Chapter 1
Ranshi
I groaned as the sun shone in my face, stirring me from my dreamless slumber. Like every morning, the first thing I noticed after the light that woke me up was the earthy smell of the room I woke up in. I listened and could hear the rest of my family in the center room, so I knew I couldn't get away with staying in bed much longer. Sighing, I got up and changed from my sleeping robes to my day robes. Today I settled on a less traditional look, the robes being a much more pastel green then the ones typically associated with the Earth Kingdom. After sitting on my bed for another few minutes to try and wake up a little more I finally made it out of my room and into our center room.
"Morning Ran" my mom said from the dining table. "I was wondering if you would decide to wake up today." I heard a chuckle from my twin sister, Luyi, alerting me to her presence. I noticed she had decided to go with her hair down today, so I immediately began to look for something to use to put my hair up. I couldn't change that our face was the same, but I could make sure our hair wasn't. I spotted one of Luyi's hair ties, and was sure she wouldn't mind. I sat down at the table, putting my hair into a loose ponytail.
"So, girls, what's your plans today?" My mom asked with more cheerfulness than I thought should be allowed this soon after me waking up.
"I promised Ji I would hang out with her today" Luyi said. I felt my stomach drop. Ji was Luyi's friend, but she was nowhere near my friend. No one at the table seemed to take note of my sudden dread, however, as my mom only smiled and nodded.
"And what about you, Ran?" My mom asked, turning to face me better. I gulped. I hadn't thought that far yet.
"Uhmm…" I searched my mind for something, my mom raising an eyebrow and suppressing a smirk at my lack of a response "I am...going to wander town and find something to do." I said. That's what I did every day anyways, might as well call a spade a spade, I guess. My mind racked what I could do. If Lu was going out with Ji then Hisumo might be free. If not then I could always fall back on Kansay.
As I ran through these two main possibilities I began to get up from the table, ready to start my morning. I never ate breakfast anymore, it never appealed to me. I wasn't hungry when I woke up and there was no point wasting food by eating it just because others were also eating.
As I left the house I felt the outside air wash over me. I closed my eyes, feeling the caressing of the wind. As I opened my eyes, the familiar sights of Bafen greeted me. I supposed, to an outsider, my hometown might look strange with its mix of houses made of nicer stone and varying materials I couldn't name and the houses like mine, houses bent by prideful earth benders who saw no reason to take more time and energy to make an extra nice house when they could make one arise from the ground in a day. I didn't understand this mindset if I was honest. Plenty of earth benders in town had the nicer houses. Then again, I wasn't a bender. Only nonbender in my family, so maybe it was just something I could never understand.
I waved at my neighbors as I walked by, but I noticed that they all looked upset. I figured I knew why, but I pushed that down in my mind. As I walked through the town, my pleasantries slowed down more and moren as it was clear people weren't appreciating them. About ten minutes of a walk later and I was at my favorite spot in all of Bafen, Kansay's house. I knocked on the door and was greeted by Kansay, an elderly man with hair so white I could imagine snow even though I had never seen it. He smiled as he saw me.
"Come in, Zhifen, come in." He said, causing me to grunt a little.
"Ranshi" I said. It was bad enough that people in town called Lu and I by our last names when they didn't know which one we were, but it was ten times worse when it started to become our nicknames. And Kansay knew it was me, it isn't like Lu ever came to visit him.
"Of course, of course" he said apologetically "I was just making some tea, Ranshi, would you like some?" He asked, stepping aside so that I could come in.
"That would be great, thanks" I said. Kansay's house was small, bent to its current form by someone I never got to meet. It was common courtesy for earthbenders to make a house for someone who couldn't bend. Kansay was the only nonbender that I knew well, so I ended up spending a lot of time here to get out of the world of flying rocks. As I set down at his table Kansay brought out a piping hot tea kettle and two cups, pouring the both of us a cup.
"So, another one happened huh?" I asked as I blew on the golden brown liquid, watching as the steam curled away from me as I did so. Kansay frowned.
"That isn't something you should worry yourself about" Kansay said, getting a little shifty. He took a drink of his tea for the first time, seemingly unaffected by how hot it was. He let out a long sigh as he removed his lip from the cup.
"But Kansay, we're both nonbenders, you know we're both at risk." I said. My voice trembled, and I hated myself for it. Kansay said nothing, he must have known I was right. There was an awkward silence that I tried to fill by taking a drink of my tea, but it was still way too hot and I burnt my tongue a little, jumping. Kansay chuckled a little, which made me smile.
