Good evening, friends. It's that time. It's time... for the rewritten Chapter 2. Yes. It's Sunday night as I type this, I hope you all had a nice Sunday. Enjoy the chapter, and please feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. This story is being completely remade, I'm open to suggestions and ideas! But for now, let's roll.

CHAPTER 2- THE DESERT OF THE DEAD

The sun was rising over the Si Wong Desert. The fight had ended hours ago—it hadn't lasted very long. Not that it would, with such unbalanced numbers. The Fire Nation had never really held with the idea of a fair fight.

Those that survived knelt in the middle of the oasis with their wrists bound behind their backs; a wall of Fire Nation soldiers surrounded them, armored shoulder to armored shoulder, a ring of identical skull faces.

Their commander was the only one with his face exposed—he probably wanted them to see the smug grin on his face as he surveyed his prisoners. He paced back and forth in front of the captives, in between them and the ring of soldiers. The commander had decided after the battle that the Sandbenders needed a lesson in respect for the element of Fire, so he'd had his men sit them down for a while. Some of the Sandbenders had knelt willingly, and those that wouldn't got an iron-toed boot to the backs of their knees.

The corpses of those that hadn't lived lay scattered around the oasis, left where they'd fallen on the fire-blackened sand—already, the stench of death was beginning to taint the air. As the morning sun rose, it would only get worse. The troops wanted to get out of the desert as quickly as they could manage, and they weren't about to waste time on cleaning up dead vermin, and they certainly weren't about to let their prisoners take the time to do it. The flying machine had already left, sailing off to whatever its next gruesome task would be.

Zafirah's stomach churned as she tried not to look at the bodies—those were her friends, her neighbors, her relatives, abandoned on the sand like the ravaged scraps from a buzzard-wasp's meal. There were so many of them. She couldn't even see all of them from her hiding spot. How long would they be forced to wait before someone could put them to their rightful rest? Or was the commander even going to allow them that dignity at all?

Zafirah couldn't shake the thought, sticking like a poisoned barb in her mind, that maybe the dead were the lucky ones. She peered out through the charred rubble that shielded her from sight, watching with dry eyes. Her throat felt tight and her head ached. Basam was crouching at her left side, tense as an archer's bowstring. She averted her eyes from the ring of soldiers, seething with shame.

Zafirah heard a familiar voice ring out behind her in a desperate shout, and whirled around just in time to see Kuei take an armored fist to the face. He reeled back and fell to the ground. She gaped in shock, then ducked as a blast of fire hurtled past her. The soldiers she had been fending off closed in around her, fists alight and spears raised. She stumbled back a step, nearly bumping into one of them. There was no way she could fight all of them off! Dropping to one knee, she slammed both fists into the ground— walls of sand sprang up around her and the soldiers stumbled back with aggravated yells. Zafirah ducked between them and bolted.

She spotted Kuei and ran over to where he'd fallen, crouching down next to him and shaking his shoulder. "Hey!" she called. His head rolled slightly to the side as she shook him, but he didn't respond. He was completely still, with the right side of his face red and swollen. Blood trickled from a cut above his eyebrow. Was he dead? How hard had that soldier hit him? After taking a blow like that, it wouldn't be surprising. Why was he even out there? Why hadn't he stayed inside? As she reached to check his pulse, a fireball struck the sand inches from her and she jumped to her feet with a shriek. Smoke swirled around her, choking her and burning her eyes till tears welled up. She staggered back, coughing, and cupped her hand to her nose and mouth. Her head was spinning.

"Zafirah?!" shouted Basam. Her twin dashed up to her and grabbed her arm. A bloodied hammer dangled from his other hand. "Thank the Spirits, I found you! Are you okay?" Zafirah shook her head, still coughing. She could barely speak with the smoke hanging in her lungs.

"We… we gotta get… out of here," she rasped. She grabbed the front of Basam's shirt desperately.

"To where?" Basam yelled over the noise. "There's nowhere to go, they have the gate blocked off! We just gotta take down as many as we can!"

"We can't!" she said hoarsely, shaking him. "There's no way… we can win this!" Tears rolled down her cheeks— from the smoke? Out of fear? She wasn't even sure herself.

Basam glanced around searchingly, and his shoulders slumped. He swore and pulled her along. "Let's go," he said heavily. Zafirah glanced back at where Kuei was; Basam hadn't seen him through the smoke. If he wasn't dead already, he probably would be soon. She looked away and followed her brother.

None of the soldiers had seen them steal away to hide beneath a heap of rubble near the wreckage of the cantina. From this disgraceful hiding spot, the two of them had watched as the Fire Nation soldiers had put a swift and brutal end to the fight.

Now, the commander was parading around in front of his prisoners, chest puffed out, grinning like a hogmonkey. When he started talking, his voice carried all the way over to the cantina, and to Zafirah's hiding spot. She looked back, staring at the soldiers with aching eyes.

"Good morning, Sandbenders. It's finally sunrise," he boomed. Like his smile (which widened as he wound up for the crowning moment of his victory) the friendly tone of his voice dripped with smugness. "The leaders of the Fire Nation's military have long believed that Ba Sing Se was the last great Earth Kingdom stronghold. They believed that once the Impenetrable City fell, the glory of the Fire Lord's reign would at last reach every corner of this barbaric land. But that wasn't entirely correct, was it? No, for it was this accursed wasteland, this vast expanse of nothingness, that was truly the last refuge of the Earth Kingdom. The Si Wong Desert—'Desert of the Dead' in the old tongue." The ash-maker's smile twisted into a cruel smirk. Oh yes, he was having a grand old time bragging to his captives. The commander's chest puffed out even more and he went on.

