There she stood, unveiled in the middle of the street before hundreds of onlookers. All eyes on her with a deathly silence of fear and confusion filling the void, as everyone tried to make sense of what had just happened. What she had just done. Soon enough they would figure it out. And when that happened...
She could here the voices of bewildered soldiers and citizens struggling to make sense of what had just occurred. The feat she had just performed like some trapped magician placed center stage against her will. Their whispers causing her to frantically glance at everyone and at everyone all at once.
Did she just..? Said a man inspecting her up and down.
It cant be. Said a wealthy fire nation woman, raising a palm to her mouth in astoundment and huddling her children close behind her out of fear.
I thought they were all gone…Said one old man squinting his eyes for a better look. Is the avatar? Has hope come at last?
People murmured and jabbered at the sight of her true self bare before them all. A freshly painted canvas hung out to dry in the open for all to see.
The airbender couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She just stood there behind Bin like a frozen cat deer, sweat running down her bare forehead now unveiled so carelessly. Her blue tattoo now marking her for death once again for the first time in years. Stupid Stupid she cursed herself. Her mind flashed with horrid memories of the last time she stood frozen and helpless like this. The red blood sky with the comet racing overhead, her home the eastern air temple aflame and her air nun sisters wiped out, and her just staring at the gaping maw of a firebender's dragon as it chased her flying through the air off the mountain to safety. The smell of burnt robes and singed fabric trailing behind as her glider caught fire and she crashed among the trees before everything going black. She was one of the lucky ones. Although now, she felt the hungry gaze of a dragon once again. Only this time. in the form of a man.
Bazzan stood, regaining his footing from the air blast. His look of bewilderement slowly vanished. In place of realization. Realaztion at what she was. And of what he could get for her capture.
No. she begged.
Airbender….muttered Bazan eagerly. Taking a step forward.
No. She whimpered. Not again.
More fire nation soldiers walked toward her. Their pace quickeing as the shock of the situation subsided and training and propaganda took over. She knew what was about to happen. What they were going to try to do to her. She needed a head start.
Before she ran, she briefly met Bin's warm eyes below her, affording to give him one final glance of goodbye for what would probably be the last time she ever saw him.
Kishe…He muttered, blood running down his nose. Reaching his hand out to her.
"I'm sorry bin.." She muttered.
Suddenly the airbender slammed the ground with both her fists, sending up a thick cloud of dust to swallow and engulf the entire street block in its thick dirty haze.
AFTER HER!!!! Screamed Bazan coughing on the dust that filled his lungs. The soldiers all donned their spiked helmets and immediately gave chase like a pack of vulture wasps hungry for the last scrap of carrion.
Angry, armored, men pushed and shoved people aside as they struggled to make their way through the mob after her. The sheer panic of the crowd now manifested as a tidal wave of people screaming and scrambling to their feet to either flee the scene or give chase to collect the reward on her tattooed head first if they were lucky enough. What had only minutes ago been a calm and collected audience coming together to watch an agni kai break up the usual monotony on just another usual day had descended into pure frenzied and opportunistic chaos as what could be one of the very last Airbender in the world fled the scene with most of the city now hot on her heels. This was an irresistible prize. A prize you would have to be insane not to go after. Years of promises of reward, propaganda, and lies fed to the minds of these people, culminating in the form of a mad dash of failed humanity, as each sought to benefit somehow.
Benefit from her pain.
The airbender emerged from her dust storm as a blur and raced down a darkened nearby alleyway, her green dress and brown hair billowing in the breeze that propelled her steps like air pockets while hearing shouts, insults, and screams getting closer behind her. She leaped from wall to wall to spiral and flip out of view of the mob over the rooftops just as arrows fired from down below passed overhead. She wouldn't look back. She couldn't afford to see how many there were. It was a waste of time. Time she didn't have.
