Zuko and Azula share a long stare as the gondola continues to move up and away. I am partly hoping that Azula cuts her losses, that she can't reach us.
There's no such luck. Azula is quick to think on her feet.
There's a prison guard standing next to her. They all carry handcuffs around their belts, and Azula grabs them. As Azula starts running parallel to the gondola lines, her friend in pink flips up and starts running across the gondola line. Her movements are so fluid, they seem almost like she could airbend.
But, no, that's impossible. No airbender made it out alive.
Azula propels herself upward, using her blue flames to reach the gondola lines. She snaps the handcuffs on one of the lines, and starts to bend more flames with her hand and foot.
"Spirits, we're so screwed," I mutter. There's hardly any room to maneuver up here. And Azula's fire is so overwhelmingly hot that it would boil us alive.
"This is a rematch I've been waiting for," Suki says.
"Me too," Zuko adds, grabbing the edge of the gondola and climbing onto the roof. Well, that helps with the spacing issue. Suki and Sokka climb up after them, and I look over at Sokka's dad. I shrug. I climb up last, leaving Sokka's dad to watch over the warden.
The rage for Azula is still there, a part of me, but I know karma will catch up to her. But it couldn't hurt if I got a few punches in on her. I let it boil within me, a part of the volcano lake below. If I have any luck, maybe I can toss her in.
Too soon, Azula and her friend arrive. Suki twists to face the friend in pink. I don't want Suki fighting alone, even though she has definitely proved that she can. Plus, our fighting styles are very similar. So I turn to face the girl in pink too.
I feel the gondola tip when Azula lands, just seconds after her friend. I don't look, because I know what I'll do. I run at her and do something rash. I take a deep breath, centering myself, finding myself. Well, at least the part of me that can focus on not being stupid and jumping with Azula into the bottom of a lake.
I hear the whoosh of fire behind us, and I feel the heat mingling with the great humidity of the Boiling Rock.
"Focus," I whisper.
Suki and the pink girl move at the same time, and I lag behind, watching. I've never fought this girl before, but Suki adapts so easily to new opponents. They each try to punch each other, and they block with the sides of their arms. Suki looks like she's trying hard to not let the other girl touch her.
Something Suki said during our month of waiting together comes back to me. This girl in pink is a chi-blocker.
When Suki mentioned it before, something had clicked in my brain. Something that wanted to be clicked back into place, but couldn't no matter how hard I tried.
If this girl was different, or on our side, could she unblock my chi? Could I bend again?
I shake my head. No. I've moved past this. I am fine with myself, the person I've become, the holes I've filled since losing my bending. I am different, and I am not a person the monks would be proud of. But I'm alive.
The pink girl doesn't yet see me as a threat, so I take this moment to give her a kick in the side. She grunts, and twists backward. The falls onto her hands, and uses her momentum to swing back into the gondola itself.
"Don't let her hit you," Suki says, not letting her guard down. I put my back to Suki, waiting for the girl to come back up. She comes back up on the other side of the gondola, throwing a punch at my head. But I duck down and drive a fist straight into her stomach.
She grunts, and focuses her energy on both of us. She's so flexible, and I catch a glimpse of her eyes. They are grey. Like the sky during a storm. Like the mountains in spring.
Like an Air Nomad.
I falter, hesitate. She catches this, and drives a flat hand into the pressure point on my left arm, making it numb. I let it hang down at my side, still having three limbs to fight with.
I won't hesitate again.
But, Spirits, those eyes. Those movements.
Suki and I move fluidly again, me filling in her movements of pulling back from the pink girl's punches, her moving forward when I falter again. She dodges pretty easily, and it's hard to land hits on her when she's so focused, so nimble.
I can't help but see a variety of the circle technique. The way she's dodging around us, coming up on the other side of the gondola. My mind is making connections that I can't afford to make right now.
I need to focus.
Azula helps with that, by shooting a giant blue ball of flame off the edge of the gondola, cutting between Suki and I and Azula's friend. It singes the air, making it harder to breathe.
I hate Azula.
From down below, the warden yells, "Cut the line!"
Great, Chit Sang and Sokka's dad did such a great job of keeping him tied up and quiet.
Shortly after the warden yelled, the gondola stops and rocks. I stumble, but Suki grabs the collar of my shirt, steadying me. I look over and Sokka is slipping, falling, off the side of the gondola. Zuko grabs his hand at the last minute, pulling him up.
The girl in pink jumps up to the metal array that connects the gondola to the line. She yells down to Azula, "They're about to cut the line!" I turn to look at Azula, and she is smiling.
The other gondola is coming down the mountain. They work in conjunction with one another, so that there is always a gondola at the top and one at the bottom.
