Xiao Ling's Story

Fire crackled and roared as it burned through years of progress, history, and memories. People screamed and those that were rendered helpless yelled out for help; grunts of effort could be heard, both female and male. Every noise intermingled with one another, creating an agonizing sound of distress, fear, and sadness. And despite the efforts of many of their people, death was unavoidable. Friends and families, lovers and strangers, collapsed onto the ground in bunches. Death by smoke inhalation, burns to the skin, and body trapped underneath tons of rubble--murder. No matter what caused it, all was murder by the same people that viewed the same sky.

A young woman walked out of a breaking house with a young child clinging onto her back for dear life. Her hands were busy with slight, gentle movements that produced a bubble of air around the two of them, separating them from the burning element. The young boy's parents had perished in the fire, with their bodies trapped underneath the very material that had made their house a cozy place to stay. There was nothing she could have done; nothing that could have brought them back to life.

Her name is Xiao Ling, a young female airbender. Her face, normally untainted and with the complexity of porcelain, was spotted with soot; as well as her clothes. Yet her eyes, so mesmerizing in their color, glistened with the pain her heart screamed. Tears that she had yet to notice traveled down her cheeks in a quick journey to the ground, and in an instant evaporated with the overwhelming heat that had invaded her place of birth. And as she stood there, for the first few moments that she had allowed herself to stop moving, time seemed to slow down whilst her eyes wandered her surroundings. She looked for the second family that would take care of the child she now held tightly in her soft embrace, for they were going to live. Their entire existence would not end in the hands of brutes; people were going to live and hopefully see a life without war.

Her sea-blue eyes landed on a quick-approaching woman, who did not look like an airbender herself but looked thick and strong regardless. She looked into Xiao's eyes for only one moment before taking the child and running away with the rest of her family. Had she understood that there was more that needed to be done? More lives the young woman needed to save? And would they live happily with him, the little boy who had no one else to care for him because of someone else's temper tantrum? The Fire Nation hated to see themselves in any way equal to the rest of the human race; they hated to see peace and prosperity, or even seeing others hold a greater sense of understanding of the world or Spirit.

A light gust of wind flittering around her left ear caught Xiao Ling’s attention, allowing her to separate herself from thoughts that were better left unthought-of for the time being. Without looking, her well-trained mind already knew what was behind her, what threatened to slice her and murder yet another human being. However, it was just a threat—one that she would not let touch her body when there was still so much she needed to do in the world. Her body reacted and rode the wave of the electrifying pump of adrenaline that soured throughout her body. Quickly, she twisted as to swiftly face behind her and blocked the spear that screamed for more blood on its blade. It faced her, only a few centimeters away from her face as her blocking forearm turned into a full grasp on the wood. She then threw a quick kick onto the firebender, pushing her attacker back with the compressed air she’d shot with her foot. And all that was left with her was his spear, which she used to produce an air swipe to not kill him, but to knock him out and then toss aside.

Xiao would have moved on after that in order to help others, to try to put out fires, or to knock out more of the invading troops. However, the scream and gurgle that followed clearly prevented her from doing so, for it came from behind her. And the fear that squeezed her heart as she turned around to see didn’t hold an empty promise. The mother that had grabbed the child she’d saved collapsed to the ground just a few yards away from where they had both once stood. And the child himself hung up in the air by the cruel hands of a firebending soldier, who then threw the innocent boy into a burning building. Seconds later, it collapsed onto itself with a gust of flickering ambers scattering around the premise.

Her heart, for a second, stopped before regaining its speed and pumping even faster. The hope that she had felt when she’d given that child to a mother, who cared for him despite there being no blood relation, felt threatened to breakdown. And without rethinking it, Xiao propelled herself forward with the wind at her aid and thus, decreasing the air resistance around her so her speed was greater. It made her able to surprise the small group of attackers, and fling them all meters into the air with a powerful air blast from the palm of her hands—their fires belated as they blasted from their hands once they were high above her. At that moment, she cared very little about what happened to them once gravity decided where or how they would fall. All she cared for were her people—more specifically those that she had almost saved when there were so very few left. Was she one of the handful now?

