026
** Worship

"Can you tell us, in as much detail as possible, all that happened and what was said to you?"

Tahno stared at the nicely dressed man with a paper and pen and with a deep sigh, racked his clouded brain for the events of the night before. It was an agonizing task that left him sore and even more heartbroken than before. Trying to keep out some of the pain, Tahno busied himself with watching the meticulous strokes of the officer's pen and let the words stream out of him like vomit.

Tahno flinched when the police reporter's motions stopped abruptly and his eyes head snapped up to meet Tahno's glassy eyes. "Why did Amon do this?" he nearly breathed.

Tahno felt his eyes fill up with tears. He reached up a trembling hand to flick his greasy, limp hair out of his face. He had been asking himself that same question since the attack. "I don't know," he answered uneasily. His deep voice lacked its usual confidence. Amon hadn't only taken away his bending, he had taken away his happiness, his life, his reason for even existing.

Then the flashbacks came. With a terrified scream, he ducked under the table and fought off the hands that tried to retrieve them. "Stay away from me!" he snapped. Every hand that reached for him now was now the gloved one of the sinister man who took his bending away.

"Tahno," a familiar voice tried to break through the haze of imaginary chi-blockers and murderous hands. The frightened man met the eyes of someone he knew from a long time ago.

Tahno nodded, trying to regain his composure. Spirits, I'm losing it. I just met him for the first time after the championship. "Tenzin."

"Come out from under the table," Tenzin instructed gently, like speaking to a scared child.

Because that's what he's reduced me to. The thoughts that raced through Tahno's mind were grim. I'm nothing but a quivering child! Following the instructions of the air nomad, the former pro-bender slowly slid out from under the table. The bodies in the room backed away from him until he seemed to collect his cool and sat back down in his chair.

Tenzin placed his hand on the police reporter's shoulder. "I think we're done for the day."

Tahno nodded graciously, before remembering who he was with and who he was. He tried to cover it up by stretching his neck and melting into an indifferent shrug.

"Do you need an escort home?" one of the officers asked.

Tahno stood from the chair and scoffed at the people in the room. "I think you're forgetting who I am."

The snooty woman, Lin Beifong, huffed in response. "I think you're forgetting that you just had a full on panic attack in front of us."

His eyes narrowed at her. "Fine. But make sure you walk at a distance. My reputation has been tarnished enough."

Beifong rolled her eyes before commanding one of her officers to follow him home. Tahno left the cramped room in a rush. He heard the footsteps trailing behind him as he made his way out of the shining police station. As much as he wanted to, he avoided looking down. Seeing his most likely pitiful reflection was all he needed to add to his fragile grip on… everything.

He half expected the flash of camera's to go off in his face when he stepped outside, but the only thing that greeted him was the lonely heat of the sun. At the brink of disappointment, he sighed and kept walking through the near empty streets. After the attack at the championship happened, everyone who didn't already know of the Equalists and their ambition and some of those who did, had been scared off the streets and now pulled the shutters tight on their houses.

Tahno wasn't afraid though. Not anymore. He knew that if he were to be attacked again he would be frightened of only the memories, nothing else. There was nothing else to fear. He was barely alive. Bending had been his everything, and resonated within every aspect of his life. Even now, his first time walking through Republic City alone, all because he was nothing without his waterbending.

Tahno chuckled half hysterically at the blue sky. No girls, no fans, no paparazzi, no posse; he was alone. As he walked, he debated what was lonelier; the raw emptiness inside him where his bending had once been, or the emptiness around him where the people that had loved his bending had once been.

He spent that night wherever he could find water around his flat. He stared at the water rushing out of the sink, curled up in his bathtub, laid under the artificial waterfall that decorated his backyard. He tried everything. His bending was gone.

Every once in a while his eyes would play a cruel trick on him and some droplets of water would obey his command, but in the end it was nothing but an illusion.

"Tahno," a throaty voice brough him out of his pitiful wallowing for a moment. Tahno gazed up from under the flowing water from his miniature waterfall at his former pro-bending teammate.

"Ming," he replied with a curt nod.

Ming sighed and sat down next to the waterbender-no-more. "Tahno," he sighed. "Our bending is gone. It's gone and it's never coming back."

Tahno closed his eyes at the pain Ming's words inflicted. "I know," he said through clenched teeth.

Ming slamed his fist into the ground and cried out when something cracks as it came into impact with the hard concrete. "It's broken," he whined, rubbing his hand gently. "And the earth doesn't listen to me anymore. I'm not a bender. Tahno, we're not benders."

Tahno stood up from under his waterfall and gently picked up Ming's limp hand. "Spirits, Ming. I can't heal this anymore." He squeezed his knuckles ever so carefully and watched Ming's face contort into discomfort.

Ming pulled his hand out of Tahno's and stood. Tahno took in his full figure(he still stood with the defensive stance of an earthbender). "I'm not an earthbender anymore, but I don't know how to not be one."

Tahno wrung out his soaking hair – something else he has to get used to – and movesd towards the door. "I know what you mean."

He opened his door, all but ready to leave his ex-teammate out in the hot sun with his earthbending-no-more and broken hand when he's stopped dead in his tracks. "No one even cares about me anymore." Tahno turned and stared at his old friend with wide eyes. "And not you either," he added, pointing an accusiatiory finger at Tahno for good measure.

Tahno's gaze dropped to the ground. "I know."

Ming laughed, but it wasn't not happy. It was an empty, desolate sound that made Tahno want to boil someone with his nonexistent waterbending until they screamed. "It's funny, ya'know. That night, I tried to calm myself down by telling myself Amon only took away our bending; that it wasn't the end of the world." Ming ran a hand through his slick hair. "Spirits, was I wrong. It was the end of the world, our world. They used to love us, Tahno. Worship us. But it was all nothing. Amon took it away with a touch. It was nothing."

Tahno said nothing. His eyes found their way back to his friend where they held their gaze.

Ming shrugged. "I don't know anymore. I thought I was a god. Everyone wanted us, praised up." Ming shook his head. "I'm not a god. None of us are. Amon proved us wrong." And with that, he walked away, leaving Tahno in the hot sun with his drenched clothes and broken heart.

I just feel so bad for Tahno:(
People can be cruel; they forget that celebrities/politicians/professional athletes/the famous are all people too. People with a brain and emotions that can be damaged just as easily as us. We use them, they let us use them, but we still do, and once they get old or boring or they fulfill their purpose we abandon them as if they never existed at all.

gypsyjay