So... guess who deserves a pie in the face for not updating in forever?
ME.
And not a delicious, banana-y, creamy-filled pie.
Nuh-uh.
A sweaty, finger-filled, chunktastic, Sweeney-Todd pie of DOOM.
You may now commence throwing.
--
--
--
When Sokka returned to his room that afternoon, he was not expecting to see the Kyoshi-Shaman.
It was snowing outside. It made the iced streets and towering white-blue buildings of the Aurora Tribe seem smaller somehow, a tiny city in a snowglobe. Windows frosted over and even some of the waterways began to ice over at their edges; Sokka slipped more than once as he returned to the massive white hall, set alongside the Chief's own home, a great and unexpected honor. It hadn't been his only unexpected honor that day.
Affairs of war had always been Sokka's calling. All the affairs of Acchai had been intertwined with such things; political struggles came down to brothers decapitating one another; economic issues had been solved by the burning of a Lord's rice fields; taking a wife meant taking the woman, even if meant killing her former husband. Jeong-Jeong had groomed him, trained him to deliver justice with an iron hand, for there was no other way of dealing in Acchai. There were no manner or customs abided other than those of war, no elegant symbolic meetings, no diplomatic relations. Matters of diplomacy were solved with the sword and the bow, not with a silver tongue. Men who tried to persuade others with words were considered cowards in Acchai, crawling ants.
The Aurora Tribe was different. Here, no legacy of war pervaded the cold streets. Men's actions were not dependent on the immediate and terrible resolution of a warlord or ruthless General. They were dependent on foreign relations, on the complicated aspects of trade and commerce, on political policies. Arnook had come to Sokka out of desperation, seeing a nation on the brink of poverty and starvation. Arnook needed a plan from the Aurora Prince, a plan to save the people from the impending doom of a broken economy and surrounding nations at war.
And Sokka's instinctive reply, as it played out inside his head, as it played out with Jeong-Jeong's voice.
Just send your warships and raid some weaker nations.
And Sokka did not imagine Arnook would like that reply.
Sokka, in fact, was beginning to doubt if he did.
He entered his room exhausted, boxing away Arnook's concerns by focusing on the dinner that would soon be delivered to his room. He was, however, pleasantly surprised to find another sort of delivery waiting for him.
"Suki?"
He could only dare to hope, with her sitting at the edge of his bed like that. Wild memories of her naked body, of the dizzying warmth in her endless skin... he could only dare to hope.
"Sokka..."
But when she looked at him, he saw fear in her eyes. The same kind of fear that had entered him when Jeong-Jeong had roared, deep and peircing, of the bloodbender's approach; the same fear that pulsed, ignited every inch of his paralyzed frame as his blood was captured, twisted, pulled slowly through the skin. He doubted Zuko would ever know of the terrible horror the firebender had saved him from. The only time Sokka wanted to weep, to beg, to plead, and was too insane with fear to do so.
This was the same sort of fear Suki looked at him with - the deep, powerful, consuming kind, the kind that not even the most conceited man in Acchai would boast to overcome. Some fear was real. Living. Breathing.
"I know her. Knew her."
He came to her side and put an arm around her, quiet, soft. She was shaking already.
"Who?" he hoped she would not break down at his question. She inhaled sharply, but her voice broke only a little when she replied.
"The Princess Yue."
"You mean... the Moon Spirit?" Sokka didn't want to feel dim, but he had to ask, gently. "Suki... you can't have known her. She lived hundreds of years ago. Maybe... maybe you knew someone who looked like..."
But Suki was shaking her head, and her body trembled. Sokka wrapped his other arm around her in a full embrace, tried to keep her still, tried to transfer some peace into the chaos of her body. She buried into his shoulder, and he felt the first warm, hesitant tears slide onto his furs.
"No, Sokka...!" she shook, and he gripped her close, completely at a loss of what to say or do. Her voice came out broken, high, forced; he could hear in the strained tremor of the way she spoke how difficult it was for her to say.
