Chapter 10, Breathe Again. Please enjoy and as always ML is an awesome beta who helps get these chapters out there. Thank you again to ML who kept poking me to see where I was at with this and giving plenty of feedback!
Shout-out to Kutsky for joining our adventure and dropping a review! Thank you to all of you lovely readers, you guys tuning in every week help keep this going!
Breathe Again
The bubbles drifted to the surface of the river until they all swept downstream. The current somehow had slowed under Sokka's panicked gaze, as he searched for any signs of chocolate hair under the lazy, rippled surface.
Nothing surfaced. Sokka blinked once, a slow flutter before panic grew into anger curling in his chest. "This isn't supposed to happen!" He screamed suddenly, a raw strangling of words thrown at the river.
He stood, the stun of his panic soaked mind quickly forgotten in the face of his anger. His boots squelched as he ran back towards the water, his water laden furs swinging heavily with each dripping step. An ugly scream fell from his lips as he charged into the water. Diving down deeply, he pushed into the center of the current as his warrior's wolf tail sunk below the rippling water. He searched under the water, feeling the current pick up the deeper he swam. The weak Spirit realm sun filtered beneath the surface, casting faint shafts of light onto the muddy river bed far below him. Water choked weeds clogged the mucky banks, hiding shimmering stones and lost treasures.
He could see all this and yet could find no sign of Katara. He resurfaced quickly, gasping for air as he swam further downstream. Diving down again his bleary eyes searched the muddy scene once more. He swam quickly during his search, cutting through the currents as fatigue began to nip at him once more.
Still, he found no trace of his sister, not a boot nor glove could be found. She was simply gone. His lungs burned and he was forced to surface again, further downstream the river seemed to have swelled in its banks, growing impossibly wide. Sokka looked around the overgrown forest and spotted the bridge, several paces farther away than he remembered. Splashing in the roughening waters he screamed "This isn't fair! She can't just be gone!" The clearing met his calls with silence.
A stiff wind blew over him, sending shivers across the nape of his neck, where some water was pooling in the hood of his parka. Nothing danced with the wind, even the water was undisturbed as it blew, sending shivers through his spine. Blue eyes narrowed, watching the river gurgle around him. It seemed almost alive, the way it rippled and pulled at him, whispering for him to relax into the drift of the currents. An idea began to slither through his thoughts, poking holes in his anger and filling them with dread.
Features set in a stubborn scowl, he began to drag himself against the current, fighting to reach the shores. Each of his determined strokes only seemed to pull him further from the grass. His soggy blue clothes squelched and clung when he finally met the land. Trudging towards the bridge, he glanced behind himself to search for the trail of water that should be collecting in his wake. He found nothing. The grass behind him was dry, growing lushly and undisturbed and showing no signs of his dripping walk.
Sokka glared at the fresh grass behind him, suspicions clicking into place before he continued his march. "The way that river moves is unnatural. This whole place feels, just, wrong." He muttered under his breath.
Turning back to the clearing, he glared at the open space. "I know you're watching us! " He called out but silence continued to meet his words, he continued walking, eyes icing over in determination.
"Some Guardian you turned out to be! Stealing girls who come looking for guidance!" He goaded once he reached the bridge. The stiff wind returned, buffering against him as he faced the overgrown spirit bridge. Standing at the base of the bridge he began to realize how truly massive it was as if built for giants. Each supporting trunk and branch was thicker than he was wide, the vines that crisscrossed to form the path were wider than his arm. The glossy looking leaves danced in the wind, waving at him, taunting him.
A trickle of worry shivered across his shoulders as he faced the bridge, his scowl deepened as he focused on his anger instead, wearing it like a thick cloak to smother his fears.
He crossed his arms. "This game is over, give her back!" He demanded to the empty bridge.
A sharp laugh barked from behind the dripping tribesman. Sokka whirled around, the expectation of a fearsome spirit on the tip of his thoughts. The spirit stood a pace away, slower to the woods than the river. Though he bore the skin of a seal, a sleek mottled grey, he looked mostly human. Blunted black hair fell loosely, like water, around his shoulders and chest. A single sharp fang poked out from his wry smirk.
"Humans, I find, are always impatient. I hardly think our game has even begun." The spirit spoke, his voice sweeping over Sokka like a brook over stones. He tucked his hands into the folds of the loose breeches slung lowly over narrow hips. Sokka spotted thin, green and grey scaled fins flexing along the sides of his forearms as he moved.
"Are you the Guardian?" Sokka asked, derailed by the confidence oozing from the spirit before him.
A feral smile split the spirit's ashen face, matching fangs glinted against dark lips. "You may call me Loh. Guardian or not, that is my river you've been tromping in all morning."
