FANFIC: The Siege of the South (1/3)

[lavanya_six]

Title: The Siege of the South
Rating: PG-13 (for minor language and violence)
Fandom: Avatar - The Last Airbender
Summary: "He'll have plenty of time to see the world. The Fire Nation doesn't know he's back yet and it'll be years before he'll be ready to defeat Fire Lord Azulon. So Aang studies and waits, and dreams of flying away again." AU.

Special thanks to Lady Isaiah and ZeldaChao19 for beta reading this fanfiction.

the siege of the south

The first thing Aang sees when he opens his eyes is a girl -- and not just any girl! She's... beautiful. Much later he'll reflect on how this is the first time he looks at any girl and sees her as, well, a girl. But for now there's just a funny feeling in Aang's chest that he can't explain.

The moment quickly passes; there are more important matters at hand for a twelve year old boy. It's only after he extracts a promise of penguin sledding from her, wakes up a bit more, and prods Appa to get moving that he remembers to introduce himself.

"I'm Aang!" he says, grinning.

The fifteen year-old girl doesn't so much smile at him as quirk her lips. Aang's heart flutters a little at that restrained expression of delight, causing him to worry if he's maybe coming down with a cold or something from his nap in the ice.

"Hi, Aang," she says. "I'm Hama."

* * * *

The Southern Water Tribe's Great City is like nothing Aang has ever seen. It doesn't have all the cool slides of Omashu or the crazy towers of the Southern Air Temple, and there's no colorful Fire Days festival (with fireworks!) going on like the time he met Kuzon, but they have houses made of snow. Aang is blown away by the genius of it.

"We also build things out of ice," Hama says.

"...Whoa."

From a hill overlooking it, Aang sees the Great City is surrounded by a high, thick, circular wall of blue ice. There were two main avenues to the city, set perpendicular to each other. At the crossroads where they meet is a huge igloo. Hama explains its called the Great Roundhouse and that her people hold their town halls there, as well as yearly conclaves when the villagers from outlying towns pole-wide gather in the Great City for a summer solstice festival.

Aang cocks an eyebrow. "Great City. Great Roundhouse. Is anything else about your home 'great'?"

"I like to think everything is," says Hama, straightening her posture.

When a still-lethargic Appa trudges up to the city's main gate, the guards act all weird and surprised. The Southern Air Temple does some trading with the South Pole, and, even if Monk Gyatso and the other elders won't let him join the monthly flights to the Great City because he is 'too young', Aang's pretty certain these people must have seen a sky-bison at some point.

The city guard makes him and Appa wait outside the gate. A crowd gathers but they just watch from afar, kept back by the guards. Like the guards, the people in the crowd act strange. The few that aren't whispering are staring at him in dead silence. Several adults drag off their children when they wave at Aang or try to run towards Appa.

It's all a bit creepy, and Aang wonders if maybe, while he was asleep, the monks somehow figured out where he was going and sent word ahead. That thought makes him anxious.

Soon the crowd parts and a line of grey-haired adults approach.

"Aang," says Hama, sitting next to him atop Appa, gesturing towards the lady at the head of the newcomers, "this is Chief Atka. She's the leader of the Council of Chieftains."

The grey-haired old woman stares up at him with wide eyes. No, he realizes after a moment; she's gawking at Appa.

"A sky-bison," breathes Chief Atka, wonderstruck. "Impossible. I haven't seen one since..."

"Last month?" volunteers Aang.

The elderly chieftain looks up at him with icy blue eyes, as if seeing him for the first time. Despite his monkly training giving him the mental fortitude to endure the cold temperatures of the South Pole wearing only his thin robes, a chill runs through Aang.

Hama clears her throat. "I, uh, think you were frozen in that iceberg for a little more than a month, Aang."

"Oh," says Aang. "So... two months?"

* * * *

"THIRTY-FIVE YEARS?!"

Before he can get any answers, Chief Atka insists they gather inside the Great Roundhouse. Aang asks Hama to stick by him and, after gaining the permission of the elders, she does. While only the Council of Chieftains sits inside the huge domed ice building, Aang can still hear the large crowd milling outside. It sounds like the whole of the city has turned out.

