Reviews! Which I like a lot! I love hearing from you guys, it really inspires me to write.
goddragonking: Thank you very much! This chapter might actually be the longest I've written for this story.
reula: You might be a little disappointed by the end of this cliff ^^'
Lien walked over where the sounds had originated from, in front of the rest of the Gaang, to watch two young women duke it out over a boy. A boy. Who wasn't even that cute, and just sat back and smiled at the duo. A closer look and Lien was able to figure that they were probably sisters.
She wasn't surprised by this. There was a general air of tension around the entrance to the bay. Refugees were there with their few, meagre belongings, accompanied by feet sore from travel and high tempers left over from all of the mishaps that accompanied it. It was really only a matter of time before sparks caught fire and exploded into fights.
It didn't help that the boy was making idle commentary as the girls tried to rip each others hair out.
"Should we do something?" Aang asked from behind her. Lien shrugged, watching the taller girl clock the smaller one in the face.
"They have security here, and if they don't duke it out here, then where?" she reasoned.
"Fighting is never the answer," Aang objected, at the same time Toph sidled over to a shady man in patched clothes to place a bet on the 'the one with the limp'. Lien let his words roll off of her shoulders while she went to place a bet of her own. It was easy for him to say that. He had been raised by peaceful people in a mountain top, away from hardship and struggle. For her, and probably Sokka and Katara too, to a lesser extent, every day was a fight.
A fight against the world to keep your place in it. A fight against instincts and temperaments and other people. A fight for this second life she had been given.
In some ways, she envied him. In others, she was blessed not to be him. Sheltered or not, Aang was still the last of his people. The only Air Nomad left in the world.
Probably.
Lien had always had suspicions, always had questions and thoughts, that perhaps that wasn't entirely true. Pacifistic or not, Air Nomads could fucking fly. Why wouldn't at least some of them escape? Why wouldn't at least a handful run? Hide? Keep their culture alive while avoiding total annihilation at the hands of the Fire Nation?
Their destruction was outlandish, and Lien couldn't comprehend why anyone would stay still to be slaughtered.*
There was only one more minute before a pair of girls in tan appeared and caught both of the combatants by their arms, twisting their limbs so they were forced to lower themselves to their knees. Curses were still spit between the two, and nasty words passed through the gathered crowd. Money exchanged hands and Lien smiled sweetly at the poor saps forced to hand it over to her. Once she had the coins she strung them up on a thin metal cord that she tied onto a strap on the inside of her bag. It would be a hell of a lot harder to steal then.
It was only then that Lien realized that, in the middle of the chaos, Sokka had disappeared.
Which was just lovely.
"Hey, Katara," she spoke up, drawing the darker girls attention to her. "Where'd your brother run off to?"
Katara paused, and looked around before she started to frown. "I don't- Oh!" her eyes lit up. "He's over there! And look who's with him!"
Lien followed her pointing finger and cocked her head. She recognized the girl with him, in the same way that she might recognized John Astin or Adam West.
"Suki!" Aang cheered before sprinting towards the girl.
Lien leaned over to Toph. "You know here?" she asked amiably.
The girl snorted. "Never seen her before."
Lien nodded, then paused, looked down at Toph. There was no way that was a pun. That was just, just perfect.
"I think I love you," she said, making the smaller girl jerk in surprise. Before she could respond the firebender went to introduce herself to the Kyoshi warrior, who had always been someone that the girl admired. Suki, Asami and Korra were her favorites. They meant a lot for her to see growing up.
She wondered idly how easily Suki could kick her ass.
"You know I once knew a teacher who put a sign above his classroom that said that," Lien commented, staring at the writing on the wood. "Abandon Hope," she recited. Her eyes grew far off and she tilted her head, seeing printed paper in a language lost to this world, seeing a sea of people whose attention on their phones gave courage to the little glass maker standing at the front of the room. '
""Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of Power divine,
Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
"How horrible," Ying cried.
Lien cocked her head. "There are some of the desert, the mad and lost, who would disagree," she said slowly, "hope, for the Jiuquan, is fragile and delicate. As far as they're concerned hope bring only pain and disappointment, and a profound understanding of loss. As far as they are concerned," she repeated herself, "those who abandon hope are those who survive most easily."
"Of course," she added, "Of course, surviving and living are two different things." She would know.
"I'd like to do both, so let's get a move on," Sokka spoke too loudly and when she looked at him Lien noted a dullness in his normally bright eyes. How odd.
Aang wasn't looking much better. Losing Appa really took its toll on him.
