[-Chapter Seventeen-]
I opened my eyes to a sight so beautiful it took my breath away. My body was at the foot of a hill, which I felt as soon as I sat up. Above me a brilliant blue sky yawned wide. Not a cloud was in sight, and the sun beat down so strong onto my skin that I thought my blood would boil over. I could feel the magnetic pull from the sunshine, the way that my entire being wanted to rise up to meet it. I felt awake, alive. It left my skin tingling.
Below me and around me was something no one had seen in at least one hundred years: grass. I wasn't sure how I knew what the short green plant even was. The word just came to my tongue, as if I had seen it before somewhere. But that, of course, was impossible. Our constant rain and snow had long ago killed off all but the hardiest of plants. Prickle trees and brier bushes, that was all that remained of nature anymore. Everything else was dead, or mud.
Grass was soft, I realized quickly. Soft and springy. When I stood, I felt like I was walking on little clouds. It made me envious of the magical place where I was. I wanted to take some of the grass and bring it home with me. Maybe I could start a grass garden. It seems to grow fast enough. Yet even my common sense told me that the grass would never survive outside of this magical place. Not that I even knew where this place was.
"Hikari!" I froze. "Hikari, come here!"
My feet were moving before I could feel the wind against my face. I passed large pine trees that were five times the height of my house. There were giant boulders that splotched dull grey against the vibrant grass. Little flowers bloomed everywhere. Red, yellow, and orange erupted over the hillside until I started to wonder if the Sun Spirit had touched the Physical World.
"Hikari," the faint little voice laughed, "what's taking you so long?"
"I'm coming, Aiko. I'm coming!" The landscape all started to blur together; I could feel the wind at my back, urging me onward. My legs took on alien strength and speed for the final dash up a large hill. I reached the top panting, doubled over, and out of breath. That didn't stop Aiko from shrieking and trying to leap on me; I straightened back up in time to dodge her assault, and then catch her. She was heavier than I remembered—the weight in my arms distributed itself differently and yet she looked exactly she same as when I'd left her.
Well, maybe not. My eyes roved her face hungrily, trying to imprint every feature into a memory. Her eyes looked rounder and brighter. The dark circles from sleepless nights had disappeared. There was a pink glow to her skin, as if she'd been eating well for the first time in her life, and her face wasn't bony thin. Even her hair was sleeker. "Kari, why are you staring at me?"
I just shook my head. "You are so… beautiful, do you know that?"
She swatted at my face; I ducked away. "You're so silly! Come on, let's play!"
My expression twisted before I thought to stop it. "Play what?"
Aiko frowned at me. "What's the matter with you, Hikari? You used to be so much more fun!" Her words stung, but I just stuck my tongue out at her. She offered her hand to me and we walked a few paces away to the edge of the hill. "Now lay down!" I did as she bid me, knowing what would happen next. We would roll down the hill like logs, laughing and screaming just to jump back up and do it again. After the sky stopped spinning, of course.
"Three!" Aiko shouted, dropping to the ground. "Two!" I followed suit, inching forward until our noses were practically touching. She flashed me a smile. I responded in kind. "ON—Kari, your face!" The smile was gone; her eyebrows knit together and lines erupted on her forehead. It was like watching clouds cover the sun, the way she crumpled in on herself.
"Aiko, what are you talking about? Come on, we were going to have fun, remember? Nothing's wrong with my face."
My baby sister looked at me, frowned, and then reached out with a tentative hand to touch my right cheek. Her fingers came back bright red; I could feel a drop of liquid ooze into the crack between my lips. "Your face," she whispered softly.
"Aiko, please," I whispered back. "Please, let's just play our game. You don't have to worry about me." I shivered at her expression, but she nodded and laid back down flat.
"One!"
I propelled myself forward. Judging by the distance of the hill I'd seen earlier, we would have at least thirty seconds of rolling before we would coast to a stop. About fifteen seconds in, however, the ground fell out from underneath me. Involuntarily, I screamed. Then I realized that I didn't hear any other voice. "Aiko?" Silence, except for the whistling wind in my ears. "Aiko!" I looked down to try and find her, fighting against the panic rising in my throat. The view didn't do much to stop the panic: grass and hard-packed earth were approaching at a speed that would surely kill me. Three. Two. One. I rammed my eyes shut and prayed to the Spirits en masse.
