Authors note: I do not own Legend of Korra or The Last Airbender. This story follows a new, original storyline of my creation. If you don't like the idea of completely AU stories, or time paradoxes in your stories, then leave now. OC form to be found on my profile, but please read until chapter two before submitting an OC, as that holds instructions. authors note over.
Xeren walked through the Si Wong desert, completely lost. The nineteen year old sand bender clutched the beige and cream coloured duster cloak tightly around him to prevent the sand stinging any exposed skin, being too exhausted to bend it away. It had been three days since his community of sand benders had been sacked by roving hostile bandits. Xeren's teacher had urged him to take their sand sailor and escape. Too leave him behind and abandon the rest of his tribe. "Damned old fool," Xeren cursed, "I could have helped, and now even if you survived, i can't get back to find you. At least not now." Xeren glanced behind him, barely seeing the wreckage of his sand sailor through his goggles. Xeren knew he could never find his way around the desert without the, now destroyed, compass that was on board. Along with the compass, all his rations of food and water were on board. Were being the key word. Xeren felt completely drained after fending off the sand worm that hit his sailor. He was just glad it was a smaller one, and not one of the giants. Even if he had the energy to bend the sand away from the wreckage, the supplies would be ruined anyway. Smashed and splashed under and across the sand. No Destination in mind, no real hope of surviving, Xeren trudged on through the sand.
Several hours later, Xeren was still walking through the desert. Starting to suffer from dehydration, and heat sickness, he almost just laid down and accept the long, dry death that await him. Slowly cresting the next hill, Xeren collapsed from sheer exhaustion. "Now thats no way to act sandboy," a voice said from behind him, "not when the next oasis is just across the dune your taking a nap on." Xeren heard the voice move around to the front of him. Slowly bringing his head up to look at a shorter, slightly hunched, short old woman, white hair on top of her head and kept in place by a green headband.
"No way," Xeren mumbled, letting his head fall back down slightly, "no freaking way can you be here. It's impossible. You're a mirage, I just know it."
"And why can't I be here, boy! I'm a grown woman, not a mirage, and i can go where ever I damn well please." The woman took a stance, solid at the base and looser at the top. "And I cant very well leave you here to die. You seem like a well enough person and more importantly, you're one of the last people who may have the potential. After what happened to the rest of your community." Xeren started to ask what the woman meant, but before he could the woman extended her hands and they were carried forward in a rush of sand, towards the oasis the woman had mentioned before. Reaching the oasis, the sand the woman had used to bend them forward fell and settled back down. Around the two earth benders was a small oasis with a few papaya palms trees nestled around it. Dragging Xeren over underneath a tree, the old woman started filling one of her water skins. She brought it over to the weakened sand bender who lay beneath the tree. Xeren managed to start drinking, savouring and enjoying the feeling of water flowing down his throat, which was as dry as the dunes he had crossed. Taking the skin away from his lips the woman dumped the remainder on Xeren's head. Xeren began to object, but stopped when he realised how refreshing it felt. "You must have many questions," the woman began, "but you need rest more than answers. Night is falling, and the heat of the day is waning. Sleep through the night, regain your strength, and I will tell you all I know to the extent of my knowledge." the woman turned around and made an earthen tent around them, using some of the more solid ground around the oasis.
"She is probably right," Xeren thought to himself, letting sleep and his exhaustion overtake him. Watching the woman remove her goggles to reveal the pale blind eyes beneath "even if she is who i think, questions can wait." He thought as he drifted off into an exhausted slumber.
"Rise and shine sandman!" The woman shouted at Xeren, waking him from his deep sleep.
"Who! Why! Never, I swear it wasn't me!" Xeren exclaimed at being awoken from his much needed slumber so suddenly. "I mean, umm ah, what time is it?"
"My internal clock says it's somewhere around 10:35 in the morning. But then again, I'm blind." The woman informed him.
"What! This is bad," Xeren started, "it's so late, I've wasted too much of the day already, I need to get walking."
"Hold it kid," the woman interjected, pushing back down into a seated position underneath their earthen tent. "You aren't leaving until we talk, I need to explain things to you. Besides, don't you even remember who you're talking to here."
"Crap, you're right, I'm so sorry. I'm just kind of freaking out here, if you could imagine." Xeren apologised "And also, I do know who you are, at least I think I do anyway. My people have stories about a great earth bender who, when she was young, travelled through this part of the desert with the previous Avatar, and eventually helped end the Hundred Years' War. They say that she was such a brilliant earth bender that, despite being blind, excelled above all other benders and even discovered metal bending as a form of earth bending. You're Toph, aren't you. THE Toph. You are highly respected by my people, and we rarely respect anyone outside our own people. It is such an honour to meet you."
