Mako opened his eyes, and let out a content sigh. He laid in bed for another couple of minutes, then sat up and stretched. Mako looked around at the room he was staying in, nearly an exact replica of the one he'd been in when he had visited Zaofu in the search for new airbenders. His suitcase was at the far end of the room, still unpacked, as he had been so tired, physically and emotionally, last night that he slept like a log. He got up and went to the bathroom en-suite. The former commander ran the cold tap, and after a few seconds of letting it run over his hands, he splashed it on his face. Mako shuddered as the water woke him up fully.
He and Bolin had made up last night, and Mako felt happier than he had in a long, long time. It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and now he was walking so much more freely. The issue of Kalla was still needing to be addressed, of course, but that would come with time. He needed to think over what he was going to do next, because other than that he hoped to stay with Bolin for a bit, he had no immediate plans.
After letting everything out last night, Bolin and Mako had walked down to a motel. Mako had paid for the room, despite Bolin's protests, but Bolin had promised to let Mako move in to his place in Zaofu, which he'd bought fully a couple of months ago.
"Bolin and Opal are living together!" Mako exclaimed out loud. It was a welcome surprise on the way back home yesterday evening, and Mako couldn't be happier for his little brother. Although he wasn't little anymore.
Bolin was nearly 22, and although he was still light-hearted, he'd definitely matured considerably since their fight. He was doing well for himself too, but he wanted what his main job was to stay secret until Mako came around to a rendezvous later. Him and Opal were living in the Fhouz district, which was the third highest district altogether. It was a massive housing estate more than anything, and it was where the bulk of Zaofu's population lived.
Mako walked out of the bathroom and went over to his suitcase. He put a white vest and a brown t-shirt with long sleeves which had a small deer logo stitched in on the crest. It was his favourite top, and one he'd never worn while drinking, to keep it clean. He pulled on some black trousers, and walked out the door. He could come back for his stuff later, as he still had it booked the room until the end of the day. Mako went downstairs, got some breakfast and walked outside.
Mako strolled confidently to the tram. He walked with a swagger that he didn't realise he'd lost of the course of the last eight months. When the firebender got on and sat down in his seat, he noticed a little baby staring at him. He returned the smile as wide as he could, and saw the baby giggle. He sat back happily, watching the buildings blur past as he travelled to the Fhouz district. When he arrived, he got off and looked around, trying to remember what Bolin had said to him.
As soon as you get off at the first stop, Bolin's voice relayed in his mind, look around. You should spot a blue spire poking out from behind a billboard. It'll take a little while to walk to it, but that's the place. I've got something really exciting to show you! Be there by 10am.
Mako looked around, and sure enough, he did spot a spire poking out from behind a billboard. It had only just passed 8:30am, but Mako was completely alert because Zaofu was a couple of hours behind Republic City, in terms of time zones. He started to make his way through the streets, always keeping the blue spike in sight. After twenty-five minutes of dead ends and turning back, Mako arrived at the base of the spire.
It went six hundred metres into the air, and was made of metal, as all sculptures in the city were. He sat down by a bench in front of it and crossed his arms and legs. It was a bit chilly this early in the morning, as it was October. It didn't matter to Mako though, as he heated his body using firebending. He waited there patiently, just happy to be on good terms with Bolin again.
Over the next while, more and more people started to show up around there. Mako didn't think anything of it until one of the guys he'd seen with Bolin, Ling, also showed up. It spiked Mako's interest, but he didn't say anything until Bolin arrived himself.
"Bolin!" Mako exclaimed after nearly an hour of waiting, and rushed off the bench to greet his brother. Bolin, who'd arrived on a bike, came over and gave Mako a hug, patting him on the back.
"Feeling better?" Bolin asked with a wide grin, and Mako nodded. "Great, because this has been gaining momentum for a while. I can't wait for you to see what we've created! Ling, come meet Mako."
Ling walked over from where he was leaning against the spire, and stopped just in front of Mako. He was inch or two taller than Bolin, albeit a bit skinner, and had bright, short blond hair. He had a dull yellow tank top on and greyish-red trousers. He didn't mind the cold, seemingly. He had sharp features and piercing hazel eyes, but when he smiled, there was no sense of hostility whatsoever.