Sokka's eyes widened briefly before he began marching away from the bridge and towards the languid River Spirit. "So you took Katara!"
Loh stood unmoving as Sokka stomped closer, every step squelching water that disappeared in the grass. An amused glint lurked in the murky-green eyes of the spirit.
"You mean the girl who thinks she is a fish?" The dark-haired spirit prompted haughtily a smirk splitting his dark lips.
Sokka stopped, standing toe to toe with Loh and craning his neck to glare at the face of the river spirit. Loh's green eyes were so dark they were almost black, the tribesman noted.
"She's not a fish! She's. My. Sister." Each word punctuated by a firm poke of Sokka's finger into the dewy flesh of the spirit.
Glancing up, those murky-green eyes pierced through Sokka's boiling anger as the spirit's smirk slowly melted away. A pin-drop of dread ran through Sokka's heart at the Spirit's fierce expression.
"How did a pathetic human like you end up with a sister as powerful as her?" Loh asked, his words finely honed like thin slices of razor ice, Sokka flinched under the weight of the spirit's stare but he remained rooted to where he stood.
"The moment she stepped into the clearing I could feel her chi singing to my river. The raw power lurking in her…I haven't felt something like that in a long time." Loh's voice grew quiet as he looked away, Sokka staggered back half a step, freed from the river spirit's gaze.
"We didn't come to bother you, or your river, she's all the family I have left." Sokka muttered, his anger had dwindled and in its wake fatigue poured over the young warrior like hot coals.
"It's been many years since a water bender has come across my bridge. My river has hungered for one such as her and we have grown lonely while we waited." Loh admitted, looking back at his river, gurgling in its banks. "There is something beautiful about a bender's chi that sings to my river, soothes it."
Sokka was silent for a beat of time, unsure how to navigate the twisting paths of the conversation with the moody spirit. "It's been a long time since we've had any benders, she's the last of the Southern bender actually." The blue-eyed boy admitted eventually, toeing his boot through the grasses.
"Where have your benders gone? What is wrong with your tribe?" Loh asked the warrior.
Sokka looked away, guilt and worry chewing at him. Instead of watching the Spirit, he watched the river darting between trees and counted the blades of grass at his feet. "We've been attacked, a lot. The Fire Nation has gone crazy and they keep coming to our village, destroying things and murdering our villagers. They've taken all of our benders away." Sokka paused, glancing at the Spirit, attempting to gauge his reactions, but Loh was turned away from him facing the river fully.
Sokka pushed forward in the Spirit's silence. "That's why we're here, to seek guidance from the spirit walk, we think this time the Fire nation was looking for something and I'm supposed to go warn the Northern Tribe soon. I need them to give my tribe safe passage." Sokka's words were bitter, muttered into the mud by the end of his explanation.
He could feel the sting of his responsibilities pulling at him, but how could he save his tribe when he couldn't even keep Katara safe? Sokka began to ask about Katara once more but Loh's angry words stopped cut through the silence.
"The Fire Nation have overstepped themselves. They've committed heinous sins against their Spirit guardians, corrupting their temples" Loh spat. "Their greed is disgusting." Venom was thickly coiled in the Spirit's words. Sokka looked up at the writhing mass of inky hair as it twitched around the River Spirit, surprise written across his face.
"What do you mean? What have they done to their Guardians?" Sokka questioned.
Loh snidely spit at the water tribesman. "You humans know nothing! How do you expect to stop that which you don't even understand!"
"At least we're trying! What are you doing to stop them?" Sokka shot back, sore over his perceived failures.
The river spirit stood silently for a moment, long enough passed that Sokka's anger simmered and regret slid through his thoughts. Monk Gwian's warning about respect rung through his head and Sokka began to worry he had overstepped himself. Katara was still missing and now he was yelling at her captor, which also happened to be the guardian of the bridge. Things couldn't fall further apart, the blue-eyed warrior dismayed.
"We can communicate with each other, human, but there is little we can do. Our benders are the vessels of our will in the mortal world." Loh sneered, but the words held less malice and more thought than before. "Many of the Fire Nation Guardians have stopped speaking, their temples have gone dark. This silence can mean many things, but none are good." He paused, dark fingers calming his long, inky hair.
"Each Spirit exists between worlds, our world and yours. Passing between worlds can be difficult for some humans, but for Spirits it is natural. For example, My river runs through both worlds and so do I through it. Every spirit is connected to something, as we are the spiritual essence of a natural element." Loh stopped, watching Sokka with bright eyes. "Due to that, we all influence the natural order of the world, there is a balance that must be maintained. A sacred order to life and human bending is part of that. It is our gift to you, a tiny essence, a blossom of connection into our world; to the balance of the elements."