Lien sighed softly and trailed after the group. Even after travelling with them she still felt like something of an outsider, for one reason or another. They were nice, of course, but she didn't feel like she belonged with them. She missed her desert and her library. She missed the sand in her skin and wind and the air. She missed the dry heat and the endless waves of dust that stirred like smoke in the wind, covering all that was. She missed her tribe and family.
Well, Shuya and her husband. Her sister she could do without.
The trail to the Serpent's Pass was thin and crumbling. They had to go one at a time and Lien was trusting Toph and Aang not to let them all fall to their deaths in the water far below. She couldn't swim well.
The Fire Nation ship didn't help anything, but Aang handled with the ease of long months of practice. Lien didn't envy the necessity of it. Of course, she would have to learn to get used to it herself, until Zuko finally joined up. After all, she was the most unorthodox firebender the world had ever seen, and the Avatar needed a master.
Unless he wanted to start glassbending, she could only help so much. Probably more than Jeong Jeon had. Fearing one's powers was the key to a life of misery and terror. Lien had never had the patience for it.
"You don't talk very much, do you?" Suki asked her when they found a spot to camp. The sun was setting, the night was rising. Lien was still getting used to the temperature not dropping straight below zero when the light disappeared.
"I speak when there's something to say," she said diplomatically. Then smiled. "I'm used to having a cloth over my mouth all the time. My people are quiet out of necessity."
"I've never been to the desert," Suki laid her sleeping matt down next to Lien's, only for Sokka to snatch it up before she could sit down.
"Suki! You shouldn't sleep there, there's no telling how stable that ledge is," he dragged her matt closer to the fire and Lien arched a brow high. Her sleeping bag was on the same ledge as Suki's.
"I'm feeling the love over here," she drawled sarcastically, twirling her finger in the air. Sokka didn't notice, he was too busy fussing over Suki to bother.
Toph slapped the earth, startling Lien.
"That ledge isn't giving out tonight," she declared. Lien smiled at her.
"Thanks," she said sincerely. At least someone was looking out for her. The smile fell when she looked out over the vast span of water. Tomorrow she would be under it in a horrible, makeshift submarine.
She would rather try to fly, if she was being honest.
The desert girl lay back on the hard ground, missing sorely the soft dunes and the familiar scent of her home. The sound of waves slapping cliffs, the smell of dense, wet rock was so foreign from what she knew and loved. The scent of dust and them sound of dunes rolling and changing shape were beautiful. She longed for it.
"Something is rotten in the state of denmark.**" The ruff around Shin Yun's neck nearly curved up to his lips. Lien turned from him, her sword clicking at her belt. The bricks lead her away, towards the phantom of her father.
Adam Baressi walked along to the edge of the cliff, through the entry hall of Wayne manor until they were standing on top of the tower of terror. Water World stretched out around them. The sand shark breached the clouds and arched across their heads.
Lien lifted her voice.
"Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further!"
Adam looked back at her. He was as she remembered, sun kissed, shaves bald on chin and head, with laugh lines crinkling his eyes. His favorite blue checkered shirt was buttoned halfway up.
"Mark me." It was no order but an advisement. His daughter nodded. His daughter that was not his daughter but more his daughter than not.
"I shall."
He tugged his mutton chops that were not his. "My hour is almost come. When I to sulfurous and tormenting flames, must render up myself."
She gasped in horror. "Alas, poor ghost!"
"Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing, to what I shall unfold," he shook his head. Lien stepped closer, across the pile of fish bones.
"Speak," she begged, "I am bound to hear."
"So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.
"You must be ready for revenge, too, when you hear me out," he warned.
"What?" she was the dead one, why would she avenge him? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Adam cleared his throat and blinked gold eyes at his not-daughter-that-was-a-daughter. "I am thy father's spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires. Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood!"
He sucked a dragon's breath.
"Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combinèd locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fearful porpentine!" he breathed fire from his scally mouth. The sunset burned pink, purple, and blue. "But this eternal blazon must not be, to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—"
"O' God!" she wailed. She loved her father, truly, but the dragon wished her vengeance and she would not dally on quests of blood letting anger.
"-Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder," he shot her a dirty look for her interruption. "Take revenge for his horrible murder, that crime against nature."
"Murder!" Lien cried.
He nodded gravely, his top knot bobbing, "Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural."
"Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift, as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my-" Revenge? No revenge. No need for it. "Reverence."
He narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms over his red armor. "I find thee apt, and duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Harmony, hear."
She stood straighter.
"'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forgèd process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown!" he pointed, and Lien followed it to find Peter standing on his hind legs, with a circlet wrapped over his fluffy ears.
