Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On the Earth, the Avatar used to keep the balance between the four nations; water, earth, fire and air. The people of the four nations used to live together in harmony, until the Hundred Years War altered the fate of humanity forever.

Avatar Aang ended the Hundred year war, and heralded in a new age of peace for all four nations.

But while his successor, Avatar Korra had fought valiantly to keep the balance of the fast progressing world, things spiralled out of her grasp.

As she aged, nations began to splinter. Rapid technological discoveries in the Fire Nation were sold or stolen by members of splinter and extremist groups in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes. Giant, self propelled mechanical beasts. Weapons that were capable of doing far more damage than a single bender, or even a whole army, could have dreamed. Bombs that could swallow up a whole city, machines that could alter the flow of the tides.

One of the most noted achievements of Avatar Korra's lifetime, had been reopening the spirit portals, to reunite the human world, with the spirit world. For the most part, the humans and spirits had been living together civilly, if not happily. But the spirits, did not take kindly to the advancing power that humanity had created. And despite the attempts of the still new Air nation and their allies, this new war began.

And it consumed the planet.

It happened so fast, that to this day, no one knew for sure who the Avatar after Korra actually was.

The remains of the Order of the White Lotus, it's members from all corners of the world, made plans.

For years there had been stories of the Sato Corporation experimenting with the possibility of space travel. Rumors, most dismissed, remaining from the influence that Varrick, the mad industrialist, had had on the company.

No one would have ever believed how far those experiments had come.

When the day came that the spirit portal in Republic City exploded with activity, it was met in retaliation by a fusion reaction carried by an acolyte of the imprisoned anarchist Zaheer.

The resulting incident took out almost the entire region, and causes changes that spread rapidly throughout the world.

And just in time, the White Lotus had made plans to evacuate as many citizens as possible in the Ark- a self sufficient, self suspending space enclosure, that had been in development since the late years of Avatar Korra's youth.

There was only room for so many, and this escape came with many consequences.

The first was to be expected. The limited space and resources led to heavy rationing and restrictions- rules that had to be met with very harsh punishment.

Another was less expected. Immediately following the launch, every person evacuated lost any bending ability that they had had before. In the hundred years since, not a single child or adult on the Ark was capable of bending anything at all.

It had never been intended that the Ark was to be a permanent solution. There had always been plans for returning to the earth's surface. But as the years went by, complacency, and the continued observations of the surface that seemed uninhabitable, it became something that no one talked about, except whispered furitively over drinks.

And so time went on, the rules becoming harsher and harsher, and the rest of the world a mere sphere on the horizon.

This was the world, that Clarke, descendent of Airbenders born of Earth, grew up in.

********

It had been a fairly ordinary afternoon otherwise. Clarke and her friend Wells had been hanging out after school lessons were over. Wells was reading a scroll, and Clarke was drawing. It would be time to go to Career training soon, and they both wanted to take advantage of the free time.

Wells glanced over at Clarke's paper.

"Are you trying to draw the spirits again?"

Clarke rolls her eyes. "We've never seen any, there's no way to know that I'm drawing them wrong".

"Pretty sure I've never read about a spirit with a rabbit-deer's face split down the middle".

Clarke wrinkles her nose at him. "Are you reading about the rise of metal bending again? Why, it's so boring, they teach us it every year in school". '

"It's interesting" Wells insists "I mean, there was this whole type of bending that no one believed was even possible until the one young girl was put in a tough situation, and then suddenly, boom."

Clarke can give him that.

"Do you ever wonder what it was like?"

"Bending?" Wells asks "All the time".

"Not just bending," Clarke continues, "All of it, Earth. I mean, we can barely-"

Her words are interrupted by Clarke's mother Abby, unlocking the hatch and coming into the room.

Her face is stiff.

"Mom, what's going on-" Clarke starts, before Abby interrupts,

"You two need to come with me, now".

Clarke and Wells exchanged confused looks as they stood up and followed Abby. They practically have to run to keep up.

"Mom, what's happening, where are you taking us?" Clarke can feel the unease rising in her throat. The last time she had felt like this, was a year ago when her mother had told her her father had died.

They're in an little used corner of the Ark. The pipes that move the air, and water, and electricity through all the sections are visibile. Nobody would ever come down here but maintenance.

There's a cold feeling in her stomach when Clarke realizes that this is where the long forgotten Exodus ship is docked.

Abby turns to the two of them, looking them straight in the eyes, touching both of their shoulders.

"We're going back to earth".

Clarke's brain goes blank for a minute before she can articulate "What?"

"The latest numbers at the last council meeting showed that our life support will only last maybe another year. It was decided that we would launch the Exodus and take our chances back on the surface".

Clarke has many questions, but the main one is "But then why the secrecy? Why the rush? If we're all going to go back, why didn't they announce..."

"Because there isn't enough space on the ship for everyone".

Clarke blood chills in her veins.

