ATLA Shorts

How to Dig for Diamonds - Chapter 6

            Azula couldn’t keep up the wall forever. The wheel kept turning around them as they moved forward, toward the entrance to the mines. They were close, she could feel it! This tunnel was wider than the others, more worn.

            It had to be the right way.

            But her strength was almost gone, and keeping up the fire wheel took a lot of energy and focus.

            Sokka kept a hand on her back, guiding her. His voice, seeming soft near her ear or against her hair, told her where to put her feet as they moved. She had never trusted anyone like this.

            It was a new feeling, a new exhilaration. She LIKED it.

            When she started to take a wrong step, his hand touched her shoulder, light but strong and steady, moving her ever so slightly.

            As her exhaustion mounted, this happened more and more often. She gave herself over to his guidance as strange images and memories flitted through her mind. Her only outside focus was on her fire wall and the touch of Sokka’s hand, the sound of Sokka’s voice.

            In her head, she flashed through scenes from her childhood, saw images of her mother, remembered chasing this boy in whose hands she was placing her life, remembered trying to kill him. Remembered her brother and her friends, who hadn’t really been her friends because she wasn’t sure what friendship meant.

            She’d thought it meant fear, maybe respect, like she’d always felt for her father.

            But she feared her captors in the mines, and they were not her friends. You couldn’t be friends with someone you were afraid of.

            Azula felt lost, as if she didn’t know the person she’d been back then. Who was that girl with the world in front of her?

            She was sure she would die here, her wall would fail and she would never see sunlight again.

            Sokka won’t let that happen. Family is strong.

            She remembered Zuko saying that once. “Family holds together. At least, it should.”

            Hers hadn’t.

            But maybe… maybe.

            Everything went black.

(-_- )

( -_-)

            She woke to warmth. It felt like sunlight, but that was impossible. She hadn’t felt sunlight in seven years.

            She cracked open her eyes slowly, met by blinding light. Wincing, she raised a hand to cover her burning lids. The moment she moved, she sensed responding movement beside her, and she tensed. “It’s just me.”

            Sokka’s voice. She stilled, relaxing.

            A warm hand brushed across her face, and the brightness receded. Slowly, she opened her eyes again. A black tent-ish thing had been erected above her--above them. Sokka sat beside her, his head tipped down toward her. She swallowed--her throat felt like sandpaper.

            Sokka must have seen her expression, because he reached away from her, to something she couldn’t see, and when his hand came back it held a water skin. “Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.”