I Want To Live
A/N: Hey! Where are all my reviews?
Special shout-out to almostinsane for being a faithful reader!
Special warning about this chapter, there is a bit of a gruesome scene, I tried to make it as least graphic as possible. You'll known when it's coming though, and you're free to skim over it if you are of sensitive character.
Chapter 3
For a night with a full moon, the pathway they normally would travel on was very dark. This served to be both a help and a hindrance, because it provided the trio with extra coverage, but also made it much harder to see.
"Zuko, I swear to every spirit in existence, if you step on my feet one more time I am going to kill you!" Katara hissed, whipping around to the hooded boy who was walking closely behind her.
They had put a great deal of ground between their current location and the fire nation capital since their escape a few weeks back, so they knew that they wouldn't just arrive there and save Toph all in one night, they would need to stop periodically and hide during the daylight and travel by night so as not to get caught by fire nation soldiers.
Suddenly, Katara stumbled and swore under her breath.
"That's it Zuko, you're dead."
Sokka sighed, it was going to be very long and tedious traveling into the fire capitol; he could just see it coming now.
XXX
The wooden hinged slat at the bottom of the door slid open, and a decrepit tea tray was slid inside, with some strange purple colored soup and gray colored water sitting in bowls atop it.
"Dinner time, you disgusting waste of life," a mangled voice growled through the small barred window atop the door.
The small slat slammed closed and the footsteps faded away from the door.
She waited and listened.
The door at the end of the hallway opened and then slammed closed, signifying that the guard had left the hallway.
Toph scrambled forward to the tray and clumsily picked up the bowl with two scrubby burn-scarred hands, and slurped down the sickening soup as quickly as possible, before downing the glass of murky water, which would probably kill her eventually.
"Better the dirty water than Azula's lightning," she muttered to herself.
She flung the empty tray into the corner of the room and curled up in a ball on the floor with a sigh.
Azula's menacing voice rang loudly in her head from one of her most recent torture sessions.
The fire blazed over her hands and feet, for what felt like the tenth time today, causing havoc on her already painful scars and blisters.
But she refused to scream. She wouldn't cave under Azula.
Never.
Her menacing face came inches from Toph's which was currently strapped down to a long wooden board.
"They're dead, you know that right?"
Toph didn't answer.
"If they were still here, they would have come for you a long time ago."
She kept her face hard, glad she couldn't see Azula's face right now.
"Your defeat was weeks ago. The entire great hall of the palace collapsed in on itself. There was no way they made it out. And since they haven't tried to rescue you, then that means they're dead. They're all dead, earthbender. You're all alone."
"SHUT UP!" Toph screamed out in a howl.
Azula laughed wickedly.
"Did you just tell the princess of the fire nation to shut up? I think that deserves an even bigger punishment."
Toph knew this had been her plan all along, to make her break, and scream out, so she had an excuse to burn her even harder. Not that Azula needed any excuse at all.
"Learned this little trick from that dead traitorous brother of mine," Azula said with a laugh and Toph knew that she had mastered her own version of the fire whip.
The memory of Zuko hit Toph the hardest, as the whip cracked and licked her body in flames and cut gashes into her skin.
Her eyes stung with tears and she fought so hard to not let them fall.
The whip slashed her across the cheek right under her left eye.
She could feel her skin being eaten away by the fire, and finally, the tears fell.
Azula laughed maniacally at her weakness, and then the burns stopped.
Toph listened; her footsteps disappeared out the door of the torture chamber and down the hall.
Two guards entered, and untied her body from the wooden board, and she immediately crumpled to the floor.
They picked her up and carried her back to her cell, and threw her inside roughly.
"They're not dead. Azula lies. They're not dead. Azula lies. They're not dead. Azula lies." Toph continued to mutter this phrase over and over, as her body shut down and she fell asleep.
XXX
Travel had been hard on the trio. They went nonstop all night until the sun began to rise over the horizon.
