I have no idea why I love writing this story so much, but I do, so...yeah.
Pem is just such fun to play with, even though the main secondary character has yet to make an appearance. We get two pretty cool healer chicks in this chapter, and then we'll have a slightly crazy, hopefully funny, rather aggressive Earthbending master and after that, well...you'll have to wait and see. ;)
Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter: Mrs. 11th and ZackAtack96!
You two are awesome...toavoidconversation and Spirit-of-the-Rain seem to have disappeared off somewhere, but no doubt they shall pop up again. XD
So here is a kind of angsty chapter that kicks Pem's put into recovery mode, so to speak. Enjoy!
Pem's dreams made no sense. She was running through a fire, trying to get to Aisa, who was at the centre. But the flames were too strong, knocking her backwards constantly. She tried to firebend them away, but everytime she tried, they wouldn't budge at all. It was as if they were taunting her, teasing her that she couldn't control fire yet. But Aisa's scream ran through her ears, and before she could act the fire began to burn her own skin, her hair, everything...until she knew nothing but pain, and looked around to see dozens of dead bodies.
Amongst all of it, a strange voice called to her.
The first thing Pemiri was aware of was the heaviness of her body and the tiny bursts of scorching pain that hit her. Her eyes flickered open slowly and the initial blur of her vision cleared some to reveal a middle-aged woman kneeling next to her.
"Who...where..."
Words were hard to form and the woman did not seem surprised, on the contrary, she gently placed a finger to the girl's lips to silence her.
"You're not strong enough yet," She said, "You are safe, you are in my home and workshop. I'm a herbal healer and my name is Maua."
Pem let her head fall back against whatever it was she was leaning on. She tried to nod her understanding but it was too much effort and she found herself succumbing to the soothing temptation of sleep.
For the next five days, Pem slipped in and out of consciousness, managing to speak very short sentences to Maua during the time she was awake. Sometimes in the distance of her limited vision she would spy another woman, one who appeared to be young, about Pem's age.
On the sixth day when she woke, Pem did not feel sleepy, just generally weak, and slowly sat up from the soft bed of heather she was lying in. When Maua came in ten minutes later, Pem was experimentally wriggling her toes and stretching her muscles from sitting position, occasionally grimacing at unexpected jabs of pain.
"You seem to be feeling a little better," Maua noted as she knelt down with what looked like soup. With her brain less clouded by extreme fatigue, Pem noticed for the first time the earth kingdom clothing the woman was wearing. The truth that her brain had been refusing to remember was washing over her and she felt her hands shaking.
"You rescued me, didn't you?" From the very brief conversations she had already had with the healer, Pem had already gathered this, but she wanted to be sure.
Maia nodded slowly as she held out the bowl of soup for Pem to take in her own hands for the first time. "I found you in a camp ravaged by fire. You were surrounded by many dead, all with burns like your own, only much worse. All fire nation, except for one."
"Aisa," The girl whispered, "My mentor."
"The old Airbender woman," Maua said as she nodded, her eyes full of empathy, "I wanted to help her, but she was far past anything I could have done, I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize for not being able to raise the dead," Pem replied, but tears ran down her cheeks silently and dripped into the soup on her lap.
Clearly not knowing what to say, Maua got up to leave after patting the young Avatar's hand comfortingly. "I'll leave you alone for a while."
Pemiri felt what little resolve she had been clinging to dissolve and she wept bitterly into her hands, feeling guilty that Aisa had given so much of her life for her, only to have it taken completely while Pem had made it out. Not completely unscathed, but alive at least, something that Aisa was not.
When the tears subsided along with the initial weight of the guilt, Pem sniffed loudly several times before gulping down her soup, which was now a little salty and lukewarm. Maua returned after a time and brought the young woman who Pem had guessed was her daughter, and when Maua introduced her, Pem found she had been correct in her assumption about the eighteen year old named Luma.
"If you're feeling up to walking, I would be happy to help you," Luma offered enthusiastically, and Pem immediately brightened at the thought.
"Oh, yes please! Could we go for a walk now?" She asked eagerly, and Luma nodded, entwining their hands.
"If we can get you up, then yes," Luma's eyes were kind and excited from underneath the strands of black hair that had fallen into her face, "One, two, three!"
Pem used her sore muscles along with Luma's pulling to propell herself forward and up, airbending the currents beneath her at the same time. Feeling the solid earth under her feet was comforting, and Pem closed her eyes for a moment before taking a shaky step forward.
"I think I'm okay," She told the two Earth Kingdom females, "But my injuries don't feel too good, they seem quite extensive..." Luma shared a look with her mother and slid her arm through Pem's.
"We'll go down to the river and I'll show you," The younger girl said softly, "But prepare yourself...it's not...they are not light burns. Many are forming scars that I fear will be permanent."
