Tau, known as the Dragon in the ring, walked up to her apartment building. It was tall, like most of the rest of Omashu. An earth bender city focused more on practicality than appeal, most of the city-funded building projects—including most of the buildings in the slums suitable for housing—were towering stories of metal and rock. Shops ran out of the lower level, and offices often occupied the second. The rest of the buildings had been placed under the care of landlord to rent out to the crowded population. To live outside of the city's empty moat was to subject oneself to endless crime, so most people preferred to live within the city walls, even in the dangerous slums, which meant that the city was constantly growing upward.
Tau's apartment was large enough, and if it weren't for the building's location in an unfavorable district, she would have never been able to afford anything half the size on her factory and fighting salary. She was still behind on rent, though, and she couldn't afford any water or heating. Not that she needed heading being a fire bender, but the lack of water meant that she had to shower and wash her clothes at the factory, which was blissfully required by law to provide those services to the employees who had time to use them.
After the end of the Hundred Year War, Omashu became a proud place. Since most of the city's residents had run away during the time the Fire Nation occupied it, there had been a relatively small group of dedicated people who remained to build it back up again. The spirit of working together never left the city, and unfortunately neither did the despise toward the fire benders. But still, to be part of Omashu was to be part of the Omashu family, a family that worked together for the better of the group, not the individual. At least, that's how it worked in theory. Omashu did become a progressive city, offering free health services and city run industries that were supposed to be free from individual corruption.
A good portion of the growing city still lived in poverty, and to travel from the outskirts to the beating heart of vitality in the center districts was just as easy as forcing a brick through a keyhole. There were too many people who had travelled to the city hoping for a new, prosperous life, especially after the fall of the Earth Queen, and jobs were scarce as the city's industry failed to expand quickly enough to accommodate the influx of bodies.
After the Earth Queen's death, Omashu managed to more or less keep order. The city leaders agreed to join Kuvira so that thousands of the city's poor could be recruited into her army and industries would be able to grow with favorable contracts to supply the metal bender's army with equipment. With Kuvira's defeat came a sharp economic drop, and thousands were thrown back into unemployment.
Ironically, the only reason Tau had a job besides ring fighting was because she was a fire bender who had tapped into her affinity to lightning at a young age. Lightning benders were in high demand in the power industry given that the social situation for fire benders in the city drove out all but the most desperate and stubborn, and her job was secure as long as she could perform.
There was a note tacked to the plaster door of her apartment. 'Come see me in the morning. –June. Tau signed. Her landlord was usually very generous, but her rent payments were consistently late. She couldn't afford to be kicked out of her apartment with the rapid approach of the cold part of the year.
Her apartment was scantily furnished. There was a cheap rug on the floor of every room, one couch, two pillows, and a stained blanket—provided by the landlord on account of one of the sections in the Helpful Housing Act. The apartment had two small bedrooms, one small living room, a near non-functional kitchen, and a cramped bathroom. She walked through the empty rooms to her bedroom, where she had dragged the couch in to act as a makeshift bed.
She had lived much more comfortably in the country on her father's small farm. Unfortunately, of all the cities she could have picked after her father's death and the rise of unrest after the Earth Queen's assassination, she just had to follow her father's dreams and make the long trek to Omashu. If only she had turned the wrong way down the street and wound up in Republic City.
She opened her closet, which consisted of old thrift shop clothing and three sets of her work uniform. She changed into an old pair of sleeping pants and a tank tip. She brushed of the dust off of her from the ring and fell back onto the couth. It was late, and she was working a sixteen-hour shift tomorrow for which she'd have to be up before the dawn's inception.
What would her father say if he saw where she had ended up without him? Would he see her as a worker doomed to a cycle of late bills and frugality, or would this be considered another training session for her, a lesson from which she'd have to learn? He'd probably be more disappointed in his hometown.
And what of her mother? Tau caught herself thinking more often about the mysterious woman since entering the city. She still had a letter somewhere from her father with the names of several members of her mother's family. She was tempted every once in a while to unseal the letter and see if she could find any of the people in the chaos of the city. It was an idea that she always pushed aside, though. Most people probably wouldn't welcome a fire bender into their family in Omashu, especially if the family member in question was the result of the heir to the family name running off with a fire bender.