"My uncle?" Lien stared at the Knowledge Seeker, who tilted his head and wagged his tail. He dropped to his forepaws and trotted closer to her, pushing his head underneath her hand.
"Who's uncle?" Adam asked, stepping towards her. He gripped her shoulders tight, too tight. "Iroh uncle, that uncle?" His hair fell out in wild wisps and her father spun around, "What does he matter now? That failure! Not like me, no. I am Zhao the Conqueror! I am the Moon Slayer!"
He wandered into the fog, out of sight. Lien looked down at Peter, who licked her fingers and tilted his head to the crown fell around her wrist in a silver bracelet. Upon closer inspection she found that it pointed up in one place and arched down right below it, to a smaller state. Etched upon it were delicate designs. She couldn't read it, but she knew what it said.
Illumination.
He gripped her hand delicately in his sharp teeth and Lien trailed after the creature, out of the fog. Into the light. A bunny with wings fluttered into her vision and she reeled back, so surprised she fell on her butt.
Her eyes opened to the rising sun and sharp ridges of the Serpent's Pass. ***
Lien squinted at the vast expanse of water that stretched between her and the other side. The gap that left them stranded, cut off from Ba Sing Se. Then she looked at Katara, who was inspecting the water.
"You know what," she said tersely, "I think I'll stay here. Catch some rays. Not drown."
"Don't be silly," Katara scolded, "No one's going to drown."
Lien gave her humorless look. "Easy for the waterbender to say."
"I feel you," Toph muttered. Lien squeezed her shoulder and the group gathered together, congregating into a line that lead into a irritating bubble of water. Lien took a deep breath to try and calm herself. She liked neither enclosed spaces not this much water. This was, perhaps, the worst possible place in the world for her.
The fish were pretty enough, and Momo seemed to like them quite a bit. Lien smiled, ever so slightly.
"I didn't know Lemur's were such good swimmers," she said idly. Something else caught her eyes. "Huh. I didn't know snakes got that big."
Lien froze. Ying bumped into her back. The girl was halfway through a curse when she cut it off by sucking in a deep breath. She snapped her goggled over her eyes just in time to be smashed aside by the tidal force of the great sea serpent.
Toph thought quicker than any of them and forced the earth up, up, up through the water until they breached the surface of the straight. Lien was kneeling with it, gripping the dirt as best she could. She was chanting under her breath in a language half forgotten, probably looking mad with fright.
When the Serpent resurfaced she hissed and stood up. The girl balanced on the balls of her feet, her eyes narrowed up at it. The snake opened its mouth and roared.
"Oh great and powerful Sea Serpent, Please accept this humble and tasty offering," Sokka begged, bowing down and holding Momo above his head. Lien placed her hand out on his arm, her gold eyes locked on the creature that lifted itself up above them, showing off its slithering tongue.
"Put the Lemur down," she said slowly. Sokka obeyed, his eyes on her. She had never used fire around this much water, but giant monsters she had some experience with. The Sand Shark was a royal pain in her behind most days. She felt little guilt throwing fire down its throat. And now, she felt no smashing it into the mouth of the snake.
Until Ying gasped her horror.
While the snake writhed and tried to shake its new burns off Katara ran onto the water, throwing frost in front of with ease that Lien envied. It the grace of someone taught by a master possessed. She might never know what that was like. The girl shook it off and, remembering long ago tales, grabbed Toph's hand in hers.
"Come on," she encouraged. "I won't let you fall."
Toph gripped her hand and they ventured onto the ice. The younger girl hesitated on the frosted surface, her pale eyes wide and her breath sharp. Lien squeezed her hand.
"Trust me," she encouraged. Then started humming while she pulled the girl along. "Trust me, trusting me, darling dear, I'm so sincere, there's no need to fear."
"Are you singing," Toph asked, incredulously.
"Just walk," Lien ordered. The monster reared around, away from Katara's ice and Aang's glider irritation. Lien hoped that some of the fire had spread to blind the damnable beast. "I hate water," she grumbled, and took Toph as a dead run the last hundred feet. The monster fell through the ice, shattering it and sending the girls sweeping into the dirt below.
Lien hit it with cry as her shoulder twisted painfully.
"We should run!" Sokka declared, looking at his sister. He was already moving. The fool.
"Sokka," Lien called, drawing him to a stop. "Pregnant women can't run!"
Ying cried out and Lien had to amend her statement.
"Women in labor can't run either!"
*I'm considering starting a story about this, too.
**Without a google search, guess where this is from.
***I don't like reading a ton of Italics, so I put that (majorly confusing) dream in regular format.