Author's Note:

This story is the sequel to my previous story, The End of Hope. You could probably read this story without having read that one, but you will be very confused, and probably horrified by what's happened to all the characters. So, I highly recommend you read that story before starting this one.

Also, I'll be changing the formatting of this story a little. I will now be giving a title to each chapter, and I will no longer announce the names of characters when the POV shifts. I have several reasons for this, the foremost being to reduce confusion, and the second to build suspense(because I'm sure the odd formatting in the last section of The End of Hope tipped some of you off to a twist).

Chapter One

There was not a prison in the world that could hold Toph Bei Fong, and she knew it. The only question was how she was going to go about it with a Dai-Li agent stationed at her door every minute of the day.

"Your dinner," the agent sneered as he set the metal tray down on the floor and slid it under the bars. From what Toph could tell, this was the youngest member of the Dai-Li she'd ever encountered. No more than fifteen, probably closer to fourteen, given his quick temper and lack of discipline. Probably got stuck on guard duty because no one trusts him guarding the royal family, she thought, grinning. She slid over to the tray and retreating to the back of the cell with it. The smell of rice and dumplings filled her nose, a richer meal than a prisoner of war ought to expect. Toph suspected her status as an Earth Kingdom noble, minor though it was, afforded her some protection from the horrors of prison, some small measure of comfort. Stupid of them. They're setting themselves up for failure.

Her guards didn't know that, of course. She'd been very careful not to metalbend in the presence of the enemy. Even when it could've helped her in the palace, she had refrained from metalbending, unwilling to display her secret technique in full view of the Fire Nation.

It was futile, she reminded herself for the thousandth time. There were too many of them. Even if Katara hadn't been. . . There was no chance.

But now there was. She had memorized the guards' schedules in the two weeks she'd been here. She knew there would be a changing of the guards within the hour, now that they'd fed her dinner, knew that the mass of people gathered thirty floors down in the mess hall would soon don their uniforms for the night shift and wander to their posts. She knew she had to escape within this hour, before the more experienced guards replaced the fledgling Dai-Li brat who'd been charged with the evening shift.

She shoveled rice into her mouth and let the dumplings tumble half-chewed down her throat. When she was finished, she stood up and strode over to the iron bars. "Hey!" she yelled. "I've got to go to the bathroom!"

The older guard—an ordinary soldier staying within the Fire Nation due to a mild limp in his left leg—groaned in annoyance, while the young Dai-Li agent turned and faced her, freckled face glowing bright red. "You just had one an hour ago," he argued.

"And I need to go again." She stomped her foot and kicked the metal tray out from beneath the bars, holding back her metalbending in favor of brute force. The youth mumbled something incoherent and pulled his key ring out of his shirt pocket. Toph listened to the distinct jingles as his keys shifted, colliding with each other. With a sharp movement of her fist, she crushed the keys into a solid lump of brass and coiled the warped metal around the boy's wrist.

"What the hell?"

Toph felt the vibrations as the other guard jumped to his feet. She stomped with her left foot, focusing on the shards of earth contained within the metal into more solid particles. The floor rippled as the movement traveled across it. Half a second later, a coil of metal wrapped around the soldier's weak foot, pinning him in place. Toph did the same with the young boy, tripping him first so she could pin him down more thoroughly. She didn't think he was smart enough to realize what she'd done in time to retaliate, but she wasn't stupid enough to take the risk.

"Guards!" the kid squealed. Yeah, that's right, go crying home to Mommy, Toph thought, grabbing the bars of her cell and pulling. These were harder, made up of some durable alloy to create an inflexible cage. It took her almost ten seconds to bend the bars far enough to slip through, and by then, more guards were rushing toward her.

