Improbable, not Impossible
By Luv Writing 3
Nations, like stars are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.
~Victor Hugo
Chapter I
The sound of thick desperate gasps for air and soft creaks of nonsense language echoed through my ears as I slowly open my eyes to the moonlit room my landlord called an apartment. Gifted with a sudden spring of energy on who has to be making those noises, I prop myself up on my left hand to see the streams of salty water streaming down my sister's face. "Kay?", I whisper my nickname for her out. No one in the world can make me instantly change from a moody, rebelling teenager to a someones who cares but Kayo. Her sobs in the place of smiles send shivers of fear down my body as I stare at the back of her head as she pauses and angles her head so she can look at me, the glow of the moon display stray pieces of hair caught in wet strands around her eyes and mouth.
Kayo turns so her back is now connected to the mat and a choked cry of something like good morning comes out before I can say anything. I sit her up and take her into my arms so she can cry while leaning on me, her nails biting into my back. Humming an old lullaby that I only remember the chorus of, I run my fingers through her soft brown head of hair, rocking her back and forth as being soothing as I can be in this moment. We sit like this until her breath becomes steady and her tears have run dry. After a few moments of knowing she alright, I push her back just enough so she and I can look at each other. "What happened, Kay?"
She takes in a puff of air before saying very quietly, "I had the nightmare".
It feels if someone has forced the air out of my lungs like a berry between the toes of an air bison as she finishes her sentence. I'm no longer in a cruddy little apartment, I'm in a world of blackened wooden, blazing monstrous beings of flames, and my mother's soft lips brushing my smooth forehead as wetness drips into my ashy hair. Her last words are my personal motto now, "Protect your sister." I lean down and press my lips to her forehead. She is only eleven, barely even a child when it happened but the flashes of fire and death with haunt her in her dreams as much as they do mine.
"It's alright. Nothing going to happen", I get out, knowing I took far too long to get out a response for someone who is sure of her words. "We're safe now."
Safe in Ba Sing Se is a flyer spread throughout Earth Kingdom villages that weren't overrun by Fire Nation Soldiers. Walls thicker than anything those magical metal machines the Fire Nation loved making thought all of Ba Sing Se's inhabitants;the refugees with not a copper piece to their name sent to one ring, refugees with money settled in another, and nobility with too much money played in the last one in the King's court . Ba Sing Se had problems no doubt but compared to the outside, it was the safest place for us until this war ends, if it ever ends.
More emotionally stable, Kayo wiggles out of my hands and plops herself on a new spot of the mat, rubbing her arms in a self-soothing technique she develop in our younger years, traveling at night and sleeping with no fire so we wouldn't be seen. "How about some tea?" I ask.
Kayo nods and I scramble off the mat, going to the kitchen area of the room to start a fire to the warm the last of our drinking water. After tossing the wood into the flames, I take the kettle and place it on the stove as she suddenly chimes out. "Can you make tea like Mom use to?"
A drop of honey and a kiss is the way Mom use to make it, calming fears of shadows and worries of work. I used to pull my head down before her lips could touch my cheek and she'd pick me by the arm pits, smothering me in pecks as I protested halfheartedly, enjoying her warm arms and smiles. I nod and a rustling of sheets telling me Kayo is getting herself comfortable and not even a few seconds after her snores fill the apartment. I inhale sharply and try my best not to cry as memories of my mother, my brother, my father, my past life comes in fast, angry waves. I know tonight I'm not going to get any sleep.
HHH
I work at a hole in the wall pub that offers a few rooms for sleeping in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se. The one word to explain my job is active. There are fights, there are illegal goods, and there's me, the unfortunate server who can't drink the alcohol she serves and has to deal with fifty years old men who have yet to understand the importance in keeping their ideas on girls to themselves. You could say I'm uncomfortably active in doing my job. But the pay decent enough if you combine tips with it and I'm not the only person around my age there so I can manage through dirty old perverts and boulders of body mass really like fighting.
Kayo on the other hand is not allowed there. At all. She does errands for the landlord's wife and cleans for the lady in the downstairs apartment but then she left in the apartment for the rest of day which isn't good thing since she nearly burnt down the house in an attempt of baking some bread. I would like to put her in school but you need legal documents, connections, and money to get in which coincidentally I don't have much of all three. However about three months ago, Kayo proposed that she get a job, a paying job that wasn't from Omi upstairs. I was against it, money was tight but we could manage. We always do in the end.
But then we got a new landlord and he ended up raising the price of living to ten silver pieces more per payment than before if we were to stay. So begrudgingly after Kayo found the notice on the door one day, I let her go and smile at some restaurants and shops around home. (Though I did teach her certain parts of humans that hurt after being kicked very hard.) I was constantly worrying about her as I scrubbed floors or helped serve around grease and cheap beer. Though Yuki reassured me, I still worried and worried and worried. Then on a day that didn't seem particular different, Kayo had this look of joy on her face as I came in with some apples and bread for dinner.
