Hello, talk here. Been a minute. Sorry about that. Inspiration comes and goes, but hopefully I can be a little more consistent from here on out. Part of the reason I dropped off is because Azula is coming up, and I'm a little nervous about getting her character right. She's certainly the most challenging character to portray correctly without exaggerating her one way or the other. Going into Book Two, there's also going to be a lot more canon divergence than there was in covering Book One, but I still plan to keep the overall story faithful. That being said, I hope that everyone enjoys reading, and thanks to those who have reviewed/commented here and on my new AO3 account (of the same name: talkativeLiar), it really means the world, and I'd love to continue seeing everyone's opinions of the story and Tao as a character. Any critiques and inspiration are always welcome.
Chapter 12- Apparition
apparition (noun): a ghostly figure; a sudden or unusual sight; the act of appearing.
Tao would have taken singing nomads and dark, cramped tunnels any day over the utter horror of what he sees as they crest the final hill between the Two Lovers' Tunnel and Omashu. Smoke, metal, and a crimson Fire Nation banner, all things that were silent at this distance, but they screamed loudly enough that it pulls a hard grimace across his face as his ears ring. Omashu had fallen. Which meant one of two things. Bumi was dead, or Bumi had surrendered control of the city to the Fire Nation. He couldn't see the old king doing something like that, which left only option one. A conclusion that Sokka also comes to, but that Aang doesn't seem willing to accept. The set to the young airbender's jaw, the darkness in his eyes, was something that Tao didn't see often. It was anger, worry, fear, all swirling around inside his friend's small body.
Aang wasn't going to let them leave until they had checked around to see if Bumi was still alive or not. So, they wait until the cover of darkness and find a hidden sewer entrance below the outer walls of Omashu. Tao is able to light the way with a blue flame in his palm while Aang and Katara kept the sewer water off of him, though Sokka as usual got the unlucky draw and was at the very back, getting utterly doused.
Skirting a patrol of Fire Nation soldiers, they creep slowly through the darkness, Tao deciding it was best that he didn't firebend for the time being, just in case. Even if the city was controlled by the Fire Nation now, that didn't mean they would be safe from any potential rebellious citizens that would see a group of kids as an easy target. Their stealthy creep through the streets though is interrupted nearly immediately. Of all the places they could have been, they had to be a witness to an attempted assassination on who appeared to be family members of the ruling governor, a woman carrying a toddler and a teenage girl in red robes. And of all the things Aang could have done, he just had to get them involved buy blowing the tumbling stones out of the way.
Rather than a 'thank you for saving us' however, they find themselves dodging a seemingly endless supply of darts and knives that seemed to be stored in every part of the teenage girl's robes. Aang nearly takes one to the face, and Tao is quick enough with a whip of fire to turn a couple of the others to ash before they reach him as they beat a quick retreat, the rather scary girl in hot pursuit. He had just backed up against Sokka when suddenly the ground gives way beneath them and they're falling, landing on the hard stone ground of a dimly lit room, surrounded by soldiers. Tao immediately has halberd blades held to his throat, and he can't help but feel like he was back in the Southern Water Tribe, getting attacked and suspected for daring to defend himself, and wishing he hadn't left his bō staff on Appa so he didn't have to rely on his firebending. He hadn't exactly been anticipating a fight though.
Thankfully for Tao and his neck though, Aang is quick to jump in and explain themselves, declaring himself the Avatar, and Tao an ally. The soldiers let Tao up, though there's still plenty of suspicious and hateful glares sent his way as he stands up and takes his place near Katara and Sokka as Aang gets information from the soldiers. It was a relief to hear that Bumi was still alive, or assumed alive. But it was a shock to hear that he had surrendered the city willingly. Tao couldn't help but wonder if Bumi was going senile as well as just being mad, but he holds his tongue, knowing comments like that wouldn't help Aang at all. He was anxious enough, not knowing for certainty the fate of his friend.
oOo
The escape from the city had gone well enough. A little help from some sewer friends, some convincing acting, and they were home free. Tao couldn't help but wonder if these particular guards were idiots, or if the critical thinking skills of Fire Nation soldiers had drastically gone down in the last hundred years, because it shouldn't have been that easy. Yung, the soldier who seemed to be leading the group of civilians and surviving Omashu soldiers, didn't let Tao out of his sight for very long at a stretch, always having a suspicious glare centered on him, especially as Aang stayed behind to continue his search for Bumi. Like Tao was going to turn on everyone and go rabid the second the Avatar wasn't there to hold his leash. If Tao didn't understand the suspicion so well, he would be offended. But he was smart enough to not comment.