The airbender felt fearful anticipation rise in her chest, but she forced herself to nod calmly as they began to walk. A cool breeze passed them by as they exited the dome-like building that was Maua's healing sanctuary, and while it did not bother Pem - who was still equipped for the North Pole - she became aware for the first time of the thin white underdress which was all she was wearing.
"Where are my clothes?" Pem inquired while they very slowly came down some steps, and she winced occasionally.
"They were burnt beyond repair...sorry," Luma said, but brightened straight away, "But I got a good look at the pattern, and I'm good with clothes, I could make you new ones, if you wanted."
"Really? Oh, could you? It's just that everything that's happened, one thing not changing would be nice," Hope and gratefulness swelled in Pem's heart, growing stronger when the other girl nodded.
"Anything to help...I've never met an Airbender before," Luma admitted bashfully, her eyes slipping to Pem's bare arms and the blue airbending tattoos that covered them. The brunette rubbed her left arm absently before she noticed an angry red scar there, halfway along her upper arm, overlapping with the tattoo and turning the blue into a strange, marred purple.
"Us airbenders usually keep to ourselves, worldly politics do not concern us most days. We prefer to live where we can be free and peaceful, living a life deeply enriched by the Spirit World," Pem murmured, subconsciously echoing what Aisa had once told her, "I'm lucky to be able to be here...but unfortunate enough to have lost someone to share the experience with. Aisa, my mentor...she was my world, and already I feel so lost without her guidance."
Luma clasped Pem's hand tightly, her eyes burning with sympathy. "I admit that I have yet to experience the tragedy of a loved one's death, but I have watched patients of mine and mother's die, and it is more horrible than I can describe. But at least you are free. I am destined to stay here for my whole life, just like my mother before me and her mother before her...stretching back through hundreds of years. I do want to help people...I just wish that I could see the world first."
"I wish I could help...but unless your mother found a flying bison in the same area that she found me, I'm as stuck as you are," The airbender flicked a hopeful look at the trainee healer, only to be disappointed by her shake of the head, "I am not used to being stuck and I can feel that I am not going to like it."
Before Luma could form an answer, they reached the end of the path, coming out on the banks of a very gentle river that looked so inviting for someone as odour-drenched as Pem felt. She inched forward, still not entirely sure of her body's current limits, but the moment her toe touched the water, she felt her entire being relax. Calm she may not have been once upon a time, but she was incredibly glad for the inner peace waterbending had given her, however long and hard she had had to fight for it.
With Luma's help, Pem slipped into the water, relishing the cool sensation of the water lazily drifting past her. Swimming would have been difficult in her current state, but Pem subtly changed the water currents to her advantage.
She gazed down at her reflection and found a beaten warrior looking back curiously, but with dead eyes. Her hands darted to grab her hair, which was choppy and irregular, so different from the airbending style and different also to the traditional long hair of most females.
"Some of it had been burnt off already, other parts we had to cut out because it was ruined. I'm sorry," Luma apologized, only to be answered with a passive shrug. Pem couldn't bring herself to be too upset, because being an airbender meant that hair had never been a priority.
"I'm guessing there was no sign of a wooden staff either?" She asked as Luma shed her outer layers and came into the water as well.
"Mother brought nothing back but you and anything on your person. But it's not far from here...in a week or so when you're up to it, perhaps we can see if your belongings are still there."
"A week? Alright, I think I can manage a week. I'll meditate, that will help a lot," Pem said as she absently lifted her hand, bending a stream of water through the air and watching it with satisfaction. Behind her, she heard a gasp, and turned to see Luma staring with widened eyes.
"You're bending water!" The girl exclaimed in surprise. "But you're an airbender...but that could only work if….oh my word, you're the Avatar, aren't you?"
Pemiri nodded, and a thought occurred to her, one that was horrifying and unlikely but could explain how all those firebenders had died. "Your mother didn't see anything strange did she?"
"Well, yes, there was a mass of pale blue light, it was so bright and huge that she went to investigate to see if anyone was hurt...but you were the only one even alive," Luma said sadly, and the thought in the airbender's head was confirmed.
"I must have entered the Avatar state...I've never done that before..." She whispered, and when Luma inquired as to what the Avatar state was, explained. "The Avatar state is triggered by life-threatening danger or rehabilitating grief. I suppose for me it was both. You receive the power of every Avatar before you combined, and an Avatar still in training would be able to bend any of the elements."
"But you don't remember being in it?"
Pem shook her head. "No, but I'm fairly sure that it's normal when I don't have control over it...I could have done-" She stopped, a terrible idea occurring to her, and she trudged over to sit numbly on the cusp of the water. "Your mum said that everyone there was burnt badly, worse than me. All of the other firebenders had run away by then, and the ones remaining didn't kill themselves. I...I must have gone into the Avatar state after watching Aisa die, and used firebending to strike them all down." A fragment of memory returned to her mind, the anguished screams of the men and woman around her while she watched the fire burn them. "I killed them all."
