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“Lin—”
“—I will not calm down, Su!” Lin snapped, pacing back and forth. Cracks had formed on the ground where she walked and small earthquake tremors shook the surrounding area. “My son is missing! And no one knows where he is!”
“Lin—”
“—And the last time anyone saw him, he was getting blasted off the side of a cliff by that three-eyed bitch! She deserved exactly what she got after what she did to my—”
“—LIN!” Su yelled, cutting off her older sister. Lin paused, turning to face Su, about to snap again when she noted the determined look on her sister’s face. Su walked forward, grasping her sister’s shoulders with her hands. “We’re going to find him, Lin. We’re going to find him.”
Lin nodded curtly, but her lips still trembled at the thought of her son. Alone, injured, worse—no, she couldn’t think like that. She wouldn’t let herself think like that. Riku needed her, and she would not let her son down.
“Mom,” Nara called, walking over. Kaori trailed behind, guiding Oogi over by his reins. “We want to help look for Riku too.”
“No,” Lin stated without hesitation. She walked over to her daughters, her signature ‘Police Chief about to order people around’ look about her. “You two are staying right here. Where I know you’re safe.”
“But Mom—”
“—No,” Lin repeated immediately. Though when she caught her daughters’ expressions, she softened her stance. “Come here, you two.” Kaori and Nara rushed forward into her arms, hugging their mother tightly. “I need you two here, to look after everyone. An airship should be here soon with healers and medical supplies. I need you two to oversee that.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Lin pulled back, studying her daughters for a moment. “Where’s Aishi?”
“With Dad. She refused to let go of him,” Kaori reported, glancing over at where the injured were huddled.
“Good. He could probably use someone to keep his spirits up.” Kaori and Nara nodded in agreement before Lin squeezed them both into a hug again. “I love you two. Look after each other. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
Lin released her daughters from her grasp before turning to Oogi. Su climbed up onto Oogi’s back while Lin settled on his head. She gripped the reins, her knuckles turning white from the force of her grip.
“Come on, Oogi. Let’s find him,” Lin spoke quietly, staring ahead. “Yip yip!”
All Riku felt was pain. His entire abdomen felt like it was on fire, like the blast P’Li had shot at him was just radiating up and down his whole body. His clothes were still smoldering from the residual fire, and he didn’t have the energy to blow them out.
He didn’t know up from down, left from right, or anything other than that fact that even the slightest movement caused sharp pain to envelope him again. Groaning, Riku tried to peel his eyes open, to try and find a way to gather the strength to sit up and look around. Finally, he managed to open his green eyes. But he was not comforted by the sight in front of him.
No, the crawl of lava heading straight towards him was certainly not a welcome sight.
Riku tried to get up but yelled out as he turned his stomach the wrong way. “Dammit!” he growled out, his fingers digging into the dirt. “Come on, Riku,” he told himself, trying to summon the energy, or perhaps just the adrenaline, to stand. “You’re a Beifong. Beifong’s don’t just lay down and die.”
Gritting his teeth together, Riku yelled out again as he got up on his knees. He used his airbending to float up to his feet, though the action quickly had him stumbling. He looked around for his staff, but when he couldn’t spot it, just started to limp off without it.
“Beifong’s don’t just lay down and die,” he repeated to himself, wrapping an arm protectively around himself. He tried to fight back the pain, but every step he took seemed to be its own battle. And he was clearly losing.
He managed up a slight ridge before the pain got to be too much. Riku swayed on his feet before his eyes rolled back into his head. He fell forward and laid face down in the dirt. The lava continued to creep away from the destroyed temple and towards Riku, whose head lolled to the side.
A group of baby sky bison flew down moments later, circling around him. They licked at his face, trying to rouse him, but Riku didn’t respond to their calls or licks. They shared squeaks and groans with each other before two took off to fly higher into the sky.
Lin was starting to grow really frantic.
She directed Oogi to fly low to the ground so that she and Su could easily jumped down and search for Riku. But they still hadn’t found him. Lin wasn’t sure if she was even breathing anymore as they continued to fly around.
“Where could he be?” she whispered out desperately, pleading with every spirit that she could think of to spare her child. “Where is my son?”
“Lin, look out!” Su warned suddenly. Two baby sky bison swung down, nearly knocking Lin off of Oogi’s head. “What are they doing?”
Oogi growled in annoyance at the two babies, who chittered a response back to him. Something must have registered with Oogi, because he suddenly dove down, following quickly after them. Lin and Su had to hold on tight for risk of falling over the side.
“Oogi,” Lin called shakily, but Oogi groaned back at her. Lin couldn’t speak sky bison, but she trusted Oogi. And Oogi seemed to know what he was doing.
“What’s going on Lin?”
