ANYTHING BUT; avatar the last airbender

chapter 7

[act two; chapter seven     -     love or respect or simply breathing?]

    Sokka had made quick work to retrieve guard's wear for Lian, while Zuko and Suki had gone back to their cells, maintaining the charade. Then, just the two remaining, they joined the rest of the guards in "welcoming" the new prisoners.

    The Warden, then, stood in the center of them all, approaching the new line of prisoners with furrowed brows and an angered expression. He stood before them, his hands linked behind his back. Anger, Lian knew, was all he was familiar with. "Welcome to the Boiling Rock. I'm sure you've all heard the horrible rumors about our little island. Well, I just want to tell you that they don't have to be true—" He comes to stop before Hakoda, and Lian holds her breath. She feels it as it is taken from her lungs, stripped from her before she can stop it, before she can hold onto it with bleeding hands. "—as long as you do everything I say. Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you."

    Rather than meeting the Warden's eye, rather than doing anything else, Hakoda's blue eyes flicker away. "No."

    "Oh, you'd rather look at my shoes? Then take a look!" He swings his leg up, hooking his shoe into the chains between Hakoda's hands, pulling him to the ground. Lian bites back her flinch, avoiding Sokka's eyes when they, for only a brief moment, flit in her direction.

    (Marble.)

    With his foot to the chain, holding the man's body to the ground, keeping him there, braced on his elbows and knees, the Warden grits out, "I know exactly who you are, Hakoda of the Water Tribe. So strong-willed. But don't worry. We'll get rid of that in time. Now look me in the eye!" It is then, and only then, that Hakoda does. He tips his head, meeting the Warden's eye, though only with defiance and stubbornness.

    Lian chances it. She risks being rediscovered, if only for a moment to show Hakoda that he was not alone here, not really. She blends in, then, to the guards around her (a red shadow), and taps her toe to the ground. She can feel the earth that had gone into the creation of metal, just as Toph had taught her to. She remembers meeting Aang for the second time, showing him how, with great control, she could split the earth in two, though hide it enough for it to go unnoticed by the world around her. She watches it, then, as a small ripple, hardly noticeable, approaches Hakoda, hitting his hand in a rhythm that would gain his attention. She can see it, the realization. The acknowledgement. No one else would know. No one but them. He knows that she is there, which means she is not alone.

    The Warden looks up, scanning the line of other prisoners. "You will all do as I say or pay the price. You will always—"

    And then his body has hit the metal floor, head first. Hakoda kept his face stern, unforgiving as he laid his fists back to the ground, keeping them flat. He rises to his feet, then, as two guards run to the Warden.