"I got Korra Kakes!"
Unfortunately, by this point in history, I had been reduced to product placement. The Avatar Cake line consisted of Korra, Kyoshi, and Kuruk Kakes, which each had different fillings. There were also Roku Ricekakes, and Aang Applekakes. Being fresh to the history books, Zhong had been spared this particular humiliation. It was a prosperous time, but Avatar Heiwa wasn't privy to this fortune. She was also somewhat... misinformed, on matters related to the avatar.
"Man, I was hoping for the ricekakes," Kiviuq muttered. His eldest sister glared, tin of Korra Kakes in hand.
"You know I don't buy food that isn't on sale," Pikatti said. "We can't exactly afford to be picky."
Heiwa rolled her eyes. Her twin sister could get very defensive about their financial situation. Although, considering the entire family was sitting around a fire bin in a rundown back ally next to a smelly recycling chute, she really couldn't blame her. As she glanced at the cake tin in her sister's grubby gloved hand the electronic picture moved, and Avatar Korra winked at her.
"Let him be," Heiwa said. "Kiviuq's allowed to have favourite foods, even if he doesn't always get them. It doesn't mean he isn't happy to even have something to eat. Right?" At this, she nudged her brother hard in the ribs. He grunted and their other siblings laughed.
"Yup," Kiviuq said through gritted teeth as his eldest sister eyed him warily. "Thanks for the Korra Kakes."
This seemed to satisfy Pikatti, and she began to hand the cakes to her siblings. Heiwa leaned affectionately against her younger brother after receiving her cake. "I like Roku Ricekakes too. There's just something about him," she said quietly, so her sister wouldn't hear.
"He's a face on a tin. What's there to like?" Kiviuq laughed. "I just like the cakes, not the faces." Heiwa punched him in the arm and he tried to squirm away, but unfortunately their other brother, Nami, was on the other side.
"Quit shoving," Nami said. He had papaya filling on his chin and both Kiviuq and Heiwa laughed while their brother did his best to self-consciously wipe it off. "You two are impossible," he grumbled, wiping the filling on his already filthy pants.
On Heiwa's other side, their younger sister, Ko, was crisping her cake with some well controlled firebending. For a twelve-year-old, she was fairly talented and often Heiwa found herself envying the amount of time Ko had to practice her bending. She was also filled with great ideas, and Heiwa liked the looks of what she was doing. Their youngest sibling, Massak, held out his cake to his sister to be crisped as well. Heiwa dangled her own cake from two fingers and mimicked Ko's actions, crisping the cake in seconds. Unfortunately those were the absolute worst seconds to show off her firebending skills.
"I thought you were the waterbender," said a voice from the mouth of the ally. Heiwa froze, before slowly turning to see Chun and her gang glaring at the group of sibling.
Chun took care of a sizable group of orphans in this particular part of the city. Shortly after Heiwa's parents died, the woman had offered to take them in, provided they helped... financially. Chun's methods of obtaining money were not favourable to the older twins, who had inherited the responsibility of taking care of their four younger siblings at the young age of fourteen. Heiwa and Pikatti had declined, and Chun had made it her goal in life to ensure none of the siblings practiced their busking in any part of the city that would make them decent money.
Heiwa swallowed thickly. "No. I'm the firebender," she said. "That's me. Pikatti. The firebender."
Pikatti, still standing on the other side of the fire pit, spoke up quickly. "I know we're identical, but that's no excuse to confuse us," she said. She gave Heiwa a quick glare and the other woman shrugged. It was lucky they chose to sport the same black double braid for their act or Chun might not actually fall for it.
"Of course," Chun said, her voice dripping with distain. "You're Pikatti. My apologies. I always get the two of you confused. It's not like I thought you were the avatar or anything."
"Avatar?" It was Kiviuq who spoke this time. "Like the cake tin guys?"
Chun looked at him incredulously and the teenaged orphans behind her burst out laughing. "You know. Avatar? Master of all four elements? You can't be that dense."
Heiwa shared a glance with her brother. As far as she knew, the Avatar was a mascot for cakes. Nothing more. What was Chun talking about?
"Is that... unusual?" she ventured. "Mastering more than one element?"
Chun gaped at the six people in front of her. The laughter from her gang only doubled. "Wow," she said, finally. "You are all idiots."
Heiwa scoffed. "Look, I'm sorry. We didn't go to school. We're street kids!"
"So are they," Chun gestured to the teenagers behind her. "But they still know what the avatar is. And they certainly know a lot more about bending than you do." It was true. Chun made sure her orphans could fight with their bending, if they had any. Heiwa and her siblings were lucky to figure any of it out since there wasn't anyone to train them. Not now that their parents were dead.
"Could you just tell us why you're here and get going?" Pikatti said. Clearly she wasn't pleased with Chun's presence and Heiwa could only agree that the less time they spent with the gang leader, the better. The laughter behind Chun died down to an occasional chuckle from one boy who looked like he just couldn't get over how ignorant they were.
"Riiight. I just came to tell you that you two," Chun pointed at Pikatti and Heiwa, "can't bend on Jung Street anymore."
"What?!" Heiwa almost dropped her Korra Kake. "But that's our best street! And we still don't make much from it!"
