Fire

Air

Water

Earth

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony with one another. But everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them.

My Grandfather, Avatar Aang, defeated Firelord Ozai and stopped the war. And although it wasn't the end to conflict everyone had hoped for, peace, at least for a time, had returned to the world.

But rather than return the world to how it was before the war, Aang chose to rebuild it new. He brought the 4 nations together in Republic City, rather than allow them to remain isolated. His work of reform continued with Avatar Korra, who I was lucky to call a friend. She reopened the portals to the spirit world, allowing a new age to flourish, where spirits and humans live side by side.

But this new age isn't stable. Change inevitably breeds conflict, and all new wars are starting and ending as everyone tries to figure out where the new boundaries of the world begin and end. Only the new Avatar will be able to solve the conflict, and return balance to the world.

But now, when the world needs him the most, he has vanished.

My youngest brother has gone off looking for the Avatar, his former student. My other younger siblings think it's a lost cause.

But I hope that Rohan can find Wei Min, and bring him back to the world. And the people who love him.

Avatar: The Legend of Wei Min

Book 1: Renewal

Prologue: Atop Baohu Zhe

Baohu Zhe stood silhouetted against the light of the moon. The tallest mountain in the Earth Kingdom, it was said to be the spirit of Earth itself watching over the nation. Rohan gazed up at the colossal formation, craning his neck in an attempt to see the top. It was here, he hoped, that his long search would finally be over. And that hope propelled him to take the first step up the path to the top of the mountain.

Rohan had spent the better part of 3 years traveling the Earth Kingdom, hoping to find his old friend and student. His sudden disappearance had left their friends and family in utter disarray, to say nothing of its impact on global affairs and politics. Most of his other teachers had been content to sit and wait for him to return, but Rohan had always been impatient and the thought of sitting on his hands while the world collapsed around him tasted bitter in his mouth.

Now even older than his father had been when he trained Avatar Korra, Rohan could feel his bones strain under the weight of his own body as he pushed himself towards the peak. Most air benders, even ones in their 70's were remarkably light on their feet, but Rohan was burdened by the fatigue he had accumulated on his long journey, and he could not compel his body to move with its usual kick. The old wooden staff, warped by decades of use and the ravages of time, could have carried him up if he chose to extend the glider. But Rohan had always taught that skipping the difficult parts of a journey only robbed oneself of the opportunity for growth, and he'd be damned if he was going to become a hypocrite now.

And so it was, hours later, as the sun broke over the peaks of the mountain range far in the distance, that Rohan reached the summit of Baohu Zhe. The sun's warm light clashed with the sharp bite of the cold piercing Rohan's skin through his robes. Only his air bending was allowing him to sustain himself on the trace amounts of oxygen, here where the air became thin. A small alcove carved into the side of the mountain face opened up before him, and inside he saw the man he'd spent so long pursuing.

He sat in the lotus position, eyes closed. His green and gold shirt was tattered and barely holding together, and his hair had become long, ragged, and knotty. Rohan could barely see any of his face through the tangled mess of beard and dirt. And yet he seemed a bastion of peace and tranquility. Here, within the chaos of nature, he had imposed order upon his space, however small it was.

"You know. After 3 years of looking for you, I'm not sure what I expected you to be doing when I found you," quipped Rohan. "I guess it was something a bit more exciting than this."

The man's serenity did not break, and he did not seem surprised to hear the voice of his master break the silence of his little oasis.

"I'm sorry if I disappointed you."

Rohan threw his hands up in the air. "Oh no! Not at all. Nothing like a good anticlimax. Reminds you of the reality of reality." If there were a way to sit down melodramatically, Rohan certainly found it as he plopped down on the ground in front of the man, throwing his legs up into the air before crossing them in front of himself and resting his chin on his hands.

"The reality of reality?" the man chuckled as he unfolded his arms and opened his eyes.

"Of course!" Rohan proclaimed, as unaware as always of how close he was to his student (or more precisely his ear-drums.) "Everybody expects their lives to be like a story. Where every great chapter ends in something dramatic and surprising. How great it is to be reminded the universe doesn't actually care that much. Why should I expect my 3 year journey to end with some great battle for good or some moment of introspection and revelation? No. Wei Min is just sitting in a cave. He doesn't have a care in the world! Life is grand."

"You remind me of your great uncle." Wei Min replied. His calmness was undaunted by Rohan's verbal assault.

"You never met my great uncle!"

"You'd be surprised who I've met"

"Bah!" Rohan grumbled. He stroked the edge of his chin, as though he were considering something meaningless with all the care he could muster. "So do you have anything to eat up here? I'm starving!"

"I haven't eaten anything for the past 3 months."

"Well, you look good for a dead man."

Wei Min chuckled again. His old master could always put a smile on his face in the most dire of times, and he was grateful for that. It was something he would need in the months to come, if he was going to survive the ordeal destiny had prescribed for him. Rohan's exuberant energy settled down, as a stern look spread across his face.

"So now the question we both knew was coming Wei. What the hell are you doing up here?"

Wei Min ran his fingers through his course hair. He could feel grease, dirt, grime, and other unpleasantries coming loose in his fingers, a side effect of not bathing for so long. Where could he begin to explain himself? How could he tell his master the things he had come to believe? About himself? About what he had to do.

"Master Rohan..."

"The world needs the Avatar, Wei Min..."

"You don't know how true that statement is."

"Well then why don't you enlighten me?"

Wei Min stood up. At 30 years old, he was in the prime of his life. Now was the time to be cocksure and gung-ho. So why did he feel this hesitation? This fear in the pit of his stomach?

"Master... It's my duty to preserve the balance of the world. I left because I needed to figure out what that means. Both for the world, and for myself?"

"And what have you figured out?"

"I don't know. I know what I feel to be true, but I'm not sure if I should act on it. Or how."

"Then don't say you don't know. You do know. You've figured it out. You're just not sure if you're right or not."

"Yeah..."

Rohan stood up and put his hand on his pupil's shoulder. It was hard to believe that the young boy who stood before him all those years ago had so soon become a man.

"There is no authority that you answer to Wei. You can't check your answers against some guide laid out for you. All you can do is act according to what you believe..."

And with those words, a weight was lifted from Wei Min's shoulders.

"So Wei Min. What is it that you believe?"

Wei walked past his master to the opening of the cave. He looked out over the mountain range. From here, he could see nearly the entire Earth Kingdom. So much of it had changed in so little time. It wasn't even a kingdom anymore; its name was a relic from an era that had already passed. So many things had changed, not all of them for the better. Wei had contemplated long enough.

It was time to act.

"I believe.. that your grandfather was wrong... that Avatar Korra was wrong..."

"Hmm...?"

"And I believe that I'm the only one who can correct their mistakes..."

Holy shit. It's been 6 years since I wrote a fan fiction. More than that probably. I've had this idea kicking around in my brain for a good, long while now and I guess it just kinda got to the point where I couldn't keep myself from writing it down. And hey, if it exists, I may as well publish it.

I think I'm really out of practice with this. I haven't done any actual story-writing since High School. I'm actually a film-maker, so pretty much all of my fiction-writing has been done in screenplays. I'm much more a director than a writer, but by all means, lemme have it. Anything I do, I want to do well, so I welcome any and all constructive criticism. I'd especially like to hear things I could do to make it better, not just notes on what I'm doing wrong. One note I could use is I really have no idea how I should be writing the dialogue out. Scene description is one thing since I'm used to that, but my dialogue is usually written in screenplay format, which doesn't fly in a narrative story like this.