"That's impossible!" Aang says, voice reverberating around the huge domed room. "If it's been thirty-five years, then I'd be -- " he does a quick, silent count on his fingers " -- forty-seven years old! Do I look like I'm forty-seven? I'd be ANCIENT."

"Yes," Atka replies dryly, brushing a long grey hair out of her wrinkled eyes, "forty-seven is positively decrepit."

"Er..."

"Consider this fact, Aang. The War is over three decades old," says Chief Atka, voice booming from her kneeling position on a raised dias at the center of the empty roundhouse. As an airbender, Aang appreciates the good acoustics, even if the old lady is talking crazy talk. "An entire generation of children has been born into and grown up in a world that has known nothing but murder and terror at the hands of the Fire Nation. You do not know about it because, somehow, you were encased in that iceberg the whole time." Atka eyes him curiously. "How did you end up in that iceberg, I wonder? You are an airbender, not a waterbender."

Aang chuckles nervously. "Y-your guess is good as mine. I mean, the last thing I remember was being caught in that storm. Then I woke up in Hama's arms in the middle of a shattered iceberg."

One of the council members, a bald, one-eyed old man with terrible burn scars on his face, points a gnarled finger at Hama. "And YOU, young lady, why exactly were you wandering around blowing up icebergs?

"To see if I could," Hama replies easily. Flinching under the reproving scowl cast her way, she quickly backtracks, "Um, I mean, I saw a funny glow inside one when I just happened to be passing by on a peaceful walk and, uh, decided to see what it was. Yeah. Totally."

Aang leans over and stage-whispers to her, "Do you blow up stuff a lot?"

"Not that often," she whispers back.

"Your student's experimentations aside," says Chief Atka loudly to the one-eyed man, bringing them all back on track, "the matter remains that you, Aang, are the last airbender. The Fire Nation won't rest until it finds you and completes their genocide of your race."

Silence falls over the Great Roundhouse.

In a quiet, flat voice, Aang asks, "Excuse me, I'm what?"

* * * *

"AANG!" screams Hama after him. "WAIT! COME BACK, AANG!"

Aang doesn't stop running. Instead, he unfurls his staff glider and takes to the air. The crowd milling about the entrance to the Great Roundhouse "ooos" and "ahhhs" at his display of airbending, but for once Aang can't take pride in showing off his cool moves. They shouldn't be impressed by airbending. It shouldn't be something novel. The monks come -- NOT came -- here every month to trade pots of dye for permafrost tubers and seaweed.

Airbending and sky-bisons are nothing special. He is nothing special. It all had to be a stupid joke; a mistake.

Appa is waiting for him at the city gates when he lands. The sky-bison is lying on his back, sunning himself.

"C'mon, boy! Wake up!" When Appa doesn't respond, Aang pulls open one eyelid. Appa just squints at him, as if to say, You're seriously going to make me get up from my comfy spot?

Aang is still trying to rouse his slothful sky-bison when the ground attacks him.

The snow twists up like knots of writhing snakes, snaring him by his feet. Aang tries blasting them off with airbending, but they've already frozen over. He's still whacking at them with the butt of his staff when Hama catches up with him.

"Aang!" she says, cheeks rosy after her sprint.

Appa is on his six feet now, growling menacingly at the city guards and waterbenders mystified at the scene before them. "Easy, boy!" Aang begs, not wanting the sky-bison to hurt anyone. "It's all right."

Reluctantly, Appa eases off.

"Aang," says Hama again, sublimating his ice bindings with a hand wave, "I'm sorry. Chief Atka was totally out of line to talk to you that way. She... she could have broken the news better."

"What stupid news?" he snaps, then inwardly reprimands himself for his anger. Gyatso would be disappointed if he could see me. I'll ask him to meditate with me when I get back home. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me, Hama."

"Aang, what are you going to do now?"

"I'm going home to see for myself." He smiles. "I know it's been... a couple of years, but things can't have changed that much." How could they be? The Fire Nation attacking the Air Nomads -- crazy! "Just because no one has seen an airbender in a little while doesn't mean the Fire Nation killed anybody."