"I have to go back, I have to help get as many people out as possible."

She hugs Clarke tightly.

"But I had to make sure you were here first. You deserve to see where you came from."

She's led them into an open area where a group is already starting to form.

Abby squeezes Clarke's shoulder again.

"I'll be back, I promise."

She clasps Wells on his shoulder.

"This might get ugly. Take care of each other".

"We will Mom".

The next few hours are mostly uneventful. The Chancellor, Wells father, speaks over an intercom to them, proclaiming their bravery. They are led into the ship, strapped in and shown how to operate their controls.

"Do you think when get back to earth we'll get our bending back?" Clarke wonders and she swings her feet back and forth.

The dark haired older girl on the otherside of Clarke responds sardonically, "I hope so, might be some help if we're really going back to the dark ages".

"We don't know what the earth is like now" Clarke argues.

"We can't see any movement from here at all, there might be nothing left. It'd be nice to be able to bend the giant tidal waves off of us, or throw rocks at the giant mutated boar-wolves if it turns out to be like that".

"You sound pleased to be here" Well replies.

She shakes her head, "My boyfriend was supposed to come down here with me, but he got called away to the main deck. He should be down here by now".

She looks up, and Clarke thinks she looks quite sad. "I'm Raven by the way".

"He could still get back" Clarke tells her, trying to comfort her "There's still plenty of space".

But those seats fill up fast, and the arrivals are getting more and more agitated. There's still no more sign of Abby, of Raven's unnamed boyfriend, or even of Well's father.

"You'd think the Chancellor would be the first aboard the ship" Raven remarks.

"He probably wants to make sure enough of his people get onboard" Wells replies, confidently, but looking penseive.

But the remaining seats fill up, and then the guard by the door announces that there's only two left.

Clarke starts to panic when she sees out of the corner of her eye her mother moving briskly towards the door.

Her heart starts to ease when there's a sudden commotion, and two more figures enter the corridor. Her mother stops suddenly, and seems to be exchanging words with the larger figure.

And Clarke's heart drops in her chest when she sees her usher the other two into the ship in her place.

"Mom, MOM!" she cries, as the door's close. She tries to unbuckle her harness, but the guard comes over and stops her, practically has to hold her down to keep her in her seat.

Then the harnesses lock, the ship launches, and the children of space are set to return to their home on the earth.

Clarke remains slumped in her seat, her heart back up in the sky.

Chapter Text

The first thing Clarke remembers upon opening her eyes on the ground is a great amount of green.

The landing had been far rougher than anticipated. Large pieces of the dropship were missing, torn and thrown asunder. Apparently she had not been the only one to pass out on descent, and Wells was to her left, shaking her gently and unhooking her harness to help her to her feet.

The green outside the wreckage of the ships is almost overwhelming, the light- the sun! It must be the sun, so unlike anything she's ever seen! filtering through, casting shadows long and deep.

Around her, there is chaos. There are people crying, others yelling and rejoicing. Wells touches her on the shoulder and asks.

"Want to take your first steps onto Earth?"

And Clarke sucks up her strength and nods.

The green grass under her feet is softer than Clarke expected, used to the unforgiving metal floors of the Ark. The area they landed in is surrounded by trees, huge ones. Vines, covered in purple and yellow flowers, weave in and out of the trees, up the branches and along the ground.

And off in the distance, Clarke swears she could hear a birdsong.

Wells gently lays an arm on her shoulder. When she turns to look at him, his eyes are turned upward towards the sky.

"Your mom's still up there Clarke, my dad too. They're not dead, there's still hope."

Clarke's heart lightens a bit, and she lets herself smile.

The hopeful moment is interrupted by the girl sitting next to Clarke- Raven?- running up to the two.

"Clarke right? You're the healer's apprentice right? Kane asked me to come and find you, there were some people hurt, and he wanted to see if you could help".

Clarke steels herself, and nods.

Councillor Kane is a friend of her mother’s, but not one Clarke knew at all well. She remembers him as being a bit of a stuffed shirt, really uptight. Right now he just looks haggard, frazzled. He pulls her to the edge of a console, where he's set up the meager set of medical supplies they had.

"It's mostly minor injuries, cuts and scrapes, minor burns, but there's a couple broken bones..."

"I'll do what I can". Clarke has her adult face on now, one that always convinces them.

Kane casts his eyes down to the ground.

"Your mother was supposed to-"

"I know".

Clarke silently splints breaks and cleans wounds. There's a lot of kids in the group, the word must have gone out to the station the school was on first. Adults who stayed back to get things ready, and let the children touch the ground first. One of her patients is a boy a little younger than her with dark hair. He has a cut over his eye.

"This might sting a minute" she says before dabbing the wound with a cloth dipped in ointment.

He winces before commenting "At least being back on Earth should mean an end to that stuff".

"What do you mean".

