Avatar: The Warring Earth
Book Two—Air
By Twins of the Pen
Disclaimer: Avatar in itself belongs to Nickelodeon and Bryan Konietzko/Michael DiMartino. The only things that belong to Twins of the Pen are the original characters.
Days later, after hours of planning and strategizing, the night had finally come. Tiki was wound very tight, attempting to keep herself in check, but feeling as if she would explode from the range of emotions she was smothering. Her knuckles were white on her amulet, and she kept having to remind herself to breathe.
The first part of the plan had gone smoothly: they arrived on the island without too much trouble. There had almost been a close shave with two guards, but ZanYi had taken care of them swiftly, and they now slumbered peacefully in the bushes next to where Team Avatar was concealed. Tiki looked up at the building that had once been her beloved summer home, now feeling as if it were a fortress she was ill-equipped to penetrate.
'No,' Tiki scolded herself with a slight shake of her head, 'stop thinking like that. You've been planning this moment for days. Everyone knows what they're supposed to do. Everything is going to be all right.' With another self-reminder to breathe, Tiki turned to ZanYi.
"Which room is the most heavily-guarded right now?" she asked again, wanting to verify everything before a move was made. One mistake could blow the whole operation, and that was the last thing she wanted happening. The tiny airbender sent a nervous glance up at the camera above her. ZanYi had assured her they would be safe, that this was a blind spot, but Tiki could not help but feel as if the camera would flicker down at any moment and zoom in on them, alerting all the wrong people inside. Tiki did not want to be captured before she even had a chance to see her parents again.
"The private quarters," ZanYi answered immediately, her careful gaze watching outside of the brush. She'd taken note of the rotations of guards and zones when she'd managed to get on the island before. They were gathered near the soldiers' quarters for the moment. Then they would start patrolling the main yard, then the practice grounds. Lastly, they'd go back to guard the tower. Team Avatar needed the tower.
The lieutenant dropped her dogtags from her grasp, realizing she had been fingering them again. It was time to focus. ZanYi looked to her team, grim. "When the camera scrolls back away, we have the next fifteen seconds to move over to the tower before it'll catch us. You all know the order?"
Syaoran nodded, paying attention to every word. "First Shun, then me, followed by Tiki and lastly you," he recited, knowing this part by heart. They would bolt for the tower, where they would break in the main door, and be led up in the reverse order they had scampered.
This left ZanYi to lead and Shun to protect the rear. They would have to get all the way to the top, take out the stationary guards before they sounded the alarm, get Tiki's parents, and manage to get back down the tower and off the island. It was slim that any of this would go right, but they had to at least try.
ZanYi turned back to watch the camera as it started to shift away. She muttered under her breath, holding a hand up to prevent anyone from moving too early. "Three... Two... One... Shun!"
Shun took off as soon as ZanYi had called for him, doing his best to keep to the shadows as he led Team Avatar to the base of the tower. He was counting seconds in his head as he hid around the base, and noted what a close call it was-ZanYi barely made it in time because she was slowed up by Tiki's short legs. The giant waterbender stilled, but there was no sound of alarm, so he took it to mean that they were okay.
"Here, Tiki," Shun whispered, digging around in his satchel and passing a thin black case to Tiki. The giant waterbender had splurged on a new "toy" for Tiki—a set of professional lock picking tools. He let Tiki have them on one condition—that she took every moment to practice until she could crack the hardest of locks in under a minute. Tiki's personal best so far was eleven and a half seconds on a standard padlock. Tiki took the case, searching out the tools she would need for the intimidating-looking padlock on the doors of the tower. Once she found them, she waited for the camera to pan away before setting to work, her tongue in between her teeth. This one was a lot tougher to crack; Tiki could feel sweat pouring down the side of her face as she jiggled and poked her tools in the stubborn lock.
"Five seconds!" Shun hissed as a warning. The pressure was on now. In her desperation, Tiki slammed one of the delicate silver instruments harder than she meant to. It broke in half, but by some miracle, the padlock came undone with a snap. Tiki did not even have time to celebrate; before she knew it, Shun was yanking her back around the corner. There was another unbearably tense moment, in which Tiki waited for the alarm to sound and for them to be busted. But again, seconds passed, and all was still. Once Shun released her, Tiki felt that it was safe to breathe again.