Loh turned to face Sokka more fully, leaving the scene of his river behind. "But for some humans, the honor we bestow isn't enough, greed consumes them and they begin to take more and more. The balance between the elements is delicate and when one begins to overrule the others the effect can be monstrous."
"That is exactly why the Fire Nation needs to be stopped! They're monsters!" Sokka exclaimed, throwing his hands out as he began pacing. "They're evil!"
"No, balance must be restored. Not one element is evil. They are equal forces of life and destruction. Balance requires both, you must exist in harmony, the same that we must." Loh insisted. "We fear what has caused the spirits in the Fire Nation to begin going silent. Channels that never close have been opened between the worlds, power leaves ours in gushes, yet, we know not where it goes." Loh explained.
Loh held out his hands, palms upwards to the young warrior. Sokka hesitantly grasped the damp hands of the Spirit, feeling a buzz run through him the moment they touched. "I grant you access to walk among the Spirits as you must complete your journey to the North. The Monks there must give your story to Tui and La, the original Water Spirits. They are the greatest powers over water, far stronger than me as I can not leave my river, yet, they spend more time in the mortal world than their own and may not know of our suspicions. I fear the true nature of the Fire Nation's mockery of their spirit connections."
Sokka bowed, attempting to hide his amazement over the direction his goading of the river spirit had taken. The Spirit's hands buzzed against Sokka's mocha skin, a current running through his system. "Loh…" He began, hoping not to push his luck with the volatile spirit as the blessing ended, yet, Sokka remained bowed. "Loh, I need Katara back for the walk and for my journey to the North. She has to come with me." Sokka pleaded, hope quivering in his stomach.
The River Spirit didn't answer. Sokka's nerves began to writhe with worry as the silence stretched longer between them. A loud trickle of water began crashing into the river to his side and Sokka quickly turned to glance. There he saw Katara rising from her water confines, lying upon a bed made of river water and floating above the currents. Thin ribbons of the water supported her as chunks of the water fell back into the rushing currents below. Sokka broke away from the River Spirit, rushing to the muddy banks to greet her. The watery bed floated her closer to shore until she lay upon the grass, the river muck that clung to her skin began dissolving back into the river at its Master's call.
Her long dark hair streamed in wet ribbons around her face. Sokka's heart clenched when her eyes stayed closed and his own blue eyes drifted towards her lips, tinged in blue. She didn't move, breath had been chased from he replaced with water he was sure.
"What…what happened? What did you do!" Sokka screamed as he shook her gently, his world slowly dissolving around him. Frantically he searched for breath or a heartbeat or any sign of life he knew. Instead, clear liquid dribbled from her blue tinged lips, running in a thin rivulet down her cheek and chin.
"As I said, we have hungered. Her energy sang to my river so beautifully, I had to have her within my waters. If she had been weaker, she wouldn't have heard my call at all, but then again I wouldn't have heard hers as strongly either." Loh admitted.
Sokka glanced up as the River Spirit neared them, walking as languidly as the element he helped give life to, seemingly at ease in contrast to what he was saying. Sokka stared unblinkingly at the ashen-skinned Spirit, feeling dumbfounded and tricked and sick to his very core. Loh seemed immune to the riot of Sokka's emotions though, glancing at the dead girl and her brother, with little shame in his eyes.
"She was just drowning the whole time we were talking? But I looked, she wasn't anywhere." He whispered, tracing the curve of her cheek and the arch of her nose. Grasping her cold hand, so very freezing in his own, he bowed his head over her and the horror of his realization crashed upon him as he began to sob.
Loh stood near them, watching as tears tracked themselves over the boy's mocha skin, dripping onto the girl who had sung so prettily for him while she struggled. Loh shifted, he hadn't meant for this to happen. It had been so long since a bender had last visited, his river had gotten excited and he hadn't felt the need to stop it. The grief before him made the Spirit uncomfortable. It made something at the back of his mind itch with recognition but Loh was unsure what the meaning was meant to be.
"All life passes on, in the end, Water Tribe Warrior. She would have left your world at one point or another. We gave to her our gift and she came back to us at the end." Loh spoke stiffly, realizing that the feeling tickling the back of his mind was guilt. He recalled the delicious memory of her struggle; her franticness when her energy slowly left and the sweetness that filled him when she sang for him in those final moments. The memory soured though under the brunt of the boy's accusations. The sweetness the inky haired Spirit recalled turned bitter, like ashes in his mouth.
"But not yet, not now!" Sokka screamed, rocking over her cold little hand with each delicate, calloused finger. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"This is the balance of water. We give life. We give death." Loh explained, attempting to calm the weeping human before him. Loh stepped closer as he spoke before kneeling across from Sokka on the muddy river bank.