"I'm Monty, my family ran the herb garden on the Ark. Whatever could have been saved from before the cataclysm? Most of it went to medicine, but there are so many things, plants, technology that we completely lost any access to. Better antibiotics, acupuncture, so much".

Clarke closes the bottle. "It's been a long time. How do we even know what's the same?"

"Either way, there's a whole world to explore. Every thing we had in space was categorized, organized, known. The unknown, my mom always said, that's where the true breakthroughs are".

A pale boy wearing a bizarre set of goggles breaks in, punching the other boy in the arm.

"I heard there's this cactus, that if you cut it open and drink it, will make you high as a kite".

The two cheer and bump fists, and Clarke rolls her eyes and moves on.

Her last two patients are a girl about sixteen and a boy a little older than Clarke. The girl has minor burns on her hands and arms from hitting the hot metal during landing. The boy seems unharmed, but is hovering. Clarke surmises that they must be siblings, and wonders where their parents are.

Clarke cleans the burna and wraps them. The girl winces a little.

"I know it hurts, you have to keep them clean. What's your name?"

"Octavia" the girl says, "This is my brother Bellamy".

Clarke's mind clicks. The Blake siblings. Everyone knew them. Aurora Blake had been gravely injured in a power main explosion, and Octavia had had to be cut from her mother's body before she died. Abby had said it was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. None of this changed the fact that they had no family to take care of them. They had been reluctantly fostered by several different families aboard section 17. Extra children, an extra strain on rations. Not to mention that their mother had been a laborer and left them with next to nothing. Octavia had been so small when she was born that she had been seriously ill for years after. Everyone talked about what a pity it was, but still nobody wanted them. Siblings had become quite rare in recent years, with increased pressure to limit population growth, and the two clung to each other as their only family.

Right now, Clarke tries not to resent the two.

"How did you two find out about the launch?" Section 17 was one of areas farthest from the launch zone. It was purely residential too, no personnel likely to be around before suppertime.

"We were still in the school labs, I got held after to finish my work, and he came by to see what happened" Octavia said, "We heard someone telling one of the teachers that the ship was filling up and we both bolted. We almost didn't make, but one of the women in front of us pushed us ahead of her".

Clarke bites her tongue. She's suddenly filled with anger, but she can't let it out. Neither of them had any way of knowing.

This gets interrupted when Kane comes back around.

"The plan was for the drop ship to land back on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se, but the descent was...messy. As far as I can tell, we landed somewhere in the Earth Kingdom forest. Our best bet is to start walking towards there, try to find somewhere defensible, to set up shelter and try to get in communication with the rest of the Ark. I've helped everyone gather all the supplies up. Is there anyone too injured to come with us?"

Clarke shakes her head "All walking wounded."

"Then help me get everyone together, and we walk until nightfall."

Clarke finds Wells again, and they guide the others outside of the metal confines of the Ark for the first time. There's maybe a hundred of them, as many young people as Clarke had noticed before, following Kane and a couple members of the Guard.

Getting everyone to follow Kane's lead is difficult. None of them have ever seen anything like this before. The only plant life on the ark had been potted and hydroponically grown, carefully cultivated and marked for food and medicinal use. Flowers were only found in books, trees a distant memory of someone's very aged grandmother.

Wells was the one who first pointed out the birds. Up high in the trees, none of them could see them very well, but they all still stopped to stare in amazement. Clarke squints up at it in the high branches. Something looks off, and she can't tell what.

After an hour or so of walking, the group finds a small stream. Clarke is frozen in amazement. Water was extremely precious on the Ark; rationed closely and only used for necessities. The stories from the Earth, whole streams, lakes and oceans of it, seemed a dream. She glances around, and it's clearly not just her.

Octavia is the first to break out of the reverie and races for the shore, strips off the shorts she was wearing and wades in.

Kane makes a move to stop her, but others have already followed suit, some jumping in as enthusiastically, others taking off their shoes and socks and wading gingerly.

When Clarke notices Wells peeling off his socks, she says,

"We don't even know what's in there".

Wells shrugs and keeps going. "This is the first good thing that's happened today, I say we take it."

Clarke stares as Wells enters the water, Kane comes up behind her.

"It would be a good idea to fill our canteens anyway. The filters in the caps should get rid of any contamination. We can't be sure if we'll still be able to keep following it for long".

And so Clarke takes a breath, takes off her shoes and rolls up her pants.

"You're the one who's going to have to get us all out. Hope everyone here listens to you".

But even Clarke becomes borderline giddy when she steps into the stream. The water is cool on her skin, but not cold, and walking in it is a sensation like she had never felt. Her limbs felt cushioned, and lifted up at the same time, as every little movement causes the water to flow and swirl. Her serenity is interrupted by Raven choosing that moment to splash her.

A half hour or so later and Kane finally dragged all of them all out of the water to continue their trek.

Later in the afternoon, Bellamy (who had been marching with the Guard in front) fell back by Clarke and Wells, and commented.

"Do you see that huts?"

