༉˚*ೃ ¹¹. 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐌𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑, 𝐏𝐓. 𝐈!

"𝐒𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊!"

          The male shriek startled Luli's brain out of its slumber. Something heavy collided with her face. "Ah!" Luli shouted and awoke on pure instincts alone, shooting up into sitting position and blindly blasting fire towards whoever had startled her into consciousness. Whatever enemy had attacked her with an ambushing blow. In her mind still hazy with sleep and running purely on flight or fight response, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

          The makeshift pillow that had struck her in the face—made out of Water Tribe sleeping bag fabric and some minkduck feathers— exploded into an eruption of flames. Embers burst up into the sky like phoenix wings, scattered back down as if they were the orange leaves of cherry blossom trees. They were warm against the rays of morning light seeping through the barn. Along with them floated down small fragments of blackened cloth.

          "Ah!" Sokka, on the other end of the attack, had stilled with his eyes rounded. He clutched the ashy remains of his makeshift pillow. Both the Water Tribe boy and the firebender held equal expressions of surprise—eyes blown wide, mouths open, frozen, staring at one another.

          A noise came from their left: Aang, on Appa's head, who had begun to laugh. It seemed that Luli was the last awake today. Aang's hands clutched his stomach as he fell into a peal of chuckles. Both Luli and Sokka blinked at one another between the duck feathers and pieces of fabric that had landed to cover both their hair and faces. Then, Luli burst into a fit of giggles. The action seemed to surprise Sokka, whose eyes went wide—but Luli's laughter didn't let up. Soon, Sokka joined in. Even with the decimated pillow of his still held in his hands.

          "I am so, so sorry," Luli apologised between snickers, covering her mouth with her hand. The unfortunate ribbons of cloth were still grasped tight in each of Sokka's hands, even when he wiped away a dramatic, humourous tear from his eye with his index finger. "But you know, a sneak attack is pointless if you actually yell 'sneak attack'." Mirth decorated her face, lips pulled into a wide toothy grin, as her eyes were almost closed with the wracks of laughter.

          Sokka made a disbelieving, "Uehh?" sound, blinking.

          Now standing up on bare feet, Luli was stretching her arms towards the ceiling, lithe yet strong muscles on her arms pulling taut. She picked up her own pack, heavy with the Earth Kingdom outer-clothes she'd taken off to sleep in and a firebending scroll, and swung it mightily at his head. The unexpecting Sokka yelped as it collided with his face. He fell right down onto his backside with a mild thud.

          Raising and index finger sharply, as if she was a wise master giving him a lesson and with her face pulled into an expression of faux wisdom, Luli announced, "That is how you do a sneak attack." Aang laughed and Sokka just rubbed his nose. Grumbled—though not in anger. He was glaring heatlessly at her as she grinned lopsidedly, proudly.

          They heard Katara before they saw her. The running of footsteps up towards the barn, a shout, "They took him!". Then the barn doors were flung open and the waterbender was revealed standing there with a distraught expression on her face. What met the young Water Tribe girl was an airbender sat on a sky bison's fluffy head, Sokka sitting on his ass in the dirt, and a young firebender looking guilty wearing her cream-coloured under-uniform which consisted of a boxy shirt and shorts. Sokka and Luli blinked at Katara, trying to act as if the both of them weren't plastered in feathers and ash. The firebender girl watched as Katara's eyes turned from Luli, to Sokka, to Aang. They were filled with a mixture of distress and panic. "Haru's gone."

          Their moment of childish fun shattered before their eyes.

          "What?!" Luli didn't even care that it was Katara speaking—Katara, who hated her and was probably still plotting to drown the firebender in her sleep; Katara, whose tribe Luli's people had hurt so much—, she was in so much surprise. She clutched her pack tightly against her chest, forgetting all about the fight with Sokka. In worry, her amber eyes were blown wide.

          "What do you mean gone?" That was Sokka, his brows pinched and his lips parted. He'd scrambled up into standing position from where Luli had knocked him off his feet.

          "I mean the Fire Nation took him!" exclaimed Katara, her face pinched, furious and upset tears brimming at her eyes. "They took Haru away!" When her gaze cut towards Luli, the Fire Nation girl flinched in her shoulders. Yet, she just clutched her pack tighter. Her fingernails dug into the old cloth. Aang's eyes widened and he hopped off of Appa's head, as Katara gripped at her hair. "The old man turned him in. It's all my fault. I forced him into earthbending!"

