It's not the end yet! Let me know what you guys think! If you hate me for the whole cliff-hanger thing, I am sorry :( Anyways, I've been on a roll because I've had a strong muse lately, and I hope this chapter satisfies the cliff-hanger :3 Read and Review. This was beta'd by F1nal Front1er. Enjoy! :3
I sat there for what seemed like forever just holding Zuko – holding a person who couldn't see me now, and would probably never see me again. I couldn't defy what was going to happen. I would have to let him go eventually, and I would have to leave because that is life. My father was quiet as he stood behind me, and I took the opportunity to bury my face into Zuko again. My mind was flashing through all the memories that I had of us together, and then Father stopped me. "You know, every time you do that he remembers them too. What you are thinking of, the memories, will be what he will think of." He took a step back and let me have a few more moments.
My cheeks were rather cold compared to the warmth of Zuko, and I reluctantly released my grip from around him. I quickly wiped my eyes and stared at him for a moment longer; he was staring sadly into the fire. "We can go now, Daddy," I whispered, turning to see my Father. He nodded slowly and the fog rolled in once more, and the outside world was nothing more than unfocused land. It was like blurred lines. Like ink being smeared with water. Like a warrior washing the blood from his weapons in a steady river. I ceased to exist in the land of the living, and I could no longer return. Several shadows appeared this time, and they all revealed their faces except one.
Same as before, there was Tenia, Hilo, Resie, and my mother, but there was one shadow that refused to show its face. The shadow was quiet for a while, and the rest of us were just as confused as to who it was. Then, my father got down on one knee in a bowing manner. "Mother of Faces, what brings you here to my daughter's crossover?" I stood quietly and quite confused. Who was Mother of Faces? She remained in the shadows, though, and my mother stood beside me now, holding my hand.
"I come on account of Ursa, a friend of your wife's," the woman said quietly. I turned to my mother who seemed to be thinking deeply about it. She squinted and tapped her chin before her eyes widened.
"Ursa!" she beamed, and the woman nodded slowly.
"Yes, Ursa has heard of your death, and she was worried about your daughter Markaia. She prayed that, should Markaia be killed in her quest to save her son Zuko, I shall come here and make a deal with Markaia. As you know, Ursa loves Prince Zuko dearly…" The woman droned before turning her head; I felt her eyes boring into me.
"Who is Ursa, and how did she know that I was helping Zuko?" I asked, ignoring the shiver that ran down my spine. The woman laughed incredulously at me.
"Are you kidding me?" She chuckled. "Everyone in the entire world knows who you are, Markaia. It shouldn't be hard to know you when you have killed her daughter!" She laughed more, almost in hysterical tears. I held my breath.
"I forgot about that." My face turned red with embarrassment. "So, this Ursa woman is Zuko's mother?" The woman nodded.
"She doesn't hold it against you too much; her favorite was always Zuko." The woman smiled. "As for helping Zuko, she has heard the rumors that you had abandoned the Fire Nation Army, and have been helping the outcasted Prince Zuko and Iroh. It's not too hard to piece together." I nodded mutely and the woman then got down to business. "Now, Markaia, I am here to make you a deal."
"Does it mean that I can return to the land of the living and continue my mission?" I asked hopefully.
There was a pause, then a quiet, "Yes." My heart leaped with joy.
"The deal might not be a walk in the park, Markaia," my father whispered. "Think slowly about it. We will be here, regardless of whatever happens."
"Do you know who you are, Markaia? What your true colors are, and what it really means to be a firebender? Can you tell me just exactly what these things mean?" the woman asked quickly. I nodded. She sighed. "No, you do not. I can see right through you, dear." She paused before the fog surrounding us became fire. Resie screamed in fright, and it sent Tenia and Hilo into a panic. My mother gasped and tried to hold Resie, but my father and I remained still.
"Put the fire out, Markaia," he whispered calmly. "I am dead, so I no longer have the ability to put it out." I looked at him in disbelief.
"I am dead too. How can I put it out?" He shook his head and stared at the woman as if he had figured out the puzzle.
"Things like the Mother of Faces cannot be in the process of crossing. It just isn't possible. This means that you are still near the gates of life. Your physical body isn't dead yet; it is being sustained and you are still alive. What matters now is whether or not you can pass the Mother of Faces' test and open the door." I clenched my fist before turning and looking back at the woman. The flames grew higher and much stronger, and she stood there calmly in the middle of it.
"What he says is right; I'm not dead, nor am I alive. This is your opportunity to escape, and you can thank whoever is there on the other side keeping your body alive." She produced more flames which started to enclose us. Resie began to panic more, and then she began to wail in fear.