"We got a lot of ground last night, gang," Sokka said, examining his maps and figuring out how far they traveled. "A lot faster than we traveled when we first left the fire nation capitol, which is both impressive and scary. Impressive because we're making good time, but scary because that means the fire nation could have caught up to us at any time. They might even be anywhere around looking for us."
Katara shuddered at her brother's words.
"Well we just won't let that happen then." Zuko said, reassuringly.
"Good plan," Sokka replied. "Now let's take this opportunity to get some sleep, especially since we'll be traveling during the night now, we'll have to sleep during the day."
Sokka walked around for a bit, before coming upon a very thick and tall bush. He crawled inside and Katara and Zuko could hear him hacking away with his sword.
They shared a very confused look, until Sokka returned triumphant.
"And now, we have a place to sleep." He gestured toward the bush.
Zuko and Katara crawled inside the little hole and were amazed, Sokka had cut enough out of the inside of the bush to create a makeshift dwelling with just enough room for two sleep and one to sit inside and keep watch, but still covered so it couldn't be noticed by anyone who passed by.
"Sokka, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're a genius!" Katara exclaimed in awe.
"Yeah, wow, yeah, I'm speechless," Zuko added. "You two rest, I'll take first shift."
Sokka nodded, and Zuko handed over his cloak to place on the ground to create a bed.
Katara stuffed some leaves underneath the cloak to soften the ground, and then dropped down and pulled her own cloak up over her eyes to block the sun.
Sokka joined his sister, and the two were soon snoring away under their cloak-blankets.
Zuko couldn't help but laugh at the sight of them sprawled out inside of this little bush. They could fall asleep anywhere, irregardless of circumstances, they were just like Toph.
Zuko sighed, he worried about how Toph was doing in prison; he knew it couldn't be going well for her at all.
XXX
This new method of sleeping and traveling was definitely taking a toll on Zuko. He found himself unable to sleep during the day as easily as his friends could, which made it harder for him to travel during the night.
"Firebenders are sun people; we're supposed to be awake and full of energy when the sun is out, not sleeping. And we should be sleeping during the night, not traveling around in the dark!" Zuko had exclaimed during their second night of travel, after drowsily tripping over a tree due to his lack of sleep during the day.
"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore, because there's the prison." Sokka said, pointing out at the horizon where the fortress sat amongst rocky hills.
"I guess it's all or nothing time now." Katara replied darkly, still a little worried about their plan, which Sokka admitted wasn't fully complete.
"Well, I was just going to improvise once we got inside." He said with a sheepish grin, receiving thwacks across the head from both of his companions.
"Let's get going then." Zuko said, and led the way through the rocks toward the direction of the backside of the prison tower.
Zuko was able to scale the rocks with ease, as was Sokka, but Katara seemed to be struggling a bit. He pulled back from Sokka a bit and held out a hand to Katara, who took it and smiled.
Zuko pulled her up to the small landing he was currently standing on, and then motioned for her to go ahead of him.
"So I can catch you if you fall," he explained. Katara smiled warmly at him again.
"Thanks Zuko. I really am happy at how much you've changed by the way. It's almost like you're the dad of the group, trying to hold our family together."
Zuko was a little taken aback by the comment from Katara, and he got a very strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't explain when she smiled at him. Not knowing what to say, he decided to make a joke out of her comment.
"So if I'm the dad, and you're the mom, does that make us married?"
Katara rolled her eyes at him, but a small laugh broke through her façade.
"Whatever you say Zuko," she replied, as she "accidentally" kicked some dirt and pebbles into his face during her climb.
The two caught up to Sokka, who was currently crouched down behind a jutting rock. He reached out and pulled them down to his position, and put a finger to his lips, motioning for them to be quiet.
"Guards. Five of them." He whispered.
Zuko peered around the rock and was shocked. This many guards near the garbage chute? Azula was really stepping it up a notch.
"Obviously someone doesn't want us here." He growled, his voice seething in hatred for his sister.
"Well that someone's about to get kicked in the teeth," Sokka replied. "Or should I say a boomerang to the teeth!" With a grin he pulled out his boomerang.
Katara and Zuko both stared blankly at him.
