Akane of Suzaku
Suzaku Island, the southernmost island traditionally held by the Fire Nation, 96 AG
I know four things about myself.
One, I can see spirits.
Two, I'm an airbender.
Three, I'm a burden.
Four, I love the girl that I see in my dreams.
It's not much, is it? I could expand.
I could tell you about the spirits I've seen over the years - the ones who run their fingers through my hair, the ones that watch me from afar, the ones that whisper news and history into my ears. I could tell you how they call me odd, broken, because you aren't supposed to see spirits without looking for them.
I could tell you that according to those spirits, I'm an airbender because when all of the original airbenders were gone, the new ones had to come from somewhere. I could tell you about the way I've stood at the edge of a cliff and leaned into the wind like it was a solid thing. I could tell you about the way it slips through my fingers, dogs at my footsteps, tries to lift me when I look at the sky.
I could tell you that my aunt is the lady of an island that has always been the farthest from the capital, the most forgotten, the closest to the the Southern Air Temple. I could tell you that the Fire Lord has been suspicious of us for what feels like forever because of that closeness, because it would be so easy to hide airbenders. I could tell you that my aunt and my family and my island have been subtly rebelling for the past century because what the Fire Lord has done is wrong . I could tell you that even the slightest hint of an airbender on our island would be enough to bring the Fire Lord's men down upon us, enough to disrupt everything.
I could tell you about Rei's laugh, about her family, about the flick of her wrist when she bends, about the rhythm of her feet on the ground. I could tell you about the way she dances, the way she fights, the way she dozes on hot summer days. I could tell you about the way she never seems to notice how my eyes linger on her, on the fall of her hair, on the warm brown of her eyes. I could tell you about the ways she makes me want to stand up and be useful, instead of sitting there.
I won't. I can see spirits, yes, but that sets me apart. I can airbend, yes, but that's because of a genocide. I'm a burden. And the girl I love hasn't noticed I love her.
So, at the age of twenty two, I run away from home. I stow away on a ship to Gaoling with only that much of a plan, and spend the rest of the trip trying to figure out what to do next.
I step off onto Earth Kingdom soil without much of a goal in mind, and wander the streets as the sun sets. Near the docks, vendors line the streets, hawking everything from food to cheap jewelry. A bit farther in, women dressed in clothing more appropriate for the beach on Yujin Island giggle and fan themselves from the shelter of doorways, calling out to passersby. It isn't until the third house, when one of the women winks at me as she asks if I want to dance that I understand what they're doing, and I'm sure I blush a deep, terrible red as I duck my head and hurry quickly away.
The streets are fairly straight, and I reach the edge of town as darkness truly starts to fall. I pause at the gap between the last of the houses and the forest, lit only by the light coming from the windows. My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag as I glance back. Though I can't hear any of the noise from the area near the docks, I can still see the hazy red glow of the lanterns in the distance. The forest, when I turn back to it, looks only cold and lonely. I start towards it anyways.
I listen to tree spirits whispering as I make my way carefully through the trees. They sound . . . different from what I'm used to. At home, the hum of the spirits in the trees is a constant, wavering sound that flickers to the breeze like a candle. Here, the hum pulses like the steady backbeat of a song. It reminds me the songs Rei taught me - the ones that she dances to in the forest.
I settle down on a branch of one of the larger trees, pull my cloak tighter around me, and shift my bag to my lap as I hope for another sleepless night.
There's a reason I took so long to run away, when I'd been thinking about it seriously since I turned fifteen. When I decided that I wanted to run away, I decided that I wanted to run away from everyone - including Rei. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago, when Aunt Kimiko first sent me out to take night watch on the lighthouse that I figured out how to do it.
I'd noticed before that I always arrived in the dreamscape before Rei, and left it before her too, but I'd figured that was just a difference in our personalities or something. Dream sharing seems like something spirits would do to advance their plans, and their plans don't always make sense, take it from someone who can see them. But when I fell asleep the morning after I stayed up all night in the lighthouse, Rei didn't show up at all. And that night, when I went to sleep a little later than normal, Rei hit me like a stampeding bull-moose as she threw her arms around me and knocked me off my feet.
