You're twelve, and your father hasn't returned home in over six months. You haven't see him in just as long (and honestly, you don't really care. You're more of a man of the house than he ever was) You had gone out into the main village one day to buy fruit, because a drought has overcome the land that makes the crops on your farm shrivel up like dead leaves, and you wonder how much longer you can keep little Malluk and your mother fed and happy.
As you come down the narrow path, pebbles and sticks pocking into the holes in your shoes, the valley clears into the village square. You weave your way through the sea of people swarming in the center, around the food carts. You make room for yourself, as always, slipping in between the skirts and pulled-up collars, breathing in the familiar bitter scent of rotten fruit that no one buys because it's rotten in the first place, and the salt from the fish market. The air is think with food and body order, and the humidity makes your shirt morph to the back of your neck.
The annoying news people shouting by stands about prices of sales, new styles of robes, the best bending schools to send your kids, and other things that didn't apply to you, were drowned out by your stomach growling.
It was the same thing everyday.
Over by the sweets stand, you see him. He's with other woman who is probably half your mother's age. At first you think they are betting princes over products, or even maybe friends, but the way they look at each other says otherwise. Just then, your father wraps his arm around her shoulder, and presses the other hand gently to the woman's stomach. You move in closer, hiding behind a vendor who's giving you the stink-eye and would probably have you arrested if he didn't know you well and you didn't sell him fish half off in exchange for his older son to tutor you. From your hiding spot, you see your father caress her stomach, and you can make out the slight swell of it from under the lady's dress.
If you were a lesser man, you would have stormed up and caused a scene. But your mother always told you that something that could not be solved without violence was not worth it.
Nevertheless, you can't think up a valid excuse to tell your mother why you came back home empty handed.
"Everything was rotten," you tell her. What you don't know how to say is that it wasn't the food that was bad.
...
It is hot and the air is dancing for it, glitter-glitter-shine like the water of your people in the distance, and your lips are dry and you lick them and you are hungry, so hungry it hurts. It hurts deep and twisting, not just in your belly, but rippling down your back and into your legs, and when you curl your bare toes you feel the cracks in your heels spread, and sometimes you swallow even though nothing's been in your mouth but your tongue for almost as long as you can remember.
You are so hungry.
And you were you were a waterbender. If you were a waterbender like your grandmother was, you could bend the moisture from the air like the people in the stories. You could give the villagers water to drink, and bathe with. You could your nourish crops.
Because water is life, Gran Gran had always chanted, her arctic furs draped around her like a shield of community, the refection of the moon in her eyes. The taunt fabric of her waterskin had always felt firm in your grasp, but the water did not dance to your command.
You want to help give life.
But Malluk is sick with something you aren't sure of, and you're mother is not living-but-just-walking-through-the-motions. She says in bed all day and see things in the ceiling of her room that no one else can. You've tried, but, it's like some kind of spirit has taken your mother and you don't know how to bring her back. You want to yell at her to snap out of it. That you're barely thirteen, your sister is dying for all you know, and since when did you have to be the sole provider of this family? You're almost convinced you've lost you've mother, too, because Mullak nearly starves and your mother doesn't seem to care.
It isn't fair.
It isn't fair.
For non-benders like you, there are few opportunities to make a living in the village. People buy your crops well enough, (the ones that last the harsh conditions, anyway) but how long until they stop buying? For a family with an ill girl, a mother who hasn't left her bed in days, and a boy who is barely a teenager provide wheat and vegetables for an ailing village?
Everything is rotten.
...
It is a girl. They welcome her into the world, anointing her as a member of their small village with the blessing of the Spirits and markings of Tu and La. Her name Ila meaning compassion. You scoff at the hypocrisy of the name. As if your father is trying to make himself feel better. Ila cries and cries and has an ugly nose that is too big for her pudgy baby face.
During the ceremony, while everyone is preoccupied, you steal a loaf of bread, a good chicken-hen that will last your family the week, and medicine for Mullak. (She's been feverish lately and has been getting these red spots on her belly, and you prey to the Spirits that you don't need to get a doctor because there is no way in Yue's name you'll be able to pay for one)
You wait an hour or two when everyone is enjoying the party and is too stupid and drunk to notice you hiding. (Ila is still crying, but everyone is still goggling over her, nonetheless) You take one of your father's old bottles of cactus juice (the best, stuff, Varry, nothing less) that he left at your house-the brand your father tried to get you to drink once when you were ten to 'man you up, boy'- and you pour the bottle upside down until only a few drops glisten in the dry heat.
A hearty boom of laughter cuts through your concentration and you jump slightly. Looking right, then left, no one has noticed you yet. You run the tip of your finger into the bottle to catch the last few drops, and poke your finger into your mouth, licking your lips and smiling vehemently. Poppa always liked to drink, you think as you take out a container of oil, and fill the contents into the cactus juice bottle, let's see him drink this up. Trying a rag around the neck of the bottle and taping it shut, you beam at your creation.
I am I man now, huh, Pops?
You take the lighter out of your pocket and set the thing on fire, chuckling to yourself. It catches instantly, and with every bit of malnourished strength you have, you through it across the back of the stage until the flowing blue curtains catch.
It's like the Fire Nation attacked all over again.
You jump up with a smile, hearing drunken curses and screams fill the square as people fight to put out the flames. Luckily there were very few actual waterbenders here in the village, and even less water.
You run away, and up the path to your farm just as the first sirens fill the air and the flashing lights illuminate the inside of your house as you close the door.
That night, as you help Mullak sit up and feed her homemade chicken soup and bits of bread, the fever in her eyes goes down a bit and she smiles for the first time in forever.
"Will you tell me a story?" She whispers.
And you brush her thinning hair away from her pale face, and talk and talk until she falls asleep.
From the other room, the Spirit lets go of your mother long for her to come across the hall and listen to your story, her silhouette leaning against the door frame in the dim light.
Yes, you are a man, indeed.