12Dust: The last Fire Lord proclaimed that the airbenders bodies never be put to rest and to enter the temple grounds at your own risk. As an adult, the spirits may have little effect on you … as a child grasping at manhood, a soul is still malleable and open to suggestions.
Disclaimer: If only, if only, the plot bunny sings.
Image: tea is for sissies by forgottenpantaloons
Rating: Teen.
…
Beware the corners, crevasses, and turns.
Something lurks there that cannot be burned.
…
Zuko knew the exact date and place when he had been doomed to never regain a shred of his honor.
He didn't like to think about it, but the thought could be all-consuming. It just reminded him how cursed his existence had become. But it had happened all the same, in those tall reaching mountains of the Air Nomad's Southern Air Temple. He had been a child still, grasping at manhood. It was shortly after being banished, a white bandage still covering half of his face. His young feet had been thoughtless as they trudged through the deep dust of a desecrated Air Temple, stirring something in the old ruin.
Perhaps it had been the dead, unburied and burned as they were. After all, the last Fire Lord had proclaimed that the Air Nomads were never to be buried. Leave them where they lay to rot.
A part of Zuko knew this as he entered the temples, that he might be walking through the remains of the dead, but he also knew his father's decree. Find the Avatar or never return home.
So, he had set out into the ruins as Uncle and the men set up camp. He was quickly forced inside the temples when a light drizzle threatened to become a typhoon. He wasn't supposed to get his bandage wet. Plus … he kind of wanted to be alone. He still didn't know why Uncle, the Great Dragon of the West, had bothered to come with him in his banishment. He was an honorless son, worthless unless he found the Avatar.
Besides, he kind of just wanted to explore the temples in order to feed the remnants of his childhood curiosity. He had been trapped on that suffocating ship forever and … he just wanted … he wanted to be free for a little while.
He wandered for about an hour or two, the paths taking him to dead ends and rooms with suspicious piles in the corners. He found himself seemingly led into the deeper confines of one of the temples, his footsteps echoing in spite of the roaring of the growing storm outside.
His journey kept leading him deeper and deeper though, fewer windows and open walls letting in the light. Finally, there was a set of doors at the end of the long corridor. Said doors were heavy, like stone slabs, and yet even he could tell they had been battered down with a powerful burst of fire. Even after all this time, he could see the charred traces on the wood and splinters on the stone floor.
Nonetheless, he stepped into the room. The exact moment he did … Zuko regretted it. It was cold like heat refused to reside there. He could see his breath as little lung-fulls of air escaped into the room. Not that the cold bothered him much as a firebender, but the sudden drop in temperature was unsettling.
Looking about the darkened room, only one small stained-glass window in the back, the first thing the prince noticed were the countless rows of candles. Some were stalled in time, never to be lit, while others had been burned into nothing, their remnants hanging there like waxy stalactites off the tables.
Beside himself, Zuko swallowed as a chill crawled up his spine.
It was as if something was still in this place, watching him from the dim corners, and he honestly wanted no part of it. And yet, there was still a tinge of childhood curiosity that couldn't be killed by his mother's disappearance nor the smell of his own charred flesh. He wanted to see what was in this room.
Stepping forward, his footsteps echoing, Zuko took note of something in the back of the room near the small window. It bore him forward like a wordless spell.
There were a few stone slabs in the room, but only fraction had white sheets covering something atop each. It was strange that nothing had disturbed the fabric even in a hundred years… And the pit in his stomach couldn't help but note that something slightly human-shaped lay below each one.
Zuko stalled at that thought even though he was halfway across the echoing length of the room, the small flame in his hands flickering like a fading candle. A part of him wanted to dash back through the endless empty corridors and into the rain until he found Iroh or one of the crew. He would just pretend that he had found nothing in this wing.
There was nothing here but sheets over stone slabs.
He should just leave.
But … something else kept nagging him, bidding him forward. Could this be a clue? Something to lead him to the Avatar?
And so, despite the beating of his heart against his ribcage, young Zuko found his feet moving once again, his soft footfalls seeming abnormally heavy. He tried not to glance at the corners with their shifting shadows nor the melted wax that looked like so many silently screaming faces. He only paid attention to the yellowing sheets and the colors that were cast on them from the stained-glass window.
