Brothers Avatar

The Legend of Two Avatars

Book 1 – Family

Chapter 5 – When Gravity is Lighter

The team trotted along the road, enjoying the warm breeze coming down the nearby mountain. They had just passed by a large group of tunnels that likely led to mines for coal. Xulo was on the lookout for any Stormbenders while Taresc was pondering his abilities. He thought about how the last time he waterbended was at Dayue and how we wished it was just some rouse. Like a waterbender in the bushes was playing a trick on him. He looked at Xulo's serious stare and then looked up Tanton's body at Lozulia whispering to Minege. It was just then they had stopped at a little town, "Welcome to Tycee Ro." Lozulia said.

"Hi Tycee Ro, goodbye Tycee Ro?" Xulo said with confusion, "Why are stopped here? It's not even midday yet, do we really need to stop?"

"We're not stopping for rest, we're stopping here because we are in a desperate need for money." Minege said.

"Staying at inns isn't free, boys, that's why you guys are gonna sacrifice a day and get to mining." Lozulia said while pointing to the mines they had passed earlier.

Taresc pouted, "Well aren't you ladies going to join us? It seems hardly fair that we do all the work…"

Lozulia clasped her hands, "Oh sweety, I'd love to but I'm a firebender and unless you want those noxious fumes to become a noxious flaming explosion, I'd recommend you keep me out of there."

Xulo whispered to Taresc, "She's sounding like Minege already." He spoke up, "What about you, Minege?"

"They only want benders, I'm no use to them." Xulo gave an understanding shrug, "So Lozulia and I are going to head into town, probably get some planning done and we'll meet up later."

She shooed them off to the mines and the girls walked off to the local tavern to discuss their future moves. The got themselves some drinks and spread a map out on the table. "Lozulia, I have a question for you."

Lozulia looked up from the map and her drink, "Yes?"

"Honey, I know we're deep in but I'm just so curious about the Fire Nation, my father would always talk about you people, but he never understood your politics."

"No, I get that," she took a sip of her drink and put it down, "The Fire Nation likes to keep to itself. What do you want to know?"

"What exactly are the Fire Sages?"

"We're technically the government of the Fire Nation. Each island has its own Fire Sage Tower and accompanying Fire Sages that act as the judges, enforcers and whatever else is called of them."

"I find it odd that your island had so many Fire Sages, considering no one other than you all live on the island." Lozulia let out an exasperated sigh,"I'm sorry, is that a touchy subject?"

"No, just a common question. We are the capital, per se, we are the higher court and we rule over all the other Fire Sages." Lozulia laughed, "We also govern the fish within the vicinity of the island, but that's another story all together."

"What do you mean by 'per se?'"

"Our official capital is further near the core of the Fire Nation, right here in fact." She pointed to the map, "That's where a lot of our citizens live, but we're whoopty-doo-doo law, so they better listen to us…" Lozulia took a hard swig of her drink.

"You seem somewhat discontent for being the daughter of the Head Fire Sage who happens to run the whole entire Fire Nation."

Lozulia sloshed her drink around in her cup, "I should, shouldn't I? But, I want more for my nation, the way everything is structured, we can just barely control our nation. I want some damn global presence! We're the Fire Nation, like an inferno! By the way we act like we're more like the Ember Nation. I want to change that when I inherit the Fire Sages. We need to centralize things more, less of the whishy-washy Fire Sage system."

"I'm guessing you hate the White Lotus' intervention."

Lozulia thought to herself and answered, "Surprisingly, no."

"Oh really, I did not expect that."

"Well I would prefer them away, but for the Fire Nation, they're harmless. As long as our laws are parallel to theirs and we pay our taxes on time, we can live under their regime," she coughed, "Oh! I mean kingdom. It's far more troubling for the Earth Nation that wants to stay their own entity completely."

"Fascinating."

"I will say, however, that I'm not sure how I feel about their views of integration. Call me nationalistic, but I want the Fire Nation to be the Fire Nation, not the Three Quarters Fire, One Eighth Air and One Eight Other Nation."

Xulo and Taresc had signed up for a full day's work in the mine. Their job was to scavenge the rocky walls for coal, separating the rubble from the salvageable, "What do you think of Lozulia, Xulo?"

"She'll be useful." Xulo brought down a big chunk from the ceiling

"Oh be careful with that," Taresc pointed to the boulder Xulo brought down, "Apparently we're below a lake, so take from the sides, "But what do you think of her as a person?"

"Useful." Xulo started to break down his rock, looking for coal.

"No. Her personality, what do you think of that."

Xulo gathered some breath and just let it drain, he got up from breaking down his boulder and sat on it, "I don't know, Taresc, I guess she's… spunky?"

"I guess I can take that… better than useful."

"What do you think about her?"

