Luke

I'm sweating. I can feel the water everywhere I still have the sense of touch. I can feel it on my toes, my legs, my chest, my arms, my neck, hell, especially my deck, and my face too. I feel like I'm underwater, being submerged. I can't swim. I feel like I'm drowning but I can still breathe. I'm sweating every ounce of water inside of me.

So why am I so cold?

When was the last time I'd been this cold? Was it in Ba Sing Se? No. Not there. There, at least I had somewhere to go. There were other people around me. I was protected. I had food, clothing, the chance for warmth. In Citadel, I had none of that. How old had I been? 7? 8? It was definitely 8. Mini had already been killed, chopped up, and strung up. I think by the time winter came, he had just been cut down by somebody, I had no idea who. How long did he hang up there for? I think it was close to a month. Frost had started forming on his body. Or what was left of it. Vultures, crows, or even some of the slum cannibals, "the desperates" we called them, had already started picking him apart.

That winter, I had no home, no job, no shelter. There had been no such thing as the Hornets or the Rats yet. Greeti still ran the slums with his "Black-Eyes". Raava, that name still pissed me off to this day at how unimaginative it was. He still ruled with his equivalent of an "iron-fist", but anyone with eyes could already start to see the foundations coming apart. I forgot when it was that the Hornets took over. I remember the first time I ever saw them though. I couldn't believe my eyes. I could've sworn that The Black-Eyes had risen from the dead, come back to reclaim their streets, but it wasn't them. It was just another damn gang with the same brutal methods. "Different players, same game." I don't remember who it was from that I'd first learned that saying. Nearly everybody would use it on the streets. It was a saying synonymous with "Another day, Another copper." It was just the norm there.

But that winter. No amount of trash I had stacked on top of me would let the cold make way. I would piss myself in the middle of the night just for the warm relief of urine trickling down my leg, building up into a nice little puddle for me to lie in. I ate anything that moved that summer that I could eat, from the smallest ants to the largest rats. I never became a desperate though. Of that much, I could be proud at the very least. I never became one of raving animals that would crawl on all fours around the slums, just desperately searching for the freshly dead to feast on their remains.

I was asleep on night, freezing my ass off, somewhere having managed to actually let my mind drift off into the abyss of the night, when I woke to the teeth of a man around my left hand. My scream managed to scare him off at the very least, and he went darting back into the alleyways, hopping on all fours, no different from any of the other animals that roamed the city.

It was by a miracle I survived that winter. And by the charity of Mishi, the man who had given me some semblance of a home, of honest work. I can still see his dead eyes staring at me. The man who I had killed. For all intents and purposes. It wasn't my hand that had done it, but my greed, my stupidity, my naivete. It was my fault he had died.

How many people have I killed? The first man I had ever killed had been Janick, when he had fallen on the blade of my sword. I hadn't meant to end his life, but it was by my hand that he lay on that street, bleeding to death, alongside every one of his Rats, and nearly every Hornet to infest the streets. Alongside nigh everyone I had ever known, my entire past in its fullest.

He was the first man I had killed, and there had been so many more after that. The faces started to blend with one another. I had used to keep count at one point. A long time ago. The last number I ever remember counting was 137. That's one hundred and thirty-seven people that I had killed. And that's just when I stopped counting. That was before Gan and Gi Gu had died. Before I had joined Iroh's force. And since then, spirits. And since then, I'd killed so many more. I would be lying to say that their faces haunted me, but to be honest, I hardly remembered their faces anymore, and that's part of what I think scared me the most. That I could so easily justify taking lives to the point that a uniform didn't matter anymore. To the point that it would no longer matter to me if they were a risk to my life or not. To the point that I could justify slaughtering tens to hundreds of innocents just because they were by some loose thread connected to the death of Danev.

Danev.

My last friend from Citadel. The last memory of my past. He fell in Ba Sing Se. He fell alongside Lu Ten, the heart and soul of the Fire Nation. When they fell, the Fire Nation fell shortly afterward. I was among those to fall. And the burnt remains of Stone's Edge can attest to that fall. I remember walking alongside the walls, watching as member of my own unit turned to savagery, thieving, murdering, raping. I was just as bad as all of them. Danev would have been mortified. I remember that when he left Citadel, as much as he had hated the Nation he served, he knew that he was free. Free from the city that had also taken everybody he ever loved from him. That took the one man I think he ever really loved: Riu. They fought, like all other friends did, but they were more than friends. They were family. Brothers. And when Riu died, Danev lost all loyalty to the slums. He knew he had to move forward. And when I next saw him after he had left to join Iroh's army, I saw that he had. That he'd found his new purpose. His new family. His new brother.

