— tw : description of blood / violence —
❝ nari's promise ❞
· • -- ٠ ♛ ٠ -- • ·
It's easy, Nari now knows, to sneak through the Northern Water Tribe when they're preparing for a large-scaled attack. Or, at least, it's not hard to sidle through icy passageways and duck below the sight of villagers in the dark of night, creeping her way into some strange spirit oasis where the air is blissfully warmer-- or that is what Nari has been told.
That must've been a lie-- spirits damn whoever told her such a falsity.
(It was Zuko).
At the entrance of the spirit oasis (quite the small door which might be impossible to squeeze through) stand two earth benders, a daring contrast of green to battle the cool blues and purples of the water tribes. They're painfully out of place, tall, brawny builds accentuated with thanks to the miniature door the two earth benders protect. They're quite... scruffy... too-- tousled hair is fluffed and thrown out of place, tan and freckled skin an evident tell that these two must work in the fields rather than resting in the riches of the indoors. Identical faces mouth words while arms fly through the air as if they were telling stories with their hands.
Nari scoffs, jabbing Zuko with her elbow before pointedly jutting her chin to the presumed twins' direction. "Get down," She hushes, squatting behind the cover of a rimy pot just outside the temple's doorway which they climbed rather than simply heading through. Zuko follows suit, crouching out of sight just parallel to her. "Everything here is made out of ice besides those clay roofing tiles," Though her eyes have been locked on Zuko since she directed the prince to hide, they now escape to the disarrange roofing of surrounding walls. "They're earth benders, we can take them easily-- got a game plan?"
Zuko nods, darkened eyes of honey scanning the area down-- there's about sixty feet of space between them and the other two earth benders, and the wall which they fail to guard perfectly, seeing as Nari and Zuko have already snuck in undetected. Zuko's entire face scrunches sharply as a plan strikes him, reading himself for action. "All we need to do is get through that little door. You get the girl-"
Nari interjects Zuko with a profound confusion, peaking her head from her hiding place to catch a better look of this misidentified person. "Girl? I thought that was a guy?" She lowers her brows, eyes thin like blades just to focus her sight. Under heavy inspection, Nari realizes that the earth bender is, in fact, a girl-- her dusty brown hair is cleanly chopped short with bangs that do her no justice, and the baggier men's pants don't help her appearance, either. "Oh..."
"Yeah," Zuko agrees, something within his tone plainly addressing the fact that he's trying to get back on track.
But Nari lets this hastiness fly right over her head. "Wait," She almost shouts, luckily maintaining a grasp on her volume as she snaps her fingers to a point, lips twisting at a mystery solved. "They had a fruit stand back at that dock, the one where I got my whip!"
Zuko snaps a palm to his forehead, face deflating like a popped balloon while suppressing a sigh. "You stole the whip, and that's irrelevant."
Nari smiles as her hand automatically reaches to her hip, gripping the handle of her weapon. "First off, it's second hand stealing. But I'd rather call it taking with force." She argues, gathering the whip from it's raveled up position before stretching it out. The cool leather brazes her already-chilled fingertips, the power of such raising to her face in a dangerous grin. She can easily take them down and tie them up with it, thus removing the whole 'guarded door' issue from their whole plan.
Before looking up to Zuko to announce this, the prince himself swipes a straightened hand over his neck, palm faced down, gritted teeth clenched together with enough force to crack concrete as his head shakes rapidly. One hand points back to the wall while another presses an index finger to his pale and cracked lips, telling a story which never needs to be spoken.
One of the earth benders must of heard her, Nari realizes.
Only one of them-- the guy-- remains at the door, arms sealed behind his back he stares bitingly to his stalking twin, who walks hesitantly in Nari's direction. Her suspiciously twisted glower is quite informative, gloved hands pressing against each other to pop covered knuckles.
She nears the pot Nari hides behind, and the latter spares a pursed and pointed glare to Zuko asking for aid.
The prince shrugs before circling his arm, then crawling out of sight of the earth bending girl.
Nari follows his lead, a crouched crawl circling the pot with her whip in hand. She pulls her lips between her teeth, gnawing down on them whilst her stomach ties itself into millions and millions of knots, breath smokey and louder than ever before. Suddenly, every move she makes grows increasingly more boisterous, loud enough to shatter the ice everyone stands on.
One quick, strangled shout from the other earth bender spoils Nari's position, so instinctively and through a last resort, Nari jumps up and swings her leg over the rim of the pot-- wide, blazing and bright fire arches from her foot in a horizontal blade as it knocks the earth bender back.
The white hues, rimmed mostly by orange while the wisps take on a blue tone, shock the earth bender, her wide jade eyes shooting to the strict size of grapefruits as the color drains from her face. Nari quirks a smile, regaining her stance alike to her opponent.
The opponent now takes her weapons-- nunchucks, surprisingly (which Nari has never fought against)-- and swings them out from her hips, figure-eight-like motions sprawling and dancing while the chains of such rattle against the quiet night.
