Author's Note:
Hey guys, it's been a great ride. I'm so glad I got to read all your comments, but this is the end of the road. This is the last chapter of The End of Hope. The conclusion, the end, the last, lingering words.
But fear not, my readers! A new story is being written, a sequel worthy of your attention. In a few weeks, I will bring forth a new story to entertain you. It shall carry a similar name, and bring alive the last moments of this story with a new adventure. Fear not the intervening weeks, for this Zutara romance shall rise again from the ashes. And until then, I give you the assurance that this saga will go on until the bitter end.
Chapter Fifty-Three
It flowed in slow spirals around the center of her chest, wrapping around her heart and lungs, repairing damage, knitting tissue and flesh back together. It leaked through the walls of her blood vessels, spreading over the rest of her body even before her face hit the floor.
Katara felt these changes, but didn't move to control them. Her pulse thudded weakly in her ears, the only sound in the room besides Azula's shrieks. After several minutes of chaos, after all the others had shuffled free of the room, the deep thrum of her heartbeat was the only thing she could hear.
Much later, she felt a faint pressure against her neck, followed by a startled gasp. "She's still alive."
These words were followed by the sound of shuffling feet. Whispers, indistinguishable from each other and only identifiable as a whole, broke out across the quiet room, only to be silence a moment later by a command. "Take her to the prison with the others. If she dies on the way, dispose of her."
The word "prison" stirred the barest hint of a reaction from her, and she tried to open her eyes. They remained stubbornly shut. The only part of her that was moving, the only muscle of her body that was functioning at all, was her heart, her lungs. And even that, only just.
She remembered the night she'd cut herself making dinner. She remembered watching the blood flow across the smooth rock, how she'd moved it just like moving water. She remembered how the bleeding cut had healed itself at her command, knitted together by the blood seeping out from the edges. She remembered.
Faces drifted through her mind: her mother, Kya, smiling at her as she set down a bowl of sea prune stew; Sokka, the only one who'd been close enough to her age and situation to understand what she'd felt that whole time; Aang, who through all his own grief and sorrow had given up everything to make the world a better place, given up everything on the pretext of duty, when she was only just now starting to realize the real reasons for his efforts. Toph, Iroh, Ty Lee, Appa, Momo . . . King Bumi, Jet, Master Pakku, the swamp people . . .
Zuko. Zuko, who she loved. Zuko, who had to survive, who had to be free, to end this war.
Someone was carrying her now, holding her like a baby and walking moving out of the room. Even if she'd been able, she wouldn't have opened her eyes. It was better to pretend it was Zuko holding her, carrying her to safety. Better to pretend this was all a nightmare.
Her heart was pumping a little more regularly now. That eased the flow of blood, allowed the rest of her body to start healing. Katara felt the sunlight on her face, saw the orange glow of the light as it filtered through the capillaries in her eyelids. It was almost peaceful.
The arms holding her up set her down on a piece of cloth. "Take her into surgery," someone said. "She'll make a valuable war prisoner."
"Understood."
Katara was carried into the shade on the stretcher. Almost at once, she felt something sharp jab into the crease of her elbow. Her already hazy control slipped away as the painkillers spread through her body. The faraway voices went silent. Only one thing lingered: a face, golden-eyed, beautiful despite the mismatched halves.
The energy kept twisting within her, repairing lesser damage now. Katara pushed through the haze of painkillers, trying to stay conscious as she repaired her body. After a while, the strain of staying awake became too much, and she ceded control to the crushing force.
While I sleep, she thought, the last thought that crossed her mind before everything went dark. will I dream of you, my prince?
-0-
The sound of approaching footsteps startled him. It must've been four days since my last visitor, he thought, wincing at the growling in his stomach. He'd been hungry before, but the hunger had never gnawed at him so intensely, never been so evident in his thoughts.
Yet he scooted toward the edge of the cell, until his back touched the metal wall. Everything was made of metal here, and these walls were so thick, any hope of escape was quickly snuffed out, no matter how ingenious the escape plan was. The last time the guards had come to see him, it hadn't been to bring him nourishment, but to make sure he hadn't died. "You're too valuable a prisoner to be killed," they'd said.
He listened closer to the approaching footsteps, unable to ignore them now that they were so close. The feet came down hard on the floor, but moved with the slow deliberation of a tiger-shark. Just one set of footsteps, he decided. He wasn't positive, but he thought the guards always traveled in pairs, for safety. I should be paying more attention to their habits.
The yawning pit in his stomach seemed to deepen as the possibility of food drew closer. Surely they wouldn't go to all the trouble of keeping him locked up here if they were just going to starve him to death. But it's already been so long, he thought, paranoid. They could just be making sure the earthquake didn't give you any ideas.
He'd felt the rumbling, at the base of the tower. At first, he'd though the building was tumbling over, and he'd panicked, jumping to his feet and hitting his head on the ceiling of his cramped cell. When the aftershocks came with varying force, he realized it was the caldera below him stirring. Nothing I can stop, he'd thought. Or perhaps he'd murmured the words. With so little human contact, he'd taken to talking to himself.
Either way, having the caldera swallow him up with the rest of the city would've been fine. There was nothing he could do here, no hope of getting out. All the people who might have been able to get him out were either dead, or busy getting ready for the Day of Black Sun.
"Or did that happen already?" he murmured to himself, so quietly that the close walls didn't echo back a reply. Maybe it had. Things had been quiet in the prison these past few days, more subdued than he'd been expecting. Of course, in his cell, time lost all meaning. It could've been day or night, summer or winter, before the eclipse or after, and he had no way to tell.
Beyond the thick metal walls, he heard the unmistakable jingle of keys. He opened his eyes and stared the door, wishing more than anything he had the same power as the one outside—the power to open the door.
The Fire Nation was not much inclined to light their prison cells, so the flood of torchlight, however dim it might've appeared to him before he'd been thrown in here, blinded him for a few seconds. All he could see through the glare was a silhouette. A thick curtain of hair hung off the sides of his visitor's head, and the shape of the silhouette's body was masculine, muscled but not intensely so. No helmet. No armor. Not a guard.
He squinted into the torchlight. After a few fuzzy moments, the features of the man cleared up and, even though he'd never met the monster in person, he knew immediately who he was staring at. "What do you want?" he asked, only daring to be so defiant when he saw that his visitor had no food for him.
Fire Lord Ozai chuckled. "Defiant to the very end, aren't you, Avatar Aang?"
