Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any relating titles portrayed in this work. This piece was written for the sole purpose of entertainment; no money is to be made off this.

A/N: So, I haven't published a one-shot in a while, and I figured I'd try something with Ba Sing Se, seeing that city is the creepiest of all creepy places in Avatar there ever was. I dunno if this writing is absolutely stellar, or if the theme sorta portrayed in it makes any sense at all, but I kinda like it, and I'm hoping you will too. So, may I present my newest one-shot:


Utopian Walls


By enforcing a strict conduct of not speaking about the war, peace is maintained. Ba Sing Se's walls are impenetrable; they keep out countless unspoken enemies from creating anarchy. Ba Sing Se's walls are the key to its makeup, its very social infrastructure in ways that no one could begin to fathom. The walls are highly symbolic of the people that keep them standing—they segregate, they intimidate, they enforce, they oppress. The walls symbolize ignorance and superiority complexes and corruption. The walls isolate an idealistic utopian society, where people are suppressed, brainwashed, tortured, murdered, all just to keep the peace.

Aang sees the great walls, and he is frightened by how high and how solidly absolute they are. They will never fall, not by the hands of men alone, perhaps not even by machine. The walls are terrible reflections of the true nature of Ba Sing Se—at first glance, they are beautiful, comforting, a great achievement; but in truth, they separate and cause the people to be ignorant and, what is even more upsetting, they are nearly unbreakable. No matter where Aang goes, he can't escape them. The walls hold in horrid secrets that he wishes he doesn't know; but it is all too apparent, it is all so wrong, so different from what the monks taught him. The walls, as far as Aang knows, are pure evil.

He tries to understand the logic behind it and fails; the life of a person in Ba Sing Se is hardly a life. The freedom of the people is hardly freedom; and a king who isn't really a king rules them. Nothing in the city is as it first appears, Aang now realizes. Nothing is simply what it is. There is always more to it.

There is no simplicity to it; there is no rhyme or reason, no quick solution that Sokka can think up. The city just is. It exists to preserve its own existence. There is no real meaning to it.

Aang wants to find a way to help the people of the city. He wants to liberate them and have them know the truth; that he will do his duty as the Avatar and free the people who have done nothing to deserve this torture, of living in this prison with high and terrible walls. Aang so dreams of being to help, though he is unsure how.

The best way, Sokka advises him, is to start at the beginning, and work your way to the end.

That makes sense to Aang: it is always better to start at the beginning, at the origin of the problem.

He thinks deeply on it, observes the city people, how they behave, wonders why they behave so—and sees them in the shadows of the great walls.

His eyes widen in comprehension: the walls are the things holding the city together, the things tearing the city apart. They are the walls that segregate and oppress; they are the walls that disguise and isolate, that hold in secrets not to be discovered.

Aang smiles to himself: he knows the answer. He will free the people, and they will break out of their own imprisoning metropolis.

His eyes glow, and the first wall to go is the second outermost.