Nari steps back, raising a smoothly arched brow as her stained smirk deepens cavernously against the earth bender. She tightens her grip around her whip, the weapon sprawled on the icy floor though it's fully ready for action. "Oh, so we're using hand-on-hand combat, now?" Nari laughs bitterly, her dangerously slanted eyes digging holes into the earth-girl's tan face.
She keeps her nunchucks in motion, though her posture slightly slacks. "How'd you know I was a bender?" She questions, a rigid, rocky voice sprouting humor into the two's pre-battle conversation.
Nari allows a laugh to escape her lips, a single chuckle breaking the stunning silence they hold between each other's voices. "You really think they'd leave weak, non-benders to guard the spirit oasis?" She offers, breaking her stance just to jut out a petty hip. "I'm smarter than that. Why don't you earth up, Rocky?"
The girl's bottom lip forms a pout, her nunchucks slicing through the air with the grace of wind, a full, heavy sound which the weapons dreadfully create. "It's Hika, actually." She sings, scratched voice ripping Nari's ears with a grate.
Nari expels her steaming irritation in the source of a hum, one to match the pitch of Hika's song. "Hm, Nari." She greats, a sham smile plastered onto sharply risen lips. The forgery of kindness which Nari takes on is blatantly seen to be petty and crude, and any person to witness this knows well of her true intentions. "Nice to meet you."
"The pleasures all mine," Hika forces a smile to her lips, pearly teeth as shimmery as the moonlight which beams off of the water that spills from a, now broken, ice pot.
The chilled water sinks to the ground, spoiling Nari's boots, socks, and the hems of her pants. It brings a damp and heavy pull against such as it sends shivers up Nari's guarded arms. This irritates her profoundly, her face sharpening to a vicious point. "What was that for? Are you hoping to give me hypothermia?" She shouts, hand clenched around her whip as she holds back a tempting urge to clash it against this bender's head.
Hika's shoulders shrink, deflating a brawny posture which was so eagerly clung to just moments prior. "I don't know, man..." Her green eyes turn dull, tan skin silvery with the poorly given night. "I kinda figured fire benders can't bend when they're wet."
Are you serious!
It takes everything within Nari not to blast a burning whole through Hika's chest the second such idiocy leaves the earth bender's lips. The burning heat within her lungs, heavy and fuming, clenches down on her teeth while Nari spares a bitter, tight laugh. Grim chuckles kick start and aggressive mutter, and Nari tilts her head to the side, sparingly. "You were wrong!" She immediately punches a blast of swirling white fire to Hika, the girl dodging the attack with a quick-witted side roll.
Hika stomps her foot against the ground, balled up fists flying to her side as she pouts like a spoiled toddler. "What happened to hand on hand combat?" She belts, her face twisted as sourly as her edgy tone.
Nari gifts her with a trivial head tilt "I got bored." The fire bender lunges for another fiery punch, both hands forward with wrists pressed together, fingers sprawled out toward the icy ground and sparkling sky, smoke fizzling from her hands in a failed attempt to fire bend. It's not as though Nari has butchered her abilities-- there is a ear-splitting, high-pitched, cracked screech, and Zuko is rapidly blasting fire at the earth bending boy. The latter runs around the walled-in isle chaotically, Zuko sprinting after him with spirit.
Nari's opponent catches it, as well. Rather than using Nari's distraction to her advantage, Hika chases after her brother. "Get control of Baldie over there!" She screams to Nari, dashing past the Fire Nation girl.
Nari crashes her whip down to Hika's foot, the weapon snapping as it becomes a python tightening against it's prey. One yank on the whip, and Hika crashes against the splitting, cold ice. The acclaimed nunchuck in Hika's right hand is sent flying through the air, flipping and thwipping as it cuts like a fan. Upon a clashing contact with an ice pot, the nunchuck shatters the container breaks into shards.
Hika's twin ducks below some blasted fire sent by Zuko-- it barely singes Hoji's hair, and Nari then knows she and Zuko are out for blood, not just a win. When it comes down to it, these Earth Kingdom slobs are just a threat, a bump in the road to victory. And they must be taken care of.
Nari steps harshly onto Hika's back, digging her spiked boots deep into the thick clothing of Hika's poor choosing. She pressures down, weight sinking into her heal until the spikes of her boots ignite contact with the tan girl's skin.
Hika pays no mind to the drilled fire that sprouts from her spine, rather swiping the blood from her freshly cut chin before throwing her hands around. They preform some unspoken dance, a creeping plan to her brother, who now stitches dark and thick brows together with spectacular confusion.
He clutches to a thick, glossy shard of ice, eyes striking it with a narrow suspicion-- this boy is not the only victim of bafflement. Nari slacks her jaw, easing the weight which drills into Hika before criticizing her opponent verbally. "Why didn't he grab the nunchucks?" She mutters, mostly to herself in an unanswered inquire.
There is no explanation to such, not until, at least, the boy rears his hand back and launching the chunk like a ancient spear. It strikes Zuko in the leg.
The shard rips cleanly through the fabric of his clothes before piercing a gash across the side of his leg. A painted streak of red begins to bleed against his beige clothing-- Nari flinches after the prince, concern becoming a temporarily prioritized motif as she cries out after him."Zuko!" Nari lunges to rush to his side until she realizes he'll be just fine, and currently Zuko pays his wound no mind.