          Sokka moved towards her with an outstretched arm. Luli stayed still. "Slow down, Katara. When did this happen?" He reached out and took one of her hands, his other hand coming to rest on her shoulder. Katara covered her face in anguish.

          As Luli's expression started to morph into one of genuine fury, Katara spoke. "Haru's mother said they came for him at midnight." The poor girl sounded torn up as she looked up at her older brother with wide blue eyes.

          Realising the edges of her pack was started to steam, Luli threw it down against the ground with vigour. It struck the dirt next to her feet and caught everyone's attention as she seethed, "I hate the Fire Nation!" Real venom punctured her voice. What right did the Fire Nation have to take children away from their homes? What right? Her scrunched nose, flared nostrils, twitched as the scowl on her face deepened.

          She felt three pairs of eyes on her before Sokka, with one arm around his sister, said, "If he was taken at midnight, then it's already too late for us to track him. He's long gone."

          "We have to try," Luli's voice punctured the air. "Haru's just a kid." She stormed over towards the Water Tribe siblings, where Katara had turned towards the open barn door and was staring out as if she'd see Haru magically walk up the hillside towards them. "And the Fire Nation have no right to ruin lives like this."

          When Katara's eyes flicked over to meet Luli's—that clash of deep, ocean blue once again against amber, honey fire—, there was no malicious dagger to them, just forceful understanding.

          That glance shared a lot.

          "Even if we could theoretically find him, we'd be totally outmatched!" protested Sokka, throwing his arms out towards Luli and looking towards Aang for support. The young Avatar looked prepared to speak before Katara cut in.

          "We've got an airbender, a waterbender, a firebender, and you. I'm sure we could take a couple of Fire Nation soldiers." She planted her hands on the blue cloth on her hips.

          Sokka's arms crossed over his chest, even as Luli's fist clenched up. Though she could not necessarily feel the own increase in her body temperature, and it was involuntary, the girl got the idea from the way that the breath from her nose exhaled in a ripple of displaced air like a desert mirage.

          She was not angry at him, however.

          "No way. It's too dangerous. If we don't want to end up prisoners too, I say we cut our losses and head off towards the North Pole. Our destination."

          Luli's brows stitched together so abruptly that she thought she might have pulled a facial muscle. When she snapped around towards Sokka, the heat from her skin was making strands of her hair float upwards. "No!" The shout in her voice sent a quiet rippling throughout the barn. Had she shouted like this at them before? "I am not letting the Fire Nation take another person—another child. If Katara thinks we can find Haru—we. Are. Finding. Him."

          Her eyes, alight with fury, were only focused on Sokka and then on Aang for a brief moment, before she forced them shut. Clenched both her fists tight and focused on the slow inhale and exhale of her breath. Tried to calm down. It wasn't their fault that the Fire Nation were maniacal, evil, genocidal jerks. Katara, the most unlikely of allies, seemed to back her up. She stepped up beside Luli and asserted, "We don't need to track Haru. The Fire Nation is going to take me right to him."

          Luli's eyelids were still closed as Aang voiced in confusion, "And why would they do that?"

          When Luli finally glanced up again, she saw Katara wearing a kind of mirror expression to the one the firebender herself had just moments before. Determination and anger all laced into one. "Because they're going to arrest me for earthbending."

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 the pump ran clear and cool into a ceramic pot, collecting in constant ripples—tiny, miniscule waves—as the firebender girl washed her face. Some of it quickly dried up, on her naturally hot skin that was exacerbated by her anger. She was stood outside in the warm sun, the distance between Haru's home and his barn, close by to one of the village mines.

          No longer were strands of her hair taking afloat: she'd managed to calm herself down, let herself breathe. Perhaps Aang would be able to help her with meditation techniques. Now, Luli did her best to breathe evenly—in through her lips, out through her nose, watching the reflection of herself be cast into tiny tipples as excess droplets of water fell from the tap's rim. Being so angry that it felt like she had no say over her own bending... it was frightening. Luli's teeth sunk into her lower lip. She needed to get better. No excuse.

          She thought about what that Fire Nation soldier had said to Haru's mother. Fire is sometimes so hard to control.

          That was an excuse based in cowardice. It was true that fire was a volatile element—explosive, unruly. But it was not a good enough reason. Luli clenched her fists shut, exhaled through her nose.

          If she let her anger get the better of her, she was no better than her father.

          It's true, she thought to herself as she turned away from the small pool showing her reflection, the rage is the one thing I get from him.

