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“What- Tenzin, what did you say?” Lin had intended for her voice to be firmer, to be able to hold on to the commanding quality that helped throughout the long and tiresome days at the station. Instead, it wavered and cracked, and she could feel the tears already burning at the corner of her eyes. She refused to let them fall.
“I, I couldn’t find her.” Tenzin’s words were but a dying whisper in the wind, knocking the last remaining breath from Lin’s lungs. Her legs threatened to give in, her vision blurred and the floor swayed under her feet. She could feel Tenzin’s pulse through the metal boots and the soles of her feet.
She could feel the way his heart was thumping an uneven beat that matched the way her thoughts couldn’t get organized in her head. Lin could feel the silence surrounding them outside of the spirit portal, the fear in the man kneeling in front of her, and his brother trying to keep his composure behind. She could feel it all, and nothing at all.
Tears are for the defeated , her mother had told Lin once, back when she was barely six years old, and struggling to bend her very first rocks. You don’t cry, Lin, do you hear me? Toph’s words had accompanied Lin throughout her whole life. You do not cry until there’s nothing left to do, and then, you find a way, and you solve it.
Lin had followed that advice to a fault, that much was true, but it was also true that she’d been formed by hardship, and if she’d stopped to cry at every blow life had delivered, then she wouldn’t have become the woman she was now. And that’s why she wouldn’t do it now. Not yet. Not this time, if she had any say in the matter.
“Lin, wait- where are you going?” Bumi’s hand closed around her arm, the worry in his voice, the tremble of his fingers, Tenzin’s silent sobs, it all ricocheted inside Lin’s plate like the echo of a thunder.
“I’m going to get her.” She had to consider each word she said, had to control the way she moved and breathed, or else the thick wall she was slowly building around her would crumble under the weight of the sham that was her resolve. “I’m bringing her back, Bumi.”
There was a moment longer where Bumi’s hand stayed on her arm, a silence so thick and loud that Lin could hear every word of the conversation they weren’t having. Could hear Bumi’s worries about her, his guilt about leaving Kya behind, the pain of not being able to go back. The fear of what he lived there.
It was that fear what shook Lin the most. She’d grown believing Bumi was invincible, a force of nature even when nature had not given him any, and to see him now… to see the hollow of his eyes, and not be able to imagine what he- what they’d gone through inside...
She stepped through the portal with a minute squeeze of Bumi’s hand around her bicep, and an apology travelling in the soft breeze that caressed her back on the way in.
Light hugged her, warm and alive, and she was on the other side.
-
Lin wasn’t sure what to expect once she’d reached the fog. She knew of the spirit world what she had managed to read, but the information on it was little, and the details even less. She knew what the place did, and she’d seen it first hand with Tenzin and Bumi, but when faced with it at last, Lin wasn’t sure what she’d find inside.
She figured it would be of no help to call for Kya, the fog seemed thick, almost corporeal even, and sound was bound not to travel if the place was meant to be a prison of sorts. The floor underneath was steady, smooth and of the purest earth Lin had ever felt, but when she tried to map the place with her seismic sense, nothing returned to her.
It was almost as if every step she took inside, the place created a little bubble just for her to stand in, where nothing could get in, and nothing could get out. And yet, she heard her.
“Lin?” Kya’s voice was as clear as running water, making Lin’s heart stop with the sound of her own name, and her head to whip around in search of the source.
“Kya, is that you?” Lin knew she shouldn’t let her mind be influenced by the fog, she knew its purpose was to torture those that stayed inside long enough. Lin knew of all her demons, was waiting for the phantoms of her past to make an appearance. The people she’d incarcerated, those that had met their end at her hands, the family she had and lost, and the family that she never knew.
Lin was waiting for all and any of them to show up amidst the thick, brown fog. She was not expecting for Kya to be one of them.
“I can’t believe you actually came,” Kya’s words should’ve been a balm to Lin’s building anxiety, but the tone was as cold as ice, and the way Kya’s face contorted sent a chill down Lin’s spine. “ Why? ”
“Kya.” Lin took a step towards her, but Kya took one back, stopping Lin in her tracks. “Kya, I came to get you out.”
