Carved In Rock || ATLA

Natural

The Tales of Ba Sing Se/Appa's Lost Days/Lake Logai

"That's the price you pay, leave behind your heart and cast away. Just another product of today, rather be the hunter than the prey. And you're standing on the edge face up 'cause you're a natural, a beating heart of stone. You gotta be so cold to make it in this world." - Imagine Dragons

🌊🏔🔥🌪

Previously

Bound in shackles at the feet of the crown Prince and Princess of the Fire Nation, the Kyoshi Warriors were helpless but to sit quietly and await their fate. As her friends beside her tried to their best hold back tears Suki was beginning to regret ever leaving home. These two were far more deadly than Zuko ever was, something that was painfully obvious by the fact that Misa was dead. How could things have gone so wrong?

Returning to the ferry station after splitting paths with Sokka and the others Suki set out with the warriors to gather food from woods nearby just a few days later. The last thing she had expected to find was broken trees from what looked to be an animal fight and familiar white fur strung throughout the carnage. The trail of fur lead her to Appa huddled in a cave bearing shackles and charred fur after spirits knows what. It had taken all through the night and into the next morning to win the bison's trust enough to let his old friends remove the bindings and brush him clean, his memories of them not stronger than the ones of whatever he had recently been through while away from Aang. After as proper of a meal as they could find for him the girls had been preparing to see Suki off with the bison in a search to find his human inside the city walls when the ambush started.

Appa had gotten away, but Misa was dead. A single bolt of lighting had been enough to stop her in her tracks. The third was enough to stop her heart. Suki wasn't sure what would haunt her more, the smell of burnt flesh that seemed to cling to her nose or the sound of her friend's cries as she begged for mercy replaying over and over again in her head.

"Get rid of them," Azula argued with her brother. "All we need is her." She jerked a finger towards the girl that had been ousted as the leader. "The only use we have of the others is to strip them of their uniforms, after that they'll only be a nuisance like this one." The Princess toed the lifeless body that had near her before recoiling in disgust. "Let them be a prize for whatever lonely soul wants them for all I care, just get them out of my sight."

A prize. Like a piece of meat. Even Suki had a hard time not reacting now. Every woman around her knew exactly what the Princess had meant by prize.

"You know Azula most days I have no idea how we're related." Zetzu pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm so glad to see that whenever you're out from underneath the watchful eyes of home you're still as positively vile as you always were, hell, if not worse. We will not toss these girls out like a meal for the wolves. Send them back to Kyoshi."

"What?" Azula snapped. "And why would possibly do that?"

"Because that's what our mother would've done."

"Mother isn't here!" Azula hissed, no longer acknowledging the gaggle of crying girls that hoped her brother would win this fight. "She hasn't been for a long time Zetzu but you know who is waiting for us back home? Our father. He's the one you should be worried about!"

"Worry about him all you want Azula, he doesn't scare me anymore the way that he scares you. Mother had something our father never will - her people's love and respect." Zetzu explained, a familiar pain in his chest as he remembered everything his Mom used to be. "Fear only lasts so long. Look at how the world reacted to the Air Nomad genocide. The first months were so quiet that Great Grandfather was able to establish our first colonies along the Earth Kingdom shores but it wasn't long until the people got brave and angry. Then what? The lucky colonists made it back to the ships but the vast majority were crushed or scalped as payback for the airbenders, or did you forget that?"