6 reviews! Awesome, not as many as my romance, but this will do too! Okay, chapter two takes place; ironically, two years after the first chapter ends. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and to everyone who supplied me with Sozen's name.
Prince Sozen stalked the red covered halls to the main burial room of the castle. His long dark brown hair waved beyond him as he rushed to pay his final respects, his bright orange eyes memorizing each aspect of the antechamber as he walked. It would be the last time he would see his mother's and sister's bodies, after five years of viewing and grieving by the public. The Fire Sages created the glass coffins, and prepared their bodies to slow down decomposition too much. As it was the custom, it was now time to bury the past, and lower the glasses coffins into the large volcanic chamber below the room, where the heat would make the glass dense, and allow the bodies to remain as they were the day they died forever. The Fire Prince stopped walked, and looked down at his shoes with a deep, penetrating piercing gaze. How odd it was that they would be frozen forever in their youth, by searing heat.
He entered the room, and felt warm tears sting his eyes. His head snapped away from the center of the rooms, and he scowled. No, no this was their day; he would not dishonor them with such a reaction. There was no time for tears anymore, Sozen had cried every last tear he would ever cry the night he received the news.
He had just celebrated his twelfth birthday the day before, and his mother and sister were on their way to an Earth Kingdom town, bordering on the Fire Nation's land, to buy him a very large sword, which he had planned to train with upon entering the army. His father had asked him to train with his grandfather's sword, but the boy had been stubborn, like most boys of his age were during those days, he had seen a glorious sword a few months before in the town, and insisted that the future leader of the nation could only bring honor to his family with such an outstanding weapon.
His father finally caved, but at the last minute business had come up, one of the Earth Kingdom's lower monarchs had demanded an audience with the Fire Lord, and being the peacemaker he was, Fire Lord Renjiro had agreed. Hence his mother and sister volunteered to go, and buy the sword, promising to return two days after leaving. They never came back.
It was a few days after they left that a sole survivor of the attachment of the royal guards his father ordered to go with them came back. He was bloodied, broken, and looked even less like an animal, crawling up to the throne, than an animal in the slaughter house.
"Your Majesty," he had groaned. He hadn't needed to say anything else. "Bandits, sire, they ambushed us, and took your wife and daughter. We tried to fight them off, but there were so many." It was the last words he ever spoke; the noble guard collapsed to the floor, and oozed what life he had left.
There were supposed to have been some Earth Nation guards along with the Fire Nation, but the lazy king brought them back a few hours before the trip happened, for the sake of showing off his might to another Earth Nation king. When Renjiro had kindly asked for aide, in locating the men who had caused the crime, and to find his wife and daughter, the king would only agree if the Fire Nation paid them two hundred and fifty gold coins. And the frosting on the air bending cake, the Avatar was orchestrating a peace treaty between the fat bastard and the richer, more powerful Earth Nation king.
His father paid the price reluctantly, and the two bodies of the dearest women Sozen had ever known were found near a beach, naked and ruined. One of the monsters responsible was a cousin of the Earth Nation king, and received only a house arrest, a damned slap on the wrist. The others, either got away, or were exiled from the Earth Kingdom, never too be truly punished, despite Fire Nation protests. In all truthfulness the Air Nation has also protested, but Sozen could only feel the burning desires of anger and revenge build deep within him.
The Avatar was gone now, at least according to superstition, Roku was gone, but there was no doubt in the prince's mind that the avatar was gone, and would be gone for good this time. Sozen frowned and stomped forward to look at his mother and sister one last time, his mind a volcano of activity. He'd see too it, even if he had to eradicate the Air Nation to do it.
"What are you doing here?" Renjiro snarled, his eyes narrowing as he marched in his long white robes towards his boy. "And why would you come to this ceremony dressed so, so inappropriately?"
Sozen frowned and bit his lips until he tasted blood. "She's my mother, Dani was my sister," the prince snapped, spinning on his heels. "Not that you would care."
The anger in his voice took the king back, and caused him to take a few steps back in retreat. "Son, of course I care, but what has happened in the past has happened in the past." He shook his head. "You had all day yesterday to be with them," he said waving his hand toward the coffins. "As is the way of our people, or did you forget the law of the nation, it is the Fire Lord's, and only the Fire Lord's right to be present at the Scal-kai." He studied the clothes of his son, the clothes of a Fire Nation military commander, and scowled. "I will have to ask you to leave," he said, sorrow drowning his tone.
"I will be here for my family," Prince Sozen howled proudly, tongues of fire roaring from his body as he stared at his father.
"Sozen, enough, you have dishonored your family too much already, would you now complete our disgrace with absolute blasphemy?" Renjiro felt flames begin to lick his veins, and he groaned under the pressure to release them.
"Who's the disgrace, father?" the prince screamed, his voice bouncing off the octagon shaped room, draped in green and white colors. The smell of sulfur and smoke was nearly suffocating, except of course for a fire bender. "A son and brother who wants to be with his mother and sister in the last few minutes before the Scal-kai? Or could it be a father who is so entrenched in his brainwashing and old fashioned ideas that he would blow off his only remaining direct family member, spouting nonsense about blasphemy? " Sozen began to pace around the Fire Lord, and narrowed his eyes.
