Oh wow. I didn't expect so many people to get so mad at Katara! I just figured that a fight was the natural conclusion to their tension.
Anyhow, reviews!
yulionde: I hope you like this chapter too!
tylermech66: ... I made a frozen reference?
agimaru: oh my god holey. I'm sorry but you won't be getting many answers this chapter.
TiamatisObscure: eeeeyup.
Lightsbane1905: The sarcasm is strong in this one.
Gerbilfriend: What frozen reference! Katara is way scary.
fanfic smiles: I understand why Katara hates them, I really do, but she takes it a little far sometimes, right?
CrazyQuilava: oh my gosh, thank you! Your words mean so much to me, thank you so much! I'm really glad that you like this story so much, I do try really hard with every chapter I write!
DannyPhantom619: You know, I really don't know what Azula will think of her just yet. I haven't quite worked it out, tbh, which is part of the reason she hasn't made any appearance since the drill.
akagami hime chan: Katara has a few issues...
Cookie-the-Rookie: Girl needs like, a therapist or something. Just sayin
actualcypher: conflict!
nightmaster000: Thanks! You'll have to wait a while longer for that!
. .cookie: Your name is really ironic because my dad just ate the last cookie that I made. And sorry, this isn't what happens next!
Guest from October 30th: She kind of is, isn't she?
Guest from October 30th: This is pretty soon, right?
Wicked Neko: yeeeah seriously. Lien needs friends!
Anonymous Legacy: Lien can't always be the mature one! Like you said, she's been facing a lot of emotional instability lately, and with the rejection of her other friends her support group has been cut into, well, nothing essentially. Shit like that weighs down on a person.
Guest from October 30th: Someone needs to talk some sense into Katara, but I kind of doubt its going to be the boys.
Eclipse130: Oh no its fine, rant as much as you like! I honestly do like Katara, she was always one of my favorite characters, when I was a kid and now too, but she isn't a saint, she really is a complex hot head, and I do my best to show that here. Since no one's been telling me that I'm crazy or that she's way out of character, I'll just take that to mean that I've got a decent grasp on that ^^'
amgs: Yeah, Lien probably could have handled that better. But so could Katara. These girls had some issues, don't they?
Moseying Guest: Oh, things will get much worse. Not that these next two chapters will show that!
lissette0512: Thank you! Here's an update with zero resolution!
Shahzeb: Oh I will not!
investedinintrovert: Thank you! I got to visit Murano when I was younger, and it just seemed like something I wanted to incorporate in a character someday. And that's how Lien came about.
suushisan: Thanks!
scout017: thank you so much! Wow, that's really amazing to hear! I can't really teach you how to write, my only real advice is keep going and don't be too hard on yourself if your not satisfied with what you have. Write until your hands fall off! (That's not an exaggeration, my hands hurt all the time ^^')
Innieminnie: And I'm still leaving you with it here!
DearChibico: Yeah, sorry
mcrae1o1nick: probably. Any smart person would do that. And wow, that would be awful!
Anonymity 15: She really should probably leave after this ^^'
shen0: Damn, that would be brutal!
What is and never was.
Shuya pet her hair, singing softly in the flickering light of the fire. It was too high for the sticks inside of it, a fault of Lien's. Her control was not spot on, and her emotions were as high as the fire was rising.
"Fear not the dark, for the winds will guide you, fear not the cold, you will be safe and warm. Trust in my love and my hands will bring you, once more into my waiting arms."
It was a small comfort to her. Lien closed her eyes against the hurt. Shuya had only been her mother for eight years, but she loved her as dearly as she had loved Adam. To be sent away from her new home, it hurt. Her adult mind may understand but her young heart broke to pieces with the knowledge.
Shuya shifted, setting her daughter in her lap and pulling out a long parchment of paper. Of map of desert. She pointed to the Misty Palms, where Lien had been only once before. Her people were constantly on the move, from one outpost to the other.
"There is a caravan that will be travelling through here in a few days. They will buy supplies at the Palms. When we get there, we will pay for you to be taken to Shenzhen. It's a Fire Nation town, with a port. A woman named Suisen will fetch you from there," as she spoke, Shuya traced out the paths on the map, unfurling a new on so she could see the rest of the earth kingdom as well.
