Jet did not remember Aang anymore. He was too far gone for that; too far gone to hear the sound of Toph's cries, the shrieks of the other refugees as they ran from the docks.
"Aang! God -" Toph was helpless, she realized with a start. The airbender had fallen to her feet and she had practically thrown herself on top of him to shield him from that dark, blinding ring of blade. Aang grabbed her by her waist, trying to get her to stand, to move out of the path of the sword.
"Toph - fuckin' a' to hell -!"
Aang, still with the half-toppled Toph on top of him, kicked out towards Jet with one foot; it sent a ferocious gust stampeding towards the dark-eyed man, but Jet was ready, waiting, anxious for the fight. He tore one hooked blade into the wood of the dock and hung onto the hilt as the wind rushed past. Aang saw him tense and prepare to leap forward as the wind swept by, and in blind desperation - ignoring the gash on his chest, and the tangle of a fur-covered earthbender on top of him - he flipped over, smashing Toph roughly beneath him. She made a short, upsetting noise as he did so, unaware that he was shielding her with his own flesh.
Jet had pulled himself by the sword hooked in the dock and flown, it seemed, to a place above the airbender. His hooked blade was tearing through the air like a scream, ready to skewer the wretched Avatar where he lay, sprawled awkwardly and protectively across the blind girl.
Sheer, dumb luck, and a sailor who'd drank too much rum, saved them.
"YAAAAAH FUCKER -!"
Captain Chong brought his lute crashing down wildly over Jet's back, the frail instrument shattering from the force of the blow. Jet stumbled, momentarily, as the splinters fell, a long out-of-tune note echoing triumphantly in all their ears.
"Yeah! You watch it from now on, chook!"
Now, Chong was unintentionally courageous in this act, unintentionally heroic. He had no knowledge of the dark and powerful force of the man on the dock, of the empty soul and the singular will. Chong's victory lasted only a brief moment, until the seething, cold, terrible black eyes turned upon him, and the poor drunken sailor realized the monster he'd come up against. The captured, ice-froze fury in Jet's eyes sent a brief, but vicious wave of terror through the Captain.
"Aye... no hard feelings, Master, eh...?"
Jet's sword had already flown, and the side of Chong's face sliced open.
Lily screamed from the deck of the Kuruk; people at the other end of the dock turned a her shrill cry, sighting the man with the blood-streaked blades, and a panic ran through the crowd. People ran and yelled, stampeding to the gates of the Tribe, heedless of the gatemen beneath their shouts and wails and conffcusion. Jet had already swung again and Chong, neither a fighter nor a bender, threw up his hands to shield himself. He saved his life in doing so, but sacrificed his right arm, as Jet's blade ripped it open, elbow to shoulder, in one clean, distinct, gory-red cut.
"Aye! Aye fucker -!" Aang leapt wildly from Toph, shouting desperately to draw Jet's attention. Jet needed no encouragement, and in a moment Aang was face-to-face with horror.
Gyatso had taught the Avatar to evade, and that was what Aang did now - employed every style and tactic and maneuver ever taught to him by the Master, every side-step and flip and twist and awkward position that saved him from the path of Jet's hooked blade. He kicked one blade away and ducked the other; he spun himself into the air only to have to block another blow descending from above. It was a fast, delicate, dangerous tap-dance that had the airbender leaping around all about the dock, feet touching ground for half-seconds, Jet coming at him like a whirlwind.
It was not a routine Aang could keep up, no matter how light he was on his feet; the gash on his chest, though stifled somewhat by the cold, was still bleeding beneath his furs, sapping him of strength. That, and Jet seemed possessed by some monstrous rage that was giving him more-than-human enthusiasm in his pursuit of the Avatar; if Jet had been a swift and deadly ghost in Balda Haram, he was an absolute wraith now, a force of nature, something genuinely powerful and horrifying. It bewildered and terrified Aang, leaping about like a fly before a spider, a lion, a demon.
Jet was too fast for Aang. He had always been too fast. Too rushed. Too merciless.
Toph crawled blindly on the dock. She heard the sounds of battle going on before her; the ring of steel and bite of wind, the heavy, solid footsteps of the unknown swordsman, and the light treading of the airbender. She tried to follow the battle with here ears, but without any earth beneath her, everything was muddled and distorted. She thought she heard metal slide again through flesh, and yelled.
"Aang! Get him, dammit - get him, kill the son of a bitch -!"
She distracted Aang. She distracted him enough to get an elbow in his face, the crunch of his nose breaking. He fell on his back, without breath to cry for pain, the sharp point of the tiger hook cutting down through the air as he fell.
An arrow embedded itself into Jet's shoulder. Jet tore it out in one quick motion, almost as soon as it entered. Aang even imagined he pulled it straight out of the air. Jet looked wildly about for the source, for the man swift and silent as a shadow.
