Carved In Rock || ATLA

Lovely

The Chase Fin

"Oh, I hope someday I'll make it out of here, even if it takes all night or a hundred years. Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near. Wanna feel alive, outside I can't fight my fear. Isn't it lovely, all alone? Heart made of glass, my mind of stone. Tear me to pieces, skin to bone. Hello, welcome home." - Lauren Babic ft. Seraphim. (Billie Eilish & Khalid.)

🌊 🏔 🔥 🌪

"Toph couldn't have made it far," Sokka said to his sister as the two surveyed the woods below them. On either shoulder, Mushu and Momo began chattering loudly, a sign that they had seen something good or bad. "What is it, guys?" He asked as he turned to check it out himself. Shit. "Katara!" He pointed back to a pair of mongoose lizards gaining on them quickly, Mai and Ty Lee looking to be out for blood.

"How did they find us?" The waterbender asked. She snapped Appa's reigns and tried to urge him along faster but he only drifted lower and lower along the tree tops. "He's too tired!"

"Not good, not good!" Sokka shouted frantically. He watched the girls as Appa continued his descent until he caught a glance of the water. Bingo. "We just need to make it back across the river! Faster Appa!"

"Come on buddy." Katara pleaded. "Just a little further."

Beneath them, Mai pulled out a handful of knives and hurled them at the bison. Sokka just barely had time to duck down as they sliced through the air where his head had just been. He stayed low and held onto his sister as Appa bellowed and skimmed the river's surface, crash landing hard on the other side.

"We made it!" Sokka cheered despite being knocked off the bison. "We're safe!" He wrapped his sister up tightly in his arms.

He hadn't the slightest clue that mongoose lizards could run on water.

🌊 🏔 🔥 🌪

Upriver Aelita coughed up water as she used her arm to haul herself onto the shore, her entire body screaming at her to stop. She tried her best to catch her breath but found herself rolling to the side to dodge one of the river spirits snapping tendrils. She was trying to avoid the fight Rin was so desperate to have. She could feel the sadness in the air surrounding the dark spirit, nothing could convince Aelita that more violence would do any good. She was here to heal, not to hurt.

Consumed by pain and resentment towards the humans that had chased away her earthly family with fire, Rin couldn't hear a word the small girl was saying.  She didn't trust humans anymore, all they did was kill and hurt and destroy.

"Please." Aelita pleaded, pushing herself to her feet. "I know you're hurting." She dove out of the way when a wave threatened to strike her down, the haunting spirit only looking darker than before. "The war has taken so much from you, people you never thought would leave your side did and it feels like you're drowning." Rin slammed a tentacle down against the surface and shards of the water of jagged ice raced towards the Akira but she raised her arms and bent them back into liquid falling at her feet. "I understand what it's like, I know how you feel. I'm from the Fire Nation." She jumped away from a swing to teeter on a rock sticking out in the middle of the waters. The girl wondered if that was the wrong thing to say when the spirit howled like a wounded animal. "But I am not like the ones that hurt you. You know me, and I know you." There had to be another way for her to make Rin see. Aelita took a deep breath, relaxed her stance, and allowed the spirit to wrap her tightly in its grasp and lift her high into the air, unable to move now.

Rin looked the human in the eye to see if she could still figure out these fleshy creatures' true intentions. A calm familiarity washed over the spirit. Those eyes. She knew the kindness in those eyes. Maybe it was time for Rin to truly listen.