"At least tell me who it was. And was it bad?" I asked, setting down my tea, feeling bad for ruining the entertainment of me burning myself, but I needed to know.
"It was Mrs. Wei, and it was only a broken ribcage." He said. I sighed in relief, this time it wasn't lethal.
Moments passed once more, the previous subject having been fulfilled as much as it was going to be.
"Kansang, if you could redo your life as a bender, would you?" The words had come out of my mouth before I had even processed them. I couldn't believe I had asked that, it was an unspoken rule between nonbenders not to ask what ifs about our bending status. If Kansang noticed how big of a social faux pas I had made, he didn't let on. Instead he just stared into space, clearly in the realm of thought more than the physical world.
"No" he finally said, not a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "If I could have bent I wouldn't have learned so many valuable lessons throughout my life." He said, his age suddenly showing itself to me. He must have seen the disbelief in my face, because then he added, "Besides, if I was a bender I doubt you would come visit me so often, and I wouldn't want to lose that."
"Thanks" I said, giving him a smile. "I wouldn't want to lose this either." I noticed that my tea looked cool enough to drink without hurting myself, so I grabbed it again and- after a tentative sip- began to gulp it down. This made Kansay laugh, though I didn't know what was so funny about me drinking tea, but it was nice to make him laugh so I didn't say anything about it.
"What about you Ranshi?" He asked. I guess it was fair that I got asked the same question. I nodded my head, and I saw him frown. I knew he didn't like my answer, I didn't even like my answer. I wanted to be the proud nonbender he was, to not measure myself against those who could do things I could only imagine but it was hard. What are you supposed to feel when all your family can make rocks fly, you have a best friend who can shoot fire out of his hands, and the only person who couldn't do anything special like that that you knew was an old man who you were the only person who seemed to even pay attention too? As much as I knew it was wrong, I often couldn't help but see Kansay and wonder if I was looking into my future.
"You know, being a nonbender doesn't mean you can't have a unique set of skills." Kansay said, standing up. He walked over to a storage that was in the corner of the room and rummaged through it, pulling out a bow and some arrows. I raised an eyebrow at him.
"You have a bow?" I asked, surprised. Archery was an extremely rare skill, benders having no need for them and nonbenders either staying out of combat entirely or opting in for melee weapons like a sword. Fighting someone with an infinite amount of their element to bend always puts archers with limited arrows at a serious disadvantage.
"I could show you how to shoot a bow, give you a skill not even the benders in this town have." He said. I inspected the bow in his hands, it looked ancient with scratches all along the wooden part, whatever you call that. Despite the bow's obvious wear it still looked well maintained, I couldn't spot a speck of dirt despite being in a house made of dirt in the earth kingdom.
"No offense, but that bow looks as old as you, and I don't want an arrow in the face because someone went cross eyed in their old age" I joked. Kansay was the only type of person I could ever jest with like that.
"Oh, too old am I?" He asked smiling, but I saw a sudden fire in his eyes. He began to notch an arrow, but before I could ask what he was doing he let the arrow fly causing me to scram as it whizzed past my face.
"What was that for?!" I yelled. "You could have killed me!" Instead of defending himself he nearly pointed behind me. I looked and saw the arrow notched in the wall.
"Yeah, that arrow." I said, still angry. "Showing that you can hit a wall isn't impressive."
"Look closer." He said. I turned back around and saw what he was talking about; pinned to the wall by his arrow was a now very dead fly.
"Sorry about the mister fly," Kansay said, "but I had to make my point somehow." I couldn't imagine all the precision in what he had just done. After a few more moments of just looking at the arrow mounted fly I turned back to Kansay.
"Please, teach me" I asked. I had no intention of getting that good with the bow, I didn't even know if I could become that good, but maybe if I became good enough then I could have a specialty to my name after all. Kansay laughed.
"Oh, I thought I was too old." He joked. "My old creeped hands might start to shake and hit you with an arrow." I rolled my eyes.
"If I had known you could do that" I gestured to the fly "then I would have never said that." I said. "I'm sorry."
"Oh don't you worry about it. I'm just yanking your chain Ranshi." He said smiling. We can go out back and start now if you want." I nodded and stood up, gulping down the rest of my tea. "You go out now, I'll be there in a minute."