"Geez, what a monologue, did you have it memorised just in case you ever met me?" Toph jested. "But moving on, yes, I am Toph. But despite my status, I do not feel such formalities are necessary with the likes of you"
"Why do you say that," Xeren questioned, "when I'm just a sand bender living out in the desert? Heck, some people would even consider me a savage. Why treat me so specially?"
"Because you are special." Toph began, "You are Xeren Stalawan, son of Talia Stalawan, a skilled lava bender, and Veranac Stalawan, one of my finest metal bending students. Within you lies the potential for great things. Every generation brings skilled and great benders, me being an example, but whose to say you aren't just an ordinary sand bender."
"How, how do you know who I am? And how do you know my parents, they..., no one knows my parents. And why would I be special, I can lava bend, or metal bend. Just sand, heck I don't even think I've gotten the chance to bend solid earth in my life."
"Like I said, your father was a student of mine, and later a member of my police force, as well as being a good friend. When I heard he had married a Si Wong desert native and had a child, I had to see his wife. That's partially how I knew who you were, you look so much like your mother. Especially your hair, the way it pokes out of your head wrap. And those are your father clothes, no one else would be silly enough to have the ends of their head wrap end in such long tails like that, didn't you ever notice anyone else's weren't like that? Besides, this isn't our first meeting, believe it or not. You look, from what I can tell anyway, just like when you were four years old or so, just a bit bigger. I visited your parents quite often before what happened to your first tribe of sand people. I even found your teacher, the man you lived with until now. Your grandmother felt she couldn't adequately take care of you on her own, so I helped her, and the remaining member of your tribe, merge with another nearby one. Though it seems that events in your life have a way of finishing themselves" Toph ended grimly.
"Wait, you mean..." Xeren started.
"Yes, I'm afraid so." Toph finished for him. "I'm deeply sorry for you. You are the last of your people, at least in this area of the desert. I came by your settlement and saw, well felt really, the remains. the bandits from your childhood saw fit that they should finish what they had started, but my seismic sense told me that you were not to far away in the distance, and I buried to you. If it's any consolation, I'm glad it was Veranac's son who I found."
"Well, it could be worse," Xeren said, sinking against the tree at the base of the tent, his face melancholy, "I mean at least I'm alive. Grandma died when I was little, seven maybe, and teacher was on his way out, be told me so himself. He went protecting me and giving me a chance, that fits him. He would have wanted it that way, rather than going away in his bed. I can make it through this, I'll find a way."
"Yes you will," Toph encouraged him, "and if you allow me, I want to help, I want to instruct you, teach you some of what I know."
"I would be honoured!" Xeren exclaimed, renewed with enthusiasm at being instructed by perhaps the greatest earth bender in the history of ever. Toph nodded, and stomped on the ground, retracting the shelter she had made the previous night. After a breakfast of papayas growing on the palm trees around the oasis, they began their lessons. Toph began with instructing Xeren in how stances affected his bending, showing now a solid stance as effective while using solid earth, while a more fluid stance helped sand bending. She compared it to how water benders moved, making sure their arms were loose, but their footing was secure. After a couple hours of making sure Xeren could bend both sand and solid earth at talents the basic level, Toph was ready to move on.
"You seem pretty natural at this sandman, I'm not surprised though, given your heritage." Toph congratulated her pupil. " Now that I know you can sufficiently bend at a basic level, I think it's time I teach you something a bit advanced. In fact, you can thank your mother for helping me come up with the technique I'm about to teach you. I'm going to teach you how to change solid earth to sand, and vice versa. Your mother described using a similar technique in changing earth to lave and lava to earth. She described it as feeling the energy of the earth break, shatter even, into thousands of pieces and taking the earth with it. I want you to try it, you want to make the earth shatter, but contain it enough to make sand." Toph bent a large chunk of earth from the ground and moved it in front of Xeren and motioned for him to try. Xeren took a stance, feet wide and arms held in front of him. Xeren focused deeply, trying to imaging what Toph had described to him. Closing his eyes, trying to remember what he could of his mother, he channelled his energy and brought his arms down and apart. His effort was greeted by the sound of sand rushing down in the place the earth had bees. Opening his eyes, Xeren couldn't quite believe it. "Very well done," Toph congratulated, "Though I can't say I'm at all surprised, your natural ability is nothing to laugh at. I told you that you were special. Now, why don't we see if you can do the same In reverse." Xeren, still happy at his success, again took a bending stance. This time his feet were held a bit looser, and his hands were lower and more apart. Focusing on the individual, thousands if grains of sand before him, Xeren brought his hand up and together, bringing the sand in the air. Focusing on what he wanted the sand to become, Xeren clenched his fists together, and the sand fused and solidified into a chunk of solid earth. Toph nodded in approval and congratulated Xeren, saying "I knew you had it in you, your just as talented as your parents, if not more. They certainly passed on some sort of inherit skill. Now to find out if they passed on anything else. Have you ever tried lava or metal bending, Xeren?"
