She'd slapped him. With her water arm. That apparently had iced ends. And no, no it hadn't been pleasant, whatever any dumb fucktard would say. Ghazan knew, oh boy, he knew what pleasure was; and it wasn't having ice breaking against his face. Actually, it fucking hurt.

But what hurt him a tad bit more was the dark look she'd thrown him, before stomping away. Psh. Who knew that a little girl like her could make so much noise.

He hadn't paid too much thought to Ming Hua's anger at that time. For all he knew, she'd get over it in a week or so. Then, she might actually want to look at him again. Oh, well.

That could have worked if they'd have had a week.

Ghazan didn't want to be a sap. Hell, he knew he'd never be a sap, but sometimes, he couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd looked at him that one time. And he knew that that was the beginning of a quite unhealthy obsession. Still, there wasn't much else to do when confined to three square meters of wooden space, on a wooden island of sorts, in the middle of the fucking sea, he figured sometime in his first year of imprisonment.

At first, he'd thought he'd manage to break out in no time. Really. It would be no problem whatsoever. Ghazan schemed, made plans, thought of the countless possibilities of escape that no doubt existed. All he was waiting for was the opportune moment, he'd tell himself. Then, he started counting the days until it came.

He stopped counting sometime after the first two years and a half.

He couldn't sleep. Why the fuck was the sea rippling so much? Couldn't he get one good night's sleep? He'd asked one of the guards for some ear covers, just to see what the idiot would do.

After asking some fifteen times, the guard finally moved and threatened to gag him if he made another sound.

Ghazan started laughing.

He'd tried once to bend the sea floor out of boredom.

The damn thing was too far away.

Ghazan had never been over-active. He was the lazy sort, and had never liked being over-zealous or hyper. But this was getting out of hand. He started stomping around his cell in the middle of the night just to wake up his guards. He couldn't even stand straight there. The ceiling was too fucking low. But just because he couldn't sleep didn't mean the pigs should snore themselves to death.

When confronted with it, he smirked and told them snoring could lead to serious heart diseases. His next meal came sometime the following week.

He'd given up on that one, too. After weeks of pointless fasting, they said they'd sedate him. Psh. At least, he'd be able to sleep then. He had half a mind to tell them that.

In the end, he never did.

Ghazan didn't think he'd been that bad a prisoner. Really. He hadn't been violent. Trying to make small talk with those stone-hearted people didn't make him a bad man. Psh. If only their hearts were made out of stone…

He'd imagine he would learn how to wood-bend. Though luck, mate. At that time, everything and anything seemed a good idea to alleviate the boredom. He'd already gotten used to the idea of prison. The hope for the coming to the 'opportune moment' and the anxiety that came with it had long since settled down. Sometimes, time seemed to stop. Days didn't even go by. The fuck? Maybe he's been taken to some other weird-ass dimension. Spirit-bending didn't work, so the Spirit World was off the list. Psh. What other dimensions were there? Maybe –

Nope, that was a dangerous train of thought. There weren't other dimensions. Anyways, it would have made Ghazan feel a lot better about himself, if he'd remember some fancy-as-fuck quote about madness.

He didn't.

After calming down, Ghazan often thought about his friends. Were they just as bored as him? He tried picturing and guessing in which places they were being held.

Zaheer could be literally anywhere, and that was just plain unfair. Lucky bastard. He was probably off somewhere with a nice view, meditating about his usual philosophical shit and boring his guards to death with Guru Lalala's quotes. Poor idiots. Ghazan was almost sorry for them.

P'li would be somewhere cold. Guarded by giants. Frostbitten giants. That was the only possibility. She was definitely at one of the Poles. Maybe Unalaq would break her out. Who knows. There was only one question to be answered, though.

Where the fuck did they get the giants from?

Was he the only one who got boring guards? Oh, the guards and the sea. Monotonous and never-changing. Always rippling against the wood of the make-shift island. Was that the bitch's way of cackling? Psh.

He knew that not all the water cackled maniacally, though. Ming Hua's water arms were always moving and never made that annoying sound. Oh, midget Ming Hua. He'd called her that once, and she'd socked him in the face.

Ghazan didn't feel bad about teasing her that day. Did that make him a bad man? Ugh, the horror. Although, he had to admit, telling Ming Hua that her pansy of a lover had broken up with her because she didn't want to hug him at his mother's funeral had been a bit too low, even for him.

But all's fair in love and war, so it was alright. It hadn't even been the worst he'd come up with over the years he'd known her. And crashing ice in his face hasn't been the worst thing he'd gotten from her as a result.