"For one hundred years, the tribes of the Si Wong Desert have held on to their freedom. Even the most elite Firebender troops would be brought to their knees by this place. This desert has always been impassable to anyone except you savages. For one hundred years, the Sandbender tribes have hidden away amidst these dunes, secure in the knowledge that they and they alone could survive here. Even with Ba Sing Se in our grasp, we could never have hoped to take the desert on foot, or even with rhinos and tanks. This was the last part of the Earth Kingdom that lay beyond our reach. Well, that is no longer true. As you can see, we have taken the skies with our war balloons—and with the skies under our command, the desert is ours as well. As we took this tribe, so too shall we take the rest in due time. Today, the Si Wong Desert has fallen."

The desert has fallen. The words hit Zafirah like a strike to the face. They tore through her heart and left an aching hollow in its path and a ringing in her ears. No one here is safe anymore, if they can cross the desert by air… She felt Basam's hand clutch her own with a white-knuckled grip. The press of his palm against hers was her only anchor against this sudden terror. Her eyes blurred with tears that she could barely hold back. She couldn't lose it, not right now, not yet.

The commander clapped his hands and the soldiers started rousing the prisoners. Some couldn't stand up on their own and were kicked to the dirt for their efforts before being hauled to their feet. She caught sight of Ghashiun, face twisted in pain as he got dragged upwards by his ponytail; not too far from him was Fung, a kindly old man who had sat patiently at the cantina's pai sho table day after day, waiting for a worthy challenger. A soldier seized him by the tattered collar of his tunic and wrenched the frail old man to his feet. Zafirah's fists twitched with the urge to lash out at them, she wanted to scream at them to leave him alone.

The twins watched helplessly while the soldiers shoved the captive Sandbenders into a line and chained their hands with iron manacles. The Firebenders herded their spoils of war through what had been the gateway of the oasis, to the convoy of metal carts gathered on the crest of the grassy slope that lead down to the main gate. The soldiers had come prepared, there were more than enough carts to hold all of the captives. Zafirah turned her head away, her jaw clenched.

Neither of them dared move a muscle until the clank and scrape of metal wheels and the grunting of komodo rhinos faded in the distance. Silence fell in the convoy's wake, grasping the razed and lifeless oasis in a stranglehold.

Zafirah's homeland had never frightened her much. She respected the desert, but she wasn't usually intimidated by it. Outsiders couldn't handle the loneliness of the massive desert, but the Sandbenders were experts at it. Zafirah had only ever been afraid of her home once before in her life… until that day. She and Basam clung to each other as they left their hiding place and stepped out into the remnants of their home. There was not a sound to be heard, aside from the crackling of embers as the last of the fires burned low. Smoke still hung in a thick haze, low over their heads, curling and drifting through the remains of the huts.

As they stood surrounded by smoking ruins and scorched corpses, she felt the deadly vastness of the desert more keenly than she ever had. Just like that, more than half of the Janan tribe was gone. The sounds of life were all missing—no voices laughing and arguing, no clanging of hammers or shouts from vendors luring in the occasional visitor. She could feel the weight of the unnatural silence pressing in around her—and it was as if the entire desert was suddenly looming around her, foreign and empty.

"What're we supposed to do?" Basam whispered, squeezing her arm. Zafirah craned her head to look at her brother, and the bleak, hollow-eyed stare on his face made everything worse somehow. Her twin, who was always smiling, who had been given his name because he had smiled much earlier than most babies do… that defeated heaviness looked so wrong on his face.

An echo rang through her memory from four years ago, after that first tragedy had hit them; days later, Basam's voice rousing her from the fog of her grief… We'll be fine, Zafi. We'll get through this. Even then, even through his own tears, he'd been able to muster a smile for her sake. And now, she couldn't even begin to think of what to say to him. What were they supposed to do?

As they picked their way through the rubble, Zafirah spotted Kuei— still lying on the same spot where he'd fallen. She heaved a ragged sigh and shuffled over to him with Basam following close behind. Crouching down, she studied the still form of the bizarre tourist who'd blundered into the Oasis on the wrong night. The blood on his face had dried and the red swelling had turned into a massive bruise.

"Poor bastard walked all the way here from Ba Sing Se to escape the Fire Nation. Look how that turned out," she murmured. She moved to stand up, but then Kuei stirred and she jumped in shock, falling onto her backside. "He's still alive?!" she exclaimed. Kuei shifted and tried to open his eyes, and then immediately winced and shut them again.

"Ow!" he groaned, reaching up to his bruised face. He pushed himself up slowly on one elbow and opened his left eye— the right one was swollen shut completely. "What… what happened?" he asked groggily.

"You took a Firebender fist right to the face. Thought for sure he'd cracked your skull open," Zafirah said, still astounded. Something glinted on the sand next to him— it was the round little glasses he wore. She picked them up and handed them to him. Grimacing, he carefully sat up and put the glasses on.

"I'm amazed they didn't break," Kuei remarked. "The battle is over, I presume?" Zafirah looked away, tears burning at the corners of her eyes. "It… didn't go well, did it?" Kuei asked quietly.

"Take a look for yourself," Zafirah muttered hoarsely. He did, and his mouth dropped open in horror.

"Where is everyone?" he whispered. His voice shook with trepidation.