"The what?" Clarke looks around, trying to find what he's talking about.

He gestures up into the trees.

"The people who lived in this part of the Earth Kingdom lived in huts built in the trees. They were easy to defend from animals, and soldiers during times of war".

"You know your history" Wells comments.

Bellamy shrugs, "I did okay in class. These ones look pretty dried out and run down, I'm surprised they're still here".

Clarke doesn't say anything, but she sees them again and again along the path. And further into the forest they get, the less rundown the huts look. Once she would have sworn she saw something move in one of them. But it must have just been a bird.

As the day continues on, some of the others complain of fatigue, and hunger. The sun is starting to set, casting the forest in gold.

Then finally, after what seems like forever, Wells notices a downed sign on the side of the path. It's faded with age, covered in dirt, but one of the guards brush it off, and it can be read.

"Path to Ba Sing Se, continue around the Great Divide, then through the Serpent's Path".

They're all relieved. This is proof they heading in the proper direction.

Kane and the others say that they should set up camp for the night. The packs contain collapsible rods and waterproof sheets to make makeshift tents, and blankets. The night is warm, and for that they are lucky.

"We will need to find more permanent shelter as soon as possible. The weather this time of year is unpredictable, and we will be exposed if a storm comes".

Clarke tosses and turns under her blanket, unable to let herself drift away, mind still with her mother and everyone else up on the Ark. How would they get through the atmosphere, as far as Clarke knew there was only one dropship, or they would have had more people on the ground already, there were at least 300 more people up on the Ark, no way of knowing if any of them were alive...

Clarke threw the blanket off. She should get some air.

When she climbs outside the tent, Clarke is surprised to see a figure kneeling by one of the trees.

A step or two closer, and Clarke realizes it's Octavia. She's holding...something in between the palms of her hands.

She steps on a twig, and the snap makes Octavia jump.

"It's OK, it's just me".

Octavia has her hands tucked back behind her back now.

"Don't scare me like, god."

"Why are you out here".

Octavia looks guilty for a minute, straightens.

"Don't tell anyone, alright? I figured out how to do this earlier".

She reaches out in front of her, takes a deep breath and blows.

The air between her palms gathers, and swirls in a barely-visible ball, resembling nothing more than a small moving cloud, before splitting and slipping out between her fingers.

Clarke's speechless. None of them had ever seen any kind of bending before, if watching Octavia was any sign, the stories could barely touch the reality.

“How did you-”

“I don’t know! I was in the water earlier, and could feel the breeze all around me, and it was like it all just...came up on me, like it was something I was meant to know.”

“Was your family from the new air nation? Before we left?”

Octavia shakes her head.

“I have no idea. We have no family, me and Bell- we don’t know where we came from. But doing this? It feels right.”

Clarke watches for a while, the swirling air blowing Octavia’s hair around her face.

“Aren’t you going to show anyone? This is kind of huge for us, proof that coming back to Earth is bringing us back to who we used to be.”

“I will! But I kind of want to keep it to myself for a little while.”

Clarke is a bit concerned, but keeps quiet, and eventually urges Octavia to come back to the tents for the night.

She lays awake for a while, contemplating.

The borderline serenity is violently broken when she is awoken by yelling.

Clarke bolts awake at the sound, the other’s seemingly doing the same. Kane and the few guards are nowhere to be found.

“Nowhere” turns out to be in the clearing, hands behind their heads, surrounded by people with spears and arrows, and yelling words Clarke can’t make out. More of them have marched behind the tents, forcing the rest of them out. The ground underneath them shakes, and Clarke and several others stumble.

The circle of people part, and a girl about Bellamy’s age steps forward. She has long, light brown hair and streaks of black paint down her face. She is barefoot, and when she stomps the ground, it shakes again and more people fall to the ground.

“Tell us who you are, and why you’ve come here”.

Chapter Text

Kane thankfully, seems to have more of a voice than Clarke does.

“Please, we mean no harm, we had no idea there were even any people still alive down here”.

The girl is flanked by an older woman with dark hair and deep cheekbones. She laughs.

“Ball of fire falls from the sky and the next day strangers show up in our forest. You could be scouts from the north, sent to draw us out.”

“Ball of fire?” Clarke blurts out, “That wasn’t a ball of fire, it was us! We’re not spies, most of us aren’t even adults.”

The girl studies Clarke with a steady eye, and she suddenly realizes only one or two of the group surrounding them even look Kane’s age.

“We’re the first evacuees of the ark launched by the White Lotus. We went to ground yesterday, and were following the path to Ba Sing Se to find shelter. We mean you no harm.”

There’s another voice, from a man off to one side.

“So the legends of the White Lotus were true...they saved themselves and left us all here to perish in the wasteland.”

The girl quiets him with a glare.

“If what you say is true, lead us back to where you landed. If you can’t…”

One of the others gestures with her spear.

“Search them for weapons,” she says to one of the others, “Any benders among you?”