I closed my eyes so I could drown out her cries. However, her screaming and crying was all that I could hear, and my hands shook. My eyelids flipped open and I started towards the woman at a fast run. Running at her, I swung my body around for a round kick, but my foot went through her. The force of my foot hitting the ground was enough to extinguish the fire, though, and that calmed Resie enough to stop crying. "I am not your enemy, Markaia Tymaine," the woman's voice echoed as she disappeared. "You are your own enemy." The fire that I had put out just seconds ago burst out of the ground once more, and Resie's screams of horror began again. "You fight for pride over the safety of loved ones. Under the stress of being the only one to do a job, you make careless decisions, which will only hurt you and your loved ones, not save them."
I turned around to look back at my family. They were completely surrounded in fire. They sat there huddled together to keep away from the fire, and Resie continued to cry and scream in fear. "You are exactly who you think you are. You are someone who cannot protect your own family and friends from your own actions." A wall of fire arose from the ground which separated me from the fire that surrounded my family. A shadow walked through the wall; it was rather skinny in build and it stood there a mere six feet away from me. Fire now surrounded me and this shadow person, and I stood there calmly.
The shadow lifted its hands and produced fire that rested in its palms. The light from the fire was just enough to reveal its face, and my eyes widened. It was me. My double stood there with an evil grin on her face, her long hair falling down her back, and a few strands falling in front of her face. She looked like an absolute maniac. She wore a Fire Nation Army uniform, much like the one I had started out in when I was admitted at 17. "You're weak." My double laughed at me. "You're nothing but a weak person. You are not strong enough to call yourself a firebender."
"That is who you are, Markaia," the Mother of Faces said wisely. She reappeared inside of the circle of fire that now surrounded me and my double. "That is who you think you are on the inside." The circle around us grew, rising high up into the sky, and memories began to take shape within the flames. A younger me, at the age of 17, stood at the center of the training field with a young girl, a sick-looking child. 'Finish her, Markaia,' the nearby trainer commanded. My younger self stood hunched over, hands clenched with a ragged breath. 'Do it. Now,' he commanded again. I then lurched forward and started for the girl, when the memory cut off.
"That's not me!" I fell to my knees, and my double laughed hysterically.
"That is both of us. Don't you remember?" She laughed.
Another memory began to play and it was more recent. I was marching with a group of soldiers towards the Ba Sing Se gates, and Fire Lord Ozai stood far behind us. We broke through the wall and started to kill many villagers, and I was following my commander into the palace at Ba Sing Se…
I covered my eyes and ears. "That's not me! I'm not that person anymore!" I tried my best to cover my ears, when Resie let out a scream.
"Markaia! It burns!" she wailed loudly. "Make it stop!" I shook my head, trying to drone out the sounds – all of the overwhelming sounds.
"They wouldn't be in there if you had thought out your motives." The woman whispered sadly. "You cannot help being who you are, Markaia, and this is who you are. Your actions reflect what happens to your loved ones."
"Because of you, Mother died," my double shouted at me. "Because of you, that little girl and her parents died from the wrath of the Mai and Ty Lee." I didn't notice her approach me while I tried to cover my ears and eyes. Despite my efforts, their voices were still crystal-clear. "Because of you, Zuko will suffer." She kicked me in the side. I fell to the ground, scrambling to cover my ears.
"Stop! It wasn't my fault!" I cried, ignoring the pain in my side.
"You can't deny it! Everyone will die because you were a fool, Markaia." My double spat at me. "Just who are you then? If you are not me, then who are you?"
"I don't know!" I screamed out finally. "I don't know who I am, but I don't want to be you anymore!" Uncovering my ears, I wiped my eyes and stood up. I was now face-to-face with my demon, my inner self, the person who I hated the most.
"You're worthless," my double spat in my face. I shoved her away.
"I've spent my entire life being told I was worthless, that I would become nothing, that I was weak. I am none of those things, but you are. I've changed my ways, and I don't want to be you anymore." As I said that, I continued shoving her until we reached the fire wall that she had come from. "You don't define me anymore…" I tried to push her through the wall, but she grabbed my hand and burned it. Then she gave me a right hook to the face.
My left eye became blurry and it hurt pretty badly, but it didn't stop me. I came at her again, trying to hit her with my fists, but she caught every single blow, and then she was on me. She pushed me to the floor and had her hands around my throat. "You're weak. You couldn't even hit me." Her hands squeezed my throat tightly, as she applied more pressure to it. "You couldn't even lose in a noble way. To die just as Azula did. She was just as ugly as we are," she sneered, and I felt her hands start to heat up. I tried to lift her hands from my neck, but she was too strong. Resie began to scream again in pain, but it was distant as my eyes began to get blurry. "Why cry as you die, Markaia? You'll see our precious family again. Death is for the weak. Surviving is for the people who are strong enough to give up their pride."
