The Origin of Roh-Shan

Hill

The bison touched down at the top of the hill. Roh still held Jaso, unsure what to do. Was she supposed to be crying over him? Was she supposed to hug him? This is really uncharted territory.

She didn't need to worry anyway, since Kota and Dagon were avoiding looking at him. In fact, they were avoiding looking anywhere. They should be scanning the hilltop, which was crawling with children. The airbenders had saved hundreds, easily. Their younger brothers and sisters might be among them. Did they make it? The answer was right there.

But they weren't looking. Kota stared at a spot on the bison's saddle while Dagon stared at his knee.

Maita carefully took his hand. She was still holding her head cautiously in one position, as if moving her neck made it worse. If it wasn't clear before, it was now: she needed a healer.

Roh just watched them leave quietly.

Haider, surprisingly, took the initiative and held Kota's hand the way Maita had. He stood her up and led her off the bison, drawing up a slope from the earth to ease their way down.

What looked like reunions from above turned out to be chaos. Children who could walk were moving far too much to get a good headcount or find someone in particular. Crying infants and toddlers weren't picked up by their parents yet, and at this point it seemed plausible they never would be.

Parents who'd climbed up from the fields shouted names over and over, to the point where Roh wanted to shout the name back in their face to prove how annoying they sounded.

Roh watched her mother take in the scene. It was especially painful as someone who takes care of children for a living. She couldn't sit by. She climbed off the bison and moved into the crowd of children, trying to see what she could do to help.

Roh stayed with Jaso. She wanted to try something...

Someone quickly advanced on Kota from behind and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her from Haider's grasp. She opened her mouth to let out a surprised scream, but realized who it was. Taatu clung to her like a lifeline, because mere hours ago she literally had been. She turned around and hugged him back, almost as tight as he held her, overwhelmingly glad to see he was up and moving.

And his scars, bloody scab necklaces, matched hers of course. It was jarring to realize she looked like him. It was noticeable.

"Back away from her or you'll wish you were never born." A rough voice growled.

Kota held her hand up. "Hade, it's okay. It's okay." The second one was for Taatu.

Haider relaxed from his fighting stance.

The hug seemed to pull Kota back from wherever she was in her mind. She turned around and looked at the crowd of children around them. A few airbenders were triaging the injured near the healers, and others were on bison flying over the field, grabbing more survivors.

But as the sky grew lighter, Kota and Dagon had definitively searched through every child twice. Reunions were happening all around them as more parents arrived and more children were swept up by a loved one, held tightly, and whisked away toward the center of town where the airbenders and some rebels had secured the convention center for people to gather, and figure out what to do next.

Looking around, Kota again tried to force away the image of Jaso face-down in the water. If he was in that bad of shape when the bison got around to him, why would she think the younger kids were better off? And the fact that Jaso was there at all was proof her family had been on the ship.

Taatu didn't know who she was looking for but clearly she wasn't finding it. He clung closer to her arm and Haider stuffed his hand in his pocket, knowing that if Kota started crying, he would too. They came around to Dagon and Maita again, who were equally numb. Maita had briefly been to one of the healers, who pushed something in her neck that had been out of place, and she no longer had to struggle to take a breath, which she'd downplayed on the beach.