Sorry for the long wait fellas, had a bit of writer's block because - and I cannot stress this enough - I'm seriously just making this up as I go along. But thanks to the help of one of my best friends in the world, Powershade117, we've generated ideas for content for the next few chapters!
"Hey no fair!" shouted a little boy with messy black hair. "Mom, Rai cheated! She earthbended!" the boy complained to their mother, who leaned out the window to watch as her two children played soccer together while she chopped vegetables.
"Nuh uh! We're playing earth soccer, so earthbending is allowed!" Rai, the little girl, slightly older than the boy, with long black hair argued as she defiantly placed her hands on her hips.
"But that's not fair! I'm not an earthbender! Mom!" the boy whined calling for their mother to intervene in the disagreement.
The woman smiled and chuckled to herself at the sight of her two children playing and arguing as she stepped out of the house. "Now, Rai, it's not fair if you use earthbending when Arata doesn't know how to yet."
"He might not even be an earthbender!" Rai argued, stomping her foot on the ground, inadvertently causing a small rock pillar to emerge from the ground and shoot the ball into the air.
"Rai!" their mother scolded, quickly shedding her playful and kind expression and replacing it with a serious gaze. "Apologize to your little brother this instant!"
Rai flinched as her mother suddenly took a serious tone and hung her head apologetically. "I'm sorry, Arata," she mumbled quietly as the ball landed back on the ground.
"I don't think he heard you, Rai."
"Yeah, I didn't hear you!" Arata sniffled.
"I said I'm sorry!" Rai shouted.
"You shouldn't say such things, Rai. Arata could be a late bloomer for all you know. You're lucky to be able to earthbend, Rai and you shouldn't be mean to others even if they can't bend either! Besides, you're the elder Rai. Arata is your responsibility to look after and take care of when we can't."
"Hey, hey, what's going on here? I thought this was an earth soccer game!" All three turned to see a bearded man enter the backyard from the house.
"Daddy!" Rai and Arata exclaimed, rushing to him as he effortlessly swept them both up into his arms and hugged them tightly.
"Welcome home, dear," their mother smiled.
"What happened? I thought we were playing earth soccer!" he bellowed.
"Rai was earthbending and I can't, so it's not fair!" Arata complained to their father while Rai simply pouted and cross her arms defiantly.
"Not fair, you say? Well, how about you and me form a team together?"
"Yeah! Me and daddy against you, Rai!" Arata exclaimed, jumping out of their father's arms and grabbing the ball with his hands.
"Bring it on! I'll take you and the old timer on!" Rai boasted confidently, also jumping out of her father's arms.
"Old timer? I'll show you what this 'old timer' is made of!" their father exclaimed, earthbending the ball back into play and running after both his children as they ran away, gleefully laughing.
Rai's eyes snapped open as the sound of laughter faded. Dazed, she looked around and saw that she was in a small town as people walked by her, some generously depositing money into a hat at her feet. Her eyes felt wet and she gently brought her fingertips up to wipe the small tears that had begun forming. She felt something moving behind her and turned to see that it was simply the rising and falling chest of her sleeping eel hound, Haku. With hesitant and trembling fingers, she gently traced her fingers across the scar above her eye and sighed when she felt it's presence intersecting across her eyebrow. 'Only a dream…a memory,' she sighed in a mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief that she wasn't back in that hell she managed to escape from, but also disappointment that the dream was only a dream. It wasn't the first time she had ever dreamt of what her life used to be like, but it was the first time in years since she had.
"Hey." Rai looked up and saw Takumi standing across from her, holding two large steam buns in either of his hands. "You ok?" he asked in concern as he took a seat next to her and held out his hand to offer her the bun.
"I'm fine," she replied plainly, taking the bun.
"You look like you really zoned out there," Takumi said, taking a bite of the bun.
"I said I'm fine," she replied firmly.
"Ok… ok," Takumi held up his hand in an effort to calm her aggression. It apparently worked since she returned her focus to the steam bun in her hands. "So, is this what you do all day? Just sit here and do nothing?" Takumi asked. They were sitting in the town square of a village called Su Yung, the first village they had arrived at after leaving Republic City. It was a rather prosperous farming community filled with more animal-drawn carriages and carts rather than automobiles like in the city, though one of two cars wasn't an odd sight.
"Pretty much," she replied, finishing the bun and opening the firebending manual once again.
"But, doesn't that feel a bit, unfulfilling?" he asked, taking another bite of his bun.
"Unfulfilling or not, it's a quiet, peaceful life where only I decide what I do, and it's all mine."