Hama looks dubious. "Aang, I know you want to believe that, but--"

"Come with me," he says.

"What?"

"Come with me," he repeats, hopping up onto Appa's saddle and lending her a hand up. "I'll show you the Southern Air Temple. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."

* * * *

His home is a graveyard.

Everybody is dead. Everybody.

Monk Gyatso is dead.

All because he ran away.

Hama is at his side, tugging hard on one arm. She's trying to say something to him -- or is she screaming? -- but it's all so far away. Aang only feels the anger and hate welling up in his throat, choking him. Some of it is directed at the Fire Nation for the horrific things they've done to his people, but a lot of it is directed inward.

They're dead because of me, Aang tells himself as the whirlwind angrily tears apart everything around him. The skeletal smile of his mentor is proof of Aang's failure. I should have been here. I could have stopped it, saved Gyatso's life. I'm the Avatar. I let them all down. I should have stayed. I could have saved--

There is a flash of pain and, then, blissful darkness.

* * * *

Aang wakes up with the worst headache ever.

He's lying on a cot in a candlelit temple cell that's not his own; he doesn't remember scorch marks on his ceiling, after all. Odd. It takes him several minutes to fully rouse from his heavy slumber, and gradually he becomes aware of the mustiness of the blankets he's lying on and the utter stillness of the temple.

Aang sits up. To his shock, a girl is sitting in his cell. It takes three seconds for him to remember why an outsider has been allowed into the temple -- because there was no one to stop him from bringing her inside.

Gyatso.

Hurt pangs Aang's soul, but it's not as wild and raw as before.

Hama, who looks to have been nodding off, lifts her head up. Her eyes widen. She gasps. "You're awake! Are -- are you still angry?" Aang shakes his head. She lets go of a breath she had been holding. "Good. You were scary before."

'Sorry' is what he tries to say, but can't. His mouth hurts and won't open. Belatedly, Aang realizes that there are bandages wrapped around his head.

In a fit of panic, he reaches up to tear them off. Hama's hands dart forward and grab hold of his wrists. Looking him square in the eye, Hama says, "I can heal you, but don't try talking. I broke your jaw." She pauses, and then adds sheepishly, "Sorry."

"Maah hhaw?!" he shouts in surprise through the bandages, then winces.

"I hit you with something we call a 'Southern Special'. I froze water around my fist and punched you." As she talks, Hama demonstrates by waterbending an ice gauntlet around a clenched fist. After a few seconds of letting him study it, she liquefies the ice and returns it to the waterskin at her side. "Did I mention how sorry I am?"

Aang nods.

"Because I'm so sorry, Aang. But you... you were going crazy! You wouldn't listen to me! I begged you to stop! I thought you were going to destroy the whole mountain with your airbending." Hama casts her eyes down to the ground. She sniffles loudly, and when she speaks again her voice is throaty, "So I knocked you out. I'm sorry I hurt you, but I couldn't think of any other way of stopping you."

Unable to tell her that he accepts her apology and to make one of his own, Aang settles for the nonverbal approach. He leans forward, wraps his arms around the fifteen year-old Water Tribe girl, and pulls Hama into a hug.

After tensing for a moment, Hama returns the gesture.

* * * *

Later, after she's removed his bandages, Hama heals his broken jaw with her waterbending. She tells Aang that she's 'not a very good healer' and that he'll need to be checked out by the experts back in the Great City, but after a few hours and several healing session Aang can speak again. The right side of his face is still covered in ghastly bruises and he nearly cries out in agony after trying to chew on a Leechi Nut, but he doesn't let Hama see his discomfort. Aang doesn't want his friend to feel needless guilt.

Hama declares that she's done all she can for him at about dawn. They both get some sleep after that, waking up at mid-day.

While Hama goes to check on Appa, Aang goes hunting.