Tears blurred her vision as they escaped her unusual blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks. They disabled her from her surroundings, as she fell to her knees. The fire from the house that held the boy’s dead body captive and the older woman’s body buried underneath its rubble gushed warmth toward her, as she was not very far from it. She covered her face with her delicate hands and began to sob whilst a rapid ball of air surrounded her, separating her from fire and people’s harm. Her sobs, although soft, morphed into a scream of agony that, without her knowing, transcended the wind surging around her and shrilled its way out for others to hear the heavy burden she felt with a sound unbearable to the ears.

Within her bubble or air, Xiao could clearly see what lay before her. The air she controlled whipped the fire back and forth, creating a continuous dance of flame and wind. Her tears came to a sudden stop upon seeing a firebender speaking with an airbender; past the collapsed house and through another burning building, she could see them. Confused, she stared at the two and tried to make out what was being said, but she could not. However, actions spoke louder than words, and she soon came to realize that the firebender had let one of her people go.

What exactly was going on? Was the firebender really not one of them, but instead someone sent to rescue them in disguise? The idea brought alight the hope within her as she stood up from her spot. By then, he had left. So, she turned around to face the great number of firebenders that tried to poke through her ball of protection to get to her. Where there really so little left that they could only focus on one woman to appease their need for more blood? The though pulled at her heartstrings as she looked at them. They stared her as they shouted blasphemies and awaited her next move.

After taking a deep breath, the young woman extinguished the fire around her by dissipating her bubble out. As soon as her protection was gone, fire and spears were thrown at her direction, but she was faster with the wind as her heels. She twisted and turned around the solders, knocking them out as she weaved her way through the group. Her fighting style, like a dance, was graceful and swift. Not to mention fast, for it only took a matter of time to take them all out—not a single one was standing, as all were at her feet. But no matter the size of her victory, Xiao didn’t let it fully cross her mind. There were other things she need to take care of; particularly, the firebender that seemed to be on their side. By then, she truly knew that that man was not of any other nation but the very one that attacked them after seeing him firebend into the sky. The sight dispelled the previous thought about him, but that hardly mattered when she had witnessed him save someone he was set out to kill. He was different.

She ran, ran into the direction that he had gone. There needed to be more of him, more people that wanted to help. It needed to be true. She propelled herself upward to match his past actions and arrive to the place he had, although a bit of a distance away, where she saw two others: another firebender and one of her people. “Shan!” Xiao called out after having had a much better landing than the one she’d followed. Noticing that Shan didn't look to be the cool-headed man she'd gotten to know, but instead angry and dangerous.

For a split second, there was nothing but pain and sparks of light dancing across his limited vision. Then, dimly, he heard his name being cried out in distress and, recognizing the voice as Ling's, forced himself to pry open his eyes. There have been countless occasions where he'd sustained an injury, either due to wartime incidents or due to his clumsiness. This was different. His landing was clumsy, without grace or the sensibility to roll into an offensive position. Feng-wu merely bounced aside like a rag-doll. If he would've been in a more sound state of mind, he might've casually noted that it felt like the bones in his shoulder had penetrated through his skull. Nothing was sound. Nothing made sense. A shuddering breath whistled through his lips, faintly, softly, before erupting into something he wasn't sure he could ever conjure within himself. He screamed. It sounded alien; couldn't have come from his throat. Quickly enough, it stifled itself into a hissing grunt—though, there were no thoughts of maintaining his pride. How far had his shoulder gone? Had it jolted completely out of it's socket? Any attempts at moving it were futile. It was an anchored weight through overboard. His breath sawed in and out, much like a compressed bag, chest heaving, lifting, then falling with an unheard rhythm. The Prince's back immediately hunched against the pain vibrating through his shoulder-blades and neck, slumping forward unceremoniously before throwing himself forward, buckling at the knees, so that he was kneeling.