"But you have all this power and potential! Even if you don't want to be the... you know what," he whispered, "don't you want to do something more fulfilling? Like your life has a purpose?" he asked.
"Everyone's life has a purpose, small or big picture," Rai spoke, putting down her book and locking eyes with Takumi, "Is one person more important than another simply because their life is more meaningful than someone else's? Look at that merchant over there," she said, gesturing to the man selling fruits in the town square. "Can you truly say that his life has no purpose or meaning simply because he does the same thing every day, because he doesn't have the potential that I or someone else does? Purpose and meaning in life is all subjective. Our lives only have purpose and meaning because we exist and choose to give it meaning. I won't let someone tell me what my purpose in life is. I have no plans on becoming 'you know what' but I don't believe that means my life has any less meaning than it would if I did become 'you know what'. My life is mine; that's all I want."
"Doesn't it get… boring?" Takumi asked, finishing his bun and wiping his mouth clean.
"Perhaps, but it's peaceful, quiet and my own." As Rai finished her sentence, a passerby dropped a few coins into the hat placed in front of Rai's feet.
"I thought you didn't want charity," Takumi snickered.
Rai chuckled under her breath at Takumi's remark, "Well, if I want to eat, I can't afford to be picky. I obviously don't have a job or family savings like you, which will only last you so long. So my options are either this or taking a job from the job board over there," she said, gesturing to a wooden board with several sheets of paper posted on it.
"Job boards?" Takumi asked.
"They're not as common in the bigger cities. If someone needs a job done but can't do it themselves, they'll make a post with what they need done and how much they're willing to pay for it. It`s a quick and easy way to earn some money. I've done a few of them every now and then to keep food on the table for me and Haku. Go take a look if you're interested," she explained.
Takumi glanced over to the job board and, curious, got up from his spot on the ground and made his way over. As he examined the postings, a few people older than him were browsing as well, some even taking the posts off the wall. He scanned some of the posts and most of them involved regular household chores, making deliveries or helping with harvesting crops. Eventually, one post caught his eye. "Hm, help needed for harvesting, and it's dated yesterday." His interest peaked, Takumi reached for the post and pulled the paper off the board before making his way back to Rai.
"What's that one?" she asked, not even looking up from her book.
"Some farmer needs help harvesting their orchard," he replied.
"Heh, well, good luck with that," she said disinterested, turning the page in her book.
"You mean, you're not going to help me?" he asked.
"Nope. You want the job, you do it yourself. I believe I made myself clear that I won't be taking care of you," she said in a serious tone. "I'm just escorting you to your family."
"Ok, I can do this by myself! I'll show you I can!" Takumi exclaimed, determined. He reached down for his bag and with the job post in hand, made his way towards the address specified on the sheet. Rai watched with her usual disinterested frown as he disappeared down the street and out of view.
Once he was out of sight, she closed her eyes and smirked, "Heh." Haku, who slept behind her between her and the wall, perked his head up at the sound of her chuckle. Noticing him suddenly focus on her with concern, she gently rubbed his snout. "It's nothing, he just reminds me of someone, that's all."
When Takumi arrived on the farm, he examined the large wooden house with a fenced yard that sat on front of a large field of fruit trees. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. "Hello? Hello?" he called out. Still there was no answer. So, he made his way around the back of the house and into the orchard, hoping to find the owner. "Um, hello? Is anyone here?" All of a sudden, his legs were swept out from underneath him and he landed roughly on his back. "Ow…" he groaned.
When he tried to get up, someone put their foot on his chest and pinned him to the ground as a dark brown and white dog suddenly appeared and growled over him. Takumi stiffened when a pitchfork was suddenly placed right in front of his face as the young girl over him glared at him angrily. "How many times have I told you punks to stay off my property? I told you I ain't giving you 'protection money'!"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about! I'm just here about the job post!" Takumi cried, quickly holding up the paper.
The girl looked at the flyer, recognizing it as hers and quickly stood up off Takumi. "Oh, sorry about that. Back off, Mimi," she said to the dog, who became docile while she offered her hand to Takumi and helped him up. "Sorry about that. I'm Meilin. My dad hurt his leg recently so I'm running this farm all by myself until he gets better."
"I'm Takumi. It's nice to meet you," he said with a smile. "So, who exactly did you think I was?"
"There's this gang of teenage punks in town that goes around collecting 'protection money' from the other local farms and businesses, but it's really just extortion. They trash any place that doesn't pay, but I won't be intimidated! But I don't want to bother you with my other problems. You're here about my job posting right?" He nodded. "Good, what I need you to do is take this step ladder and harvest all these apple trees right here. Fill up as many buckets as you can and then I'll need you to help me load them up on a cart and take them to the town square market. And if you do a good job, I might let you take some apples for yourself!"