Longshot took advantage of Jet's momentary confusion; he was between him and the airbender like a streak of light, and his elbow had made contact with his brother's stomach. Jet skidded down the dock, unable to quickly get his sword hooked back in the wood. There was a moment where Aang recognized the silent archer, the face he'd seen briefly, once, in Balda Haram.
"Fuckin' hell - Longshot!? Wha' the fuck's goin' -?"
"Get on the ship!"
Longshot was not trying to protect the airbender. He was trying to get him out of the way. Jet roared, leapt, bowled Longshot down over the top of the airbender. Longshot kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying; he clawed his way back to earth with the tiger-hooks. Bloody nose and all, Aang had taken up a bewildered and enraged Toph, airbending himself towards the Kuruk. He went back once, beneath the protection of Longshot, to retrieve the wounded Captain.
Longshot's bow was drawn, loaded with a red-tipped arrow. His eyes were set and devoid of emotion, but not in the same sense as Jet's. For Jet was hollow because of the mindless thing Azula had made of him - and Longshot had forced himself to be hollow, forced himself to hate his brother.
But Jet did not even see Longshot.
Ever before Jet's eyes was the sight of Azula, her cruel and glorious golden eyes, the promise of blood and vengeance. She was the black-winged angel who'd raised him from obscurity and created a cold and sightless monster, her swift hand of fate. She was his goddess and his world; his flesh and his spirit; his passion and his rage. She had given him purpose, direction, and a cause - a cause he no longer remembered or cared for, being totally consumed with her, body and soul. There was little trace of the old Jet, the Jet of bloody streets in Balda Haram and drinks at the bar, the Jet who sided with Vica and slit throats beside Zuko. No, there was little trace left, hardly a glimmer; there was nothing in him now but her.
But Longshot was no better. For Longshot did not see his brother anymore, did not see the man he had known since childhood, since desperation and poverty. He saw Smellerbee sprawled upon a bed with a crooked leg; he saw cities in flames and pools of blood in the street. He saw a twisted and detestable monster of a thing, a man hollow and mindless, a man without memory or remorse. It had created a grief-stricken rage in Longshot, powerful and sorrowful and incurable, and it had, in its turn, made Longshot sightless. All mercy and thought to the salvation of Jet had fled from his mind, and there was no will in Longshot to save the dark-eyed man - only a will to destroy the wretched creature on the dock.
Jet's eyes were empty, angry, black as the Void. They mirrored Longshot's perfectly.
"Hello, brother."
Even Jet's voice was hollow.
Longshot roared and let the arrow fly. Jet sword's sliced through it, a shower of splinters trailing out behind him.
"Master Arrowhead, it seems you are not well-liked currently," said Chong humorously, but he was shaking beneath Lily's care and clutching his shattered lute. His arm was bleeding profusely, and his face was ripped open almost exactly from jaw to ear. Lily had brought him a bottle of rum while she tried to tend to his wounds, and he had already drained half the bottle.
"Chong, we fine -" although blood was pouring from Aang's nose and soaking the edge of Toph's fur coat, so that she began to wonder why her arm felt wet. "We jus', be needin' you ta' take us someplace, its -"
"Trying to give this man directions right now, young Avatar, would be like explaining spiritual enlightenment to a cockroach-fly."
Aang froze, staring at Pathik, who had emerged suddenly from below-deck.
The Guru looked, if possible, even more awkward than Toph in the bundled up furs. His long, wrinkled face glared at the Avatar in a terrible, stern, but otherwise unreadable way. Aang felt his stomach drop, and his cheeks get hot and red.
"'Ow...'ow'd you now an' all, Guru, Sa'...?" and then Aang realized with utter clarity that he was, in fact, running away - and that he had just been caught by a rather aged, but stern-faced holy man. The ancient man looked at him over the massive weight of his white beard, and knitted his great eyebrows together.
"Avatar, I don't mean to offend you - but right now I consider you the biggest idiot on the planet."
"...Hell, can't really argue wit ya' there 'bouts, Guru Sa'," Aang consented, and then suddenly Toph screamed:
"Ok, ladies, really? Let's get the fuck out of here! Fucking please?"
Pathik seemed startled at Toph's language, but Aang had to restrain a humored chuckle. The Guru cast one disapproving look at the blind girl, but quickly focused his attention back on Chong.
"Very well. Captain, is there anyone else who can steer the ship?"
Aang thought, for a tense second, that he'd heard wrong.
"Wai'...your goin'... you're not bringin' me back an' wha' -"
"Aye, yeah, Lily can," said the Captain blearily, interrupting the airbender. He tried to take another swig of rum, but missed his mouth completely, spilling it abruptly over his left shoulder. Lily grabbed the bottle from his weak hands, shaking at his bloody figure. "Right, Lily? You've done it afore. I've shown you how."
"Then miss, you must get your ship going! Set a course for the Ruin Mountains. Avatar, clean yourself up," and the Guru tossed him a white rag to clean his bloody face. Toph wiped anxiously at her wet shoulder, unknowingly. Lily did not move for a long moment, loathe to leave her husband's side; Chong had to encourage her.
