Note: When does the new Avatar season come back on?
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: Last Airbender, nor do I own the storyline.
Chapter Eighteen
The heat almost seemed unbareable, but then it dissappeared and he wasn't falling anymore, it almost felt like his body was floating in mid-air. Opening up his eyes to see why his body hadn't been burned by the lava he found himself surround by darkness.
"Is this death?" he asked no one as his feet touched the floor of the blackness.
"No," Caine's voice came out of the darkness, but the fire prince noticed something different about it, "Death is different from this."
Clenching his teeth and balling up his fist, Zuko hissed, "Where are you hiding?"
Illumated by a small band of white light Caine said, "I'm not hiding."
"Where are we?" Zuko demanded wishing that he still had his bending skills.
"We are no where," the now less insane Caine said, "And everywhere."
"Whats that suppose to mean?" the young prince advanced on the spirit, but then stop.
Theres something different about him.
"We are in what many call Limbo but the true name for it is Obmila, the land of in between."
Though this Caine seemed less incline to kill him, Zuko still held his guard, "How come I'm not dead?"
Out of the blackness another voice spoke, "Because of the curse."
Once again another figure, the figure he knew to be the island's spirit due to the mask he wore, came out of the emptiness with a small band of scarlet around him; Zuko looked from the spirit to Caine then back to Caine, "Whats going on? This doesn't make any sense."
"Its death," the spirit spoke his yellow eyes peaking through the holes made for them in the mask, "It doesn't have to make sense."
Caine gave the spirit a dirty look, his sapphire eyes filled with hatred, "You said you wouldn't harm her."
Understanding the her to be Katara, Zuko said darkly, "What do you mean by that?"
"Its none of your concern, prince of scum," the spirit mocked, "Kara is ours and ours alone."
"Yours?" Caine spat, "She doesn't belong to you!"
"She doesn't belong to anyone, " Zuko added in watching both of the people in front of him with alert eyes.
"I want what I was promised," the spirit rambled on, "I want whats mine."
"That to which he promised you was not his to promise," another voice spoke.
"But just the same I kepted what I said and I want whats mine," the spirit said again.
Once again another spirit came out of the darkness, but this one Zuko didn't reconize.
It was a young man in his early twenties, he had short deep chestnut brown hair that was pulled back into a braid, and bright green eyes the color of emerald much like Jade's; the man was dressed in black and silver robes and held his body in a manner that he was most likely from a royal family or a noble family, but instead of a band of white or crimson light around him it was a band of gold light.
"And the girl was not promised to you either," another voice spoke up, but this one Zuko knew was Laia's very own.
"Laia?" he asked the darkness as another figure emerged from it.
The figure was indeed Laia, but there was something different about her as well; her long ivory hair flowed down her shoulders and back declorated in many shades of blue and red glass beds. She wore fine black and silver silk robes much like the man with the brown hair, and she held the hand of Jade, who to Zuko looked exactly like a smaller version of the man.
"Why is that here?" the spirit snapped pointing a gloved hand at the child who released his mother's hand to go to the man.
Zuko noticed that Jade was also wearing black and silver robes and much like the new comer he and Laia both had a band of gold around them: he must be Jade's father.
"That," Laia spoke with particular venom in her voice, "Has a name."
"Whats going on?" Zuko asked, "Who are you people?"
Laia turned to face the prince, her eyes filled with compassion and even respect, "Young prince, you have proven your love by your act of selflessness and for that I will grant you the answers you seek," pointing to the man that Zuko didn't reconize she said, "This is my husband and Jade's father Ezul," then pointing to the spirit she contuined, "That is Faer, the demon of fire and my birth name is Shi."