Pemiri stared down at her slightly scarred hands with horror as she considered what they had done, what she had done. There weren't any words that could settle in her mouth properly so she said nothing for a long time. The fact that Luma didn't break the soothing silence made Pem have a lot of respect for the girl. But eventually her curiosity got the better of her.
"So my injuries...are you going to show me...tell me...?"
Luma gently took her hand and pulled her back into the water before beginning to brush her fingers against the burnt scars on Pem's body.
"Here," A long one on the underside of her left calf, "Here," A small but intense one on the side of her right thigh, "There," Her fingers pressed through the thin, wet, and practically see-through material to touch her lower back, were a thin diagonal scar sat, "But the worst is this one." A searing pain flared like a wildfire across the right side of her back, making Pem fight back a scream.
"How could I not have felt that when I was lying down?" The brunette yelped, flinching away from her companion.
"My mother gave you a herb that cancels out most pain...she didn't want you to wake up screaming," Luma explained gently, "Though it must be wearing off..."
Pemiri balked at the words. "Wearing off? As in, the pain is going to get worse?" Her question was answered by the slowly smoldering and burning agony that was growing hotter and hotter by the second. Feeling her legs begin to give out, Pem grabbed Luma's tunic as she began to fall into the water. The other girl caught her and they made their way back up to the workshop at a snail's pace.
Wincing as the strips of leaves were laid across her burn, Pemiri did her best to stay quiet while Maua tended to her, but as true physical pain was fairly new to her, the occasional hiss of pain would slip out no matter how staunch she tried to be. Exhaustion and sore muscles she could deal with, they had been a part of her life for years, but not injuries to this degree.
"You're doing a good job, my dear, we're almost done," The healer soothed while Luma kept her fellow youngster company by holding her hand.
"I am the Avatar, I refuse to let mere physical pain get the best of me," Pem answered through gritted teeth.
Maua hummed in agreement. "Well that's a good attitude, though I suppose you'll need it...to think I rescued the Avatar, now, that will be a story to tell future generations."
"Sometimes I forget how people supposedly view the Avatar...I am just a person, at least in part," Pem murmured thoughtfully.
"But aren't you also the connection between this world and the spirit world?" Luma's question made Pem want to shrug, but knowing that it would be a bad idea, she just sighed.
"I haven't learnt very much about my spiritual roles yet, because I only just mastered water-bending after three years," She said, "It was very difficult for me to waterbend, so Aisa said that I could put all of my energy into it and we would work on the spiritual side once we got to the Earth kingdom. But now..." The airbender trailed off, her voice wobbling a little with insecurity, "I do not know. We were headed for Omashu, to the earthbending Master Ponshi, but the firebenders who attacked us know that, and if they want to kill me, then going to Omashu is out. I feel...lost."
Luma gripped her hand tighter for reassurance. "At least you're not totally alone. You can stay here as long as you need."
Several weeks passed, and with each day Pem gained strength and her scars gave her less trouble, though her worst one still had a long way to go before she would be able to completely ignore it. Her bending was easier once her body was stronger, and she used it to help out Maua and Luma as best she could.
True to her word, Luma had recreated a water tribe dress for the young Avatar, complete with some slits up the side so that it wouldn't her ability to run and make the movements necessary for bending.
But one morning, Pem had woken with a determination to return to the scene of the attack, to look for possessions left behind, and hopefully Felo, the sky bison she sorely missed.
"Luma, you don't have to come with me, it's fine," The airbender insisted for the third time, but the girl was having none of it.
"I'm coming with you, you could use the company and another set of eyes, now shush and let's go."
The walk took them half an hour, and Pem couldn't help but be impressed and thankful that Maua had been able to carry her so far. Their speech was minimal, as Pem couldn't think of anything to talk about that was more important than concentrating on the panic threatening to consume her. With deep breaths, the Avatar remained calm.
Eventually they reached the clearing still adorned by Fire Nation tents and flags. The sight made Pem feel nauseous, a strange repulsion for firebending having settled in her stomach. The dead bodies were still there, and were no longer fresh, but gruesomely decomposed with a terrible smell to boot.
"Oh spirits, that's disgusting," Luma cried as she immediately blocked her nose.
Pem followed suit, averting her eyes from the still rather fleshy skeletons – and making sure she didn't glimpse the one that would be Aisa's - and focusing on the place where Felo had been sleeping. Unsurprisingly, the sky bison wasn't there, but Pem couldn't help the amount of disappointment that hit her regardless.
