"Hallucinations?" repeats Azula, her brows pinching in concern. "Did this place make you see something strange?"
"Don't," warns Katara, closing her eyes.
Azula pauses, taking in the exhausted slump of her shoulders, and presses on, "Lotus could be manipulating us," she adds.
Katara's eyes snap open and within them lay a voiceless fury. She brings her arms inwards, pressing them against her chest in a cross, and Azula subtly shifts her right foot back in response.
They face each other, their respective elements so tightly woven into their skin, that they are felt without appearance. A bending battle—sans bending.
"I don't like you," says Katara, her words quiet, omnipresent, like the salt in a sea breeze. "I think you're selfish and cruel, and I hate how you hurt my friends."
Azula curls her tongue as though it is a flame. She hisses, "How shocking."
"But I never thought of you as a monster."
Aang doesn't scream.
He wants to, particularly when the stretch in his limbs grows into a burning sensation across his chest, but he doesn't.
He always had a bit of pride in him that wasn't entirely airbender.
Aang grits his teeth, Gyatso would scream , and rasps, "You're being used."
Hama drops him.
He knows by her predatory grin that it's another momentary reprieve—that she's toying with him— but he's still grateful for the gulps of air.
"When I fought the Spirit in the village, it didn't just feed on sadness. It trapped its prey with it, before consuming them."
"I know," says Hama and she raises her arms. Aang tenses but Hama doesn't bend his blood. Instead, she swirls strings of mist around her fingers, into heavy yarns of fog across her arm, into a dense cloud that covers half her face.
The clouds part and, as he watches, youthful skin turns into weathered flesh into bone.
"I let the Spirit consume me," intones Hama through the jaw of a skeleton.
Azula says nothing.
"I still don't," adds the waterbender, defiantly.
This is a hallucination.
"And if I hallucinated my mother, I'd have a breakdown too."
See? Get a hold of yourself, Azula.
"I once saw a vision of my mother in the Swamp, and although I knew it wasn't real, I chased after her anyway. So I guess I can kind of understand what you're going through."
This isn't real. This isn't real.
Azula opens her mouth.
"It's not pity!" shouts the waterbender, grabbing Azula's arm. With a jerk and an ocean of misplaced concern, she says, "I want to help you."
Azula stares at the solid hand anchoring around her wrist before snatching her arm back.
"Azula?"
"When I was in the asylum there was one doctor who was expecting me," answers Azula, the words burning against her throat."He said that I wasn't crazy, that I'm not a sociopath or 'whatever term the narrow-minded give to those they deem beyond help'."
Azula clenches her fists, feeling hollowness in her chest, and longing for the comfort of fire.
"He said that trying to figure out why I broke was an exercise as futile as trying to figure out why a spy is paranoid, a prisoner is depressed, and a soldier in war is full of rage."
She stares at the swirling mist that makes up their ground.
"He said there's nothing wrong with me." She adds though she doesn't know why. The sentence swirls with the mist. There's nothing wrong with me. More a plea than a promise. A compliment for the desperate. "I set his beard on fire." She says with a pointed sneer towards the waterbender. I kept mistaking him for father.
"Weird," says Sokka. He feels Toph squeeze his arm and he remembers that, oh yeah, she can't see.
"My boomerang came back," he explains, "but quicker than I expected it to."
He glances back. "The bodies appeared and disappeared far too quickly too. I don't think it matters how far we walk."
"Then how do we leave?" asks Toph.
Sokka waits for too long before replying with, "I'll think of something."
Toph squeezes his arm again.
"I don't understand," says Aang as Hama restores her flesh with a wave of her hand.
"It would be a shame for you to die without knowing how," muses Hama. She curls her hand and Aang once again finds himself a puppet.
"Sadness, sorrow, despair. Whatever you want to call it I had decades of it." She puppeteers Aang's hands until they are awkwardly crossed over his shoulders. "Can you guess why?"
"The Fire Nation attacked," answers Aang and he feels his arms uncross until only the hands are left, overlapping and caressing his throat.