“They know. They know,” Lin gasped, a hopeful look reaching her eye for the first time that whole day. Oogi groaned again as he circled towards the ground. Lin looked down frantically before she spotted a patch of yellow and orange on the ground. “Riku!”
She didn’t think, she just jumped.
The lava trickled up the path, slowly encroaching on Riku. But before it could reach him, Lin landed in front of him. The ground dipped, absorbing her fall, before Lin sprung back up. Bending a column of earth up, she elevated her and Riku away from the lava. Swinging her arms back, she moved them further up the side of the hill.
Oogi landed in front of them as they reached the crest of the hill and Su slid off his back. Together, the two sisters earthbended a deep crevice to catch any lava that managed to spill up to their position. Once she was satisfied that they were safe from the lava, Lin turned to inspect her son.
“Riku. Riku, honey,” she whispered, shaking his shoulder slightly. Her eyes hardened when she noted the burns on him, but she prevented herself from causing another earthquake with her temper. “Riku, can you hear me?”
“. . . M . . . Mom?” he groaned out, barely managing to crack open his eyes. But the sight—albeit a very blurry one—of a familiar gray-haired metalbender allowed him a small relief. He managed a tired half smile, which brought some tears to his mother’s eyes.
“Shh, I’m here now. I’m here,” she assured him, resting a protective hand on his shoulder. “I’m here, Kuku.”
Lin stood silent and stoic as the healers conducted their diagnostic scans on Riku. He was laid on his back on a cot while the healers bended water up and down his body. If his chest didn’t rise and fall in the slightest way, he could have easily been mistaken for a corpse. Lin tried to not vomit at the thought. Completing their checks, the head healer bended the water away from Riku before turning to Lin.
“His burns are quite severe on his abdomen, and he’ll have a scar for the rest of his life, but he’ll make a full recovery in a few weeks.”
“Thank you,” Lin replied, though her stoic stance didn’t lessen. The healers moved to wrap Riku’s abdomen in bandages and to apply salve for his more severe burns. Su squeezed her sister’s shoulder reassuringly, causing Lin to turn to her sister with emotion clear in her eyes. “Thank you for helping me find him.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Lin. You’d do the same for me in a heartbeat.” Lin nodded in agreement before the sound of a crash in the hall caused the two sisters to look away, confused, but still on edge.
“Master Tenzin!”
“Dad, you should be laying down!”
“I’m fine, Kaori!”
“Master Tenzin!”
“Nara, honestly—”
“—Dad, you’re going to fall over!”
“Daddy, you’re hurt!”
“Master Tenzin!”
The door burst open with a gust of wind. Tenzin nearly fell over, as his daughters had warned him about. But Lin was right there to catch him with her strong and steadying arms. Kaori, Nara, and Aishi stood behind him, along with a rather concerned-looking healer.
“Lin,” Tenzin breathed out, still clearly exhausted from the fight with the Red Lotus.
“Tenzin, you should be in bed. You’re going to hurt yourself again,” Lin sighed, helping him stand up. She stepped under one of his arms and Kaori moved to do the same on his other side.
“I had to see him,” Tenzin replied, staring over at his son, who was still unconscious.
“They’re dressing his wounds right now,” Lin explained, sharing a look with her husband. “They said he’ll make a full recovery once he rests properly.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Aishi sniffled, tears clearly forming in her eyes. Nara hugged her younger sister, trying to put on a brave smile.
“Of course, he’s going to be okay. It’s Riku. He always manages to pull through,” Nara stated confidently. Though anyone who bothered to glance over at the young airbender could see her own tears forming.
“Maybe we should—” Lin started to say, wanting to keep her other children in as high of spirits as she could.
But she cut herself off when Aishi broke away from Nara’s side and scurried over to her big brother’s cot. The healers had moved away, completing their duties, before they left the room to give the Beifong family some space. Aishi climbed up into Riku’s bed, being mindful of his bandages, and burrowed into his side like a baby badgermole.
“Come on, there’s an extra bed here. You need to lie down too,” Lin told her husband, before leading him towards the extra cot in the corner.
While Lin, Su, and Kaori helped Tenzin over to the cot, Nara walked over and sat on the other side of Riku’s cot. Tenzin laid down, the exhaustion of the day hitting him once more. Su excused herself to go check on her officers, before making her exit. Lin grabbed Tenzin’s hand and gave it a squeeze while Kaori took her seat on the end of Tenzin’s cot.
There was a breath of silence that fell over the usually rowdy Beifong family. Riku was still passed out, and Aishi hadn’t moved from her position. Nara was trying to subtly hide the fact that she was crying, but Kaori moved over to comfort her sister, hiding her own tears. Tenzin and Lin were both trying to remain strong, but their hearts were still in their stomachs.
They were alive. They were going to be okay.
But they had been so close to losing it all.
And that thought terrified Lin like none other.