Some of you probably noticed I'm not answering reviews in authors notes anymore. It's not because I care about 'artificial word count' or how it looks or anything. I just felt like changing it.

That being said, those of you who know me also know that I give out special prizes for the 500th review I get on any given story! And since we're getting pretty close here, I thought I'd just remind everyone of that ^^'

On ANOTHER NOTE some of y'all make it really hard not to grab you by the shoulders and yell 'I'm doing it on purpose!'

Her ears rang. High, blocking out everything else. Smoke rose from the stone. Jet laid a few feet away from where he was before, a little crispy but already fighting to stand.

The sound in her ears blocked out everything else, and darkness crept in at the edge of her vision. It didn't stop her from catching a glimpse of the red, red, red of her hand.

She didn't feel it, but she could see. Mangled and torn, bone sticking out in odd places. Her ignition had not called lightning, it had combusted, energy destroying what lay before her.

Jet struggled to his feet, swaying an unsteady but alive, blessedly alive. Lien pulled her hand towards her, shock, adrenaline and a probable concussion dulling the pain. The world swam before her, shadows and darkness and too much light at once. All of the fire fled her body at once, leaving her cold and empty, standing on hollow legs while her lungs struggled to fill once more.

The door burst open and in flooded allies, cornering Long Feng. Her attack had caught the stone halfway between Jet and the only adult present and he was equally stunned, but equipped with less back u thanks to Toph. She really was the best earthbender in the world.

It took all of Lien's strength to stand tall, watching Long Feng face off against the others. Her friends? No, perhaps not. Certainly not. He managed to call for more backup and agents descended from the ceiling falling like horrible spiders that drew stones with them. The Dai Lee leader tried to flee but Lien stepped forwards. Her knee almost gave out from under her but she used the momentum. Her destroyed hand smeared blood all across her yellow tunic but stayed in place while she twisted her body, using her weight to throw her other arm up. Fire should have erupted from her palm and shot out, snaking across the earth to curl a noose around Long Feng.

Instead, a few sparks fluttered from her palm and vanished into the air. It felt like the last of her energy fled and the only thing that kept her upright was the timely arrival of Sokka, who, somehow, always seemed to have her back.

She couldn't hear what he was saying, but she could read the panic on his face. She patted his cheek with her good hand.

Long Feng escaped. Unfortunate but it was fine. Jet was alive.

Lien didn't look at him, she couldn't. She had to stare at the floor, focus entirely on putting one foot in front of the other while Sokka guided her out of the compound. They were surrounded. Lien knew she should fight but all the fight had left her. She felt like a shell, just the echo of the ocean ringing in her ears.

It the broken through, at last, by the roar of a sky bison.

Lien looked up, staring wide eyed at the massive creature that descended from the sky. She had halfway forgotten what Appa looked like it had been so long since she had seen him. His big eyes met hers and she started to smile, even as he tossed earthbenders around like they weighed no more than flies. It was awe inspiring.

Sokka shepherded her onto the sky bisons' saddle. She sat on her knees, her broken hand still bleeding heavily into her chest. There was no saddle, just soft fur the stained with the same red as her shirt. Sokka wrapped an arm around her middle, holding her in place when they took off. Lien was grateful, even if she didn't say. Cool night air ruffled her hair and they flew off, into the dawns breaking light. Pink and violet streaked across the sky, lighting their way to a small island in the middle of the Lake.

People around her were talking but Lien was more concerned with breathing deeply and the fact that she was starting to feel the pain of her hand.

It hurt. A lot.

She'd broken bones before. She'd cut herself. She'd burned herself. None of it compared to having her hand completely mangled.

Finally, Sokka pushed her shoulder and brought her eyes up. Her face was starting to turn red.

"Yes?" she asked at last.

"Katara's going to heal your hand," he pointed to his sister. Lien stared at her. The girl wouldn't look her in the eye. She kept stared a little to the right. Eventually, Lien held her ruined hand out. Blood splattered on the dirt underneath her.

Jet gagged. Katara paled.

"You know, sometimes I'm glad I can't see," Toph said abruptly.

Lien started laughing. It began small, but it turned hysterical in a few seconds until her shoulders were shaking and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Katara finally knelt at her side, summoning water to her hands. Lien watched, admittedly curious while Katara used the water to carefully mend her hand. The broken bones popped back where they belonged. Slowly, muscles and tissues pulled back to their original places. The skin was the part that hurt the most. It felt asleep and too awake at once.