"The Fire Nation carted 'em all off. At least, the ones they didn't murder, anyway," Basam said bitterly. He set his hand on his sister's shoulder. She stood up, and Basam offered a hand to Kuei, who accepted it and let Basam pull him to his feet.

The siblings' hut had mostly escaped the bombs and the flames, but it felt wrong to retreat to the comfort of their house with the bodies of their kinsmen lying in the dirt like yesterday's garbage. As Zafirah stared at them, she knew what they had to do.

"We'll put them to rest when the sun sets," she murmured. Basam wordlessly nodded his agreement. That was what how it was done, after all. That was what their kin always did when one of the tribe died—but there had never been so many before. Even when the tribes fought, there were never this many.

"Um…" Kuei said hesitantly. They both turned around to see him standing unsteadily behind them, with one hand gingerly cupping his black eye. "Is… is there anything I can do to help?"

"Help?" she echoed blankly.

"With the rites. I-I thought… I could perhaps help you." His voice shook. Thinking about it again, she realized his home had suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation as well. The siblings had been cut adrift, but Kuei was stuck right there with them in the same Spirits-forsaken boat.

"Go down to the pantry. You'll see a blue jar of salve in there. Use it on your eye," she told him, and her voice cracked in her bone-dry throat. Kuei hesitated.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do…?" he asked.

"It's awful kind of you, but this is our duty," Basam said. He tried to smile, but it didn't look much like one. Kuei frowned, then nodded and headed back to the weapons shop. The two Sandbenders turned to the task ahead of them. "We'll move 'em outside the wall first," Basam said softly. Zafirah murmured agreement, but her stomach was churning as she stared at the decimated bodies.

It was part of the tradition, after all: the living carrying the dead to their final home, one last reassuring touch from their friends and family so the spirit of the deceased would know that they were still loved, even though their physical body was gone. It also tended to keep the living from getting too cocky. The elders of the Janan tribe always said that death walked three steps behind life. It was always watching from the backs of the buzzard wasps and the black eyes of the poisonous snakes and lizards; it was right there in the sun's blistering heat and the sandstorm's skin-shredding winds. It was hard to forget that when you carried the dead to their rest with your own hands.

But as Zafirah gazed out at the scorched and battered remains of her kin, she found herself freezing in place. There were so, so many of them, their bodies so mangled… Her throat burned with bile and her hands shook. She looked away, eyes squeezed shut, her heart heavy. Then she opened her eyes and took a Bending stance, turning towards the nearest body. She recognized what was left of the face—he had been one of the men that handed out water and ice rations from the iceberg. She raised the sooty sand beneath him, lifting his remains up from the ground.

"Zafirah—" Basam started, eyes widening in shock. She turned her stare on him, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. He took an uneasy step back and looked over at the body beside the one she had lifted. He knew what she was challenging him to do. He sucked in a deep breath and shuffled over to the corpse, its face too blackened to be recognizable. He regarded the body for a long moment… and then he sighed in defeat and did the same thing she had done. Zafirah could only feel a sickening hollowness in her gut; neither of them had the stomach to do what was right.

Kuei felt guilt wash over him anew as he entered the pantry. The room was smaller than he'd assumed, its shelves alarmingly barren. These people had nothing, and still they opened their home to a stranger—a stranger whose arrival had been accompanied by misfortune. He couldn't stop the chilling thought that perhaps the Fire Nation had followed him to the desert… But no, surely a dethroned and exiled king wasn't enough of a threat to warrant that much effort? He hadn't been the one with the true power to begin with, and Princess Azula must have known that from her dealings with Long Feng— and that old traitor was surely either dead or imprisoned by now. Nevertheless, the fact remained that disaster had been shadowing his footsteps with relentless consistency.

Bosco rumbled sadly and nudged Kuei's arm as he emerged from the pantry with the blue jar in hand. The bear had fled to the basement during the attack; Kuei found him huddled in a corner, quaking and growling. He absently scratched the bear's ears with his spare hand as he ducked into the washroom and set his spectacles on the shelf.

The reflection in the dusty mirror was an unfamiliar image. Black eyes and dried blood were most definitely not a part of the 52nd Earth King's life. Nor was the grim weariness in his eyes. Nor was charging headlong into battle against a Fire Nation soldier for the sake of someone he'd known for less than half a day. He inhaled deeply to steady himself.

He squeezed his left eye shut, wincing at the pain that shot through the right side of his face as he did. He felt himself teetering at the edge of the map, a hair's breadth from the unknown. Kuei opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.

It had taken over an hour to move all the corpses beyond the wall. Zafirah and Basam had placed them all behind the Oasis, facing west, where they would be put to rest later. The sun was climbing high in the sky overhead, and Zafirah felt like its brightness was burning right through her, exposing her cowardice for the whole desert to see.

When the two of them slunk back to their home, Zafirah didn't even have the strength to climb the ladder down to the basement; she jumped the short distance down, stumbling as she landed and slumping against the wall next to the ladder. Basam clambered down after her and shuffled straight towards the washroom, staring down at his hands as if he didn't even recognize them.

Zafirah, for her part, was trying not to look at her hands—the very hands that she would later use to put their kin to rest. She couldn't stand to look at them; not because they were covered in gore, but because they were too clean. For all the dirt, soot, and sweat coating their faces and covering their clothes, their hands were cleaner than they should've been for the grisly task they'd just done.