She's got an identical gash on her leg, and right now, she's got the upper hand on Hika. There is no point in ruining that for some small scratch.
Much to Nari's irritation, Hika scrambles smoothly out of Nari's duress. The fire bender's care for her friend has lifted pressurized weight from Hika',s back and the earth bender now slips out and slides across the ice, something Nari is unable to do with thanks to the spikes under her boot.
She swirls her nun chucks hastily, creating a whirling shield which blocks a final sprout of fire which Zuko pointedly shot to her twin.
The ostentatious prince clenches his fists with a enraged temper oozing out of steamy breaths. "What, no earth today?" Zuko questions, urging the bender to use an element which could make the fight more fair; more challenging.
Their opponent rolls her jade eyes, hands stuffed into the folds of her arms while she takes on a relaxed composure, nunchucks dangling at her sides. "Nice try," She smirks, "but Puffy already played that card." Through blank moments of blinks and simple silence, Hika realizes that not a single person out of the fighters understood her joke. Zuko side-eyes Nari with confusion, glistening gold eyes begging for an explanation, and she simply shrugs back. "Ya' know,Puff?" The earth-girl begins to inform. "'Cuz of fire bending, and smoke, all that? No? Nothing?"
It becomes painfully quiet for both parties, akwardness casting a spell onto them as if it disabled any movement once so ever.
It's now that Nari notices Zuko favoring an unhurt leg. She feels for him-- her leg and back burning with an agony that was shoved back quite prior-- and now declares that this battle needs to be over soon. A tedious process is dragged on by talking.
Zuko doesn't see an ending fit, however, stepping forward with a still-fuming posture. "That's stupid." His words cut sharply, anger puffing out through steamy breaths.
Hika cocks her head to the side, unimpressed, with indifference. "You're stupid."
Nari presses her fingers against the bridge of her nose, sighing past a fiery hiss. "This is stupid." She corrects.
Nari grows impatient, flames which boiled at her fingertips now sprawling after the twins in a vigorous fury. Punch after punch after punch, Nari maintains a powerful temperature, a powerful flame, through well-kept prowess. Soon enough, she'll deliver a final blast pointed for the twin brother-- he's Hika's achilles heel. One flick to him, and she darts to his every need. His protector. She becomes erratic and unhinged, no motion thought out past the extent of 'attack'.
She streams fire from a lifted arm and foot, flames belching past her palm and heel as it travels through her blood. Passion which is birthed in her lungs soars through to her fingertips, flies to her feet, searching for an escape. And when this happens, Nari's fire nears it's strongest.
It's not exactly 'all-powerful', nor is it anything close to her maximum potential, but it's considerably robust.
And, like lazy sheep rounded by a lion, Nari allows herself the full extent of attack. Burning white flames power against the twins-- yet, regrettably, the boy has set up an entire wall of clay roofing to form a shield in front of him. No worries, however. Nari simply pulses more fire from her soul, aided by Zuko.
It's dangerous, how she begins to race with the same adrenaline which attacked her moments before killing Akio. But that won't happen, now. She's gained a better grasp, she's not defending herself. She's with Zuko, who has not once witnessed Nari expel such powerful bending. His widened eyes give this a indestructible claim, struck onto her until Nari narrows her eyes to the clay wall which burns to ashes.
Just before Nari could reach the twins, Hika tramples her brother, tackling him to the floor just aside their perished and diminished wall-- a pitiful excuse for a shield, truthfully. Hika's ragged breath is pulsed by hisses and sharp spits, her hands clutching against the ice.
There's a perilous glint, then, in the sisters eyes. Some gnarly spark, narrowed and sharpened by hate, brewed by irritation, spawned by fury and fueled by a need to protect. Hika nurses a creature inside her, raises it with whips and rage and hot snaps to the creatures back. Now, that animal has risen to a titan, a ferocious beast, a colossal monstrosity. That tumultuous rampage within Hika is something Nari knows too well-- something Nari is. She understands the pain it takes to hold that monster in. To do such and keep a clean slate is to be a saint. And a saint Hika must be. She stands. She rises, shoulders snapping up with each keen breath-- and she slips her boot from her foot.
Strange, Nari thinks while relaxing from a readied and prepped posture, I could've sworn there'd be something stronger to come from her-
Her thoughts are struck from her the moment some snow-littered, fowl smelling shoe wacks her square in the face. The impact doesn't hurt. It simply surprises her-- the twin brother had the balls to throw a shoe at her when he could've done anything, literally anything, else.
And he threw a shoe at her?
That's not all, either. Hika stomps her foot into the ice with such a strength that it crushes through the ice, sending a thunderous rattle through the ground. Earth bending. There may not have been a single brick left to bend, not a single rock in sight, but Hika has found some deep below the permafrost. Deep below the layers and layers of snow and thick, glacier-like ice. And with one brawny stomp, forearms locking together, Hika brings that earth up to the ground, leveling the playing field in her favor. After quite the ostentatious stomp, earth boils up from the ice.