          Katara and Sokka were stood in close proximity, discussing what could be done. Though it was Katara who'd developed the master plan—it seemed her brother had significant input too, the two working side by side with their bowed foreheads almost pressed together. Aang, it appeared, was also in on the whole thing, but he seemed more preoccupied with keeping a butterfly in the sky with soft puffs of air than he was adding any input.

          Cracking her knuckles to ground herself, Luli walked over to the Water Tribe siblings. "Alright, so what's the plan?" It was impossible for Katara to earthbend, of course, but there had to be some way to land in a Fire Nation prison. If all went to shit, Luli could just throw some fire at them. Or pretend to be a soldier bringing in some new prisoners.

          It seemed that the siblings had concocted some kind of idea on their own. "See those ventilation shafts?" said Sokka, pointing towards a vent that exited out of the ground, beside a mine entrance. Luli nodded along in earnest. "Well, if we roll a big boulder onto them and get Aang to blow an air current through another shaft, it might make the rock float. Then, boom, earthbending!" He wiggled his fingers mystically towards his sister.

          Katara's fingers cradled her chin and mouth in a thoughtful expression. "Although, I'm not sure if the soldiers will be stupid enough to fall for it."

          "Eh," pitched in Luli, with a single brow cocked knowingly, "you'd be surprised."

          "Alright, Aang, did you get that?" Sokka looked up at Aang, who was still mostly not paying any attention at all. The yellow butterfly flapped its wings as Aang beamed a crooked Avatar grin at it.

          Casually, not even turning to look at them, the airbender replied, "Sure, sure. I got it." Luli frowned with one eyebrow lowered extra far, but ended up turning to shrug at Sokka. 

          The Water Tribe boy gestured towards a large boulder a short distance away. "Wanna help us get the rock in place?" He was glancing at Luli.

          She rolled her shoulders experimentally, "Yeah, of course." They each positioned themselves to push: Sokka in the middle with his hands braced against the stone, Katara on his left in a similar position. Luli took a slightly different approach—pressed her back up against the giant rock, faced towards the cliffside of the mines, and pushed back with all her strength. With the three of them combined, the boulder pushed forward through the dirt. It was heavy work: Luli ended up turning onto her right shoulder and heaving with that. Sweat beaded against her forehead. "Aang, are you sure you have the plan down?" asked Luli cautiously, as the three kids gave the boulder its final shove, until it was over the mine's ventilation shaft. Perfect.

          He kept puffing the butterfly up into the air. "Yeah, yeah. Just relax. You're taking all the fun out of this."

          Sokka's head popped up from behind the boulder, eyes lidded and brows pulled together in suspicion. "By 'this', do you mean intentionally being captured by an army of ruthless firebenders?" With his hands on his hips he leaned forward—staring the youngest kid down.

          "Exactly. That's fun stuff."

          Luli rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Have you ever actually been inside a Fire Nation prison?" Fun would not be her word to describe the dirty, torturous, wet cells where anyone who wronged just about anyone was left to rot. One of her dark eyebrows was raised sharply.

          Before they could hear Aang's indignant response, the group was interrupted by Katara's call. "Here they come!" she whispered, shaking her brother's shoulder as she pointed towards a trio of Fire Nation soldiers each dressed in red armour and holding spears. They were just rounding the corner when Luli sprinted and skidded across the dirt to duck behind the boulder covering Aang from their sight. No need to make the plan more complex by her just being a random bystander.

          Aang was mostly unbeknownst to the happenings as Katara and Sokka demonstrated a brilliant effort of their acting abilities—the Ember Island Players had nothing on them—, pretending to walk unbeknownst into each other. They feigned a stumble before Sokka pointed a sharp, accusing finger at Katara. He angrily stated, "Get out of my way, pipsqueak!"

          As Luli peered cautiously around the corner of the rock, she saw that the Fire Nation soldiers had stopped in their tracks, watching the altercation go down with raised eyebrows and side-glances at one another. "How dare you call me pipsqueak, you giant eared cretin." Okay, maybe they were a little like the Ember Island Players—based on how dramatic their inflection on each word was: drawn out and punctual. Luli almost giggled at the thought. She hadn't visited Ember Island in almost six years, but their delegated theatre group's performance of Love as Told by a Fire Lily had gone down as the worst script-to-live-stage adaption she'd ever seen.

          Zuko had talked her ear off about it for a week.

          "What did you call me?" asked Sokka in the same kind of tone as his sister.

          "A giant eared cretin." Every word that Katara pronounced was exaggerated. The soldiers seemed to be somewhat buying it, however, as they had not moved. Tch. "Look at those things." Katara dramatically pointed at her brother's ears. "Do herds of animals use them for shade?"