Sneaking around the corner once more, the tiny airbender removed the broken bit of one of her tools and carefully undid the padlock so that it would appear locked once they closed the doors, so long as no one got a good look.
"Come on," she hissed in the dark to Shun, who nodded and rushed in after her after beckoning for the other two to follow swiftly.
Once ZanYi was in, she took no time in taking off up the stairs, and Syaoran kept at her heels. When they met the first set of guards, they were ready. Before they could even cry out, ZanYi had moved behind one to give him a quick knockout. Syaoran took the other and did the same; it didn't work nearly as well so he just grabbed the guy's head and hit it against the wall. The second guard fell in a crumple quietly and, fearing a scolding, he shrugged innocently over at ZanYi.
However, she just rolled her eyes. "Whatever works," she encouraged him before taking off higher. Most of the goons were easy take-downs, between the lieutenant and the Avatar. Albeit, one was a proficient soldier and the other just trying to be useful, but it worked out well enough.
When they burst through the doors at the very top of the tower, they found a series of guards waiting there. "Syaoran," ZanYi said, moving low. Syaoran knew exactly what she wanted and followed suit. With quick, synchronized movements, the two swirled up a blast of fire, striking the guards closest to either of them. A few head-shots with knife-hands and kicks of fury, all of them were down for the count.
Just as ZanYi stopped to survey the guards, to make sure they were done for, one behind her started to reach up from the floor. However, Syaoran kicked him in the head and the soldier fell back down with a thud. The lieutenant looked back to see the soldier and Syaoran and she looked at him pointedly.
"That one was one of yours, Syaoran."
"I know. Sorry."
ZanYi rolled her eyes, but then turned to the stairwell. "All clear!" she called out to their comrades.
Shun and Tiki emerged from the darkness of the stairwell, picking their way over unconscious bodies to join Syaoran and ZanYi. Shun let out a low whistle.
"They must have been expecting something to happen if they brought in all this muscle," he speculated, nudging a felled guard with his shoe. "I wonder if we've already been compromised?"
Tiki did not hear anything that suggested that they were about to be overtaken, so she wagered not. Then again, her attention was greatly diverted by the large, ornate door at the end of the room. Tiki glanced back at Shun, who was closest to her, and he gave her an encouraging nod.
"Right behind you," he reminded her. With a gulp and a nod, Tiki continued forward, stepping over the fallen bodies as she made her way over to the doors. The airbending symbol was carved in the thick doors, and as Tiki ran her hand across it, she knew. Her parents were right on the other side of this door. Her tiny heart pounding hard against her chest, as if it were battling for freedom, Tiki pulled open the heavy doors.
Two figures looked up at the sound of the doors opening, one turning from a window, the other at a table, lowering a book. The figure at the table, closest to the door, was a woman of small stature. She was clothed in a white summer dress, her long dark hair kept in a ponytail that was slung over her shoulder. Her skin was pale, as if she had not seen light for a long time, and her face possessed the weary, battered look of a woman who had been put through her paces. Her eyes were the exact shade of gray as Tiki's.
The man at the window was of average height, and he too wore clothes of white. His head was bare, save for a blue arrow that adorned his forehead, the following stripe disappearing under the collar of his shirt. What little hair he had on his head was on his chin, liberally streaked with gray. He, too, wore the look of a run-down warrior. Almost simultaneously, their looks of resigned expectancy turned into complete shock upon setting sight on the tiny airbender in the doorway.
"Great spirits," the man whispered, sounding breathless, "is that..."
"...Tiki?" the woman called, standing up. It was her face that Tiki sought most, and she did not bother to fight the tears as she ran into her mother's arms.
"Mom! Dad!" Tiki sobbed, her head buried in her mother's shoulder, "I missed you so much!" Tiki hardly dared to believe it: they were alive, they were safe. Tiki managed to get to them before they were executed. Everything was going to be all right.
"LingShi, it's Tiki!" the woman beckoned her husband, pulling away so she could get a good look at Tiki's face. Tears were streaming down her face as well. "Oh my goodness, you've grown so much!"