Taresc leaned on a wall, "I think she's really cool, she's so different and fun. I think we could use that in our group. Considering how cold we've been recently with Dayue and all."

"We need that coldness, Tare, we don't need fun. Fun has never killed a top general of the Stormbenders." Xulo stopped and looked at Taresc's whimpering face, "Well, I guess fun isn't that bad. We aren't going on this crusade for fun, though."

"I get that, I get that." Taresc continued to work and started taking chunks out of a wall, "Do you get a weird vibe from her sometimes?"

Xulo followed suit in bending, "How so?"

"It seems like she's always on edge in a way, even when she's laughing from her gut, there's always this weird feeling that she's suppressing something."

"We are being hunted, maybe she just wants to not get killed."

"Maybe…"

"You said something about your father. Can you tell me about him?"

Minege was ready to shut her down, but something swayed her to indulge, "My dad was a mail courier, he was my little window into the rest of the world."

"Is he dead?" Lozulia was making it difficult for Minege to keep her cool.

"No, well he might, we don't know. He went missing about a year ago and for a courier that means that someone probably mugged him and left him for dead."

"Do think that he's alive out there." Lozulia was leaning on the table like a child waiting for the next part of a story.

Minege's face got tighter with every pry from Lozulia, "I hope he is, sweety. But for thinking he's out there, I'm doubtful."

"What about your mom, she's dead right?"

"Goodness Lozulia! It's hard enough talking about my dad, can we not talk about my orphan status for a second."

"We can talk about mine, I'm sort of an orphan."

"You know what an orphan is right?" Minege raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah and I'm a half-orphan."

"It doesn't work that way, Lozulia."

"My mom did die though, just in case if you were wondering." Lozulia swirled the juice in her cup solemnly.

"Join the club, dearie."

"I see you haven't told anybody that you're the Avatar yet."

"These Stormbenders are everywhere, I can't trust anyone without the chance of them impaling me the second I turn around." The tunnel they were in was very silent; from down the dark tunnel it was apparent they were alone. Being that Xulo and Taresc are rookies, they were assigned the most dangerous tunnel; the top one. However a group of men started working on something on the ceiling of the tunnel. They were a fair ways further up the tunnel so it was hard to tell what they were doing, but from the corner of Taresc's eye, he could see a pouch.

"It'll be hard for you, I bet, not being able to suck up all the glory of being the Avatar."

Xulo was diligently pounding at the wall, "I'd have thought." The dust was floating all around.

Taresc stopped his work and looked at Xulo and got a face full of dust, "What do mean by that."

"I hear some people talk about the mysterious new Avatar and it isn't exactly nice talk." Xulo kept going at the wall.

Taresc spat out the dirt from his mouth, "They're hostile about you already? You haven't even done anything yet."

"Already?"

"Hey, I'm not saying that they should be hostile about you, but I feel they would be hostile about you."

"Thanks, bro." Xulo gave a quick wink from the side of his eye, "I feel like most of the hostility is less about me and more about being the Avatar. I'll have to ask Rinley about it the next time I see him."

"Be cautious, but don't close yourself off, Xulo, we're going to need allies and no one's going uproot their life and come with us if we're just some commoners."

Xulo immediately stopped his work but didn't turn to Taresc, "Do you remember what Rinley said to me?"

Taresc would rather not, "The thing about someone betraying you?"

"I don't want anyone getting close to me just to end up betraying me. That's why I can't let myself get close to Lozulia or some new person." Xulo was pounding through the wall, "because as soon as I do, I let Rinley's prophecy come true and this person takes away my life and my chance at being important in the world. I'm not letting that happen to me!" Xulo nearly set a five mile hole into the wall, so much so that even the people up the tunnel had to stop and look.

Silence ensued, "I won't betray you."

Xulo smiled with warm trust, "Thank you, Tare."

"What do you mean, by 'join the club?'"

"Taresc and Xulo lost their parents too."

"Oh! I was meaning to ask you, how exactly did 'that' happen?" Lozulia made a gesture in the direction of the mine.

"You're going to have to be more specific than 'that.' Their parents dying?"

"No! Those two, Xulo and Taresc;" Lozulia squinted her eyes, "how is it possible that they're friendly with each other? With those personalities, I'd imagine one would be dead by now."

Minege bit her lip and groaned, "Lozulia, I really don't like talking about things that are none of my business but for you, I'll tell you a little bit. First of all, they did hate each other growing up. Every single day was a warzone. Xulo thought Taresc was a wimp and Taresc thought Xulo was a meanie. It all climaxed at a giant fight with rocks flying everywhere. In the midst of the fight, tragedy hit. They didn't talk to anyone for days, until at some point they consoled within each other and they've been best friends ever since."

"Well that was sweet… and vague."

"I can't give any specifics or it will rip me up inside."

"I got myself another question…" Lozulia's face warped into an odd, gelatinous smile.