My head started to feel light, and I continued to try and pry her fingers off of my neck. I didn't have the energy to fight her, though. Painful screams echoed in my ears from my family in the fire, and I closed my eyes. The darkness in my mind felt so calm and soothing to me. "You're giving up?" the Mother of Faces said in my mind. "You're succumbing? For what?"
My lips wouldn't move, but I could speak clearly with my mind to the woman. "Because the longer I live, the longer I try to fight my identity, the more my family will get hurt. Do you not hear Resie's painful screams? She died because of my foolishness. I got to say my goodbyes to my love, Zuko." I could feel tears leaking from my closed eyes as the pressure and heat on my neck began to intensify. "Tell Ursa that I could not accomplish her wish. I'm sorry I could not help her son." Memories of Zuko and I started to flood my fading mind – the dreams that I've had of him, like my future with him in the Fire Nation Palace. "My family forgives me, and they are proud that I had changed my ways to try and help the Fire Nation become good again. Tenia, Resie, and Hilo forgive me for being a foolish person." I thought about picking flowers with Resie. "I wish I could have made it up to you all. I made it my mission." The heat began to intensify and my mind started to feel groggy. "I'm sorry to you all. I'm sorry that I couldn't make it up. I'm sorry for everything that I have done, and I wish I was a better person to you all." The bright memories that played in my mind started to fade, I felt the pressure leave, and my body felt light as a feather again.
I couldn't move, though. The distant and soft screaming had stopped, and the heat that surrounded me had disappeared. "Then tell me, Markaia Tymaine, who are you really?" The woman asked softly. "Who exactly are you?" I felt hands grab me, and they sat my body upright into a sitting position.
"I am Markaia Tymaine, a firebender who used to use her gift for helping bad causes, such as the Fire Lord's whim for Sozin's Comet. But now, I am Markaia Tymaine, the girl who held the key to helping the Avatar save thousands of lives. I don't want to hurt people anymore; that's not who I am. I won't let my past define me because I know deep down inside that my family and friends who had fallen along the way forgive me, and they would want me to be strong and make things right in only the way I knew how. I want another chance at life because I need to make things right." My words echoed in the emptiness of my subconscious. A bright woman with short hair and a beautiful smile appeared in my mind, and she stood happily beside a man that I could not recognize. His hair was up, which accented the bright red scar on his face, and he was smiling down at me. This man wore the royal robes of the Fire Lord, but he was not someone I could have recognized at that moment.
"Is this who you choose to be?" the man, woman, and Mother of Faces asked in unison. "Open your eyes, Markaia Tymaine, and choose your destiny." I did as I was told, and the man and woman still stood there, the man with his hand out to help me up. The Mother of Faces stood beside them this time, and the hands on me belonged to my mother and father, Tenia, Hilo, and Resie.
"We forgive you, sweetheart," my mother whispered to me quietly. "It's okay if you go. Make things right. We will be right here waiting for you." I turned and gave her a weak hug; my body still hurt from the burn on my wrist and surely the burn on my throat.
"Choose who you are now, or remain here with your family. Who do you wish to be?" the man asked alone. I clenched my weak hand before hesitating, and then I reached up and grasped his hand. "You choose to return to the land of the living and make things right?" he asked quietly, a questioning look upon his face. I nodded, and both the woman and man smiled brightly.
"Goodbye, Markaia," my mother whispered, and I turned. They stood there smiling at me as they started to fade. My hand shot up to try and grab them, but they were gone.
"Do not be alarmed," the man said gently, and then the Mother of Faces, the woman, and the man disappeared in the same fashion that my family had left. I was left alone in the dark abyss that I did not recognize, and then I fell.
It felt like I was falling a thousand feet. It was never-ending, and I closed my eyes for when I actually hit bottom. My hair was flying everywhere, and I was falling at a fast rate. With my eyes screwed shut, I held my breath. Then there was the water.
My entire body was engulfed in warm water. Opening my eyes, it was still dark, and I was wrapped in something that restricted my movement. I thrashed around as I fell deeper into the water. Thankfully, the water wasn't moving, but I was sinking downwards. 'I can do this', I thought. I twisted my legs, and I discovered that they were tied and bound to something that was making me sink. Under the water, I couldn't produce any fire; they are natural enemies.
No one would come to save me this time, so I had to get out on my own. After whatever had happened out there in the real world while I was half-dead, I was probably getting murdered by order of the Fire Lord. My hands were not tied, but on the outside of this wrapping, something was holding my elbows together. I couldn't see anything, so it was hard for me to imagine what I was in or where in this water I was. This covering that covered my upper body also extended down to my ankles. 'You can do this,' I continued to tell myself as I twisted around in the water, trying to break free from my bonds.