Monk Gyatso's personal tea set, with its white lotus motif, is still preserved in his private cell. Aang finds it in the cabinet next to the window, covered in thick dust but otherwise looking like Gyatso just put it away five minutes ago. He leaves it alone. Instead, he takes a pot and two cups from the ruins of the communal kitchen, doing his best not to stare at the overturned tables and the soot stains.

Aang makes tea because he can't eat and because whenever he had a lot on his mind and there wasn't a pie to throw, Gyatso would sit him down for a talk with some hot tea.

Aang needs to talk with Hama. Hot tea seems the thing to do.

"Sweet and Sour Tea," he says, pouring her a cup just the way Gyatso would do for him. "It's... it was a favorite of a friend of mine. The leaves are a little old but, um, that just gives it more character!"

"Thanks." Hama picks up her hot cup and cradles it in her palms. She breathes in the fragrant steam but doesn't drink.

"So," he starts off, glancing nervously around the rubble-strewn courtyard, "um, about yesterday. When I kinda almost sorta destroyed the whole mountain."

Hama sets down her teacup. "Yes?"

"Well, that's... not something most airbenders can do. Could do."

She waits.

Aang takes a deep breath and, on the exhale, says, "I'm the Avatar."

"Yeah," she says, lifting her teacup again, "I kinda figured."

Aang is taken aback. "You did?! How?"

Hama sips her tea. Her lips pucker and she nearly gags.

"Oh," he says, sheepishly, "I just remembered, but I meant to tell you that I couldn't find the sugar, so it's less like Sweet and Sour Tea and more like just Sour Tea. Sorry."

She pours out half the cup and streams fresh water into it. When she samples the tea again, she doesn't wince. "It's... not terrible."

"How did you know I was the Avatar?"

"The glowing eyes and tattoos yesterday were a pretty big clue. Well, that and the beam of light that shot out of your exploding iceberg the other day."

"Oh." He pauses. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"I'm sure you had your reasons." Teacup at her lips, Hama levels an appraising look at him. "You sure apologize a lot."

"I'm s--" He laughs. "Yeah, I guess I do."

As Aang drinks the terrible tea he's brewed, he surveys the ruins of the Southern Air Temple. While it's eerie for a place that he's always known to be filled with the hustle and bustle of people (monks are noisy in their own way) to be so silent, Aang can't help but find a peacefulness in the atmosphere. He tries to hold onto that feeling above the rawness of his pain.

"I never wanted to be the Avatar," he confesses, breaking the silence between them. "I wasn't even supposed to know until I turned sixteen, but the Abbot said... he said there was a war coming. After they told me, they made me practice my airbending all the time. I didn't understand why, then." Aang gestures to his forehead. "I mean, I had already earned my master's tattoo. What was the point?"

Hama says, "So that's why you were flying Appa to the South Pole? You were looking for a waterbending master?"

Aang doesn't lie. He just doesn't correct her. "The monks told me I have to first master water, then earth, and then fire. Only after all that would I become a fully-realized Avatar. Can you teach me?"

Hama sits up a little straighter. "I'm... goodness, Aang. I'm not a waterbending master. I'm good, don't get me wrong, but I'm only fifteen!"

"And I'm forty-seven," he says, stabbing a finger at the arrow on his forehead. "Monk Gyatso once told me, when I was having trouble coming up with my own airbending technique, that the only limits on what we can do are the limits we set on ourselves."

"I -- I can teach you a little, Aang," she says, shaking her head, "but you'd be better off learning from someone like Master Kassuq or Master Noatak. I don't have the patience to be a good sifu. But... I can study with you. Okay?"

"Okay," he says, trying not to sigh.

* * * *

The journey back to the South Pole is a quiet one. Aang tells Hama he needs some time to think about 'Avatar stuff', but all he can really think about is they're all dead and it's all my fault for running away and I'm sorry, Gyatso. Hama tries to draw him out with casual conversation several times, but Aang finds he can't keep up his cheerfulness for more than a few minutes before thinking something like wait until Monk Gyatso hears about this!

Two days outbound from the Southern Air Temple, however, Hama breaks through the silence blanketing them with an "AANG!"

"Huh?"

Hama points. "DOWN THERE!"

Aang looks.