"She has most of your genes, YinXiang," LingShi noted, moving to embrace his family. A tear or two slipped from his eyes as he beamed down at his family. "Oh, Tiki...how happy we are that you are alive."
The Chouko couple looked at each other, joy reflected in their gazes. Tiki watched as, with alarming speed, that joy turned to horror; her parents' gazes returned to her.
"But Tiki..." YinXiang began slowly, gripping her daughter's shoulders with an abrupt urgency, "Child, what are you doing here?"
Tiki was a little unnerved by this sudden change in demeanor, but she figured she knew what the reason was. "Don't worry, I'm not captured," the tiny airbender assured them, "I came to rescue you with my friends! Look, the big guy is Shun, and over there-"
"No," LingShi cut her off, "Tiki, you cannot be here. You cannot stay."
The introductions died in Tiki's throat, and she stared at her parents as if they were total strangers. "We're not staying," she explained, though she herself sounded confused, "that's why we came. We're here to rescue you."
Her parents were shaking their heads at her, which further confused Tiki. What was going on?
"Child," YinXiang addressed Tiki, a hand under her chin to keep her daughter's gaze as she used the tone of voice Tiki associated immediately with all the other times her mother had to break bad news to her. "we cannot be saved."
That was when Syaoran's face contorted with a mixture of confusion and deadpan. "Um, actually, I think so, since we're kind of already here," he mentioned, gesturing to the group. He glanced over at ZanYi, but found her also a bit perplexed with the words, as well as glancing furtively towards the door.
"Of course you can!" Tiki asserted at the same time, frowning at her mother. She wasn't making any sense. "That's why we're here; it's the whole reason we came!"
"Tiki, listen to us," her father urged, his deep voice usually reassuring. Not this time. "Your mother and I...we are not long for this world. Your mother has sensed it."
Blood was roaring through Tiki's ears. This was not how it was supposed to happen. Her parents were supposed to be overjoyed that she and her comrades had come, and they were supposed to be making their way out of here without being detected. It was not supposed to be like this.
"No," Tiki denied, though she knew it was pointless: her mother's senses were never wrong. "Mom, Dad—please. We did so much planning, we came all this way—"
"You must leave, Child," YinXiang urged, her hands on her daughter's face. "We cannot go with you. Wherever we go, Death will follow. And if you are near us, Death will claim you as well."
"Let it!" Tiki cried, clutching onto her mother's hands as tears began to pool in her eyes once more. "I won't run again, I can't! I've finally found you, after all these years! If they kill you, they'll have to kill me too!"
"Tiki, no," LingShi denied, taking Tiki's shoulders and forcing her to face him. "When your mother gave you her amulet, she was securing the future of our people. When we are gone, it will fall to you to harbor the hope of the airbenders. You cannot die."
The word rang hollow in Tiki's ears. She was no Avatar, the world would still turn without her. Let the airbenders who turned on her family work out their futures for themselves. Let her "people", the ones who dared to label her parents traitors, fend for themselves. If Tiki could not live with her parents, then she did not want to live at all.
Suddenly, a piercing sound shattered the quiet of the night outside the tower. "INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT," a mechanical voice sounded along with the alarm. Shun cursed under his breath.
"They know we're here," he said, turning desperate eyes onto ZanYi.
The lieutenant then swore under her breath as well, feeling that their time was up. "We've got to get moving. Now!" she ordered, needing this group to rush along. There would be time for chatting later. Right now, ZanYi was determined to get this group out of here with their lives intact.
"Then there is little time. Come," LingShi beckoned, leading Team Avatar to the back window. There were bars, blocking the exit, but LingShi used very precise airbending to undo the screws. Once they were loose enough, he blasted the bars out of the window and poked his head out.
"It's time to go, Bumi!" LingShi called. Shun peered out the window to see a large, furry animal on the ground. Its massive, horned head was turned upwards, toward them, and it gave a grunt of acknowledgement. Its six legs were shackled and chained to the ground, but they were soaked from the rain shower that passed through that afternoon. LingShi made quick work of those too, freezing the water on the chains with air. With an almighty roar, the sky bison named Bumi rose into the air, breaking the chains where they had quickly rusted. Bumi settled back down on the ground and turned his riding basket towards the window, waiting.
