The chief held his hands apart, on top of his zooming sharkfalcon, and clapped them together. The noise seemed to dissolve into a fiery ring that spread outwards before the chief.
Komodo saw the ring appear, and swooped his sharkfalcon downwards to safety. Three of the guards on his left were not so lucky.
"We have to draw them away from the dragons," said Zuko. He launched a fireball towards the oncoming invaders.
"I'll lead some of them into the temples and disarm them."
Zuko looked at him incredulously. "You're still not going to take a life, are you Aang? When are you going to lose that inhibition?"
Aang smiled, "Hold them off as long as possible." Aang swooped down into one of the alleys below and disappeared among the stone walls.
Komodo motioned below, and a legion of Green Standard riders nosedived into the temple city. Spinning and twirling, getting every last drop of downward motion out of their steeds, the soldiers clung to their mounts. Zuko and the Sun Warrior chief continued to fly upward, unleashing blasts both above and below them, to each of the groups of broken off Green Standard.
But both groups swooped around, flanking the two firebenders, driving them downwards towards the ruins. Zuko gave a swift kick to the sharkfalcon, making it dive faster to the ground.
The chief's sharkfalcon had enough at this moment. While mid-flight, it did an aerial spiral that sent the chief radially outward from the spiraling beast. He spread his hands apart and pointed them down towards the ground, firebending shoots of flames perpendicular to the surface of the earth, hoping to slow his fall like a rocket.
He crashed with a thud, spinning and whipping his way all the way until he reached the stone parapet. His arms went limp, fractured in a thousand places, pieces of bone sticking out like freckles. Dazed, he gazed up at the steed that threw him, but instead he only saw forty Green Standard riders coming full on, arrows already preceding them on their descent.
With a final breath, the Chief of the Sun Warriors limped on his left leg, drew the sweet air that fermented along the ruins for all his life, combusted it in his lungs, and heaved.
Three of the riders were struck in the blast, but stayed on their mounts. The chief fell backwards with thirty arrows stuck in him.
Aang looped back up, after winding his way through the complex ruins. I can't take on all of them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aang saw Komodo and a legion stream blisteringly fast upwards, in what seemed like impossibility. We're just too few against too many. Too disorganized against too unified.
In frustration, Aang called to Zuko: "Zuko! Zuko! We have to stop them!"
Zuko kicked his sharkfalcon in the ruins below. It accelerated amidst arrows coming far too close. "A little busy at the moment Avatar!" he said as he launched a pair of fireballs into the oncoming riders.
Aang, faster than the wind could take him, set off for Komodo alone.
The wind whipped along the ice sheets as the tea was poured. The blizzard had been ongoing for three full days, not resting even while the temperature rose a little. The flap of the little igloo flapped back and forth as the entrant into the hut dug his way from the outside snowdrifts to get inside. The young man had on a deep blue parka, his hair fashioned in what the tribe called a "wolf's tail," and his chin had short stubby hairs that just took hold. He stood up to meet the family inside.
"Oh, hello Sokka," the young woman said. She herself had on another make of the same parka, hair that looped back across her ears, gloves barring her hands from the cold inside and the simmering pot that she lifted up. "What's for dinner?"
"Hope you like arctic hen, Katara, cause that's all I could find." Sokka flipped the limp beast on the table, and proceeded to clean the meat.
Another girl sat in the corner with a look of disgust on her face. "I really wish you wouldn't do that right where we'll be eating." Sokka turned around to see her smiling.
As he stripped out another long piece of hen skin and twirled it around his finger, he said, "Would you rather I threw this one out Suki?"
Like clockwork, Suki's stomach growled audibly. "No."