Disclaimer: The following is a non profit fanfic. I don't own Avatar the Legend of Aang nor Legend of Korra for they are property of Nickelodeon and Michael Dante DiMartino, Brian Konietzko and Aaron Ehasz. Please support the official release.
This is my third fic and again it is not from a previous fandom used by me. This story had been lurking in the corners of my mind since the first season of Legend of Korra ended... to be honest, when Tahno appeared there I wanted to write a fic but I waited for the end of the season to not make foolish mistakes.
As you know my native language is Spanish, so if something sounds strange is because of that. I made the characters to speak in a Cajun-like manner because according to the wikia the people of the swamp talked like the people from the Mississippi Delta. I watched the original series in latinamerican dub so that's the reason of it being inaccurate.
This is product of a Sunday without internet a lot of spare time and a hyperactive mind so this might be really silly.
Pilot
This is the tale of two children; both of them were from the Water Tribe and both of them wanted to fulfil their parents' expectations.
The older one was from the people of the swamps, his father was a rich man thanks for his wife family. The name of this child was Tahno.
They lived in a town called "White Falls", the only years he remembers to be happy were the ones spent at his mother side, she was a woman from the Fire Nation and was warm as the element she controlled. His looks were inherited from her, from the fair skin to the wavy black hair and the same was for his delicate features.
They were the perfect portrait of a family; a devoted husband who was the commander of the local police force, a beautiful wife who took care of her family and a happy son who loved both from the bottom of his heart.
But all changed the day a strange illness struck his mother.
First, her skin became hard and wrinkled as if it were made of paper and after that a strong fever plagued her for months. Even after calling a waterbender healer she didn't showed a change in her health for the water that touched her skin evaporated immediately.
And so, one day her body produced a small fire that she couldn't control and it engulfed her consuming her body. Nobody could extinguish the flames and this way, a firebender was burned to the bone by the element she used to tame. All this happened in front of her son's eyes and said event would mark his life forever.
The day Haruka died was the last time Ziktadukta laughed from the bottom of his heart and the same happened to Tahno, whom world became narrow and dark. He lost his mother at the tender age of six and his father buried himself in the bitter arms of liquor and gambling.
The fortune of her mother was taken by her relatives because of his shameful behaviour along with his fancy title and now they were in debt with almost every bank of the Foggy Swamp.
When this boy discovered his waterbending abilities his father was really proud, there hadn't been a bender in their family for almost a century. The last one had fought in the Hundred Years War but couldn't return alive from the last battle against the Fire Nation; when he died, the techniques of their family did the same.
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In the Northern Pole Water Tribe lived a woman, she knew the ways of a healer and was the owner of a school to teach her techniques.
One day, after returning from a hunt, she found a man buried in the snow. Looking at his features, she knew that he was from the Fire Nation. She healed him and with the help of the hunters that were with her, she carried him to the closest police station.
Said man was interrogated by the military police, he told them that his ship sunk in the sea after a big storm and he was the only survivor. After a week the pieces of his ship drifted to the shore and with them some bodies of the crew.
He couldn't return to his homeland until another ship was available, but it was the time for the storm season and so he was stuck in that foreign land. The healer offered him shelter in her home, with her family and he accepted. For the mere time they spent together she fell in love with him and both consumed their love.
But when he was needed the most, he vanished. That night he left her two gifts: his pendant and their child.
She was pregnant and soon it became impossible to hide it; her family disowned her and expelled her from their tribal land. Her only choice was to take the money of her school and leave the North Pole; her destination was the house of another relative who had been eraser from the family book like her, he lived in a place far away from her home called "White Falls" and was a very well known waterbending teacher.
He welcomed her with open arms and there she gave birth to the product of her short love, a child she decided to name 'Iwatake' for its meaning was 'snake' in the old language of the water tribe and that was the crest in the memento of the father of her child.
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Eight years have passed since the healer Pahukumaa, arrived to the south and now, along her uncle, she teaches again the ways of a healer; and four years have passed after the strange death of the female firebender.
Tahno's father decision for his son to learn waterbending techniques in a particular school surprised him a little, they were poor and even he had to leave his school to work at a drugstore, both pay for their modest life style and his father addiction. He was happy for having his father interest focused in him and not in a bet table of a pub only if it were just for a moment.
The school for waterbenders of the old Mowanza wasn't one of the most renowned in the Foggy Swamp lands, in fact it was all the contrary but after his niece moved to the area many good healers were now part of the pride of the institute.
The place seemed to be like any building but with a sign indicating that it was a school. Tahno arrived with his father, who took him by the hand and was in a hurry to leaving him there, he carried a bag with part of their savings.