She leapt weightlessly from rooftop to rooftop with more arrows and now fireballs joining the fray, already able to hear the town alarm bells ringing loudly in her ear, alerting every fire nation soldier in the city to man their stations and be at the ready. It was a sound she feared more than anything. Like a dinner bell announcing to everyone. Come and get it boys. Airbenders on the menu tonight. The entire city had answered the call.
She could hear soldiers running faster as they lept across the rooftops after her, struggling to keep up, hurling fireballs and arrows widly hoping one would be lucky enough to hit the elsuive airbender. They were fast. But she was far faster.
Whenever a fireball or arrow seemed like it was going to hit her she simply spiraled, shifted her footing and evaded just slightly out of the way allowing the attacks to harmlessly move past without even grazing her as she had been taught. Conserving her own energy and tiring out her attackers in the process was just one of her airbender's pacifist teachings of avoid and evade, still in engrained into her memory and serving her well all these years later even in hiding when the instructors were long gone. Yet still. That might have worked in peacetime, but if need be she wasn't above fighting back if it meant her survival and there was no other more peaceful option. These soldiers didn't care about teachings or philosophies. They didn't show restraint. So neither would she if they pushed her too far.
As she finished her sprint across a clothes line like a tightrope walker in a traveling fire nation circus before cutting it with a wind gust. She afforded a brief glance back to see that her pursuers were well behind her and were by now struggling to even stand they were so out of breath. The large gap between the two buildings they were both on serving as the divider between them and a long painful fall to the street below. A few soldiers let out a few final arrows and sputtering blasts of flame that either dropped due to gravity and became embedded in the side of her building or just dissipate into thin air as she batted them away with minimal effort the impact had all but vanished from the sheer distance between them. The only thing crossing at this point were words. Not men.
"What are...huff... you waitng for?!! A bridge to be built? Bazan wheezed struggling to catch his breath as he shoved his men forward. Jump!! After her!!
The airbenders silence as she stared at them across was almost like a dare in itself.
"Don't" she whispered aloud, almost remorsefully.
A few of the firebenders, edged on by adrenaline, their captain, and the prospect of her capture, bravely propelled themselves on jets of flame from their feet across the large gap between the two buildings. Only to then miss and slam against the tiled roofs, sliding down at a steep angle before catching themselves at the very edge, kicking and scraping the tiles, struggling not to fall. As they tried to desperately propel themselves upward away from the danger of the edge, their fate in her hands, the airbender took advantage and blasted them off the roofs with an unrestrained gust of wind. Sending them crashing to the street bloodied and with broken bones. Some seemed really hurt.
As Bazan looked across enraged yelling profanities and calling her a bloody coward, the airbender didn't seem to notice, she just looked saddened then disgusted at herself as she looked down below at her victims writhing in pain or not moving at all. This wasn't the first time she had violated her airbender teachings in order to survive. But she knew it wouldn't be the last.
And she hated them for it. This is what they made her into. But... if it meant less fire nation soldiers for her people to have to deal with down the line...
It was a price she was willing to pay.
She afforded her pursuers no more than one final glare of repressed anger ten years in the making before leaping off in the opposite direction and vanishing from view completely. Leaving dozens of devoted and determined fire nation soldiers quite literally in the dust.
So they hadn't been able to keep up. No matter. Bazzan reassured himself. She may have lost us.
But she won't get very far.
As dusk broke, and once she was sure she had finally lost them, she leaped down from one last building and for the first time stumbled in her footing, falling face first into a dirty cart filled with barley, grain, and wheat. She was so tired. More tired than she had felt in a long time. She emerged spitting up straw and coughing flour before ducking behind a corner to dust herself off as best she could. Her eye then spotted some garments left hanging on a clothesline above her, left to dry in the breeze. She hated stealing. But she had no other option.
Going against not just airbender morals, but her own morals, she tore off the sleeve of an old green shirt before frantically wrapping it tightly around her forehead before anyone could see. She made knot after knot after knot making sure this time, it would stay on as if it were bloody well fused to her head. She cursed to herself as her heart still thumping in her chest finally began to die down. Stupid. Stupid she kept muttering. Why did I...
