NOTE: Likely full of errors and clunky writing, but it was something I needed to get out of my head.
Something Missing
Smelling the ocean and seeing the city nestled in the bay beyond the mountains was their reward after a long journey. They'd traveled mostly on foot and with the kindness of strangers through dessert, barren terrain, dark forests and swamps and deep waters. They'd persisted, survived. Their determination kept them going and the prospect of finding what they were looking for.
The first things Lan and Bolin did when they arrived to the shining, bustling metropolis was purchase a map of the city. They wanted to get their footing, find some work and a place to live even if it was just somewhere warm to rest their bones after a long day. They'd lived a fairly privileged life in the middle ring of Ba Sing Se for the past 10 years, never having to go without the essentials. Their family wasn't rich beyond imagination, but if they needed something their parents would get it for them and if they waited long enough they were gifted the things that they simply wanted.
Living that kind of life almost made them forget that they had once been orphans, both were adopted when they were young from Republic City and taken far away to Ba Sing Se to live a completely different life. Their parents were a little older than most, but desperately wanted children and had adopted a number of kids from all over the Earth Kingdom. Lan and Bolin grew up with 6 other children and gotten to know and love them like a real family, they were grateful for their lives and loved their parents.
That's why it made their hearts ache to leave, Bolin especially. There was something he was missing in Republic City, a part of him lost long ago. Lan herself didn't have a reason to return, but she loved him as if they were bonded by blood and insisted on following him to help him find that missing piece. Their parents knew what this meant to Bolin, and whether it was their guilt or love for him they made sure he was prepared for his journey and gave him one last hug that seemed to last an eternity. They didn't want him to leave, he was still just a baby to them, but they knew deep down inside that it must be painful to miss something so important. Letting him go was the best thing they could do to show their undying affection.
During the entire long journey to the shores of Yue Bay Bolin was the positive one, Lan was the logical one. When she was down he would lift her up, when a situation was tough she would talk him through it. When they made the final pass through the mountains and finally laid eyes on the golden city Bolin dropped to his knees and cried, wether it was a rush of memories or relief Lan didn't know but she knew how much this meant to him. That being said, she was the one that had to keep his head on straight, keep him from straying too far.
Bolin wanted to start searching immediately but Lan knew they had to attempt to establish themselves first. Being young and earthbenders both were strong, she knew they could easily find work unloading and loading ships down at the harbour. It would be hard work and the pay might not be fantastic but it would be enough for them to live on until something better came up.
Once they had proved themselves proficient workers they sought out a place to live, unable to afford much they were offered shared accommodations with some older men that they worked along side. The men were rough from their years of hard work but welcomed the young ones nonetheless. They slept on bedrolls on the floor each night, ate communal dinners and shared cheap booze with the men around a fire as they told tales from their youth.
Bolin and Lan revealed their reason for returning to Republic City, asking if anyone had seen a young firebender. Probably wearing red, something around his neck? What was his name? Bolin could barely remember. Except warmth, being shielded against the wind and told to never leave.
Sometime before the siblings began their journey Bolin had asked his parents what it was like in the city, what he was like when he was younger. Those questions eventually led his parents to reveal something they regretted to him, something they never wanted to tell Bolin but they loved him too much to keep a secret.
After Bolin was adopted with Lan and taken back to Ba Sing Se a letter arrived by mail informing them that due to a mix up and faulty paperwork Bolin had been separated from his older brother. At 16 Bolin had long stopped crying for the boy with the red scarf, but when he was young it was all he would talk about.
"When it my brother coming?"
"Where is Mako?"
Mako, that was his name. He was a firebender, older than Bolin. He protected him on the streets, wrapped that red scarf around him to keep out the cold and told him everything was going to be alright. They got picked up one day by the police for sleeping in the doorway of an apartment, taken to the orphanage, separated because both were benders but not the same kind. The last time Bolin saw the boy in the red scarf he was telling him to stop crying and that he would see him soon.
Those first few weeks in Republic City seemed to crawl by, Bolin desperately wanted to search for Mako but Lan wanted him to wait. She was worried that maybe he would find what he was looking for, she was worried that Mako would not be the same brother he was separated from long ago. No one knew if he was even still alive, that letter their parents received when they were young detailed that the young firebender had escaped the orphanage. He could have been anywhere, he could have been dead by now. What if he'd left the city to go looking for Bolin? What if he'd forgotten about him?
