Written for the Pro-bending Circuit | Finals
Team: Laogai Lion Vultures
Position: Earthbender
Task: Explore how a certain decision causes different events to take place.
Prompts:
Easy (title) One for All
Medium (plot point) someone finds a lost child
Medium (plot point) someone reveals an embarrassing secret about another person
Hard (restriction) no names used
Bonus: Use of element
Word Count: 2214
When the old general finally returned to the palace after 600 days at war, his home was not the same as the one he'd left. He came home from a battlefield where the ground had literally trembled under his feet, yet here in the quiet halls of the palace a hundred miles away from the nearest battlefront, the earth felt as if it had shaken worse. He came home to a father dead and a sister-in-law missing. He came home to his brother sitting on the nation's throne. He came home to a niece and nephew who had just lost their mother. Most painfully of all, the general came home without a son by his side.
The general had changed much as well. He'd left home with the intention to crush his enemies and raze earthen cities. That part of him was gone, just like the son that had been by his side when he left. The two things had left him together.
Once the fire in him was snuffed out, he left the besieged city's stone walls behind him, spending weeks scouring the earth for any way to undo the mistakes he'd made. In his time wandering the earth, he studied the petals of the lotus. He yearned for peace, and he grew to love the nation he had once called his enemy. He admired its culture, its people, its refusal to give up. But while he was gone, his home mangled itself into something unrecognizable, and the general never managed to bring back his son.
He was home now, and the time for mourning was drawing to a close. There was no chance to bring his son back, no matter how much he pleaded or how many times his forehead kissed the earth in prayer. It was energy wasted to try and bring back what was lost. All that could be done now was to help those who were left. That was why he had returned.
The earth was changing, the plates were moving, and the general had to be steadfast as stone to help those around him. He could not drift away with the wind, nor rage like the fire in order to find peace for himself and for the world. Peace would take strength, it would take patience, it would take action. And peace began at home.
He came home knowing that his part in peace was to guide just one soul. The general came home to a world changed, and a niece and nephew that would soon need his help.
His nephew was a kind soul. The loss of his mother crushed him worse than a pile of bricks.
His uncle found him, dejected, sitting at the base of a willow that hung over a still pond. The boy had taken to wandering the palace, allowing his feet to take him wherever they wanted, without his mind even caring.
The general knew the pain his nephew wore. He had wandered, too, after his son had died, without the palace walls to confine him. During that time, it had felt like he would never find his way in the world. His place in this earth and even in his own life was lost to him.
His nephew was lost without his mother, lost in this new world that had unfolded in one night and shaken him off his feet like an earthquake. It had been weeks since his loss, but he did not know where he was going, or what he would do next, or even the way out of his grief.
It was not until his uncle had sat down on the dirt besides him that the boy finally noticed his presence.
"Uncle. I didn't know you were back." He tried to smile, but it was clear that the boy was still lost in grief.
His nephew was a kind soul. The general had seen it in the days before he'd left the palace, in how the boy treated even the weakest turtleduck with kindness, in how he spoke of his hopes to lead, not for power, but to serve. His heart turned naturally to peace, but was molded like clay by the malice and grief it had to bear. It was a heart still growing and learning and lost without a tender hand to guide it.
"Do you miss your mother?" the general asked.
"Yes," the boy said, voice muted. "Do you miss your son?"
The general stared down at the reflection in the water. In it, he saw a father who had lost his son and a boy who had lost his mother, though somehow, so alike.
"Everyday."
His niece was a force to be feared. The general had fought earthbenders who could bury him where he stood with a flick of their wrists and had sparred with firebenders who had faced dragons and won, yet his niece's power unsettled him.
The general watched as she trained under the tutelage of her twin masters. Straw figures turned to black ash and bursts of fire shattered stone walls with ease.
On the opposite side of the field, the general spotted his brother, cloaked in shadow. The man watched in silence, gave his daughter a single nod in praise, and disappeared down the hall. The moment he was out of sight, she tensed, lashing out with tongues of flame even more powerful than before. Sparks of lightning danced on her fingertips as she crushed her already-broken targets into dust.
The general watched on sadly. He knew her plight. She was being shaped by her own father into something terrible, a demon that would have no second thoughts as it scorched the earth black. Under it all, though, he knew that she yearned for peace and love just as everyone else did. She was only misguided in her beliefs about how to attain it.
He, too, had been once in her shoes. He had once been called a prodigy, molded into a machine of destruction by those that came before. Blinded by the blaze of fire, he chased power like a dog chased its own tail. His niece was walking the same rocky path.
She was so like her father, but unlike him as well. Where he was kiln-fired brick, she was clay readily sculpted. Though, without guidance and without her mother, she would fall into her father's hands and be patterned into his likeness.
She caught her uncle watching and shot a fistful of blue-laced fire, as if in warning.
He wondered if the world could afford that.
The general was sitting under a gazebo with a cup of tea in his hand when shouting erupted in the garden.
"Stop it!" he heard his nephew yell. "Leave me alone!"
