We are only at sea for two days or so before we stop at the Boiling Rock. Before the ship stops, my fine clothes are exchanged for red clothes that are little more than rags. They are loose and ill fitting.
I don't see Iroh or Zuko before I am taken, in chains, but maybe that's for the best. Iroh is more broken up than I am now, and I don't think I could handle seeing him. If I saw Zuko, it would just throw me into a blinding rage.
It turns out that I'm not at the Boiling Rock, since I am ushered off the boat in chains to a small, rocky island. There is no hint of a prison here. It looks like a transfer site, with high metal walls and a few watch towers. A ship with a giant air balloon strapped to it sits a little ways from a group of prisoners.
The soldier behind me shoves me forward, and I fall in line next to everyone. The sun is hot and there is no shade. I'm hungry, since I've received meager scraps for meals and tepid water. The world tilts dangerously to one side, but I use all of my strength to focus on the balloon.
It moves a little in the wind, but it looks sturdy. Will it fly us to the Boiling Rock? I've never seen anything like it, but I can understand the mechanics of it. Or, the thoughts behind the process.
The guards surrounding us stand up straighter, and Azula comes out to greet me. She has a devious smile on her face, like she will take great joy in any pain I receive at her hands.
"So, any grand secrets about Zuzu you're willing to share before I send you off to the Boiling Rock?" Azula says, looking absentmindedly at her nails again.
My rage for Azula is different then the one I hold for Zuko. Zuko's is deep, a betrayal of someone I loved and trusted. I want to hurt him like he hurt me. The rage for Azula is silent, that she will one day get what is coming to her for killing Aang. Whether it is by my hands or one of Aang's friends or, maybe, somewhere far down the line, by the next Avatar, I do not care. Karma will come back to her somehow.
I don't say anything to Azula. Instead, I stare up at the rock formations that surround this holding area. I think they came from a volcano - they are so jagged and overlapping.
I've been to the Fire Nation before, but that was over a hundred years ago. It is a nation made up of islands, built on unity and honor. The fact that Zuko comes from this place makes sense, especially with his warring opinions with himself on honor and his self image.
I want to close my eyes and focus on the Fire Nation of the past, the one I knew, with festivals and spicy food and equality. But, I cannot. Not with the face of the Fire Nation of now, Azula, staring straight at me.
She's been talking to me, but I am not listening.
"I'm doing this to separate you from Zuzu, as a reminder that those he once held dear were bad influences, traitors to the Fire Nation. He never had a future with you, some peasant from who knows where.
"I'm doing this for me too." Azula's smile turns very sinister, and I can see that she is thinking about me wasting away here. I will not. I will stick it to them both, that I will not break. Well, break any further than I already have.
Azula turns and waves back at me. That is the signal to the guards for us to board the balloon ship that has been looming over us. Inside, it is only a brief reprieve from the heat. After a few moments, it takes flight.
The other prisoners and I are crowded into the hold, where we are all chained together in a long line. They keep talking about how bad the Boiling Rock is. That nobody ever leaves. That it will break anyone that steps foot inside.
However, everything is distant from me. My eyes are closed, and I am painting in my mind, to separate myself from this. To let my rage build within me. To reinforce me for whatever happens here.
The Western Air Temple comes to life behind my eyelids. Painted in the style of the Earth Kingdom, with black ink on a light background, the spires twisting downward from the cliff they seem to hang onto for dear life. The sky bisons weaving through the fog. The statues over 15 feet tall, depicting different monks and nuns.
The airship comes to a stop, and we are ushered into a gondola. I get a small peek at our surroundings. The temperature has risen about a thousand degrees, and it is humid. I stand, looking out the gondola's windows. Inside a lake, sits the prison, with its five walls and two tall buildings. There is steam rising from the lake.
We are inside a volcano.
The gondola stops, and we are directed out.
They line us up again, removing the chain that's linking us together but leaving the shackles on our hands. We stand, in the boiling heat of the lake, and wait.
Eventually, a middle aged man with a flame headband comes out. His shoulder pads are angled upward. This must be the person in charge.
He paces in front of our group, saying, "Welcome to the Boiling Rock. I'm sure you've all heard the horrible rumors about our little island. Well, I just want to tell you that they don't have to be true, as long as you do everything I say."
He sizes everyone up as he paces back and forth, eyeing the other prisoners that came in. Does he know Azula specifically put me here? No, I doubt it. Maybe he'll be told later.
As we are moved to our own cells, I plan to bide my time. To figure out what to do next. Nobody will save me, so I need to figure out my own way out, for the karma I have in mind for Zuko to reach him.
The days pass slowly, with little in the way of staying busy. The food is worse than when I was a refugee, eating plants and given meals. The meals at the Boiling Rock are disgusting, small, and don't seem to offer any nutrition. I grow weaker by the day, and I start to pace my small cell to help move the day by when I am not painting behind my eyes. I try, very hard, not to think about Aang.
Aang dying.
Aang falling to the bottom of a waterfall.
Aang getting shattered through with lightning.
Because, if I think about Aang dying, I think about all the hope he took with him. And how he left me alone, again, and that I'm the last airbender, and I can't even do that.