          Sokka inched forward, until the two siblings were almost forehead to forehead, despite Sokka's clear height advantage. "You better back off!" exclaimed Sokka, feigning anger. Both glared at the other. Then he raised a hand to the side of his mouth. "Seriously, back off."

          "I will not back off!" Katara insisted. She pushed herself onto her toes, so she was taller than Sokka, and he sunk back down. "I bet elephants get together and make fun of how large your ears are."

          Her brother actually looked a little self-conscious at that. "That's it! You're going down."

          "I'll show you who's boss. Earthbending style!" Dramatically, Katara threw up one of her fists, lunging forward on one foot. Nothing happened. There was a brief moment of silence, during which Luli, Sokka, and Katara all blinked blankly in unison. Then Luli's head snapped towards Aang, who was still playing with the yellow butterfly. He now had it balanced on the tip of his nose.

          "Aang!" hissed Luli in a quiet whisper, and shook his shoulder.

          The monk let out a gasp as Katara asserted, "I said, 'earthbending style'!", and then he was pushing Luli aside and sending a gigantic gust of air down the ventilation shaft in front of them. The blowback from the wind sent Aang's Air Nomad clothes rippling around him, and Luli's plaits flew up with the force.

          From beside Katara, the boulder rose into the air with a great tremor. Behind it sat Momo, licking at his arms. This became an apparent point of confusion when one of the Fire Nation soldiers gasped, pointed, and said, "That lemur. He's earthbending."

          Momo glanced innocently up at the three soldiers with a small chirp. "No, you idiot," deadpanned Sokka in disbelief, arms thrown out towards the Fire Nation men, "it's the girl."

          "Oh." The Fire Nation soldier actually looked embarrassed, clutching his spear extra tight. "Of course." If we're lucky, speculated Luli, the guards in the prison will be this stupid too.

          Sokka grabbed hold of Katara's shoulders, barely any grip there. "I'll hold her!" He then whispered something in his sister's ear that Luli didn't catch, because the three Fire Nation guards were marching over and forced Luli back into total hiding behind the rock. The Water Tribe girl didn't put up a struggle as she was led away. How many other innocent prisoners had been dragged away in chains, fighting the best they could? Luli and Aang popped out of their hiding spot; Sokka tugged on his ears self-consciously as the only other girl in their group disappeared around the corner.

          "So... now what?" asked Luli, realising that she hadn't heard this far ahead in the plan. "Are we going to follow her as stowaways? Do I get to steal a Fire Nation uniform and infiltrate their ranks in a secret mission?!" She clasped her hands together excitedly—eyes shining, all starry and heart-like.

          Sokka scratched his head. "Actually, we didn't really think that far." Luli's face fell into a pout. "All Katara wanted was time to get Haru out, twelve hours. We need to follow them from air on Appa and keep an eye on the prison."

          "Good enough for me," voiced Luli, who'd watched Aang saddle up Appa with all their gear earlier that morning, and who was back in her regular Earth Kingdom clothes. "Let's go break those prisoners out of there."

          All falling into the back of Appa's saddle—Luli was growing used to it, now—, the sky bison hovered in the air a fair distance behind where Katara had been led down to the docks. They watched intently as she was loaded onto a boat with several other Earth Kingdom citizens. It was easy to notice that she was the youngest one. Still bright-eyed. The others were older, middle-aged or more, and they looked tired. That was the only way to describe it. Tired. Like they'd had all the energy and joy and memory of love sucked right out of them.

          "Those people..." murmured Aang, sat on the bison's head and clutching the reins. "I've been gone for a really long time, haven't I?" His eyes were big, round, and sad. 100 years was already a lot for a twelve-year-old to wrap his head around, let alone all the things that had happened in his time. That technically, some would claim, was on his shoulders. His fault.

         Luli said softly, with her mouth pressed to her knee, as the boat carrying Katara and the other prisoners pushed off from shore, "Just a few decades. Give or take a few." How could anyone blame a child, the last beacon of hope in the world, for all the atrocities that had happened? There was only one true person who could be blamed for such a thing. And Luli swore that if she, after her time came, ever saw Firelord Sozin in the Spirit World, she was going to beat the crap out of him.

          Out into the ocean the steamboat went, as Appa hung in the clouds. The air up there was heavy and dense. As was the vision. Luli positioned her hand over her eyes to block her gaze from the harsh, lowering sun, and tried to peer down at Katara's boat. They were a long way from shore, now. If something happened... well, they had just Katara to rely on as the only waterbender in a thousand miles.