"Go," LingShi urged, ushering Syaoran and ZanYi to the window, prepared to make sure they landed safely. "We will hold them off for as long as possible." Syaoran was shoved out the window first by the lieutenant, given no choice on the matter. The Avatar's life was apparently a priority.
Still, ZanYi turned back, frowning at Tiki's parents and scowling at the situation. "It's not too late. Come with us now. Don't give up here," she urged the airbending couple, reaching out a hand to help them through the window.
LingShi gave the lieutenant a strained smile. "I would rather not push you out the window, miss. Thank you for all that you've done, but the only way you can help us is to get Tiki far, far away from here."
ZanYi merely scowled deeper, clearly not at ease with the situation. But right now, she didn't have time to argue with Tiki's father. Regrettably, the safety and lives of her team were going to come first now. So, the lieutenant then moved out of the window to join Syaoran atop of the flying bison below, calling up, "Shun! Tiki! Get a move on! We've got to go!"
"Tiki," said an anxious Shun, looking at the tiny airbender. She gave him a sideways glance, daring him with her eyes to make her move. The giant waterbender sighed and stepped forward, trusting that Tiki's parents would make her leave, one way or another.
"Take care of our daughter," YinXiang asked of Shun as he perched momentarily on the windowsill. He paused, torn.
"Are you sure—?"
"We are certain. Go."
It broke Shun's heart, but he obeyed the Choukos and leapt out of the window. He understood how Syaoran and ZanYi had had such smooth landings—just before he landed, a gust of air thrusted him upwards, allowing him to touch down lightly in the riding basket.
As her parents shoved her toward the window, Tiki whipped around, her eyes wet and fierce.
"I'm not leaving without either of you!" she asserted; her voice broke from emotion. LingShi and YinXiang looked at each other, and then at their daughter. As one, they embraced Tiki, planting kisses atop her head.
"Tiki," the tiny airbender heard her mother's voice in her ear, "we love you."
A strong gust of air forced Tiki out of the window, and before she knew it, she was free-falling. It was like deja-vu: her falling backwards, her mother's face disappearing from the window, even as Tiki screamed for her. It was so surreal that Tiki was almost convinced that it was a dream, a nightmare. Any second she would wake up, to find that she and her comrades haven't even left yet, that they still had yet to go on the rescue mission that would end happily instead of like this...
Strong arms encircled her, and Tiki became aware of the fact that Shun was holding her. His grip felt like restraints. "Bumi!" she heard her father call to the sky bison, "Yip yip!"
With another grunt, the sky bison rose once more into the air, flapping its tail to gain height and speed. Tiki twisted in Shun's grip, watching in horror as guards dragged her parents out of the tower to kneel in the courtyard, where two armed guards waited, a man in a Neo-Equalist uniform standing between them. The Neo-Equalist seemed to care not for the sky bison flying above them, although the guards openly gaped and pointed. He was saying something, but Tiki was too far away to hear it. His speech was short, however, and he turned to leave. At the same time, the guards flanking him raised their guns.
"NOOOO!" Tiki screamed. She threw a fierce elbow to Shun's gut, making him lose his breath. His grip loosened, and Tiki broke free, falling back to the island.
"Tiki!" Shun gasped, and then turned to ZanYi, who was closest to Bumi's reigns. "Land the sky bison! We have to go after her!"
Tiki shot like a rocket towards the armed guards, determined to stop them. If she could just reach them before they pulled the triggers...
Tiki felt it before she saw it, heard it before it happened. The guards fired, their bullets aimed towards the foreheads of her parents. Tiki's eyes met her mother's in that split-second, and the tiny airbender watched the light leave YinXiang's eyes as the bullet penetrated her skull. Tiki landed in front of her parents in time to watch them crumble, just as surely as the statue of Avatar Aang had crumbled. Even as Tiki rushed over, crying and calling their names, a part of her knew it was no use. Her parents had left her for the final time. They were gone.