Aang pressed the rag to his nose, but in a rush remembered the fight still in full force on the dock. Releasing Toph, so that she stumbled blindly into Chong (the Captain caught her, awkwardly, both of them looking ridiculous all covered in blood). Aang leaned over the side of the railing to see the two figures in fierce combat on the dock, arrows flying, swords slicing.
Aang did not know they were brothers. Had he, he might have found the scene all the more sickening. He might've tried harder to stop it.
Guru Pathik was loosing the ropes that held the Kuruk to the dock. He was an old man, and not experienced with a seaman's knotwork; by while Aang leaned over the railing he managed to undo three of the four that held the ship. The last was laced tight around a support pole, and he was having a difficult tim undoing the sailor's knots.
"Wai' - Wait! Longshot! Longshot, ova 'ere!" Aang called, trying to get Longshot on board and away from the deranged Jet.
Aang's shouting drew the attention of Jet again, who turned from Longshot's shooting and sped down the dock. The great ship was not yet loosed from harbor, and in moments Jet could be aboard the ship again, terrorizing airbender, earthbender, Guru, Captain and wife. Aang saw his approach and prepared to leap from the railing of the ship, prepared to meet him head-on, blood still oozing gently from his chest beneath the torn furs. He did not know of Jet's sudden change in attitude; but he had not known Jet long enough to be overwhelmed with it.
Longshot stopped the confrontation. But again, he did not do it for Aang.
His arrow screamed through the last rope holding the Kuruk to the dock, and the ship jolted off into the icy current. Jet skidded to a stop at the end of the dock, the cold waters already bearing the ship away, Aang shouting desperately back towards the two of them.
Jet was not giving up. He turned and bolted towards another boat on the dock, to steal it, to follow the Avatar. He reached a smaller vessel with a wide sail that he could steer easily; he made to grab for the rope that held it fast, made to pursue Aang.
Another arrow implanted itself into the post, inches from Jet's hand. Jet turned, still cold, still cunning and enraged, to look back at Longshot.
"No. We finish this."
A crazed, genuinely insane smile corrupted Jet's face, deepened the dark hollows beneath his eyes.
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
The Thief was dead, no match for the confused hellfire of Zuko. The firebender turned immediately back to the Spirit-Fox, unconcerned with the smoldering corpse.
"Myobu -"
But the Fox had trembled and collapsed onto the hexagon.
Zuko ran, skidded down to the spirit's side, hesitated over his still form. Then he pressed his ear to the Fox's side, listening for heartbeat, waiting for the feeling of an inhale.
The moments ticked by.
Zuko listened. He felt suddenly, impossibly, like he would die if Myobu died. He listened like he would stop breathing if he didn't hear it; he listened like he would break.
A single drumbeat, low as the whisper of a wingbeat, came from somewhere in the Fox, and Zuko's heart leapt. He raised his head and, rather rudely, began to shake the Fox roughly.
"Myobu - Myobu, I know you're alive, you crazy fucker! Wake up. Come one, wake up, you damned dog -"
But Myobu lay still. Even as he looked at him, he could see the Fox's brilliant red coat dimming. Fading. Drifting to a low, lifeless gray.
"Myobu, come on!" Zuko picked up the spirit's face in his hands and shook the beast, staring desperately into his half-lidded eyes. There was no fire left in them; just a thin, white film, like swamp mists, like death. His tongue was hanging lazily out of one side of his mouth, drool dripping down across Zuko's hand, and his breathe was ragged.
"Myobu, you fucker - you have to tell me what to do! I can't save you if you lie there like a fucking piece of rabbit-shit!"
He shook the Fox again. One of Myobu's eyes blinked, but the other one seemed blank, empty, like he'd gone half-blind. His eerie, otherworldly voice did not speak, not a nerve of his body stirred. A silence and stillness like the crawling, creeping wood that held Yue captive.
Zuko stuttered, looked wildly around, briefly scanned the corpse of the Thief, then looked back at the dying Fox with the graying fur. Enraged, he yelled; he grabbed Myobu fiercely, roughly, and began to shake him again.
"Come on! Come on!"
Something in his blood stirred; the part of him that dealt fire, dealt warmth. As he held Myobu, he felt it moving beneath his skin, fighting, writhing, captured flame, begging sudden release through his healed fingertips. He hesitated, staring oddly at the graying Myobu, as the flame fought for escape - and too distraught, too confused, too desperate to do anything else, he gave in. The hexagon lit up like a matchstick; his hands erupted, spilt into a violent, blood-red flame.
"Wake the FUCK up, Myobu!" he roared it straight into the spirit's face, and then let his fire enclose the beast.
A red beacon shown from the top of the black rock.
Zuko engulfed the Fox for a moment, in fire, in heat. Myobu was lost suddenly in it, a fly that had wandered into a blaze; it roared around him ferociously, terribly, an inferno on the hexagon, a funeral pyre. Zuko's face was bathed in blood red, brilliant red, cheeks flushed crimson; his golden eyes were like stars, small suns, and they were watering from the closeness of the heat. The fire seemed to leave his veins of its own accord, and the flames licked Myobu hungrily - but he was not consumed.
