Sometimes, even the best laid plans just don’t work out.

The Invasion of the Black Sun failed. Hakoda all but pushed his children and the Avatar on Appa to safety so he and the rest of his warriors could surrender to the Fire Nation.

Unbeknownst to him, his own son is looking for him, but in all the wrong places, never realizing he and his men have been shuffled around like cattle and spread across the four winds until a ‘lucky’ few survivors landed here-- Boiling Rock, an isolated metal hellscape surrounded by steaming, curdling water; sure to peel the skin off of anyone dumb enough to attempt escape.

Hopefully, this tactical surrender was buying the kids time.

Hopefully.

Tui and La, if the guards constantly coming in for ‘check-ins’ on their prisoners, the constant bickering between fellow inmates, and the ache of festering wounds and bruises didn’t keep him awake enough, then the thought of his children never reaching safety, shot down in the air while they were fleeing by some trigger-happy soldier on a war balloon did.

Today, as every other day for the last miserable couple months of Hakoda’s life, he sat slumped against the hot, sticky stone wall, wrists bound in iron cuffs. Torchlight flickers across his face, illuminating the deep lines etched by too many hard times and too much worry.