The two of them had used their Sandbending to lift all of the remains over the wall and place them down, carrying them on the sand where they had been killed. So many people that they had grown up with were now dead—murdered—and she and her brother had literally kept their hands clean of it. They had hidden during the fight, and it was her own fault for panicking. She hadn't even been able to stomach the thought of moving the bodies with her own hands; she couldn't even give them that last gift of dignity and love.

She looked over at Kuei, taking a nap on the rug. He sat curled up against his pet's side, sleeping fitfully. His face contorted and he shifted as some kind of bad dream played out. His right hand gripped a fistful of the bear's brown fur. Zafirah could see he'd found the salve— it coated his swollen eye in a patch of pale green.

"Outsider's got the right idea," Basam said. "We oughta try and rest, too. Gonna be a long night."

Zafirah nodded weakly. Their task wasn't over yet, they still had a lot to do. There was the last rites at sunset, and then they would set out into the desert. Not all of the Janan tribe had lived at the Oasis; some were out scavenging for resources, some were off trading in nearby towns. Some were with their sister tribe, the Aqila. She and Basam were the only ones left, it was their task now to go and find their remaining kin.

And there was more to it than just finding their tribespeople. They had to tell the other Sandbender tribes about the flying machines, warn them that the Fire Nation could go anywhere they wanted in the desert. Their tribe at the oasis had been wiped out, and it sounded like the Fire Nation planned to come back and finish the job before too long. It was only a matter of time before the other tribes found themselves with a target on their backs as well. The only thing bigger than the Fire Nation's military was the Fire Lord's greed, it seemed. So now, with only themselves left, they had a duty to fulfill.

Ninety years ago, in the early days of the war, the elders of all the tribes had made a pact; they'd all agreed that if the war ever came to the desert, whoever survived the first attacks would warn the other tribes… and prepare for the counterattack. Of course, that had just been talk. It hadn't seemed likely to ever become a problem, back then. What could the Fire Nation possibly want with the Si Wong? There were no resources to plunder, no gold, no jewels, no coal, no timber, no water. If they came for slaves, the tribes could just retreat into the deep desert, and then what? The Fire Nation troops surely weren't stupid enough to think they could win a fight out there, if they even made it that far before the heat, sandstorms, and wildlife got them. It had seemed laughable, the idea of armored soldiers traipsing through the dunes, shaking sand out of their boots.

And yet, it looked like they'd all underestimated the Fire Lord. It was different now— if the warmongers wanted to take on the deep desert, all they had to do was hop into their flying machines. So now it fell to Zafirah and her brother to actually go and carry out that old pact from the early days. They would leave at sunset, travel while it was dark. Oh, this was going to be a very long night.

She settled onto her mattress, hardly aware she'd even moved until she found herself staring listlessly at the ceiling. She rolled onto her side and turned her restless gaze on Kuei and Bosco through a gap in the curtain. Ba Sing Se had already fallen, and now the Si Wong was next. She had always reckoned that the desert would hold out forever, even if everywhere else fell. The Desert of the Dead had seemed invincible, even more so than Ba Sing Se's walls. She had thought the war would never find them, but the Fire Nation had found a way in. They're never going to stop, she realized. It's never gonna be enough for them…

Hours later, just before sunset, Basam woke her up. Not that she'd slept much, and neither had he, judging from the dark circles under his eyes. Zafirah got up, letting out a heavy breath.

"It's time, huh?" she murmured.

"Yeah," Basam agreed quietly.

The sun was setting above the far-distant sand dunes in the west. Its fading rays silhouetted a grim scene: the row of bodies laid out on the sand behind the Misty Palms Oasis, and the two survivors standing before them. Zafirah and Basam were side by side as they steeled themselves for the task ahead.

Zafirah stared out at the orange and pink of the blazing sky, letting the light wash over her. This was the most important part of the day, after all, the sacred hour— the sun's retreat and the relief from the scalding heat that came with it. The elders liked to talk about the old legends, where the spirit of the sun granted the tribes of the desert a few hours of peace, a respite where they didn't have to worry about sun-sickness or thirst. In those myths, the beautiful colors of the sunset were a peace offering from the sun spirit, who felt remorseful that her duties put the Sandbenders in danger.

As Janan tradition said, the dead rested on their backs, lying so that they faced the sunset. This way, the sky's colors could fall on the eyes of the dead, one last time— the sun spirit's parting gift to them.

Zafirah glanced at Basam on her right; he stood with his head tilted back, eyes shut, mouth moving slightly as he silently recited the words of an ancient invocation. She spotted the round edges of a meditation stone grasped in his right hand; their father had carved one for each of them when they were babies, but Zafirah rarely took hers out of its pouch these days. Basam turned it over and over in his palm, running his fingers over the inscriptions carved into it.

She let her brother take care of the invocations, and she turned to the next step— they had to prepare the dead for their return to the sand. Before sunset, the two of them had gathered cloth from the homes of the victims; she'd taken clothes, headscarves, wraps. Now, she walked along the row of bodies and laid cloth scraps over each one, making sure to leave their faces exposed. She kept her eyes averted as she went through the task, and she couldn't help but feel a flash of shame. Death was a part of life, and they were supposed to treat the bodies of the dead with the same respect as the living; but these were people she and her brother had known their whole lives, and she couldn't bring herself to see them like this.

Once the cloth was in place, Zafirah walked over to her brother. A lighted torch burned by his feet, the end of it wedged into the sand to keep it upright. She bent and plucked it from the sand. Straightening up and looking to her brother, Basam met her eyes and nodded once.

"Spirit of the Sun, Spirit of the Si Wong," Basam recited, stretching his hands out towards the sunset. "We thank you for giving our kin to us, and we return them to your care." His voice cracked, each word heavy and slowly spoken.