From her frantic questions and the calm she forced upon herself as she checked to make sure I was truly alright, I gathered that I hadn't been in her dream either. From that , I concluded that we were probably only in the dream world when we slept, and if one of us didn't sleep at night, we wouldn't see each other.
The discovery was like slotting the last puzzle piece into place and standing back to look at the finished picture in satisfaction.
I reminded Rei that spirits are strange. I told her that maybe now that we're adults, they think we don't need as much support. I told her that even when she wasn't there, I came to the same dreamscape, so we could probably leave things to tell the other that we'd been there. I didn't tell her I spent the night awake.
I felt horrible. And when I woke up, I made arrangements for a ship to the Earth Kingdoms, then took another night shift, the week after the first, just to make sure. Rei was worried again, but less so this time. She left me a letter, and there was a sour taste in my mouth as I read it.
Another week, and I stayed up through the night, leafing through a book I'd brought with me by candle light as the ship rocked slightly beneath me. The furthest I'd ever been from Suzaku before then was the Southern Air Temple. I watched Yingtao Island as we passed and caught a brief glimpse of the temple between mountains.
A shift in the comforting hum of the trees pulls my attention away from my thoughts. It only takes me a moment to recognise the new pattern. Even though the set rhythm throws the melody off slightly, it's similar enough to the sound the trees took when someone was running through them at home. I peer over the edge of the tree branch, straining my eyes to see through the deep shadows below me. I'm about to pull back, thinking maybe I was mistaken, maybe it means something different here, when a howl freezes me in place.
A dog barks once, twice, coming closer and closer until it appears out of the darkness through a gap in the branches. Not a dog's silhouette, or its shadow, but a dog, lit by an absent light that doesn't affect its surroundings. A dog, wagging its tail as it stares up at me.
(Absently, in the back of my mind, I note that the tree-song has shifted once again. No, it sounds like the melody of welcome that tree spirits sang when I entered the forest back home.)
"Okuri-inu?" I ask hesitantly, half to myself as I clutch my bag close and try to match a spirit tale to the creature before me. It couldn't be a komainu - komainu guard temples, and I'd come far enough into the forest that there probably aren't any temples nearby. Sunekosuri are either invisible or look like cats, its hair doesn't look long enough for it to be a keukegen, and it really just doesn't look like a tanuki.
The dog barks again and runs in a small circle before stopping facing me. It tilts its head and leaps much farther and much higher than any dog has the right to leap. I abruptly find myself with a lap full of dog, and I have to scramble to grab my bag with one hand and the scruff of the dog's neck with my other hand as it balances precariously on my legs and sticks a wet nose into my neck.
The okuri-inu lets out a high whine, then goes limp in my grip when it finds it can't move me, and obediently stays still when I let it go. I carefully put my bag behind me and pull the straps over my shoulders before I lean back against the tree again. Then I pet the dog. It lets out a lower whine and sticks its nose into my midriff as its tail starts to wag, nudging at my sash. I shake my head and dig into the folds obligingly to pull out the bag of jerky.
"Do you want some of this?" I ask, holding the back above its head. The dog lets out a low whine, its tail going still and its head tilting back to watch my hand, then a short bark. I smile and pull a piece of the jerky out of the bag and let the dog pull it from my hand a I tuck the bag back into my sash.
"You're a good dog, aren't you?" I ask, running a hand down the dog's back as it gnaws on the jerky, its wagging tail bumping my legs occasionally.
I know I should probably be more frightened - half the stories about okuri-inu are about them eating people who trip, and about how they're such malevolent spirits that they frighten off all the lesser malevolent spirits - but I'm not walking around right now, so I can't trip, and I've got no problems with it frightening off other spirits at the moment, seeing as I am in the middle of the forest, at night.
I watch it tear at the jerky for a while, content to wait and see if it wants anything else, but when it grows tired of the slobbery jerky, it just glances up at me and paws at my tunic.