Tau grunted. I have got to stop thinking so much. She urged herself to fall asleep and build up some kind of energy before the exhausting day in front of her. Her body relented after a few minutes. She dreamt of playing with her father back when she was so short that he looked as tall as the ceiling, back before she first fire bended, before he started her training sessions, before he started becoming sick.
Tau woke up and hour and a half before the sun. She rushed into her uniform, realizing she had forgotten to wake up earlier to meet her landlord. She groaned when she looked into the bathroom mirror and desperately ran her fingers through her hair. Factory rules required that all workers look presentable and clean upon their arrival. Which is silly because we all look like shit by the time we leave.
But rules were rules, and she could still see some of the dirt from the ring clinging to her skin. Her black hair was only a few inches long, falling in a mess across her forehead and on the back of her head as it pleased. She picked at the visible dust and tried to get her hair to look somewhat organized before running down to the second floor, where her landlord lived. June opened the door after the third knock.
"It's not even five," the old woman grumbled, still in her nightgown, which showed way to much old, wrinkled skin for Tau to be comfortable. The woman groaned a little more about the time as she led Tau to her small office. Papers and files covered almost every surface. The old woman shuffled through a filing cabinet before taking out the folder for room 415. Tau interceded before the woman could give her any bad news.
"I know I'm late with rent, but I just got paid last night." Tau took the majority of her winnings from the previous night and held the bills out. June took it from her and counted it slowly, tallying up the bills in the her head and scribbling down the payment in the file.
"Take a seat," June gestured toward the only chair besides her own that wasn't covered in papers and logbooks. Tau did as she was told and fidgeted with the fabric of her pants.
"You know," the old woman continued, "I gave you discounted rent when you got here because I was hoping that you would be quick to bring in a boyfriend, but I see now that's not going to happen anytime soon." Tau could feel a little heat on her face. She was definitely not involved in the dating scene. The only scenes she participated in were all aimed at either making money or keeping her rested and fed enough to continue making money. She didn't have the energy for anything else anymore.
"Don't worry, though. I'm not going to raise your rates. I know you work long hours at the factory, and you whatever this second job is. There are always alternatives to that kind of life." Tau's blush deepened a little, and she wished she had inherited a little more of her mother's skin tone. She had made the mistake when she first started ring fighting of telling June she had just gotten paid on a Tuesday—which would never happen at the factory—and the old woman had assumed the worst of her young, female tenant's second job.
Tau couldn't help but shift embarrassingly under June's gaze. It wasn't quite disapproving, but it was sorrowful and regretful. Tau had thought about telling June that she was a ring fighter, but had decided against telling anyone lest any leaks in her isolated fighting live turn into a flood in her private life. It didn't stop Tau from feeling ashamed and guilty at the thought that June assumed she was prostituting herself for rent money. But maybe it would tug at her old heartstrings enough to keep her from throwing out her tenant.
"So," June hadn't expected Tau to defend herself, so she continued, "a pair of siblings came to me looking for housing. They're in a similar economic situation as you are, so I've signed them up to be your roommates." Tau's mouth dropped and almost hit her factory provided shoes. She'd rather be moved into a utility closet than have to deal with roommates.
"Roommates?" She gawked.
"Oh, don't freak out," June chastised her. "It'll bring down your rates, and maybe you'll be make to make some friends. They're about your age. This is non-negotiable, and they'll be moving in at noon. Now go, I'm not through getting my money's worth out of my crappy bed." She shooed Tau out of her office and closed the door in her face before she could refuse her new living situation. Great, she probably just did that so I wouldn't have to work that 'second job.'
Tau realized she would be late for her train soon if she didn't move quickly. She sprinted up the stairs to her room and back into her room. She took her mask from she had left it out—in plain view, that was going to have to stop if she was getting roommates—and shoved it in her closet under her crumbled fighting shirt.
She slid onto the train just as the doors were closing. Her face was red, and she was still panting when the conductor came by to check her pass. Her factory ID got her two free rides a day: one to work, and one back home. It was a forty-five minute train ride directly to the factory's gates.