"You're Bolin's brother, Mako, aren't you?" he started. "I'm Ling, and we run this entire thing with Mo and Nel. I haven't really heard much about you from Bolin. Can you lavabend too?"
"Lavabend?" Mako asked, and looked at Bolin curiously. Bolin just looked back awkwardly. "No, I can't lavabend. I'm a firebender."
"You're a firebender?" Ling repeated, surprised, then looked at Bolin. "Wow, Bolin, you didn't tell me much."
"We didn't leave on the best of terms," Bolin explained, shifting his feet awkwardly. "So I didn't like to talk about him. No offense, Mako."
"None taken," Mako said, then turned his attention back to Ling. "What do you mean by 'we'? Do you know all the other people here?" He gestured to the other twenty people around, their ages ranging from eighteen to forty.
"We run lavabending courses," Ling told Mako, as if it painstakingly obvious. "You two really didn't talk at all, did you? Bolin started running them about ten months ago, with only me, Nel and Mo going. We grew really tight together, and the class started to grow really quickly up until a few months ago. By that point, we were all good enough to help him teach. Then the law started to make us do background checks on everyone, and we lost a substantial number of our students, because they wouldn't let anyone with any type of criminal conviction learn, no matter how small. Mo and Nel are setting up the grids right now. You're coming, surely, even if you can't lavabend?"
"Is that why you wanted me to come here?" Mako asked Bolin, unable to think of any other reason.
"Yep!" Bolin said enthusiastically. "Just wait until you see how good we've gotten at teaching it. You have to come and watch, Mako!"
"I don't see why not," Mako agreed. "I came here to see whatever you wanted to show me, and this is it."
"Alright!" Bolin said happily, and high-fived Ling. He grinned, and then cupped his hands around his mouth. "Everyone, time to go. We all know the drill, show your license to the police without creating a fuss and we should get there by half ten. We don't have many lessons left together, so let's really put in a special effort."
Bolin walked up to a police officer, and produced a plastic card out of his pocket. The guard glanced at it, this clearly being a regular occurrence, then gave him a short nod. Bolin said something and gestured to Mako. The officer listened, then walked up to Mako.
"Any problems, sir?" Mako asked. He knew exactly what to say, and what not to say from his experience back in Republic City to get on well with a cop.
"Bolin there says that you're a firebender. Restrictions around lavabenders are very tight here, as you'd expect, so just show me you can firebend and you'll be on your way."
"Sure," Mako said, and lit a fire in the palm of his hand. The officer gave Mako a brief nod, then turned to Ling. Ling did the same as Bolin, and the officer repeated the process with all the others. There were no problems apart from one 19-year-old, who seemed to have forgotten his license. He cursed, and after a few minutes of looking, he started to walk home sullenly.
"Can't we wait for him?" Mako asked, but Bolin shook his head defiantly.
"Lavabending isn't something to play around with," Bolin stated. "I know it seems harsh, but if they don't even remember to bring their license when it's such a big deal, we can't have them playing around with lava. Even with the license, we still have to have an official from the law watching over us. I had to get Su Beifong to personally give me permission to even start teaching classes. We have to take a hard line, or else things could get ugly in the future."
"That's… very mature of you," Mako acknowledged, putting a hand on Bolin's shoulder as they kept on walking. "I don't mean this in a bad way, but I never thought you'd be the type to step up and lead with a hard approach. I'm really impressed."
"He was happy to let me do most of the talking until he nearly burnt my hand off," Ling said slyly, and gave Bolin a soft dig on the shoulder. Bolin chuckled awkwardly, and Ling started to tell Mako a bunch of funny stories from the past about Bolin while he'd been in Zaofu, while Bolin joked along with him.
"You two are friends then?" Mako assumed.
