Hasook quickly opened and held the door so that Shin could follow him inside. As the door shut behind him Shin looked around the meager abode. There were a few Southern Water Tribe vases perched on the rickety tables in the kitchen, so Shin assumed his saviour was from the Southern tribe like his own ancestors had been, but then he noticed a few tribal looking necklaces with jewlery fashioned out of what appeared to be bone hanging on the wall. He pulled out a chair and weakly plopped himself down looking directly at Hasook while doing so. "Hey, kid-"
"Hasook."
"Gotcha. Hey Hasook, so where exactly is your family from? The decoration in here is a little schizo." Shin brushed some loose, sweaty hairs out of his eyes. "So what gives?"
"Mom's family is from the Southern Water Tribe, she came over when she was 18 or so, but she lived with relatives in the Earth Kingdom. Dad was from the Foggy Swamp Tribe, but he was second generation. His parents immigrated during the first wave of resettlements into the city." Hasook didn't look up at all while speaking and bent down without the slightest pause in speech to take off his muddied shoes.
Shin looked at him curiously and raised an eyebrow. "Your Pops WAS from the Foggy Swamp Tribe? What is that supposed to mean? You don't stop being from somewhere."
Hasook furrowed his brow and said curtly, "He got crushed building the dam. My mom and I have been on our own since."
"Sorry for your loss." Shin hesitated slightly and continued in a somewhat saddened tone, "My folks didn't have the cash to take care o' me, so they plopped me in The Sheng Gao Orphanage. I was 5. Never saw 'em again."
Just as he finished his sentence, Shin heard some movement behind him. He turned around cautiously to find a groggy woman rubbing her eyes. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her face.
"Mom.." Hasook said almost apologetically.
"Not right now Hasook. Details. Who is this stranger sitting at our table?" She slammed her hand down on the counter causing both Hasook and Shin to cringe slightly. "Now."
Hasook shifted back and forth in place before finally mustering up the courage to talk. "After I left last night," he hesitated and bit his lip slightly, "I decided I needed some fresh air, so I went over to the park in midtown. I camped out in a tree when all of a sudden Mako and the Avatar show up and spend the night. I overheard that Bolin got kidnapped by some Equalists."
Sepay gasped slightly, moving her hand in front of her mouth.
"Anyways, the next morning they interrogated some propaganda guy about an Equalist rally and I tailed them. I got inside and the masked guy Amon came out on stage. He did his whole spiel about how bending is evil, but then..."
Shin and Hasook both looked away.
"Hasook, what...what happened?"
"Amon started taking people's bending away. Permanently. This guy, Shin, got his bending robbed and was humiliated in front of the crowd. Amon took out Zolt like he was nothing. Bolin was up next when the Avatar and Mako burst out of the shadows and rescued him. I was about to turn tail and run, but I didn't just want to leave Shin to die."
His mother dropped the small teacup she had in hand and it fell to the ground in a jarring shatter. Her mouth hung open without a word and tears started welling up in her eyes. She ran over to Hasook and hugged him as tightly as she could. "I'm..I'm just so glad that you are okay honey. When you didn't come back after leaving so suddenly yesterday, I was really worried. I'd already lost your father and I knew I couldn't bear to lose you too."
"I'm okay, mom. Just shaken. The whole thing was really disturbing, I-I don't even know how to describe it.-" Shin interrupted him mid-sentence. Staring out the small window into the dark alley.
"It was like havin' your arm cut off with a blunt sword and then havin' the schmuck parade it around like some trophy in the ultimate humiliation. When it happened, I felt like I'd lost a parta my soul, like someone reached into my body and ripped part of it away. It was like dying without dying." His face stayed relatively motionless, trying its hardest to conceal everything he was feeling. The one characteristic that made him feel special after his parents abandoned him was the ability to waterbend. Even if he could never fully trust people, he took solace in the knowledge that he could trust his bending, but now that was gone and he was alone.
Sepay felt her spine tingle at Shin's description of the night's events. Her glance shifted to the lanky Watertribesman sitting silently before them. She traced his dark features with her eyes along the contours of his body. When she got to his face though, she focused immediately on his eyes. She knew those icy gray eyes, but the memory seemed so long ago. She walked towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Shinook?"
Shin flinched at the sound of his full name.
"Shinook?" She repeated. "Is your full name Shinook?"
He was dumbfounded. How did this random woman know his full name? He hadn't told anyone since joining the Triads.
Sepay smiled warmly at him. "When I first came to this city, I needed work badly so I shifted from job to job pretty often. A year before I met Hasook's father and had Hasook, I volunteered over at Sheng Gao orphanage. There was a little boy there named Shinook there who looked a lot like you. He was a handful, but I always thought he was a good kid."
Shin's eyes were wide with shock. She had basically just described his childhood to him. Was that why she looked so familiar?
"Wait a sec," he said, rubbing his forehead and squinting to get a better look at her in the dim light, "What's yer name?
"Sepay."
"Baloney." His mouth stood agape. "I remember a Sister Sepay who was there for a bit when I was a tyke. That's you?" He smiled weakly as the news eased the monstrous depression he was feeling at the moment.
"It certainly seems that way!" She laughed and patted him on the shoulder.
Throughout this whole conversation, Hasook was thoroughly confused. The idea that Shady Shin, a member of the notorious Triple Threats, knew his mother was unbelievable. Even more so, the fact that his mother knew Shin as a "good kid" was even more baffling.
Her laugh was cut short when Hasook jumped into the conversation, "Shin, why did you join the Triads?"
Shin looked down at his feet and twiddled his fingers, "Honestly, because I needed the money. After I hit 18, I couldn't stay at the orphanage and I didn't have any training to do work at the mills or anything. Zolt bumped into me on the street one day and offered me a future in return for my service. I wasn't about to turn down a chance to survive."
Hasook's frown eased slightly as Shin continued.
"I personally opted out of doing any hits on people. That wasn't my thing. I ran business and personel stuff for Zolt and his boys which eventually earned me a pretty high position in the heirarchy ironically enough." He laughed sarcastically. "I'm done with them. With the Triads in general. Especially now that I'm just a nonbender." He sighed and looked out the window as he'd done earlier.
Sepay gripped his shoulder tightly and said, "Being a nonbender does not make you useless or anything less than a bender. Bending is a gift that some are given by the spirits, but it is not meant to be envied or missed. Benders and nonbenders are still both human, but the gifts we are given lead us in mysterious ways. You may have lost your bending, but you're a still a Watertribesman." She walked over to Hasook's bed and pulled a small lever under the bedding, causing a bamboo extension to fold out. She quickly grabbed extra blankets from her bed and made a small space for Shin to sleep.
"Shin-"
"Call me Shinook from now on, I think it suits me better."
"Shinook, there are extra blankets on Hasook's bed if you need them. I hope you two don't mind sharing a bed."
Shinook glanced at Hasook who nodded compliantly. "Shouldn't be a problem."