          Sokka was fiddling uncontrollably. It seemed he was deep in thought. "A high-security prison in the middle of nowhere, made to hold a collection of great benders. This seems like a disaster waiting to happen." He groaned, and Luli guessed this wasn't the first time they'd taken a detour on their inevitable journey towards the North Pole. "If no one's ever escaped—like Haru's mom said—, this place has to be incredibly difficult to break in and out of."

          "Yeah, for earthbenders." Luli looked over Appa's saddle and stared at the dark reflection of the sky bison rippling hundreds of meters down at the ocean below. "What kind of prison could contain a waterbender, an airbender, and a firebender?"

          "Not a lot," agreed Aang. Though it seemed that wasn't all that was on his mind.

          She turned her head to shoot a smile at Sokka. "They may be able to keep earthbenders away from rock, but they can't take us away from ours." To demonstrate, she lit a tiny, flickering flame in the palm of her hand. It beat in the wind, like a small heartbeat. She clasped another hand around it, to prevent the fire from blowing out.

          "But how will we know if Katara's in trouble?" worried Aang, looking anxiously towards Luli. His grey eyes were wide and unsure.

          Something tugged strangely at her heartstrings, that he was looking to her for support. How was I his age when I left everything behind? "Katara's strong," was Luli's response, her voice smoothed out calmly, expression gentle, "she knows what she's doing. And we're not that far away if things go wrong." With her palm leaning pressed into her cheek, Luli offered the airbender a soft smile. One that dimpled her right cheek and was seen in the crinkles as her eyes.

          Sokka dropped his own input into the conversation, "Yeah, my sister might be a pain in the butt, but she's not a complete idiot." His stopped scratching his head momentarily. "Don't tell her I said that."

          Luli was about to tell him not to worry, before the prison came into view over the horizon, hovering on water and composed entirely of metal. "Woah." In the late dusk light, the prison atop the water was bathed in shadows of deep red and obsidian, illuminated against the orange sky behind. It almost looked beautiful bathed in such a devastatingly Fire Nation light. Great plumes of smoke puffed out into the air from a chimney. Several guard posts punctured the sky around a single giant courtyard. At its metal docks, two warships were stationed. "There's no way that's just for the benders from Haru's village."

          Sokka peered at her. "What do you mean?"

          "I mean—look at it. That's got to be holding earthbenders from towns all across the Earth Kingdom. It's the perfect earthbender prison." Luli's eyes were quick to instinctively inspect the building's structure. "Looks like a rig of some kind. They probably get the prisoners to do forced labour building war materials for the Fire Nation." She was prepared to get a closer look, but then Aang was gripping Appa's reins, and the sky bison was flying up and away. Deeper into the clouds. The warship carrying Katara and the other prisoners just docked as they disappeared into a wave of white.

          "Is that common knowledge?" When Luli frowned at Sokka's question, he elaborated. "That the Fire Nation uses forced labour?"

          A sigh left her mouth. "We don't call it that in the Fire Nation, but yeah. 'Reformation labour', it's called." She tucked her face into her knees shamefully. "I don't know, we were taught it was a positive thing. A way for 'war prisoners' and 'rebels' to get back on the right path." She accentuated the words with forming false quotation marks on her fingers. Luli's despising frown grew deeper. "But it's not hard to imagine what the homeland constitutes as so-called 'rebels'." Aang looked even more worried about Katara's wellbeing now, and his big wide eyes were focused on Luli. Instead, the firebender was staring at her own feet. Then she tilted her gaze up to meet Sokka's. "But that's what we're going to fix, right? When Aang defeats the Firelord, everyone will be free." Free from the Fire Nation.

          There were people even from within the Fire Nation who needed to be freed from it too.

          "I hope so." Sokka's response was unnervingly unsure. It was hard to put all your hopes for the world in one kid. Especially when he was sitting right next to them, looking young and defenceless and small. It was all the two of them said on the matter. Hope. Hope. Luli would do everything she could to get Firelord Ozai off that throne.

          She could no longer see the rig between the heavy white clouds. "So now we just wait?" Luli asked.

          Sokka crossed his arms, peering down at the water-borne prison below. "Now we wait."

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merry christmas everyone !! i wasn't able to update on the monday so i figured everyone could have a chapter christmas instead :) and happy holidays to everyone who doesn't celebrate it! here's to 2021 being a better year than this shithole

the only good thing 2020 gave me was this story

word count: 4,474

25.12.2020.