"...Murderers..." Tiki found herself saying, her tiny body shaking with horror, grief, and most of all...rage. "MURDERERS!" She screamed at the guards, who seemed dumbstruck, as if they had no idea what to do with the child that had fallen out of the sky. Before they could do anything further, however, Tiki was upon them. More guards came after she felled the ones with the guns, but she did not care. She would take them all down, she would make every single one of them pay for what they did, she would make them bleed as much as she was bleeding on the inside. Her airbending powers grew with her wrath, summoning a tornado that tore through the place, with Tiki at the center.
This place, this sacred air temple, had been defiled, just as her home had been all those years ago. She would destroy it. She would destroy it all. And she would tear down everything and anyone who dared to get in her way.
ZanYi grabbed the reigns of the bison, hoping it would be as easy to direct as it looked. She could drive a tank, sure, but a sky bison was new territory all its own. She managed to keep them out of the path of the large tornado, but she was not going to land the bison. "We'll be dead meat if we land with Tiki like that. That's one unstable airbender." Instead, she whirled to Syaoran, thinking up Plan B as fast as she could. "Syaoran, remember how I told you firebenders could fly?" she asked him. The awestruck Avatar turned to the lieutenant nodded, vaguely recalling the lesson some time on the island.
"Yeah. Something about jet propulsion with your fire?"
ZanYi nodded and gestured her head towards the cyclone. His eyes widened. "You've got to be kidding me..." he groaned, looking at the cyclone with a bit of agitation. The lieutenant shook her head.
"I'm trying to fly a giant furry sky-bison. You're going to go down there and get Tiki. I'll bring this thing down and get you guys. We've got to get out of here, and we need to get Tiki out of here."
Syaoran looked down at the tornado again, apprehensive. "But I've never practiced the technique before—!"
"Well, you're about to."
Before Syaoran could utter another word or try to come up with another plan to save Tiki, ZanYi was literally shoving him off of Bumi and right into the eye of the winds. At first, he tried to yell, but all cries were just shoved back into his throat. Quickly thinking through everything ZanYi had taught him about firebending, the Avatar quickly focused his hottest flames at his palms and feet.
Sure enough, it was enough to keep him afloat. And he almost smiled in his success. But he had bigger matters to attend to: Tiki. Taking a deep breath of confidence, Syaoran jetted down the middle of the cyclone, trying to figure out how he was going to stop Tiki. The only solution he came up with was to stop her bending.
"Tiki!" he called out, similar to a warning. Then he barreled into her, wrapping his arms around her tight. His flames had to leave then, and Syaoran struggled to hold onto her despite the fierce winds. But he couldn't give up. "Tiki! Stop! We have to go! Your parents wanted you safe! Not as a psychopath! Calm down! I've got you!"
Syaoran's voice came to Tiki from very far away; she was locked away in a very dark place, and she only heard him because her inner voice had stopped screaming for a moment. Almost curious, Tiki wondered why Syaoran was here. Couldn't he see she was in the middle of destroying a defiled temple? And then his words began to trickle in.
Her parents were dead. How would he know what they wanted? But then, Tiki remembered that her mother had asked Shun to keep her safe...was Syaoran assuming that it was his responsibility as well now? Well, Tiki did not need protecting: she was single-handedly destroying everyone that had ruined her life. Revenge was sweet.
Tiki's thoughts drifted back to her parents, laying there in the courtyard. If she destroyed the island...would that not mean that her parents' bodies would be desecrated as well? Didn't they deserve a proper burial from their only daughter?
It was these very thoughts that made Tiki begin to see sense. Slowly but surely, the tornado surrounding her and Syaoran dissipated, and they plummeted to the ground. Tiki cushioned their fall, but got up immediately and staggered to where her parents' bodies lay. LingShi and YinXiang's faces were peaceful in death. Tiki closed their eyes, making it look as if they were sleeping. Destruction lay all around her, her doing. But the greatest destruction of all lay right in front of her. She grasped the hands of both her mother and father, almost unable to bear the cold of their skin.
"...I'm not leaving without them..." Tiki said again, her eyes dull as she gazed at her parents' corpses. "I won't leave them here. I want to bury them. I want...I want the chance to say...goodbye."