"Yes," says Hama, sweetly, "And no," she adds, and his hands shake as they press against his throat.
"We could have defeated the Fire Nation if the other Nations didn't drag their feet, waiting for the Avatar to return, or if you had died and let the cycle continue."
There's no full moon but if Hama can bend then perhaps he can too. He focuses on the pulse beating against his palms and the blood running through his veins like water.
His hands slacken.
"Can you bring them back?" asks Hama, her tone as cold as ice, as the grip around his throat returns, "My dead comrades? My friends? My family? The decades I spent imprisoned?"
The blunt heads of his nails push against his skin.
"All the lives that the Fire Nation took, the damage they caused, far outweigh any sins of mine. And yet you rewarded them, as though our losses meant nothing. "
"What you're doing is wrong," he protests, even as his air begins to burn.
"Hush now," replies Hama, squeezing his throat further, "and listen. The water here has natural toxins that build up in the lotus bulbs. I used this place to make my toxins, and to feed the Spirit."
Slowly, far too slowly, she relaxes his hands and allows him to breathe.
"The Dai Li," asks Aang, biding his time, "my bending—"
"The Dai Li? Oh, the earthbenders." She shrugs dismissively. "They were a fortunate accident. I wanted the Earth Kingdom to suffer for not intervening to help my Tribe. The gas paralyzed and sickened their people, allowing the Spirit to lethargically feed on their despair and regain the power it lost after your last encounter. I had no idea it could possess people as well."
Hama drops him suddenly. Aang spies his staff. He lunges, his hand clasps around it and—
—his body stiffens.
"A little bit of hope makes it so much worse, doesn't it, Avatar, " mocks Hama, as Aang struggles against her hold. The little bit of give he had before—gone.
"You can't bend here. No one can. Except for me. You see, I made sure not to waste my second opportunity. I had the Spirit make a nest of sorrow, a pocket to the Spirit World, that is full of everything that gives me grief and thus gives the Spirit power."
Aang's limbs twitch and he rises but not of his own volition.
"Stop," he says, before his hands clasp down and his voice is choked out.
"Take your last breath, Avatar," advises Hama, in a voice as ragged as the pain around his neck, "This is where you will die."
"Tell me about the hallucinations next time or I'll tell Aang," commands Katara.
Azula suppresses the urge to roll her eyes and inform the waterbender that telling Zuko would be a far better threat. "Very well then," she says instead.
Katara nods and relaxes her shoulders. "Good. You didn't hallucinate this time. After my mother touched you I could see her too, it may have something to do with your soulmark." She taps a finger against her chin and gestures for Azula to follow. "Mom said she can help us reach Aang by having us channel our emotions. If we walk around a bit while thinking about finding my mom, then she should turn up."
"You left her?" asks Azula, turning the words over in her head, trying to find another meaning.
"No, she said she'll turn up even if we don't find her," answers Katara, absentmindedly tugging on her hair, "But this is good practice, and, anyway, my mom said she would be waiting nearby. She promised. I just needed her to be out of your sight until you calmed down. Her presence kept making you upset."
"I don't understand. Why would you do that?" demands Azula, with more than a hint of desperation.
Katara turns and, with a clench to her jaw and a voice that dares for Azula to disagree, replies, "Because you needed me."
"C'mon, brain, think of something, " mentally scolds Sokka.
Aang and Katara could be dead.
He flips his boomerang over in his palm.
"We should focus on finding Aang, the others will likely be with him," he decides.
"Yeah, I agree," says Toph, "Can you see anything new?"
Sokka squints at the fog.
You can't save him.
He shakes his head. "No. Nothing."
Toph frowns at the waver in his voice. "Try throwing your boomerang again?" she suggests.
You're a burden.
He swallows. "Okay, yeah, sure," and flings his boomerang into the fog.
Useless.
"Please work," he begs, as the boomerang disappears from his sight.
Be useful for once.
THWACK
A/N: I commissioned artwork of the soulmarks which should be up on the ao3 version on chapters 1 & 2