As her brother sheds strained yelps and cheers, a pitch-y scream that sounds as though he's speaking through cotton, Hika stands triumphantly, crunched up hands resting by her sides.
Nari holds back a pitied laugh, the inevitability of it coming out in a short chuckled breath. "Brilliant display of bravado," Nari jokes, "but I didn't come to watch a talent show." She readies her palms out to the girl, who now stands a foot above her on boosted rock.
Hika can't help but laugh manically. Both girls have lost control over their temper at one point or another during this fight, and in both cases, those spouts of anger have brought a turned tide in the scene. But at the end, Nari and Zuko are here for the avatar, and any breathing soul knows that. "Oh, I know exactly what your here for," Hika draws, her hands further tensing before they launch out in front of her.
Sizable chunks of rocks dart to Nari and Zuko, endlessly. The first set are dodged skillfully by the two fire benders, but Hika never allows them to breathe. Before Nari can regain her footing, the opponent stares her down with narrowed eyes, a grim scowl on her face before throwing her rocks with a punching motion. One strikes Nari in the chest whilst the other locks Zuko in a tight hold. Another rock knocks Nari to the ground as it barreled at her legs. Then another is shot directly to her head. It dissolves before the rock could do any true harm, and above the crumbling dust which fills Nari's lungs, her eyes, drying out her mouth with a biting sting, she hears the earth bending boy shout. It's then that Nari realizes Hika can't hit her if she moves fast enough. Swiftly enough.
She rolls out of the dirt, her motions like the ends of fire; ready to move upon any object in her path, dodging rocks with elite prowess. She throws her fists forward with a burly strike, flames soaring thickly through the air as it strikes Hika's raised earth, and the twins themselves.
Unfortunately, those slobs have brought up the earth to a near forty-five degree angle, and instead of charring her opponents to a crisp, Nari only leaves the slanted rock tarnished and ashed.
Once Hika sets it back down, she reveals a power pose-- hands locked onto her hips and a cold smirk locked onto her face-- with a dozen rock shards which the brother then bends directly for them. They soar past legs and arms, loose limbs which could only be slightly pierced or probed. In her attempt to slip through them, Nari spots opportunity: one thick dart zooms straight for her shoulder, easy enough to spot and easier to catch. Nari leans back enough to where no slivers of rock can strike her, and her sharpened reflexes allow her to catch the rock in her grip opposite arm's grip.
With the motion used to lean back at grasp the shard, Nari twists her back-- a stinging and ripping sensation soaring through her spine-- before launching the shard back in Hika's direction. The grab-and-toss maneuver is stealthy, elite, slick and smooth. Like shadows creeping through twilight before swallowing night in darkness.
As Nari stands from her lunged position, she assumes a rested position. All the more, something aches at her shoulders. She'd aimed for Hika's neck, but only matched where the girl's neck meets her shoulder, a ripening red gush staining green clothes.
The rocks that surround Zuko crumble to dust, and rather than making a break for the spirit oasis's door like Nari, he stands aghast. His jaw is loose and slacked, wide eyes screaming out for an explanation of where Nari just pulled that attack from. Needless to say, the prince admires it.
Nari juts a head to the door, urging him on, whilst paying no mind to the earth bending twins-- Hika is on the ground, clutching her neck, whilst her brother takes immediate and immense concern.
And Nari herself takes none.
She slips through the very, very small door which leads to the spirit oasis, a heavenly heat striking her blissfully. She stands tall, a settled sigh escaping lips which color drains back into.
Nari rolls her shoulders back the moment that warmth strikes her, relaxing into the lightness of such a place-- such brings a smile onto her face, one which switches to a winning smirk upon seeing just who circles around the beautiful pool of water.
Aang, Katara, and some white-haired chick who looked not but one or two years older.
The former sits in a meditative pose, knuckles pressed together, youthful eyes shut as a beaming glow replaces the azure of his arrows-- for a brief moment, Nari retreats on her racing mind. Aang's a child, not above the age of twelve or thirteen, surely, and instead of taking pity, she wonders what it'd be like to be that age again. Everything went by so fast, her childish years now appear as a blur. It'd be nice to be younger, she could redo a lot of things... prove a lot of people wrong.
Zuko snags the girl's signature bubble braid (she'd redone her hair whilst sneaking through the tribe), pulling her from her trance. The prince drags her all the way out to a bridge which connected the placid island--bamboo and wooden posts which give background to the still pool, two colorless koi fish in an eternal circled swim-- to the frozen dirt exterior of such.
Katara holds her hands placidly in front of her, oblivious to Nari and Zuko's threatening presence. The white-haired girl had lunged for help, but Katara sternly assures her of her responsibilities. "No, he's my friend," Though the first word is jumped to quite quickly, Katara smiles as the next. "I'm perfectly capable of protecting him."
"Well," Zuko stands, his voice raspy and low as he draws his voice out and makes his appearance known, "Aren't you a big girl now?"
"No..."
"Yes." Zuko steps forward, dangerous fists balled up behind him. "Hand him over and I won't have to hurt you." Zuko offers.