"It seems dat for the first time Lady Luck is starting to look at our side, don't you tink son?" the voice of his father was soft and full of optimism.
"Ah hope to fulfil your expectations, father" the boy answered almost automatically, sometimes his father busted into wrath without an apparent reason so he learned to be a passive person.
Both of them had modest clothes and were the ones a fisher man would wear for it was the job of his father. Their pants were tied in their knees, their robes had no sleeves and they wore only sandals; the predominant colour of their attire was dry green and almost brown because the cloth was already old and decolorized.
They were quite a sight, a local man with a boy who everyone could think was from the Fire Nation ─if not for his eyes─ with elegant features, and both were so poor that the appearance of this boy paled for his garments.
The whispers of the people were always almost the same: "Maybe his wife cheated on him" "Ah don't think so; she was a rich woman from the Fire Nation so he took her mother features, after she died her husband sunk in alcohol and gambling debts"
"Ah remember dat he was the former commander of the police, who would have thought dat a man of the law could fall so down" "What a shame for a beautiful boy to be born in a disgraceful house, he will grow up to become a gigolo"
Even if Thano didn't understood half of the things they said about them, he wanted them to stop the rumours. He knew that his father held his tongue and fists for it might cost him his job but that was what he wanted to change, the pain of his father inflicted by these people.
When they entered, the Northern Tribe style received them. Tahno was amazed; it was decorated with fountains and many fish tanks, in the walls were hanging some animal fur with paintings in them. The essence of water was emanating from that place as if it were made of ice.
"Welcome to the school of Mowanza the waterbender, what brings you here?" asked a woman who seemed to be a receptionist.
"Ah'm here to inscribe my son to dis school, where should Ah go to make it official?" the man moved the sack with metallic coins to make evident that he had money to pay for their services.
"Please follow me to this direction," she bowed a little and guided him to his destination.
"Tahno, sit over dere Ah'll be back in a moment," the man pointed to sofa in a corner and his son sat there.
The young waterbender waited for his father in the lobby but soon he started to wander around the place. He was a curious boy by nature, his childish adventures by challenging his parents and escaping to the centre of the town ended some years ago but this place was really interesting. He blended with a group of children that seemed to been entering to a class so he 'took' his place in the classroom.
Maybe this way Ah'll actually see how a waterbender controls water. He had never seen a bender of any kind in real life only by the transmissions from Republic City TV of the Pro-Bending match celebrated there.
His new state as one of them was still a mystery for the only hint of him being a bender was that a thief's feet were stuck in ice the exact moment he was trying to stop him from robbing a bottle of sake, after that his tea could be freeze before he knew it to the point of becoming almost a Popsicle. Said signals ─unusually enough─ weren't ignored by his father; that day his eyes shinned for pride, or that was what Tahno believed.
The class started and he ran to the last row behind a tall lad securing that he couldn't be seen by the teacher in the front. Their instructor was an old man; his attire screamed that he was from the North and so his movements. They were fluid and elegant, as if he were the embodiment of grace itself.
The new waterbender started to imitate his movements without daring to control the water that was put in the recipient in front of him, he wasn't really secure about his abilities and if some kind of accident happened, his charade would be discovered. He was starting to take the rhythm the man wanted them to have when something or better said, somebody cached his attention.
"Are ya new here? Ah haven't seen ya before," a deep childish voice talked at his right side.
Oh crap! Tahno stopped his movements and turned slowly to see the person who spoke to him.
He found them to be a child younger than him with a big grin without some teeth, amber eyes and dark skin; his head had the sides almost shaved and his black hair in the top was tied in the same manner of the man in the front, which he supposed to be a traditional hairdo of the northern people. The unknown child was almost the same height of him if not even slightly taller; his attire was almost the same of the teacher with the only difference of his robe not having the sleeves and his pants having a style alike of his own.
"Sorry for interrupting ya, it wasn't my intention, uncle always scolds me for bothering his students," this sounded like a rushed apology, for his voice was almost a whisper to not catch the attention of the old man.
"Yeah, Ah'm new, "Tahno answered with a white lie; after all he was going to be the new student of this man "My name is Thano,"he offered his hand to the child.
"Nice to meet ya Tahno, Ah'm Iwatake," they shacked hands and smiled for a while before the others stopped to move, indicating that the next move was going to be taught.
In this simple way the lives of both children collided...
I know this chapter seemed to be really rushed out and that it came almost out of the blue so, for the people who had been waiting for the next chapter of Boku wa on'nanoko! or the second one of Lignaggio di un Fratello: Scommettere la Vita I am deeply sorry but I wouldn't resist the temptation of writing a story about Tahno uxu
Reviewing had never hurt anyone, so I'll be glad if anybody leaves even their torches in the comments.
Posted: 10/20/2013