Zafirah stood at the feet of the first body, and her hand shook as she held the torch. She had to do this, she knew that. Leaning down, she touched the flame to the cloth covering the body. It caught the edge of the fabric, and her stomach churned. She moved on to the next one, and the next, and the next.

"Their time with us was more sustaining than fresh water, and more nourishing than any meal," Basam said, his voice shaking as much as Zafirah's hands. "They brought light into our days, as the sun brings light to the day— to the desert," he corrected himself. "They brought… they brought peace to our hearts, as the night brings peace from the blazing heat."

She paused before the last one now. He had been the foreman on the sand sailer maintenance team; Basam had worked with him every day for years. Zafirah touched the fire to his cloth covering and watched it light up. She stood back, next to Basam, and she forced herself to watch as the flames rose over the bodies of the people they had grown up with. She fixed her eyes on the fire, forcing back the bile that rose. She would not treat these people like strangers in their last moments.

"Now their time has passed, and we give them back to the desert. From the sands they rose, and to the sands they go to— to their rest. Give them rest beyond sleep and happiness beyond the mortal heart, and—" Basam halted, taking a deep breath, then pushed on to the end. "And… grant us the good fortune to find them again in the next lifetime."

The flames blurred before Zafirah as tears flooded her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. Smoke from the fire burned in her lungs, but she didn't budge and she didn't take her gaze away. Beside her, from the corner of her eye, she saw Basam's shoulders quaking, heard his muffled sobs, but he kept his eyes on the fire as well. He grabbed her hand and she squeezed it tightly; he squeezed back. They stayed there as the flames burned, the smoke rising up into the gathering dusk.

Kuei waited near the entrance to the Sandbenders' hut, with Bosco at his side. As much as he would've liked to be able to help the siblings, it had occurred to him that this ritual was likely a private moment for them, so he had stayed behind as they went outside the wall to give their fallen tribespeople their sendoff.

When he spotted the smoke rising over the wall to the west, his heart lurched in his chest. To think of the pain they must've been feeling at that moment… their home was in ruins, and the two of them alone were left to say goodbye to the ones that had died. It was horribly unfair, of course, but he had learned recently just how unfair life could be.

Although, their fate was certainly more unfair than his. The misfortune that had befallen him was partly his own fault, after all— he could've kicked himself for not stopping to consider that perhaps the Dai Li were in league with Long Feng. If he had entrusted Long Feng's imprisonment to the city's soldiers rather than the Dai Li, perhaps the old bastard wouldn't have had the chance to join forces with the Fire Nation princess. If he had asked the Avatar to stay just a little longer and greet the so-called Kyoshi Warriors, the impostors would've been spotted right away. And then, maybe Kuei wouldn't have been forced into exile. Maybe Ba Sing Se wouldn't have fallen. He couldn't overlook his own fault in the matter.

Kuei had often heard in books that one small thing could lead to any number of changes in the world— a spider-fly beating its wings in Gaoling could cause a storm in the North Pole… one injured ostrich-horse could delay a delivery that loses a battle and decides the outcome of a war… If Princess Azula hadn't taken Ba Sing Se, then the conquest of the great walled city would've remained a top priority for the Fire Nation. Would they still have sent troops to the desert if Ba Sing Se had still been in their sights? Would that have prevented this attack on the Misty Palms Oasis?

These people had done nothing to deserve an attack of this scale. Certainly, Sandbenders had a reputation for thievery, but even if it were true it was hardly enough to condemn them to being brutalized as they had been. What they had experienced was the very definition of inhumanity. No, he certainly couldn't compare his fate to theirs.

He couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for this tragedy; the Earth King's jurisdiction extended to all parts of the Earth Kingdom, excluding Omashu of course. The Sandbenders were his responsibility, too. There must be something I can do for them, he thought, frowning. There had to be some way he could be of use here. That was a king's duty, wasn't it? To serve his people and provide for their needs? And that was why he had left the Avatar's group to travel on his own, wasn't it? He wanted to understand the lives of the Earth Kingdom's citizens, the better to protect and provide for them if he ever regained the throne. Heaving a frustrated sigh, he adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, and winced as his knuckles brushed his black eye. Bosco whined worriedly and Kuei ruffled the fur behind the bear's ears.

"It's okay, Bosco," Kuei murmured. Nothing was actually okay, but luckily for Bosco, none of this was his problem.

Eventually, he spotted the two Sandbenders climbing through a gap in the wall. The two of them supported one another as they shuffled back to the hut, each with an arm around the other's torso, braced against each other. As the two of them picked their way across the wreckage of the Oasis, Kuei couldn't help but wonder what they planned to do next. He knew what his own course of action had to be. He would take his leave, of course. He wanted to help, but if there was nothing he could do, then he would depart— he wouldn't impose on them any further. But what of his hosts? Would they stay in the Oasis, empty and demolished as it was? It was chilling to think of the two of them living alone in this devastated place.

As they arrived at the hut, Bosco looked up at them and gurgled sadly. Kuei mustered a smile at Bosco and patted his head reassuringly. The two Sandbenders stopped in front of Kuei and he knew the time had likely come to say his farewells.

"I'm sorry that you both have had to endure this," he said quietly. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Not unless you got an army we could borrow," Zafirah muttered darkly. Kuei shifted his weight awkwardly, glancing guiltily down at Bosco. The bear looked up at him and tilted his head. Clearing his throat, Kuei looked back up at Zafirah.