This offer is brutally interjected-- at the opposite end of the oasis, from where Nari and Zuko stand at-present, is a rather irritating girl. Hika squeezes through the miniature entrance like a fat man compressing himself into children's pants, her brother guarding her as though she was glued-together glass.
After the pestering earth bender solidifies herself to her feet, gushing red standing the irking green of her slouched and gashed shoulder, she sneers at Zuko. "That's a fucking lie!" She belts through clenched teeth, face swollen with bright-red anger.
Nari grates her teeth together, breaking stones between them with a force strong as all spirits combined; her jawline hardens synchronously with her hands, balled into tensed fists of flame. Heat rushes to her face like a wildfire. "How are you not dead?" She seethes, screeching out through a mind baffled.
She hit Hika in the shoulder, where a heavy flow of blood swims through her muscles. It gushed out like a waterfall, it tainted the ground in its fatal glow. Hika fell to the floor.
Now she's standing like a saint.
And glaring at the fire bender like she's a sinner.
Hika tilts her head trivially, a petty smile pointing the corners of her lips upwards. "You have terrible aim." She crosses her arms, though the movement stumbles her and is sluggish and uneven.
The deaf brother, Hoji, has astounding prowess when reading lips-- he must, otherwise he wouldn't release an animalistic growl as he does. His eyes are as cold as the icey blue walls surrounding the group of six.
"He doesn't like hurting people." Hika speaks for him an a slur as she thuds back against the wall.
She's distant, Nari notes. She's weak...
Nari laughs, a sadistic and maniacal grumble from the bottom of her throat growing louder with each dangerous cackle. "I do," She smirks widely. Nari bolts into a sprint after Hika, feeling a fiery heat against her back and writing off the knowledge of Zuko's beginning fight with Katara.
The fire bending girl has a bold mentality: finish the job. Finish the job, because you'd be a mockery of a fighter if you didn't. What hunter can't end the life of wounded prey? What hunter lets his dinner run off? Hika can't walk a straight line, much less land a punch harder than a mouse-- what harm can she do to Nari which the latter can't shoot back with a hundred times the force?
The bigger question is, what happens when the mouse's brother grows more furious and vengeful by the second?
Hoji sprints a straight line towards Nari, breaking off the girl's speedy gait directed for his twin. The boy has such a rage-torn face that Nari captures his earthy features from such a far distance. Square jade eyes narrow into angered daggers, bringing bushy brows down to them and away from the sloppy and unkempt curls of brown that toss back in his created wind. Freckles dot his face, distorted by cavernous shadows of a protective-sponsored hate, which sharpens broad shoulders and tightens twisted sinews covered by a dense forest parka.
Nari didn't need such coverage-- she creates her own heat by the fire sprawling in her lungs. This is a greedy and anxious fire, burning from the inside out as it wishes, as it yearns, to be released to the earth bender. To take him down, tousle him out of the way and tear Hika down.
But that's not a fair fight.
And Nari adores a fair fight-- or any fight, truthfully.
Hoji is now a few feet from Nari, the two advancing towards each other quickly. He swings a punch right for her face. Nari ducks below and reaches for his legs in hopes of sweeping them out from under him-- then she'll pin him down and bash his pretty face in with a swirling blast of fire. This never happens, however, as Hoji bounds from the ground, dive rolling away from Nari's demented grasp.
The earth bending boy is tall and brawny. A wide and muscular build alike to his feeble and bleeding twin. This makes for an ungraceful fall as his rump thumbs against the grassy ground he harshly comes into contact with. Still, he springs up like... well, a spring.
Nari growls at the boy, teeth crushing pulled in lips like gravel under a kimono rhino's step. Hoji is baiting her-- or more so he is acting like bait, swimming with sharks unfed-- with an ostentatious beam wide on his face.
Fire punches from Nari's fist, swirling up from her stomach, then her shoulder, then down to her hand, and spiraling from her fingertips as it bolts towards the boy. He grunts while dodging punch after blast after blow of each flame Nari directs at him. "You're a dead man, just like your lamentable twin!" She blares while lifting her right foot high in the air, arching a kick of fire upon Hoji.
He covers it by lifting his arm and therefore his parka, using it as his only weak and feeble defense. It singes down to a burnt crisp, the cotton now ashen as it reeks a poisonous and pungent scent. Now the boy is defenseless, left to his bare clothes and nothing to keep him warm.
If Nari doesn't end him now, he'll freeze to death. But Nari wants to be the cold that kills-- she needs to be the cold that kills. She is. It's her personal mission now.
Finish him....
Nari never lets Hoji breath, he's left with a gasping pull at his dry and stabbing throat, wheezing out whatever spare air he can strangle.
Until her feet are hurled from the ground she stood sternly upon.
Thanks to many years of prestigious training-- along with years of friendship with Ty Lee-- Nari is able to land gracefully after completing a barani flip. She recalls Ty Lee teaching Nari the front flip and then the 180 spin within it, a skill Azula never mastered.
At first Nari couldn't get it; this was because she was too slow.
That's no problem of Nari's, now.