"That's very clearly not a question. I feel like I'm learning you're less smart than we all thought."

"Girl, you know…"

"No, Lozulia, I don't."

"You and Xulo?" Lozulia gave her the knowing look.

"Xulo and I?" Minege started laughing heartily and spilled some drink on her tunic, but didn't even notice because of how hard she was laughing.

"I will take that as a resounding 'yes.'"

"No, Xulo and I going out is entirely impossible, entirely! Unless if all of a sudden Xulo wakes up one day and starts seeing things inverted."

"Wait, are you saying…?"

"Xulo likes men."

"I never would have seen that! I mean I thought the lack of sexual tension between us to be odd, but…" Lozulia shrugged, "what about Taresc?"

"Who knows? I don't really care about what game he's playing."

Lozulia shifted a little in her chair and looked to the side and murmured, "I do."

"You do? Okay, dearie, you can explore that route all you want."

"Hey guys, how's it going?" Taresc and Xulo looked behind them and saw a thuggish looking man and a pack of lackeys. The man was slender, with his face cut in many spots and tattoos running up and down his left leg.

"Good and you?" Xulo said doubting.

"Just great, we just wanted to ask if you would come with us." Taresc recognized one of the lackeys as one of the people working on something up the tunnel.

"Why would we do that?" Taresc said.

"Well, the Stormbenders put out a bounty for the Avatar and me and my compatriots could really use that money." Taresc quickly glanced unassumingly at Xulo.

"Neither of us are the Avatar." Xulo said, firm, staring directly into the thug's eyes.

"The evidence begs to differ. The description of the Avatar is a twin riding on an alligator-duck with his brother and another female."

That damn alligator-duck Xulo thought, "We're not going anywhere."

"That's a shame," The thug backed up some and gestured for his followers to do the same, "because it didn't say you needed to be alive." Just then one of the lackeys bended some fire and an explosive went off. From the darkness a rush of water came for the brothers. In the midst of rushing water they could hear the man say, "I'll fish your bodies out once you both drown!"

"Close off the tunnel, Xulo!"

"I can't get my stance!" Xulo tried his best to get a footing in the rushing rapids the tunnel had become. It was just when it seemed he had gotten a hold when a giant chunk of rock fell from the ceiling and struck Xulo in the head, knocking him out.

"Xulo? Xulo!" Taresc then swam over to Xulo and attempted to grapple onto him. He was desperate to save himself and the life of his brother. He then realized that there was something he could do. He mustered himself up and with hesitation he started to bend the water. With one hand he held his brother on his shoulder and with the other he feverously paddled the water out of their way. He sweated profusely trying to perform this task, having only ever bent a bubble of water; he was ill fit to the task at hand. With brother slung over him, he began to limp himself and his brother up the steep tunnel's terrain.

"Hey, did you hear that?" said Lozulia going to the window with all the other tavern patrons.

"It sounded like there was an explosion at the mines."

"Xulo and Taresc are in there! Get Tanton, we're going." The girls ran out of the tavern and boarded Tanton. Tanton flew down the road and towards the entrance of the mine. At the topmost tunnel, Lozulia saw a man limping out, "Sir, what happened!" Lozulia yelled.

"Some bandits blew a hole and now the mine is flooding." Lozulia started looking around the crowds of miners for a sight of the twins.

"Who builds a mine under a lake, for goodness sake!" Minege took one of the miners in her shaking hands, also looking around for the twins.

Lozulia returned from her search, "Minege, Xulo and Taresc aren't out here." Minege unhanded the miner, she took a short breath but couldn't pool her thoughts into words and just stood there with jaw open, "I'm going in there."

"No, you can't, what are you going to do? What can you do?" Minege lunged and grabbed Lozulia's arm.

"I can swim pretty well. I'm guessing my firebending won't be too useful, but I need to do something. I'm not letting this journey end here." Lozulia shook off Minege's strong grip and ran up the mining scaffolding and looked down the top shaft. Down the deep dark hole she could hear the sound of water deluging down. She'd imagine for a weak swimmer it'd be impossible to swim against such a current, she thought of Taresc and the immediate threat became clear.

She walked a little ways down the tunnel and got to the spout of the water, she then walked into the rushing water and continued to swim down. Her red robes floated and glided in the water, like she was a slender red jellyfish. She kept swimming downwards and tried creating fire in her hand to only create a tiny glow before being smothered out. It was all of a sudden she fell out of the water and into dry ground. She recovered and brought herself to her feet when a voice said, "Who is it?"

"Lozulia, your best girl," She said breathing a gasp of air, "and I'm guess you are…," she made her palm alit and saw a twin waterbender with the other twin over his shoulder, "Xulo."

Taresc quickly contemplated the situation between each of heavy breaths, "Yes, that's me."