"Yeah," Ling answered immediately. He was very social. "Me and Bolin have been stuck together a fair bit, whether it be with lavabending or just going out. I was the first guy to really take his classes seriously, a little before Nel and Mo joined. Whenever he's not head-over-heels for Opal, that is. I don't think I've ever seen either of them not holding each other when they're in a room! Oh, there's so much to tell you about those two lovebirds, I don't know where to start!"
"Not around Mako!" Bolin whispered loudly, but Ling kept going. A smirk appeared on Mako's face, and he leaned closer to Ling, who had a fat smile on his face.
"There was this one time," Ling continued playfully, "when he was… when Bolin…" he was cut off over his own laughter, doubling over. Mako's interest was definitely spiked now, but when Ling tried to tell the rest of the story, Bolin put his hand over Ling's mouth.
Bolin managed to keep Ling from telling any embarrassing stories about himself and Opal for the rest of the walk, which was about half an hour. They came up to a plain open field, well away from the city, and four grids of regular earth had been set up carefully by the other two lavabenders. They were all twenty metres apart from each other, so any lava from another grid would purposely had to have been lobbed to reach another.
"What did you mean by that you don't have many lessons together left?" Mako asked them both. He didn't have to ask more specifically to know that they were best friends. He could tell through their banter that they were very close. They were both friendly and vibrant, much as Mako had remembered Bolin, and their personalities bounced off of each other. Ling slagged Bolin a little bit more, but it was all in good humour.
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot to tell you!" Bolin exclaimed. "We're thinking of moving to Ba Sing Sae to start up a lavabending school there! I know there's bound to be tons of lavabenders there, and to be quite honest…" he leaned in closer to Mako's ear "…there hasn't really been a huge uptake here. Apart from Ling, Nel and Mo, nobody has really shown a rock-hard interest in lavabending, unfortunately."
"Really?" Mako said, raising an eyebrow. "But there are thousands upon thousands of people in Zaofu, from all over the world. Surely there's more than just three of you."
"There were a couple more," Bolin continued. "But they all had dodgy backgrounds, and it was clear with a couple of them that they were only interested in using it for the wrong reasons. We've got a place on hold in the Lower Ring which we can rent for the first while, and travelling there is no problem. There are just one or two big issues."
"I'll say," Ling added. "Opal isn't happy with it in the slightest. I thought it was impossible for them to fight over something, but boy, was I wrong."
"Does Opal not like lavabending?" Mako asked. He racked his memory for anytime she had said so, but he couldn't off of the top of his head. "Then how are you two staying together, if that's the case?"
"It's not lavabending," Bolin said sadly, "she just doesn't like Ba Sing Sae one bit after what happened to the airbenders there. I told her that the Earth Queen is long gone, but she won't budge."
"She must feel pretty strongly about it if she raised her voice about it," Mako said. "She was really shy the last time I met her. So she won't move with you to Ba Sing Sae, but you two are living together at the moment?"
"That's about it," Bolin said. "The other problem is that it's technically still illegal there, and punishable by death because of some ancient law. We did a lot of research, sending letters and looking at records of crimes, but couldn't find anyone that had been executed or even jailed for lavabending itself. Wu still has some power, I'm sure that we can convince him to get it overturned."
"That's a pretty strong 'if'," Mako mentioned. "I know that you and Wu know each other well enough, but he can't just go changing laws on a whim because a friend asked him to."
"Well, if it doesn't work out, then that's a pity," Bolin said. "But we've got a couple of other cities planned out as back up, and we won't run out of money for a while. Trust me, we've been planning it for ages."
"If anything goes slightly wrong, it'll be on your shoulders," Mako warned, still sceptical, as Mo and Nel walked over. "We both know that I can't control you, nor do I want you, but my honest impression is just that it seems like a high risk for a low-enough reward. You've gotten ahead of yourself in the past, Bo."
"It's my calling," Bolin replied, not backing down. "You've always been the stern cop, that rules with an iron fist, or like Asami was always going to be a businesswoman. I'm going to be a lavabending instructor, I know it!"
"An iron fist…?" Mako muttered quietly, not sure how to take that, while Bolin greeted the other two.
