XLIV

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Hello! Yes, I know that I'm early, but last night I went to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and wow...I was just watching it going 'damn, I hope that Avatar life-action is as cool as this' because I was getting SUCH Avatar-vibes from it the entire time, down the main family basically mirroring the Royal Family, at just about the ages of my characters in this universe. And because I had an awful first week of work and nothing is as close to pure serotonin as getting comments on stories, well, here we are. 

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"Treating us like chicken cows?" Nadhari spat on the ground. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

"Because we know what happens to chicken cows," Suki said darkly, speaking out a rhetorical truth no one wanted to hear. Yue whimpered, clutching Katara's arm so hard that she was sure there would be half-moon imprints where her nails had taken hold.

The closer they were to the center of the palace, the more bodies they stumbled over, falling over as they attacked a never-ending march of people. Guards, help, politicians, daughters, and sons...the carnage of the bodies mixed with the heat made a noxious scent that had Katara gagging at each corner. Yue had refused to look at the ground at all, bravely holding her face forward and eyes high, tears trekking down her cheeks.

For those that were still mostly people, Suki would close their eyes with her fingertips and whisper some ritualistic prayer of the afterlife.

In Katara's culture, this felt like she was trespassing through Adlivun, the underground place of the deceased. It was a holding cell, where one was frozen in time until they could be purified, and she always imagined it to be like a frozen storage room, where bodies piled high, unseeing and unmoving. Though her grandmother had always described it as a necessary step in moving forward to eternal bliss, the concept had greatly distressed Katara as a child, and she was no more soothed to make this connection.

She felt like she too should not be alive here, as though their souls were moments away from being discovered and soon, they too, would just be motionless bodies against the wall, waiting for the afterlife.

"Ozai's cleaning house," Suki hissed, trying not to cry as she closed the eyes of Shi, their fashion consultant, who was stabbed over a fainting couch, her blood dripping onto the floor.

"I'm still not sure-" Nadhari started, but a great bang ceased her arguments. The wall to the side of them was blown up with the pyrotechnics the Equalists had been utilizing all day, and Lu Ten fell through the side of the wall. Suki instantly grabbed Yue closer to her, narrowing her eyes.

"Ladies, oh, thank Agni you're still alive," he said, and Katara was sure it was all death on his end too. "Are you all okay?"

"Lu Ten, what about you?" Yue squeaked, "Your hand!" It was mangled, perhaps three fingers remaining on the stump.

"I'll survive it." Lu Ten frowned. "But it hurts," he did admit. Katara stepped forward to try to heal him, but there was no time. From the wall came another flood of Equalists, and Lu Ten shoved them forward, out of the sitting room, farther into the center of the complex.

They crashed over the grand doors, Katara cursing as her leg hit the hardwood of the door and she went down forcefully onto the ground. The doors behind them closed and locked with an audible click and Katara rolled on her back, groaning up to the ceiling.

"Katara, get up!" Suki grabbed her arms. "Look..."

Katara shuffled to her feet to realize that they were in the receiving room of the Royal Throne Room, where people waited to be brought in. Now though, you might mistake it for a Grievance Day with how many people milled about, though it was all people who were panting and nursing wounds. All those that could fight. Katara guessed if you couldn't, you were already dead.

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