"Do you want me to try to recite Dragons Over Honoiro?" I ask on a whim, and for lack of anything better to do. The okuri-inu lets out a short bark.
"Alright," I say. "So, I think it starts like this: The Fire Islands have always been known for their . . . heat, and tonight . . . "
By the time dawn's light is edging across the sky, I've gone through about four plays. I'd given up on reciting them line for line fairly early on, but I still had a good enough idea of what was happening in all of the scenes to make up my own words mocking the writer and the general idea of the play. The okuri-inu seems to like my versions of the plays because its tail wags hard enough to shake both of our bodies whenever I manage a particularly vicious mockery.
I was winding down the tale of Omashu when the okuri-inu froze in my lap. I pause in response and look down at it. "What's wong?"
I hear the voice calling this time, though I can't make out the words, and the okuri-inu lets out a low whine as it looks up at me.
"Do you . . . want to go?" I ask, and it lets out a short bark. "Then go ahead."
It lets out another bark, then jumps off my lap and the branch to land of the ground, where it immediatly darts off with another loud bark. This time, I can make out the cry of, "Little sister! There you are!"
I feel a faint smile cross my face as I stare out into the forest. The smile slips as I glance up, trying to gauge the time. I'd had a few slip ups on the ship here as we traveled east and the sun rose just a bit earlier, and I wasn't keen to repeat the experience of hiding in the dream scape and watching Rei stare sadly at the ocean.
Besides that, I still have to go find some cave or make myself a shelter that's dark enough that I actually can get to sleep. I've found myself increasingly grateful over the past couple of weeks that airbenders didn't feel any obligation to be awake at any particular time, because if I'd been a firebender, my whole plan to avoid Rei would have been toast.
(If I'd been a firebender, there wouldn't have been a plan because I wouldn't have been a burden on my aunt and a danger to the revolution.)
"Thank you for taking care of my little sister for the night," someone calls from below, and I glance down from the sky to see a barefoot little boy in a badly-dyed mottled green tunic with leaves tangled in his hair holding the okuri-inu. He's probably a spirit too, but even though I haven't done much all night, I feel too tired to figure out what kind. "She's still rather young, and while many of the spirits around here recognise her, I'm always worried that some human will come along and kill her."
"I'm a human," I reply, feeling a bit off balance.
The boy only brightens at my words. "Oh! You must be one of Makani and Era's new brood, then." He looks me over critically, and I resist the urge to pull my cloak tighter around me.
"My. If they blessed all of their new benders like this . . . Well, in thanks for taking care of my sister, I offer a reward. Ask of me what you wish, and if it's within my power, I shall provide it for you."
I think suddenly about what this must look like from the outside. Some boy in Earth rags was offering to help out a girl in fashionable, if practical, Fire robes. I burst out laughing, laughing until tears are streaming down my face, laughing till I'm not laughing, laughing till I'm sobbing, till I'm wiping the tears away as I try to get a hold of myself.
The boy watches from the ground below with a hint of irritation or impatience. The okuri-inu whines, but she doesn't try to get out of the boy's grasp. When my crying finally dies off, and I'm just sitting on the tree branch, breath trembling, eyes covered, he repeats himself. "Ask of me what you wish, and if it's within my power, I shall provide it for you."
There honestly were only three things I could think of to ask for. I could ask to only see spirits in the way normal people do, I could ask to no longer be an airbender, or I could ask that Rei notice that I love her.
I am who I am because I can see spirits and airbend. To lose either of those abilities wouldn't make everything better. Even if I couldn't bend or see spirits, I'd done things to protect myself that I can't take back. To give up my abilities would make those sacrifices feel cheap.
As for getting Rei to notice me . . .
Yeah, she might return my feelings. But I'd never know - it would always feel like she wouldn't love me for me. It would all be because of someone else, and as much as I want her to see what I feel, I want her to love me because of me.
"It's fine," I say before I catch myself and repeat the formal words that the spirits of Suzaku had coaxed me into learning. "There is nothing I wish of you, nothing I would wish for that I truly want granted. I release you from any debt."