She previously landed facing him, which gives her a clear and swell shot of Hoji. She hooks a right punch of fire at the boy, who blocks it with arms locked ahead of him. He hooks a punch after her, then an uppercut blow, but Nari escapes any impact by arching her back more with each stroke of Hoji's. It doesn't save her from the knee Hoji brings up, jabbing Nari's thigh in the exact spot of her previous injury.
Nari seethes as her jaw tightens in attempt to manage the pain soaring through her sinews. Fire spurts from the gash in her quad, and knifes cut through each vertebrae in her spine.
She falls to the ground with a hefty thud. Air is yanked from her chest, something of a wheeze replacing it as she tries to force out a grunt. Hoji is beating her right now... and it's only because of previous injuries. Had Nari been in perfect health Hoji would be six feet under by now.
The boy looks down upon her, his hair flopping over his eyes as he cringes into her line of sight. "Oof, sorry," he starts, hands placed on his knees before offering her help up by outstretching his hand. "That was harsh,"
Nari bites down on the inside of her lip, trying to fight a gnarly, purely abhorred countenance from etching onto her face. "I'll show you harsh-" The boy, having not heard her words as he is, quite simply, deaf, could only read her lips. He'd not expected her next move.
As Nari clasps her hand against Hoji's, she yanks down and back upon it, hurdling Hoji into the ground behind her before jumping up to her feet.
She faces him with a punch-- to her surprise, Hoji acts as though he's a mindless toddler with a foot obsession. He reaches for her legs, her booted feet with spikes below the soles, and for each step Nari takes back, Hoji extends an arm for the closest leg. How weird! Nari allows her face to scrunch up, vulnerably letting up from her rage-stained countenance to express such bafflement. "Stop it!" She belts, voice in an estranged scream of fog. "Stop doing that!"
Nari punches fire at Hoji with each step, but he rolls and dodges each time. It's not until the boy finally pushes off the ground and spins to his feet that the strange fighting technique stops.
He engages in a fair use of hands-only combat, as too much use of earth in this miniature oasis will detonate the entire area, and brings his foot up to kick Nari's face. The girl leans out of the way before jabbing below his arm and thus striking his rib. The boy lets out a whimper and a cringe, but continues on by throwing two punches for Nari. One is a right hook which Nari easily blocks, but the nexts is a blow directly to Nari's face. Hoji's knuckles are practically rock themselves, thundering upon Nari's entire jawline, mouth, and nose.
There's a quick ring to Nari's ears, a blurry set of tears swelling up upon her eyes, and metal replacing the dry taste in her mouth. Pain. Pain, that is avoidable and ignorable.
So long as she beats the twins.
Nari works her jaw before spitting to her side, a crimson color staining the ground below them as she sniffs. "You really wanna hustle, pretty boy?" Nari bites with sarcastic laughter. "I can fight dirty." Nari flexes her fingers into claws, long and well-kept nails now a slicing weapon as she crashes them against Hoji's cheek. Chunks of dark skin bury themselves in her nails, yet Nari ignores that as she throws a punch before driving her knee up to Hoji's stomach.
The boy grunts in pain yet their fight ensues.
He swings his arm out to Nari, she leans back. He digs his arm up in an uppercut towards Nari, she turns her shoulder to open her chest away from the punch. Then Hoji tries something new within his fighting tactics-- the earth bender yanks down on Nari's head, driving her to his knee before kicking her back.
My nose... Nari starts to think, my fucking nose!
The pressure building within it is enough to force her into tears, eyes burning like the fire from her fingertips, which swell with anger. A warm drip starts to trickle, and Nari cocks her head to the side.
Pure, unhinged rage can't even cover the tightness growing in her shoulders. Her chest. Her back. This unruly boy is going to die.
Nari's sight goes completely red as she begins to fight on pure whim; no training takes thought in her mind. Planted in each punch is instinct. Half the moves she executes-- bending fingers and joints in breaking ways, throat jabs, spleen blows, knee strikes, temple hooks and kicks in places they should never land, even bitting down on the boys hand when she catches one of his counter attacks-- she barely recalls. All Nari knows now is that Hoji is on the ground, and she stands above him with a maniacal smirk. "I warned you, earth scum." Nari leans forward as she rears her arm back, shoulder readying itself to use all of her might and strength (and Nari has a shit-ton of it) to force a deadly strike to Hoji.
But something in her almost pauses-- Hoji's eyes are wide and fearful, lips downturned as he awaits the punch. The punch which can land so sharply it shatters his nose which pierces his brain which kills him. He looks to Nari like the beast she is, and awaits his punishment. Like a kicked polar bear puppy. Like wounded prey begging for mercy. He looks to her like as if she were a crooked spirit, a raging titan. A monster.
For a sliver in ticking time, Hoji becomes Akio.
And Nari briefly hesitates.
This hesitation, as it turns, has equated to her ultimate and untimely failure. Hoji has bent a boot of rocks and stone around Nari's foot, and with nothing of a blink for Nari to spare, she's snatched away from Hoji and cursed, crushed against an ice wall.
Nari has but any mind to process it as shock becomes of her. Freezing her thoughts and body until she spots Hoji at a distance. How did he get all the way over there? Her mind belts, but not a word spills from downturned lips.
