The Last | Avatar the Last Airbender

Departure

The sun set on a forest grove in the southwestern Earth Kingdom, painting the sky a mellow orange. The trees cast shadows that danced around the three small huts that made up Tula's home. It was a peaceful moment. A glimmer of light in a world seemingly defined by darkness-a world that had been out of balance for 100 years.

Tula put the finishing touches on the fruit pie and placed it on her little wooden table. "Happy 16 to me," she said quietly. If only she could have some company, her family wouldn't seem so far away. Even one of the forlorn looking travelers she sometimes let stay in her spare room would have been more than  welcome, but she hadn't seen one of them in at least a month. The war made travel difficult for most people.

As the sun set on the last day of her fifteenth year, loud voices and footsteps approached her. It was clear from their drunken voices and the drag of swords through the dirt that they were not friendly. Spirits! She needed to make her house look deserted before they got there. She sprinted out the back of the kitchen into her bedroom, taking the fruit pie with her. Rapidly raising up a faded woven rug, she pried open the entrance to the cellar. Luckily, the relics, easily her most important possessions, were already stored down there, but she needed to remove all signs of life from the room to be safe.

She grabbed clothes, perfumes, her sketchbooks—but a loud bang on the door interrupted her.

I don't have time. I'll have to face them.

Tula set her things down. She carefully closed the cellar's opening and smoothed the rug over it. She ran to the door, knowing well that the more the knocker had to wait, the less forgiving he would be. Trying her hardest not to visibly shake with nerves, she cracked the door open.

Standing before her were 8 or 9 fire nation soldiers. They seemed to be beefy as could be and with egos as broad as their shoulders.

They're looking for trouble.

"Look at what we've got here, Kai." The third-beefiest, and definitely the drunkest soldier used the hand not steadying himself with a sword to fully open the door. "An itty-bitty, scrawny, shy little girl." His hot breath washed over her pallid face.

"I'm not so little." She stepped up onto her front step, revealing herself to be just as tall as a few of the soldiers. Hopefully, all she needed to do was show them she wouldn't be easy to mess with.

"And I'm not so shy." She kneed the drunk one between the legs. The soldiers were taken aback. The drunk one's expression hardened. Confrontation was not something she had much experience with. She was getting nervous, and she hovered a little off the ground.

Tula was an airbender. As far as she knew, she was the last of her kind. Those relics in her cellar used to belong to her great-grandmother, likely the only air nomad to survive the genocide, and it was Tula's duty to protect them. What might be the only remnants of that great culture rested on her shoulders, and as the soldiers steadied themselves and readied their swords, she had a decision to make.

Should she give it her all and use what little airbending she'd knew? She was pretty confident she could take them in their drunken state. But like Kama had always told her—pretty isn't enough.

I can't risk anyone knowing I'm an air bender.
And even if I did best them, then what? I couldn't kill them. There's only one thing I can do to really hurt them, and I never want to do that to someone again. I'm the closest thing left to an air nomad—I should at least try to act like one.

Even though she resolved not to sweep the soldiers off their feet with gusts of air, Tula wasn't going out without a fight.

Tula was not prepared to defend herself against a group of grown men; however she was emboldened by her surprising act of confidence from a moment earlier. She could handle herself when it came down to it.

Kai, shot a few flames her way. Luckily Tula was light on her feet. She cartwheeled away on one hand, using the other to bat flames away. She landed gracefully on her feet and punched a squat and shrewd looking soldier squarely in the chest.

"Hi To, come give me a hand!" It was probably unwise for Kai to call on the drunkest of them, but Hi To lumbered over. Tula sprang onto the squat man's unsuspecting shoulders and kicked Hi To in his reddened face.

She had broken his nose and probably given him a black eye, too, and it was then that the soldiers realized that she wasn't to be trifled with. The fight intensified, but Tula could only dodge so many swords. She could only jump so high without raising suspicions.

She soon saw that the game was up. She had injured a couple soldiers, but those who remained, including Kai and Hi To, who were tougher than she'd thought, bound her wrists and discussed what they ought to do with her.

As they talked rowdily, over a bottle of whiskey, her worrying intensified. She hadn't pegged them to be legitimately evil men—just bored, drunken, and disagreeable.

Surely they won't subject me to some kind of torture. Maybe all they want out of me is a meal! That's wishful thinking. What if they make me do them a favor, the kind the soldiers used to make Kama do. Surely not. And if they do, I'll escape somehow, if I really had to, I'd—no. I can't think about doing that again. I'll cross that bridge if I get to it.

"So, Kai, what should we do with the girly?" Hi To slurred his words.

"Hmm...what's your name, pretty?" Kai turned his attention to Tula.

Before she could answer, which she didn't intend to do, truthfully, at least, Hi To interjected, "She's really not all that pretty. Kinda funny looking. But her hair would make a nice wig!"  He laughed.

"Sure would." Kai wrapped one of her curls around his finger. "She's not bad in my book." Tula narrowed her eyes at him.

"You know, there's a fire nation circus that's right where the Si Wong desert begins; it's basically on our way," Kai said, decisively. "The girl's a real acrobat. I bet we could get a nice pay-off if we brought her there."

"Sounds good to me." Hi To got to his feet with great difficulty. "Guess we'd better be startin' off to the ship if we want to get there by mornin'."

And just like that, Tula was plunged into the dark clouds of the unknown.

If this is what it takes to survive this war, it's worth it, right?