The boy stares at me. The lack of expressions reminds me of the tengu who guarded the top of Suzaku's volcano. Even on the rare occasion he took human form, Nori didn't really express his emotions that way. It wasn't that he couldn't, just that he wasn't used to having a face that could move, so he forgot to make expressions. "If there is nothing, then at least allow me to feed and shelter you for the night, and to point you to a place that offers something you might desire."
I hesitate, but it's not like I have much else to do. "If you would have me, I would like that. Just give me a moment to climb down."
The boy brings me to a cave deep in the forest, the okuri-inu following on our heels. He serves me a breakfast of berries, oat-rice bread, and hummingbee honey. When I'm done eating, he takes me deeper into the cave and presents me with a dark room and a bedroll to sleep on.
I waste my time in the dreamscape the same way I've been wasting it since I left, avoiding the question of what exactly I'm going to do with myself now that I've actually run away, and building little stick houses for Rei so that she knows I'm still alive.
I feel listless when I wake up, and it takes me a while before I summon up enough willpower to climb out of the warm bedroll. The boy is sitting next to the fire once again, ladling something from the pot into two bowls, and he motions for me to sit on the cushion next to him. He passes me the bowl and a pair of chopsticks before he picks up his own bowl. I mutter a thanks and a quick prayer before I start in on the food - a stew of some sort with chunks of meat and vegetables floating thick in the broth. The boy takes the bowl when I'm done and sets it on a ledge to be washed later.
"Come on," the boy says offering me a hand. "I have something to show you."
I glance back at the room with my stuff as I let him pull me to my feet, but I follow the boy when he keeps tugging me towards the entrance of the cave. "Come on."
I hear the okuri-inu scramble after us as the boy leads me out and into the forest. As we walk, I start to feel odd. Sometimes I blink, and the angle of the setting sun or the forest around us changes. Once, for a brief moment, I swear that I see the trees all covered in the bright reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn. Time flows oddly - like molasses or honey - so the only measurement I have is that by the time we stop, it's dark.
The boy pulls me to a stop next to the last tree at the edge of a large field that stretches to the horizon. I blink and rub at my eyes with my free hand as he kneels down to run a hand over the okuri-inu's back, feeling abruptly grounded.
"There," the boy says, finally releasing my hand to point at small collection of tents in the distance, outlighted by the light of a fire. "Tell them the truth, and they will have you gladly. You will not be a burden here."
"What?"
The boy looks up at me, then stands, dusting off his hands. "You were thinking too small when you replied to me earlier. I know what happens when the great spirits just take new benders, I know what you think. You wanted be Fire like your family, or to not bend. You want to be helpful, right?"
"Yes," I reply hesitantly.
"You weren't thinking big enough," the boy says. "Unless you truly only want to help your family, there are other people who would appreciate you help."
I glance over at the tents. "Who are they?"
"People," the boy says simply. Then he turns to point to a tree a bit further back. "Your belongings are there, waiting for you."
He catches my hand again as I move to get my stuff, and I pause. "Before you go, should you ever need help, ask for the tanuki of Beifong Forest." He pauses, then continues softer. "Ask for Guiying."
"That's- you've already done so much for me-" My aunt's words about names come to me. She'd always told me to be careful of what contracts I put my name on because of how easily someone could trick you if you didn't read carefully, and to be doubly cautious about whom I gave it out to because names have a certain power to spirits.
The boy shushes me before I can say anything else. "Just remember."
He drops my hand and turns away, disappearing between one step and the next. I hesitate for a moment, staring at the empty air, before I shake my head and head off to grab my things. I frown as I pick my bag up, weighing it thoughtfully. It's heavier than it was, and even just looking at it, I can see that there's more stuff in it than I remember leaning against last night.
Sure enough, when I pull open the neck of the bag, there's a bag of food on top of the rest of my things, and a couple of loose candles, and a pair of spark rocks. Beneath those, there's an actual bedroll on top of the blanket and tarp I'd brought. I shake my head and carefully pack the bag back up.