There’s silence, then Octavia quietly raises her hand.

“What element?”

Octavia answers by using her left hand to call up a small breeze.

“You stay in front, behind me”,

Then she reaches out and with a twitch of her fingers snatches the ball of wind from Octavia.

Clarke slips her way to the front behind Octavia and looks at the girl askew. Wells is soon by her side.

He whispers to her,

“Did you just see-”

Clarke nods softly. She hadn’t been sure before, but now she’s certain that the ground shaking underneath them had also been the same girl who had just bent the air away from Octavia.

The trudge back the way they came is quiet, and with a frisson of tension.

Kane gently pushes his way to the front of the group.

“Since you seem to be in charge, can we at least know your name?”

The girl keeps her gaze straight and to the path.

“They call me Lexa”.

It’s near midday when they reach the crash site again. The metal monstrosity is a harsh counterpart to the overgrown forest scape. A scar upon the land.

One of the other women flanking Lexa, a tall, intense woman with short hair, steps forward to inspect the wreckage. She then returns to Lexa and nods to her.

A weight seemingly drops from her shoulders.

Lexa turns to face Kane.

“Where did you say you were trying to go?”

“Our instructions were to try and land near Ba Sing Se, to make preparations and try to make contact with the rest of our people”.

“You won’t make it to Ba Sing Se traveling through our forest”, Lexa says firmly.

“The sign said we could-”

“The one pointing to the Serpent’s Pass?” The high cheekboned woman- Clarke had heard Lexa refer to her as Anya- says. “That’s a hundred years old. The path collapsed in the cataclysm. No one comes from Ba Sing Se, no one goes either.”

“But there is an old ferry point further east. We will escort you, and some of our waterbenders may be able to get you across”.

The intense woman says, “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Indra,” Lexa replies, “There are going to be more people here soon. Something tells me it would be to our advantage to make allies rather than enemies.”

She nods, then gestures and says something to Anya, who turns and leads about half of the warriors back the way they came.

Kane and Indra take the lead over the rest of the group, and Kane quietly begins asking her questions.

Lexa slips back into the rest of the group. Clarke studies her as well as she can.

Suddenly, she asks, “It seems your leader doesn’t view me as an authority.”

A bit shocked when she realizes that she’s the one actually being spoken to, Clarke responds.

“Don’t take offense. You’re just a child to him.”

Lexa turns to her, studying her in the same way she had herself been earlier.

“I can’t speak to what it was like in the sky, but I think you’ll find the rest of the world cares very little if you’re young or not.”

Then she speeds up and returns to the front of the group.

Eventually the group stops, and Kane helps pass out the ration packs from the supplies they crashed with. They’re meager as it is, and he seems grateful when one of the Earth Kingdom warriors slips off and returns with a raccoon rabbit that her and the others roast.

Clarke sits with Wells and eats the carefully portioned package of root vegetables.

She opens her mouth to say something to Wells, when she realizes he has placed one hand on the ground, and is staring quite intently at it.

His eyebrows furrow, and then the ground gives way beneath his hand, twisting up under his palm.

Clarke’s eyes go wide. Wells lifts hand, stares at it for a moment, then looks back at Clarke.

“I guess it’s not just Octavia”.

“Do you think it’s being on Earth again? That it’s because of that we’re getting our bending back?”

“I don’t understand, “ Wells says, staring at his hand again.

“What?”

“My family’s Water Tribe. None of us even left the South Pole until after the Hundred Years War. Why am I an earthbender?”

Clarke is thoughtful for a moment.

“My grandfather was an airbender, he was the first bender in our family in many generations. But he was born in the Earth Kingdom. All of the new Air Nation came from other parts of the world. Maybe where you’re born doesn’t really matter.”

Clarke wonders what will become of the rest of them. The sky had no benders, but that was where they all came from.

They reach the edge of the bay by nightfall. The tents are set up again, but Lexa and her companions say they prefer to sleep in the trees, where they can keep sentry without being seen.

“Guess Bellamy was right on the money with the huts” Raven says, rolling out her blanket mat.

The moon is full that night, and Clarke stares up at it.

“Too bad we can’t see the rest of the Ark from down here,” Raven says, gazing with her.

“It would be nice to know if everyone else was ok,”

“They are Clarke,” Raven says firmly, “They have to be. They have to get to see this”.

The moon is reflecting off the water.

“Do you ever think about if you would have been a bender if you were born here?” Clarke asks.

Raven shrugs. “Never really gave it much thought to be honest. I don’t think anyone in my family ever was.”

Clarke doesn’t say anything else. When she tries to sleep, she keeps staring up at the tree tops where the others are sleeping and wondering what it must be like to have always known where you belonged on this world.

The crossing of the bay begins the next morning.

The waterbender who parts the bay for them is a tall, quiet dark skinned man who stands in front and leads everyone in a single file line, in a bubble through the water.