The trains were always packed during shift changes. She was stuck standing and smelling armpits the whole time as the free room in the train car dwindled to nonexistence. What I would give to be a few inches taller, she thought as another unwashed underarm bumped into her face as the train started to move before settling to hover a still torturous three inches from her nose.
The Omashu Power Facilities were outside of the city walls. The compound was a large series of gray buildings blocked off form the rest of the worst Omashu had to offer by a thick metal wall and barbed wire. Tau followed the crowd of workers through the gates as some of the night shift workers tricked out of the various departments and buildings. The only good thing about walking to the plant at the start of a shift was knowing that the exhausted faces of the previous shift's workers finally got to go home with your arrival.
Tau walked into the building marked with a lightning bolt. There were only a few dozen fire benders in the city who were able to bend lightning, and most of them worked at the power company. A good portion of Omahsu's power came from a sister plant a few dozen miles away that harness power from a river. The rest mostly have from earth and metal benders bending the cogs of generators in some of the other buildings in the compound. Neither method, though, was as direct nor as powerful as lighting bending. Lighting bending was also cheapest when output was compared to hourly wage.
Tau could feel her lack of breakfast when she entered the lightning bender's shared locker room. She quickly threw a few coins into a machine, and it spat out some cheap food. She scarfed it down, knowing she'd need the energy and some more to get through the shift.
She quickly pulled her protected, non-conductive vest on, wanting to earn a few minutes of quiet rest with her coworkers before the shift started. Pei was their manager today, and he was always strickt with his employees. Tau wished they could have a lightning bender oversee them, someone who knew that the breaks weren't nearly long enough for the bender to recover, who knew that their shifts were too long and wages too low, who knew that lightning bending at the rate expected of them was exhausting after the third hour, painful after the sixth, and nearly unbearable after the ninth.
It was always a feat not to collapse before the end of a sixteen-hour shift. The lightning benders would strike—as had proved successful a few times in other industries—but there were only a few dozen of them, and almost no one in the factory—or even the city—cared much about the small band of tiresome fire benders.
Tau nodded to her coworkers as she sat down, heavy vest pulling down on her shoulders and helmet in her hands. They stared in silence at the clock on the wall, milking every last minute. Tau looked around the group. There were sixteen workers including her. They would be in two different squads, one for each conducting room. Tau's seven squat mates for this shift was a powerful group. Most of them had over a year of experience, and Chelsea, the closet in age to her, was nine years older at twenty-seven.
When they had one minute left to report to their conducting rooms, they silently got up and filed out into the hall. The conducting room was large, with eight machines set up for the workers to bend lightning into.
The last shift had just been relieved. The lightning benders worked in a rotation of five shifts, and they were all forced by low wages—and the knowledge that they wouldn't be hired anywhere else—to sign up for double shifts. They worked in a rotation of five shifts. Work two, rest three, Tau begrudgingly recited the cynical, self-appointed motto of the lightning bending crew. Three benders from the last shift were being dragged toward the infirmary by their tired coworkers. One young man had a burn running up his arm, an 'accident' undoubtedly caused by the unfair shift lengths and not carelessness as the factory would claim it to be.
The workers took their positions in front of their machine of choice, waiting for Pei to walk onto the balcony overlooking to workroom and signal for the official start of their shift. The nasty weasel was on time to the second. To say that Pei loved his job wouldn't properly express the extent to which he relished in the opportunities to yell at his inferiors. He pressed the intercom button so that not only would they have to hear his voice much louder than pleasant, but they would also have to brace their ears against how his commanding squeaks were distorted through the wires.
"In stance." The eight of them put on their helmets before taking a wide stance, readying their arms. "Start." Tau brought her hands up and held them there for a second, steadying herself and stretching slightly to waken up the muscles before shocking them awake with lightning. She took in a deep breathe and brought her arms down in front of her, bending one at the elbow and pointing two fingers on the other at the converting machine in front of her. Sparks danced on those two fingertips and she collected her focus and her energy. One jumped up her arm and landed on her rolled up sleeve, fizzing out harmlessly. She pulled her bent arm back sharply and rocked forward, sending a lightning bolt screaming into the machine.