However, being Fire Nation, meant he gets stuck with babysitting duty when the toddler boy from the night before, the one who seemed to be the sibling of the scary girl with the knives and darts, gets discovered having tagged along with their escape from the city. As if a Fire Nation baby was any different from an Earth Kingdom baby. Tao takes it without complaint, or at least a verbal one even if the look he gives Sokka when he laughs at his expense could have peeled paint, starting the campfire as usual for Katara to whip up some dinner, sitting down against Appa and quietly amusing the baby boy, who was only too happy to burble and squeal and play with Tao's fingers as they're wiggled at him, trying to catch the tiny puffs of smoke that Tao let's dance from fingertip to fingertip to keep him amused.
Katara makes her way over with some porridge for the baby and something a little more substantial for Tao, sitting down next to him with a somewhat indulgent smile on her face that Tao didn't appreciate in the least. "I didn't take you for someone who would be good with kids." she comments lightly, to which Tao huffs.
"What gave that away? My sunny disposition?" he snorts, rolling his eyes, turning the kid around in his lap and taking the bowl of porridge and spoon that Katara holds out to him, starting to carefully feed the baby, trying not to make a huge mess out of both of them. "Children are innocent. Especially this young. It wouldn't be right to treat him like an enemy or a burden when he has no choice in his heritage. And besides. If anything happens to this kid, it'll mean almost certain death for these refugees. He's the son of someone important. Kids like that matter."
"Fair enough. I'm just worried about how we'll get him back to his parents. If we walk him up to the gates we'll probably get arrested for kidnapping." Katara sighs, eating her own dinner while Tao does his best to keep tiny grabbing hands out of the porridge bowl, and also get most of it into the baby's mouth, smiling a little despite herself. "He is very cute though."
Tao simply hums to this, not replying one way or the other, and he doesn't miss the displeasure on Yung's face from where he sat one campfire over, the soldier's eyes very rarely straying from him and the baby.
The cry of a hawk brings them the answer to how they were going to get this baby home though. The Governor of Omashu was under the impression that the resistance had deliberately kidnapped his son, and was willing to do an exchange. His son's safe return, for the captured King Bumi. They were to meet at noon the next day at the highest point of Omashu where a giant metal statue of Fire Lord Ozai was being constructed. Simple enough. But Tao knew enough by this point to know it wasn't going to be that simple. Nothing they ever did was.
He hated being right.
The four of them, with Sokka now holding the baby in case something went wrong so he could run to Appa with him, arrive at the meeting place at the proper time. In front of them stood the scary girl in the red robes, and behind her were two other girls. One with a long braid and pink clothing, and the other with a high, formal topknot and clearly royal gold and black armor. Tao gets a cold chill up his back as the later girl looks right at him, and a chilling smile spreads across her lips. Quietly praying to whatever spirits might still favor him, he hoped this would go smoothly. He didn't blame the scary girl for wanting to personally see her brother safe, not one bit. But it seemed that the spirits weren't feeling very protective today. The girl in the armor cuts in as Bumi is lowered in a metal coffin of a cage, and Tao stiffens when he hears the scary girl call her 'Princess Azula.'
He remembered Zuko mentioning he had a sister, who also bent blue fire. The tone of the banished prince's voice when he mentioned her hadn't been fond. He had said Tao wasn't anything like her, and while Tao hadn't been overly warm or open while he had been the Prince's prisoner, he also hadn't been particularly manic or violent. So if Azula wasn't 'anything like Tao,' this encounter wasn't going to be a very pleasant one.
And he was right. Whatever point Azula makes to the scary girl was one she found decent enough to call the deal off. Aang jumps for Bumi's cage as its being hoisted back up, and Azula is quick to react. Tao is just as quick, however, and a billow of blue fire meets blue fire as he moves forward with a swift strike of one arm. The delight he sees in Azula's eyes as he shows the blue fire that her friend may have described to her already sets him on edge. Luckily though, her focus was on a bigger prize. The Avatar. Trusting Aang to be able to handle himself, Tao focuses instead on the two remaining girls. One of whom was gone, leaving just the scary girl with the knives. Katara was handling her though, so Tao turns to find the girl in pink, just in time to see a small fist pop up from a hole in the construction platform and nail Sokka in the arch of his foot, sending him and the baby almost off the very edge.