I went into Kansay's backyard, him coming out not too long after carrying his bow, a quiver with arrows and a target. He set up the target not too far from us, but far enough to where any arrow shot from where I was standing would need at least a little force behind it to make it. I noticed that all the outer circles were varying shades of green, while the middle circle was brown. Official Earth Kingdom colors. We then spent what felt like an eternity on stance work, which was probably payback for all the time I had messed with Lu while she was working on her earth bending stances, until my legs started to feel sore from that alone, Then when I had a good enough stance to satisfy Kansay, he began to show me the hand work with the bow itself. The three finger position he showed me felt awkward, and I had to fight my instincts not to grab it with the rest of my hand to feel more in control. He then had me practice notching the arrow and drawing the bow back for at least as long as he made me practice the stance. While I was pulling the string back and forth Kansay went inside, coming out with a pitcher and two cups.
"Alright alright, water break Ranshi." I said as he pulled over a rock to sit on. I sat the bow down and grabbed a cup he had just poured water into and began to drink thirstily, having not realised just how thirsty I was. Kansay picked the bow off the ground and just held it while I drank. I grabbed the pitcher and, after waiting to see if Kansay had any objection, filled my cup again. I drank the water much more slowly the second time, savoring the coolness as it went down my throat. I put my cup down and Kansay handed me the bow again, this time giving me the quiver as well.
"This time, you're going to actually shoot." He said and I felt myself start to get excited. "In fact, you're going to empty the entire quiver." I looked at the quiver and counted 15 arrows. I went back to where I had been standing while practicing. I notched the first arrow, the arrow that had been notched and unnotched by hand over and over. It was only right that it was the first one shot. I let go of the arrow and watched as it shot straight into the dirt.
"Try to aim a little higher" Kansay said, chuckling. I rolled my eyes at him and grabbed for the next arrow. Plunk. Ground. Arrow three, same result. Arrow four got a little farther but nowhere near far enough. I hadn't realised just how much force these arrows required, Kansay had made it look and sound so easy. For my fifth arrow I pointed my bow higher, which only caused the arrow to fall closer to me as it's arc was much sharper. This went on until I grabbed the final arrow.
"Make this one count!" Kansay said. Instead of notching it immediately I took a deep breath. I notched it again, though I was frustrated as the notch felt no different than the other fourteen I had notched and took another deep breath as I drew the bow. I felt a wind as I released the arrow which flung through the air crisply and landed smack in the middle of the target.
"Yes!" I said pumping a fist in the air with the hand not holding the bow. I turned excitedly to Kansay only to see him looking puzzled.
"What's wrong? I hit the target! In the middle even!" I said, the excitement still in my voice.
"Nothing's wrong dear, and an amazing job as well. I just didn't see a difference in the way you handled anything." He stopped for a second then shrugged. "Perhaps my vision hasn't aged as well as I though." He said laughing. "All that matters is that you went from hitting the ground to hitting a bull's eye! Incredible!" I could feel a grin come across my face. This sounded just like the praise Lu used to receive back when she was still learning how to bend properly. The glow of the accomplishment and the excitement and pride I saw in Kansay's face was infinitely better than the bull's eye itself. I ran up to Kansay and hugged him, being sure not to let his bow touch the ground as I did so. I wasn't going to ruin this by dirtying the bow.
"Thank you Kansay, thank you!" I said. I still couldn't believe that I had done something like that, that I had done something...impressive.
"Of course Ranshi" he said as we parted from the hug, him keeping his hands on my shoulders. "I hope you keep practicing the bow beyond just a day, I always wanted to pass down my knowledge to someone." I nodded my head vigorously.
"Can we go another round?" I asked. Kansay and I looked at the sky, seeing it was about noon.
"You can shoot more tomorrow Ranshi, but you can't spend all day here either. You know that." I looked down from him. The couple of times I had stayed here until dark, my mom made me spend all day looking for someone my age to spend my time with. I didn't want another mom mandated social session.
"Alright, but at least let me pick up all the arrows." I said.
"Well, if you insist on cleaning I can't say no to that" Kansay said laughing. So I began to pick up all the arrows, plucking the fourteen grounded arrows quickly but I hesitated on the last one. I savored the last couple of seconds of seeing my accomplishment before removing it. With all the arrows back in the quiver I gave the bow and quiver to Kansay as well as help him carry the target back inside. After that I said my goodbyes to Kansay and began to wonder the town, replaying the bull's eye in my head over and over. I began to head towards to Hisumo's house when my stomach dropped and all the pride I had felt from my archery lesson fled from me. I saw Lu, who wasn't the problem. The problem was who she was with, Ji and her possy.