Only once he was in the fading light before the slabs did he allow the flame to flicker away from his hand. Then, with tentative fingers, the young boy gripped one of the sheets. For a moment, a part of himself told him no, let the sheets be.
Instead, he paid his instincts no mind and pulled.
Heart beating, eyes unblinking, the young firebender expected almost anything. Instead, white dust suddenly rose up toward him in a thick cloud. He immediately started choking as a collection of dust and white grit flew all over him. It even got into his eyes and nose. He quickly stumbled backward a few feet away from the first slab, still coughing up a storm as he tried to take in the dusty scene before him.
It was with a mixture of relief and disappointment that he stared at the slab.
It was just white powder.
The firebender looked away from the display and instead turned his attention to the chalky substance on his hands. There didn't seem to be anything special about it. It honestly looked more like flour, probably piled here for some kind of ceremony. He was kind of disappointed. Part of him had been expecting something a little more gruesome. Not … chalk.
A least it looked like chalk.
Wiping some of the white dust off his armor, Zuko headed to the next stone slab and yanked on it. Again, he got a face full of white dust. And again, and again.
Soon, he looked like he had rolled in flour, part of him completely stumped as to why there were mounds of chalk on the tables. Yet, he found his curiosity unrelenting now. There had to be answers in this room.
Hastily, he got to the last slab that had a sheet over it. This mound was more human-shaped then the others before it, even though it was much, much smaller.
Wasting no time, despite the crawling feeling up his spine, the young prince tugged on the once-white sheet. Unlike all the times before, there was no sound of shifting grit, but instead a dreaded rattling.
The white sheet almost seemed to fall to the floor in slow motion as the young firebender stood there, unable to look away. Because there, on that slab, perfectly laid out in almost a lovingly manner, was the skeletal remains of a child. He or she had probably been a little younger than he was. But what really hit him was not the bones. He had seen a few skeletons since crawling up the mountain. What hit him was, where the child's right leg had been, was a small pile of white dust.
It was the same white dust on all the slabs before.
Just like the dust he was covered in.
Zuko immediately reared back at the realization. He was coated in the dust of corpses!
Yelping in horror, the young boy tripped on one of the sheets he had just ripped off. He even released a dry scream as he fell, puffs of white bone-dust billowing all around him and settling in his nose and eyes.
For a moment, it was as if an inner flame flickered … like the dust was trying to choke it out.
Now completely petrified, Zuko struggled to get to his shaky legs. He was hacking and coughing the whole time. Yet, before he could even get down the three steps to the level floor, something seemingly grabbed his ankle … tripping him.
He went down with a grunt, his jaw slamming against the floor. He could taste blood, but he still tried to get back his feet and get into a defensive stance.
Gravity would have none of it though. Something was still grasping him, weighing him down.
Turning his head, his vision blurry, the youth looked down at his feet to see what was tripping him. Confusion managed to burrow itself between the disgust and fear that were gripping his mind. There, upon his ankle and wrapped like a small hand, was one of the white sheets.
Tugging at it, Zuko was surprised when it did not immediately relent. Pulling again, telling his mind to calm down, the preteen was horrified to note that the sheet actually seemed to crawl a little farther up his calf.
Thoroughly terrified now, Zuko's yanks became a little more erratic, but the sheet would not release.
Wanting to set it on fire but telling himself he didn't need any more scars, Zuko sat up. With his youthful arms, he reached forward to physically rip it off, but stalled … watching the fabric crawl up his leg some more, settling below his knee.
Swallowing, a part of his mind screaming this was a spirit's doing and he had to get out now, Zuko reached his shaking hands forward to tug the sheet off.
Surprisingly, it came off without a struggle.
Pulling his leg away quickly, he sat there a moment as he stared at the still item. Then, not wanting to tempt fate, he got to his feet. But, before he could even take more than a step away, he was suddenly on the floor again … something had snagged his other leg.
Turning his head, a dark dread reborn in his gut like a squirming parasite, Zuko noticed that a different sheet was now twisting up his other leg like a constricting snake-weasel.
Shouting, sitting up and readying his fist to burn it off, another covering lashed out and latched onto his wrist.