"This is my brother Mako," Bolin introduced. "He's a firebender, and he was the guy we ran into at the stop last night. He can be a bit broody sometimes, but he means well. You should get to know each other."
Not gonna convince anyone with your silver tongue, anyway, Mako thought. Still got a bit of a habit of saying whatever comes to your mind first.
"I'm Mohamed, but everyone calls me Mo," one of them greeted, and waved at Mako. Mako waved back. Mohamed was just under six-foot-tall, and wore a t-shirt and shorts, despite the cold weather. He had light-brown skin and a very well-kept long, curly beard. His black hair was parted and gelled at the hairline. Unlike most earthbenders, he was slim enough. He was still built, but ironically looked skinny compared to his friends. "I teach the beginners here basic forms using sandbending."
"Sandbending?" Mako repeated. "What does sand have to do with lava?"
"Sand is much more timid and calmer than lava to control," Mo started to explain. Mako got the sense that he'd been asked that exact question a lot, but he didn't seem annoyed, thankfully. "Lava is just as heavy as normal rocks, but when you're just bending regular earth, you don't need to try to keep it compact. But with lava, it slips out of out your grasp, like sand. I'd happily give you the full rundown if you came over while I teach my students."
"No harm in it, I guess," Mako agreed, getting a nod from Bolin.
"I'm Nel," the last guy said. He was a physically huge man, over 6'5, his arms bulging with the size of his muscles. He had a short orange buzz cut, just like Mako's hair, and his nose was crooked. When he smiled though, it was dazzling. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts as well. He held out his fist, and Mako fist-bumped it. "Nice to meet you." He didn't add anything else.
"Nel's probably the strongest earthbender of us all," Ling said. "He doesn't have as much precision as the rest of us, but he could melt a mountain if he wanted to. He's a good lad, but he just isn't great at meeting new people."
"Hi," Mako said. "Nice to meet you too." He turned to the four of them. "Which one of you is the best lavabender overall, would you say?"
"That's a pretty general question," Ling said. "Like I just said, Nel could make the most lava out of all of us, but he could be better at directing it. Mo has unreal technique from knowing how to sandbend from his old man, but he can't create that much altogether. Me and Bolin are about the same, but I'm just that tiny bit better." The last sentence was bait, but Bolin knew it straight away and just rolled his eyes.
"Whatever you say," Bolin replied, but then snuck in an extra few words. "I'd still smash you any day in a fight though."
"That's only because I've never fought anyone with it," Ling challenged. "And besides, you travelled with the Avatar, she probably taught you a load of moves."
"I learnt how to lavabend before she did," Bolin protested, and raised a challenging eyebrow. Ling returned it fully, but they laughed it off a second later.
There seems to be a rivalry there, Mako thought. It looks healthy though.
His heart tinged with regret with the reference to Korra, but he didn't really feel too bad. He just didn't have the motivation to self-pity at that very moment and time, if that made sense. He was in too good a mood for something like the mention of her to spoil it.
"Let's get started," Mo decided, and gestured for Mako to join him as he starred walking to the grid at the far end. When they got there, there were seven students were waiting quietly, ready to begin. All the grids were surrounded by stone fences, and hadn't been altered at all, but while Bolin, Ling and Nel all changed the middle of their grids to a small puddle of lava to begin with, Mo's was just sand. Everyone had raised themselves a pillar of earth to sit on, and Mo made one for Mako too. He stood, ready to teach.
"Class, we have a guest today, and he's none other than Bolin's brother, Mako!" Mo announced. All seven heads shot at Mako, and suddenly, Mako got a sense of respect, even though he had only just arrived. Bolin must have a big reputation here, huh, Mako thought.
"I'm not an earthbender though," Mako got in quickly, as so not to give them false expectations of what he could do. "I'm a firebender." He lit a small flame in his hand, and although the awe dropped significantly, they still sat a little bit straighter than before. Their age range was roughly late teens to mid-twenties.
"You're all nearly ready to get to more advanced lavabending, so tell him a few things about it, to prove to me that you know the basics." One woman put her hand up, and Mo picked her.