"I should be on my way, then," he said. "Thank you for your hospitality. If there is anything I can ever do to repay you…" The words felt painfully inadequate, but what else could he offer?

Basam shrugged slightly. "Don't worry about it," he mumbled. He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, adding, "We'll be heading out of here, too. The desert's waitin' for us. There's a… well, it's kind of an old promise we're obliged to keep, now that, uh…"

"All the other tribes need to know about what happened here," Zafirah explained to Kuei, her voice dry and cracking. "With those flying machines… there's nothin' to stop those hogmonkeys from going deep into the desert anymore. And that bastard commander said they'd be back for more soon."

A shiver ran down Kuei's spine as the implications of that dawned on him. The Fire Nation could attack as many of the Sandbender tribes as they wanted now, without the impediment of traveling on foot. It was just as the commander had said, the desert was truly theirs for the taking now, and they would certainly take as much as they wanted.

Basam scratched the back of his head, then said, "If you really wanna help with something, maybe you can help us get a sand sailer ready to go," he remarked.

Kuei nodded briskly, saying, "Certainly!" If there was even the smallest chance to repay his hosts, he would take it. Surely, even he could help with something as simple as packing supplies. Zafirah motioned for him to follow them back into their hut.

Zafirah sat on the rug in the middle of the room, staring around at the only home she had ever known. They were packing up whatever they could carry for the journey into the desert— whatever they didn't need, they'd be able to trade for food and water. It wasn't like they could stay here, after all, and the leftovers would just get picked over by thieves, so they were emptying the place out.

They couldn't stay here, she knew that; and once they had delivered their message, they wouldn't be coming back. They would seek out shelter with their remaining Janan tribespeople and the Aqila tribe, the sister tribe to their own. If they ever returned to the Oasis, it wouldn't be for a very long time. And when they did, what would be left? The wreckage would get plundered from top to bottom. Even if their captured Janan kin ever got away from the Fire Nation's grasp, they might not have a home to come back to.

She clenched her fists on her knees till her knuckles popped, eyes burning with tears. Zafirah ducked her head, teeth gritted, then jumped to her feet and strode over to the kitchen. Her pulse was pounding all of a sudden, and she started shoving the few plates and cups they had into a sack with a surge of restless energy that passed as quickly as it had hit, leaving her leaning listlessly against the cabinet.

Basam paused in the midst of gathering up their few blankets and pillows they had, and he glanced over at her. Neither of them said anything, but even from across the room she could see the heavy slump to his shoulders and she knew he had probably realized the same thing. Zafirah went back to packing up their kitchen, fighting back more tears.

Just then, Kuei clambered down the ladder, stumbling off it at the bottom from the weight of the water skins he was carrying. Basam had asked him to go and see if he could find any spare supplies in the wreckage of the neighboring huts. Neither Zafirah nor her twin could bring themselves to go and look, but they might need the extra food and water— and it would just go to waste if they left it.

"Here, these were all the water skins I could find," he said, lugging them over to her. He'd strung them on a length of tattered rope, running it through their straps. When he handed her the string of skins, she hefted it up and stared in surprise.

"You made a carrying handle," she remarked. Kuei cleared his throat and wiped his hands on his pants.

"W-well, it seemed like an easier way to gather more of them all at once," he said.

She mustered a faint smile, and it wasn't entirely forced. "It was a good idea," she told him. Slinging the string over her shoulder, she dragged it over to the pile of packed items in the middle of the room.

Once the supplies were handled, there wasn't much else to pack. Zafirah and Basam didn't have much in the way of personal stuff— a couple extra sets of clothes between the two of them, Zafirah's hair comb, Basam's shaving kit, a few other odds and ends.

With nothing else to do, Kuei had set about preparing for his own journey. His personal belongings amounted to Bosco, the clothes on his back, and now a Water Tribe war club. Zafirah had flat-out refused to let him give it back; he probably couldn't have hit Si Wong Rock at half a pace with the damned thing, but the way she saw it, he wasn't exactly losing anything by keeping it. Maybe he'd even learn how to use it properly, and save himself from getting more black eyes in the future.

It was a good weapon for him, she'd decided. It was just as awkward and out-of-place here as he was. One of Ghashiun's cronies from outside the Janan tribe had brought it to her after the dust-up with the Avatar, and it had been sitting on that shelf in their store ever since. She had no idea why Kuei had picked it up, or why he'd seen fit to take a run at a Firebender with it, but it had happened anyway. Clearly, he didn't have much practice in choosing his fights.

Basam patted her on the back once as he passed by on his way to the ladder. He'd go and find a sand sailer for them— if there were any left intact. At the base of the ladder, he stopped and turned back suddenly.

"Hey, Zafi, what're we gonna do about a navigator?" he asked. Zafirah swore under her breath, shaking her head. One more problem to heap onto their woes.

"We'll have to go by sight, I guess," she muttered. It wouldn't be easy, but with three posts on a sand sailer and just the two of them, what choice did they have? Basam nodded grimly and hurried up the ladder.

"A navigator?" Kuei asked from behind her. He sounded concerned.

"Yeah," Zafirah sighed, running her hands through her hair. "Takes three of us to make a sand sailer go. Two to power it and one up top to steer it. Three's the least you need, we usually don't sail out with any less than five." She snorted and added sourly, "Gonna be an interesting ride with just two of us."