“You know nothing.” He wheezed through deflated lungs. It felt as if he couldn't obtain enough oxygen. As if the flames—his own flames—were leeching every single inch of it. Nerve endings spasmed. Feng-wu's vision was all starbursts and creeping darkness, even as Ling's whipping red tresses entered his peripherals. She was shouting. Or whispering, he couldn't really tell. Her lips were moving, forming words that he couldn't quite comprehend. Where did he need to go? Ling swept down, gripped his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder. “Good that'll do me, ah?” He responded through gritted teeth, molars grinding against molars. A heady laugh bubbled from his lips, choppy through his ragged breaths, and gratingly bemused through the shock of jostling bones hanging across his waist. It was all he could do to keep his head from drooping against his chest, warbling off like a turkey being slaughtered. Thick blotches of blood stained his rouge garments, blossoming around his collarbone and spreading towards his sternum.

Someone else' voice recoiled through his skull, rebounding in the corner's that indicated that his pain was genuine. It was real. He was here, in the Air Temple, fighting against Airbenders who were only doing their best to defend themselves. A woman called out to the one he'd collided against—whose name was apparently “Shan.” His mouth twisted into a scowl. Just as suddenly as he'd regained his foothold, the grounds beneath his feet shifted and his body spun through the air, twisting painfully, until he rolled a few meters away. He wouldn't have been surprised if he'd found that his arm had somehow plunged straight through his abdomen. It was difficult to tell what kind of state he was in. He watched with a borrowed passiveness as the blood continued to pour sluggishly from his wound, smearing his uniform an unusual myriad of colours. Dark reds, soft reds; swirls of darker, more divided, hues. Through wet eyelashes he watched Ling struggle back to her feet, staring at him. Instead of retreating, Feng-wu's sister charged at the Airbender: at Shan. Rocks and pebbles flitted around him, whisked by strong gusts of wind. It was almost soothing—the whistling sound, the dark skies littered with streaks of crimson, the comet. His breathing stopped, just for a heart beat or so... because it was beautiful.

The Prince struggled to his feet, though he didn't refuse Ling's proffered arm for balance. Strength hadn't seeped from his veins, hadn't hardened him. His wound had a dampening effect, but the comet still fed him. He could feel it stirring something within. “It's too late.” He breathed, indicating the burning buildings with a nod of his head. The greying smears licked through the skies; plumes of thick smoke. By now, the Fire Nation were inevitably rounding up the remaining Benders and exterminating them. One by one, while Shan dealt with them. “It's done. It's finished.”

The sapphire eyes of the female airbender wandered back and forth between Shan and the two firebenders. Xiao stood there, a few yards away from probably the last person she knew that shared her culture and perfectly parallel to him, whilst she watched the scene unfold before her. Her chest rose and fell from the constant breath she took and exhaled; her eyes never stopping their movements, their analysis, and their shuddering emotion.

Her soft ivory hands moved in complete contrast to her feelings and eyes: in utter serenity and ease. Air flowed around her well-endowed frame and around her hands, flowing gracefully. She was ready to pounce at any given opportunity despite the battle not being hers… but wasn’t it? From where she stood, she heard no further cries of the innocent fleeing. And that meant that either they were truly the last or the remaining few had escaped. The firebenders before her had massacred innocent, peaceful people and she stood on the same ground they did. This was not only Shan’s fight even if she had interfered, but also her own. However, the word fight didn’t quite fit the description of Xiao’s intentions. She was prepared to defend herself and even defend Shan, although he looked like he needed no help, if necessary. The firebenders were going to be taught a lesson. She could feel it. And it was not going to be through the violence she pictured.

Xiao had followed the injured man with very little thought and although she almost hated herself for it, she was also glad that she had been reunited with one of her people. Had she not followed, she probably wouldn’t have lived for long—even if she had escaped. But with two airbenders, both of their of chances for survival increased. The man she’d come to know as Feng had lead her to the best, yet worse, place she could be. She stared at him and remembered the scene she’d watched that had convinced her to follow in the first place. Had it been an act of true mercy, or simply an act of a coward and of fear for his own consciousness? What had she really seen?

His words felt like a stinging slap to her face, and her airbending stopped—the air that had followed her movements stopped instantly in its tracks. If she had fire burned into her genes like them, flames would have risen from the very place she stood. Anger would have been etched on the element itself, for that’s what she felt as she stared at him. Xiao felt pain, but her eyes shed no tears; she felt anger, but her eyes were the only indication due to the burning glare she shot at their direction. Had she let herself, her peaceful nature would have crumbled.