Gritting his teeth, Tao uses a burst of fire to get him to a sprint in only a half a stride, getting between the girl and Sokka as he takes the baby down a long ladder to retrieve Appa to get them out of this situation. This girl in pink didn't seem to be a bender, but that doesn't make Tao underestimate her at all. The likes of Sokka, Suki, and whoever the girl with the knives was were testament enough to the strengths of non-benders. This girl doesn't seem as delighted to face off against him as Azula had been upon seeing his fire, and Tao is quick to realize that he was outmatched by this girl. She was so fast he couldn't turn quickly enough to keep up with her as she danced circles around him, trying to avoid his arcs of flame and get in close. She didn't seem to have a weapon, and when she gets close enough to get a jab in with sharp fingers, he understands way. She gets him right in the back of the shoulder, and then his upper and lower arm and it immediately drops to his side, the arc of flame he had been directing with that arm fizzling out in a puff of smoke.
Pressure points. Chi blocking. Whatever term was put to it, that was this girl's specialty, and it was a dangerous one for a bender. Panic wells up inside Tao, his vision boxing in at the corners and his hearing going fuzzy with a high pitched ring screaming in his ears as he lashes out with his other arm, breath catching as that arm is deadened as well. The panic sharpens, fear takes over, and as he takes in a deep breath as she gets up close to him, fingers aimed at his neck, he does something incredibly stupid. Focusing his chi up, he opens his mouth and exhales a roar of blue fire, nearly searing off the girl's face, though she's able to flip out of the way. Which was a good thing for Tao as the blistering heat of his fire sears the inside of his mouth and down his throat, cutting off the flames with a choking cough, his mostly numb arms barely able to come up and grasp at his throat and mouth as blood and saliva slick his lips and chin. He hated himself for his knee-jerk panic, chastising himself for not being more in control when backed into a corner. Especially since he was now truly out of the fight, leaving Katara on her own, who's own chi is quickly blocked.
They're thankfully saved by Sokka coming back with Appa, and are able to make a quick escape. Tao sits at the very back of the saddle, holding a cloth soaked in water to his mouth, half inside it, trying to soothe the blistering burns on his tongue, cheeks, and the roof of it, but not able to do anything for his throat. It would all have to just wait until they could land somewhere and Katara could heal him. Probably scolding him the whole way. The white cloth is soon mostly red though, and Tao can't contribute much when they catch up to Aang and Azula.
Time passed slowly as Tao tried to ignore his pain and his anxiety when they lose sight of Aang. When the young airbender lands in the saddle after about half an hour of circling the area trying to find him though, the anxiety gives way to just pain. And now that they were all back together and flying away, Katara is able to make her way over to him, looking just as angry as she did worry as Tao pulls the cloth out of his mouth for her to look at the inside of it. She lets out a heavy, upset huff and sigh, thumping him on the head and taking her water from her water skin, instructing him to breathe through his nose so he didn't gag on the water as it pushes into his mouth and throat, glowing gently. Tao closes his eyes as they water from the pain, trying to relax and do as he was told, feeling her cool chi caress his own much warmer skin and knit it back together. And not unlike at the North Pole, he could feel deep into her chi network, this time more clearly because the healing was taking longer. He could feel her anxiety at his injury and the situation in Omashu and with Bumi. And as she worked on him, he could feel the coolness reach deeper inside him, and sees Katara's brow furrow a little in confusion and concern when he opens his eyes.
When she pulls her water back, she frowns at him, and he can't help but feel chastised when she sighs heavily. "Why did you do that? Didn't you tell Master Pakku that you could hurt yourself with that move if you weren't careful?" she scolds, her expressive blue eyes filled predominantly with concern, though he could see confusion there too.
"Sorry. I panicked. Having your chi blocked isn't a very nice experience." he rasps, his voice very rough, but at least most of the pain was gone. He does get sent into a coughing fit as the vibrations of his voice irritate the few remaining raw spots and blisters in his throat, and Katara holds her hands back up again to do a little more repair work.