And he died alongside that brother in the slums of Ba Sing Se. Once a slumdog, always a slumdog. That was another saying we'd learned to hold dear.

I'm glad, though, that he died before he had the chance to see what I'd become: the killer, the monster. He was my last family. And since him, I'd refused to let myself become attached to another.

That was when Squad Iron Fire found me, the mess that I was, so full of anger, hate, vengeance, sorrow, and suffering. They found me, and took me in. I refused to allow myself for months to get attached to them. I didn't speak with them, I ate my seals separately from them, all because I convinced myself that they, like every other family I had ever had, would eventually die. And I would be all that was left.

I used to think that the term 'Survivor's Guilt' was sheer stupidity. Why should I feel sorry for being smarter, better, stronger, luckier? I understood it now. It's not because you have the guilt. It's not because you tell yourself that you should have died in their stead, but because you wish you died, because you wish that, while everyone else moved on, they hadn't left you alone, to fend for yourself.

I used to wish that I had been with Danev when he died. I think that, a part of me too, when I slaughtered the town of Stone's Edge, had been searching for something other than revenge, but death as well. I remember wishing that they would fight back. That they would stop hiding, cowering, running away, that one of them would pick up a spear and defend himself, and kill me, kill the monster.

I opened my eyes. I was still so cold, yet so hot. I looked up and could see the white outline of something where my brow was supposed to be. My eyes were crusted over from the sleep. It's the middle of the day. The sun is still shining through.

I'm thirsty.

I look to my immediate left to see nothing of note. Just the opposite wall and my closet, my armor lying on the ground. I left my helmet in Jianghe. I look now to the right, moving myself to peer at the ground beside the bed to see a wooden bucket of water with a ladle sticking out. I can barely move beneath my layers; how many is it? 5?

I reach for the ladle beneath, trying to spoon some water into my mouth. The washcloth falls and I can feel the fresh liquid dripping down my face. I manage to pick up the ladle until I realize half of my torso is off of the bed, and I lose my balance, falling.

I land hard on the ground, the bucket knocks over, and I just manage to raise it in time to raise it to my lips and drink the rest that hasn't yet spilled. It's so cold.

I realize I haven't taken a breath of air yet, the water still pouring into my mouth. I cough the rest out, nearly choking. I'm out of bed, but something, doesn't feel right. My head. It's in some of the worst pain I've felt in-

My own thoughts are cut off by another burst of pain. I reach up to my head, trying to feel if I have some cut, some bruise, anything, but feel nothing. I raise myself off the floor with a degree of effort that shouldn't be worth the objective, and drag myself to the dresser, a mirror above it. I wipe my eyes, trying to remove what sleep is left in my eyes.

And when I open my eyes, I see myself in the mirror, but, it's not me. It's me, but not me at the same time. In place of my eyes are an ethereal blue glow, and on my head-

No

I open my eyes. I throw the covers off of me, the sweat still pouring down my body, the washcloth falls off, I trip over the bucket of water, spilling the water onto the ground, and rush to the dresser. I stare at my reflection. It's me again. It's me this time.

No arrow.

No arrow.

No arrow.

It's just me.

Why?

Why did I dream about that?

Why did I dream that I had the arrow of an airbender?

Why did I dream this?

I bring my hand up to my head, and it rubs through my hair that is back on my head where it's meant to me. It's just me.

It's just me.

I used to wish that I died that day.

But I didn't.

I lived, and I was given a second chance. A chance to make things right. To not hurt those who are innocent of sin. To protect those who cannot protect themselves.

That's why I'm here. That's why I didn't die that day. Not so the world could make me suffer, but so that I could fulfill my purpose in this world.

"Is this what you mean, Raava? Is this what you want from me?"

I received no answer. I had expected none. She chose when to come to me. Not the other way around. But I didn't need her this time around. This time, I trusted that I could find the answers I needed on my own.

I know why I'm here now. And I know why I lived that day. And I know what I have to do. And so long as I have it in my strength to protect those around me, those who cannot protect themselves, those who I care about, I'll have a purpose in this world.

I heard the calls of the seagulls from outside my window. I realized now that I wasn't sweating anymore. I felt, better, alive. We had reached land, which meant that it was time to rise. And so, for the third time, I rose from my bed, for real this time.

I avoided the filled bucket of water, and as I put on my clothes, my armor, and washed my face, I saw my face. No arrow. Just me. I'm not the Avatar. And I don't have to be. One doesn't have to be the Avatar to serve the world.