Avatar: The Legend Reborn - Book 3: Harmony

Chapter 7: The Meaning Of Pain

Book 3: Harmony
Chapter 7: The Meaning Of Pain

Gyatso

Cold. That's what Gyatso felt. He awoke buried underneath a thick layer of snow, unable to breathe. He was vaguely aware of what had happened before he'd blacked out, but he pushed it out of his mind, deciding his friends were more important. He quickly wriggled his way to the surface and burst from the snow drift in a gust of wind.

"Akira!" He called out.

He spotted Bolin digging through the snow rapidly. The snow illuminated orange, and a column of fire erupted from the fluffy white powder. Mako climbed out of the pile, soaking wet from the melted snow.

"Has anyone seen Akira?" Gyatso asked.

Suddenly, all the snow around them exploded into a white cloud, uncovering all the bare earth beneath. Akira came running through the icy mist and threw her arms around Gyatso. "You're alive!"

Gyatso, mortified at the memory of what had happened to him, glanced down at his right arm. Blue-green scales had emerged from his skin. His fingers had become talons. Feathers protruded from his elbow. Bones jutted up from his shoulder. He had become a hideous amalgamation of human and spirit.

"Akira, I've seen something like this before. You can heal him! Use Raava's energy. Gyatso will be okay." Mako promised.

"Yes, of course! Korra did it to a guy in Ba Sing Se!" Bolin remembered.

"I'll do it!" Akira exclaimed, placing her hand on Gyatso's mutated shoulder and concentrating. Her eyes flashed white and she entered the Avatar State.

Gyatso waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

"Why... why isn't it working?" Akira wondered.

"I don't understand. Korra did it before. You should be able to." Bolin said.

"I don't know, maybe there's a trick to it?"

Gyatso's heart sank as he realized Akira didn't know how to purge the impurity from his body.

"Don't worry, we'll figure it out. Maybe you can contact Korra and ask her." Mako suggested.

Bolin put his hand on Gyatso's left shoulder. "Yeah, just relax. We'll find a way to get you back to normal."

The Airbender tried to convince himself of that, though he wasn't sure it was true. "Right now we need to focus on getting out of these mountains."

"Tenzin is still out there somewhere. I say we wait for him to find us and fly us out on Taima." Mako said.

Gyatso was struck with another painful realization as he remembered Taima had been captured by the pirates. "Don't count on it, the pirates got Taima, remember? And we don't know if Tenzin even... survived."

"What choice do we have? We have no way out of this ravine." Bolin pointed out.

Gyatso gazed up at the hundred-foot cliffs above them. It was a wonder they'd survived the avalanche that deposited them here. They were surrounded on three sides by walls, with a sheer drop off on the fourth side.

"We just need to have faith. Tenzin survived, and he won't leave us here to die." Mako insisted.

Akira, who had been silent while pondering the situation they were in, agreed with Mako. "He's right. That's the only thing we can do. We just need to dig in and survive this climate until Tenzin locates us. In the meantime, I'm going to try and contact Korra."

She walked over to a flat area away from the rest of the group and sat down with her back turned, beginning meditation.

"I'll handle the shelter." Bolin quickly erected a stone structure for them to take cover in.