"Do you... Do you remember when I told you... about that woman I killed?" he bit his lip, descended to play little kisses on her forehead.
"Suki, I already told you, it's ok... you didn't know, you were so young -"
"No! Please. You don't understand," she pushed him off, not enough to break his embrace, but enough to stop his kissing. Her voice was strained in such a dangerous way that Sokka wanted to tighten his hold on her, she seemed so fragile in the torchlight, so lost...
"Suki... I know. I know it's hard. The first time... the first time I killed a man..."
Sokka couldn't get the words out. He had been twelve when the barbarian had tried to hack off his head. He remembered only glimpses; swinging the bladed club wildly, the man's form falling on top of him, infinitely heavy. The heavy stench of his body and the entire front of his clothes soaked in blood. Suki was looking up at him, wide-eyed, desperate, seeking something he wasn't sure he could give.
"Suki, its horrible. You never... you're just having a hard time, understanding what -"
"No, no! You don't understand!" and then Sokka was terrified, because her hands had flown to grasp the front of his shirt, and a dangerous ring of tears had formed in her eyes. "It was her. It was her..."
She lowered her face into his shoulder as the tears fell - the mad, confused, despairing tears - and Sokka felt his throat go dry.
It took him a moment. A long, endless moment, as though some part of him knew he didn't want to know.
It was her.
A lady in white, with deceptively familiar eyes, sparkling clear as crystal.
"I don't know," Suki mumbled into his shirt, wet with her tears. "I just don't know..."
For a long time he held her in the dim light of the room, his own heart beating loud, trying to make sense of the situation. Trying to rationalize - it was impossible, it was a terrible, horrible thought. And yet in his core Sokka knew Jeong-Jeong had told him stories of this - of spirits coming to their earth, in escape or in mission. Even now two fish circled each other in an ancient pool, cast forever beneath the moon. Suki sobbed into Sokka's shirt as he thought these things, and the Prince tried to comfort her as best he could. Her untamed hair was beautiful and long in the lamplight, and Sokka stroked it absentmindedly as he thought. Th gesture seemed to bring the Kyoshi-Shaman back to reality after a few moment, her face tear-streaked and still wildly upset.
"I'm sorry," she wiped eagerly away at her swollen, wet face, ashamed of her weakness. "God, I'm sorry. I'm so... so..."
"It's alright... Suki," Sokka took her face in one hand, so that he made sure she was looking at him. "It was a long time ago, Suki. And if it was... if it really was Yue... I'm sure there was a reason. I'm sure it needed to be done. She is a good spirit, and wouldn't have asked you to otherwise."
Suki looked like she would fall over and cover him in relieved kisses right then and there; but she restrained herself long enough to wrap her arms tight around the Prince in thank you. Her body was warm and it made an intense, pleasing feeling run through the course of Sokka's body. She pulled away from him still blinking back tears, looking very upset at herself.
"God, I'm sorry," she wiped at her face again. "I must look terrible..."
"You are beautiful," Sokka meant it, found in guilt and delight how beautiful her flushed, tear-sparkled cheeks looked in the lamplight. He was reminded strongly, vividly of their night at Masabi, of her gorgeous curves and the delicate tan of her skin. It got muddled with his concern for her, a desire to ease her mind. "You are... always beautiful."
A small smile escaped her lips. She reached up and put a hand on his face, warm and soft.
"You're... just saying it," she sniffed, cast her eyes downward, away from his gaze. "I'm not like... not like..."
Whoever she was about to compare herself to, Sokka did not give her the chance. His lips were on hers, and he was dying, flooded with the memory of her - skin, lips, warmth. The sound of her sighs. The inside of her.
She responded in hesitance, still haunted by the emotional tole of the day. Sokka knew it was there, knew it weighed on her mind and tried to relieve her the only way he knew how - he whispered to her, whispered how thoroughly he loved her, admired her. Pulled her into the safety of his arms and let her wrap herself around him. Buried his face into her neck, kissed the tender skin. It was enough for her to let go; she sank into him, closed her eyes and succumbed to the pleasure of his wandering lips.
