The first and only thing that I registered was the pain. Etka's arms moving against my skin as he carried me only agitated my scorched nerves. I had surrendered the notion that crying out in pain was considered weakness, and tears leaked out of my eyes and onto Etka's tunic.
"It's okay, it's going to be okay," He kept saying over and over. "We're almost there."
I heard women's voices murmuring around us, and I was acutely aware that I was being brought into someone's home. I had been drifting in and out of consciousness, drawn back to reality by the intense pain. Etka carefully laid me down on a soft bed, and I groaned. "Perhaps you should leave now, Captain," Someone suggested, and I felt gentle hands reach out for my clothing.
"Etka..." I moaned, and I felt him grasp my hand.
"I'll be just outside," He said earnestly. "These women are healers, they're going to help you." I kept my eyes closed, and squeezed his hand as tightly as I could manage before he let me go.
"I need to take this off," I felt fingertips touching the gold chain around my neck, and my eyes snapped open.
"No," I said firmly, grabbing the chain with blistered fingers. "I - I need that..."
"The heat from the fire burned the imprint from the metal onto your skin," The same woman said. "I promise, you can have it right back once we're done - "
"Don't..." I murmured, closing my eyes, too weak to fight her on this. "Keep it where it is."
She didn't listen, but I had no strength to fight her as she carefully took off the chain. Tiny daggers shot into my nerves as the healers did their best to remove my scorched clothing, and I didn't even have the energy to think about the consequences if Etka saw the dagger or not.
"We're just going to apply a balm on your skin," A healer's voice said. "It's going to sting, but it will help with the scarring."
I felt fingertips massaging into my arms, my chest, and I gasped as a stinging sensation spread on top of my initial agony, and I grit my teeth, tightening my fists into the blankets beneath me. "It's going to be alright." Voices spread around me. "You're going to live. We've treated worse before."
Etka came to see me when the pain had stopped. Nearly every hour, one of the healers came in to treat my burns with the stinging poultice, and I wore a loose-fitting robe for comfort and modesty. I had spent three days in their home, and was told that the Captain hadn't stepped foot once outside the house. The healers hadn't wanted him in the room as they treated me, and continually told him that I was not allowed visitors, despite his best efforts to see me.
When I saw the Captain again, gone were his regal navy robes and dignified, composed appearance. He wore a simple grey tunic and trousers, and his hair pulled sloppily back in a messy knot, pieces hanging down by the sides of his face. Etka scarcely looked any different from a common peasant, and I would be lying if I said his change in appearance didn't shock me a little. "Anahi," He murmured softly, kneeling down at my side and taking my hand carefully in his. He paused for a moment, searching for words. Finally, Etka swallowed and bowed his head, casting his eyes on the ground. "I'm so sorry."
"You saved me," I croaked, my voice harsh and sore from nights of crying in pain and lack of sleep. "Lucan would have killed me."
"You never should have been in that position," Etka said softly. He looked tired too, and I wondered how much sleep he was getting. "You never should have had to deal with that on your own."
"I shouldn't have gone to the arena without you," I shook my head, and stopped, the movement alone pulling on my slowly healing skin. "It was my fault, sir. You shouldn't have ever had to come save me."
"Anahi," Etka sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Oh, Anahi." He struggled to form words, and I realized in shock and alarm that the Captain looked close to tears.
"Captain?" I tried to sit up, and was met with a sparkling pain up my torso.
"Don't..." Etka said, ushering me to stay lying down as I was. "Don't sit up, you'll only hurt yourself more..."
"Sir," I said softly. "Please, don't blame yourself for this. In no way was this your fault."
"No, Anahi, it is," Etka said, his voice tremoring slightly as he grew more and more upset. "I've failed you as your teacher. You were forced into something you barely understood, and you had no one to guide you, no one in your corner... Anahi, I am so sorry. You've suffered so much."
I was quiet for a while, and I closed my eyes, my mind taking me back to that awful day in the arena. I remembered the unabashed fury in Etka's eyes, the ferocity of his attack on Lucan to save me. "But you came for me, sir," I breathed. "You came as fast as you could and you saved my life. You have saved me so many times, Captain, and you've graciously taken me into your home and treated me as your own. It should be I who is burdened by this guilt, not you."
Etka sighed, and ran a hand down his face. "How can you be so selfless?" He laughed sadly, his attention going to our intertwined fingers. He was quiet for a while, staring at my red, burned fingers against his own. "Do you need anything for the pain?" He asked softly. "Anything at all?"
"I just want to go back to your house," I sighed. "I'll feel more comfortable there."
"I'll talk to the healer's about it," Etka promised. "They say you've been making great strides. Your body's reacting well to the medicine."
"I just want to be able to bend again," I said quietly. "At least move again without something hurting."
"You will," Etka said firmly, composing himself completely and looking me in the eye. "Anahi, you're strong. You of all people, I know, can overcome this."
Anahi came home next week. The angry red burns covering her skin had begun to fade, and Etka noticed that she had begun to walk and move around without wincing. Before they had left the healers' house, he had asked them to give Anahi back her clothing, making a point to act like he hadn't seen the dagger himself.
After Anahi had initially been treated, one of the healers who had been with her approached Etka with the dagger, its sheath fastened to a chain.
"She was wearing this," The young woman had said, handing it to me. "And she didn't want to part with it. Captain, this looks like no ordinary jewelry, and I've only seen such things from royalty. Perhaps you would know."
"Thank you," He had replied calmly, trying to hide his surprise. He had turned the dagger over in his hands, staring at the fire nation emblem carved into the heel. Why Anahi possibly have had this? And why had she never mentioned it?
If someone had told him years ago that one day, Etka mused, that he would discover a young woman near death on an abandoned island with an impossible past and an even more unbelievable firebending ability, he wouldn't have believed them. But the possibility that Anahi was of royal blood began to make sense. Etka watched as she threw herself into training, fighting with everything she had to recover and grow stronger, better. He never asked her about the dagger, but suspicion was beginning to grow inside.
He had rarely seen a student learn as quickly as she was. Her basics needed work, but when he saw glimpses of her skill, the pure power that she possessed in the early hours of the morning or late at night when she thought he was sleeping, he was impressed.
Etka longed to know the truth, but never asked Anahi about the dagger, knowing it would likely only upset her. Only when he was alone, lying in bed, would he toy with the possibility that Anahi could be somehow related to the Fire Lord.