It’s like nothing any of them could have ever imagined. The younger children stand to the sides, oohing and laughing at the fish and eels. Octavia skips behind the man in front, using her newfound bending to make bubbles.

Clarke is in back, with Lexa and Kane. The water is a purer clearer blue than she could have ever believed. She can see all the way through it to the sea floor, and the light shines through the from the sky.

She reaches out to touch the edge of the bubble. The water is cool to the touch, and feels nice on her skin, chapped and blistered from the sun.

Then the same skin begins to tingle softly, and she reaches out to touch with both hands. A warmth engulfs her, and Clarke shuts her eyes, and pulls back both hands.

She can hardly believe her eyes, staring at the gently undulating liquid suspended between her palms.

Chapter Text

Clarke was so enthralled that she barely noticed when Lexa took the bubble from her, swirling it in a twist through her own hands.

“Might not want to do that while we’re down here”.

Clarke stares at the other girl, mouth agape.

“So, you’re really…”

Lexa laughs softly.

“You can say ‘the avatar’. It’s not like it means anything anymore”.

Clarke is momentarily too shocked to speak.

“What- how can you say it doesn’t mean anything? You’re supposed to bring balance to the world, to protect it.”

Lexa shakes her head again.

“I protect my people...and as for balance, I don’t think the world knows the meaning of the word.”

“But there must be something….”

“I think you’ll see the truth when you see what’s become of the Earth. My people follow me, but they certainly don’t worry too much if I leave. I may be the latest in a chain, but the chain is just another broken piece of the machine.”

She begins to walk faster, disappearing into the middle of the group.

Clarke slowly slips between Raven and Wells, who were close enough to hear the two’s conversation.

“Congrats” Raven says, nudging her with her elbow, “First new waterbender among us”.

Well Clarke stays quiet, Wells asks,

“You OK?”

“It’s just, the stuff Lexa said about the way the Earth is now bothered me.”

“Well if she was actually born into the Earth Kingdom, then she’s the fourth Avatar in a hundred years.”

“What?” Both Clarke and Raven are confused.

“Korra was a waterbender. The cycle is Water, Earth, Fire, Air. She’s no where near old enough to have been the very next one. “

“Maybe she’s not Earth Kingdom then” Raven says, “There’s all kinds of benders in the group, she could be from anywhere”.

Wells shrugs.

“Kyoshi lived to 300. Something tells me the life expectancy of an Avatar isn’t that long now. I can understand if that’s why she doesn’t think too much of her role.”

The conversation is interrupted by the bubble reaching the edge of the bay and all of them climbing back up the edges of the sea floor.

The area around the bay is desolate, no trees, no vegetation of any kind. They barely travel a few hundred feet, when the waterbender in front (one of the other adults had called him Lincoln) falls to the ground as if he had hit a wall.

“It’s the sandstorm!” one of the others yells. “We’ll have to go around it”.

The storm is at least thirty feet high and ends as sharply as a cliff. It’s fairly easy to avoid, but they can’t see how far it stretches.

“Can’t any of the benders control the storm?” Kane asks as they continue.

“Sand bending is a specialized art, it’s only masters once lived in the Si Wong desert. If they have perished, so has it.”

“Besides,” Lexa interjects. “This storm isn’t made by humans. It’s powered by the spirits within”.

“Speaking of” the long haired kid Clarke had spoken to yesterday pipes up, she thinks his name is Jasper. “Why haven’t we seen any of the spirits? The story we heard was that they had basically burst forth and taken over”.

“The parts of the forest they reside in, we avoid. It seems to work for both sides. Trust us, if you had come upon them, you definitely would have known,” Indra assures them.

Clarke stares through the undulating, half transparent blur that the is the storm. She can almost see movement within it, small dark figures of all sizes. The wind that comes off of it is warm, warmer than the rest of the ground.

The thin bayside turns to thin forest again. Soon past this point, the storm abruptly stops. The group turns, and they first see the remains of the Outer Ring of Ba Sing Se.

The once impenetrable wall is now a ring of rubble.

It’s truly a sight to behold.

“Can we at least make it through here?” Kane asks.

Indra nods sagely, and Lexa and the other Earthbenders step forth, and begin to try and clear a path. Wells steps forward, and makes some weak attempt to assist.

“I should take this time to ask you”, Indra says to Kane when they stand back and let the others work. “What are you hoping to find here?”

“There is equipment somewhere in Ba Sing Se we can use to connect to the Ark and give them our position. We’ve been able to ping it for years, but it’s never given us any kind of response, making us think it’s likely abandoned. But if we can find it, we can use it to give the OK for the rest of our people to try and get down to Earth.”.

“It’s all we have to let them know we’re alive”. Raven adds quietly. Clarke remembers she mentioned a boyfriend back in space. She’s only been able to continue by squashing down thoughts of her mom. Everyone down here has family and friends…

“We’re through” Lexa’s voice breaks through the conversation.