"He who brings dishonor is the one who brings disgrace," his father growled, his own eyes growing dangerously dark.
"No, no, no," Sozen roared, stomping his foot, flames literally pouring from his mouth. "That statement is from Roku,"
"Avatar Roku," his father snapped, pointing a finger at his son.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Sozen howled. "You are so brainwashed that you would trade your family for your faith! You'd trade your own individuality for it!"
"Son," the Fire Lord said between clenched teeth, "that is not the case. My embracing the faith is what makes me an individual. It is what allows me to see clearly, to negotiate, and bring peace."
"It's what makes you weak!" Sozen screamed. His face was contorted in an odd form that made him look like a Fire demon, born of pure darkness. His lips were pulled back, exposing sharpened teeth, and his forehead burrowed deep down towards his eyes. "The world demands order, not fairy tales."
"When the time comes, you will realize that you must release your hatred, Sozen, or it will destroy you," his father said. His eyes softened, and he attempted to approach his son. "It's been hard for us all, my dear boy, more so for Avatar Roku than you ever realized. He was like a father too your mother, the news of her death nearly drove him over the edge with sorrow." He smiled for a moment and raised a finger, "But it was faith that healed those wounds. It was faith that he knew that while her body would no longer walk, or talk, or eat, your mother still lived on, and still does today." He reached to touch his son's shoulders, but the prince ripped himself from his father's grasp.
"You are a fool," the boy said. "I will not be complete until the crimes committed against the people of our world are brought to an end."
"And how would you do that?" his father asked crossing his robed arms.
"We have the largest army in the world; we are already expected to be the planet's physical protectors. Now that the avatar is gone, we can be the complete guardians of the world, and bring cowards who killed mother and Dani to justice." He smiled and crossed his arms, walking to the coffin of his sister, and stroked it.
Dani had been his best friend, her long black hair, and brilliant lavender eyes, her sweet soft voice and musical laughter. Children would flock to her when she walked through a Fire Nation town. The elderly would come to her for advice; the ill took courage in her presence. Those damned Earth Nation bandits had no right to take that away from his people. Irritating as it was for the boy, he knew that she would have forgiven her attacks, had she remained alive. Perhaps she laid on the beach, her last thoughts were forgiveness for them, but that was Dani's way, not Sozen's.
"Might without compassion, will bring nothing but bloodshed and endless nightmares for the world son," the Fire Lord pleaded. "A true ruler knows how to balance the scale between justice and vengeance, so that justice always prevails. And that is done with only mercy and compassion."
"You are a fool," the prince snarled again. "If we do not establish order, the darkness of despair will only run rampant through all time. We are at a cross roads father, even if we do not act, someone else from one of the other nations might, and as lazy and slothful as they are, do you really want them dispensing 'justice'?
"Sozen," Renjiro sighed, shaking his head. As he opened his mouth to say another word, the Fire Sages entered the room, one by one, their eyes widening as they looked at the two men standing almost in the center of the place.
"If you have power, you must use that power, father," his son snapped.
"It will be a power that you will never possess," his father sighed, his eyes filling with tears. Sozen spun on his heels, and frowned, his jaw dropping to the lava below. Those words had been like a punch in the gut, but then to see his father cry? Sozen had heard from the servants that Renjiro had wept for hours after hearing the news about his mother and Dani, but he had never seen it happen. He honestly thought his father incapable of shedding a tear.
His voice was soft, almost inaudible. "What?"
"Your hatred is too strong, my son. It would ruin our nation if you took the throne, ruin peace for everyone." Renjiro's shoulders dropped and he began weeping louder, staring at the two coffins and his son. "You leave me with no choice, I hear by decree that the throne will pass from me, to your cousin Gai, upon my death."
The head Fire Sage gasped, and rushed forward, his own eyes wide with horror. He nearly tripped over the light brown stone floor of the room, and he shook his head. "My Lord, are you sure of this statement?" Renjiro looked at the priest and sighed, nodding his head.
His face had grown thinner now, more like a dying oval than the strong, circular orb it had once been. His skin was nearly gray, and his thin hands shook like they were a puppet's being controlled by a string. "I'm afraid so." He turned to his son and fought back more tears.
"So I am to be banished then?" the prince snarled, his face more inhuman as it had ever been.
Renjiro gasped, the sound like steam slipping through cracks in a wall. "No Sozen, you are still my son, I would never bring myself to do such a thing," he cried.
Sozen narrowed his dark orange eyes and stalked to his father. "You may wish you had, old man," he hissed. He turned from him, taking in one last, loving look at his mother and sibling, and then stormed out of the room.
Okay, hopefully I did this just as well as the first chapter. I have to tell you I was kind of looking forward to it, and had a lot of fun, though I am looking forward to the next two chapters also! So Review and let me know what ya all think? Has this thirty year old dude hit a second home run? Review, Review, Review!