"Well, no, not really. I never really thought about it. I mean, lava just seems like it would swallow the entire desert, so I never really tried it, and the only metal we have is in important tools and coins so I didn't really wanna mess that stuff up." Xeren mused "But I've never tried, so I guess I may be able to, never know until I try!"
"Now that's the resolve an earth bender needs," Toph agreed with Xeren, "if it can be done, by the spirits, you are the bender to do it. I want you to try lava first, since it's the harder for me to teach you, seeing as I can't actually do it. Lava bending, as it seems, doesn't matter how gifted you are, if matters on lineage most often. So in theory, you should be capable. I'll tell you what your mother told me. She said to use the same concept as in the earth to sand technique, but to make the energy move faster. I assume she means to use more energy, which makes sense, heat being energy and lava being really hot earth and all. Let's see what you can do sandy. Wow me." Moving closer to the pool of the oasis, Xeren bent a chunk of earth up in the middle of it, not wanting to consume the area in kava on accident. Once the chunk was constructed, Xeren again took stance, this time making sure to make his body very fluid, almost like that of a water bender. Focusing on the energy of both himself and the earth, he fuelled the earth which his chi, and swept his arms downward making sure to keep his chi flowing. To his delight, the side of the earthen mass in the oasis closest to them melted and started to run into the water, creating massive amounts of steam as it contacted the surface of the pool. Xeren then crossed his arms and then spread them out again, while clenching his fists, making the remainder of the lava cool and return to its earthen state. "Amazing," Toph whispered in true awe "to think me, greatest earth bender of my time, can't change even a pebble into a speck of magma, but some little sand boy comes along and gets it on his first try. Truly, I am impressed. I thought it would take you much longer, seeing as I can't actually do it to demonstrate. That didn't stop the little sandman that could though, you really are like your mother. Now, we get down to my forte, metal." Saying this, Toph stomped the ground next to her satchel, a small, perfectly round ball of metal flew out and into her hand. Xeren clapped quietly, looking amused. "You ain't seen nothing yet sandy" Toph told him, smirking. Toph proceeded to squash the metal between her palms, and then retracting her hands, forming the once ball into a long thin rod. Bending the rod into a circle, she tossed it to Xeren saying "here, you try. Make me a figure eight. Sense the refined bits of earth within the metal, and use those to bend it to what you want. Channel your energy through the earth in the metal and use the connections to bend the metal. Xeren took the circular piece of metal, most likely iron or steel, into both hands, and started to try and sense the argh in it. He channelled energy into it and tried to bend and twist it. He found out that it was indeed a solid piece of metal. "Hmmm," Toph hummed to herself, "seems we aren't a natural at everything, are we?" She finished with a slight smirk.
"I'm trying!" Xeren complained. "I can feel the earth in it, it just doesn't want to, well, bend!" As Xeren was complaining, he threw the ring on the ground and stomped his foot. The ring bent slightly, becoming more oval shaped.
"Oh, now that's bending metal," Toph mused. "Seems your frustration and anger gave it just enough fuel to finally do what you wanted. Try again, this time, use your anger, your resolve to thrive. Use your power as an earth bender!" Xeren again took the ring in his hands, this time more determined. He felt all his being go into his energy and he twisted on the ring. The ring gave way, and twisted into a figure eight shape. As Xeren enthusiastically held the metal over his head, Toph congratulated him saying "it's not the best metal bending I've seen in the world, for sure, but at least you did it. You'll need to practice to hone your skills more, nut for now," tooth took the metal from Xeren, and crushed it in her hands, forming a shape of a flying boar. She then used some of the metal on the top of the shape to make a chain attached to the boar, making an amulet, and tracing something on the back before tossing it to Xeren "Here, something to remember me by. Feel free to practice with it as well, just don't mess it up too bad. For now, it's getting dark, you should get to sleep, I'm giving you new purpose tomorrow, and using the skills I've taught you, your going to make something for yourself."
"Wait, Toph" Xeren started, "first off, thanks for everything, I've learned so much in just this one day alone. I'll be sure to practice and hone my skills, the world better be ready for the second best earth bender!"
"That's the spirit." Toph encouraged, "but you said first off, did you have something else?"
"Yes, I did." Xeren stated. "I believe I may have an earth bending theory, very similar to your on metal bending. Before I tell you, have you ever tried bending glass?"
"Glass? No I haven't, but I think I see where you may be going with this..."