The make their way through the opening single file.

The wall opens up into what was once the Agrarian zone. Now, it’s completely empty.

Wells kicks the ground restlessly. It’s vaguely disappointing. True, they knew the world had been devastated but it’s still so strange. This whole area once supplied all of the city’s agriculture, all their crops and livestock were raised here, many of their products for trade. Now there’s no sign of anything, human, animal or spirit.

Without any kind of obstacles, the journey towards the Inner Ring is uneventful. Monty points out at one point they can see the track where the train used to run to enter the city. Unpowered for a century by earthbending, it sits baking in the sun. The only landmark in the sea of barren earth.

They reach the Inner Ring by sunset. It’s not as demolished as the Outer Ring, but it’s still rundown.

“This will take much longer to get through,” Lexa says, touching one hand to the wall.

“We should camp for the night, save up our strength,” Indra says decisively. Kane agrees.

There are no trees for the others to camp in tonight, so the two groups pool their supplies and make do. It’s not cold, it occurs to Clarke that they must have landed in summer.

She tosses and turns again that night. This insomnia is going to be a problem on Earth, she can already feel it. She’s not sure if it’s the open space, or the feel of the air, or what.

She sits up, grabs her canteen and moves out from under the tents. She opens the canteen, and with great concentration, manages to lift several bubbles of water from it.

“Not bad for a beginner”.

Clarke jumps, before turning to where Lexa is also sitting awake.

“You can’t sleep either?”

Lexa shakes her head.

“I don’t like sleeping on the ground. I keep thinking someone’s going to sneak up on me.”

“Is that something that happens much on Earth?”

She doesn’t respond. Clarke studies her. She still looks to be about Bellamy’s age, but seeing all of her, she seems older. Her skin is sun weathered, her eyes tired.

“I can teach you a little” she continues, out of nowhere.

Clarke’s eyes shoot open.

“Are you serious?”

Lexa nods.

“I learned earth first, then water. I don’t know too much about air or fire, most of our group are water or earth benders.”

“Have you learned from true masters at all?”

Lexa shakes her head.

“I’m not sure if any of them even survived. The air nation was small enough when…”

She trails off.

“But I know a little, of everything. “

“Don’t you want to though?” Lexa eyes meet hers, and suddenly Clarke’s cheeks burn.

“I mean, I do want you to teach me, whatever you know. But don’t you want to find masters of the elements? If you have the ability, don’t you want to learn all you can?”

Lexa laughs softly.

“I guess I do. Honestly? Before you all fell from the sky, I wasn’t sure I would ever get to leave the forest.”

She scoots on the ground, and reaches her hand out above Clarke’s canteen.

“Here, let me show you.”

Chapter Text

The work the next day is slow. The inner ring was built solid, so many years ago.

And Clarke can’t help but notice, standing back and observing, no one seems to have the skill or mastery that the people who built it had. Wells trails behind the group of earthbenders piling through the wall, tossing a stone here or a trail of dust there. He’s thrown himself into the fray, giving his newfound ability every bit he can.

Most of the rest of the group hangs back and watches. When the pile of debris begins to climb, Monty, and eventually one or two others, quietly step forward, hands raised towards the turned earth.

When Monty manages to raise a handful of dust, he turns to Jasper, and raises a fist in the air triumphantly.

“Looks like there are more earthbenders among us,” Raven comments.

Clarke doesn’t comment at first. She’s spent so much of the day quietly manipulating the pouchful of water she’s carrying, focusing on the abbreviated lesson Lexa had been able to give her the night before. Lexa’s now nearly atop the wall, leading the rest of the group, as she had always been told she was meant.

“Do you think you’re a bender at all?” Clarke asks her. Raven hasn’t shown any of the tendencies Clarke and some of the others have.

Raven shrugs, “I never really put any thought into it. Not even on the ark”.

“Really?” Clarke asks, astounded. The stories and philosophies of bending had been a huge part of schooling aboard the ark. The elders who had fled the earth, even those who had not been benders before, had nearly all been devastated by it’s complete loss. Many days in lessons they had as children spent wondering and debating about where they would have fit in.

Raven nods. “I always sort of thought of it as something from the past. That where we were- space- was the future. I guess I was wrong.”

“Before yesterday, we had never seen so much water in our lives,” Clarke comments, “But being around it- it was like it was part of me that had woken up from a long sleep.”

The two of them watch the group demolishing the wall.

“We never really had any sort of connection with the earth at all. No earth, very little water, recycled air. Fire was our worst nightmare”.

Clarke agrees. “We lost something when we went to space”.

Raven nods. “But for years I thought we had gained something too”.

The sun is high in the sky when the earthbenders finally shout that the wall has been breached, and Kane and Lexa lead the group single file into the remains of Ba Sing Se’s lower ring.

And it seems like the sun has been beating down on the rubble for all of the hundred years.