Tau hated her job, but she loved her lightning. It came form a different part of her than her fire did. Her fire was from her head, bursting to life at the will of her emotions. Her lighting streaked up from her gut. It was instinctive, animalistic. Most lightning benders said that they could only bend lightning if they were at calm and at peace inside of themselves. Tau considered her lightning a product of the removal of human thoughts and emotions, which she guessed could be compared to having an inner peace. Her lightning never felt peaceful, and neither did she when she bent it. It felt consciousness, and so did she, like an entity driven by nature, by it's state of being, rather than thought.
Bending her lightning was like leaning over the edge of a canyon and surrendering herself to the force of the wind on her back. It was beautiful, but it was also terrifying, especially at first, because if you lost your balance you could fall to your death. You needed to let yourself become part of the ground under your feet and the air sweeping through your hair. You needed to become a part of things that do not think, yet are, to create something of the same kind as powerful as lightning.
Eight bolts of lightning few into the machines, and after a second of glorious illumination, the room dimmed. Tau took a deep breath and reset her stance. The workers bent at their own pace, some taking an extra second to rest when they breathed to try to stretch out their stamina. Tau just let her movements flow naturally, moving a little quicker than most of the other workers and holding the bolt of lightning a little longer. She could feel the energy from each bolt spread into her limbs, and all her senses were driven to the edge of overstimulation. The few times she had bended lightning while sparring with her father, she could have sworn she became faster and more observant, not only seeing, but also hearing and feeling her father's attacks with more clarity. Some lightning benders were off put by their lightning, fearing the difficult power that they could coax out of their bodies, but Tau loved it the more she bent it.
Every half-hour of bending earned the workers a ten-minute break. They took off their helmets and sat down on the benches in the back of the room. In a few hours they would be buying food from the machines to try to replace the energy that their bodies were rapidly losing. Everyone was sweating after the first hour, and the temperature in the room was climbing. Tau and most of the rest of the room stripped down to their gray factory tank tops under their protective vests.
During the third break, Tau noticed that Chelsea was noticeably more tired that she usually was. She hadn't taken off her vest during any of the breaks, and she was still in full uniform. As Tau walked over to her, she saw that despite the redness that comes with heavy exercising on her face, the parts of her skin that weren't flush were sickly pale.
"Hey, Chelsea, what's up?" she asked, trying to mask her concern and sound casual, taking a sig of water from a paper cup. Chelsea was holding her stomach under her vest. She had been quiet the whole shift, and the past two shifts as well, Tau realized. Chelsea was usually their cheerleader in the last hours in the converting room, always smiling and encouraging and doing her best to keep the exhaustion and burns from everyone's minds.
"I'm okay," her voice was weak. "Just a little tired." Tau eyed Ren, one of the other fire benders in the room and the unofficial grandfather of the workers even though he was only in his fifties. He caught her look and walked over, a two other concerned fire benders following him.
"No, really, I'm fine," Chelsea insisted, and the other workers, realized that something was going on, gathered around her. Many of the benders around her had worked with her for years, and they could all tell she was lying. Something was wrong; this wasn't just lack of sleep. Chelsea realized there was no putting off the truth from her figurative family, and she looked down at the ground in shame.
"I'm pregnant," she said bluntly, keeping her voice low and muted. Everyone's eyes fell to her stomach. They all knew Chelsea didn't have a boyfriend or husband, that she could barely support herself due to debt her older brother, now dead, had wracked up with one of the prominent local gangs.
"You should request shorter hours," one of the men suggested. "And take it easier on the output."
"I can't afford the pay cut." Even Tau, who had only joined the crew ten months ago, knew that the lightning benders were family. That no one else in the city would stand up for them and it was important that they support each other. Most of them had second jobs if they could find the employment, and many of them had to support children, spouses, or other relatives. When one worker collapsed, they all rushed to catch them.
And none of them could afford to live in good districts. Many of the workerks had been victims of some kind of crime above the typical mugging. No one said it, but they all knew how Chelsea's baby had been conceived.
"Why didn't you get rid of it?" and older woman asked.
"I wanted to, but," Chelsea had trouble getting the words out, "I just couldn't bring myself to. I know I should have, but I thought about how it's alive, and now it's too late, and…" She didn't need to finish. She was stuck with the baby.
