Chapter Five:
The ropes slid across Saamee's palms, leaving scar after scar, and blister upon blister. She untied and retied knots, raised ropes and lowered ropes, she even hammered pieces of wood together! This was all in the hopes of building a raft that could carry her to a faraway land. Plus the fact that her boyfriend turned out to be an insane freak did not make her job any easier. Flustered with nerves and anxiousness, she finally prepared the last log, secured the entire raft with some ice she bended, and put the raft into the water. As she rotated her head to watch the village disappear into the night's sky, she turned up to the moon and prayed.
"O Moon, please let me venture to the Earth Kingdom unharmed, I have done what you told me to do! I left the only person that still loved me! And all of this for you, because I believe you, and I know you will lead my life in the right direction.
O moon, allow me to save Nanook from the trouble he is facing now, please let him find a way out of Dark Bending. I know he is not a bad person on the inside, so please make him a nice person on the outside too! Thank-you, I will be yours forever."
When Saamee had finished her prayer she could sense the glow of the moon become brighter; her spirit was now filled with joy. No longer would she be haunted with the thought of Nanook coming to get her. She had felt guilty before, but now, now she was happy with her decision. This decision that allowed her to sleep the best she had since she met Nanook. Peace.
Saamee was hurled off of her raft and into the water. She started screaming. The water was burning hot, scalding her skin. Her brain was telling her to remove herself from the water, but now her raft was atop a huge wave, out of reach. She could clearly see the shape of a man walking across the top of the wave. He was bright blue with light pouring off of him in every direction. He opened his mouth to let loose an angry tone like that of buzzing cicadas.
"Saamee! You betrayed me, Saamee!"
"Nanook! You've gone insane! You mu-"
"When will you learn to listen to me, Saamee?"
"Nanook, please, I just-"
"You shall pay for your sins, Saamee. Your skin shall burn!"
"No!" Saamee shouted.
"Saamee, on my way here, I flew. Yes, Saamee, I studied the Nomads when they came to our village, and I can now blow you away with the motion of my arm."
Nanook flipped up into the air in a gracious arc. His foot sliced through space, and a giant crescent shaped entity sprung to life. It rushed towards Saamee, and within a matter of moments, it was upon her. She was flung back at least fifty feet, ramming against the waves which Nanook was creating. He then cooled the water down, relieving Saamee's skin. He created a jet of fire two miles high, sending a shockwave of heat in every direction. The sky lit up, clearly revealing the now red tainted moon. Nanook let out a roar so mighty that thunder boomed from his jaw, and lightning sprung from his mouth. The blue and purple spigots shot out in every direction, creating a dancing field of buzzing electrics. Jet lighting jolted this way and that, and when it connected with the water all at once, Nanook shot into the sky vertically upwards. His arms created a milling spiral, forming a massive tsunami, and as the force of gravity overtook him, he sped up his descent with the powers of his new learned airbending. With the tsunami rising slowly above the surface, Nanook's limbs ripped through the open ocean. His legs split apart the water molecules down to the atom, tearing a gap in the water fifty feet below the surface. This created the motion necessary to move the gargantuan wave, propelling the millions of gallons of water towards the innocent and close-to-death Saamee.
No! Saamee thought to herself. I can't let this happen to me! O' Moon, please! If ever there was a time where I needed you help, this is it!
Saamee couldn't afford to wait much longer than one second. She gazed up at the moon, and was utterly scared that it was now a dark shade of the deepest blood. However, she knew the moon was implicitly telling her to beat Nanook on her own. As the wave approached her face, now a slowed blur of the deepest navy, she knew she had to stand up for herself as the waterbender she really was. She launched herself with strength she received only from the moon, despite its weakened state, and flung her arms in an intricate fashion. A stream of water foaming with energy launched Saamee above the imposing tsunami. Nanook saw her and launched himself upwards to meet her, his skin still the pale blue color. It lit the water surrounding him, and created darting patterns among the waves.
"Saamee, you are a fool to think you can defeat me!" Nanook turned the air black around him and flung the shadow at Saamee. She deflected it with a shield of ice, and returned his attack with shards of solid water.
"Saamee, you idiot! Don't you realize I can bend two more elements than you? I studied firebending at night when you weren't around, used airbending to feed my fire, and waterbending; that I learned from you! You brought this upon yourself, and now you must pay!"
"No, Nanook, you are the one who shall pay. I don't know what happened, why you chose to begin darkbending, or how you learned more than one element, but let me tell you one thing, and one thing only: you can turn this all around and put all of this behind us."
"You are so naïve! I've been planning this from the very beginning! Granted I didn't count on you leaving, but still, my plan could still succeed!"
"Planning what? What the hell could your grand scheme be? Take over the world?"
"You catch on quick, don't you?"
Saamee never took her eyes off of Nanook's pompous stature, lifted her limbs, and sent a wall of boiling ice flying towards him. She then glided across the waves- now violent from Nanook's rage- on a path of ice and created the same type of wall on all four sides of Nanook. Once done, she rocketed up into the air to seal off the lid. Saamee could hear him shouting from inside of the ice prison, which was now bobbing up and down among the waves. Saamee turned around for one moment to glance up at the moon.