All the strength Tiki had been desperately clinging to left her then. Her head bowed, she wept on the hands of her parents, feeling so raw that she believed there would be no escape from the pain. But pain she could handle, with time. What she could not handle was leaving the bodies of her parents here. If she did that, Tiki would never be able to find peace.
There was a light thud as Bumi landed near them. Soft footsteps followed and soon a pair of arms wrapped around the little airbender, a hand covering Tiki's eyes. "It's okay, Tiki. Don't look any more," ZanYi told her in a hushed tone, though even that had a more soothing tone than the lieutenant ever used normally.
She pulled Tiki away from her parents' bodies, bringing her over to where Syaoran was standing. Only then did ZanYi uncover the girl's eyes and let her go, putting her directly in front of the Avatar. "We have to move quickly, before reinforcements come from the city. Get her up on the bison and give her to Shun. Then bring me down two blankets that are packed up there," she ordered him. Syaoran nodded and put Tiki onto his back, climbing up the bison slowly so she wouldn't fall off.
Once he got up there, he handed the weeping Tiki over to Shun's welcome arms and sought the blankets that the lieutenant demanded of him. Coming back down with them, he looked to her, a bit confused. "What are we doing with these?" he inquired of her.
ZanYi was kneeling over Tiki's parents, straightening their sprawled forms. "We're taking them with us," she told him, as if that was obvious. Syaoran glanced from the blankets in his grasp to the bodies on the ground. The idea of traveling with two corpses did not sound particularly thrilling to the Avatar, but one look back up at the heartbroken Tiki, and he quashed that feeling.
He spread out the blankets and between him and ZanYi, and they rolled up the bodies, covering them sufficiently. Grim, ZanYi picked up one of them in her arms, and Syaoran followed suit with the other, taking them up into Bumi's riding basket. "You'll have them to bury," Syaoran tried to assure Tiki, sitting down next to her and Shun as ZanYi passed wordlessly.
Going back to the reigns, she repeated LingShi's earlier words, "Yip yip." Bumi took off the ground and rose into the air, escalating into the night. Down below, she could see the destruction of Air Temple Island, the boats coming from the city to it. Shun was making soothing noises, stroking Tiki's head. She was still crying, but she sat on Shun's lap and stared at the blankets that were hiding her parents' bodies from view. Shun tried to nudge her gaze away, but she resisted every attempt he tried to get her to look elsewhere. Frowning in concern, Shun turned to address ZanYi.
"Where are we going, ZanYi?" The giant waterbender wanted to know. To his surprise, it was Tiki that answered.
"Home. I wanna go home," the tiny airbender whimpered, sniffling. Shun moved to stroke her back.
"Where is home, Teeks?" Shun asked softly. Tiki turned to look up at him; she stared right through him.
"The Eastern Air Temple," she replied, returning her gaze to the blanketed bodies. Seeing the normally cheerful Tiki so heartbroken killed Shun, but he knew he had to be strong when she could not. So though his sympathy made him want to weep along with Tiki, he sucked it up, staring resolutely ahead to ZanYi.
"Do you know where the Eastern Air Temple is, ZanYi?"
ZanYi frowned for a moment, trying to think it over in her head. "I have an idea, yes," the lieutenant answered, speaking as if she were drawing up the map inside her head already, puzzling over it as she always did. Syaoran looked to her as well, brow furrowed.
"Is it enough to get us there?" he asked her. And while normally she would have given him a dirty look for even remotely doubting her, ZanYi just stared straight ahead into the clouds.
"It will be," ZanYi asserted, taking them a little lower so that she could better see the world beneath them. Never had the lieutenant imagined herself flying a giant sky bison to get anywhere—or for any reason. But she guessed the only one with experience would be Tiki, and that was not an option at the moment. So she was going to do what she could do.
She made note of a couple landmarks below before rising back up into the clouds, shifting their direction a little bit. "It's going to take a bit of time. It's halfway across the world," she reported, trying to work through the logistics in her mind.