"It'll be okay, we'll work something out." Ren put a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. Tau glanced at the clock. Pei would be back in three minutes to sharply order them back to work. They were running low on time to think up a plan. Chelsea couldn't continue at the rate she was going.
"Pei doesn't watch us much as long as the output stays up. While he's not here, I'll send a dual bolt of lightning into both of our converters every few seconds so you can take an extra rest," she offered. Tau was pushing her stamina as it was, but she hadn't had any problems lasting to the end of her shift in months.
"I'll do that, too, " Ren added. Three more lightning benders volunteered to help. They set up a cycle so that Chelsea only had to do a fraction of the work she had been doing before. She started to protest, but Ren interrupted her.
"You shouldn't be doing any kind of strenuous bending while pregnant, especially not with lightning. If you overwork yourself, it won't be good for the baby. You know just as well as the rest of how dangerous lightning can be. It's hard enough to protect yourself from it when you're tired, and now you also have someone else to protect as well. We're you family; let us help." Chelsea conceded as Pei walked in, yelling that they only had thirty seconds to get in stance. They took up a new formation so everyone who was helping Chelsea could easily fire into her converter.
By the end of the shift, everyone eas struggling to stay on their feet, especially those that had taken up part of Chelsea's work. Those who hadn't pitched in had only done so because they knew that they could barely make it through their shift on their own. They doted on those working overtime during the breaks, though, fetching water and food for them.
Tau's muscles changed from being energized by her lightning to being fried and burned. She switched which arm she was bending the lightning out of after every break, but she could see red splotches forming on her fingertips as the skin started to get seared as she got tired. More sparks escaped inside her body the harder it became to focus on the calm and animalistic place inside of her that produced the electrical blasts. She knew that after a few years there would be permanent damage. Ren's hands were always trembling from the nerve damage, and she had heard the stories of lightning benders who had suffered even worse damage after years in the plant.
Two of the men who had offered to help Chelsea couldn't last the whole shift, and Tau's numbing legs gave out from under her once Pei blew the whistle to end their shift. She didn't need to go to the infirmary like the two men, but she gladly let one of the larger workers carry her to the locker room. When she got there, he quickly jogged off to get her a bag of ice, which she held in her burnt fingers gingerly as she tried to cool the burning heat devouring her muscles.
The crew had a short meeting in the locker room after the double shift. No one else in the factory would stand up for them, so they needed to make a plan to advocate for Chelsea themselves. They debriefed the eight workers who had been in the other room and the few workers who had arrived early for the night shift. Chelsea would get a small biweekly payment while she was on maternity leave, but the amount would be even less than her normal pay.
They would continue to help Chelsea during her shifts until it became too much for her. Then they would go to the manager above Pei and see if they could advocate for a better pay during her maternity leave. Several of the workers who didn't have family to support, including Tau, offered up small portions of their salary to help with Chelsea's maternity leave. Despite Chelsea's objections, no one would let her take anything less that what was offered to her. She was in tears by the time her coworkers had dragging their feet to their respective jobs.
Tau went with Chelsea to the women's showers. It was heavenly to rinse the sweat off of her and finally feel somewhat clean. Chelsea wasn't very talkative, still embarrassed at the plethora of help offerings her coworkers had thrust upon her. The swell of her stomach was faint, but undeniably noticeable now that Tau was looking for it. It wasn't from the actual baby yet, but from some kind of pre-baby bump bloating. Tau once had the whole process explained to her, but she hadn't paid much attention at the time.
Tau loved spending time with Chelsea. The woman was the closest thing to a sister that she had. The crime that someone had inflicted up Chelsea had made Tau mad, though the raw emotion was pushed back and distant now that she had spent so long locking her emotions out of her thoughts as she had bent lightning into the converting machines.
The bruises on Chelsea's arms and legs opened up the box she had stored her anger in and amplified it to wrath. Chelsea deserved to be respected with all the work she did, and the marks on her skin brought up the image of the kind woman being held down against her will, probably on the way home from a shift it someone managed to get the upper hand on the young lightning bender. Tau had taken a few hard hits in the ring, and even then only the most vicious bruises lasted more than a week.
