250 word drabble: Leave it Behind

Written for avatar_500 prompt #28, Free.

Summary: The release isn't what Hama dreams of.

Leave it Behind

She turns her nose up into the wind and sniffs in the salty sea air, and...

The Firelord himself came himself to oversee their release.  He looked nothing like she would have imagined, standing there, short, scarred, and sullen, closed off enough that it was almost possible to believe he felt something at seeing them like that.  But most of all, he was a callow, puling, little boy, and...

The others are wrecked.  They stare out over the ship rails from hollowed out eyes and hold their arms close to their chests.  They don’t bend.  Their eyes follow the captain and crew around, their faces carefully blank.  Their feet creek on the wood all around her as they scuttle out from underfoot, and...

But she is whole.  She is whole because she’s stronger than they are.  She’s changed, but she’s not ruined, and...

They don’t even believe they’re going home, not really.  But she doesn’t have to believe.  She knows.  And she knows it’s full of people who remember how to fight and...

~*~

The plank comes down onto the ice.  The waterbenders shuffle down, blinking, stretching, and smiling.  She waits.  She wraps her robe around herself and folds her arms under the cloth, and...

She glides down the ramp at her own pace, on her own time, and she hides her smile behind her hair.  When her feet hit the ice, she looks up.  Katara looks back at her.  Hama didn’t remember her, and...

And Katara raises her hands.

And...