"Ok, I'll get started!" With that, Takumi got to work helping Meilin harvest the apples of her orchard. A couple times, an apple fell from its branch and landed directly on his head. Meilin giggled at this and remarked that it had happened to her a lot the first time as well. Takumi wasn't sure if she was being serious or just saying that to make him feel better. Back and forth he went, carrying baskets filled with apples from out of the orchard to the cart at the side of the house as Mimi playfully ran alongside him. Hours passed into the afternoon as Takumi plopped onto the ground, panting in exhaustion.
"Hey, not bad. You harvested a lot more than I expected! You've got a lot of energy for such a little guy!" she laughed, playfully nudging his arm. "Come on, let's load up some of these baskets and take them down to the market. After that, I'll give you your payment."
"Ok," he said before pushing himself onto his feet and helping her load up her wooden cart while she strapped in a fox deer to the front.
"Mimi, stay here and look after dad!" Meilin called. Mimi barked and sat on the porch, obediently standing watch while Meilin patted the seat next to her, signaling for Takumi to climb on. Meilin shook the reins, causing the fox deer to begin trotting forward along the dirt road. "So, where are you from, Takumi?" she asked, making light conversation as they rode.
"Oh, I'm from Republic City," he answered.
"Really? I've never been to the big city before. What's it like?" she asked with wide, excited eyes.
"It's nothing like this town. There's lots of tall buildings so you don't get to see the stars as much. And there's so many people. It gets crowded and loud fast."
"So, why aren't you there now?"
"Well, my mom actually passed away recently so I'm going to live with some relatives."
"Oh, oh I'm so sorry," Meilin whispered, the earlier excitement was suddenly replaced with a look of sadness and concern. "I… I know what it's like. My mom died when I was little and since then it's just been me and dad and he's super protective. But every now and then, I still think of her and how much I miss her."
"Yeah, me too," Takumi sighed happily as he thought of his own mother, the memories warming his heart bit by bit.
"But wait, are you travelling all by yourself?" she asked. "It can get pretty dangerous outside the big city for a little guy like you."
"No, no, I've got a, uh, friend coming with me. She's a really strong fighter and we haven't run into trouble so far."
They rode back into town and Takumi helped Meilin unload baskets to various restaurants and produce stores. When they reached the last drop off in the town square, Takumi spotted Rai still sitting in the same spot he had left her in.
"So, how was the job?" Rai asked as Takumi made his way over to her.
"Have you just been sitting here all day since I left?" he asked.
"Yup," she replied simply.
"Did you even do… anything? I just can't understand how someone with so much skill and potential as you could just sit here and do nothing, just wasting your life!" he exclaimed.
Rai's eyes shot up at Takumi as she firmly shut her book and stood up, towering over his small form. "If you're not happy traveling with me, then you're more than welcome to find a new traveling companion," she said sternly.
Takumi sighed. "I-I don't mean to nag. It's just… my mom missed out on a lot because she had to spend all her time and money raising me and then she passed away so young. Life is short, Rai, and anything can happen. I… I just don't want you to feel like you've missed out."
Before Rai could respond, Takumi's attention was diverted by the sound of a dog barking. He turned around and quickly recognized Meilin's dog, Mimi, running into the town square barking loudly. "Mimi! What is it?" The dog continued barking wildly, jumping around and pointing back in the direction of Meilin's farm with her nose. Without hesitation, Meilin climbed back onto her now empty cart and rode off back to her farm after Mimi.
"Something's wrong…" Takumi noted. He turned back to Rai, who continued to look uninterested. "You're not coming, are you?"
"What do you think?" she retorted. Takumi said nothing. Instead he gave her a disappointed frown as he ran after Meilin's cart back to her farm.
Rai sat back down and pulled out a different book, a novel, and continued reading, all while trying to ignore the voice in her head yelling at her to go after Takumi. "He has to be able to take care of himself. It's not my job to take care of him all the time!" she reasoned with herself outloud.
Haku turned his neck around to look at her, his expression almost saying, "But if you don't do anything, he could get hurt. You can protect him."
"I shouldn't have to. He got himself into this mess; it's not my job to bail him out," she said to her faithful eel hound.
Haku cocked his eyebrow in response and groaned at her, as if to say, "But you had no problem intervening before. You saved his life then. If you hadn't come along then, he'd be dead now."
