiling inside and out. He didn't know what he was pleading for, who he was pleading to. A vague memory of an older boy, a shadow with firey fists and a red scarf, and a girl with white glowing eyes followed him into the haze.

Something was wrong.


Opal anxiously paced across the room, she'd radioed in hours ago and she knew it would be hours more before any help could arrive. The city was in shambles, it was chaos at best. She'd been lucky to make contact with anyone at all, and even more so that people were able to come to her aid. it was probably selfish to ask for Mako and Asami and Cheif Beifong, there were many other families that needed help just as much, and many others that couldn't wait. At the same time, she knew Mako wouldn't be able to help anyone if he knew his brother was in danger. Family was important, after all.

Plus, Opal was allowing herself to be selfish just this once. Bolin was her family too, and he was sick. Unbearably sick. He'd nearly-

She couldn't think about what had almost happened, about how frantic and horrified she'd been when she noticed the unnatural stillness around her boyfriend. She couldn't focus on the pale, light blue tone of his lips, or the blank emptiness in his vibrant green eyes.

He was still here, still fighting. Opal needed to focus on that fact, it was the only thing keeping her together. She shook herself, clearing her thoughts, and settled in the chair she'd placed near the head of Bolin's bed. The cloth soaked in cool water did very little to bring down Bolin's temperature, but the furrow of his brow and the small aborted moans of pain quieted down when it was present, so she did her best.

She absently pushed his sweat soaked hair away from his face. "Oh Bolin," she half sighed half whispered to no one in particular. "What are we going to do?"

Bolin's pallor had gotten more pale and blue tinged over the span of just a few hours, his head tossed about less, his temperature only on the rise with no drop in sight. He was getting worse with every passing minute, and there was little Opal could do but watch. Bolin hadn't woken up for a moment since his collapse, not even blearily or half awake. He ceased shuddering and twitching as soon as he'd hit the floor, and there'd been very little movement since. Opal had no idea what was going on, what she could do, what anyone could really do.

He'd been fine, they'd been seeing each other every day for the past two weeks or so, helping move supplies and scout out the far edges of the earth kingdom to see who needed help. Sure, it was a lot of work and a lot of long days, but other than an early bed time Bolin had seemed fine.

Well, maybe not fine. He'd been having frequent nightmares, which left him often unable to sleep for hours. He'd been a bit more subdued than usual and more easily spooked, but she'd passed that off as a symptom of a lack of sleep. She'd been worried about him, but she trusted him to tell her what was going on. Opal knew the new found knowledge of being a lavabender, and now the only lavabender alive, was a lot to take in, and probably very stressful. He'd been practicing as much as one possibly could with such a dangerous element, but he'd often vent frustrations to her about how much there was to learn and how difficult it was without a teacher. Granted, Bolin never really had much of a teacher for his own element, but lava was a whole new field. It seemed like there were expectations that others had for him now, knowing this new skill. They seemed surprised that he hadn't immediately mastered it, and wanted him to use his 'lava powers' for even the most mundane tasks. Bolin told her once that the lava still scared him, that he thought of how close they'd come in the cave, and how Ghazan had collapsed a building on himself with his own element. She'd heard him cry out in his sleep, things about melting away and boiling apart.

She'd heard the stories too of how he'd come to discover his new ability, and while she was proud of her boyfriend for being so brave and determined, she was afraid for him. He'd stopped an entire wall of rushing lava with a skill he wasn't sure he had, and could have very well died in the process. She wondered what kind of strain that must have put him through. It seemed like, to her at least, every time he practiced or used lava bending in combat, it exhausted him. As though he'd given everything he had, something that she'd never seen with other benders unless they'd been bending for hours.

Bolin tossed his head lightly, a weak moan of pain trailing from his dry lips. Opal re-soaked the cloth.

"We'll get through this, Bo. Just hang on." She said, kissing his cheek.

"Please hang on."