Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Avatar: The Wind on the Waves ❯ Chapter 15

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Deep within the Dragonbone Catacombs, a place once rarely visited, a flurry of activity was going on. The scent of aged parchment hung heavy in the musty atmosphere. On two long, polished study tables were scrolls and pages of all kinds, opened and held so by paperweights and miscellaneous bookmarks. The Fire Sages, set to work by Fire Lord Zuko, were busy searching for any information regarding the disappearance of Lady Ursa.

Fire Sage Shyu was pouring over a scroll tediously. Every now and again, he paused to rub his tired eyes. Records from the time when the Fire Lord's mother had disappeared were few to begin with, but worse was the fact that whatever was to be found was vague and seriously lacking in detail. There were even some passages that seemed to have been purposely marred to obscure their information. Despite the roadblocks, however, the sages persisted.

The scroll the sage was examining was one of the damaged ones, one made especially difficult to read by the combination of smudged and lifted ink marks. Unable to decipher its contents plainly, Shyu held it up to the lantern light. To his surprise, the scroll let up its secrets, for where the text had been ages ago, there was now a faint but readable imprint.

Quickly, he called over the younger sages to see it, for their eyes were better than his. His findings were unlike anything any of them could have expected.

Sokka was in his room, seated at the desk he often painted and sketched blueprints at. But at the moment, he was doing neither of those things. The desk was completely devoid of anything at the moment, save one. He stared at it, almost as though expecting a hole to bore through it at any moment. His brow creased deep in thought, and a frustrated groan escaped under his breath.

How the hell am I going to do this?

Thoughts of a white-haired beauty haunted him, and it took willpower not to tear out his wolf tail by the roots. The Kyoshi warrior trickled into his mind, and the poor boy was torn by the vision of them side by side.

“What's got you so worked up?” came Toph's voice suddenly.

“DAH!” Sokka instinctively dived for his mother's engagement necklace, planting his face into the hardwood table in the process. The intruder snickered.

“I wasn't even trying to sneak up on you!” she snorted. “Do you need to talk to someone?”

“Yes!.. No! Wait—Argh!” he sputtered.

“Listen, either you do or you don't! Make up your mind!”

“Uh…well,… sure. Have a seat.”

Toph helped herself to the stone floor, her feet planted flat against it. Sokka had the necklace hidden in his hand, but even then, he was sure that Toph could see it nonetheless.

“How do I begin this…?” he scratched his head.

“Beginning sounds about right.” Came the flat answer.

“Ok… Toph, did Aang or my sister ever tell you about what happened at the North Pole?”

“Sort of. There was a big battle against the Fire Nation and Zuko kidnapped Aang.”

“Besides that.”

“That the good guys won the battle.”

“That's all?”

“What else is there to know?… This is a more personal matter. I know I'm right.”

“Yeah… While I was there, I met a girl…”

“Oo! Does Suki know?”

“…Sort of…”

Toph would have jibed a smart remark if she had not sensed the anguished lump in Sokka's throat.

“We… grew to like each other… a lot. But… there was a problem.”

“You didn't wanna two-time Suki?”

“No…” Sokka's fist trembled as he opened it. His mother's necklace sat neatly in the palm as he stared at it. “She was… engaged…”

“To someone else.” Toph finished, sensing the envy in his heart. She blinked suddenly as another emotion flooded into him. “Whoa, that's A LOT more than just jealousy, Sokka!”

“He was a JERK!” he suddenly clenched his fist around the necklace again, hissing through his teeth as he fumed. “A self-centered jerk that only wanted her because she was a princess! For the power! The wealth! He didn't care about her, only what he could get from her!”

“Typical royalty stuff, got it. So let me guess, they got married and jerk-brains rubbed it in your face.”

“Not exactly…”

“What is this stuff?” Katara asked as she took the bowl Pathik offered to her and Aang.

“Onion banana juice…” Aang answered with a groan. His head still ached terribly, but he let Katara help him sit up.

“Eww…”

“It's not as bad as it sounds.”

Aang took the bowl from her and drank it down without even flinching. He set the bowl aside, and as the taste lingered on his tongue, he imagined that Katara would not want to kiss him for a while.

“Did you encounter a great light, young Avatar?” Pathik asked.

“Yeah,” Aang rubbed his temples. “Though it might as well have been a slab of rock for the force it hit me with.”

“In all of my years, I have never encountered an obstacle such as this. It is energy, pure and simple enough, but very powerful.”

“When the energy hit me, I felt like I was in the Spirit World. The energy there feels… very still and quiet, but…well… there.”

“Very good, but now here is the difficult part. That energy is here, in this world.”

“That's what I don't get! The only way there could be Spirit World energy here…”

Aang suddenly stopped himself suddenly, blinking.

“Aang?” Katara touched his shoulder.