The earth bender himself stands quite ostentatiously, despite his beat up face-- arms crossed, chest puffed out in pride. He hums before shooting his hands in the air, triumphantly. Such zeal is shown to his bleeding-out twin who is slumped on the ground.
Much alike to Katara, previously thrown against a wooden beam as she now rests unconscious thanks to Zuko.
But Nari finds no concern with that-- she gifts it, rather, a single huff before attempting to break herself out of the rock-cage Hoji has mercilessly trapped her in. To pour fire from her hands would scorch the rock, and in return, her hands. To break out using raw muscle would cut her skin and rip it apart.
She's trapped, lest she harm herself past whatever these weak benders are capable of. Nonetheless Nari refuses to lose a fight to a pebble-brained rock bender. She thrashes around in the minimal space she has between her body and the outlining rock, cloth tearing upon jagged edges until it cuts her skin, warmth sprawling from her fingertips until it steams out in flames below and above-- any exit allowing the whiter fire to catch it's breath before dissipating into icy air.
In avail, Nari is unable to break free from Hoji's hold.
Her brilliant display of burning fire against the permafrost earth catches Zuko's attention, eyes snapping wider than a disk upon spotting Nari.
After knocking Katara down, Zuko has a firm belief that their battle is over. That, now, finally after all these years, he can return to the Fire Nation with his beloved honor restored, and Nari by his side. That everything can return to whatever gold it once was.
Or, he had that untimely belief.
Up until he figures out Nari is trapped by rocks and stone from a dull-headed earth bender. By Hoji, who can't pick up on signals to save his life. How'd that wretched Hoji defeat Nari? She's the most powerful bender he knows! The girl is strong, tough, she's quick on her feat, keen and perceptive, she's unhinged and full of more rage than a thousand fire benders combined. Yet she has been bested by some poor earth bender with zero training? If Zuko could pick one person to stay by his side while fighting (in general, given all the veracity he possesses) it'd be Nari due to her dexterity and nimbleness-- not only that, but having her around just comforts him. She can joke, and she's so terribly awful at giving advice or solace that it distracts Zuko from whatever he stresses about-
Wait, stop.
Why is he focused on this?
"Nari!" Zuko lunges towards the girl with a belting shout, reaching for her as if he could pull her out of the rock cage himself. Zuko claws at the rock that surrounds Nari, scratching palms and breaking the skin around his fingers which start to dot with blood. Just as Katara tried to protect Aang with her water bending, Zuko tries to break Nari free with raw altruism. Desperately.
Nari, however, shoots darts at him through narrow eyes; he needs to focus on the avatar. Not her. She'll make her way out of this, she'll be fine. But Zuko deserves his honor back-- he's the crown prince, Nari is just a criminal compared to him. A girl who killed a boy at the hands of her irrational emotion.
"Don't!" She warns, shouting back with a mouth full of threats. "Get Aang! Go back home,"
Though it strikes a string within Nari's heart, plucking something that pulls air from her lungs-- and why on earth would that happen?-- Zuko has to finish his journey without her.
And though Nari can't piece this puzzle together, though she can't conjure a sliver of an explanation as to why she'd do this, she'll risk whatever she's got left for Zuko to have his honor back. His life back. He'll be happy, and though Nari could be locked up in a prison somewhere she'll manage because she'll have rest in his fate.
Who knows, maybe Zuko could release her from prison in a few years.
Her words have pushed Zuko merely four strides from her, a shattered look written on his face like scripture whilst his bloodied hands press to his knees in exhaustion. "What about you?" He asks, and despite whatever worry leaks from his lips, his words become scrambled and rushed into what all continues around him: Hoji frantically tries to provide aid to his twin, Katara's slumped against a poll, and Aang is a perfectly still picture of meditation, blue arrows illuminated and everything. Zuko, however, is Nari's focus. Everything else is a blur; it's too late for Nari to place concern on things behind Zuko when tears claw at his eyes, when pain rips at his hands, when he seeks out ways to beat the rock around her to dust. He tries to kick it, punch at it, even rake out the bended earth, but no avail. "What about you, Nari?"
Yes, Nari's attention is struck to him (how could it not be-- the sight of Zuko collapsing fills her lungs with solid rocks and hurts), but she occasionally hops back to the background as she checks her opponents; the fight is long over, and she's lost it moments ago. "I'll be fine," She lies straight through her gritted teeth, which don't show past straight lined lips, turning white with a serious tension. "Go."
Zuko's feet are glued to the ground, sinews twisting, tying up in knots as his shoulders raise. "No, I'm not leaving you," He demands, mirroring Nari's haste and certainty. The prince spares a few steps for Nari, almost hesitant to do so. Zuko throws his arms against the prison one last time before holding his head low. Defeated. The prince's voice cracks, and Nari reads through it. He can't leave her, but he has to. "You have to come with, you have to-"
"It's all you, Prince." Nari cuts him off, somewhat sympathetically. Her voice shakes, her eyes turn to glass. She forces something saccharine. Golden eyes sting and burn, and as Nari closes her eyes and lowers her head, she is able to hide the growing mist. I'm not weak. I'm not going to cry; that's stupid. Zuko won't take the avatar over me if he sees any hesitation from my part. "You have to get your honor. It's been three years. I'll find you again later."