"Sokka..."
She felt the bed beneath her, felt her hands at his chest, hard as stone beneath the furs. The Prince was sliding his lips down her neck in unrelenting pursuit, as enamored with her now as he had been at Masabi. He lingered overlong in one spot; to kiss across the top swell of her breast. Suki arched into him, allowed her leg to slip down beside his, and -
- and her foot collided with the stand for the oil lamp.
The oil pan collapsed from underneath the light and the lamp went out. Thankfully the entire thing had not fallen over, lest the room should catch fire; but the pan had still clattered, deafeningly, to the floor, spilling the sticky liquid across the bear-rug carpet. Suki leapt at the sound, while Sokka remained blissfully unaware for another few moments.
"Oh, I spilled the oil everywhere - God!" Suki wriggled her way out of Sokka's grip (who was, understandably, disappointed) and grabbed a cloth from the side-table. Sighing at the though of the whole carpet bursting into flames, she added: "This stuff just isn't that safe to have around!"
"What? What isn't?" Sokka said stupidly, wanting her back, half-crawling towards her. Suki, however, was already on her knees, trying her best to wipe up the mess with the borrowed cloth.
"What?" Suki looked at him from where she was wiping the floor, slightly put-off and annoyed by his inattentive behavior. "The oil, Sokka -"
"The oil?"
And then a light clicked on in Sokka's head. A brilliant, god-awful, life-saving light.
"The oil! The oil!"
"Yes... yes Sokka..."
"Yes! What? Why isn't it safe?" Sokka sounded ridiculous, and the look on Suki's face said so; but she humored him, if only out of emotional exasperation.
"Well... its so flamable. I get why they need it, I mean, they need lights and machines and things - don't bother helping or anything, Sokka..."
"...Machines," Sokka was a million miles away, back in the Union, back before the train where he had encountered Aang and Zuko, back in the muddy streets of the city. People talking about machines. Tanks and mills and war balloons. Everywhere the growing stench of war - and of war machines.
"That's it. That's it, Suki!"
He leapt and took her up in his arms, whirling her around the room as she gave a short, startled gasp of surprise. Frozen with shock, she allowed him to put her back down and gaze, with a huge, slightly terrifying grin, into her beautiful face.
"Suki, that's it! What does an army need to keep it's machines in repair? What does it use to fuel war balloons?"
Suki bit her lip briefly, glanced nervously side-to-side, and raised an eyebrow.
"...Oil?"
"YES!" Sokka practically shook her, kissed her again, took her in his arms and spun, spun, until finally Suki forced herself away.
"Sokka, you're... really scaring me," she breathed, looking as though she'd entirely like to run from the room now.
"Suki, just listen. The Aurora Tribe is failing. They have nothing to trade - but they do, they just don't see it! It's just a quick fix, but it's what they need! If the Union's at war, they'll need oil, and lots of it - oil that the Aurora Tribe has!" Suki swallowed, swiftly tried to figure out what Sokka was talking about, and then muttered back her reply.
"But... can't they get oil somewhere else? And for cheaper?"
"No," Sokka was really excited now. "The Union has no natural oil supplies, they don't have the terrain. The Empire will be at war with them soon enough, so they aren't likely to get it from there... and Acchai's completely undependable. Suki!"
He grabbed her, embraced her, danced with her shocked in his arms around the room, kissed her when she laughed at his odd behavior, and finally roared out:
"We can export seal oil to the Union! We can help the Aurora Tribe!"
--
--
No sound entered the Spirit Oasis.
It had been that way for hours, and it was growing late.
Aang opened one eye hesitantly, keeping the other squinted tightly. He dared to glance over at Pathik.
The Guru was glaring narrow-eyed at him.
Aang snapped his eye shut again and felt his cheeks flush.
The silence endured as Aang studied the dark insides of his eyelids.
He breathed.
He sat.