Her totally ignoring him had hurt more than her punches on more than one occasion.

Where would she be? What was she doing? They'd never had any time. Ghazan couldn't remember his last days of freedom. They were a big, chaotic and colorful blur. The entire concept of freedom seemed so fucking foreign, now, that all his world was brown and blue and full of salt.

After many sleepless nights, Ghazan finally discovered that exhausting himself physically was the best thing he could do. It wasn't even that hard, at first. He was tremendously out of shape and the prison diet wasn't helping either.

In the end, anything and everything was better than the boredom that clinged to his wooden walls.

One night, after a particularly hot and tiresome day, he'd already given up on sleep, and was waiting for the sunrise, he'd discovered the stars.

Sap, he thought. Of-fucking-course he knew about their existence and the fact that stars were kind of beautiful, but that didn't make the discovery any less surprising. Although he had to move around the floor of his cell in order to see some of them, the stars were making some pretty intriguing patterns. They were far prettier than the faces of the fucktards guarding him, anyway.

He recognized some of the constellations: the Dragon, the Sky Bison, Avatar Kyoshi and there were so many others he'd heard of but had no idea where the fuck they were or what they looked like, so he couldn't be that sure about them.

The guards found him awake that morning, staring at the glowing sky.

Truth was, he'd finally found himself an occupation worth his time. He didn't remember the longest he'd gone without sleep, because he'd watched the stars. They were mesmerizing. He didn't have to fear the madness consuming him if he was watching the stars. He didn't have to think, or feel, or care about the outside.

He only had to look, and that was enough.

He hadn't felt so peaceful for a long time. It was weird, being so … free? He hadn't one care in the entire world. What world? There was nothing to care about.

Ghazan counted and recounted them. He never remembered their exact number. He always forgot it and started anew, knowing he'd missed at least ten when reaching the other side of the horizon. There was nothing else that mattered, except him and his stars.

Realizing he'd named each star should have been the first warning shot. He hadn't cared.

Deciding that he didn't like the names, then changing each and every one of them should have seemed disturbing. It hadn't.

What woke him up was the fact that he'd mixed up the names of the stars. Why? Because it obviously hadn't been the same star. Terror struck him cold and true as he realized that time had passed. How much? How little? How many weeks, months, years?

Panic flooded him next. Trying to reason with it didn't keep it at bay. Touching his own face and feeling it foreign was another hit. Since when did he have a beard? He'd never wanted a beard. Beards were awful and itchy. Also, it was hard having it look good.

Why the fuck did he care about looking good in fucking prison? In his desperate flight out of the crawls of madness, had he fallen in her slimy hands?

Breathing didn't help it. The guards' snoring was as loud as ever. That fat bitch outside still rippled noisily. Was this silence? Then why was it so loud, deafening even. Why did he feel like drowning? This feeling, would it ever go away? With the sunrise? Would the sunrise even come? What time, month, year was it?

Why the fuck was he so desperate?

Ghazan looked up at the sky, feeling as if it was revolving around itself, then around him and stars were no longer dots, but lines, were they comets? – no, they can't be, they're circles, why was everything a circle? There should be light, but there wasn't any, the sky wasn't supposed to be so close to him, it wasn't supposed to be falling - was it even falling? Yes, he thought, far too calmly for his own good, the sky is collapsing over my head. Then everything turned black.

Opening his eyes for the first time was confusing. Fresh, sea-scented air came to his lungs in a rush, almost making him gag. Surprisingly, it wasn't completely unpleasant; it was quite refreshing. The first time he took a breath when being born probably felt that way. Huh. It wasn't like he remembered it, anyway.

What he did remember was the feel of water hitting his face. A wave had crashed to the borders of his make-shift island, some spray reaching him. Ghazan felt the small, lukewarm droplets of sea on his now quite gruff face. He smirked, not remembering the last time an impact with water had been gentle.

He'd heard the rain coming before he felt it. The sea stopped cackling, as if finally answering his age-old plea. Quietly, almost shyly, the mistress whispered tales in his ears, her stories being so clear and true, that Ghazan almost felt sorry for cursing her. Looking up at the grey mass above him, he found himself staring the sky, searching for the places he knew his stars lay. For a moment, his eyes widened, then he threw an-honest-to-god smile. It dawned to him that the sky was as impossibly high as ever, and he felt content with himself for what felt like the first time in his life.