Lien didn't like the way that she was talking.
"You make it sound like you won't be there for it," she grumbled. A soft sigh from above heightened her nerves.
"I won't. We only have enough money to book passage for one, my Lotus. This is a journey you must make on your own."
"But I'm not old enough," she argued quickly. Her hand latched onto the front of Shuya's dusty tunic. "I haven't even faced the desert on my own yet! How will I face the world?"
Shuya hushed her, taking her small hand into her own.
"This will be your Crucible. Your test. You will go to your father, and he will teach you to burn as brightly as he does. You will find your place, if not in the Fire Nation then with us, when you are older and a master."
"What if I can't do it?" she challenged, staring up with tears in her eyes.
"Then try. Try and you will never fail, even if you die. Giving up-"
"Is worth than death," Lien finished.
Shuya smiled at her. She reached into the folds of her clothes and pulled out a necklace that she dropped over her daughter's head. Lien picked it up, looking down curiously. It was her tribe's name, in a dark sand set upon white grains. On the back, engraved, it read 'strength through endurance'.
"You are Gansu, Lien, no matter how far you go. You will endure, you will survive, and heaven and hell send aid to your enemies," she recited the words that Lien had heard all of this life, and kissed her daughter's head before she rolled the maps back up and pulled her once more into a hug.
The crackling fire died down as she curled further into her mother's side, falling into the comfort of the hand in her hair and the warmth of her mother's arms.
It would all be gone tomorrow.
The caravan stood before her, swarming like a hill of fire ants. It was pulled by ostrich horses, marking it foreign from the desert if the people upon it did not. They wore soft green clothes, so different from the coarse beige that Lien was accustomed to. There weren't any other children that Lien could see. She would be alone, even more so than she first figured.
"Lien?" Shuya touched her shoulder, perhaps for the last time.
The little girl, who was not so little, stepped away from her with a deep breath.
"Time and Tide wait for no man," she declared. She didn't look back at Shuya, for she feared that if she did she would not be able to take the rest of the steps in her journey. She had moved on from her Adam, it was time to move on from Shuya.
The hand fell away from her shoulder and the girl felt her lip start to quiver.
"I will see you again," Shuya told her back.
Lien could but nod, and wait for the sound of her footsteps to leave.
Kiyi was a kind woman. She was an old nursemaid that travelled with Hiresh, the leader of the caravan and one of the three earthbenders who walked with them. Besides him there was his brother, Ilesh, and his sister, Ela.
That made four benders total to quite the conglomeration of non benders. Not that anyone knew what Lien was. She was under no delusions as to what might become of her if they found out what she was. It had only taken a little asking around to determine where she was. Not quite one hundred years into the war.
She had letter tucked against her stomach to show when she finally made her way to her father's country. Proof of who she said she was, that was hopefully sufficient. If it wasn't, she didn't know what she would do.
Lien sat at the edge of the firelight, playing with the necklace she had been given and going over her words in her mind. Heaven and hell send aid to my enemies.
But who, exactly, were her enemies? The Fire Nation? Zuko wasn't her enemy. And the country had never done anything directly to her or her family, or her tribe. The Earth Kingdom? Certainly not, but they had never done anything for her tribe either. They labelled the people of the sand thieves and bandits, unworthy of trust, and when a drought arrived the only help they could rely on was from each other. Neither government gave a damn about the desert, or her sons and daughters.
So who was her enemy?
Who did her mother think she would be facing?
Lien crossed her arms over her knees and propped her chin on top of them.
She didn't know that she liked the uncertainty of it all.
But, she couldn't do anything to change this, so he closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Only to wake up hours later to the feeling of something being very, very, wrong.
The little girl sat up. She could feel them. Feel the heat of their heart in their chest as they approached the caravan, quickly, under the cover of midnight. She didn't know where this new sense had come from.
It gave her just enough time to scream bloody murder before the first arrow fell, and then she wasn't the only on screaming.
Bandits fell upon them with bows and swords and spears. Lien shoved Kiyi into the trees. Ela and her brothers lifted the earth to help them, throwing rocks and making walls, doing their best to fight off the attackers. Beneath their feet, the earth ran red.