"Who did it?" Tau asked, surprised that the iciness in her voice. Chelsea was taken off balance by her tone as well. Tau looked at her sternly, demanding an answer. No one does that and gets away with it.
"Don't," Chelsea sighed. "I know you've young, and you haven't even been here for a whole year yet, but Omashu isn't the place for heroes, especially those that are fire benders. I appreciate your gallantry, but I don't want you getting hurt. You're already doing so much to help me. Just leave this as is."
"Was it the only time?" Chelsea knew she wouldn't be able to fool the younger fire bender into believing her lie, so she stayed silent. The rage in Tau's head was steadily growing, and her train of thoughts quickly devolved into surges of wrath.
"Tell me who it was. Trust me, but I have a lot of experience fighting. I can hold my own." Tau tried to restrain herself, to not grab Chelsea and yell at her.
"Look, I appreciate it, but—"
"Do you know what my second job is?" It came out sharp and cruel sounding, but Tau couldn't stand the look her comrade had. It was too sad, too hopeless. "Do you?" she asked again. People never asked about second jobs because there was good chance that whatever a fire bender did to make money outside of the factory in a city that despised them was most likely illegal on some level.
"I'm a ring fighter." Chelsea's eyebrows jutted up. "I'm serious. And I trained a lot before coming to the city. I can take this guy, especially if he's not used to fighting a fire bender."
"I don't want you get involved in this. It wouldn't do anything."
"It could keep him from doing this to you again. Or to someone else. Can you be sure he's not going to go after Huiy? Or Gwen?" Tau asked, naming some of the other younger, female lightning benders. "Look, I have a fight in two nights. I'll get you a ticket to come watch it, see me in action. You can judge my ability to fight and then make your decision." Tau was sure it would still take some more convincing to get a name from Chelsea, but she could tell that at the mention of the other women she had wavered a bit.
Tau went back to trying to scrub the scent of plasma off of her. She turned in her dirty uniform for a clean one and walked with Chelsea to the train. Working a sixteen-hour shift always distorted her sense of time. The sun had been just barely rising when she had entered the factory, and by the time she left, it had already set. The tain was almost as packed as it had been on the morning ride, but Tau didn't find herself bombarded with nearly as many armpits.
She got off a few stops before Chelsea and started looking for a cheap place to get food. Even just walking sent dull pains throughout her muscles, and she wanted nothing more than collapse onto her couch, but she knew it would be worse when she woke up, and she'd need food with some actual nutrition—not the junk the factory used to milk their employees of more money—to recuperate.
She hobbled around like a penguin until her nose led her feet to a food stand selling hot Omashu wraps. She purchased one with extra of everything and bottle of water. The vendor cooked her food in front of her and handed her a large wrap threatening to burst. Just the smell of the grilled zucchini and steamed cabbage made the meal worth every cent. She bit in, and the vendor laughed when he saw her eyes grow wide with awe. It was by far the tastiest food she had found in Omashu that fit her budget.
Tau chatted with the vendor a bit while he served the next eager customer and she nearly inhaled her food. He told her that his grandmother had been a chef at a prestigious restaurant before it was destroyed during one of the Fire Nation's attacks. Bad luck through the years found him as a street vendor, but he said he was just happy to be serving good food. Tau couldn't help but feel guilty at her lineage for forcing such a good cook out of the restaurant business. The vendor, an old man who introduced himself as Gingee, told her where he would be on the different days of the week, and she promised to come by again.
The food listed her mood a lot, and she would have moved quickly and happily up the stairs to her apartment if her legs didn't already struggle to just get her up the steps. She eagerly looked forward to striping out of her uniform and collapsing onto her couch. She froze when she got to the door. She stared at it, confused for a while. She knew she had locked it on her way out in the morning, but it was slightly ajar, and she could her a faint noise coming from the apartment.
Great, now I have burglars stealing what little shit I have to my name. She tried to will herself into a state of alertness. She just hoped that it was one thief. If she got the jump on them, she could knock them out with one well-placed bolt of lightning. Then, just drag them down the stairs and leave them there at the mercy of any passersby. She wouldn't bother reporting it to the police, they were incompetent, and all she wanted to do was rest her legs. Well, better to just get it over with. She slowly opened the door just enough to slip into her home.