Humming some half-forgotten song to himself, he closed his eyes, reveling in the sensation of raindrops tumbling down his chin and cheeks, slightly dampening his hair. His brow no longer scowling, Ghazan laid on his back, looked through the ceiling of his cell and started laughing. It had never felt so big.

Oddly, he remembered Ming Hua jumping around in the rain. Honestly, when was the last time he'd thought of her? Time had pretty much lost its meaning to him.

The midget had a knack for synchronization, and her tippy-toes would touch the ground at the same moment with the rain drops, the sounds almost covering each other, making him unsure whether he'd heard the water or her feet hit the slippery ground. He'd been unnerved and she'd observed it, a self-satisfied grin transforming her previously stoic face. She was barefoot and tiny and she'd embarrassed him, so, as to maintain his already shot dignity, Ghazan had huffed, telling her she had to make up for the lack of arms somehow.

Feeling particularly satisfied with himself for this come-back, he'd noticed the irregularly big puddle rising behind him a teeny bit too late, the boiling water colliding painfully with his skin.

Growling with supposedly self-restrained pain, he'd scowled at her, her smirk ever present and a victorious look in her glowing eyes. Her chin raised defiantly, she hadn't seen the stone ground under her feet turn to mud only after it had collided with her face. Or rather, her face had collided with it. Take your pick.

With a short squeak, the water bender had lost her footing and fell face-down in the mud puddle Ghazan had set out for her. He'd started laughing merrily at her loss of balance, priding himself with the fact that he'd somewhat taken her out of her element.

Oh. Her element. Shit, he'd thought, as the rain morphed into a claw and the claw suddenly strangled and pulled him into the mud bath. Said mud bath turning into a battlefield and the ensuing mud fight had not exactly been the fairest thing in the world. That, and they'd given a whole new meaning to "fighting dirty".

Near the end of it, he could remember that she'd somehow, through the very sick sense of humour of some very sick deity above, ended up in his arms. In probably the most inappropriate way he could manage, Ghazan had kicked her off, seen the mud dripping of her oh-so-pretty tresses of black hair, had lost himself in the cold anger in her even colder eyes, anger laced with (dare he say?) amusement and challenge of more than one sort, because this had been the best fun she's had in ages, and told her to keep her hands to herself, the innuendo dripping from his words much like the mud from their faces. Oh, and he'd almost missed the opportunity to take a jab at her.

Ming Hua wasn't one for displays of emotion. She was young and sour and bitter, everyday pleasantries as worthless to her as manicure ideas and hand cream. She was all wit and no play, dancing by herself and dreaming alone in the dark. Ghazan had expected another hit, another boiling wave, he'd been tense and waiting for her reaction.

But she hadn't even minded it, her grin had turned feral. "Only if you keep yours first." She'd turned around in all her grace and midget glory and left him open-mouthed and stupefied at the very notion of her response.

The guards gathering around his cell, alarmed, to say the least, about the way the oh-so-depressed prisoner was laughing himself to death and paying no attention what-so-ever to their loud cries, the rain completely blocking them out. Perhaps madness had finally crawled in his arms.

Eventually, the rain had stopped, leaving room for dark, velvety skies and curtains that somehow didn't feel as restricting as they should have. Or as they had before. Ghazan felt that the burden that had pushed him towards despair no longer restricted his breathing. That unbelievably heavy thing had stopped bullying his heart, the damn thing beating its way into oblivion.

The stars above him twinkled funnily, seeming merry. There was no way around it, he guessed. If this was madness, he was more than happy to embrace it. It was as if he'd suddenly remembered that there was more to his world than wood and sea and crappy fish food. The clouds at the edges of his horizons were proof of that. There was more than this. He'd seen it with his own eyes; the world was huge and full of bizarre things. And maybe, just maybe, these things would serve him right.

He won't grow old and lose that silver of hope. He will hold on it as hard as he could, knowing there was no other thing keeping him alive than that. He'll live to give the stars at least another thousand names, and shave that god-damned bitch of a beard, and take lots of baths that had no rain water and meet them again and liveand laugh alongside them. That, and see her angry eyes again.

Only after that will he grow old and die. But not a drop of time sooner

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see your ugly mugs again."

A/N: hello again!:)

this is a mostly ghazan prison fic, because i just love him that much and he deserves more attention. what with his fab hair. ahem.

also, this is mingzan. everyone needs mingzan. they just haven't figured it out yet

thank you so much for reading! have an awesome day :3

disclaimer: obviously, i don't own anything. ming hua, ghazan and ghazan's fab hair belong to bryke.