"Ugh," she groaned, "you're giving me the same look mom and dad used to give me. They always said that it was my responsibility to look after Arata because I was the older sister; it was my job to protect him because I was a bender and he wasn't. Even with all these stupid powers, I couldn't even protect Kala. Fat lot of good that did for either of them." Rai hung her head in self-loathing and disappointment, which Haku picked up on.
In response, Haku gently nuzzled against her arm affectionately. She brought her hand under his chin and scratched his scaly skin. Haku moaned again, which Rai took as his way of saying, "You may not have been able to protect Arata or Kala, but you can protect Takumi. He needs you; and you need him."
"I really hate it when you're right," she muttered.
At the farm, Takumi arrived just in time to see Meilin being roughly thrown to the ground next to her weary father by an older, muscular boy. Mimi barked angrily at the boy and bit his leg. The boy cried out in pain and tried to shake Mimi off, but her jaw remained clamped tightly on his leg. However, one of the boy's several friends came over and kicked Mimi in her side. Mimi whimpered out loud and released her hold on the main boy's leg.
"Hey!" Takumi shouted, quickly earning the attention of the five assailants. "Leave them alone!" The boys snickered to each other as the one who threw Meilin down advanced to Takumi.
"Takumi?" Meilin cried in shock at seeing him.
"And what are you gonna do about it?" he grinned.
Takumi gulped in fear, but tried to maintain his composure. He widened his stance and raised his chest, trying to appear strong and confident. Out of instinct, he quickly raised his fist and punch the older boy in the face, however, Takumi quickly drew back his hand and hissed in pain as his punch barely phazed the attacker. Instead, he simply laughed at Takumi's pathetic attempt and quickly punched him on the side of his head. The force of the blow quickly sent Takumi to the ground, but the boy simply lifted him up and punched him on the other side, splitting open his lip in the process. He laughed as Takumi squirmed in pain on the ground before swiftly kicking him in the stomach. Takumi cried out in pain and quickly curled his body into a ball in response.
"Heh heh," the boy laughed confidently. "This is who comes to your rescue? A little boy? I told you you'd regret not paying us that protection money. If you had, we might have been able to prevent your sad little farm from burning to the ground. Torch the place," he commanded as two members of his group stepped forward, hands lit with flames.
"No!" Meilin protested, running up to stop them only to be pushed back to the ground watched helplessly and couldn't stop them as they both thrust their arms forward to set her home on fire. Before the flames could reach the house, a sudden and powerful gust of wind blew the flames two firebenders looked at each other confused, before trying again, only for the same thing to happen.
"What's taking so long?" the leader cried.
"Something's up with the wind…" one of them remarked. As they both tried to light the house on fire for a third time, the wind suddenly lifted both firebenders up into the air as they fell into a large pile of manure. Meilin and Takumi couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at the sight of the two firebenders reeling in disgust as they emerged covered in manure.
"Who did that? Who's there!" the leader shouted. "Come out!" He quickly turned around when he heard a twig snap and saw a girl in green and black with blonde hair walking towards them on the trail that led to the town square. "You've got a lot of nerve lady."
However, instead of focusing on him, Rai ignored his threats and focused her attention on Takumi, who held his stomach and groaned in pain. She carefully helped him sit up and examined the bruise on the side of his head and his split lip. "You came…" Takumi coughed, managing to crack a smile despite his bloody lip and bruised face.
"You really need to stop putting yourself in dangerous situations, Takumi. I won't always be here to look out for you," she said, cracking a slight smirk. She ruffled Takumi's hair - something that surprised him - as she stood up and prepared to face the five attackers. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's bullies trying to force people to do what they want. I suggest you all leave before you regret it," she said sternly, cracking her knuckles.
"Before we regret it? I think we better teach you a lesson," the leader laughed.
"Heh," Rai chuckled confidently, "I've dealt with men trying to teach me a lesson before. My greatest regret is that I only managed to kill one of them."
The two men she had blown into the manure flinched at the sudden and intense glare she gave them. "Uh, sh-she looks pretty serious, man," one of them said.
"So what? There's five of us and only one of her! Now get her!" he ordered. Two advanced, but Rai easily blew them into the air, where they landed roughly behind her. The next to advanced, but Rai blew one of them back with a gust of wind before engaging the fourth. She blocked his attacks with her arms before grabbing his arm as he tried to punch her and flipping him over her shoulder and roughly onto his back. She delivered a swift kick to the side of his head, knocking him out cold. She turned her attention to the one she had knocked back before and this time, pulled him towards her with a gust of wind and knocked him out with a clothesline move. She turned back to the leader, who stood there in shock and awe that she had taken out his entire group.