"This never goes well," Katara said, unscrewing the cap from her waterskin, and drawing out some water just in case Sokka's plan failed miserably, as it most likely would.
Sokka flung his boomerang around the side of the rock, and soon after there was a loud thud, followed by mixed yelling, and said boomerang back in Sokka's hand.
"Haha! Take that! It worked!" Sokka cried triumphantly.
"Yeah, worked in alerting the other four guards of our arrival!" Katara yelled, jumping out to waterwhip a guard who was running over to fight whatever intruder had just attacked them.
Zuko jumped out from behind the rock as well, and drew his swords, fighting off both the third and fourth guards.
Successfully freezing her attacker to the wall of the prison, Katara ran to help Zuko, waterwhipping the two guards back away from him.
"Thanks," Zuko said, panting slightly, before drawing his own firewhips; and the two lashed out at the two guards, knocking them into each other, rendering them unconscious.
Sokka took this opportunity to duel the last of the five guards on his own, drawing his sword, and charging at the guard.
Seeing this, the guard, who was a bit of a coward, began to run away but not quickly enough, because Sokka managed to catch his sword in the man's sleeve, and spear him into the rock wall.
"Hey Katara, wanna make sure this guy stays in place?" Sokka asked.
"Not a problem at all," Katara replied with a smirk, freezing the man to the wall.
The three then proceeded to run towards the back door, past the now frozen guardsmen.
"Thanks for the help, buddy!" Sokka said, grinning stupidly at the guards. Katara laughed, and Zuko gave a fake salute as they ran through the door into the prison.
Once inside, they stopped running. The hallways were dimly lit, and they didn't know where various guards would be hiding out, and they couldn't afford to cause a commotion inside the prison, like the one they caused outside of the prison. They carefully made their way through the maze of hallways, hoping to just stumble across Toph, since they had no idea where she was being kept.
"What's that at the end of the hallway?" Katara asked in a hushed whisper, pointing towards a wooden door.
"Wood?" Zuko was slightly confused. "There are no wooden doors in a fire nation prison, fire benders would just burn it down. Everything is usually made out of metal or stone."
"Both of which Toph can bend, and Azula knows that! That must be where they're keeping her! Inside a wooden cell!" Sokka exclaimed, as the light bulb went off inside his head.
Excited at their discovery, the trio rushed down the long hallway.
XXX
Muffled footsteps.
Toph immediately sat up from her fetal position on the floor. They sounded slightly familiar, but she couldn't quite recognize them based on sound alone. With both her hands and feet burned, it was much harder to pick up on the vibrations of people to determine who was who.
"Please not another burning session," she whispered, pleading with the spirits to save her.
As the footsteps came closer, she was able to make out that there were multiple people coming, at least two.
Toph sighed slightly, because this meant that at least it wasn't Azula. She always came alone.
"Whoever you are, you better not try anything! I may not be able to bend anything because this whole cell is made of wood, but I can still kick the crap out of you hands down! No matter how many of you there are!"
She was bluffing. She was so weak she definitely wouldn't stand a chance. But she hoped maybe she would be able to scare off at least one of the people advancing towards her cell.
The footsteps stopped. They were right outside her door.
"Wh-who's there?"
It was hard for her to hide the slight bit of fear, as her voice quivered.
A male responded.
"Hey there, champ."
A/N: Boo, why are you ending the chapter right there?
Yes I know you're asking that question right now. Since I first envisioned this scene, I knew that would be the line I ended on. It was just perfect to me.
I also realized upon writing this that having the gang get back to the capitol would be tricky, since they had been on the run for three weeks and thus would have gained a lot of ground.
So I pulled a bit of a deus ex macchina, and had them just "gain a lot of ground quickly."
Hey, better than having them just magically arrive at their destination.
To the very small number of reviewers I have, thank you very much, it is tremendously appreciated.
Spread the word to your friends, tell them to read, I thrive on more reviews.
PS – Tried a new typing style for this chapter, ff.n seems to hate my spacing, we'll see how this works when I upload it, and if not, I'll figure something else out for chapter 4.
Until next time,
--F.C.