Screeching, falling onto his back, Zuko noticed that the other sheets now seemed to be crawling from their previous places on the floor and towards him.
Getting to his knees, panic making his heartbeat vibrate in his ears, Zuko opened his mouth to shout for help only to have a sheet slam over his face and tug him back down. His screams then became muffled as the fabric started to twist around him like a cocoon. The sheets wrapped tighter and tighter around him until he could barely squirm. Zuko could only see the shifting of shadows … standing above him.
Even though it was muffled, he cried out for his mother.
Not that the shadows, probably the spirits of airbenders, paid him any mind. They merely leaned in, a dozen hands seeming to rip at him, the briefest of whispers echoing in his ears, "Let us in."
…
Zuko still couldn't recall everything that had happened during those hours of darkness before Uncle had found him. Apparently, he was shivering and covered in dust from head to foot. He had been dazed and wandering the halls aimlessly. When asked where he had been and what had happened, Zuko had stared wide-eyed at the cracking stone that made up the floor, refusing to blink. He only was able to whisper one thing, "I think something crawled in Uncle, and now it's eating what was there."
Iroh had frowned at this, uncertain of what to say to such words, but he had decided that the search of the Southern Air Temple was over, and it was time to go. There was nothing but dead things here.
It took around an hour to gather all the men and supplies so that they could make the downward descent.
Zuko could only nod in agreement, his stare just over his uncle's shoulder, his eyes wide. There, in the doorway, were a dozen shadows. They had the faint shape of heads and arms and legs … and white dust was trailing after them.
…
Zuko tried to put it out of his mind when he finally got back to the ship. He didn't need the men thinking he was crazy … but he still felt like something was watching him, following after him like a light breeze. When he wasn't paying attention, he even felt feathery soft touches in his hair and heard disembodied giggles echoing down the metal halls.
Worse still, at night he couldn't sleep because he knew something was standing in the corners of his rooms, observing him. He was finally forced to retreat to Uncle's room like a small child scared of the dark. He couldn't even call a flame to his hand so that he could get there without stumbling.
As the days progressed, as the ship set sail, he started to see things out of the corner of his eye, like a shadow where it shouldn't be. And then there was the dust. It turned up all over the ship, down the halls and in the corridors. Sometimes he'd reach for a teacup and it would be filled with white grit.
He felt like something was crowding him, suffocating him.
Within a week he was so shaken that he couldn't even light a candle.
At the end of the month, he could barely perform a kata.
And in a month and a half … he couldn't even call forth his breath of fire to keep himself warm.
Some of the older soldiers wondered if it was a mental sickness, caused by seeing the dead in the temple. He was still a child after all, but the ship's healer was worried that it was Dragon Fever. An illness that could cripple the chi lines permanently … or kill.
That temple had been covered in the dead. Who knows what a young boy could pick up there?
And so, for the safety of the crew, Zuko was put into quarantine. He was all alone with nothing but the wisps in the corner.
He had clawed off his fingernails when the healer finally deemed it safe to let him out a week later, but it was too little too late. The dead had cornered him in that room, when his screams had been all but ignored. The wisps had gotten to him, crawled right into his lungs. They then ate what had been there before and left something else in that space.
Zuko was now considered a cripple. He could no longer firebend.
…
He hates it. Hates it when Uncle mentions a draft in a closed room or how Zuko's hair now seems to flutter when he's upset or frustrated … or how he now envies the birds. The Air Nomads did this to him. He understands that. He's not sure why, but they probably needed an heir for airbending. There were none left at the time and he was just there, a young boy on the cusp of manhood. Malleable.
And now, he is theirs.
They whisper instructions to him, katas to him that are not like fire.
He doesn't dare perform one, but he knows that somehow their whispers are settling in his bones, hollowing them out like a bird. Worse still, when the Avatar looks at him, Zuko is sure the younger boy sees it. He has to see how the wind pushes at Zuko's back and lightens his steps. He must know what Zuko now is.
It wasn't his fault … that something crawled in.
He just really wished that Aang would stop trying to be his friend. They are supposed to be enemies, and Zuko never got any choice in being an airbender.
XXX
Paw07: This is just a little snippet I have been poking at for like three years. It's always meant to be put out around Halloween. Happy Halloween everyone!