Jade eyes watched the movements of an airbender that appeared before them. She was a small woman, couldn’t have been much younger than Ling, and appeared livid. She was angry about something, maybe about what Feng-Wu had just said, but Ling didn’t care. Ling needed to get Feng-Wu back aboard the ship so that he could be attended to. He was bloody, bruised, broken. Something seemed to have snapped in Feng-Wu that Ling had never noticed before. Was this the same Prince Feng-Wu that she grew up with? No. His eyes…there was something different about the way they were burning.

“Come on Feng, let’s get you out of here,” she spoke in a tone that was hushed, almost as if it were meant for his ears and his ears alone. “You’re right…it’s finished,” she agreed with Feng-Wu. If the crumbling homes of the airbenders and the smoke-stained sky were any indication, then it would have been the massive amounts of bodies lying, twisted, torn, burnt, and broken on the grounds that would have given it away. There was nothing left for them to do. The Airbenders were no more. An element would no longer breathe in a world that had crushed it. No, not if these two airbenders survived. If they survived, then maybe, just maybe the dim-lit candle could flicker to life and restore the balance.

“You two should leave, immediately. You are the only two airbenders left, and it is fortunate that you are a man and woman. You have a chance to rebuild your clan,” she spoke, hooking Feng-Wu’s arm around her shoulder once again and directed him towards the blimp. All she needed to do was summon Fei Long and he could hoist both Feng-Wu and herself towards one of the battle ships. But Fei Long was nowhere to be seen. The dragon had decided to wonder off into some unknown place in the world and left Ling. If she were to signal for help, then the others would discover the airbenders and surely execute them. “Shit,” she murmured under her breath. It didn’t seem like she had a lot of choices. Either signal the others, or try and carry him to the ships. She decided against both. She turned her gaze towards the sky and noticed of the ships had already begun to move, heading towards Ba Sing Se. When her father declared war on the airbenders, he also declared war on the earthbenders as well.

He was bent on world domination. It would only worsen from here.

Everything changes in a heartbeats. Or between many heartbeats. Time was ruthlessly subjective to them all – it didn't pick and choose who to torture. It was taxing. It was relentless. Goodness and cruelty did not exist in those contingencies. There was a twisting ugliness hardening the organ thrumming quickly behind the safety of his ribs. It reminded him that the fabled hands of time had always been against the Airbenders – especially, specifically in this instance – because that's all the Fire Nation needed to finish things up, to dust off their hands and free themselves of the chaos they'd created. To finish things up. It was only the truth: it was too late. What did they expect – the pair of them, the Airbender's that gawked at them like they'd decided themselves that this entire escapade was their idea from the beginning? Like they had any authority, at all. They didn't. They never did. Regardless of their highborn lineage, they followed their father's heated demands as loyally and soundlessly as their infantrymen. If they spoke beyond their stations, crossing any imaginary lines of familial fealty, they were reprimanded or treated as children who simply didn't know better, or were too dense to understand how things worked. These thoughts hardened him, threatened to shake his foundations apart. It always ended with a debilitating, chest-tightening, fist-clenching, ear-ringing rage: who understood better than those forced to do the unthinkable?

“We did everything we were told!” The words bubbled from his lips, nearly frothing with emotion. His chest rose, then fell, quickly, with the effort—as if all the air had been pushed out with the strength of his outrage; a squeeze of his hands. There's always been something wrong with sacrifice. Sacrificing your morals for something natural, something familiar like family, or friendship, or the need for your father's approval. He's aware of it's flaws. How wrong it is. There's something terribly wrong with sacrifice: once you've given, you can't take back, unless you're willing to sacrifice something much greater, but as equally irreversible. Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe. Only the foolhardy and stupid boast that it gets easier with time, or the heartless. How could the Airbender's say that their truth was better than theirs? As each enunciated word ripped from his parched throat, The Prince staggered forward, pulling his sister with him. Right now, in this moment, he couldn't feel a thing – as if a part of him had been rubbed raw and left wide open. “What do you know of this? It's a sickness. This war. The reasons for it.”