Syaoran nodded slowly, but looked at Tiki's crumpled figure. She was always mistaken for a child for her antics, but never had she looked the part as much she did then. Curled up in Shun's lap, shell-shocked, she couldn't tear watery gaze from her parents. "How much time?" the Avatar asked ZanYi, hoping it would not be a terribly long trek. That wouldn't be good for any of them, especially Tiki.
"Depends on the bison," she responded, "but I think probably by midday tomorrow."
That would have to be soon enough. He knew ZanYi was not going to rest until they were safe and sound, until they were landed. Syaoran's gaze went to the lieutenant's back, concerned. But the woman was doing her best to help them, and as the Avatar, he had to do at least something.
Shifting his position a bit, he tried to block Tiki's stare, keeping her eyes as much as he could away from the corpses that lay behind him. He almost ventured to look back at them himself, but he couldn't do it. He had time stomaching the wounds the soldiers had sustained in battle in Omashu; dead bodies, especially those of relation to his team, was too much.
But he was the Avatar. How had he been so helpless but to do nothing? Syaoran had grown up normal in the middle of nowhere. Just him, his family, and their farm. And then they were in the concentration camps, suffering because the Neo-Equalists couldn't find the Avatar. Yet, he'd been under their noses the whole time.
If he had known sooner, Syaoran thought to himself, would he have been able to save Tiki's parents before it was too late? Would he have made a different outcome? He was not one for the 'what-if's', but the questions ate at him.
Staring at Tiki again, he knew she was not the only one who had been personally hurt by this war. But to see her in this state was horrible. The Avatar was what hope she had held on to until this point. And Syaoran knew he could not let her down. Not again.
Tiki stared straight through Syaoran. Some part of her that was not raw with grief was frustrated with him—why was he in the way? It had been so long since she had seen her parents, and now he didn't want her looking at them? Was the world trying to punish her for not being able to save them?
If only she had gotten her act together sooner, had stopped acting like a clown all the time and became serious about searching out her parents. If only, if only, if only...
Tiki closed her eyes, unable to look at Syaoran anymore. He had promised her that they would be able to save her parents, but unforeseen circumstances caused him to break that promise. Tiki supposed she should be furious at him, but all her rage had left her. If she did have any anger left, it was aimed towards herself. She let this happen. It was all her fault.
A shudder went through Tiki, and the tears multiplied. She sat there, shaking in Shun's grasp, the pain and guilt tearing at her. This was one mishap she could not apologize for. She would never be able to take this back. Just another burden she had to learn to bear. And she would, if she wanted to fulfill her parents' last wishes.
A/N from Eva: ….Yeah. So. Tiki has a difficult time ahead of her, poor thing. Knowing this had to happen was a little painful for me; Tiki is already fragile enough as it is. But hopefully, she'll be able to pick herself up off the ground and keep moving. She just needs time to heal first.
For the Tiki fans out there, I apologize in advance if this chapter upsets you! I hope you'll continue to support our tiny airbender friend after this. She's going to need it!
KingTK414: Thanks for the Story Alert! We're happy to see that you're enjoying the story!
The-new-avatar: We appreciate every single one of your reviews! Ahahaha, yeah, Shun can be a bit of a derp when he wants to be. And he just has no experience with women, so something like lipstick on his skin is embarrassing to him. XD Thanks for the review, and we hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Wiechcheu1925: Hey-o! DJ here for this one! I always love your input and I'm quite the expert in the ZanYi department, so here I am briefly, just for you! As soon as I saw your question, all of the reasons ZanYi remains in the dark on her teammates' affections came flooding to me... and it all came down to one thing: she just doesn't care. As mentioned earlier on, she's got two things on her mind: saving lives and ending the war. Anything outside of that is unnecessary, so as for Syaoran's affections, he's already like a kid in her eyes, not worth noticing in that way, so she doesn't. With Shun, he's already a sensitive, affectionate guy who's also her friend-ish now. All it still comes down to is that ZanYi just doesn't care to notice when these things are directed at her unless something changes her mind. xP Now, as for the time changes, we like to keep it current, but also remember its the Avatar world, so there is an aspect of rural and traditional life that would still apply. And the bounty out for ZanYi? Well, things are going to be rough for her too in a different way xP
That's all for now. Until next time! Think happy thoughts!