Lien and Kiyi ran into the trees with some of the others, but most of their caravan had hunkered down behind the walls of the earthbenders.
Lien swallowed thickly when she saw Ilesh fall with a spear embedded in his skull. She focused, not on the dead man, but on the long cloaks the bandits wore. They were tattered and worn, and unlike her they weren't covered in sand. Sand didn't catch fire. But cloth, dry cloth, did.
She took a breath, and imagine smoke rising from the cloaks. Imagined the temperature rising. Imagined their clothes igniting.
The explosion rocked the earth, and send bodies flying all over the place. Kiyi screamed, giving away their position, and arrows came flying towards them. Lien grabbed her hand and pulled her into the darkness, running, running.
She didn't trip, but Kiyi did, falling upon her and squishing the girl beneath her body.
"Hey!" she hissed, pushing at the woman's shoulder. "Get off, we gotta run!"
But Kiyi didn't move, or say anything. The back of Lien's shirt got wet before she realized what had happened. Kiyi had died.
Lien choked on her horror. Her hands shook when she pushed the woman off of her back. She couldn't bring herself to look at her face when she pulled herself away from the corpse. Lien knew she couldn't afford to stop, so she ran off, into the night.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry. She wanted her mother. But none of that was possible.
I am Gansu, she told herself, and I will endure.
The sound of footsteps rapidly approaching sent her heart into overdrive. She could feel it again, the heat of their bodies coming closer.
The trees broke apart and she almost plummeted off the edge of a cliff, the rocks clattering down into the valley when she scrambled to a stop. It was so close in the dark she hadn't seen it. And if she hadn't seen it…
Lien gripped the tree with all her strength, staring hard into the dark. It didn't do her a lot of good, and she found herself relying on this strange new sense to tell where the bandits were. They flew towards her hiding place, and then right past. And, promptly, down into the gully. The heat inside of them went out. Just like it had gone out in Kiyi.
There were more coming after their screams.
Most of them went off the cliff too, but some realized her trick and stopped. They were holding torches, burning through the darkness. She could see their faces in the night.
Lien took a breath and reached for the fire. It swelled, slightly, when she caught onto its energy with her own. She took one hand away from the bark and swept it out in front of her. The torch fire grew and flew off the wood, straight into the face of the torch bearer. Under her guidance it spread onto the screaming men. And, from there, onto the trees.
Lien jumped down and took off into the dark, fire on her heels. Shit.
In the darkness, the forest burned. And, so too did her enemies.
Zhi was a pretty woman. She was small in her old age, and hunched over a cane, but even the wrinkles of age and the silver in her hair couldn't hide that she had been born beautiful. All of that was marred by the frightful frown that dragged her mouth downwards and hardened what could have been laugh lines into something gruesome.
She was flanked by her daughter and Grandsons. Liu was much like her mother, but smaller and younger. Her hair, like that of her son, was black. It was swept smoothly into a topknot, and Lien felt out of place with her own wild waves hovering around her ears. It may have been black as coal, and her eyes mave have glowed amber, but she was too tall to be a Fire Nation child, her skin was a few shades too dark for her to be of the archipelago.
She wondered how Shuya would measure up to Zhao, or his smaller brother Zhang. She was certain that she towered above the both of them. Had she been that much taller when she first met Zhao?
Zhi looked over the letter, her old hands carefully avoiding the blood stained bits of it. Kiyi's blood. Then, she looked at Lien, no kindness at all in her eyes.
The little girl looked up at her grandmother, defiant.
Finally, the woman folded the letter and handed it to her daughter, who likewise refused to touch the red stains.
"So Zhao has a bastard," it was said perfectly bluntly. Lien was surprised. Her apparent father looked at Zhi.
"Very well," she continued. "You will learn to be a proper Lady of the Fire Nation. You won't amount to much, but you will not bring shame upon us by being some rapscallion or a desert rat."
Lien stiffened at the insult to her people. Her lip curled in distaste. She already didn't like Zhi.
"Hui, take her to get cleaned up," she ordered, and swept away into the sprawling house behind her, floating up the steps like she wasn't at least eighty.
Hui, who was Lien's grandmother but hardly looked it, turned to follow her mother without a word.
Lien looked at Zhao, and said the first thing in her lifetime to her father.
