Southern Star

Chapter Sixteen: Swore I Heard You Whisper That You Preferred Us Like That

The first time Song woke up, she was being dragged over the ground. Her heels created divots in the soil, as if she were a plow on the brink of planting season. Her head pounded, worse than when she had woken up on Aito's boat.

She was confused. What had happened?

One glance upward revealed nothing but the sky, which was dark. There were stars strewn over it, and for a moment, Song was spellbound.

She tried twisting her head to see who was dragging her. She couldn't see anything in the dark, though.

Whoever it was noticed the movement and dropped her. As her upper body, arms, and head collided uselessly with the ground, Song noticed that her wrists were tied together, as were her ankles.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, she was hit in the head again.

The second time Song woke up, she was cold and still on some sort of metal surface. Her headache made it impossible to even think about opening her eyes. It made it impossible to think at all. Song laid where she was in silence, waiting for the waves of pain to diminish.

They didn't, but eventually, Song opened her eyes anyway. She couldn't tell if there was a difference between them being open and closed. Wherever she was, it was pitch black. She couldn't be outside. Which would make sense, given the metal floor she was on.

Slowly, agonizingly, Song felt along the floor. Still bound, she could only really wiggle across the metal. She found two walls, also made of metal, with no windows within her reach. She hurt too much to try standing up or breaking out of her bonds. She also found metal bars, and then another metal wall. When she did so, she paused, and she noticed a barely noticeable rocking sensation and the hum of an engine.

Song was on another prison ship. Only this time, Iroh wasn't there to comfort her.

She didn't dissolve into a meltdown, though. Instead, she crawled into a corner and sat there, somewhat comforted by the two points of contact. She had never been afraid of the dark, always preferring it to sunlight, but there was something unnerving about the complete darkness of her cell. As it was, though, she took the opportunity to think.

She had been taken from Ember Island, from her friends, from Zuko. None of them had been able to rescue her before she had left the island, and she doubted any of them knew where she was. No, she couldn't depend on being rescued. She would have to find a way out of this on her own. Song just doubted that it would be as easy as her last prison break had been.

She hoped Iroh was okay.

Who had taken her? Song thought she had recognised the eyes of the person who had knocked her out, but now that she thought about it, those eyes couldn't have been Mio's. He was still imprisoned in Ba Sing Se.

Wasn't he?

Zuko and Aang went through the motions of a firebending exercise, practising form and ability. Aang was an excellent student, responding positively to praise and taking criticism well. He wasn't a master firebender, but he was certainly coming along.

It was Zuko who wasn't doing so well.

All six of them, Suki included, had scoured the island the night before in disguise, casually asking around to see if anyone had noticed anything amiss during the night. No one had. All they found in terms of clues were drag marks leading from the vacation house to the communal docks. The drag marks didn't tell them anything, and none of them had any idea where she could have gone. Aang and Tongyi had even flown around Ember Island on Appa, but there was no trace of any ships that could have taken her.

Zuko was going mad with worry, but no one else seemed more than mystified and a little concerned.

"It's Song," Sokka had reasoned. "The Black Wing. She's escaped from prison before. I'm sure she'll be fine. Besides, all of the bounty signs for her say that she has to be delivered alive. She'll figure it out."