"This is weird," Lien said slowly. "Also kind of cool. Why is waterbending the only one that heals? That doesn't make sense. It is because the body is seventy percent water? Is it because of the vacuole in the cell? Why can't earthbenders heal when there's so many minerals in the body? Hey, Toph, have you ever tried to heal someone?"

She looked away from her body healing to look at the worlds greatest earthbender, who turned her vaguely towards her. Toph's version of staring.

"Nope. I mostly throw rocks at people."

"I figured. But, firebenders can bend lightning so we should be able to heal to. I can mess around with chi but that's as far as I've gotten. I should try new things more often."

"...Are you feeling okay?" Smeller Bee finally asked.

"Huh? Yeah. I'm on shock. It's a really fun drug. I should destroy my hand more often."

"Please don't," Katara said. It was the first thing she'd said to her since Lien had left all those nights before.

"Wow, Katara, didn't know you were that worried about my health," she said dryly. The shock dulled her sense of, what was it called? Empathy? For other humans beings? "I'll be less bitter in a few hours," she added.

"No, no, this is fun," Toph objected.

"While you guys are joking around," Sokka interrupted, "We need to figure out our next move."

"MY next move is hopefully gonna be making a fist," Lien said helpfully. Sokka turned his back to her, face tilted to the sky and she started giggling again.

Sokka wandered away, mumbling to himself.

As soon as Katara was done healing her she fled, giving Lien space to her own. All to her own. She looked around her. Gathered together was Jet, who was still a little charred, Smeller Bee and Long Shot. They were staring at her, though Lien didn't have it in her to really care beyond the realization that Smeller Bee had the perfect hair for flower crowns, and that she hadn't made a flower crown in seventeen years. Katara, Sokka, and Aang were all discussing what to do next. Leave or stay? Find the King or go to war? Appa and Momo sat together, joined at the hip. And Toph-

Flopped down next to her, sitting on her hands.

"Hey. Your face looks really soft and so do your hands."

Toph snorted. "You sound like Sokka did after he drank cactus juice."

"I haven't seen any friendly mushrooms," she objected. Toph stiffened beside her but Lien was too busy to notice. "You know sometimes I think I say wise things so I seem smarter than I am. Is that pretentious? I don't know shit. About me or anything else. It's just speculation and hoping it won't blow up in my face. Didn't work this time," she added, flopping back on the stone beneath her. The morning sun warmed her skin, growing lighter from the time she'd spent inside lately.

"What were you even trying to do?" Toph asked. A rock moved back and forth before her, rolling slowly into a perfectly spherical marble. Lien wondered if she could get Toph to help her with some sand stuff. Sand stuff? Glass stuff? Could Toph bend Glass, since it was really just melted crystals? Or did that go along with Lava Bending?

"Lien?" Toph elbowed her and she looked up, startled out of her thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, I dunno. I think lighting, I was thinking of lightning but honestly, I was mostly going on instinct. I didn't care what happened, as long as it kept Jet and that rock apart. If it hit him, he would have died."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jet sit straighter and the other two stare at her, wide eyed.

"Lighting didn't happen though. I don't know if I can lightning bend period. But, apparently combustion bending is on the table. Boom boom." She fell into laughter again.

Birds began to sing with new hope, but for some reason it sounded more like a song of farewell.

They dropped Lien off at her shop. The Freedom Fighters went with Aang and the rest to see the Earth King, leaving her to sleep. Which she did, on the floor the second she was through the door.

Sleep didn't seem quite right. A coma was more accurate.

She didn't dream or walk into another world. She didn't think of shakespeare or the future or pink elephants. She was out. Gone.

By the time she finally emerged out of it a day had passed.

She still felt cold. It was the sort of cold that didn't come from the temperature outside, but the one inside. The kind of cold that came with flus and aches and hurts. She was cold from the inside to the outside in a way she had never been before.

Perhaps that was why, when her door was thrown off of its hinges and bits of glass and finery she had spent so much time on was thrown off of it's hinges she was too slow to fight back. Unable to throw fire or create walls or even run when the dark dressed men invaded her shop, her home, the sanctuary she had built with Smeller Bee and Long Shot. Both of whom hadn't looked at her when they'd dropped her off.

