[A/N: Hey everyone! I am so glad everyone seemed to have enjoyed the first book so much. I'm really excited to delve into the second book, which will be entirely of my own imagination. I'm eager for the challenge and ready to get back into the lives of our favorite characters. I hope you will enjoy the way this prologue sets up the first chapter; this book will be pretty Raya/Zuko-centric. Enjoy! Always love reviews!
Ps: I've decided to keep everything under the first books post because it seems neater, and I don't want people to be confused or have to hunt down the first book if they find they are interested in reading book two.]
The Legend of Demitar Raya
Book II: Wind and Flame
Summary: It's been three years since the wars end, but the world is still feeling the aftershock. Raya finds herself Fire Nation bound for the first time in years. She must find a way to help Zuko bring peace to his divided nation, while she tries to figure out if the years have caused a divide to grow between them.
Prologue:
There are times when our destiny must intermingle with those we would have never expected. It is our ever present duty to embrace the change of life, and march forward into the face of our own truths. To dwell on the past is to lock yourself away within the confines of frozen time; you must never look back. So she didn't.
Three years had passed since the hundred year war came to its end. In all of those years Raya and Aang spent most of their time in the Earth Kingdom and the Southern Water tribe; two places that seemed to cry out for their help the most. Even now, the Demitar found herself standing on an Earth Palace balcony overlooking the whole of Ba Sing Se.
It was vastly different than she once remembered it. Once the city had been web of never ending walls that called for the division of the citizens within the great walls. Now it was an open expanse of buildings, shops, and homes. It looked more unified now that it ever had, and the secrets the walls kept went almost entirely with them.
The only place in the Earth Kingdom that had proven difficult to reconcile immediately after the wars end was Yu Dao. The Fire Nation colony had been one of the very first to become so; almost a hundred years ago. It was a mingling of people from both nations. Earth and firebenders lived together, married one another, and even produced children that could bend earth, even though they had firebender ancestry, and vice versa.
The mingling of the nations was not the problem, though. It was the fact that the Earth Kingdom wanted their land back, and the people of the fire nation refused to remove themselves from the only home they had ever known; the only people they had ever loved. This inspired Aang to found Republic City. He traveled to the Fire Nation many times in the past few years, and Raya even joined him there once, but that was over three years ago.
She had barely left the Earth Kingdom in all that time. The turmoil there was too heavy not to have at least one of the two there most of the time. Raya's life was nothing but meeting after meeting; helping the government right and guide itself into a new and prosperous era. It beat getting caught up in the heat of deadly battles, but she had to admit that part of her missed the excitement of it all; not to mention a certain Fire Lord that went with all the danger.
A fleeting sigh escaped her lips as she gripped the letter that had led her into this train of thought. The Fire Lords seal was broken where the pages folded over one another, and the Demitar held it over the balcony with a relaxed hand. She had read it many times, and would do so many more. Its contents were exactly what she had expected; brief.
Aang informed her that the letter would be coming, which made it all the less exciting. Not to mention he already explained why the letter would come; an invitation. She and the Avatar communicated almost daily, and there was little going on in the world that she wasn't at least briefly aware of. Aang told her of the request, but she didn't really believe it until the letter arrived in its physical form.
As far as she knew, Aang and the Fire Lord had been keeping in regular communication about the wellbeing of the Fire Nation. While Zuko wrote that things were going well, Aang suspected that they were not. In the three years she had been away from the Fire Nation, she and the Fire Lord had not kept much in the way of correspondence; something she chalked up to his demanding position as the ruler of a country.
But if Aang was worried, then so was she. According to the Avatar, Zuko's letters were getting shorter and shorter with each passing month. At the urging of his best friend, the Fire Lord seemed to have – begrudgingly – sent for the Demitar. Zuko never was one to easily accept help, even when he needed it the most. And so she was – finally - leaving the Earth Kingdom. Though, not without making a few stops on the way.