He wished for something to eat.
He willed a bolt of lightning to strike him.
He opened an eye again.
"Uh... wha' was it I was concentratin' on, Guru Sa'?" Pathik sighed audibly.
"The binding, inner energy that connects you, as the Avatar, to all physical and spiritual creatures of this world."
"Aye... right."
The silenced commenced again.
Aang breathed.
And sat.
And tried to concentrate on the binding energy of the... the inner bind that... the physical energy that binded him to spiritual...
Ah, fuck it, aye?
Aang let out a very exaggerated sigh and slumped over.
"I ain't gettin' nowheres, sittin' 'ere, Guru Sa'."
"That is because you keep talking to me!" snapped Pathik. Irritated, the Guru pinched the bridge of his nose. "You must concentrate! Reach back into your memory. You must let go of yourself and become one with the energy of this place. Now gaze into the water and concentrate!"
Aang recoiled a little from the Guru, but gave an irritated sigh and slumped, gazing lazy-eyed into the water. The two Koi fish circled each other in the water, black and white, slow as the ripples in the water. Aang wondered, briefly, why the fish constantly circled one another. Perhaps it was a mating ritual... perhaps they'd been trapped in the pond so long they'd given up exploring.
A whisper crossed Aang's ear. Hardly enough to feel, to hear.
He started up a little at it and glanced at the Guru. Pathik's eyes were closed.
Another whisper, and another ripple in the water.
Aang half-rose from his meditative state, unnerved, uncomfortable. He looked over his shoulder, up at the sky, around the borders of the Spirit Oasis. There was something nearby that hadn't been there before, and it Aang severely disliked its presence. He was getting the same sort of feeling he had received at the Eye, in the roots of that cursed mountain, and it was making nervous sweat run down his forehead.
A whisper. A red moon.
Aang looked around wildly, heart beating like a drum. He'd heard a voice this time, heard it - a red moon. He fumbled over to the side of the Oasis, intent on splashing his face with the sacred water, despite the supposed offense it would cause.
The whispers grew abruptly, swiftly, suddenly in volume. Aang opened his mouth to cry out, hands flew to hold his head.
And then there was light.
Guru Pathik sighed in relief as he saw Aang's eyes and tattoos flood with that familiar glow, and reached for another bowl of picked sloth-fish.
The ground was cold. It was not like his visit with Roku, brief and intense and blood-rushing; it was slow and muted and cold, cold as fear, as death. Aang felt it embrace him, down to the marrow in his bones, like a ghost trying to possess him. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, breath coming out in a mist. The trees did not look real. They were leafless and barren, but they were not dead; their trunks were like arms reaching from the ground, their thousands of branches thousands of fingers, twisting, grasping towards the heavens. The ground was coated in ice and frost, but there was no snow; it was as though the world had been frozen at the exact moment of birth, at the exact moment when it should have been growing with life. Now it was cold and motionless.
The trees did not move. The frozen blades of grass did not quiver in a wind; the air was stale and stagnant. Everything seemed set as stone, but it was a horrible, horrible illusion; because just beneath the steely surface pulsed something dark and dreadful and cold. Aang was afraid to touch anything.
"Hello, Avatar Aang. It has been a long time since we last spoke."
Aang whirled and sent out a gust of wind; no reaction came from his fingertips, and he stumbled headlong into the grasping arms of a withered tree. The spirit-growth bent down towards him, creaking, screaming, snapping, full of darkness. Aang yelled and ripped himself away from it, tearing his shirt and stumbling down before the spirit. He looked up at her, wide-eyed, empty and lost.
The woman was gorgeous, clothed in white, a wedding gown of the Aurora Tribe. Yue was the Virgin Spirit of her people, the Holy Daughter to whom the Doves - her disciples in the Moon Temples - praised and serviced. Amongst spirits she was the most selfless and serene, though wisdom was still to be seen - she was a young spirit, and had not developed her place as thoroughly as Tui, as La, as the Tree-Daughters. Her hair flowed behind her like a cloud, like a memory, vanishing into the dark shadows of the cold spirit-forest, this wasteland. Her skin was ivory-white and hardly distinguishable from the coloring of her glowing dress or her drifting hair. In fact, the only thing about her not bather in the infinite white glow of her serenity were her eyes. Blue as sapphire, as a cloudless sky, as innocence.