Bolin didn't want to believe any of it. He was convoked that Mako was still in the city, that he had somehow found a way to survive all these years. After begging Lan and bribing her with the promise of buying her dumplings the siblings slowly began their search in the core of the city. They got to know some of the orphans that hung out under a large statue of the former Fire Lord Zuko, they too had also escaped some of the less than livable orphanages. They asked if anyone had seen a young man with a red scarf, a kid that referred to himself as Skoochy said he sometimes saw a tall guy hanging around that wore one. But there were lots of tall guys with red scarfs, lots of them were firebenders.
Lan was less that pleased with this vague information but Bolin viewed it as an acceptable lead, he spent the next few days hanging out under the statue chatting with the orphans and sharing his meals with them. When waiting around to catch a glimpse of a boy in a red scarf failed to get him anywhere Bolin returned to work dejected, he still visited the statue every few days though because the children had grown on him.
One day while stopping for lunch Lan pondered out loud about hiring a private investigator, Bolin liked the idea but neither of them made enough to cover the cost of an investigator and all their savings had been eaten up by their journey from Ba Sing Se. Lan promptly whipped out a flyer, it was advertising open auditions for the pro-bending league. New teams were looking for benders of all kinds, Lan suggested they at least check it out. They could make some serious money if one of them made it in, hire that investigator and make it somewhere in their search for Mako.
The problem with trying out for the league was that neither sibling had seen a pro-bending match, not recently. They had been to a few as children but the way they played in Ba Sing Se was far different than how they did in Republic City. Outdoors, with a lack of safety precautions and rules, the matches back at home were more of a free-for-all set up for spectators to watch. Severe injury was common, so was the occasional death.
Lan was able to get her hands on a tattered copy of the rules, she was warned that they were a little out of date but most of the information was still accurate. The men they bunked with warned that just because their pro-benders wore protective gear didn't make the sport any less brutal, that you didn't just have to be a good bender to participate. You had to be a GREAT bender, agile and adaptable. Able to dodge attacks coming at you from all angles, be able to communicate with your teammates with just a glance and work with them like it was a co-ordinated dance.
Certain she was more than capable Lan shrugged them off, tried to encourage Bolin to try. He was far less confident, knew his pitfalls and how bumbling he could be. He was a good earthbender, but he felt that he was far from great and nowhere near the caliber required to be a pro-bending athlete. Still, he was more than excited for Lan to try out and was really excited to see her try. She was doing this for him after all, she did drop her life back in Ba Sing Se and travel almost halfway across the world to track down a boy in a red scarf who might not even be alive anymore.
He came along on their day off, both were reading their rumpled copy of the rules of Pro-Bending as they approached the large domed building. They had to stop and gaze at it, even in Ba Sing Se they'd never seen anything so magnificent. It looked more like a palace, not an arena were people beat each other up for winnings.
Once inside the siblings were led to one of the training gyms by a short, gruff sounding older man. They thought they heard him call himself Toza but they couldn't be sure, he snorted at the idea of Lan trying out before stomping off (something about her looking like a country girl). He was probably just trying to rile her up. Picking on her because she wore the bright greens and yellows of Ba Sing Se, dark hair tightly braided and coiled onto of her head and held in place with a jade clip.
Lan resented people making assumptions about her. She most certainly was strong, bigger than most people and had won far more fights than Bolin. Not that he wasn't capable of defending himself, he just didn't want to hurt anyone. Lan was okay with that, she didn't mind being his defender as long as he was there to make her laugh.
There were two teams searching for earthbenders, Lan tried one last time to convince Bolin to try out but he gently refused and took a place up in the loft area above the gym to observe. A total of 6 earthbenders had gathered to try out for the first team, one that had not yet chosen a name. They didn't introduce themselves by name but both the firebender and waterbender looked like they would be tough to please, their faces were set in hard scowls as Toza returned and started barking commands at the potential team members. A little red and brown critter sitting around the shoulders of the firebender caught a glance at Bolin who made chattering sounds and offered a piece of a biscuit from where he sat up above, it bounded off its owner and met Bolin eagerly. The owner didn't seem to notice, he didn't glance up, was probably too fixated on his potential teammates fumbling to put on their borrowed gear.