The boy - Guiying - gave me so much just for taking care of his sister for one night, and for all that I know that spirits repay debts tenfold . . . spirit tales are about great people, people who would give their life for a stranger, and I am not great . I'm barely even good, but I try to be fair, and in all fairness, I don't deserve to have a spirit waiting on my whims.
I shake myself out of my thought as I pull the bag closed and sling it over my shoulder. I square my shoulders and turn on my heel to head towards the tents.
As I draw closer, I can make out a couple of some kind of ostrich animals beyond the tents, and one little girl in Earth Kingdom greens. She glances up as I come closer, and I can see the milky film that covers her eyes.
"Hello," I call gently.
Her head tilts. "Who are you?"
"I - um -" I scramble for a name, "Jin! I'm Jin!"
"That answers just about nothing," the girl replies after a moment.
I open my mouth to speak, then pause, distracted abruptly from my frantic embarrassment by a breeze against the back my neck. My eyes flicker to the still tents. Something's wrong. I throw myself forwards into a roll as someone lunges forwards, arms sweeping into the space where my head had been. I use my airbending to twist myself in midair and land in a crouch facing my attacker.
Before I can do anything however, rocks rush from the ground around me, trapping my feet and running up my body to lock around my arms and trap me in place. I jerk at the bindings for moment, then slump into them when it becomes clear that all I'm doing is wasting energy.
I listen to the crunching footsteps on dry grass, and watch as the boots enter my field of vision. I tense as a hand tilts my chin up. Inscrutable brown eyes stare into mine, reflecting the light of the fire behind me for a moment before my chin is released. I frown at him as he backs up a bit, something familiar about his face bothering me as he glances past me.
"Could you-?"
More footsteps. I strain my head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the new person. Then -
"Nuan," I breathe, turning my head to follow him as he circles around to stand in front of me. There's just enough light from the fire to make out his features, and I hadn't thought -
I'd seen him before from a distance when Lu Ten came to Suzaku to meet his mother's family. I hadn't realized then - he looks so much like Rei for a moment, despite the utter lack of recognition. He has her eyes - the color of hot kaf, fresh from the pot - and her hair - just curly enough that a few strands always escape her top knot to make it look messy - and freckles along the same contours, and her nose-
"Who are you?" he asks, and I abruptly see all of the differences. He's a bit shorter than Rei, and he hunches slightly like he's trying to be even shorter. Though I'd recognised the firmness of his steps, there's no rhythm to dance to and nothing solid - like going to pick up a full water jug only to find it empty. "You wouldn't happen to be from Suzaku, would you?"
I blink at him, but if he's figured out that much, then it probably won't take much for him to figure out the rest. I raise my chin. "I am Akane of Suzaku."
The boy who'd grabbed my chin shifts off to the side, bringing my attention to him for a brief moment before I turn to watch Nuan again. He's staring at me, studying my face.
"Would you be the cousin who was always off on weather watch whenever Lu Ten went to Suzaku?"
"Weren't you declared dead a year and a half ago?" I snap.
"You don't look all that surprised to see me, weather watch. And for that matter, how did you know what I looked like?"
"You didn't think I slept up on the mountain did you?" I reply, ignoring his first sentence.
"Then why did we never see you? I'm sure Lu Ten would have liked to meet his cousin." Nuan's voice dips on the prince's name, making it as much a sob as much as it is an accusation.
I bite my lip and glance away. Behind me, I can hear clothing against clothing as someone shifts. When I speak, there's none of the defiance that was in my voice earlier. "I stayed away for the same reason I'm here now."
"Then why are you here?" Nuan demands. "Why did you leave your safe little island, and why did you come here?"
I scoff. "Safe little island? I'm safer here than I was at home! If Suzaku was safe, why do you think I hid from you? I wanted to meet my cousin! I kept asking my aunt again and again, and you know what? She was going to let me see him the next time he came!"
I break off panting, and let my head fall. "The next day, we got the letter that he was dead. Lu Ten was my only cousin and I never got met him on the off chance that I'd slip up, so don't you dare accuse me of not wanting to see him."
