AN: Yeah, I really don't have an excuse for how late this one was, or how short it is. I can only hope you enjoy the read when it comes, and stay along for the ride until it ends. Thank you, really, if you're reading this.
Yang Lo was hungry. Through all of his survival skills, he had kept himself alive, but there was one aspect of the Arctic climate he had forgotten to consider: he didn't know anything about the animals were all either white or invisible, and, frankly, he couldn't tell the difference; hunting them was a nightmare either way. Not having any food in his stomach was certainly a feeling he wasn't used to- his family had always been well off enough to put food on the table- and it was taking its toll.
He hadn't started hallucinating, but the lack of nutrition was doing strange things to his psyche. A severe pit of depression, followed immediately by a spike of pure joy (which didn't go away until he had had time to strip completely naked and run around the tundra, screaming at the top of his lungs) had left him completely drained of energy.
It had been three days since he had been sentenced to this wasteland, and he had nothing to show for it, other than the ragged breaths that still filled his lungs. He could do nothing from the thoughts that were wiggling their way into his brain:
You're going to die out here
Your family won't even know
You'll be food for the Water Tribe in no time
The energy filled him as the will to live kicked in, along with a small burst of flame he didn't know he had left, which propelled him to his feet.
If I'm going to die out here, he thought, let it be known that I tried.
Yang Lo set his jaw and walked out of the cave, into the frozen wasteland. The cold wind whipped at his skin, and dissolved any semblance of comfort he had left, but comfort was a luxury that, at this point, he could no longer afford. He trudged, and trudged, deeper into the South Pole, wherever it would take him. Nothing could be worse than rotting in that cave, alone.
Clouds swirled in the skies above, and Yang could feel something troublesome coming. He bolstered his resolve, and kept trudging. And trudging. It didn't take long for the snow to come down, and when it did, it came down like the tail of a platypus-bear. Fairly soon, the young firebender's vision was greatly reduced, and he could hardly see his own hand in front of his face. His dark skin seemed almost as pale as the snow in this cold, and his hands felt like… well they didn't. Yang Lo couldn't feel anything as he moved, just the robotic trudging of his legs.
His vision was getting blurry, his eyes were glazing over, and, as he fell, face-first, into the snow, there was only the slightest hint of a smile on his face; and, as the world faded to black, one thought rang out through his consciousness.
I tried.
Yang Lo dreamed of footsteps.