My body slammed into the ground. I could sense the earth giving way, almost molding itself around me to cushion the fall a little. At any rate, when I sat up to frantically search for my sister I was only a little short of breath. My back was a little bit on the sore side, but nothing I couldn't deal with.
I had fallen into a cavern of some kind. The walls soared up above me by at least six of my own height. Aiko was nowhere in sight, which meant she must have fallen somewhere else. I raced to the walls but with one look I knew I was doomed. They were completely smooth the entire way up, not one single foothold to be found.
"Aiko?" My voice rebounded to echo back at me. I suppressed the urge to scream and instead looked more closely at my surroundings. There was still grass here, but off in the far corner it thinned out to reveal a single pool of water. I raced for the water, hoping against all logic in my brain. No breeze disturbed the still surface; it was as calm as a mirrored piece of glass.
In fact, that's exactly what the pool was like. I skidded to a halt at the water's edge and looked down. My reflection gazed back at me. A face, covered in blood on the right hand side. Her right-side reflected pigtail was matted with blood, but the main concentration of it was under her eye. I dropped to my knees, wary. Something was telling me not to touch this water. With one more glance at my reflection, though, my mind was made up. I cupped my hands and reached out to the pond.
A chill ran through me when my hands slipped under the surface: I didn't disturb the water at all. No ripples, no waves; the pool remained as smooth as glass. As soon as the water brushed my wrists, I felt like my hands were on fire. The water was so cold; my bones shrunk away from it and my flesh seemed to turn to brittle waste. Quickly, I pulled my hands back out and splashed the water on my face. In the brief moment before my eyes shut, I thought I saw my reflection change. My face was sharper—masculine—with a trimmed beard and no hair on top of my head. Something else was there, a flash of orange and blue, but then the water hit my eyes and I stopped looking.
The blood fell away in globs that shattered when they hit the ground. I could sense that my wound was now clear, but I had traded one problem for another because the cut started burning. My teeth came down on my lip hard to bite back the scream. I was too late, I should have been worried about that water. A chill raced through my blood that drove me to my knees. The sunshine I had been reveling in earlier had withdrawn, leaving behind gray cloud cover that swelled with rain. I curled up tightly, trying to conserve body heat, but it was so cold so cold so cold why so cold?
By the time the freezing rain started to fall, I was openly weeping on the ground from the pain of a freezing body temperature. My tears froze on my face and the rain covered me in layer after layer of ice. Within moments I was immobilized, trapped to shiver until I died.
Or perhaps not—I could see a vague shadowy figure beyond my icy prison. It looked like Aiko, but not Aiko at the same time. Her features were distorted by the rain and the ice; her skin was so deathly pale that I wondered how she could be alive. Her hair was so dark that it almost looked like a halo of darkness surrounded her. Maybe she isn't Aiko, I shivered, but maybe she can help me.
The girl drew closer; shifted so that I was huddled between her and the pond. Then, with a single scathing laugh, she shoved. I rolled down away from her, into the freezing blackness of that still, still pond. The chill clawed at me now; my brain could barely focus beyond the pain. Right before my vision went white, I wondered: did I leave any ripples?
My eyes opened to a different scene: bright, colorful, and cheerful. I didn't recognize the place, and the weather outside was bright and sunny, though nearing sunset, without a cloud in the sky. That was what caught my attention: clouds always loomed on the horizon in my world. The planet was constantly storming and raining; a completely cloudless day hadn't been seen in five years. Where am I, exactly?
Wherever it was, the place was certainly lively. Glowing golden lanterns hung in beautiful streaks across the open courtyard. They reflected brilliantly over the decorations, all in some hue of red or gold. A huge crowd of people gathered below, chatting and looking content. I tried to turn my head to look around, but found that I could not. That scared me as well—why can't I control my body? I waved a hand to see what would happen. My hands remained folded in front of me, wrapped in a cloth so fine that I did not know the name for it.
Then I was moving, sweeping gracefully down a set of stairs. My head swiveled through the crowd and landed on the face of a very pretty girl. Her friend standing next to her looked at me knowingly and giggled. The girl in question blushed and looked away; my heart started speeding racing like it wanted to run out of my chest. My feet became hopelessly tangled in themselves and tripped me. I let my mouth open to shout in surprise…
And an iron grip latched around my left hand. I heard a hearty laugh behind me; the body that I was in recognized it. I caught a quick glimpse of his face—shorter than I, with dark hair—before the crowd fell silent. It seemed out of place in the celebratory atmosphere, and very quickly the sea of people parted.