"Wh..." Aang couldn't get the words out. He was too scared, too cold.
Yue did not at once move. There was fear, and regret, and doubt in her eyes. Then she bent forth and grazed her fingers across the airbender's forehead.
Warmth spread over Aang like a blessing. He shuddered and tried to look back into Yue's eyes.
"You... thank ya', ma'am... Who are...?"
Aang stopped. His voice had cut through the air like a knife, like a gust of northern wind, and it had made the branches of the trees shudder and wave.
She did not answer him right away. She simply gazed at him, endlessly serene and silent. It made Aang's insides go cold again, despite the warmth she had granted him. He felt as though he had intruded on some old, dangerous, sacred sort of place; as though he had offended her, and her silence was a stern one.
"You know who I am, Aang," she finally said.
Aang found himself nodding, instinctively.
"Yes, ma'am."
She watched him for a while longer, and Aang imagined her gaze softened. He wanted to ask her where he was, why he was here, her advice, her counsel. He had a million things to shout out - and yet the cold stifled his breathe, while his body remained warm. There was something encasing, suffocating about this place.
"Five hundred years ago, you were killed by a man named Long Feng."
Her voice reminded him of stars, falling.
"Long Feng?" Aang muttered, whispered. "...th' Emper'r at Masabi?"
For a moment there was silence. Then, with a low, subtle tone, Yue spoke words that sent daggers through Aang's heart.
"You would do well not to mention Masabi yet, Avatar."
Aang's heart seemed to sink from the weight of her words, but Yue continued without change.
"Your spirit is an eternal entity, Avatar. But five hundred years ago, you were slain in the Avatar State - and such a thing should have ended your existence altogether. You owe your existence now to myself, and the disobedience of your past life, Roku."
Aang nodded again. He was unable to speak, to think. he could only listen to her, bowed on his knees before the pure beauty of her being.
"Before your spirit was fed to Death, I gathered you up, saying I might bless the soul before it was lost. The Spirits allowed me. But in kindness of my heart, I disobeyed my nature. I sought for Roku, and he transferred what strength he had to you. It was enough to combat the grip Death had on you. It was enough for your spirit to survive. But your spirit was weak, and after the spirits learned of our treachery, we were punished. They vowed to keep you within the Spirit Realm until the Endtimes."
An image flashed across Aang's vision. A hollow egg, and a floating, disembodied light, shaped vaguely in the form of a young boy. He wondered if Yue had given him the vision, or if he was remembering it from some other time.
"They was gonna jus' let me rot there til I die?" Aang managed, horrified. Yue fixed him with a calm, but serious look.
"Any other action was considered an act against Fate. It is not given to spirits like me to decide who lives, and who does not. I was younger then, and more foolish... no being has the right to cheat Death."
"Wha... wha' happen'd? Wha' they do to ya'?" Aang tried to raise his chin, but he felt too heavy.
"As punishment for hindering the Avatar cycle, Roku's conscience was imprisoned. His spirit endured only in you. I was sent to the physical world, to suffer in another mortality."
"Sent? By who?"
Silence, and a flutter of cold, and stillness. Aang felt heavier still.
"It is not given to you, Avatar, to know such things."
Aang felt like his bones were made of lead. He felt he was going to start sinking into the ground soon. He was on all fours now, trying with each moment to raise his head to Yue.
"S'not... so bad. You jus' got... sent 'ere?"
"I would not expect you to understand the punishment. You are accustomed to the pressure and pains of a mortal life, and therefore cannot see the damage it wreaks upon the Spirits. Many Spirits openly admire mortals for their ability to endure this world. And I had required duties while I was mortal that caused me great anguish."