"Not today," she whispered, throwing herself against the wall and letting a thin layer of metal peel off and wrap around her body. Armored, she charged for the oncoming guards. Two of them took firebending stances, while the rest moved their various weapons to strike. Toph felt the heat of the fire tear through her makeshift armor, felt the beads of sweat forming between her skin and the hot metal. She used her metalbending to balloon out her armor, keeping a layer of air between her skin and the steel. The pocket of air didn't conduct heat as well as her malleable armor. Toph tackled one of the firebenders, running him down with the sheer speed of her assault, then continued down the narrow corridor, straight for the exterior wall.

She didn't even slow as she exploded through the metal wall and into the sulfur-scented air outside the prison.

In the South Pole, there was a phenomena called the Long Night. It occurred every year, in the deepest part of winter, when the winds would howl and the snow would fall in thirty-foot drifts over any unprotected patch of permafrost. The Long Night was at once a sacred occurrence and a terrifying one, but for those who survived it, the sunrise that followed was the most beautiful sight in the world.

Sokka remembered those sacred sunrises, the first brilliant streaks of crimson in the sky as the glowing orb rose from the horizon for the first time in days, shining for just a few minutes before descending again. Ever since he'd been old enough to remember these critical sunrises, some tiny fragment of optimism had formed in him, balancing out his natural pessimism. There would always be a Long Night in the South pole, but there would always be another sunrise.

As he stared through the open slot on the metal door of his cell, he wondered how long it would be before the sun rose for him. Soon, he told himself, a promise he'd been repeating over and over again since he'd regained consciousness in the medical ward. Very soon.

A female guard walked in front of his cell, pushing a cart full of food in front of her. Still wearing her helm, she picked up a metal tray and brought it closer. Sokka saw a small smile grace the woman's lips as she lifted a key to unlock the door. "Good morning, Cayenne," he greeted her, grinning with much more cheer than he felt.

Her smile widened, and she nodded back a greeting. "Sokka."

"What do we have for breakfast today?"

She handed him the metal tray, then set a small piece of chocolate pie on the edge, next to the first one. "Always thinking with your stomach, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "Hey, what if there's a prison riot? This could be my last meal."

Cayenne giggled, exactly the response he'd been going for. He'd always been a natural with the ladies, and while he'd met some resistance when he'd first arrived at the Boiling Rock, there were a few guards who'd taken to him.

"Have you heard anything about Suki?" he asked after a moment.

Cayenne lost her smile. Sokka had first run into Suki in the yard a few days ago, once he'd been declared healthy enough to leave the hospital ward. Their first meeting had consisted mostly of excited exclamations that drew too much attention from the guards. They'd exchanged tales of what had happened to each of them. Suki and the rest of her Kyoshi warriors had been ambushed by Azula's band prior to the fall of Ba Sing Se, after helping Appa(separated from their own party at the time) recover from a nasty scuffle. In response to her tale, Sokka had told her about getting separated from Katara after Aang had been killed, and his subsequent training with Zuko's old sword master, Piandao.

He made no mention of Ty Lee except that she'd defected from Azula's group since attacking the Kyoshi warriors, and that she was likely dead after the failed invasion attempt.

Cayenne spoke, dragging him back to the cold reality of the prison cell. "She's the same as usual."

"Still in isolation?" He tried to keep the worry out of his tone. The guards liked his sarcasm, not his emotion.

Cayenne shrugged. "She tried to stab another inmate. There's nowhere else for her to go."

He nodded slowly, letting the words wash over him like cool water. "For how much longer?"

"Well, it's her first offense, so probably only a few more days."

"Okay. Thanks for the pie, Cayenne."

The guard smiled again, a faint flush seeping into her cheeks. "Anything for you, Sokka." She waved and closed the door, moving on to the next cell. Sokka sat down with his tray and began eating, finishing off one slice of pie before digging into the rice and vegetables on the tray. They were spicier than he was used to, but bland by Fire Nation standards.

He missed his sister's cooking more than he could've possibly imagined.

He missed the first sunrise after the Long Night.

He missed the fleeting feeling he'd gotten in his chest when Ty Lee had kissed him on the island.

The sun must rise again, he told himself. The sun must always rise, no matter how long or cold the night.