Don't you dare do it...
"No, Nari." Zuko bickers. "I- we can do both. I'll get the avatar, I'll get you out, we can go home together."
Don't cry...
"And we will," Nari looks back up after her eyes have retreated back to normal; yellow orbs are no longer outlined with red, glossed over or puffy. She clears her throat. "I promise, Zuko."
Zuko holds his head low as he relaxes his posture. Nari seldom makes promises. She doesn't trust anyone, rarely even herself; her word means much more than any written treaty or declaration. Her word means everything. Yet the prince can't trust it. Not with the sight of her newly busted lip, blood dripping from a bashed temple or purple covering once side of her face, not with the old scabs or scratches from many nights ago. She's down if she takes one more blow-- but Nari knows best. She never knows her limits, but she knows best. And she always wins.
She always wins...
So, given that logic, she'll win this fight. Even if she doesn't. "Promise?" Zuko looks up to Nari, quite the measurable height as Hoji's bending has her boosted above the ground.
Nari nodes her head as a lump swells up in her throat. She can't do this.
"That's what I just said, Hot-Head." Raw and hoarse, Nari has to push her voice through a webbed, weaved net, burning cotton filling her throat with a pain. In her mind-- and this is perhaps the hardest part-- she knows she won't see Zuko for a while. She knows she won't return with him. Ultimately, she knows she might not see him again. And, lastly, she knows that he knows this. Above all else, this is what brims her eyes with salty water, this is what churns her stomach to nausea, this is what builds fire in her ribs and fills her lungs with cement.
She's a fool for everything-- before she had allies, before Zuko became her best friend, she could do as she pleases with no guilt. She was the poster child for an independent prodigy. Now, certain things revolve around Zuko. Certain emotions do. And spirits be damned, it's stupid. It's awful. How could she let herself slip like this? How could she brings things to a point where it hurts to breathe. Something so freely given from birth is stolen by another person. By another person.
She's a fool.
Nari sniffs. "Go. Get out of here."
There's a wide hesitation. Such a break from Zuko that not even a bridge could fix it. "Nari-..."
Nari bites down against her cheek until her tongue is stabbed by metal, but even that hurts. She works a sore jaw before turning her head. "Prince Zuko, you need to leave. You need to go get the avatar, and you need leave. You go home, understand?"
'Prince' Zuko?
Nari never uses that term. Never. Maybe there's that one-in-a-billion chance when she's making fun of him-- but this is far from that. Two sides of completely different spectrums.
"N-No," Zuko stutters, "You promised, moments ago! You said we'd go back together. You promised-- so why are you talking like that?" Visibly upset, Zuko steps back. He bites his tongue in attempts to hide whatever boils to the surface in regards to emotions or feelings, yet inevitably, he's struck with spectacular angst. Regret. Remorse. Abandonment. Is there a word for this? "Why are you saying goodbye?"
Nari shakes her head with a despondent laughter. "I'm not." She can't look at him, or around him, truthfully. So she keeps her eyes glued to a grey ground. "Not forever, at least."
She crushes her teeth together until Zuko responds.
"We can go home together, Nari." A struggle, indeed, it is for Zuko to speak his wish. To say the least, this is as much as Zuko can muster before his voice gives out. A repeat of past words. Words which Nari tore to shreds before burning to ash. "You can get out of there. We both know you can, so why aren't you trying?" Silence. Miles of snowy white silence. "Why won't you try?"
Nari can't burn anymore words. Not until she burns herself. "Enough, Prince." She snaps her words like the clash of her whip. "Get out of here. Take the Avatar, and go home." Her eyes fall upon Zuko with intent of finalizing words. Sharp and cut. Turning liquids to stone. But her fiery, cutting eyes soften, and so does she. "You have to lose, sometimes. You have to give up or you'll give in. I know when I've been beat, Hot-Head. Do you?"
Zuko turns away.
"Zuko, hey." She calls him. "You're more important. You're the crown prince, understand? I'm just an outlaw. My home doesn't matter-- it doesn't exist. You have people waiting on you, and if it's the last thing I'll do, I'm going to get the Prince of the Fire Nation home. I'm going to get you home." That same cold and still silence befalls the two. Along with a shared identical pain. "Please, just..." Nari begs, "Go home."
One last look is shared between them before Zuko takes the avatar from his praying spot, and starts his journey back home.
Nari said he had people waiting on him-- but what about the people he's waiting on?
Does they matter? Do they count? After all, there's only one person.
And that one person is her.
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published in august | 8,000 | written by peri
wowzers that one hurt . that ending , man , ngl I teared up writing it .
I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it , but be forewarned , this is the second to last chapter of act one and season one in general ! I'm pretty excited . big things will happen .
anywayssssss y'all here's the first update with me adjusting to college . I'm more busy than I thought I'd be , let me just say that . bye everyone , love y'all !
( ps did anyone notice the color in the gif ? )