“You came to take me back there, then. To lock me in, and keep me trapped.” There was a venom laced with Kya’s voice in a way Lin had never heard before, and it rooted her to the spot, rendered speechless. “You won’t do it again. I won’t let you. Any of you.”
“I don’t want to trap you, Kya. I’ve never had.” It felt as if the fog around them grew thicker by the second, denser, slowly seeping into Lin’s armor, and wetting her clothes in a cold sweat that tightened her muscles until the point of pain.
“That’s what everyone says, but I know who you are Lin Beifong, I know what you are.” If Lin didn’t know any better, she’d think Kya was blood-bending her to the spot, because for every step she took closer to Lin, it turned harder and harder for Lin to step back. “I know what you do, Lin. You collect things. You trap people, rope them with your metal, and you bind them to you.”
“Kya, please, that’s not- it’s not, I don’t…” But what if she did? What if that was what Lin did? What if that was why Tenzin had left, and his mom. What if that’s why her father had never wanted to know her? Kya of all people would know.
Kya, the one breath of fresh air in Lin’s life. The summer tide that brought light and joy to her otherwise dull and grey days, and washed away her sorrows, cleaned the wounds of her body and soul alike. Kya, who had been with her through thick and thin, and stayed through it all, with her bubbly laugh, and playful smile.
Lin felt the tears that she’d been keeping at bay fall at last, trickling down her cheeks, and onto the dry ground below.
“I’m sorry.” Because it was true, wasn’t it? She did try and bind people to her, force them to become someone they weren’t. She did it with Suyin, and Toph, and she did it with Kya’s brother afterwards. And now she was doing it to Kya as well, asking for her to stay at her side when there was nothing for Lin to offer in exchange of the sweet and peaceful moments Kya had to offer. “I’m sorry, Kya, I didn’t mean to.”
The ground gave under Lin, or perhaps it was just her body, finally tired of keeping up the pretense of the immovable rock, and she fell to her knees in front of the woman she loved. The one person in her life she had never expected, yet was always there. The blue of the morning sky when life was brewing her a storm, and the cozyness of a clear night, with the stars shining down upon her nightmares.
“I only wanted to help. Kya. I, I only ever wanted to help.” Sobs wracked through Lin’s body, hands searching for the fur of the woman’s dress to grab onto something, whatever she had left to hold onto. “You can go if that’s what you want, just- let me get you out of here, and then you can go. I won’t keep you. I won’t ever keep you.” I don’t deserve you, Lin didn’t say.
“Lin? Lin, what are you doing here?” There was a hand on Lin’s shoulder, a steadying weight and a familiar pulse, but she couldn’t afford to look up and see the harshness of her eyes again. She had tried not to cry, had tried to do well by Toph’s words, but she’d failed. And she’d failed Kya as well, because now she would be trapped here forever.
“Lin, listen to me.” Kya’s voice was stern, but warm, and it didn’t match the one from just a moment before. It didn’t make sense in her mind. But then again, once she opened her eyes she could see it was not a dress but dirt what she had in her hands.
“Lin, love, look at me.” Long and slender fingers tipped her chin up, and Lin let them, coming eye to eye with the most precious turquoise she’d ever seen.
“I’m so sorry, Kya.” Lin pleaded once again to this new Kya, heart heavy with the knowledge that there was not a way out.
“Don’t apologise, Lin. You did well, you always do, Lin.” There was the prettiest smile on Kya’s lips, and none of the anger from before. Lin wanted to believe her words true. “Come back to me, Lin. Can you do that?”
“I’m here, Kya, I don’t- I don’t understand. I’m here, I’m always here for you.” And it was true. Kya was as free and wild as the ocean, and Lin was but the shore waiting to be kissed by it day after day. Without Kya, Lin was nothing but sand, falling apart and washing away.
“You’re here, it’s true.” Kya only smiled wider, her free hand caressing at the scars on her cheek, the other moving to the back of her neck. “But now I need you to return to me.” And then her lips were on Lin’s.
It was the softest kiss, a shared breath, and a leaping pulse, and then the fog cleared.