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loopy777Rating: Teen
Beta: Lavanya Six. Without her, it would have been a much weaker tale.
Summary: After they met the Avatar, but before their leader Jet would encounter Zuko in Ba Sing Se, something happened to break the Freedom Fighters up and send them out into their world. This is the story of their last battle, and their last moments as friends.
Art:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
victogt
Prologue
An old man led children through the land of the dead.
The forest of Gaipan had burned down decades ago, and many parts of it still had not recovered. Certainly, grass and small brush had returned to the lands, feasting on the nourishment hidden in the dry ash, but the massive trees that had once characterized the region were all gone. In the colder times of the year, the Gaipan Forest had once been famous for its sea of reds and orange that had stretched as far as the human eye could perceive.
Now all that was left were a few dull stumps, standing like tombstones beneath an empty sky.
The Old Man- for that was what he inevitably came to be called wherever he went- led the children through the reminder of devastations past. He leaned on a tall walking stick, left unshaped and unstained, the one piece of healthy-looking wood in the entire province. He was dressed exactly the same as the children; in a mix of colors and odd articles of clothing that were past their prime. However, the Old Man carried himself as though he wore a dress uniform from a great nation’s victorious military, somehow standing tall despite a bowed back.
The children trailed obediently. They trusted the Old Man without question.
Too bad he wasn’t so confident in himself. “Hm, I think this is the right way to the river. I don’t recognize this place at all, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been here before.”
The children nodded. That made perfect sense to them.
The Old Man kept walking, while the line of children stretched out behind him. The Old Man’s slow pace exactly matched the youngsters’ trotting, though whether it was by nature or design was long past discernable. He kept glancing behind himself at the line and so noticed when one of the children, a tiny girl, stopped to stare at something in the distance. “Hold up, little ones.”
He ambled over to where the girl had taken up station. “What has young eyes so enraptured?”
“What’s that?” She pointed into the distance.
“That? Hm, give me a second to focus. That? That is… Hm. Ah.” The Old Man was still for a long moment. “Well, I suppose that’s something you can be allowed to see. Come. Come, all of you.” He led the children to the object, his feet automatically finding the long lost path, his stride surer and quicker than usual.
The object was a moss-covered slab, roughly as thin as the girl who had spotted it but twice again as tall. It was very crudely shaped, any smoothness marred by random facets. There might have been writing carved on the front. When the Old Man reached it, he touched it with a gentle caress, before falling to his ancient knees and weeping.
The children murmured to each other. They had never seen an adult cry before, but then, they didn’t know many adults.
It wasn’t long before the Old Man got control of himself again. “Do you want to know the story of this stone?”
Tiny heads nodded.
“Well, long ago, this land used to be a forest. I remember it being a very big, very nice forest. The leaves were beautiful. There was a war going on, just like in the stories. Bad people wanted to rule the world, and good people fought to stop them. Some of those good people lived in this very forest, and they made fools of the bad people, attacking them and then disappearing like ghosts into the leaves. They called themselves the Freedom Fighters, and they became legends. But all stories have an ending, and this one was sad. The worst of the bad people came and burned the forest down. The Freedom Fighters gave the fight of their lives, but they couldn’t win, and soon enough they started dying. By the time the forest had burned to the ground, the Freedom Fighters were no more. This stone is to memorialize the best of them, the ones who died as heroes.
“This is how I remember the last stand of the Freedom Fighters…”
THE BEGINNING...
Beta: Lavanya Six. Without her, it would have been a much weaker tale.
Summary: After they met the Avatar, but before their leader Jet would encounter Zuko in Ba Sing Se, something happened to break the Freedom Fighters up and send them out into their world. This is the story of their last battle, and their last moments as friends.
Art:
victogtPrologue
An old man led children through the land of the dead.
The forest of Gaipan had burned down decades ago, and many parts of it still had not recovered. Certainly, grass and small brush had returned to the lands, feasting on the nourishment hidden in the dry ash, but the massive trees that had once characterized the region were all gone. In the colder times of the year, the Gaipan Forest had once been famous for its sea of reds and orange that had stretched as far as the human eye could perceive.
Now all that was left were a few dull stumps, standing like tombstones beneath an empty sky.
The Old Man- for that was what he inevitably came to be called wherever he went- led the children through the reminder of devastations past. He leaned on a tall walking stick, left unshaped and unstained, the one piece of healthy-looking wood in the entire province. He was dressed exactly the same as the children; in a mix of colors and odd articles of clothing that were past their prime. However, the Old Man carried himself as though he wore a dress uniform from a great nation’s victorious military, somehow standing tall despite a bowed back.
The children trailed obediently. They trusted the Old Man without question.
Too bad he wasn’t so confident in himself. “Hm, I think this is the right way to the river. I don’t recognize this place at all, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been here before.”
The children nodded. That made perfect sense to them.
The Old Man kept walking, while the line of children stretched out behind him. The Old Man’s slow pace exactly matched the youngsters’ trotting, though whether it was by nature or design was long past discernable. He kept glancing behind himself at the line and so noticed when one of the children, a tiny girl, stopped to stare at something in the distance. “Hold up, little ones.”
He ambled over to where the girl had taken up station. “What has young eyes so enraptured?”
“What’s that?” She pointed into the distance.
“That? Hm, give me a second to focus. That? That is… Hm. Ah.” The Old Man was still for a long moment. “Well, I suppose that’s something you can be allowed to see. Come. Come, all of you.” He led the children to the object, his feet automatically finding the long lost path, his stride surer and quicker than usual.
The object was a moss-covered slab, roughly as thin as the girl who had spotted it but twice again as tall. It was very crudely shaped, any smoothness marred by random facets. There might have been writing carved on the front. When the Old Man reached it, he touched it with a gentle caress, before falling to his ancient knees and weeping.
The children murmured to each other. They had never seen an adult cry before, but then, they didn’t know many adults.
It wasn’t long before the Old Man got control of himself again. “Do you want to know the story of this stone?”
Tiny heads nodded.
“Well, long ago, this land used to be a forest. I remember it being a very big, very nice forest. The leaves were beautiful. There was a war going on, just like in the stories. Bad people wanted to rule the world, and good people fought to stop them. Some of those good people lived in this very forest, and they made fools of the bad people, attacking them and then disappearing like ghosts into the leaves. They called themselves the Freedom Fighters, and they became legends. But all stories have an ending, and this one was sad. The worst of the bad people came and burned the forest down. The Freedom Fighters gave the fight of their lives, but they couldn’t win, and soon enough they started dying. By the time the forest had burned to the ground, the Freedom Fighters were no more. This stone is to memorialize the best of them, the ones who died as heroes.
“This is how I remember the last stand of the Freedom Fighters…”
THE BEGINNING...