Sokka reached out quickly, grasping the scaled forearm of the River Spirit in front of him. He held so tightly he could feel the individual ridges on the scales, the way they bit into the skin of his hand. He leaned forward over Katara's figure, reddened eyes demanding Loh to look away from the grief was written clearly across Sokka's face. "Give her back, put what you stole back and I'll keep my mission to the North, I'll do what you asked. I'll give you whatever you want!" Sokka pleaded, voice breaking over the words. Loh was already shaking his head, inky hair dripping over his shoulders and brushing the girl laid between them.
"It doesn't work like that, Human. I took her water-song in, her Chi, and made it part of my own. Life to death., a cycle of balance. To give it back…I would give part of myself with it. You don't understand what you're asking for." Loh objected, dark eyes wide as he gaped at the demanding warrior who still held his arm in a clenched, vice grip.
"I don't care! I don't care what it does as long as she comes back! I swear I will never leave the Southern Pole without her. The whole world can burn and fall out of balance and whatever else you're so scared of but I'll never help stop it if it helps you!" Sokka spat at the River Spirit. Warning bells rang in the back of his head, warnings of respect and how easy it was for Loh to take Katara from him dimly pooled in the back of his mind, but he was past the point of caring. What did it matter anyway?
"She won't be the way you remember if I do that. Spirits have many connections they can form with a mortal, but we always leave a slice of ourselves behind. What you're demanding…it's one of the highest blessings, but she'll never fully leave the Spirit world behind. She'll carry a connection to here, to me, for as long as she walks the mortal world." Loh explained, ire returning to his voice, twisting his arm free from the insolent tribesman's grasp.
"She's the daughter of the Chief and I promise she will be the last water bender that ever comes here if you don't fix this. You and your cursed river will be alone for a long, long time." Sokka's words were hard when they poured from his mouth and Loh blinked once. Twice. The gall of the man in front of him burned the River Spirit, Sokka's insolence and disrespect coloured Loh's thoughts with irritation, the tribesman's continual demands grated on the Spirit. Then came an echoing in the recesses of his memory, of the loneliness and cravings for attention his river went through for all those years they spent in isolation. The years alone, while the waterbenders were missing from the Spirit world.
No, Loh thought with a shudder, he couldn't go through that loneliness again. That aching starvation had caused this little bender's death, to begin with, it had all been an accident. Breathing deeply, Loh calmed his temper. Moody green eyes met startlingly blue. "You will see the grievances the Fire Nation have caused through until the world finds balance again. Then, she will make you regret what you have done to her." The words were muttered by the feral spirit, and Sokka felt the weight of them settle against the base of his spine, an unwanted vow burning under his skin.
Loh leaned over Katara's still form before Sokka could fathom a response to the strange warning. Sokka watched as the River Spirit placed his grey hands on Katara, one resting above her heart and one cradling the back of her neck. The murky green-eyes closed as he rotated a hand over her chest, pulling it in a circular motion before leading it to her mouth. Sokka watched as water begin to flow from her mouth, a steady river of muck driven out by the Spirit's motions. It pooled in the grasses around them, so much water that Sokka couldn't imagine it all fitting in her tiny body. It disappeared soon after leaving her body, drifting back towards the river and leaving the grass around them dry once more. When the water stopped flowing from her, Loh and the clearing were silent and unmoving for a beat of time.
Then, Sokka observed as she began to glow. What began as a faint light building under her mocha skin grew until staring at her left black spots across his vision. Leaving him with spotted blindness even as the glow grew brighter still. Then it was gone, like a storm cloud passing over the sun, the glow that poured from under her skin burnt out. Peeking out from light dazzled eyes, Sokka glimpsed Loh's hand pushing into Katara's chest; through the furs and linens, skin and bone his mottled grey hand sunk and then before the tribesman could feel the outrage and disgust building in his throat, it was over. Katara rolled, a sputtering sound caught between a cough and gasp tore from her mouth as she curled on her side. Lashes fluttered as she caught her breath and Sokka felt something rekindle in his chest at the sight of her moving. Tears stung in his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to notice as his world was drowned out by her breathing again.
He snagged her in a fierce hug, laughter falling from his mouth beneath gulping sobs as he cradled her damp form to himself, relishing in her movements and sputtering breaths. He'd follow his promises to the River Spirit to the ends of the Earth, his sister was alive and consequences could smother him before he'd regret knowing she would live again.
Well….all I can say is I promise this chapter will make more sense as we follow the story! It all happened for a reason :)
What'd you guys think? Any guesses on what happens next? Drop me a review and share!
Next prompt is 'Piece'