A Thousand Suns
Futuristic AU.
In a world where bending is only allowed to be used by the aristocratic class, and the title of the Avatar is little more than redundant, four teenagers begin to uncover secrets about themselves and the only world they've ever known.
Possible Makorra.
cover image credit to dCTb
prologue
To be the Avatar automatically means to be a god in this time of corruption and war, even though the title of peace-keeper has lost all its meaning and substance since the Avatar Rong Yuen of the Fire Nation slipped into the realm of the Spirits. Most of them could not even bend the four elements anymore, like the Avatars of the old myths were said to have the ability to do; a so-called "Avatar's" average lifespan these days was disgustingly short, as one assassination after another blazed through the upper rings of Republic City. The name carried nothing more than rank and wealth now.
For as long as she could remember, Korra had been able to contort water into glistening, ever-changing coils of liquid; could lift rocks into the air with a fair amount of concentration; could produce short, sputtering and sporadic bursts of orange flame at will.
Never a gust of wind, though. The thirty or so airbending descendants of the supposed last airbender of his time, Avatar Aang, were scattered far and out throughout the entirety of the Four Nations. None of them even came to Republic City's Air Temple Island anymore. Korra would be rather hard pressed indeed to find one of his sons or daughters to teach her even the looping, graceful forms of the discipline.
She knew that her older brother, Nanuk, who had been her guardian for the past ten years since their parents died, blamed Aang's descendants for not having come near Republic City for the past three decades or so, because both of them knew that Korra was without a doubt the true Avatar. It wasn't as if Gan Lee, the current self-proclaimed Avatar of the moment could do much more than lift a few pebbles from the earth. And there hadn't even been an airbending Avatar since Aang. (Everyone seemed to have forgotten about that.)
Korra didn't share Nanuk's sentiment, though. If she were an airbender and had the choice between staying away from this hellhole of a metropolis and teaching an Avatar airbending, she would steer as damn far away from the city as she possibly could without a second thought.
People still told stories about the old Ba Sing Se, even though it was burned to the ground in a siege that took place more than five centuries ago. They talked of the soaring walls the legendary city was well-sheltered in, tucked neatly away at the very heart of the Old Earth Kingdom. They talked of its rich wares and splendid stuffs that were simply not found in the Four Nations nowadays.
And they talked of the iron grip that the high elite of the city choked its inhabitants with, prohibiting free speech and will, all throughout the space within the great walls, executing or changing those who dared to speak out against the injustice.
Really, it shouldn't even matter.
But Republic City is the new Ba Sing Se.
History, you see, has an uncanny tendency to repeat itself.
end notes | you know, i really should be working on my other story. but i'm not, and now the korra archives have to deal with this accidental fart. ._. i will endeavor to finish this before i get kicked out of the fandom...