Kuei was silent for a moment, and then he said, "Let me do it." Zafirah turned and looked up sharply at him, startled by the determination in his voice. He was looking right at her, back straight and his hands in fists at his sides. He added, "Tell me what needs to be done, and I'll do whatever I can to get it right."

She gaped at him, astounded. "You… wanna come with us. On the sand sailer. Into the deep desert," she said.

He swallowed heavily, then gave a firm nod. "Yes, I do," he said, lifting his chin.

Where was this sudden backbone of his coming from? And more importantly… why? She'd never known an outsider to be so damn helpful, unless they wanted something. She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms.

"What's it to you?" she asked with a scowl. "This isn't your fight. How come you wanna help out so bad?"

Kuei faltered, his fists loosening, his shoulders dropping slightly. "Uh, well, you offered me shelter," he sputtered. "Y-you opened your home to me, a-and such a terrible thing has happened to you and your brother, and I— I thought perhaps I could return the favor…" He looked away from her, glancing to his pet bear, like the beast was going to back him up somehow.

Zafirah barked out a sharp, hollow laugh. In all the horror of the day, she'd almost forgotten that this weird man had come here as a tourist the day before. She hadn't thought anything of it when he'd offered his help after the final rites, but here he was, still trying to make himself useful. And yet, he couldn't even look her in the eye while making the offer. She'd met plenty of "generous" outsiders before; so what was this one's angle? On top of everything else, was she now going to have to regret being so nice to this stranger?

"You sure are helpful, huh?" she remarked as frustration seethed within her. "First you wanna help us pack, now you wanna tag along into the desert? Helping us get a sailer ready is one thing, but this is a whole different business entirely."

Kuei took a step back. "I— I just wanted to do something to show my gratitude for—"

"You don't make an offer like that just to repay a favor. Maybe we didn't make it clear, but we're gonna be sailing into the heart of the Si Wong," she interrupted sharply. She jabbed a finger at him, her other hand going to her hip. "Why in the world would you be so damn eager to go with us? You do realize where we're goin', right? Did they teach you anything at all about the desert in those fancy Ba Sing Se schools?"

He stuttered incoherently for a moment, going slightly pale— but then, amazingly, he rallied. "Yes, I've read quite a few books about the desert," he said, folding his arms over his chest. "There are sandstorms as big as Ba Sing Se's walls, there are buzzard wasps, there are quite a number of venomous insects and reptiles. They say there are more ways to die in the Si Wong than there are grains of sand."

"And you still wanna ride with us? You really wanna be our navigator?" she asked, aghast.

"I want to help," he stated. This time, he didn't break eye contact. She stared at him, completely at a loss. So he was really going to insist that he was just that much of a helpful spirit, then? She strode right up to him and jabbed her fingertip against his shoulder, looking him dead in the eye.

"Then tell me the real reason why you wanna do this," she told him. He opened his mouth, shut it again, and looked away.

"There was someone I let down in Ba Sing Se," he said quietly. "I… I failed immensely in my responsibilities. I let down a lot of people, and one person in particular… someone important. I can't stand by and watch more people get hurt. I want to do whatever I can, wherever I can. I'd rather put my life at risk than watch helplessly anymore."

Zafirah's brow furrowed. That had sounded remarkably honest. There was clearly more to it, but the root of what he'd just said… he was being truthful. He'd looked away again, but not fast enough to stop her from seeing the shame on his face.

"You know you've never been on a sand sailer, right?" she pointed out— but the fight had gone out of her, the frustration had boiled away. "What makes you think you can even help us at all? Could be that you just end up as dead weight, slowing us down."

"That's… that's true," he admitted, and it was clearly something he hadn't stopped to consider. His shoulders slumped and he shrugged. "You don't owe me this chance— or anything at all, really," he said. "I can't ask you to put yourself at risk for the sake of my own redemption."

Zafirah crossed her arms, tapping her fingertips against her forearm as she mulled it over. It'd be a risk, taking an outsider out on a sailer as an untested navigator. But sailing out with no navigator at all was just as much of a risk. The difference was that one option might work out, and the other was pretty much asking for disaster.

Finally, she sighed and shook her head. "The other tribes aren't as tolerant of outsiders as us Janan folks," she remarked. "When we get there, don't talk to anyone till we make an introduction, all right? And we're gonna have to get your clothes fixed up. You won't last long dressed like that."

"So, you'll take me with you, then?" Kuei asked hopefully.

"Well, yeah, I just said that, didn't I?" Zafirah said, fists on her hips. She knew she might end up regretting it, but she'd made her decision. "We'll take you along till we find another tribe, and then we'll drop you off at the edge of the desert so you can move on. Deal?"

"It's a deal," he agreed resolutely. He was going to make the most of this chance, he just had to.

Zafirah motioned for him to follow her. "C'mon, we got a lot to do still before we leave," she said.

They'd be traveling at night— it was even more important now, with just three in their crew and one of them an outsider.

Down in the basement, Basam picked up the last of the supply sacks and slung them over his shoulder, mustering up the most reassuring smile he could manage as he passed by. Zafirah did her best to echo it, despite the horrible, aching hollowness in her chest. Her twin always had a smile to offer anybody that couldn't find one of their own. Their parents had always said—

She took another shaky breath and fought against the sudden stinging in the corners of her eyes. She glanced around the basement; this was their home, hers and her parents' and her brother's, and as much of a pain as it was living in a place like the desert, it was still theirs. Now it was empty, gutted, with every easily-carried thing taken out. Anyone walking in would've thought the place had been picked over by scavengers— and it would be, before too long, and the rest of the oasis along with it. The thought of raiders picking over the remains of her home, snatching anything in sight with their grimy hands and then doing the same to her neighbors' homes, the places where her friends and kin had grown up…

Her blood boiled at the thought, and for a moment, all she wanted to do was to stay here and guard the Oasis. Why should they have to leave their home, anyway? Why did it have to be them? Why was it up to her and Basam to carry out this task? Why did it have to be the Misty Palms Oasis that the Fire Nation felt like raiding last night?