Chun shrugged. "Ya well, we found a way to use it better. It's ours now. You street rats are gonna have to look somewhere else."
Nami stood up, glaring full force at the group in front of them. Heiwa could see him starting up fire in his hands and she shook her head quickly. They couldn't get in a fight with Chun's gang. Chun's gang was better than them. Pikatti placed a hand on her brother's arm. "Nami, sit down. If Chun doesn't want us on Jung Street, we'll just have to find another place to busk. He- Pikatti and I will do just fine."
Nami snorted, but he sat down quietly. Chun grinned. "Good. Glad we're agreed."
"Now leave," Pikatti said, fixing the gang leader with a glare. Chun gave them all a warning look before turning from the ally. Her gang followed.
When the six of them were finally alone, Pikatti picked up a rock and threw it at her sister.
"Ow!" Heiwa shouted. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"You just had to firebend! There are three other firebenders sitting around you and you felt the need to do it yourself. I'm the firebender! You're. The waterbender. Water. Bender." Heiwa tried to back away, but the metal box she was sitting on refused to meld into the wall behind her. She settled for throwing her arms up in front of her to protect her face from another barrage of rocks her sister had picked up from the ground.
"I'm sorry," Heiwa whined. "Ko was helping Massak, and you an Nami were just soooo far away. I didn't think-"
"You can't be so careless! Remember what mom said? They'll take you away!"
"Mom was crazy!" Heiwa cried. "She wore a garbage bag on her head!"
Pikatti narrowed her eyes. "Mom loved us," she said in a dangerously low voice. "How dare you."
"Pikatti, we're twenty. Nobody's taking me away!"
"Stop fighting."
Heiwa and Pikatti both turned to see Massak fiddling with his half eaten Korra Kake. The ten-year-old refused to look at either of them, instead opting to glare at the ground. "And please don't say anymore bad things about mom. That's not how I want to remember her."
Heiwa deflated and Pikatti stopped throwing rocks. "Sorry," they both said in unison. Pikatti picked up the cake tin again and took out the last one for herself. "Let's just drop it then."
They ate the rest of their food in silence. Nami poked the fire at some point to keep it going, but it wasn't until everyone had finished their meagre meal that anyone spoke again. It was Kiviuq who broke the silence.
"So, the Avatar isn't really some master bender. Right? It's just a face on a tin."
Heiwa shrugged. "I know as much as you do. We went to the same school."
"You mean no school?" Nami offered with a glare.
"Okay," Kiviuq continued. "But can you imagine mastering four types of bending? I can barely imagine mastering one!"
"So... that's unusual. Right?" Heiwa asked. She looked at all of her siblings, but none of them would make eye contact. "Guys?"
"Heiwa..." Pikatti finally said. "You're the only person we have ever seen bend more than one element. It's definitely weird. That's why mom and dad..." She trailed off into silence.
When Heiwa had first figured out she could bend both water and fire, her parents had put their foot down that she wasn't allowed to bend at all. Pikatti was allowed to bend fire, and when Nami found out he was a firebender they didn't do a thing. Even when Kiviuq had picked up the basics of water bending and Ko showed she was a bender as well, they still didn't say a word. But if Heiwa bent anything she got a stern scolding. Her parents made it clear that if she slipped up, if anyone saw that she could bend more than one element, she would be taken away. And none of them wanted that.
It wasn't until after their parents died that she started waterbending in front of others. She and Pikatti had an act. People thought it was really interesting to see two identical twins bend two different elements. It was their most effective way of making money. But Heiwa had to swear she would only bend water.
Heiwa fell asleep that night wondering about the avatar. She never thought much about the people on her food tins, but for some reason she couldn't get them out of her head that night. It was so bad, that when she found herself dreaming, Korra Kakes Korra was standing there next to some short, middle aged man with a long black braid.
"You can't be serious," the man said. "You know who we are, right?"
"Zhong, be nice," Korra said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. She looked younger than she did on the cake tin for some reason. Heiwa thought that was odd. "You're her guide. Act like it."
"Who are you?" Heiwa asked him.
"I am Avatar Zhong. The avatar before you."
Heiwa shook her head. "Chun said the avatar was a master of all four elements. I can barely bend two."
Korra smiled at her. "We all have to start somewhere."
"But I can't. I'm just a street kid!"
"Heiwa," Avatar Zhong said, stepping towards her. "You're twenty years old. The world needs its avatar."
"No!" she shouted, shaking her head. "This is too weird!"
Before either of the avatars could say anything else, Heiwa woke up with a start. She was lying between Pikatti and Ko, shivering in the rain. She noticed that everyone else was drenched as well, but no one had woken up. She sat up and bent the rain, letting it build up above them and run down on either side of the small group. She leaned over Ko and nudged Kiviuq awake.
"Wa?" he mumbled sleepily. Suddenly he noticed how wet they all were. "Dammit," he grumbled.
"Could you dry everyone off?" Heiwa asked. "You can go back to sleep after. I'll wake you up in a couple hours if it doesn't stop raining."
Kiviuq nodded and began to bend the rain out of his siblings' clothes. When he got to Heiwa he stopped. "Are you okay?" he asked. He must have caught the haunted look in her eye.
"Ya. Just a dream," she said. "Don't worry about me."
It was just a dream, right?