"He was my best friend!" Nuan yells, his hands clenched. "You never even-"
"Nuan, enough," the boy who'd grabbed my chin says abruptly. He rests a hand on Nuan's shoulder and Nuan takes a shuddering breath before stepping back.
"Akane," the boy says, "why are you here? And," his eyes sharpen, "why is it safer for you in the Earth Kingdoms?"
My eyes dart from Nuan to the boy, and I struggle at the stone binding me once again, hoping for just a little bit of give-
I go limp. I glance at Nuan again, still dressed in the reds of Fire, and I hope they know about him, know about his bending, I hope desperately that they know and accept it because maybe-
"I'm an airbender."
-maybe they'll accept me too.
"Oh," someone says behind me, and I fall to the ground as my bonds dissolve.
"Toph-"
"Shut up, Ryung," the blind girl who had greeted me says. She pokes me with her toes as I push myself to my hand and knees. "You. Get up. Walk."
"What?" I ask as I scramble to my feet.
"Walk. I wasn't looking earlier," Toph repeats.
"Why do you-"
Toph pokes me in the side, and I stumble away from her, towards the fire. "Keep walking."
I put my hands up and walk around the fire. The boy - Ryung - watches me. I catch a glimpse of someone else peering from around the edge of a tent before whoever it is notices my gaze and flinches back out of sight. When I've completed a full circle around the fire, Toph motions for me to stop.
"Well?" Ryung asks her.
"She certainly walks like an airbender," Toph says. "Jumps like one too."
"And why it wasn't safer for you to just keep hiding?" Ryung asks, turning to me. "You managed to hide on Suzaku for twenty years."
"It wasn't safe in the first place," I reply sullenly, rubbing at where the stone bonds had chafed my wrists. "Any airbender on the islands would be a sign of Sozin's failure, something to hunt down. Here, at least, I'd just be another refugee."
"Hmm." Ryung's eyes focus on something behind me. When I glance back, there's only the falling tent flap. "How much training do you have?"
"I . . . I don't know. Suzaku's near the Southern Air Temple, and we rescued many of their texts after the army went through, so I had those to learn from. There were also several of the elders who remembered seeing the airbenders back when they were alive and they were able to teach me some, but . . ." I let the sentence trail off.
"Alright. Are you Era's, or Makani's?"
"I don't know?" I hadn't even known that you could be one or the other's if your element had two great spirits. I grew up around firebenders and people of Fire, and there was only Agni for them. I hadn't thought the other elements would be that different. "Is there a difference?"
" Yes ," three voices answer me.
"Oh."
Ryung examines me again, then nods. "Alright then. We'll take you."
"What?" I ask, feeling a little off balance.
"You came here to blend in, right? Well, you can do that better in a group. I'm Zuko," Ryung says, and my eyes widen.
Zuko, as Lu Ten's other cousin Zuko? As in Prince Zuko? Prince Zuko who's been missing for a year and a half?
"And the girl who made you walk around the fire is Toph Beifong," Zuko continues as if the revelation of his name isn't almost earth shattering. "You already know Nuan of course. The last member of our group, however . . ."
"Do you want me to get him?" Toph offers.
I startle at the sound of a short, sharp whistle, and I twist around just in time to see the tent that had been moving earlier bust open as a young boy comes storming out, gesturing wildly.
"Yes, Samir, I-" Zuko is cut off by a sharp whistle.
The boy glares. When Zuko doesn't try to talk again, he glances at me. The fire between us is reflected in his eyes. I watch warily as he rounds the fire to stop in front of me.
He points at me, and behind me, Toph says, "You."
"What?" I ask, half turning to look at her.
"I'm translating for him," she says. "Don't look at me."
I don't quite understand what she means, but I glance back at Samir anyways.
"You," Toph repeats, and I repress the urge to glance back at her. "You're Fire Nation and you know nothing about Era and Makani, but you claim that you can airbend? You claim you know anything about airbending?"