But she didn't have time for self-pity. She took one last look around to see if they'd missed anything useful. Her gaze landed on Kuei, sitting in the middle of the floor with Bosco lounging beside him.

Kuei was exactly where she'd left him half an hour ago: doing his damnedest to follow her instructions to make his outfit "desert-proof". The clothes he had left him with bare arms and lower legs, and bare skin in the open desert wasn't exactly a good idea. So she'd given him a shirt with long sleeves (borrowed from her brother) and a bundle of spare bindings to cover himself up with; he'd already layered his own shirt over the borrowed one and done a decent job of wrapping his legs, and was now completely failing at wrapping his right hand. Zafirah rolled her eyes and strode over to him, and sat cross-legged in front of him.

"Give me that," she told him, hands reaching out for his. "We'll be here all day if you keep that up."

Kuei hastily held his hands away from her. "No, no, that's quite all right, I think I nearly have it," he declared.

"No, seriously, give 'em here. We don't wear those things for fun. You'll get yourself hurt if they're done wrong," she said sternly. He reluctantly held out his right hand, and she quickly unwound the messily-wrapped strip of cloth. After smoothing it out, she began wrapping the cloth around his knuckles with the ease that comes from a lifetime of daily practice. Kuei watched intently, studying how she did it. She wouldn't have been surprised if he was trying to memorize how to do it on his own.

His skin felt smooth and soft under her callused fingertips. Yep, definitely from a rich, noble background, she thought. Probably never done a single day's hard work, never been in a fight… Kuei winced again as his eye twinged. He raised his free hand to touch it, then dropped his hand again like he'd thought better of messing with it.

Zafirah grimaced in sympathy, recalling black eyes of her own. "That's what happens when you pick the wrong fight," she said, not unkindly. "Why'd you do that, anyway? Felt like takin' a swing at a Firebender, huh? Can't say I blame you, but that was maybe not the best idea you've ever had." He looked up at her, his unbruised eye so wide and solemn it was almost comical next to the swollen one.

"Oh, no, not at all! But you were in the midst of fighting those other soldiers and that one was trying to attack you from behind," he explained. Zafirah's hands froze on his for a second. Was he saying he'd done it to help her? She hadn't even seen the soldier he'd charged at until his shout had drawn her attention. Recovering, she went back to work on his wraps.

"He was sneaking up on me? You sure about that?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"Yes, I'm certain of it. He was taking aim at you while you were distracted by the other soldiers. I had to at least try to stop him." He chuckled faintly and brushed his fingers over his eye. "I'm afraid it didn't work very well, did it?" he asked wryly.

"It did, as a matter of fact," she said. "I never saw him coming. Didn't even know he was there till I heard you yellin' your fool head off. He'd have roasted me." Bleeding hogmonkeys, this idiot saved my life.

"Well then, I suppose it was worth a punch in the face," he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upward a little. She didn't respond to that— what was she supposed to say?

As she finished the wraps on his right arm and went to work on his left, she shot a surreptitious glance at him. He was just sitting there, still watching her methods as she worked. What a bizarre type of outsider this was, with that absurd hodgepodge of mismatched clothes, and just one Spirits-be-damned sandal, and what was probably the first black eye he'd ever had in his whole entire life… and this was the person who'd saved her hide? She couldn't have imagined a less heroic-looking rescuer. Who was this tourist and why was he so damned helpful?

But there it was— he'd saved her life. She was indebted to him now. And she wasn't sure how she felt about that. He was from Ba Sing Se, and probably nobility at that; when those types came to visit the Oasis, there was always something they wanted— and when they offered help of any type, or the smallest show of kindness, it was never for free. Outsiders had all kinds of peculiar expectations about Sandbenders and they all seemed to think they owned the place. Was this one really any different, or was he just better at hiding it?

Somehow, she had a hard time believing that he was lying. It was entirely possible that he had saved her life because he thought it was the right thing to do, and that made her incredibly uneasy. Outsiders didn't go around helping Sandbenders out of kindness—it was a basic rule of her world, and he had no idea he'd broken it. She tied off the binding at his elbow and sat back, taking a look at her handiwork. The bindings weren't as thickly layered as a Sandbender's would be, but they'd do the trick well enough.

"There ya go, all done," she said. Kuei smiled slightly and examined his arms, flexing his fingers and wrists.

"Incredible. They're snug, but not uncomfortable. And they don't limit my movement at all!" he marveled. "Thank you for doing that."

"Hey, it'll just make trouble for us if you get sunburned or something," Zafirah said with a shrug. "I didn't do it to be nice." What a weird thing to thank her for. I'll be keeping my eye on you, outsider, she thought. Before he'd just been an amusing oddity, but now he was a riddle. And Zafirah never could pass up a good riddle.

For those who might be wondering- yes, it's true! Kuei only has one sandal when he begins his journey in Book 3! Go look at screencaps from Book 3 Episode 1, the scene where Kuei and Bosco leave. He's wearing one. sandal. What a nerd. Keep an eye out for Chapter 3, coming soon!