Were they ready to die for a war they didn't completely agree with? Were they ready to die for a father who'd crafted his sons and daughters as militant tools? As disposable things unless they moulded themselves into stiff-limbed monsters. Unless they agreed to his methods, and followed them without question. Did they understand any of that? Of course, they didn't. No one could understand – none save for the ones' who dealt with it. His sisters' hand gripped his bicep, urging him to turn away from the Airbender's, to ignore their baleful stares. Even so, how could he blame them? In their stories, the Fire Nation would forever remain the monsters who came to torch and pillage and destroy; nothing else. There would be no “greater good of the Nations” to speak of. “Rebuild? When is it enough?” His voice came hitched, several octaves too high, and shamefully shaken. Feng-wu's eyebrows knit together, ember eyes glossy, finally steering himself away from the smouldering mass in the background and away from the Airbender's who stood to witness it. He, too, searched the skies for Ling's faithful dragon, Fei Long. Nowhere to be found. Ironic, wasn't it? The corner's of his mouth turned down, sourly, until they twitched, and a strangled sound escaped him. “Stranded in the mess we made, and so close, too.”

Xiao’s angry attitude was startled out of her mind when the airbender she knew as Shan suddenly grabbed her and took her somewhere else. She only managed a gasp and a soft mutter, although she wanted to protest leaving. The dangers they faced were great, but the killers of their people were right before them as well. She was torn from seeking some sort of punishment for their loss and travelling an entirely different road. It wasn’t like her to question her beliefs or even think twice about the anger that threatened to cloud her vision, but these were desperate times.

The young woman spoke no words throughout the entire way. She wondered where they were going exactly and if he had a plan in mind, but was a little too shy to ask just a few questions. Shan was silent, and that was the reason why she wished not to disturb him. They had gone through a lot in just a few moments, it seemed, and words seemed unbefitting. So, she thought—thought about all she’d lost, about the two firebenders, about what her life would be like now without everyone that she had known and loved, about Emi.

Emi? Xiao thought with a startle, her eyes growing slightly wide as she looked around as if she would be able to see her flying bison. Of course, she could not because she had sent him off at the very beginning of their tragedy. He was off somewhere safe, she knew. But nevertheless, she worried and was glad when they finally set foot on ground again. She gently got off his back before fiddling with something around her neck. It was a whistle that she had made into a necklace around her neck. It had been settled inside her clothes.

When she found it, Xiao held onto the whistle in its upright position. She smiled at Shan, looked at the whistle and then blew into it for a few seconds. “Because I am an airbender just like you, of course,” she answered his question and fixed her disarrayed locks of hair. “My grandfather was a monk… I knew everybody.”

The smile of Xiao’s face felt odd to her. It seemed out of place during such a time, but like such a relief all at once. Smiling made it feel like all the bloodshed had just been a horrible nightmare and she’d just awakened. But even if that wasn’t the case and all seemed lost, distraught and unreal, Emi was the only thing that was still alive that made her feel at home.

She heard Shan comment of her response to her answer. He didn’t seem to understand that she knew everybody—at least mostly everybody. Her grandfather had been a monk and through her early training as an airbender, she had been introduced to many people. She had watched over many, interacted with many, and had made many connections. But all that was gone now, and explaining it to him any further would have been too harsh for both of them to hear.

“My story?” Xiao echoed, a bit surprised by his following words, as she did not know how to answer for a few seconds. After finding the words, though, she inhaled deeply and released it with her words. “My name is Xiao Ling… I don’t really have a story to tell you. I was just in the right place at the right time when all this whole disaster began. I was able to help others and escape somehow. And now I’m here with you.”

As the moments passed by, Xiao stared at the bison whistle she held up with her hands. Her feminine hands fiddled with the little wooden device as sentiment began to fall over her. Staying strong seemed so hard when the one creature that she truly adored seemed nowhere in sight. She was in the verge of tears when she heard and felt a change in the wind; and upon looking up, Xiao saw Emi—her large, beautiful flying bison—slightly hidden by the darkness of the night. It lightly growled, as if still being cautious about the firebenders. It made sense now to her why he had waited until nightfall to return to her.

Xiao got up from her stop beside the fire and ran to the creature, whom looked happy as well. She threw herself into his fluffy fur and snuggled into it…