"It'll take a couple sessions for all the blisters to heal, but your voice might stay rough for a while. Try to limit talking as much as you can." she says, and Tao just exhales through his nose to acknowledge it, not exactly able to talk with her healing waters in his neck. It takes about an hour of on and off healing for that taste of copper to fully leave his mouth, though everything was still rather raw. In the mean time, they had found somewhere safe to set down, and Aang had left with the baby to sneak him back to his parents.
Sokka ambles his way over, offering Tao some water, which he gratefully takes, sipping on it slowly. "I've never seen someone else with blue fire. How common of an ability is that?" the young warrior asks, and Tao sighs, clearing his throat lightly, his voice very rough when he speaks.
"Not very. At least it wasn't a hundred years ago. I'm the only person able to do it that I know, until today. Though, Zuko did mention his sister could bend blue fire like me when I was his prisoner." he rasps, rubbing at his chin absently. "Its not something easy to achieve, and usually takes brutal, unrelenting practice and training. An expectation of perfection. Its perfect combustion, at a much higher temperature than regular firebending. Therefore, more dangerous." a scowl pulls at his face and he shakes his head. "I didn't like the way that girl was looking at me. Like I was some fresh cut of meat."
"It was pretty scary. I wonder if she's ever seen someone else who can do blue fire." Katara remarks with a troubled frown as she stirred the broth she was simmering in their cooking pot. "Those other girls were scary too. I didn't even know chi blocking was possible. I always thought it was just a scary story told by the elders so I wouldn't accidentally crack their igloos."
"Oh its real. Its a technique that was developed by airbenders a long time ago. I don't know much about it, and I doubt Aang does either. But hopefully we won't encounter those girls again in the near future. I'm not naive enough to say ever, but we've got the kind of luck where I'd expect to see them again within a month." Tao hums, taking another sip of water.
The atmosphere at camp was a little tense, even after Aang gets back. Exhaustion mixed with adrenaline, and as the moon rose, Tao volunteers to take first watch, just in case they had been pursued, and come morning, they were heading south to start looking for Aang's new earthbending teacher.
oOo
Tao was really starting to miss the singing nomads now. It had been two days since they had left Omashu, two long days of flying over scrub land with sprawling, endless desert stretching off to their east, and now they were crossing a vast swamp that stretched far across the horizon. Or rather, they had been crossing it. Until some spirits-cursed tornado had thrown them from the sky and down into the musty, stinking water below, separating them from Appa and Momo. Night comes swiftly, with the swamp coming to life, all manner of creature starting to wake up and make noise, and Tao feels very watched as they try to find somewhere safe to camp and start a fire. They fall asleep sitting up against each other in an effort to keep watch, and no sooner had the fire died down, does Tao feel something wrap around his leg and hips and yank him away. The yelp that he lets out as he's dragged through water and over rough bark irritates his still raw throat, and it takes him too long to recover and focus, releasing a flare of bright fire from his foot, burning the vine away. He's able to scramble up onto the high arch of a root, panting and clutching his throat, dripping with water and mud, but he isn't given time to recover as more vines whip at him out of the darkness.
Gritting his teeth, he spins and creates a broad arc of fire, lighting the trees and water around him brightly as he burns away the whipping vines, keeping them at bay long enough to make a run for it. However, by the time he loses them and slows down enough to breathe, he realizes he was entirely lost and separated from his friends. Clenching his teeth hard, he exhales an aggravated puff of black smoke between them, looking around and lighting a small ball of bright blue fire in his palm, holding it above his head to light as much of his surroundings as possible. When he doesn't see any eyes glowing at him out of the darkness, he picks a direction that felt right and starts walking, listening for anything out of the ordinary.
However, it was far, far too quiet. The sort of quiet that descended upon wild places when a predator was nearby, and Tao wasn't fully convinced that the creatures of this swamp considered him a predator. It puts him on edge as he walks, trying to stick to mostly land and roots, but he was often forced to wade through murky, mostly green or brown water. He was glad that his fire cast a bright light though, because he could see fairly far in every direction he looked, so an ambush wasn't the first thing on his mind. Most animals avoided fire anyway. He was fully on edge as he walked the silent swamp all the way until the sun was fully up, shafts of light cutting through the canopy above him. A soft breeze begins blowing, which begins ruffling the leaves above him, and any too-loud of leaves or branches or water splashing makes him jump, even though he could see better now than with his fire. His mind was frayed from a long night of stressed out walking, and he was half convinced he was hearing things.
