Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
"Freedom Begins Today" by Abraxas 2010-01-18
The prisoner was startled by the voices. Discretely, like a warrior of the forest, he rolled off of the bedding and crawled toward the sound. Silently, he crouched at the wall by the door. Attentively, he recognized and listened as the guards Po and Han bantered back and forth.
Han: "I tell you - fire-benders are hiding."
Po: "Strange...we noticed the reduced numbers of soldiers but that just the fire-benders were missing..."
The two were walking from end to end along the passage and they whispered, perhaps, together: "It must be the eclipse..."
The prisoner staggered onto a chair. His elbows to table. His face to palms. He sighed and blinked at the lamp allowed by compliance - its light revealed the scraps of a meal whose remnant was water.
The exile sat aback as if reliving what it was like to hide within canopy. A breeze. The songs of birds. Daylight striking eyes.
It was frustrating the way time passed without end, unnoticed, except where marked by the rotation of food. He had not seen daylight that month. He had not met a friend since - since - it happened. And, worse, he was forbidden pen and paper despite everything.
The only extant connection to the world came from the gossips of the guards.
"Hm, Han, do you think we're alone? I mean - this is such a forgotten part of prison."
"Li told me about a certain prisoner, there, there, I think. I forget the name. A Long Fen agent."
"Ah, the Freedom Fighter, yes...I heard of him. Pity..."
When he learned that Ba Sing Se fell he was, actually, pleased by the news. The city revealed how the incompetence and corruption of the regime caused the Earth Kingdom's demise. A country as vast as theirs - it should have been impossible that the Fire Nation colonized even an inch of the land.
Even the North Pole, tiny by comparison, remained free.
He was convinced by the city's inequality - and arrogance - that the future of the people required a rebellion against those institutions that by inaction co-conspired to oppress them. If the word could be spread properly, then, the fall of Ba Sing Se could be the catalyst that sparks a rage across the country.
"Yes," he said aloud - by force of habit.
Word had to be spread about exactly how the fall of Ba Sing Se happened - as spread by word of mouth by the soldiers present. Yet, he could have screamed into the night and earned nothing but a beating. The rest of the country was trapped, too, a slumbering comatose kind of prison. It feeding off of the morsels of gossip that by chance trickled out of the city.
Lies, planted by the Judi's of the world, that tormented endlessly.
If only ink were offered then those ideas born of brooding would be finding action within the minds of his countrymen.
Po: "Azula took the Dai Li agents to the Fire Nation."
A voice unrecognized: "Er, good riddance..."
Han: "Shhhh - walls with ears."
As time passed, holed with thoughts, a litany of ideas found a home within his mind. he tested them, of course, evaluated their logic, their feasibility, as if they were battleplans. It was strange at first because it was so alien a thought, yet, more and more he came to realize a certain truth. If the people themselves were involved with the day to day business of their own government then they would be the first to fight to defend that freedom. The first, no doubt of it, to risk their lives to preserve their community. A faceless, nameless (and ineffectual) bureaucracy was not required.
But for any of that to happen the very way people thought of themselves and their world needed to be changed.
He improved steadily. Wounds healed. Body strengthened. Mind wandered. The world remained a constant ten by ten cell full of pacing and other facets of restlessness.
He feared the onset of insanity.
To keep stable he started to talk. Strange as it sounded. If he had been outside amongst people the behavior would have aroused suspicion. But as a prisoner it seemed to be the mind's only way to cope. He talked and noticed the skill improved. He lectured, to himself then to guards.
He was asked what to do about the Fire Nation colonists. He smiled at the prompt as he thought of the issue too and already answered it. It was to give those people a choice. If they pledged loyal to the Earth Kingdom then they would be allowed refuge.
"What if there are fire-benders among them?"
That, too, he considered and concluded:
"Bending's an ability. Bending's got nothing to do with loyalty. It's how they use their bending same as how they use any other talent. It's what people believe in that matters at the end. If they're willing to fight with us for freedom then they are us..."
"A little too advanced, son, a lot of folks won't take kindly to it."
Gods, if there was a way to write the ideas.
That day the guards did not come. No voices. No news. The last item of gossip was that Fire Nation troops were mobilizing and leaving a small, defensive unit at the city.
The prisoner waited - and waited - until the lamp consumed itself. Whatever was happening it was serious. Prisoners were shouting as if rioting. There were sounds of bodies slamming into cages.
Then came the explosion.
It was obvious - a battle was raging - but with whom?
A canon hit the doorway. The metal crumpled, cracked. The cell was flooded by lights that seeped through cracks. Another canon fired and the prison itself shook. The mortar between bricks loosened. The shouts of prisoners filled the air.
He got off of the ground, dazed by blast, unsteady as if inebriated. He realized what happened - and what had to be done - then broke a leg of the table and used it against that doorway. He pried it - the leg shattered yet the doorway fell with a thud.
He - prisoner - emerged as prison toppled with fire outside and riot inside. He recalled, vaguely, a path taken when he had been incarcerated then maneuvered through the guts of the fortress unlit and unarmed. The sound of the battle grew louder and louder. A handful of prisoners followed convinced of the certainty of his escape. Eventually they reached a courtyard bleached by sunlight and there found freedom through a crack the war opened.
Given a new chance at life, he vowed, the war to reclaim freedom began that day.
END