"You are nothing but a bully who preys on the weak to exploit them," she said, waking up to him with a vicious glare while he simply stood there in a mixture of shock and fear. She quickly seized him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close and she whispered, "I suggest you put some distance between yourself and this village, now." When she finished her threat, she single handedly threw him over her shoulder and to the ground. Like a frightened cat, the boy scrambled to his feet and skittered away as his beaten and weak crew followed after him while groaning in pain.
"My goodness, that was incredible! You defeated them all by yourself!" Meilin's father exclaimed as Meilin helped him up.
"It was nothing," Rai remarked, casually brushing dirt off her shoulders.
"Are you kidding? That was amazing! I don't know what would have happened if you didn't come along!" Meilin exclaimed. "Is this that friend you were telling me about, Takumi?"
"Yeah," Takumi nodded before turning to Rai. "Nothing for you perhaps. Ow," he groaned in pain, rubbing his lip. "Are you two okay?"
Before Meilin and her father could respond, Rai moved up to him and spoke. "You should worry more about yourself." She took Takumi's face in her hands, examining the bruise on his face and the bloody cut on his lip. "You'll be fine," she replied casually.
"That was so brave of you, Takumi, coming to defend us like that," Meilin smiled, causing Takumi to blush.
"There must be something we can do to thank you!" Meiling father exclaimed.
"Oh, I know! You must take some of our apples!" Meilin exclaimed, quickly gathering a small satchel of apples and handing them to Takumi.
"Well, that is kind of you, but it's really not necessary. I'm just glad we could help," Takumi smiled.
"Please! I insist! We have more apples than we can count! You'd be doing us a favour!" Meilin insisted, not taking "no" for an answer.
"Just take the apples," Rai muttered to Takumi before turning to leave on Haku.
Takumi paused for a second, surprised at how detached Rai seemed to be. However, he turned back to Meilin and smiled as he took the satchel of apples she held out for him.
"Oh and here's the money for the job," Meilin added, handing Takumi some paper bills. Before Takumi turned away to leave with Rai, Meilin quickly planted a kiss on his cheek.
Takumi blushed intensely as his hand went up to where Meilin had pecked him. He smiled and laughed nervously, "T-thanks. To both of you. Well, I gotta catch up with my friend before she leaves without me," he chuckled, "You two take care now!" Takumi ran to catch up with Rai and Haku. The large lizard was taking a leisurely pace at the moment, so Takumi was able to comfortably keep up with them on foot. Not many words were spoken for a time, until Takumi turned to Rai. "So...How did it feel?" he asked.
"How did what feel?" she asked back, keeping her eyes locked on the path ahead.
"Oh, don't give me that," he chuckled, amused that she was pretending to not know what he was asking about. "Those people back there. You saved them. Did you see how happy they were? Don't tell me you didn't notice."
"I was too busy watching you almost get yourself killed," she responded, completely deflecting his question once again.
"And you came to my rescue. I thought you said that you weren't going to take care of me?"
Rai scoffed. "Well, don't get used to it."
"Okay...I see you're not taking a hint," he sighed before asking his question once again. "How did it feel to help those people?"
Haku came to a stop and turned his neck to look at Rai, curious about her answer as well. Takumi stopped as well, as both looked at Rai, eager to hear her answer. "I... I feel…" she struggled to find the words, "I feel a... warmness inside me…" 'Was this how Kala felt? Putting herself at risk to help me?' she thought to herself before speaking again. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," she said as Haku resumed his leisurely pace.
"I can respect that," he smiled, satisfied with her answer as he continued walking alongside the eel hound. "Just...please try to remember that feeling. Eating is good for the body, but feeding another is good for the soul. That's what my mom used to say."
Rai smiled, "Hm, your mother sounds like a smart woman. The more you talk about her, it…"
"What?" he asked, hearing her trail off in her speech.
"Nevermind," she muttered.
"You were about to say something. What was it?" he asked, gently pressing her.
"I said I DON'T want to talk about it!" Rai suddenly yelled. Haku started to jog, forcing Takumi to do the same just to keep pace as they leave the town of Su Yung.
Next chapter: Rai and Takumi visit an ostrich horse ranch owned by a greedy man who won ownership of it from the original owner. Though Rai insists on staying out of it, Takumi gets too ahead of himself when he makes a bet with the owner.
So, as I stated at the beginning of this chapter, I'm making this story up as I go along. Not a good practice, I know, but it was either that or nothing. So, again I stress, ideas are more than welcome! Hope you're all enjoying the story so far!