She was a child of the desert. Heat was her strength, but she could summon none of it when the stones caught around her wrists and throat. Her endurance was her strength, her spine was straight and her pride reared when she was shoved to the ground roughly.

Bruises started to form. She was lifted and soon as Lien was brought eye level with her capture she turned her burning eyes upon him and spat in his face. He punched her so hard the world swam again and someone shoved a bag over her head.

Lien was bundled up and dragged somewhere where it was cold. No light filtered through the thin bag and the men who took her, the Dai Lee, did not speak while she was moved from her home to her prison.

They did not speak as she was shoved roughly into hard stone, her head bouncing again from it. She heard people moving, speaking, someone shouted. She couldn't make the words out. Something hit her head again and the blackness changed. No longer the darkness of not seeing, but the darkness of not being awake and aware of her surroundings.

A soft scraping sound made her try and pick her head up. Small paws appeared before her. She lifted her head so she could gaze upon Peter, who had come to stand before her. He seemed to glow ever so slightly in the darkness of her mind.

He whined at her, his tail wagging slowly in hope when she slowly sat up.

"Hi," she said, reaching towards him. The silver around her wrist flashed in the low light he emitted, Illumination. She never had figured out quite what it meant. Still, it was pretty and seeing it made her smile.

She stood, brushed her pants off and trailed after Peter. The darkness parted and they walked into one of the long hallways of the great library that she loved so much. She was glad for it. She needed someone to talk to, and she could think of no one better than Wan Shi Tong, he knows one thousand things. Let him one thousand more, for she had many beans to spill.

They found him in a study room he kept. A green fire blazed in the corner, sending off unnatural lights over the papers meticulously spread about over the tables, desks, and even posted against the walls alongside scrolls and piles of heavy books. In the middle of it all was Wan Shi Tong, the great owl perusing a new text with great interest.

Lien left Peter's side and immediately pushed herself into a mass of black and white feathers. If he was surprised by her sudden hug, he said nothing of it. Just hugged her back.

Finally she pulled away from the soft embrace.

"There are things I need to tell you," she began slowly. She looked up at his bright eyes, full of curiosity and interest.

"What manner of things?" he asked slowly.

Lien took a deep breath and sat on the table before Wan Shi Tong. Her hands were shaking. She was less cold, here by the fire. "Things about life. Things about death."

Hours or years or seconds found Lien curled up by the green fire, breathing in time with its flickering while Wan Shi Tong wrote her tale into fresh scrolls in a language long forgotten. He took down all she said and by the ned up it he was silent, curious, and fascinated. Lien was honestly surprised he wasn't upset with her for keeping the truth from him, but as he said, 'You brought no harm with your secrecy, and you did tell me in the end'.

"This does explain quite a bit though," Wan Shi Tong said at last, finally setting his paint brush down so the ink on the page could dry.

Lien lifted her head towards him. "What do you mean?" she asked. The heat had seeped into her skin, lifting her spirits and some of her energy as well. The weight of truth had been given up, offered freely to her friends and now she felt lighter, freer. Secrets were a heavy burden to bare alone and she had had so many these last few weeks.

"It explains why you're not treating Katara like a real person."

Lien sat up slowly, her attention focusing on the great owl.

"I'm not sure I understand, will you elaborate?" she asked carefully. He wouldn't say something like that with no reason.

"She could have killed you. Likely came very close. Your own cousin did less than that and you struck him. Yes, with this girl you took blame upon yourself when she was equally at fault for what happened, and never apologized to you. You're empathy with her has overpowered your own limitations and self respect. You're not treating her as a person with flaws. You're treating her like she's still your childhood hero who attacked you."

"And if my hero attacked me, it must have been my fault," Lien murmured. She stood slowly, her legs more steady under her. "You- you really are rather wise, master owl," she smiled at him half heartedly.

"Of course I am," he puffed his chest feathers out at her.

Lien smiled warmly at him. "Can you help me return to my body? I have a fight to get into. With my childhood hero."

Peter appeared in the doorway, his teeth bared in a grin that she mirrored. Wan Shi Tong huffed.

"Go with caution. You may know what awaits the avatar and his friends, but your own fate is a mystery."

"Yes," Lien agreed. "One I'm excited to solve. Peter, lead the way."

She followed her friend back into the dark, a spark in her soul and a fire in her eyes.