Myobu burned beneath Zuko's heat, but was not devoured in flame. A hint of red came back into his coat, a small sparkle in the spirit's eyes.
Sheikh.
Zuko's fires went out with a rush, instantly extinguished by the sound of the Fox's voice.
Everything was dark atop the rock again.
"...Sheikh," Zuko repeated beneath into the black air.
He felt cold. Dead cold.
He ignored it, stooped instantly to the limp form of the Spirit-Fox, scooped up the great beast and swung him over either shoulder. The redness of Myobu's coat was completely washed away, and there were sly films of white pus coming from beneath his eyelids. He was drooling, tongue still hanging out, dead weight on Zuko's shoulders. But the firebender didn't care - he lugged the massive beast over to the side of the hexagon and began to descend down the long, precarious path that wound from the top of the black rock, his feet bare and raw on the stone, Myobu's heartbeat a world away.
Zuko walked carefully down the rock, tip-toeing gently by the tents, hanging in the shadows around the campfires. With the bulky form of Myobu slung across his shoudlers it was far more difficult to maneuver, but the cover of darkness (and granted, the inattentiveness of the Thieves, who had grown slightly over-confident during their years of rule in the Desert) gave him an advantage. There were no steps on the rock, and hardly a carven footpath, for the Thieves were very skilled at navigating terrain and lacked a need for them. Zuko, well-balanced and alert, nonetheless had frustratingly slow goings on many parts of the descent, and one or two close calls with a passing, sleepy-eyed Thief.
When he reached the bottom of the great structure - some forty-five minutes later, no doubt - he laid the Spirit-Fox gently in the cold sand in the shadows of the rock. The tent of the Sheikh was not far off, tall and golden in the black night. Zuko, loathe to abandon Myobu but having no other choice, crept towards the tent, toward the closest guard. Only a dozen or so around the Sheikh, but well-trained and venomous as vipers.
The man must have noticed the sound of Zuko's feet upon the sand, for her turned at his approach. There was a ring of steel as the guard drew his blade - a brief, brilliant glow followed it, as sudden and beautiful as a shooting star, and the man was on the ground. Another guard, a sandbender, saw the snuff of flame and immediately turned the earth around him to quicksand - to no use, though, for Zuko had already leapt, striking hard in the man's side with both feet, the high scream of cracking ribs.
He landed, but only for a moment; the tent of the Sheikh was too well-guarded, the Thieves eyes too cunning in the dark. Already another sandbender was behind him, and the earth beneath Zuko shifted, dragging him down; he kicked wildly, fought, roared, but it was no use. The sandbender sank him up to the waist in cold sand, immobilizing - yet when he attempted approach the firebender lashed out in jets of white-yellow fire, trying to ignite both the guard and the gold trappings of the tent. He burned the legs of the closest man and sent the clothing of another on fire - but for all else his wild lashings came to naught, as his hands were wrapped in sand and pulled down at his sides, pinned in the earth, and all in a matter of moments.
The feeling of being dragged, chest-high, through pounds and pounds of sand is not a pleasant feeling, and it heightened the crushing fury in Zuko's heart. They brought him before an irate Sahib, stirred as he was from sleep, his turban-mask gone, dark skin and dark eyes like a fallen warrior angel. The story was explained in a brief, trembling rush by one of the sandbenders as the Hundred Eyes glared fixedly at the firebender. There was a dim, weary, but ferocious tone in the man's powerful voice when he waved it away, saying:
"Endea Sheikh."
Zuko heard the word and felt hope flare in his chest - then terror - for Myobu lay abandoned and sprawled on the sand in the dark.
They took him into the gold tent. Past incense, past gold, past tables of meat and fruit and bread. Past stolen chests and necklaces and half-clothed women, draped in glittering shawls that one could see straight through. He viewed it all in only a moment, before being thrown at the feet of the Sheikh, before curling wisps of candle and incense smoke, before red pillows and blanket and two gnarled, black feet.
The old man stared at Zuko dimly. The Sheikh was a toothless, red-gummed, half-blind man who had stolen more than his fair share of years, his face devoured by the expanse of a huge, bushy white beard and a red-cloth turban. His skin was black and polished as jet, flawed only by several large freckles on his wide cheeks, and the multiple layers of wrinkles; his gnarled, black hands were like aged tree roots, curled forever around his tiny, frail knees, hidden beneath his red dhoti. Tiny beads hung around his neck, alongside gold coins and jewels and other such trophies or treasures. He was bedecked and decorated like an altar, surrounded by candles and bowls of fruit, most of which were untouched. Singularly thin, skeleton-like, his cheeks were hollowed out, and his bony structure was hidden beneath red, crimson blood-red clothe, all crimson-red, all stained with blood.