"He's not here, and he had all of our luggage," She informed Luma as the apprentice healer came over and shook her head slightly.
"But is that a saddlebag?" Following her pointed finger, Pem's eyes fell on a small and familiar saddlebag lying on the untouched grass, out of the fire's range. She immediately ran to it, sifting through the wonderful contents that seemed like her only connections to what her life had been weeks before. They were mostly small things, a water gourd, a pair of flint stones, a few hair ribbons, and best of all, a bison whistle.
Not noticing Luma spotting something and wandering off, Pem blew into it excitedly before tilting her head up to the bright sky. Despite what she could irrationally hope for, Felo didn't appear, nor did he the next five times she tried blowing the whistle. After sighing again, she packed up the bag and let the straps sit in elbow as she carried it over to where Luma had found something else she had been missing.
"My airbending staff!" Pem exclaimed as her face lit up, and Luma passed it to her with a smile. "Well, airbending staff slash glider." With a flick of the wrist, the extra supports and fabric came out of the central staff, immediately becoming the glider she was so familiar with.
"That's impressive!" Luma beamed. "Can you fly with that?"
"We bend the air currents underneath the glider, so essentially, yes," Passing the saddlebag to Luma, Pem stopped only to snag the bison whistle before preparing to takeoff on the glider. "Look, I'll meet you back at your workshop, but I have to look for Felo. I'll be back though, I promise."
With that, Pem jumped into the air, and after wincing a little, took off into the sky. The much missed feeling of air running through her hair made her grin before she put the whistle to her lips and blew as hard as he could. She tried it again, using her airbending to force more air through the whistle, though no sound came out. Or rather, none that was audible to her ears, but she knew that if Felo wasn't too far away, he would be able to hear it.
The search lasted for hours, and the midday sun scorched her skin until the afternoon came, and Pem's strength was plummeting with every minute, so much that the glider dipped every couple of minutes whenever her bending weakened. But she was determined to not give in. Just when she reaffirmed this in her mind for the sixth time, a familiar shape appeared on the horizon.
"Felo!" The girl cried with unabandoned joy, and the sky bison roared in a similarly affectionate way, and within a minute they were together and she had leapt onto his head. Burying her face into his fur, Pem felt his body warmth seep into her skin and his presence calm her troubled heart. "I've missed you so much, boy." After all, sky bisons were companions for life, so being parted was hard for both the airbender and the sky bison, so she knew that Felo had missed her as much as she had him.
Felo let out a long, drawn-out grunt full of contentment. Pem smiled at the sound and shifted so that she was sitting on his neck, and grabbed the reins.
"Come on, buddy, I want you to meet my friends," She told him, "Because you saw the battle, Aisa's gone now," Felo let out a moan of grief at her words and she fought back her own tears as she soothingly patted his head, "I know, it's just us two now...but these people saved me and I think you'll like them."
The two creatures of air soared through the sky, both feeling more complete for having each other.
"Are you sure that you have to leave? Are you ready to?"
Pem just smiled at Maua's nervous enquiries and just patted the older woman's shoulder. "I am, thanks to you. I'll always be in your debt. But if this Earthbending master you've told me of is as close as you say, I have to ask him to teach me because Earthbending is my only sure way forward. But thank you again, I owe you both my life." She hugged Maua and made her way over to Felo to check that all the supplies were firmly attached in the rim of the saddle, which would be carrying no passengers for a while.
Once they were out of Maua's earshot, Luma opened her mouth to speak but Pem clamped her palm over the girl's lips before she could say anything.
"I can't take you with me," Luma immediately looked disappointed, but Pem shook her head, "I don't have time to take you to an exciting city, my only destination is this valley where you say this nomad lives, because that's going to be my life for a couple of years now. And unfortunately someone like you just can't fit into it. And after everything your mother has done for you, how can you leave her when you're all she has? And after she saved my life, how could I take you from her?"
"You're right," Luma said quietly in realization, and let go of Felo's fur. "My place is here, for now at least."
Pem nodded and jumped into the air to land at Felo's reins. "Exactly. Thank you both. Goodbye." Just as she was about to take off, Luma smiled at her with an air of admiration.
"Pem..."
"Yeah?"
Luma grinned. "You're going to be a great Avatar."
Surprised, Pem felt the compliment warm her heart and a smile broke free onto her face. "I really hope so," She answered, "Felo, yip yip!" With that, the sky bison took off into the sky with a roar of triumphant and the airbender on his back waved until they were out of sight.
An hour or so later, Pem leant back against Felo's fur as she watched the sun set and admired the gorgeous collars ravaging the sky.
"It's just you and me now, Felo...but let's see if this Master Kamar will teach me Earthbending, shall we?"
Hope you liked it, flick a review my way even if you didn't, that would be awesome!
-MayFairy :)