"Only every one in a couple hundred earthbenders can lavabend," she started, and Mako was taken aback. "But that's a safe estimate, it's probably even less. A lot of people never realise they can, too. It's generally stumbled upon."
"Very good," Mo appreciated. "Brian, you're next. Tell him anything you know."
"Anything?" the guy called Brian asked. "Well, um, here, every beginner has had to learn how to bend sand to a decent level before they can start lavabending. It's like learning good form for lifting weights in a gym, and then lavabending is putting heavy weights on. Also, being able to sandbend doesn't mean you can lavabend. Pretty much every earthbender can learn how to bend sand, as sand is just tiny, miniscule pebbles."
"Leaving anything out?" Mo suggested, but the man called Brian just looked at him blankly. Mo sighed, then gave him a clue; "What's the number of metalbenders that can lavabend as well, in the entire world?"
"Oh, nobody has ever claimed to be able to yet," Brian answered immediately, then he turned to Mako. "Wait, didn't you grow up with Bolin, and if so, did you travel with the Avatar too?"
"Yeah," Mako answered quickly. He didn't mind thinking about Korra, it was just that thinking about her led on to thinking about Kalla, and there was no point in doing that right now.
"She can probably do both, right?" he asked.
"I'd say so," Mako said, thinking back. "I've definitely seen her metalbend at some point, but I've never seen her lavabend." He remembered Hazukk's interviews, and he had claimed in them that she had lavabent against the Triple Threats. But he didn't know that for sure, so after another few moments of thinking, he shrugged his shoulders to confirm that he couldn't think of any time he'd witnessed it.
"Another interesting fact," Mo interjected, "is that even if two lavabenders have children, it isn't guaranteed that their child will be able to lavabend, just like some children of benders aren't able to bend at all. The odds are that for every two children two lavabending parents have together, one won't be able to bend lava even if they can both earthbend. For an earthbender and a firebender having children, the chances are roughly 1 in 4 that they will have a lavabending child."
"Sir, I remember something!" another student said, eager to impress. It seemed ironic, given that Bolin's friends all looked roughly the same age or a year younger than him, that these people were treating them like elders.
"Go ahead," Mo said.
"A common misconception is that lavabending is just like waterbending, but in fact, there are very few similarities. Waterbending is more like airbending than lavabending."
"Very good, Terng," Mo complemented. "I reckon you might be able to move up by next week, to Ling, Nel or Bolin. You're a good example to the others." The man called Terng beamed with happiness.
"I never heard that," Mako commented. "Where'd you learn that from?"
"Bolin was talking to a waterbender a good while ago, before he began teaching, and he found almost no similarities," Mo told Mako. "It's near impossible to redirect lava perfectly, while redirecting water is literally all waterbending is about. You could maybe draw a line in between the change from solid to liquid, but not really. We're open to criticism, of course, but no-one's been able to come forward with an argument that could help us teach better. There are a few waterbending forms an elite level lavabender could copy, but that's about it."
"Seems fair enough," Mako said. "But why did the cop come? You were getting on fine with him earlier when he checked your licenses."
"It's just to make sure that we stay outside the city limits," Mo explained. "It's not a matter of they don't trust us, it's just that they don't take any risks. It's fine, he just sits there quietly." He turned his attention back to the students. "Now, let's start with the Sand Ball exercise. Get into position."
A collective moan was heard from the group, even the enthusiastic ones, but they all got their own space around the grid. Without Mo needing to say anything, they all brought up a perfect sphere of sand each, the size of five heads, and held them there perfectly. Not a grain of sand was dropped as they stood there in complete silence, concentrating hard.
"The goal of this is to hone their attention to holding all the sand together," Mo explained to Mako. "I'm going to try to distract them for the next few minutes, and if anyone drops a grain of sand, they all have to start over."
"That's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Mako suggested, but Mo just laughed as the earth beneath one person's feet shifted without warning, but it didn't faze the student.
"We developed this exercise after Ling nearly got his hand burnt off by a splash of lava, by Bolin of all people," Mo told Mako. "After that, we came up with this. Everyone did it, and we found that it really fine-tunes your ability to mould lava."