Zuko would not have had much fear of this ageless man, save that he had a very long, curved white knife in his right hand, and he was using it to inspect the mtwana before him. He touched the blade to Zuko's neck, to make him move his head, but his hand was old and unsteady and he (whether unintentionally or intentionally) delivered a subtle cut to the firebender's throat.
"...Dahabu macho?"
Zuko barely heard the words before the man yanked him by his long, sand-crusted black hair and brought him uncomfortably close to his wrinkled face.
The firebender stifled a cry of pain and remained motionless as the Sheikh, for some ungodly reason, took to touching the majority of his revealed face. The grimy, unwashed hands of the old man wouldn't have been half so unpleasant if he didn't smell so strongly of body odor and rancid meat. Zuko didn't know what the old man as trying to accomplish, but he didn't much enjoy getting his nose and cheeks smushed around like he was rubbing his face on a window.
Finally, the Sheikh withdrew his hands, but his eyes did not leave Zuko. A sour look came over his face, cracked, pink lips pressed together as he stared quizzically at the firebender.
"Iroh?"
It was the last, most absurd thing Zuko had ever expected him to say.
He stared at the Sheikh, who stared at him, awaiting some answer from the slave. When Zuko did not respond, the man stared at him a while longer with his bleary, aged eyes. Then, in a more hopeful tone, he repeated the name.
"...Irooooh?" He drew it out this time in a comical way, as though he thought Zuko slow.
Zuko couldn't...think. What the fuck?
"....Iroh?" he repeated, as if it would help. The Sheikh broke into a wide, toothless smile, released the firebender's head, and clapped his hands.
"Eewaa! Iroh! Habari nzuri!"
The old man seemed indescribably elated. He repeated Zuko's uncle's name, and then pointed at the firebender's face, saying something quickly alongside to Sahib in a delighted, enthusiastic way. Even with the man's thick, sausage finger pointing at Zuko's nose, Zuko noticed the face of the Sahib had grown to a frown, and he was glancing beneath the firebender and the Sheikh as though one of them - or both of them - was about to get their head chopped off. Suddenly and acutely aware of his life on the line, Zuko's heart gave a dramatic. He saw Katara before his eyes and courage flowed through him.
"...Awaken Gui Xian!" he shouted suddenly, even though he was unsure if the man could even hear or understand him. "Awaken Gui Xian!"
The Sheikh stopped speaking to the Hundred Eyes, blinked, and stared. Rather disinterestedly, he turned away from the firebender and began to speak to the Sahib again. They spoke for awhile in the barbarian language Zuko did not know; still trapped, still kneeled and vulnerable before the Hundred Eyes, Zuko did his best to hide his fear.
"Come along, mtwana," was the snarl that yanked him to his feet. It was the Sahib who dragged him from the tent, the Sheikh getting up excitedly, if shakily, to his aged feet to follow. Zuko dragged by his arm by the Sahib past the gold and naked women, and noticing only the tone the words of the Hundred Eyes, crystal clear amidst the barbarian language.
"You.... you speak Gev...?" but Zuko's question went blissfully unanswered. The Hundred Eyes tossed him out of the gold tent and onto the burning cold sand, drawing his sword with a ring. A second passed where Zuko thought he would be slain, and his body tensed, bled fire, rushed and sparked like some captured flame was trying to escape him. The Sahib ignored the firebender's defensive stance, his hand slack on his blade.
"Mtwana, you are a descent of a friend of the Sheikh, and that is the only reason you re alive. But to keep your life form me, you must show you are the true messenger for the Awakening," Sahib seemed completely displeased at the existence of the firebender, and had a look to smite the miserable heir of Agni where he stood. Zuko swallowed, ran his fingers through the sand, glanced around for the still form of Myobu lying sprawled upon the earth.
A scream ran through his head. A descent of a friend of the Sheikh. Iroh.
"...How must I show it?" Zuko kept his voice strong, to hide his fear. It came out cracked.
"You must make lightning."
And the Sahib glared at the firebender.
"...Lightning?" Zuko's heart nearly stopped. Only his sister could make a lightning. Only his father.
"Do it, mtwana," snapped the Hundred Eyes, and in his threat was death.
Zuko stood slowly on the sand. He swallowed. He tried to remember the words his uncle had told him about lightning. Something about balance, about power; something about chi, flowing, energy... Fuck, why couldn't he ever remember what his uncle had taught him?
Instead he attempted to mimic Azula. He posed himself, horse-stance, and began to move; the Sheikh and the Sahib watched in mounting delight and annoyance, respectively; the firebender called fire to his veins as he had a million times before, familiar, trusting.
But this time he pushed it. This time he delved for more power, more heat, more force. The fires in his body shuddered, condensed, cracked, jolted; nothing yet came from his fingers, but there were massive sparks glittering within his body, heating, blazing. Sweat broke out on Zuko's forehead and his skin grew red with heat; the inferno of his chi, the captured sun-fire he kept locked away, he released it all into the mass network of his veins and let it flow, liquid-hot, lava-like, amidst his blood. His body trembled from the heat, becoming flame, becoming a nova, a burst of hellfire. It blazed up into his brain and deluded him, his motions becoming all but mechanical, a copycat of his sister's inherent skill.