Far below, looking like a little toy from their current height, an Earth Kingdom ship is listing dangerously to one side. He motions Appa to take them down to the ship and so they fall into in a steep, corkscrew spiral.

As they get closer to the vessel, Aang sees more detail. Half of it is already underwater. An orange and black-striped tiger-shark the size of Appa is attacking the sinking ship, its huge toothy mouth chomping at the ship itself. There's also someone standing on what dry space there's left of the deck, dressed in a blue parka. In that person's hands is -- (Aang squints) -- a pot?

A pot that's on fire.

The gigantic tiger-shark, Aang suddenly realizes in horror, is trying to eat the sailor. Icy terror shoots through Aang. His mind races to come up with a plan to save the helpless soul.

He doesn't have to bother.

"SMILE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" the sailor screams, hurling the clay pot into the tiger-shark's open maw.

The flaming pot strikes the tiger-shark.

The tiger-shark explodes.

So does the sinking boat.

The shockwave is strong enough to ruffle Appa's fur a few hundred feet away. It picks up the sailor and tosses him across the ocean surface like a skipping stone. When he finally comes to a rest, he simply bobs up and down in the ocean like a cork, his head barely poking above the waves.

"There's no way anyone could have survived that!" Hama shouts.

"APPA!" he cries. "Yip yip!"

Amazingly -- miraculously -- the sailor is still breathing when they fish him -- or, rather, her -- out of the water. She's even awake. Hama bends the seawater off of her and then starts to heal her scrapes and bruises, which, Hama tells Aang, are fairly minor. He wraps the quaking sailor with a blanket.

A quick search of the wreck reveals a few bodies among the destroyed ship's flotsam but no other survivors.

"What was that?" Aang asks a few minutes later, once some color has returned to the sailor's face. She's dark-skinned, like Hama, and dressed like a member of the Water Tribe. Her hair is short, though; trimmed in a short, shaggy bob. Around her neck she wears a pretty choker.

"M-monster," the girl says, body still shaking -- from the cold seawater or from lingering shock, Aang doesn't know. "T-t-tried t-to... e-eat us... a-all. G-got them. N-nearly g-got... me."

Aang has guessed that much. "No, I meant, what did you throw at the tiger-shark? What was in that pot?"

"B-b-blasting j-jelly," she stammers.

Aang's jaw drops open. Hama picks up the conversation with her usual good cheer. "Are you stupid?! You -- you actually brought an open flame near a container of blasting jelly?!"

"But how did you light it on fire without igniting the stuff inside?" Aang asks. "Unless... you smeared some of the jelly on top of the lid as a starter? But," Aang chuckles at the absurdity of the thought, "that'd be -- heh -- really dangerous. You didn't do that, right? Right?"

The shivering girl grins with pride.

Hama gasps, "You idiot!"

"It w-worked, didn't it?"

"You could have just as easily blown yourself up! Blasting jelly is dangerous! People get killed all the time using that stuff! You need training just to handle it! We're you TRYING to kill yourself?!"

"T-tiger-shark would have k-killed me."

"That's so COOL!" Aang leaps over and scoops her up in a hug. "You're awesome!"

"Th-thanks?"

He sits backs, serious again. "But, um, what were you going to do after you blew up the tiger-shark? You kind of sank your ship too."

Aang's question causes her to pause. When she speaks again, the chattering of teeth is absent from her voice and her tone is firmer. "Built a r-raft from the wreckage, I guess."

"You're insane," Hama declares.

"You're awesome," he counters. "I'm Aang. This is Hama. And the big guy is Appa. He's a sky-bison. Do you want to be friends? What's your name?"

Sitting on crossed legs, she nods in lieu of a bow. "Kanna."

After Hama treats her for a possible concussion, Kanna shares her story with them... to a point. Aang knows there's a name and a history to the Northern Water Tribe man that gave Kanna her betrothal necklace but he doesn't press her. He lets her tale stand on the idea that her ex-fiancé "talked too much" and that she wanted to make her own choices.

Aang knows what it's like to want to run away from a life decided for you by others.

* * * *

Part 2