Walking up towards this dark-haired boy and me were five old men. They wore sweeping red robes that must have looked similar to mine, though I could not check to be sure. Their heads bore strange red hats, comparable to bottles of water in my village. I felt, rather than saw, the boy next to me rush down the stairs to greet the men. I took the chance to study the boy who had saved my knees—his red robe was edged with gold, and there was an air of power about him. It was akin to the way the leader of the Chen-Li carried himself. The thought would have made me stiffen… if this body were mine to control.
"Did something happen to my father?" the boy asked worriedly. My mental anger towards him softened: perhaps he wasn't as evil as I first thought. Although I no longer felt anything towards my father, I could have understood that fear once.
"No, Prince Sozin," the oldest of the five men rasped. Sozin… the name was so familiar. It itched at the back of my mind; I knew it was important, but I just couldn't think of it. "We are not here for you. We are here to announce the identity of the next Avatar." Tremors of shock flew through the crowd, followed by whispers of speculation and curiosity. Apparently being an Avatar was a big deal in this place, though I had no idea what the word meant. Like Sozin, the name held a burning importance to me for some reason, but the memories wouldn't come. "It is our honor to serve you, Avatar Roku."
I felt my face go slack with shock. Oh yes, being an Avatar was an extremely big deal. The five older men were bowing to me, and then it was the entire crowd. Everybody except the young Prince, Prince Sozin, who hesitated momentarily and stared at me in wonder. Maybe it was just my suspicious mind, but I thought I saw something else in his expression. But then he was bowing, too, and I wasn't quite sure what to think as the world slowly evaporated in a white mist.
Avatar Roku…
I came to on a bright and sunny day that was much, much colder than where I had just been. The muscles of my body felt detached and separated, as if I had not moved them in a while. I slowly became aware of a gloved hand gently cradling the back of my head, along with the knowledge that I no longer had any hair.
I trained my sight on another very pretty girl. Where does my mind come up with these things? She had wide, blue eyes and a kind face. Her skin was very tan, which complimented her dark hair. A ring of her hair surrounded her face, but her heavy-duty blue parka hood covered most of it. White fur, softer than any snow I had ever seen, circled the rest of her face. A slight breeze wafted between us, catching two hair loopies and playing with them softly. She gasped in wonder while looking at me. I felt confused (and not just my brain, but the body I was in also felt the confusion) which I didn't quite understand, because she was very, very beautiful. I knew in that instant that I had to do something, anything, to see her again.
"I need to ask you something," I whispered. The weak quality of my voice surprised me. What is going on? Why can't I talk?
"What?" she asked, and her voice was prettier than anything I'd ever heard. Well I'm glad you think so little boy, whoever you are. I could tell by the sound of my voice that I must have been quite young. No older than twelve or thirteen.
"Please…" I rasped. "Come closer." I looked at my surroundings again—if I remembered correctly, it was somewhere around the South Pole. And that meant penguins, which led to my favorite pastime… What am I thinking right now?
"What is it?" she asked again. I took a silent breath, found my voice, and smiled up at her.
"Will you go penguin sledding with me?" I inquired in a rush while giving her my best, winning grin. She pulled away, a little surprised by my question.
"Uhh… sure, I guess," she shrugged. In my stomach I did six or seven back flips. "As long as you're okay."
I frowned. This wasn't going right; she wasn't supposed to say that last part. I remembered it all like it had just happened yesterday, and her answer had definitely been different. "Are you okay?" she asked me. I could feel something else now, this strange body warring with my mind for domination of the dream. "Can you hear me?" Her voice was off, too. It was deeper. "Kari, can you hear me?" Yes, that was definitely a man's voice. But that girl wasn't a man…
I looked back up at her, just to make sure that she wasn't a dream, but the girl was gone. "Kari," the dreamlike male voice whispered. That… was my name. My name. But then who had I been moments ago? I couldn't even remember. It had something to do with… to do with icebergs. And a very pretty girl; two of them, actually. And someone called "Sozin"—there was that burning sense of familiarity again—and Avatars.
A/N- Hello again everyone! Hope you've had a great week. No reviews to reply to... I'm starting to wonder if I'm talking to myself in these author notes XD Well anyway, enjoy the next seven days and I will see you again soon!
TWELVE DAYS TILL MY BIRTHDAY! WOO!
GO USA GYMNASTICS! MORE WOOING!