"Glass is just heated liquid sand, right? So in theory, if I made glass using lava bending on sand, and then used the same thinking of focusing on the remaining sand in the glass, like the earth in metal, I should be able to bend sand, right?"
"Well I don't see why not. If anyone should be able to do it, it should be you, what with your newfound lava bending, and your aptitude for sand and whatnot. Give it a try." Xeren, fuelled by his newfound theory, and his teachers encouragement, bent a stream of sand horizontally up beside him. He then used lava ending to heat the sand, keeping it suspended, and then quickly cooling it again. To both their amazement, a long what seemed to be blade like, shard of glass was suspended beside Xeren. Seeing how far he could take this, Xeren targeted a papaya tree on the edge of the oasis, and thrust his arms forward, propelling the spinning blade of glass towards the tree. To Xeren's delight, the glass cut right through the base of the tree, the top falling into the sand. "Well, colour me impressed, it seems I'm not the only paragon in this age of earth bending. Let me be the first to officially congratulate you, Xeren Stalawan, on being the first ever known glass bender, ever."
"Thank you Toph. Not to discredit my teacher, he did have the job of taking care of me as well as teaching me and all, but it think I may have learned more from you today than all I learned from him in twelve years. And what a day today was, it was great, but I'm tired, and I can't wait for that whole new purpose thing you mentioned before." Xeren bent an earthen tent around them, as Toph had done the previous night, and laid down, using his pack as a pillow. "G'night Toph." he Whispered, contentedly drifting off into sleep after a fulfilling day.
"Night sandman. Tomorrow holds much for you" they both drifted off to sleep in peace, happy with what was accomplished that day, and with Xeren eagerly awaiting the next day.
Around 7:00 in the morning, both awoke from their slumber, and had a breakfast of papaya, as they had the previous day. "Before I give you the important information, that will hopefully shape your life for the better, I'll give you some parting gifts." From her pack, Toph gave Xeren some rations of food and a water skin, along with a compass, which he would need to navigate the desert. "Now, I'll tell you what you need to know for that whole new purpose thing I mentioned before. Do you want to know who killed your parents Xeren, and both of your tribes?"
"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?" Xeren asked, suddenly anxious and impatient
Toph held up her hands to settle the young sand bender down a bit "As I thought you would," Toph continued "The man who destroyed most of your life and the people you cared for, is not an ordinary bandit, he is a man named Thronak the scorcher, he is a lightning bender and is very dangerous. He was the head of a branch of a faction known as the red lotus, an anarchist terrorist group only recently stopped by avatar Korra about a year and a half ago. Many members, like Thronak, still remain though, and still seek to carry out their mission of destroying order and law wherever they go. Thronak has a group of loyal followers, who help him spread chaos and death in this area of the earth kingdom. Your parents were working on an idea to unify the sand people into a desert nation to strengthen them and help them prosper. Thronak didn't like that idea of unity and prosperity one bit, and decided to do something about it. After getting word that members of your tribe had survived and carried its principles with it to a new tribe, to people like your teacher, he must have decided to try and end it again. Unfortunately for him, he failed again. Now, I don't care if you want a united desert nation or not, I do care that this man be brought to justice, and I think you are the most entitled to do it, however you choose to do it is up to you. Take the knowledge I have given you, and forge your path, avenge your people. Your parents, and your people, are proud of you Xeren, continue to make them proud."
"I don't know what to say other than thank you, I don't know if I'll ever be able to thank you enough for all you've done and told me. But I don't even know where to start, heck I don't even know what part of the desert this is!"
"To the east is a military settlement, fort Omanisha, under command of Kuvira's, or the great uniter as she prefers, forces. Show that amulet I gave you to the commanding officer there and tell them you were sent by and are a student of Toph Befong, Kuvira and daughter go way back, though they are not on the best of terms right now, they still respect each other for the most part. at least i hope they do, for your sake."
"Again, thank you Toph, for everything. Also, if you don't mind me asking, where do you plan to go?"
"Hmmm, where am I going?" Toph thought out loud. "I think I'll go to the swamp, I have a certain feeling I'll need to help someone there soon, just as I've helped you here. Call it a hunch. I hope I meet you again sometime, you can show me any new bricks you've learned." With that, Toph bid her farewell one last time and with a smile, gathered her pack and began to bend the sand around her and surf away.
"Well Xeren," Xeren though out loud to himself "this marks the beginning of the rest of your life." He then bent the sand in front of him into a slab of glass about six feet by two feet, and made sure to compress and harden it as best he could. Standing on top of the slab, he took a wide sideways stance and began bending the sand underneath the glass and moved forward, speeding off towards the east, feeling that he would be seeing her again soon, one way or another, for some strange reason.
Chapter end, authors note begin. How was that so far, Like it? Hate it? review anyway. then read chapter two. If you want to.