Sahib watched it all without expression. He could see the firebender's skin crawl with heat, his very body burning beneath his own heat. He saw him like a star - a star about to explode, a demon about to erupt with dark and hateful fire.
Zuko felt like his veins, his blood, his soul was on fire. His skin was burning up; his eyes went dry, red. Lava, liquid fire in his veins.
The Sahib half-stood expectantly. Even in his eyes, as the eyes of the guard around him and the eager Sheikh, there was expectation. The firebender shook, ground his teeth, smoked, seemed like he would rip himself apart.
Zuko felt like he contained the sun. It lived in him, burned in him, as he moved in that fluid motion; and when he could contain the sun no longer, he released it with a rush and a cry.
He flew back, burned from the effect of his rudimentary bending. Blindly, he managed an impressive explosion, sending him tumbling backwards into a number of unfortunate Thieves.
But no lightning.
The Sheikh threw back his great, old head and laughed a raspy, coughing, toothless laugh.
The firebender was on all fours, shaking weakly. Curling wisps of smoke were drifting from his form. Sahib, annoyed and exhausted, drew his straight blade, the blade that had slain countless men, the blade that could See a Thousand Things; he drew it an fancied he saw the death of the firebender within its polished metal.
The Sheikh shouted something, and the Hundred Eyes paused. Zuko looked up at the lethal, vicious, and moderately pissed off piece of Thief who's shadow loomed over him like some early doom, listening as the Sheikh shouted orders to him beneath his laughter. A terrible, furious gleam came across the Thief's face and, to Zuko's relief and his disappointment, the Sahib slammed his sword back into its sheath with a crushing ring.
With one hand, the Hundred Eyes grabbed the still shaking, weakened, smoking firebender and began to drag him ruffly towards the black rock.
"You have reached the Sheikh, mtwana," the man said gruffly as Zuko stumbled. "He wills me to tell you my true name. It is Piandao. But I would rather you call me Sahib, lest I allow Gui Xian to devour you when he awakens."
|----------|
|----------|
|----------|
|-----------|
Toph was not in the room. Katara was torn, but she knew it was better this way - leaving without saying good-bye. It would be too painful, too difficult to hear the objections her dearest sister would arise - how could you leave? You're running away? How could you be so selfish? Fuck, Katara - at least take me with you!
She hated herself for leaving the earthbender here. Here, amidst a Tribe where she could see nothing, feeling nothing, do nothing. Toph was blind and useless here for the first time in her life, and there was no way to repair it. Katara knew she had been her sister's only comfort within the Tribe, and she tried to console herself with the idea that Sokka, or Suki, or Aang - maybe they could give by her shoulder to lean against? Her sister would hate her for this, be shattered because of this (Katara was the only one who knew, really, how delicate the earthbender's heart truly could be). Yet she had a mission, a message, a chance to do something for the dying and diseased, and she could not ignore it. Her heart burned with hope, with passion, with purpose for the first tim in a long time.
The waterbender, of course, was not aware of her sister's recent escape at the docks. Had she, very many things about her plans would have been altered. As it was, she was packing hastily, hoping to escape the room before her sister happened to return, of Suki or her brother arrived, or even someone like -
"Katara?"
The waterbender whipped around to see Kimba, standing in a doorway half-ajar, one hand bearing a tray of dried fruit and biscuits. She was staring at the hasty, messy packing job that lay on the bed; the niqabs half-crumpled, the few dried meats, the tinder and waterskin. It took Kimba half a moment to realize the scene before her, and Katara jumped to the offensive instantaneously.
"I'm going, Kimba," Katara breathed. "I'm going and you can't stop me."
This, in itself, was a bit of a lie. Kimba was a better waterbender than Katara at this point; she had had far more training, far more time with Master Pakku, and if it came down to dueling, the Acchain woman was sure to lose. But Katara was determined to put up a bold front, even if she wasn't so bold herself, and it showed in the way Kimba hesitated.
"What... what are you talking about?" she demanded, putting aside the food tray. She did not move from the doorway.
"I'm going. You can't stop me."
Katara tried to remain impassive, continue packing. But her hands were shaking now, as though her body as trying to demonstrate just how stupid and ridiculous this all was - and Kimba noticed, noticed her nervous, fumbling fingers as she packed, the guilt weighing on her shoulders. All against the desperate, hopeful, unrelenting blue fire that had suddenly erupted in her eyes.
"...No! You can't leave!" And now Kimba stepped into the room, still purposefully placing herself between the Acchain woman and the doorway, brown eyes wide with disbelief.
"Yes I can!" Katara's voice raised just a little, feeling backed into a corner, caught. "I have to. Don't try to stop me."