Sometimes, we are let out into a giant open area, where prisoners mingle with one another and talk. There seems to be no schedule to this, just when the guards feel like letting us out.
There are a lot of prisoners here, all wearing various shades of red that have been bleached by the sun and worn out. Once a week, each block is sent to the laundry room to clean their uniforms, as well as the guards.
The room is stuffy and seemingly hotter than outside. There is little ventilation, and we spend hours scrubbing uniforms against washboards. My hands turn dry and crack the more I work in the laundry room.
However, there is a girl, about Zuko's age, that has taken to planting dumpling weeds in a hidden area behind the laundry room. Her hair is short, brown, and I'm told her name is Suki. She passes the beans out in secret, making her rounds during meal times and slipping a few into the slop they call food, or giving them to the people that are working the laundry during the times that she tends to them.
Dumpling weeds are great to grow in harsh climates, and they are very nutritious. I've seen a few of them around the prison complex.
The dumpling weeds are a bright spot amongst the breaking prison. They help unite us to one cause - that is to survive under the Fire Nation's brutal and burning thumb.
However, like all things here in the Boiling Rock, it does not last long.
We take our meals in rotations, so there aren't a great number of prisoners in the cafeteria at once. Suki is on a different rotation for meals then me, so I do not witness it. A fight breaks out between the guards and the prisoners. I'm told that it's because of contraband being snuck in the food, and that a great number of prisoners fought back against the guards.
Good. I would have too, if I was there.
A lot of the prisoners are moved to solitary confinement, and I don't see Suki for three weeks. During that time, the laundry rooms are raided and the tunnel to the back area destroyed. Nobody else is put in solitary, except for Suki.
From the rumor mill, I'm told that Biyu, a thief that Suki started cultivating the dumpling weeds with, was the one who betrayed us. Nobody sees her during meals or out in the yard, but we see her in the hallways. She looks nurtured, and her clothes are nicer, not rags.
The guards only destroyed the mass garden we had behind the laundry room. In the yard, I see the dumpling weed still sprouting. Between the cracks of loose stones, underneath benches, in the shade of the watchtowers, I find the weeds where Suki likely found them before. I can't grow another mass garden for everyone, but I can secretly harvest them.
When Suki gets out of solitary, she looks exhausted. She finds out the hard way that Biyu was the one who betrayed her.
The day after she is released from solitary, I find her sitting on a rock out in the yard. I haven't introduced myself to her before, but there's no time to waste here. I sit down next to her and open my hand, where I've been holding some of the dumpling weed pods.
"They still grow, even when we don't tend them," I say. She takes a couple and eats them quickly. She looks hungry and alone. "We shouldn't take all of them, so they can still produce and spread. But we can help them grow out here. Or, start to grow. There's no way we can do what you did in the garden, because we would get caught out here."
I point over to the watchtower, a blindspot I've noticed during walks. "Over there is mostly overlooked. We can spread a couple of the pods to grow more."
Suki looks at me and smiles. "I'm Suki."
"I'm Zia."
We sit in silence for a long time, watching our fellow prisoners milling about. Eventually, she breaks the silence, asking, "What brings you here, to the Boiling Rock? You don't look like the Fire Nation's most dangerous criminal."
I laugh. "Well, neither do you." I don't know how to tell this to people. I haven't spoken to anyone about why I'm here, just general conversations about what's happening at the Boiling Rock. I take a deep breath, saying, "Princess Azula wanted me out of the way. So I wouldn't be a positive influence on her brother."
"I fought Princess Azula and she put me here, to break me as she conquers the Earth Kingdom."
"Why'd you fight her?"
"I was protecting the Avatar's flying bison. I am the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors."
"Appa!" I say.
"How do you know Appa?" Suki seems suspicious. We have too many similarities.
"I uh. I used to be friends with Aang. Like, a hundred years ago. It's hard to explain. But the iceberg that trapped him trapped me too, but I woke up later."
"You're an Air Nomad?"
I ssh her, aware of all the prying ears around us. "Not anymore. I used up my spiritual energy to stay alive in the iceberg. I can't bend anymore."
"Why weren't you traveling with Aang then?"
"I woke up later. I don't think he knew I was in the iceberg with him, to be honest. I was a captive of Prince Zuko for a while, and then we were on the run from Princess Azula, and then Zuko betrayed Iroh and I to kill Aang and get his honor back." I rush through this last sentence, as it fills me with rage and grief.
"Aang's dead?!"
"Azula shot him with lightning while he was entering the Avatar State." I shrug, not wanting to linger on the thought. Alone alone alone keeps echoing after these thoughts.
"He was supposed to end the war."
"Well, it looks like we'll have to wait until the next Avatar is born into the Southern Water Tribe. Even then, it might be too late. Azula squashed Ba Sing Se so hard, I don't know how it can end in anything other than Fire Nation victory now." My heart feels heavy within me. I put my head in my hands in desperation. Tears stream down my face, but I can't tell if it's at Aang's death or Zuko's betrayal.
After a long silence, Suki puts a hand on my back and says, "We're not alone in here. My friends won't abandon me. We will get out of here."
I look up at her, and she has this quiet desperation on her face. I can't bring myself to tell her that nobody has ever successfully escaped, at least that's what I'm told.