He shook his head slightly as the words `koi fish' slipped out. Carefully, he rose to his feet, gazing in the direction of the distant chasm.

“We need to go there.” Aang finally said. “I think… I think a spirit might have passed over into our world…”

There was a certain excitement about this trip that thrilled and scared Aang. On one hand, the prospect of meeting another spirit outside of the Spirit World would give him more experience in being the Avatar. After all, he reasoned, there was always something new to learn. But on the other hand, this spirit could be one of the less friendly types. If it could be helped, Aang hoped to never encounter an entity as dangerous as Koh ever again.

The sun was setting the following day when Appa bellowed and began descent without direction from Aang. The Avatar sensed that their destination was still a few miles away, but even at his urging, the bison refused to obey. Upon landing, Aang spoke softly to Appa, but the poor beast could not be consoled. He snuffled, pawed at the ground, and otherwise seemed nervous.

“Appa won't budge.” Aang sighed, but he still offered the bison an apple. “We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Where there is fear, there is no room for solitude.” Said Pathik. “I will keep Appa company.”

“Then it's just you and me, Katara.” Aang turned to her, and she nodded.

They went ahead, keeping close all the while. No sounds of birds or other animals could be heard about them. The tension that had kept Appa at bay grew stronger, pooling fear into the pits of their stomachs. But worse than the negative feeling of the place was a pervading sadness. It crept in like a prickle snake, coiling itself around the heart and constricting with its barbed body.

Katara's knees gave out, the sorrowful energy overcoming her. Aang was immediately by her side, pulling her up despite the temptation to stay there and not get up.

“Just a little more, Katara.” His voice sounded much sadder than he had meant it to be. She nodded and forced herself back up.

They pressed on, and at last reached the edge of the great chasm Aang had seen in his vision. The spirit energy was strongest here. Aang took a few steps closer to the edge; if he had still had hair, it would have been standing up on end. He could not see it, per se, but he could feel it… a wall… a barrier made of fear. Against his better judgment, he reached out a hand and touched the barrier.

Terrified screams and shrieks of horror rang in his ears. He could almost see their faces, panic-stricken and pale. They seemed to back away from him, but the rock wall behind them allowed no movement. A deep familiarity about them welled up in Aang's heart. He could see very little color, but a flicker of saffron yellow caught his eye before he suddenly pulled his hand away, ending the vision.

“Aang?” Katara's voice broke the deafening silence.

“There are a lot of spirits here, Katara.” Aang's voice trembled. “Very scared spirits. Whatever happened here…”

“Are we… going down there? Into the canyon?” she asked.

“We have to.” He nodded. “But they have to let us first.”

Aang seated himself in his meditative posture. Moments later, Katara could hear him speaking, softly, but with purpose.

“My name is Aang, and I am the Avatar. I want to help you, all of you, but you have to let me. I don't mean you any harm. Please, will you allow me to pass?”

Whispers danced about his ears like tendrils of smoke. Most of what they said were garbled words or frightened gasps. The tiniest of breezes, little more than a breath of air, brushed his cheek. Even with his eyes closed, Aang knew there was a spirit right in front of him.

“There is nothing here…” it said. “There is nothing left… they took everything that we had…”

“Who did?” Aang asked.

“The Fire Nation!”

A great and horrible wail suddenly went up, as if by those very words all the spirits relived their final, terrifying moments all over again. In his mind's eye, Aang could see the spirits much more clearly now. Again, there were flickers of saffron yellow and autumn red. The men, no matter the age, were bald, and the women had their hair brushed back away from their foreheads. The markings here were indisputable.

“You're airbenders!”

“Yes…we were airbenders…” the voices wailed. “We fled the air temples… took refuge here. We thought we were safe… we were wrong.”

“They were looking for me…” said Aang brokenly.

“They never found you.”

“No, they didn't…”

There was silence, save for the whispering winds. Katara dared to approach Aang where he was seated facing the unseen barrier. Strangely, she noted, the intensity of the spirit energy did not grow as she neared the source. Something had changed from before; were the spirits calming down?

She sat down beside Aang and listened. At first, she could hear nothing but the winds ghosting her ears, but as she focused her attention, Katara was sure she could make out other voices, faint and distant. She did not see the spirit that approached her from the right side, but she certainly felt it come closer.

“Healer…?”

“Yes?” she whispered back.

Again, silence pervaded the air. Then, slowly as ice in the sun, the spirit energy melted away. The barrier was fading away.

“They took everything we had…” the spirits rustled. “We have nothing left… nothing but fear…”

Aang stood up, staring ahead at the canyon before him. Katara, too, got to her feet, feeling the receding barrier as a gentle rain of relief. The warmth of Aang's hand enveloped her own.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I am.” she replied.

Slowly, they descended into the chasm, solemn and anxious of what they might find there.