The child walked into the general's view, raging on the other side of the green. His sister trailed behind him, a sneer on her face. "What? Leave you alone so you can hide in a corner and cry again? We all know you do."
The boy's face was swept with red. "No, I don't!"
"Don't bother. It's not much of a secret."
"Shut up!"
"I was just trying to help. You know what Mom said: 'I think it's a good idea to play with your sister.'"
"Don't talk to me about Mom!"
"Oh, get over it. It's been months and you still act like a big baby. Mom's gone and she's not coming back. She left us. Maybe she's dead already," the girl added nonchalantly.
The general was dismayed at how forward his niece could be with the subject of losing her mother, though he knew it was not for lack of pain, only that she buried it beneath a stony veneer.
His nephew was upset by it as well. Where the general might have responded with care, his nephew responded with rage. "You're crazy! No wonder Mom thought there was something wrong with you!"
"Is that supposed to hurt me? I already know she thought I was a monster."
"She was right. Now leave me alone!"
The boy stormed away, leaving his sister stone-faced on the lawn. For a second, her veneer of indifference wore off, caught off guard by her brother's biting words. When she caught the general watching, she plastered on a sneer and walked off as well.
Their words stuck in his ears long after they'd been spoken. He knew not the beginning of their fight nor the cause of it, though from what he had seen, they had both said things that should not have been said. And they both had need for comfort, though they showed it in very different ways.
It was trivial, a scuffle between siblings that should not have meant much. It would not have meant much, if not for who those siblings were.
They were the prince and princess of the nation, heirs to the throne. And what more, they were the crossroads of destiny. In their veins flowed the legacy of the man who had started the war, as well as the one who had first tried to end it. The battle between destruction and balance was reborn in them. The burden of war and peace rested on their shoulders. If peace was to be restored in the general's lifetime, it would be by their hands. Likewise, if this war was to end in fire, it would be by them as well.
The question was who. That was the choice that had weighed on the general ever since he had returned from war. That was the choice he was forced to face, right now. His nephew had run into the garden. His niece had disappeared down the hall. He could choose to reach one, and be out reach of the other.
His nephew was a kind boy. He had a good heart and a stubborn soul. The general saw himself in his nephew, in his grief over his mother's loss, and he yearned to be by his side. He had felt that grief over the death of his son, and he loathed the idea of leaving the boy to mourn alone.
His niece reminded him too much of the man he used to be: powerful, driven, calculating. A prodigy used for another person's schemes. He wanted to warn her of the danger of the path she was treading. The chase of power lead only to demise. The general knew that well.
Being so familiar, the general hoped he could teach her to use her power for peace. Would she be the better choice to take under his wing? The trial was to turn her eyes to peace, and from there, her natural prowess would lead soon enough to her victory. Not to mention the danger she would bring to herself and to the world if left to be molded by her father.
Though they were both blinded by the unachievable goal of gaining their father's love, his nephew would surely be easier to guide. His mother's ancestry shone through him in everything he did, and in this nation, that meant nothing good for him. He was a failure to his father. It was easier to show the king's cruelty to someone who had felt it firsthand.
However kind and honorable the boy was, he was second to his sister in power, temper and tact. To lead him was to hope that he would find the power to face both his father, and his sister, which was a dangerous gamble...
Surely, even without his guidance, the boy would one day find his way. Wouldn't he?
Would his nephew be able to walk the path of peace on his own? Would his niece step off the path of war without guidance? Could his nephew grow powerful enough to defeat his own sister? Could his niece even be wrenched from her father's clutches? And though he hated to think it: who could the nation afford to lose?
A voice in his head whispered, Why not try and help both? He quickly shushed it away. How could he ever hope to do so? The siblings were estranged, one always against the other. Their own mother hadn't even been able to help them both, and the general barely had the confidence to say that he could help one, let alone two. It would have to be one for all, or none. Yet still, the voice whispered, Why not try?
This time he could perhaps soothe both, but as time wore on it would only get harder and harder. He breathed deeply, remembering the lessons of the lotus. Peace required strength. The general would have to be like the earthbenders, choosing one resolute decision and then throwing all his weight against it. He could not waste time on uncertainty; he could not risk losing energy on indecision. A choice would have to be made, now or later.
It was a long time before he finally stood. To a person looking down, the moment would seem like nothing more than a scuffle between a niece, a nephew and their uncle. Look closer and you would see a choice had been made, one that would shake the world from plate to plate. The general's footsteps were heavy as he rose to meet the new path before him.
AN: 'Well, that was anticlimactic', you say? Not to worry, this is only the first part of a four part series written by the one and only team Lion Vultures! The next three parts splinter into three different worlds, exploring what would happen to the world based on what decision Iroh made here. They're a lot more juicer than the inner monologue I have going on here, and written by fantastic writers, so check them out! I'll add the links in my profile once the stories are posted.
Part A: The Decision - You are here!
Part B: Choosing the Prince - The Gray Beach by Zentauria
Part C: Choosing the Princess - Her Name Was by misszeldasayre
Part D: Choosing the Prince & the Princess - Seven by FictionIsSocialInquiry