"Thank you Moon. I have contained Nanook for the time being. However, I know I must finish the job, so I ask that you grant me with the strength necessary to complete this action."
Saamee then turned around, and launched herself full force into the air. She swooped down with her arms creating copious amounts of sharp pointed ice, large quantities of boiling water, and a whole lot of power. Her feet connected with the roof of the container, and from then on, time seemed to slow down to a vivid second by second disaster.
As soon as her feet touched the ice, it went black, and her feet were glued to it, burning. The top layer of the ice then evaporated into steam, leaving her face with oozing erupting pores. She screamed in agony, trying to keep conscious. From the corners of her now blurry vision Saamee could see Nanook. He was underneath the water moving his arms through the water as if it were air. As she fell she tried to figure out what had made Nanook snap, when she realized that his father had been arrested when Saamee was two! Was that it? she thought. Was he simply a bad seed from the very beginning? No! she replied; no one becomes this evil simply from having a bad father. Her body continued to fall, despite Saamee's efforts to regain her balance. When she neared the water's surface and could clearly make out Nanook's face, eight large arms reached out from the depths. They grabbed Saamee, and pulled her under water.
"Nanook! Please! You must stop!" said Saamee, gurgling through the water.
Saamee weakly formed a bubble around her mouth allowing her to breathe underwater. Nanook, still completely blue, didn't seem to mind being cut off from oxygen. The arms wrapped around Saamee's waist tightened, squeezing the air out of her.
"Saamee: unless you join me, you shall perish!"
"Why would I join you? What is your cause? You simply want to rid the world of everybody!"
"No, Saamee, I want to rid the world of evil!"
"Are you serious? Do you even realize what you're doing?"
"Saamee, you need to understand that the only people I've hurt are the Fire Nation men who were invading out tribe!"
Saamee hadn't thought about this fact, and was now utterly confused as to how to proceed.
"I. I. I don't know what to do!" Saamee whimpered.
"Join me. Together we can rid the world of evil!"
"But Nanook, please answer one more question for me."
"Yes, Saamee? Spit it out!"
"Why did you learn darkbending?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"When you turn the water black! You know exactly what I mean! Moon told me that's called darkbending, and it is basically fire bending!"
"No, Saamee, the moon lied! I am simply heating water!"
"No! She said you burn the water! She said you basically turn it into its most amoral form!"
"Lies! Saamee, you are speaking lies!"
"No, Nanook, I am not. You know what you are doing is wrong! I know you do! What happened to the Nanook that held me when I was crying? What happened to the Nanook that spent the week with me in the ice cave? What happened to the Nanook that loved me, and was happy with just me? Why must you take over the world? All I ask of you is to aid me in defeating the Fire Nation in order to restore peace to the Four Nations. Why must we learn darkbending? Why, Nanook? Please answer me!"
"Saamee, when the Fire Nation destroyed our people, I realized what the world really is. It isn't just happiness and ice forts, mothers and fathers, tribes and traditions, no! The world is a place full of hatred, lust for power, and greed; disease, destruction, and death. That is why I must stop it!"
"But Nanook, I don't understand what is different between you and me! Why are you fighting me if we want the same things?"
"Saamee, I do not want to fight you!"
"Why did you chase after me then?"
"Saamee, because I need you!"
"What? When you came here you said my skin shall burn! You said I had to pay for my sins! You said there was no way to defeat you!"
"Yes, Saamee, I said all of those horrible things, but the thing is, you left me! I thought you loved me, Saamee! I thought you cared for me!"
"I do care for you, Nanook! It's just that you were changing! You were becoming so obsessed with waterbending! And when you darkbended against the soldiers, I was scared! I know you were helping us defeat them, but you were starting to become addicted to power!"
"Saamee, I know what I have done, but I do not think it is wrong!"
"It is! Darkbending is a bad thing, Nanook, why can't you understand that?"
"Saamee- I- I- I'm sorry…"
"And you expect me to be fine with the fact that my face is now bleeding; my feet are now boiling, and my entire body is scalded? Why did you have to hurt me, Nanook? Why couldn't you simply have talked to me? I just don't get you at all!"
"Saamee, you get me! We love each other!"
"No! I can't do this, Nanook. I don't love you; Moon told me what will happen to you. I can't join you, and I never will!"
Nanook's eye's raged the pale blue color his body was; his face contorted into the ugliest form imaginable. When he opened his mouth again it was as if a jackal was crossed with Africanized Bees.
"Saamee. You have just made the worst decision of your life! Now the things I've said shall be true, and you shall perish. But not now, o' no, I shall wait. Yes, I cannot defeat you now. I must have an honorable battle, and you shall fight me to the death.
Commence shall a battle,
A fight like no other,
Dark versus light
In a prophetic match.
One shall come forth
With the crown 'top their heads,
The other shall perish
Beginning of ends.
The start of an era
Which hath not been seen,
For better or worse
Shall this battle decide.
With that, Nanook erupted into flame, the waves subsided, and Saamee was left adrift. She bobbed along with the current, crying mournfully, praying to the moon that she'd make it out alive.
"O' Moon, please don't leave me now. Please-
help me."