"Stop you? Do you know how far the Tribe is from other lands? You'll die on the sea by yourself!" Kimba roared at her.
"I'll be fine. I'll take Appa," her voice shook as she said it.
"The bison? His legs are still broken! And what - you think the Avatar would just let you steal him?"
Katara's heart shuddered and deflated. How could she have forgotten that? Appa couldn't fly, couldn't walk... but Kimba chose that moment to step towards her, and Katara's defense went up again.
"You can't understand Kimba! I have to go!" Katara grabbed her partially packed bag swiftly and swung it half-hazardly over one shoulder, but Kimba was still blocking her way.
"No! I can't let you -!"
Kimba grabbed for Katara's bag; what she intended to do with it once it was hers, Katara could not be sure, but she swiped for it back anyways. The two girls grappled over the bag for a moment, unable to bring themselves to more than a tug-of-war and a few pushes in the shoulder. Neither of them wanted to hurt the other, and no blows were thrown, but each one's grip on the bag was unshakably strong. They battled with their eyes, finally growing annoyed, and began to banter -
"Stop it, dammit! Its not yours -"
"You can't leave! Its suicide! You're an idiot if you think -"
"I can take care of myself! Get off my bag!"
"- you haven't learned anything! A few weeks you've been with Master Pakku -"
"I said get off -!"
"- No! You're acting fucking -!"
"- Dammit, chuò, Kimba -!" and Katara, and gave the bag one heroic pull - Kimba went reeling slightly off her feet, and had to release the bag in order not to fall.
The feather leapt from the bag, as though fate had plucked it out. It drifted down to the floor in full view of the two waterbenders. Sparkling. Silent. Dangerous.
Katara stooped instantly to pick it up, expecting that Kimba would accidently step upon it. The feather was gleaming, unstained, perfectly and impossibly white. It looked like a star in Katara's dark hand.
Kimba did not reach for the bag again. She had frozen at the sight of that white, unreal feather, and retreated back a step.
"...Kimba?" Katara's voice shook. There was something distant, something horrible and wonderful and familiar in the girl's dark, Bear-Clan eyes.
Kimba lowered herself to sit at the bedside. Her dark face had gone pale, and one tense, delicate hand was pressed at her heart, wrinkling the fabric of her furs where the fingers clutched. She was still staring at the feather, and Katara - self-conscious of where her eyes were drawn, as well as protective of the sacred thing - closed her fingers around the soft object hesitantly. Silence sat for a moment; Kimba continued to stare at Katara's closed fist, the end of the feather peaking out beside her pinky.
"You saw the Owl."
Kimba said it like a woman deprived of breath; she said it like a ghost.
"I..." Katara did not know what to say. Bewildered, she watched as Kimba finally lifted her eyes to stare straight into Katara's, face half-shielded by the niqab.
"...What did it say to you?"
Katara hesitated, clutched the feather protectively.
"How... how do you -?"
Kimba's fingers drifted up to her paled, caramel-skinned neck. She took hold of the thin cord that hung there, and drew from her shirt the remains of an amulet; an aged silver coin beside a ruffled, bent, but still perfectly white feather.
Katara looked from her feather to Kimba's. There was no doubt, no room for error; they were two feathers of the same make, the same bird. Two identical owl feathers, one just older, more ruffled, a little bent. She felt her hands shake.
"What did it say to you?" Kimba repeated, and this time Katara, shocked and shaking but unable to resist from the sight of the twin featehrs, answered her in a halting tone.
"It told me to... to go to a jungle. To find a Serpent - a snake, a colored Serpent..."
"Nabau," Kimba breathed. Her hands were shaking gently at her sides, and she gripped the side of the bedsheet to steady them.
"Kimba..."
"I have a few maps in my room. Let me get them."
The girl was vanished and out the door in a moment. The ten minutes she remained gone seemed like an eternity
"Kimba, what are you doing?" she asked when the girl reappeared, her caramel skin flushed from running, her dark hair askew. She bore a great many scrolls and papers in her arms, some with a seal of a Chieftan - which led Katara to believe that many of these did not, in fact, belong to the waterbender.
"I am going to help you, Katara," she said in a rush, dumping the papers upon her bed, beside the still half-packed bag. She drew a piece of charcoal from a pocket in her furs and began to draw arrows, directions, upon one of the largest maps. There were other sketches on the map, too, marking things and places Katara had never heard of before.
"Kimba - why? What?" Katara grabbed the girl's shoulder so the waterbender could look at her. Kimba's eyes were full of fire and excitement, and a smile captured her face for a brief second.
"When I was young, I went with my mother once to the High Altar," she took Katara's hand and said it in a quick whisper, a secret she'd hidden away. "She was a healer, and left me before Yue to speak to a Dove. The Owl came to me, too, Katara; it spoke to me, first in the Ancient Tongue, and then in my own. It told me to wait. It told me to wait for the one who sought Nabau."
Katara's breath came out in a mist; the room was cold, as she'd long let the fire die. Hope flared in her chest like a beacon, and Kimba saw it ignite.