The houses and storefronts and businesses lay in ruins. Every here and there are remains of the mostly brown thatched roofs of the lower ring buildings they’d seen in their lesson books. The metal smokestacks lay twisted, and the ground has several fissures where pipes had been pulled up through the ground.

“Do you have any idea where we could find what you’re looking for?” Lexa asks.

Kane shakes his head. “The location of the equipment wasn’t exact. We will have to search the city”.

“That could take days,” Indra interjects, “And how can we possibly find our way amidst all this ruin?”

“There”, Wells shouts. He’s standing a bit away from the group, pointing. “I can see the remains of the old train tracks. We can follow them.”

Lexa agrees. “If we follow the tracks we should also be able to find the streams that ran into the city. We will need the source of water.”

It’s easy enough to get to the tracks, parts of which are still intact high above their heads. Navigating the remains of the streets is hard to do in a group, so they fall back single file again.

“I wonder if one of the trains is still around somewhere”, Wells asks. “We could still run them, there are more than enough earthbenders here.”

“The entire track would have to be rebuilt,” Raven points out.

“There would also have to be something to travel to,” Lexa adds. She’s been walking in front of them, not talking, and the sound of her voice still makes Clarke jump.

“Does anyone know what’s beyond the ruins of the city?” Clarke asks.

Lexa shakes her head.

Clarke notes however, that the world does seem to be fighting back. The trees and shrubs between the buildings have for the most part continued to grow. They have stretched and broken their pots and raised beds, and begun their own paths over and around the remains of the buildings.
The few buildings still standing they search extensively. There’s not many. A house or two, a tea shop, a couple of what appear from the fallen aged signs, to be butcher’s shops.

In one house, they find a wireless set that Raven takes with her, but nothing resembling the receiver they seek.

Lexa and the others pilfer anything they can find in any condition.

“I’m amazed no one’s sacked this place already.” Wells comments.

“You saw how hard it was to get past the wall, and the sandstorms. And we haven’t seen any other people at all”. Clarke replies.

Close to the end of the day, they come to a cross of the paths of the train. The stone structures here are still intact, and the landscape when they pass it completely changes.

Suddenly, all the ruin is gone. No building remains, no plant life at all, no signs of the remains of the world. The ground is bare, with a chalky gray tone to the dirt.

“Wha-” is all Clarke can get out while the other’s gawk until Lexa explains.

“We call them scars”.

“They are the damage caused by the behemoths”. Indra adds

“The robots that started the cataclysm?” Wells asks. “What have they done to the earth?”

“Drained it, deadened it. Where they lingered or fell, the earth has never recovered. There’s one further south in the forest, and we’ve heard tell of others. Bear it no mind.”

They continue, but Lexa’s expression is pinched, pained.

The sky when they camp for the night is clear. Clarke once again, finds herself lying awake, staring up. She is also once again joined by Lexa. It’s a strange arrangement to be sure, but Clarke’s become fond of the other woman, and seeks to understand what’s behind her eyes.

Right now they’re staring up at the stars.

“Could you see the star better in space?” Lexa asks.

“Not really better,” Clarke says, slowly, “The perspective was different. They didn’t seem closer- the measurements say they weren’t really- but they were all around, in all directions. It felt more like we were part of them”.
“I always wanted to see more of the world,” Lexa admits. “You were right, when you said I should want to learn from masters. I always have wanted to. But every time I got a little taste of exploration, it ended badly.”

“When you talked about the scar earlier-”

“The kids in the forest used to play chicken with the one south of it. Dare each other to see who could get the closest to it, could stay there the longest. There’s a piece of the machine itself in the one, part of a hand the size of a house. Costia- she was the girl who was best at it, none of the rest of us could get close to her record.”

Lexa’s face changes.

“Then one year, she started getting sick. Her hair fell out, her skin developed burns and blisters, There was a group of others who came through the forest at that point, and one of the older women panicked when she saw her. Said whatever she touched was poison, and if we touched it it would all spread. It didn’t take long to realize what she meant. Costia died not long after. We never went near the scar again”

Clarke pulls out her canteen. Lexa’s face- she looks close to tears. Clarke is desperate, if not to make her feel better, than to at least bring her mind to a better place. She pulls the stream from the skin.

“Can you show me the sinking and floating bit again?”

Clarke sleeps easier that night, but the whole group is woken up early by Octavia yelling.

By the time she wakes, everyone else is surrounding the girl, who’s shaking. Bellamy has his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her dad.

“It must have just been a bad dream,” he says, insistent.

“It wasn’t a dream” Octavia yells. “I saw someone, just across the street. He was all pale, and stooped. I think he heard me yell and then fled”. She points.

Everyone turns and stares into the space. Clarke feels a chill up her spine. There’s absolutely no evidence that they’ve found of anyone still alive in the city but them, or any way there could be anyone else surviving in the ruins.

But before the rest of them return to their rest, she notices Lexa tapping her foot on the ground, muttering to herself.