Azula sees this and says, "Then it's time to leave." She uses the same move she used to get up to the gondola line. Twin blue flames coming out of her hand, she sends herself up and over. "Goodbye, Zuko." The pink girl flips back and lands easily on the second gondola.
We all watch the two of them moving back to the safety of the Boiling Rock. The hopelessness settles again, somewhere near my ribs.
I follow the other three back down in the gondola. Zuko says, "They're cutting the line! The gondola's about to go!"
Sokka's dad says, "I hope this thing floats."
But I don't tell him that it doesn't look as well sealed as the coolers. That this thing will fall, and splash into the lake, and we will be hit with the boiling water and then slowly drown.
I turn and watch the people working on cutting the line, down at where the gondola lands. The girl I saw so long ago in Ba Sing Se, when Iroh and I were being transported onto the ship to take me here, shows up. Her hair is dark, and her red is much deeper than the others around her.
She throws sharp knives at the guards working at the line, pinning them against a wall.
"Suki!" I say, grabbing her attention. Everyone else looks too.
Her fighting style is so different from the guards that are attacking her. She dodges and rolls and slides across the metal floor, throwing an infinite amount of knives. The fire doesn't touch her.
She kicks the pole that's stopped us from moving, and we begin to go back up the volcano.
I'm in awe.
"Who's that?" Sokka asks, squinting down at the girl in red.
"It's Mai!" Zuko says, and he looks awestruck. But not in the same way as me. My awe comes from her fighting style, while Zuko's seems to stem from a place of love.
Jealousy boils up next to the hate inside me. I scowl, my awe gone and drowned in the lake
Shortly, we arrive at the gondola boarding zone for the top of the prison. We exit quickly, Chit Sang carrying the warden out. Sokka's dad points to throw the warden back into the gondola, and he says, "Sorry, warden. Your record is officially broken."
We leave the crater of the Boiling Rock, running up the ashy path. "Well, we made it out. Now what?" Suki asks.
Zuko stops at the top of the ridge, looking back down at the Boiling Rock. He looks sad again.
"Zuko, what are you doing?" Sokka asks.
"My sister was on that island," he says.
"Yeah, and she's probably right behind us, so let's not stop."
"He means, she got here somehow. They don't store boats or airships on the island unless someone is visiting," I say, sensing Zuko's train of thought.
Zuko races to the edge of the cliff and points down, "There! That's our way out of here."
Sure enough, at the edge of the beach, at a set of docks, is a giant airship with the Fire Nation symbol on the side. It is much larger than the one that brought me here.
We board, and Sokka takes to the controls like he made it. Zuko and Chit Sang provide the fire power meant to fly this monstrous thing. Suki and I sit in the control room with Sokka and his dad. I introduce myself to his dad, whose name is Hakoda. He smiles and shakes my hand.
Finally, I broach the question that's been on my mind since I spoke to Zuko in the mess hall. "Sokka? Is Aang really alive?"
Sokka looks over at me, and he's got this huge grin on his face. "Yeah! Katara saved him with some spirit water from the North Pole! And we're staying at the Western Air Temple! It's going to be a long flight there, we probably won't get in until after dark. Why don't you and Suki go look for some food? That prison food was disgusting."
Sokka is right. We don't get to the Western Air Temple until well after the moon has risen. The air is much cooler, more welcome than the months I spent in the humidity of the Boiling Rock.
A feeling I can't figure out bubbles up within me. Aang is alive. And we're back at a temple I spent so much time thinking of and drawing in my head. It is most likely anxiety, I think. But it's so hard to pinpoint with the hatred and jealousy I felt at the Boiling Rock.
Sokka and Zuko step off the balloon first, saying they want to warn the rest of what happened. I think they just wanted to surprise everyone with our arrival.
The waiting doesn't help my anxiety.
At Sokka's corny, "I did. The best meat of all. The meat of friendship and fatherhood" we step off the balloon in pairs. Hakoda and Suki first, then me and Chit Sang.
Chit Sang waves and says, "I'm new! What's up, everybody?"
Katara looks like she's about to cry, and says, "Dad."
Hakoda says, "Hi, Katara." They embrace, and Katara has tears streaming down her face.
It takes Aang a moment to recognize me in the dark, and my hair is long, and I'm in worn out prison rags. But his face brightens up and he says, "Zia!" He runs up and hugs me, and I spin him around.
"You're alive!" I say, not really taking Zuko and Sokka's words for truth until I saw it myself.
"So are you!"
"How are you here?" Katara asks. "What is going on? Where did you go?"
"We kind of went to a Fire Nation prison," Sokka admits. Aang's hug is so tight, I don't want to let go. Tears are streaming down my face too. I'm home, and I'm not alone.
Toph says, "Seriously, you guys didn't find any meat?"