As the auditions began and Toza ran them through drills the little creature next to Bolin munched on biscuit pieces, Bolin watched intensely as Lan went through the drills heavy footed and cringed when she stumbled. She was a talented earthbender, but the way these other guys moved made her look like a clumsy fool. They were all light on their feet, almost like dancers. Launching earth discs left and right, flying and leaping, dipping and diving. Lan was the only one shoeless (she refused to wear them despite footwear being part of the required equipment), her rooted style so drastically different it seemed like she moved in slow motions compared to the other potentials. The others were obviously all born and raised in the city and had watched matches most of their lives, Lan was just here on a whim to help out her brother but no amount of determination was going to make her come out on top.
When a disc came out of nowhere, hit Lan square in the gut and sent her flying against the wall Bolin quickly left his perch and ran over to see if she was alright. The others stopped as he helped his winded sister sit upright, she coughed wildly and her face was going red. She croaked and told him she was going to be fine, that this was nothing. The gear had taken most of the impact, Bolin wondered just how fast the disc had been launched to do this to her.
They both knew they were done though, there was no point in staying any longer. She'd given her best shot.
Once she felt like she had caught her breath Bolin and Lan peeled the borrowed equipment off her and left, not before they realized the little creature from before was following them. Lan waited near the exit poking at the tender spot on her abdomen as Bolin ran to return the creature, he didn't want to accidentally steal someones pet. When he reached the training area once again the other earthbenders were standing around and laughing at Lan, imitating her less than graceful movements and reenacting her hit to the stomach. This upset Bolin greatly, enough that when they weren't looking he found a stray disc near him on the floor and set it pummeling into the back of two of the other earthbenders.
The little creature he'd come to return scurried up a ladder as Toza yelled at Bolin to get out of his gym, Bolin knew he'd taken a cheap shot but he didn't care. Lan was all that mattered, he made sure to scowl long and hard at the two earthbenders he hit before he left. He didn't look back.
A few days later Lan was badly bruised and still in pain, she couldn't work. She was having difficulty eating and sleeping from the bruising and they worried that there was a cracked rib or two. Bolin pooled their resources together along with some donations from their flat mates and sought a healer. There was only so much a healer could do to aid her injury, after their visit the rest was up to time (much to Lan's disgust, she didn't want to be off her feet for very long).
She was going to be okay, she'd tried her hardest, that's all that mattered.
A few weeks passed before Lan was in perfect working order again, their employer was more than glad to have her and her strength back. Bolin had been pulling double shifts during her off time, spending all his free time for weeks sleeping. Lan told him to take a few 'sick days' off before he really did become ill and dropped dead from exhaustion, he gladly listened to her and spent an entire day just sleeping and listening to the sound of the ocean outside their window.
On his second 'sick day' he returned to the statue to see his little street friends, he hadn't been there since Lan acquired her injury at the brunt end of a bent earth disc. That day they were not alone though, there was another older boy. As Bolin approached he didn't think much of it but then a little familiar swirl of red and brown fur bounded towards him, ran around his feet and scurried up his leg. The creature stuck its head into his pocket, presumably searching for something to eat. It was the little critter from the arena, Bolin then realized that the taller boy was the angry looking firebender from before.
Anger didn't paint his face today though, he looked as if he was laughing with the street urchin Skoochy. A little girl was tugging at his long coat and another little boy sat on his shoulders. There was something that caught Bolin's eye though as he fished the furry creature out of his pocket and it chirped in protest, the little boy perched on the firebender's broad shoulders was wearing a bright red scarf with frayed edges.
A spell of anxiety immediately swept over Bolin, he promptly hid on the the other side of the statue and crouched down before anyone realized he was there. He stayed silent, listened as the firebender chatted with the kids about the progress of his pro-bending team and scratched the furry creature under its chin to try and calm down. What was this creature? A fire panda? Fire ferret?
"Pabu!" A voice called suddenly, it was the firebender. The animal jumped from Bolin's knees and off in the direction of the voice with a happy squeak, Bolin watched at the firebender passed by a moment later with the creature clambering up the arm of his coat. Around his neck and shoulders was the red tattered scarf, for a second the firebender glanced down and their eyes caught.
Amber eyes and a stiff mouth seemed to scrutinize Bolin as he sat there on the ground by himself, Bolin looked away quickly and pretended to be interested in a pebble on the ground. He waited until the firebender was almost across the city square before he dared to raise his head again, it felt like there was something caught in his throat. His chest felt heavy, his eyes burned. There was no questioning what he'd seen, what he felt when those eyes got tangled with his for that fleeting moment.
Before Skoochy and the other orphans realized he was there, Bolin shot up and ran. He wanted to find Lan and tell her what he had found.
He found the boy with the red scarf.