Mo flung his hand back without even looking, and a wave of sand suddenly washed over someone at the far end. They were used to it by this stage though, seemingly, and kept their posture as it tickled them, no actual force in the wave.
After the exercise was done with, Mo started taking people one at a time. He got them to change the sand back into stone, then again into lava. He didn't do much lavabending himself, but whenever he did a demonstration, it was very elegant. He would raise up a wall of lava, then lower it back down, hammering in the need to be tidy about it without a single drop splashing.
Mako watched, very impressed, and eventually took off his long-sleeved t-shirt. He could see why everyone barely had any layers on. He was sweating like crazy, and had to walk away from the grid after a while when he was still too hot, even as a firebender. The others were fine though, somehow.
He walked closer to Bolin and silently watched him give instructions. Bolin was showing his four students (Ling and Nel both had three each) more advanced moves. He was even able to hold a stream of lava up in the air, but it was hard even for him to maintain that. None of his students came even close to holding it up for more than a few seconds.
Mako was deep in thought as he watched the class go on for the next hour or so. He mulled over what he was thinking about for a long time, but when Bolin walked over to him after he was done, Mako's mind was made up.
"That was amazing!" Mako greeted as Bolin came up to him. "I wasn't too sure before, but you've really got something going here! You knew exactly what you were doing the entire time. I'm proud of you, little bro."
"Thanks," Bolin said, his smile from getting through a good session growing as wide as it could from the complement. "It means a lot. You don't know how glad I am to see you even happy around me again. I was worried that we might not talk again for ages."
"I'm sorry," Mako apologised, clasping Bolin's hand in a brotherly handshake and pulling him into a hug. "I should've made much more of an effort, much sooner."
"It's fine, that's behind us now," Bolin reassured him, and broke the hug. "Have you had anytime to figure out what you want to do now? At least while we're both in Zaofu?"
"I think I'll try get a job as a bouncer or something like that," Mako said. "I brought a fair bit of money with me here, and I'm sure I can find some low rent apartment."
"We honestly don't mind you moving in," Bolin said immediately. "Opal and I have a lovely apartment; you can sleep on the couch."
"Apartment?" Mako asked. "Why aren't you both living with Su Beifong?"
"To be independent, or something," Bolin answered. "Opal really wanted to, so I couldn't say no."
"Always the ladies' man," Mako joked, smiling. "But really, it's not fair for me to come back after eleven months of not talking and just move in with you and your girlfriend. Also, if you two are trying to work out the Ba Sing Sae idea, you might not feel comfortable arguing with me around." He put a hand on Bolin's shoulder and looked at him straight in the eyes, meaning every word.
"If you insist," Bolin said after a moment of hesitation, then his expression lightened up. "Wait, you like the Ba Sing Sae idea?"
"Absolutely," Mako confirmed definitively. "You guys are well capable of it; I know you are. But I need to make up for how much of dickhead I've been to you. That is, if I have your permission."
"You don't have to apologise for that," Bolin reassured him, and then tilted his head. "Permission for what?"
"I want to travel with you guys to Ba Sing Sae," Mako revealed. "Wu was practically begging me to come back to Ba Sing Sae with him, I got a dozen phone calls for it after that guy from the Earth Empire army Guan was put away. I declined them all, of course, but if I ask him for a special favour, he can definitely get it decriminalised. I don't know what I'll do after that, but this is something I want to do for you."
Bolin's mouth fell open, then he started punching the air in glee. He cheered and danced around for a minute, getting a few looks from his own students, before turning back to Mako.
"Yes, yes, yes, that's perfect! If you can do that, you'll be the best big brother ever! This is so, so, so helpful! Just wait until I tell the others!" He ran over to Ling, told him, and then they high-fived. They repeated this with Nel and Mo, and soon enough all of them were dancing around happily, much to the bemusement of the students, who didn't know what was going on.
Mako's heart did a flip as he saw Bolin so happy, specifically because of him. It was nice to be genuinely appreciated again.