He freezes as he passes a gap in the trees and a distinctly human figure catches his attention. Backing up a couple paces to look better, his brow furrows when he sees the slender, small figure of a woman with her back to him, nearly glowing in a pool of light in shallow water, about a hundred feet ahead of him. At first he thinks it was Katara, but her hair was loose, not in the thin braid Katara kept her dark hair thickly, throat still aching a little from the incident in Omashu, his voice having not fully recovered yet, even with Katara's studious healing, Tao carefully moves forward. And as he gets closer, recognition makes him flush cold and then warm, tears welling in his golden eyes as he picks up his pace a little.
"Mom?" he rasps, his rational side knowing that this was impossible. Even if his mother was by some miracle still alive, she'd be utterly ancient at this point, well over a hundred years old, and with at least gray hair if not white. Not young, dark haired and slender as she had always been. But he still reaches out for the apparition, despite having this thought. His hand passes right through it, making it wobble out of focus, and before he has a moment to scold himself and mourn his own memories, he feels something grab his wrist and he's shoved down into the water by an unseen force. Gasping, inhaling a mouthful of putrid water, he fights against the force holding him down, swinging out with one arm, fire following it, and it seems to do the trick as he sits up, coughing and choking, mouth tasting like mud and algae.
He gets to his feet in a flurry of water and duckweed, whipping around, drenched now and still coughing up water, eyes wide. On his third turn, the invisible force strikes him across the face, an echo of the burning slap that had left him scarred, and he stumbles back, falling back into the swamp water again. This time when he looks up, he gasps, trembling taking over his body as he meets gold eyes that mirrored his own, blazing out of a dark shadow that loomed over him. Again, his rational side told him this was a memory. Or a spirit playing a cruel trick on him. But panic and fear takes over every inch of him, freezing him in place, his face burning with the memory of that slap.
As he heaves for air though, still coughing on the inhaled water, rather than the scent of stagnant water and mud wreathing around him as it had for hours now, he smells the perfumes that his mother used to wear, thick in his nose, like she was right beside him. It frees him from his frozen trembling and he's able to stand, finding that he was now eye level with the cruel shadow that he used to always shrink beneath. Gritting his teeth, steeling his resolve, he takes in a deep breath of the perfumed air and lashes out with his firebending, cutting through the shadow, watching as it dissolves before him, the cold golden eyes being the last to go away. He releases the breath with a harsh gasp, his body going numb as he falls to his knees and one hand in the mud, the other finding his face, feeling along his scar, just to check that it hadn't opened back up. It hadn't. Just a memory, or an illusion. He was starting to really get tired of the spirits messing with him and dragging all the things he'd rather forget back to the surface.
He kneels there for a long time before the ghost of a caress trails along his jaw, prompting Tao to look up. He doesn't see anything, but he can still smell his mother's perfume. Forcing his legs to move, he gets to his feet, still feeling a little unsteady, following the sweet smell that was so familiar and so comforting to him. He had only been walking along roots for a few minutes when he hears a yelp behind him, a second before something slams into his back, where he feels and hears something pop in a concerning place, and he's sent flying, slamming into something soft and warm. Groaning, he pushes himself up as the weight on his back rolls off, blinking when he sees he had landed on top of Sokka. Sitting back, he stand quickly and helps the teen to his feet as Aang and Katara get up further along the root.
"What do you guys think you're doing? I've been looking everywhere for you." Sokka bursts, flailing his arms in his indignation while Tao rubs at his back a little.
"Well I've been wandering around looking for you!" Katara huffs, scowling at her brother.
"I was chasing some girl." Aang says, a little calmer, shrugging to Katara's confused question in response. "I don't know. I heard laughing, and I saw some girl in a fancy dress."
"Well there must have been a tea party here, and we just didn't get our invitations." Sokka says with no small measure of sarcasm.
Katara's face grows somber, however, and she looks away from her brother. "I thought I saw mom." she murmurs, and a cold feeling goes through Tao, making him visibly stiffen. When Katara looks at him, he sighs, absently rubbing his fingers along part of his scar.