"I can't..." Aang couldn't move. His body felt like it was freezing, stiffening, becoming like the dreadful, motionless trees that surrounded him, like the cold and ever-enduring ice. His tongue and lips felt swollen; they were getting heavy and hard to move, and soon he wouldn't be able to speak.
"You are in very grave danger, Avatar," Yue seemed unmoved by his plight. "Unless you can bring peace back into the world, and restore a semblance of the Four Nations, you will be punished as well."
"Wha!" Aang had to practically cough it out; it was getting too hard to speak, and his next words were forced, loud, strained. "Wha those... Spirits... probl'm... with me?"
And suddenly Yue had grabbed the back of his head and jerked it up, and pain tore down through Aang like being ripped in half. His mouth and gums and lips too heavy to scream.
Yue's eyes were kind, as they were always kind. But they were also terrifying.
"Every time you have descended into the Avatar State, it has been on terms of rage. You have used this ancient power to slay for vengeance. You have abused the Spirit's gift and used it to take life. If you do not prove you are capable of handling such power, it will be taken from you."
She released his head. Aang cried out, stumbled forward from his sitting position, and splashed face down in the water of the Spirit Oasis.
The Guru was unmoved, eyes half-lidded and hollow.
"My, my. Not good. Not good at all, I think."
--
--
It was near sunset by the time Pakku allowed his groaning, sore pupils to trudge home. Katara was determined to make up for her earlier mishap and had pt her heart and soul into waterbending for the remainder of the day. She was now sweaty, tired, hair flown about her head, and niqab threateningly askew. She was fixing the head covering when an unexpected tap came at her shoulder. Thinking, perhaps, it was Aang back from training, she turned with a smile.
The man behind her was not a man she knew, and his smile made her skin crawl.
"You've perfected you're aim quite well, Princess," he grinned, disconcertingly.
He was about a year or two older than her, she guessed, with long night-black hair he'd tied back in a ponytail. He had a strong jaw that, coupled with a baby-doll handsome face, was making a few of the girl nearby grin and giggle with delight. He seemed quite adequately aware of their adoration; he even cast a wink at a group of them, to which they replied with rather obnoxious squeels of glee. He reminded Katara of a pompous ape puffing out his chest.
"Thank you... sir," Katara said hesitantly, and made a little bow. She cast a side-glance at Kimba, who had an annoyed look on her face. The man opened his mouth again to speak, taking a deliberate step towards the waterbender; at that moment, however, the aged Yugoda appeared over the crest of the training ground, and Katara was thankful to concentrate her attentions somewhere else.
"Here, dear," Yugoda said, shuffling up to Katara and Kimba. Toph was on her arm, looking in a very self-loathing state. "I found her wandering near the barracks. Thought she'd like to see you - so to speak, of course. Oh, Hahn - whatever are you doing here?"
Something in the way Yugoda said it made Katara think she knew exactly why the young man was there.
"I was just introducing myself to the Lady Katara," he seemed to brush off Yugoda like an annoying fly. "Hahn is my name, of course. Prince Hahn. Of the Eel Tribe."
His eyes were dark and penetrating, in a way that made Katara feel special and unpleasant at the same time. He kissed her hand in a very chaste fashion, but held it for too long afterwards, as though he had a mind not to let go.
"I thought I smelled fish," Toph muttered, low enough so the man wouldn't here her. Katara knew better than to hiss in her direction, and only inclined her head gracefully to the acquaintance.
"Delighted."
Again, Hahn opened his mouth to say something else, but luckily never got around to it.
"I believe you've had enough training for one day, Katara," Yugoda was suddenly at the waterbender's side, taking her hand firmly. Something in the way she did it made Katara feel as though she'd done something wrong. "You too, Kimba. To dinner, and then to bed - you have another big day tomorrow."
Kimba took her other side, and Yugoda led the two of them away immediately from Hahn's presence, before he even had much time to say goodbye. Katara had not much liked the Prince of the Eel tribe, but she still thought it rather rude to leave him so swiftly, and decisively told Yugoda so.