She begged to the spirits she could collect her few remaining belongings and escape in time. She prayed it wasn't already too late. She prayed there was still a chance. she steadied and controlled her breathing and kept her focus at the task at hand. Everything would be ok. Just.. Calm down and think.
She breathed a brief sigh of relief before ducking back behind the hay cart to hide as a patrol passed by. She could hear the heavy-footed panter of fire nation guards just around the corner growing closer repeatidly, likely already searching every corner of the city for her. Word traveled fast here, which only made her getting out of here unnoticed all the more impossible.
She took a second to glance around to make sure the coast was clear before sprinting to the alleyway across from her and grabbing an old tattered hooded cloak from the clothesline to try and make her more inconspicuous.
What felt like hours but was probably minutes she carefully bobbed, weaved, and evaded as many guards as she had seen in years. As she neared the outskirts of the city toward the bridge, the lanes became congested and bottlenecked with the sound and sight of confused angry people demanding to be let out. She was almost there. She was almost home free. Just a little further.
She weaved her way through the crowd impatiently trying to slip through unnoticed and figure out what was holding them all from moving forward. Soon enough, she got her answer.
Her heart practically stopped cold at the sight of dozens of Fire Nation soldiers blocking the only bridge out of town. Usually, there would be only a few bored guards disinterested in their duties. But now they were on high alert. All across the city they had set up checkpoints and were inspecting every person trying to leave town by checking their cargo and more importantly their foreheads for markings of any kind. No expectations! Roared the captain atop a fearsome looking Komodo Rhino. Hats and head coverings off or else no passage through.
She began to panic and sweat as she tried to turn around with immense difficulty and her hood lowered, the flow and momentum of the crowd edging her onward toward her death. There were too many people for her to move freely as an elusive airbender. She was as trapped as the rest of them in the cramped prison of a city now.
As she emerged from the crowd for breath she glanced up to see more guards approaching to start searching the back of the line, telling one person after another to show their foreheads. She ducked behind a pile of crates and ran aimlessly into a secluded ally riddled with elephant rats that scattered at her approach to be greeted with nothing but a dead end.
For a moment there. She just stood in silence staring at the wall. This is it she thought, tears beginning to stream down her face. If they already have guards posted at the bridge then they have them at the docks too.
"I'm finished."
Her back slid against the wall as despair broke down her armor of reassurance, causing her legs to give way beneath her. She collapsed limp against the wall and resorted to burying her face in her arms and knees not knowing what to do once again feeling like the lost little girl she was so long ago. She had planned meticulously for her escape in case she was ever revealed and look how quickly those plans had crumbled into dust in her hands.
She had made a pretty long list of rules these last ten years in order to survive. Never reveal her true name. Stay obscured and quiet as always. And most important of all..Never under any circumstance airbend.
Now that that third was out the window. She had no idea if she was going to survive the next few minutes. Anyone else would say it was impossible. Anyone else would just give up and say fine you win.
But not her.
"No." She muttered to herself shakily before wiping away the tears. There has to be some way out. There has to be. There is always a way. I've lived to long to perish now. I owe it to everyone who isn't here to keep going.
She stood up and saw that it was getting dark out. Curfew would soon be put in effect and anyone caught outside would be arrested. She needed a place to hide for the night until she could come up with a plan in the morning. By some miracle if she even made it until then. It was a losing battle she knew. But she would keep fighting all the same.
Kishe? A voice came from out of the shadows before her.
She raised her palms ready to strike, not willing to hold back at all, she would survive by any means necessary. Stay back!.. I'm warning you!!"
He stepped out of the light still limping from his agni kai burns with his arms raised in submission and total trust and faith in her not to strike him down. Beside him were Azzai and Malo struggling to hold him up and out of breath.
"Bin…"kishe said, letting tears fall down her face, before running over to embrace him tightly in her arms.
Come with me he said reassuringly. I know somewhere safe. And I promise you. You'll get out of this city alive. I swear it.