"You look very chipper", I comment as I place the items on the small counter space of our kitchen as she hums a fast paced tune, as she collects her small sowing kit and a pile of clothes, choosing to sit down in the sunniest place in the whole apartment, light streaming at her through the windows.
"I got a job", she says in a casual way if saying hi, her focus on the tunics of Hanna, the landlord's wife wants mended.
"A job?"
"A job. I start tomorrow." Kayo says, holding up the rim of a collar to the afternoon sunlight that fills the apartment.
"Where?"
"This small tea house, Pao's Family Tea House I think".
I'm silent as I recall Pao's Family Tea House. I remember going there once with Yuki for a cup. The service was slow especially when it was tea in a tea shop with only two customers and when they served you tea, it was like hot water with an off meaty taste (something I never thought tea could mimic.) They also gave these rock solid little cookies that tasted like cheese and you have to put them into the meaty tea so they could be pliable. I knew that if I could go back there for free, I wouldn't.
"The tea is very... interesting", I mutter out awkwardly as I total the long list of reasons Pao's Family Tea House is a good and bad place. First reason why its a good place to work, no thugs will ever hang out in a tea house. First reason why its bad place to work, she never get a lot of tips which as a server is the main source of cash. I cut the bread into slices and place a piece with an apple in each bowl as Kayo mutters out, "Could you do it?"
"Do what?"
"You know, it?" She says again a sort of pleading tone in her voice.
I know fully what she's talking about and I know I'm going to do. Bending is a physical addiction. You don't realize how good it is, moving your body in forms and watching element bend to a slight change of hand movements until you have to keep yourself from doing it. Then you start thinking of ways to make it slip into your life, you can carry this into your arms or light it with that. That's when an urge hits you hard and sometimes all you can do is attempt sleep as ideas of bending continually come through your brain. "Okay, I'll do it I say", trying to contain my excitement.
I get into stance with a bowl containing bread and an apple in front of me as Kayo stares, her eyes glued to the bowl. Then I send it sliding across the wooden floor with a kick before I twist into a midair flipped along by a light puff made with my feet that lands me on my back which I blow the bowl away before standing up and moving my arms. I'm quick and the bowl, apple, bread float in separate balls of air. Kayo is spellbound as I make the three items travel in a tight circle above me; dangerously close to the ceiling. I pause but keep them up in the air, a silent thought on what to do spinning through my mind as Kayo holds her breath. Then I let the objects drop, only catching the bowl with my hands before skillfully catching the bread with my knee, popping it into the bowl as the apple I catch with my hand, once again landing on my stomach. I get on my knees, breathing from the pure speed I had to go as Kayo stares. I get up on my feet and bow but toss Kayo the apple as I do so.
She catches it and gives out a soft roar, the kind you do when you pretend thousands are cheering you on; clapping with the apple in her hands. "And she done it, the famous Mariko Nguyen has done the impossible! Something seen only once in a lifetime".
"Ya Betcha", I say, plopping down beside her.
"Now what do you plan on doing?" she says as I smirk at her ongoing performance.
"Destroy the baby goat gorilla" I say with a grin before tackling her to floor as I tickle her.
"Rika!"
"Say what you are!"
'I'm not a GOAT GORILLA!"She says through the laughter pouring from her mouth.
"Well, I better tickle you till' you admit it".
"NNNOOO!"
"SAY YOUR A GOAT GORILLA!"
'NEVER"
"SAY IT!"
"NO-"
"FOR SPIRITS SAKE, I'M TRYING TO WHIZ! IF I SAY I'M GOAT GORILLA WHO ONLY PEES THREE TIMES A WEEK DESPITE LIVING OFF SEA PRUNE JUICE, WILL YOU TWO SHUT IT?! Damn kids." The weathered old man says feebly as we stare upstairs in silence. Kayo struggles not laugh through her hands as I yell a forced an apology out.
"He should see someone about that", Kayo whispers before rolling onto her side, quivering with laugh as I cover my mouth in attempt for him not to hear.
It moments like these I remember why life is precious. All the weirdness from old men who drink sea prune juice and a little sister with age years old nicknames come in and form something like a tapestry of black and white which makes a smiley face in it, no matter what color is a background or what color is the face, its smiling in end. Just focus on the face and life turns out good. But even smiley faces have a bad day every once in a while.
So how was my attempt at Fanfiction? I wanted to introduce the two main characters before getting the Avatar TV Show scenes in. There's Mariko or Rika as she prefers who's a bit of smart ass And Kayo who's a big ball of sunshine but has gone through a lot for a girl her age.
So I hope to get some positive feedback on this and I'm working on this now. I want to have a beta reader but I don't know if anyone would enjoy helping me on this? Anyone at all?