"What's wrong? Did I do something? Did he do something?"
"You should not talk so much to Hahn, my dear."
Yugoda said it very flatly, which worried Katara and interested Toph. Kimba just huffed knowingly and let Katara ask her questions.
"Why not?"
"'Cause he's an ass," Kimba snorted to herself. Toph grinned and decided she liked the new waterbender; Yugoda cast the girl a swift, laughingly stern look, and then turned back towards Katara.
"He is... not a very trustworthy man. And he has set his eye on you, it seems, which does not bode well, if you want to stay true to your own love."
It took Katara a moment to realize what Yugoda had said - and when she did, her face flushed red, and Kimba giggled a little at her side.
"How do you know I...?"
"I am old and learned, dear," Yugoda said with a subtle, knowledgeable smile. "From the moment I saw you I knew. You're mother had the same look in her eyes when she thought of Hakoda."
Katara's heart jumped as she thought of Zuko again, of the darkness on the docks and the heat in his kiss. She was thankful, now, for the niqab - it shielded her embarrassment somewhat from others, kept her blushes hidden. If these were the kinds of conversations she was to start having routinely in the Water Tribe, she would never take off her niqab.
"So what's his name?" Kimba whispered at her side. Katara's face flushed so deep, she was sure even Toph could feel the heat from it.
"It's Zu -"
The high iced walls of the Aurora Tribe were going by them in alleys, in roads, in rivets of water. Katara had been studying them as they walked, too shy to meet anyone's eyes as she began her talk of Zuko. Her shyness was her undoing; the fates had taken her hand and tossed her into a destiny without warning, without ease. She saw the leper sprawled, twenty feet away, between the monstrous jagged bars of the gate. The lane looked as though it was filed with trash; heaps of used materials and ragged cloth and feces contaminated the white ice, lice crawling into deep places for warmth from the stinging cold. Wind whistled down between the close walls, dank clumps of hair shaking briefly in it wake - and it wasn't trash that filled the lane.
It was people. An endless, tangled, dirty, dreadful heap of people. Their skin was pale, and had taken on a blueish hint between the brown smudges of their own filth; with old, dirty, ripped clothing they had bundled themselves as best as their weak limbs would allow, clambering together for warmth despite sickness, despite nudity, despite filth.
Katara stopped and stared, and took her drink of horror.
She glimpsed swollen bellies. Crusted blood around noses, ears, eyes. Limbs frail and broken, thin as skeletons. Black spots and cysts and pale skin, discolored by sickness and malnutrition.
"Come away, Katara," Yugoda beckoned her, pulling on her arm, ripping Katara from her shock like the sound of screaming arrows. Katara spun, tore away from her, looked wildly at the woman like she'd just seen her for the first time.
"Who are they?" Katara said, horrified, eyes wide beneath the niqab. "Why are they like that?"
Yugoda tried to take her hand, but Katara would not allow it. She stepped towards the entranceway, the broken iced gate hung like the mouth of Hell. A clicking sound met her; high up on the walls surrounding the gate, soldiers loaded crossbows. Kimba leapt forward to grab her arm before she could reach the dead leper sprawled nearest to the gate, and pulled her roughly back.
"That is the entrance to the Black Lane, Katara," Kimba whispered, keeping her hand firm on the waterbender's arm. "We... we do not go down there. Only the healers and the Doves venture there."
"Who?" Katara was numb with shock. Yugoda took the opportunity to start leading her away,
"The Doves are servants of the Moon Spirit," Yugoda said softly, still trying to lead Katara away. "They ask Yue for protection, and then venture forth to bring food and water to these people. Only the bravest healers venture in to cure any... and they are admired, Katara, greatly. But in the end, only one or two may escape the Black Lane... and every healer and Dove to go has not returned. Some things cannot be cured."
Katara tried to get her arm out of Yugoda's and Kimba's grip. They would not budge, and she grew wroth.