"Samir, that's not fair. How was she supposed to learn anything?" Nuan asks, speaking for the first time since Zuko told him to calm down. I glance at him, uncertain why he's defending me when he was so angry with my earlier. "That's like comparing me to Toph."
That one sentence throws his words abruptly into a different perspective. I'd known he was an earthbender, but if he was seeing me colored by his own mistakes . . .
I don't know if he thinks that he could have done better, that he could have escaped like I did, or if he thinks I could have done better, could have tried to hide better and met Lu Ten.
"You and Toph are different," Toph says, though she sounds a bit uncomfortable. Samir's gestures are less certain. From the expression on his face, he knows that this is a touchy subject for Nuan, but he's not going to back down because he feels that what he's saying is important.
Looking between them, I have a bad feeling. I've seen fights between people over subjects they care about, and they're never pretty. From the way Zuko is shifting, ready to move at any moment, he knows that.
"Why?" Nuan challenges. "Because we're Earth? Because there are so many earthbenders out there right now? Or is it because-"
"I don't really know much about airbending," I interrupt before Nuan can say anything even worse, and all eyes go to me. Slowly, I say, "Bending is an art for the living. You can't truly learn it just from scrolls and a non bender's memories - I know , I tried. Not even just that - airbending is supposed to be about freedom - I know that, I read the scrolls - and I've been trapped the the need to stay hidden all my life. But I tried . Okay? I tried."
Samir's shoulders sag, and as Toph pushes past me to wrap her arms around his shoulders, he seems smaller. His anger had inflated him like a puffer squid, and without it, he looks small and lost. He buries his face into Toph's tunic, and just hides from the world.
I shift awkwardly. I'd never known what to do with crying people, but I can't just walk away from this.
"You're an airbender, aren't you?" I ask, if only to break the silence. He has to be - it's the only thing that makes sense. "And you grew up around other airbenders. And . . . they're no longer around."
This, too, is only logical. It's why he knows so much about Air, why the group knows so much about Air, why he's alone, why he's lashing out.
And I don't understand it. I understand why, but I know I don't understand how much it hurts, I don't have the background to understand, but-
But , I think as he nods into Toph's tunic, maybe I can learn. The boy - the tanuki of Beifong Forest, Guying - said I would be helpful here. Maybe I can learn enough to understand some of Samir's frustration. Maybe I can be Air in more than just the way I bend, and apparently the way I walk.
I step forwards and bow from my waist. I look up to see the dancing shadows cast by the fire as Samir stares at me, looking confused.
"Samir of Air. I am Akane of - I am Akane." The formal words fall from my lips. There's a gasp from behind me, and somewhere to the right, the sounds on feet on dirt, but neither Toph nor Samir recognise the words. I'm not surprised. They're a Fire tradition, Earth and Air probably do this differently. "I would ask for your patience and understanding, for I am unfamiliar with your ways, but if you are willing, I would like to learn and give knowledge in return."
Samir shifts against Toph, and though he doesn't make any gestures like he had earlier, she speaks. "Learn what?"
"Anything you're willing to teach me."
"And what knowledge do you have to give?" Toph asks, and the words are so close to the ritual that I wonder if maybe Earth's ceremony isn't so different. Even with unseeing eyes, there's something sharp in her gaze. I straighten slowly.
I lay out what I know about airbending again. I didn't bring the scrolls, but I'd memorized the poses. None of the elders who remember airbenders came with me, but I have their advice. In the end, I trail off. This isn't going to be a true ceremony of adoption or apprenticeship or fostering, those are all Fire, but I don't know how to end this.
"Have you ever heard of a fire break?"
"Yes?" I reply hesitantly. "You make them to stop fire from spreading."
Samir's lips thin, and he nods once. I look at him for a long moment, and it slowly occurs to me.
"Is that what you're doing?" I ask, glancing back at Nuan and Zuko. "All four of you? Are you trying to stop the Fire Nation from spreading?"
"We're doing what we can," Zuko says.
I turn back to Samir.
"Well." I think of my home. "Let me tell you about Suzaku."