"So... it wasn't just.... I'm not -"
"- Crazy?" and something in the way Kimba said it made the Acchain woman fell completely at ease. "No, you're not. But we are very lucky. It is very rarely that the Owl speaks to anyone. I think you are the first one since I was spoken to."
"Mother Moon!" Katara cried, and for a moment lost herself, going to embrace Kimba. The idea of someone accompanying her on this odd, dangerous, guideless treck was a deep and immediate relief; the girls hugged for a second and then focused their attention on Kimba's maps, Kimba plotting out points she'd drawn with the charcoal.
"I made this route a long time ago," the Tribeswoman admitted, as she traced the lines on the page. "I think it is the quickest way to reach the jungle. It is the oldest and largest jungle in the world - if Nabau holds true to his legend, he should be there."
Katara followed the lines on the paper with her eyes. She saw them cross the North Ocean, split down a canyon that bordered the Empire, cross a sliver of the Derest, and then -
"We will go through Acchai," Katara breathed. Something ignited in her heart and flamed there, bright and brilliant and beautiful; the thought of seeing Zuko again, the thought of Acchai. The longing in her soul for the firebender, and her homeland, created a burning sensation in her chest that would not abate; child of the Aurora Tribe as she was, waterbender and healer, she could not deny the war-lands that had made her.
"Yes. A little across the Desert, too. Is that ok?" Kimba asked.
"...Yes. Yes it - it is ok," Katara half-stuttered. Kimba must have read the mad delight in her face, for a smile stole across hers.
"Do you think we'll cross paths with your Zuko?" she teased, nudging her in the shoulder. Katara laughed and nudged her back, trying to ignore the comment.
"Be serious, Kimba. Let's go quick, before the sun's full up."
But there was a sparkle in Katara's eyes. She felt like she could feel her heart beat again, for the first time in weeks.
The two girls, giggling to hide their fear and wonder, stole away to the docks.
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
Suki awoke with that familiar, throbbing pain in the back of her head. She was accustomed to it, accustomed to the effects of the cactus-juice and the intensity of the Readings; Sokka, however, was not. The Prince lay sprawled, unconscious, stripped naked on the messed sheets and furs of Suki's bed, a very delightful smile lighting his face. Suki laughed quietly to herself, looking approvingly over his fine form; then her eyes turned towards the dying fire, towards the Seeing Stones abandoned on the floor.
Her heart froze as she examined the Reading.
Suki had seen ominous things within Readings before. She had seen suffering, deceit and turmoil; she had seen wars between Spirits and the shed of virgin blood; she had seen rape and murder and unjust death. She knew the signs to seek, the patterns within the chaos, the clues and codes. She had been trained by the isangoma. She had been trained well.
But she could not believe the message in the Reading.
Gently, she left the bed, left Sokka's slumbering side, and crept across the floor to the scattered stones. Her hand shook as she reached for a bone, the deadliest part of the message; she tried to pick it up gently, but it was no use, no use trying to change the message in the Reading.
The sharpened edge of the white bone slit her finger open, red and raw as the heart-jewel, and she dropped it. Blood slid down her skin, across her open palm.
"...No."
The iced outer walls of the Tribe were studded now with streaks, with cuts, with scratches. Marks of blades and arrows.
Pieces of torn clothe were drifting in the white-frothed waters. Crates were shattered. Sails torn.
Arrows feathered wood and ice, black arrows against a background of white. It was a backwards image of some distant memory; an ember-ridden valley, still smoldering from war. Fires still burning in the distance. Black arrows against a background of red.
Splatters of blood were on the dock. On white walls.
On flesh.
"...So this is how it ends."
Something in Jet trembled. Writhed. Screamed.
He was dimly aware of the blood soaking his sleeve.
Longshot's blood.
The archer looked at him with distant, black eyes. They matched perfectly with Jet's.
Jet had entered the world crying. He had been a red-faced baby with a pathetic splotch of black hair on his head; he was not as chubby or round as a baby was apt to be, for his mother was a frail and sickly woman. But he had come into the world a fighter, a ferocious spirit, a beast; they even said he tried to kick the doctor when he was slapped.
Longshot had not entered the world crying. Not even when the doctor smacked him on his round, white bottom did the babe utter a sound; only his wide, open, constantly blinking eyes caused them to know he was living, and even then they suspected him to be an odd sort of boy. Longshot had entered the world in dignity, and in silence.
The archer slid, trail of blood on the wall, the wide, gory chasm in his stomach. He did not utter any of the choking, gagging, life-clinging sounds of the other people Jet had killed. He let blood slid down across his lips, across his fingers, across his legs and knees.
"To fall seven times."
it was the last thing Longshot ever said, and it was hollow. Meaningless.
Jet shook. He shook so violently he dropped the blood-drenched swords. He shook so violently he stumbled.
He shook at the way his brother looked at him. In blood. In pain. In silence.
And Longshot left the world as he had entered it.