"Well, shit."
It didn't take much time at all for Lien to determine that she really, really did not like Zhi. And from Zhi it was easy to see where Zhao came from. She was proud, brutal, and didn't care about anyone or anything that didn't bring glory to their family.
In fact, she hated deeply her son-in-law for disgracing their family name. Something that she loved to remind her grandsons, and her great granddaughter, of.
She was strict, and controlled the household with an iron fist. She decided when they ate, when they slept. She decided when Lien practiced her calligraphy, when she practiced singing and when she got any free time at all. She controlled when Lien was permitted to practice her firebending.
She didn't have a firebending school to go to, she didn't need one. She had her father and her uncle to teach her. Which was… well, her arms were burnt more times than not, and she was thankful for the long sleeves that could cover the scars that were amounting.
At night she dreamed of the desert and the city. During the day she dreamed of being rid of Zhi.
The first opportunity she was given, she got away from her great grandmother. And into the Royal Fire Academy for Girls.
It totally slipped her mind who else was there.
It was, honestly, a lot easier to avoid Azula than one would think. Given that Lien was just a bastard three years her senior, there was no reason for Azula to give a damn who she was, and there was no opportunity for her to interact in classes. The only time they ever saw each other was when they were partnered in the firebending lessons that were available.
Which was mostly Azula showing off and the rest of them going through the proper forms. Lien didn't care much for them, and she found herself slipping, more often than not, into forms that her mother had shown her years ago. Her teachers weren't exactly fond of that.
They also didn't like the neverending doodles and drawing that filled up her papers instead of her work.
Years passed like that, until she was thirteen and went to join her father's battle ship.
She didn't actually join the Navy, but somehow she ended up being promoted to Lieutenant. It was weird.
"Well this is unexpected."
She knew that one of them would recognize her voice, but whether Aang could tell who it was speaking through the cloth and ceramic she couldn't say.
The Blue Spirit looked at her, pointed a sword and put himself between her and the Avatar. Lien dropped the bodies of the guards she had dispatched. Zuko had poor timing. He had come in just in time for their changing.
"Who are you?" Aang asked, peeking at her from over Zuko's shoulder.
She rolled her head around her shoulders. Though they couldn't see it a smile played upon her lips. She had been planning this for years, debating whether to do it and then figuring out how to do it.
"Harmony," she said. It was the first time in seventeen years she had said the name aloud, and now it sounded foreign on her tongue.
"Are you friends with him?" Aang made comical gestures around his savior's head.
"Who, the Blue Spirit? We've never met. I'm here to get you out, before you get shipped to the Fire Nation. Also, we should go. They do patrols every twenty minutes, ten for this wing now that you're here. "
"Why are you two helping me?" Aang asked, but he and the Blue Spirit followed her. Lien was grateful. They didn't have time to wait.
"Because, I don't want Zhao to capture you," she said, shrugging. "You may be the avatar, but the life that he has waiting for you, isn't someone I would wish on anyone at all. Chained up for the rest of your left, kept too weak to fight but not allowed to die…"
Lien shook her head.
"If I can stop it, I will."
She stopped at a dead end. The Blue Spirit turned towards her, pointing his sword at her. Lien lifted her hands.
"Hey, hey, I know what I'm doing," she scolded. When he didn't move to stab her the girl moved to the wall and pushed down on a metal plate smaller than the others. Since she and Zhao had arrived here a month ago she had been exploring, memorizing, and hunting down every route in and out. That was how she'd found this.
The wall slid open, revealing a passageway within.
The trio slipped inside, and Lien closed the door behind them. She grabbed the torch she'd left there a few nights ago and lit it, using it to guide their way. There were still cobwebs and dust, but she had cleared out the poisonous spiders already, with a liberal use of fire.
They were emptied out right into the forest.
Lien stopped at the door, and gesturing into the darkness.
"Go ahead."
Aang looked at her. "You aren't coming with us?"
Lien shook her head. "I would like to, but I don't think that I can. I'll see you again though."
"Promise?" Aang asked, looking up at her. Under her mask, Lien smiled.
"You're welcome," she said instead of something that might make sense. She stepped backwards and closed the passage behind her, sealing off Aang and Zuko. What happened now was up to them.