"Let go! I'm going to help them."
"Help who? The sick people?" Toph asked wildly.
"You cannot help them," Yugoda said firmly.
"Let go!" Katara cried.
"There is nothing to do, child!" Yugoda snapped, and it was the first time any vehemence had registered in the woman's voice. "The hearts of Arnook and of the Tribe weep in knowing these people suffer; but no Savior is given to us, child! We cannot help these people! We have no pride in ourselves, but neither do we have choice! We send all we can. We send who we can. We do all that is in our power to do - but there is no curing some illness, child. And if you ventured down there as so many healers do, you will find yourself struck with same thing!"
"Everything should be risked for the suffering!" Katara roared, eyes afire.
"You are a fool if you think such things!" Yugoda yelled.
"Rather a fool than a coward!"
Yugoda's old, worn hand was strong for her age. She slapped Katara so hard that the waterbender half-collapsed into Kimba, who was yelling protests to the old woman. Toph, blind even as she was, heard the slap and roared, leaping in the direction she guessed the old woman to be; but even as the earthbender's arm swung, wildly, at the woman, Yugoda had sliced her arms up through the air and encased Toph's legs in a layer of ice. Toph roared, stumbled half-over, and barely began her cursing.
"Bitch! Don't - hit -"
"Silence your tongue, earthbender! As for you - you will not insult the memories of the dead with this talk," Yugoda spat, bony finger shaking at Katara. "All healers have entered the Black Lane knowing full well that they will not return. Many did so without saving a single life. And you will not insult their memory, nor the actions of this Tribe, by thinking you alone can walk through that gate and save them."
"A greater stand must be made," Katara snarled, but then Kimba spoke with a vicious bite.
"Katara... shut up."
Katara looked at Kimba wildly and shoved her away.
"You're afraid!" she declared, Yugoda's eyes cold but quiet. "You're all just afraid!"
"When you enter the Black Lane, you cannot leave, Katara," Yugoda said evenly, her eyes like the rough sea. "And you will die there. That is all there is in that place."
"You can change it!"
"Change what, Katara?" Yugoda screamed, and suddenly the old woman was before her, screaming, wrathful. "Healers have been going to the lane for fifty years! There are no people in that place; there are walking corpses! Will you be so strong as you are now when you enter to heal, and find your power useless? I have seen healers return to this gate and try to slip back amidst the city. Look upon the walls; there are slits in the windows for crossbows. No one can leave, for the moment you step amongst them you are infected. You are doomed the moment you lay a hand upon them."
"It is not beyond our power to heal them," Katara persisted.
"It is well beyond our power. And unlike you, the healers who entered knew it. The Doves who entered knew it. They would succumb to the madness that takes the Black Lane; they would go blind and deaf, and crawl across the ice as helpless as newborns. They knew they would have the death-visions, visions of hellfire and torture. They would feel the needles in their skin, a scorching heat while their true body goes numb with cold. For awhile they would look as lepers; their skin would grow rough, would deteriorate. Their bones would weaken and snap. And they knew - as you do not know, and can never know - the agony that would follow them for days, for weeks, for years. As the bloody lumps grew upon their skin, and their insides churned against them, and blood finally came from every corner of their being - eyes, nose, ears, vomited from their mouths. In that state they knew they were doomed to die, in relentless agony, in waste. It cannot be cured. You cannot cure it."
Toph's hand was in Katara's. There were tears in the waterbender's eyes, as she gazed angrily between Yugoda and the Black lane.
"Let it go, Katara," Kimba said.
"How can you let it go?" Katara whispered, still vehement.
Kimba shook. She didn't look at Katara.
"...You speak like my mother did. And I had to let her go."
Yugoda finally managed to lead Katara away.
Kimba didn't look at the waterbender for the next few days. And Katara felt a hole widening in her heart.
Glassy eyes and people huddling together in filth for warmth. Crusted blood and swollen stomachs.
She wished Zuko was there to hold her.