"I... I thought I saw my parents.." he murmurs, not able to meet anyone's eyes, but he can almost feel the worry coming off of Aang.
"Like... both of them?" the airbender asks quietly. Tao swallows hard and nods, crossing his arms, though it was more like a hug. Luckily, Sokka is quick to jump in and try and rationalize what they had seen. However, it seemed he had seen someone too. Yue. It shouldn't be surprising that they had seen who they saw. Sokka always thought about Yue. His guilt about not being able to protect her was still palpable in his more quiet moments. That wound ran deep. And Katara dearly missed and mourned for her mother, even though it had been so long since she had died. As for Tao, he also dearly loved and missed his mother, and was terrified and traumatized by his father. It shouldn't be a shock that whatever spirits were behind their hallucinations would drag all that out for all of them to see. As for Aang, well... he was the Avatar. Weird spiritual stuff was bound to happen to him, especially in a place like this. Tao was just offended that he was the only one who had apparently been thrown around by his visions. He also knew that, having had all this brought to the front of his mind after he had worked so hard to push it down, he wasn't going to sleep well. Probably for several nights.
One battle with a vine monster later, who's appearance had made Tao scream in a way that he would deny with his dying breath, they find themselves following a swamp-bender by the name of Huu up to the trunk of the utterly enormous central tree. Tao really should have stopped being surprised by the things that they encountered at this point, and yet here he was. Surprised. He preferred this feeling to the rolling nausea in his stomach as he fought against the painful ghost of the strike across his face, and he can't help but keep rubbing at his scar, a tic he hadn't displayed since before they had visited Kyoshi Island.
He can feel Aang's concern later that night as they all gathered around a campfire with other swamp-benders, eating all manner of creepy swamp critters. Well, the others were, Tao was kind of just staring at his giant bug on a stick. Once the swamp-benders head to bed, Aang scoots over to Tao, who had put down his untouched bug a long time ago and was sitting fairly slouched, eyes unfocused. "Are you ok?" the airbender asks quietly. It takes a few moments for Tao to respond as he gathers his thoughts and puts his emotions in check, letting out a gusty sigh.
"No... I thought when we left the Northern Water Tribe that I'd start to be able to move past... things. But it seems the spirits just enjoy tormenting me with my past. I've frankly had about enough of it." he murmurs, shaking his head, frowning hard. "My vision felt too real... it was like I was in the moment again."
"Is that why you keep messing with your scar?"
"I think so... it aches." shaking his head, Tao's brow furrows. "My mistake in Omashu is still bothering me too. I can't believe I panicked like that... if I had inhaled while I was still producing fire, I could have killed myself." growling a little, he rubs at his face, feeling unbalanced and brittle. Aang resting his hand on his shoulder makes him bodily jump, but he doesn't make the other remove his small, cool hand like he normally would.
"Omashu was a hard situation for all of us. Accidents happen." Aang says, trying to stay positive. Tao lets out a skeptical grunt though, staring into the crackling fire. Aang scoots closer and leans on his friend's more sturdy side, resting his head on his shoulder, trying to provide comfort however he could. "You're still healing... sometimes when healing, there's setbacks. But you are getting better, Tao. I can see it even if you can't. Ever since we left the Water Tribe, you've been more talkative. Happier. Its made me really happy to see." he can feel Aang's cheek lift in a small smile against his shoulder. It makes him relax a little, glad that at least Aang saw healing in him, even if it was hard for him to see it in himself.
"Well, I'm glad you're happy, if nothing else. I feel bad that I'm so often such a sour puss." he remarks, getting a quiet giggle from Aang.
"Its ok. I understand why. Besides, it makes the times you are happy and enjoying yourself so much better. I'll never complain that those times are getting more frequent. So... don't think of today as a complete set back. You're in better shape than you would have been a couple months if you had seen the same vision then. That says something."
Tao nods to this, agreeing but not voicing that agreement, not wanting to jinx it. "I'm not tired, but you should go sleep. I'll watch the fire, alright?"
Aang only mildly protests, but he does get up after only minimal fussing and go lay on one of Appa's legs for the night, while Tao adds some sticks to the fire and sits as far from the edge of the water as he could, scanning the dark swamp for cold, golden eyes.