"I thought you didn't know how to waterbend yet?"

Taresc's whole body hurt as he held the torrent back, "You pick things up quickly in crisis. I need your help."

"Yes."

"Taresc passed out when a rock hit him, it's been difficult trying to bend the water out of the way and I'm having even more trouble keeping it back without the use of my other hand so if you could…"

"Oh yes, certainly." She took Xulo off of Taresc's hands and Taresc continued to move forward up the slope.

Taresc felt dirty lying to Lozulia about being Xulo, in fact he felt dirty just waterbending, but his main concern was saving Xulo's life. He paddled on at a steady pace, refusing conversation in order to keep concentration and to not have the lie go on too long as he knew it'd have to crumble eventually. They got past the spout and they walked into the light and out into the open.

Minege was waiting at the entrance with disparity coursing through her body. It instantly cleared at the sight of her three comrades appearing from the cave. Lozulia let Xulo down and Minege tackled Taresc, "Taresc, I swear I'm about to beat you senseless!" Minege held Taresc weary head in her hands and kissed him and then hugged him breathless. "I absolutely hate you, Taresc."

Lozulia looked over her shoulder and said, "Taresc? You're…"

Minege ignored Lozulia, "What happened and how did you guys get out?"

Lozulia stuttered a bit, still attempting to figure out what was occurring, "Xulo and I were mining when these thugs came along and wanted to take Xulo to the Stormbenders. Xulo said no, they flooded the mine, Xulo got hit with a rock and we swam." Taresc looked over to Lozulia, "We swam, right, Lozulia?"

Lozulia saw how Taresc's eyes begged and bled emotions like it were necessary for him to live, "That's right, I found him floating, I breathed some air into him and we just swam up."

Minege seemed to leak suspicion, but that drowned in her compassion and overwhelming relief. "I'm going to take Xulo to the inn, if you need anything, don't be afraid to ask." She hugged Taresc once again, "Hate you."

Minege had picked up Xulo and left and that left Lozulia and Taresc. They stared at each other for a bit, as commotion roared around them. Taresc, with his eyes terrified and abashed and Lozulia, with hers persistently and unbreakingly questioning. "We should talk, Taresc. Taresc, we really need to talk." Her voice was wobbly.

"Yeah, I guess we should."

They walked in silence to the outside perimeter wall of Tycee Ro, where they sat beside each other. Taresc tried a couple of times to begin a conversation, yet only could make a bunch of awkward hand gestures and exasperated grunts.

"What…..happened?" Lozulia said.

"I waterbended." Taresc said.

"Good start, solid beginning. Now, how did you waterbend?"

He shifted his weight and turned to Lozulia, "I'm sort of like the Avatar."

"'Sort of like the Avatar' is a pretty shitty response, Taresc, I must concede." She said with rubbing her temples. "I'm going to need a lot more, Tare, one-thousand-words-or-less kind of more."

"When my brother found out he could bend fire, I simultaneously found out I could bend water. Because we're twins, I guess we were both blessed with Avatar powers. I don't know anything past that. I was planning to spend the rest of my life never bending a drop of water, but I surely wasn't going to let me and my brother drown."

"That's off."

"Which part, because in my opinion, I find the whole thing off."

"You learned waterbending first and your brother learned firebending. The Avatar learns the elements in a very particular order, in yours and your brother's case it should be Earth, Fire, Air and Water. In your case, it seems you're learning them backwards."

"I'm personally still contesting with the fact that I can also bend more than one element, but I guess that's cool too."

"You're like the Anti-Avatar."

Taresc sunk his head deep into his lap, "Wonderful."

"Why are you keeping this a secret?"

"It's complicated."

"Fire Nation politics are confusing, you are not."

Taresc brought his face back up to a confusedly hurt look, "Ouch."

"Sorry, that was unintentionally brutal, please go on." Lozulia smiled like a diplomat fitted with a row of shining white teeth.

"I originally kept it a secret because I didn't want to disappoint Xulo, how sad would it be to learn—once you've been told that you are the most unique person in the world—that you have someone else who can do the exact same thing."

Lozulia grunted, "Ugh, too sappy! You guys love each other way too much to be healthy."

"I was planning on telling him sometime later, at least give him a day or two to be the boss of the world."

"It's been a day or two, why haven't you told him yet?"

"Circumstances changed. We went to Rinley's shrine so we could get our quest and I ended up in the shrine room with Xulo because something compelled me there. Everything was fine until Rinley got deathly serious. Rinley said that someone close to him would betray him and take what is dearest to him. I think Rinley meant me."

"It doesn't particularly mean you."

Lozulia saw Taresc violently shake, "Lozulia, I can't take that risk! When he turned to me I saw a killer in those eyes. He would kill me, I know it, you just had to see the desperation he showed. It was like a hungry dog biting other dogs for a scrap of meat, I just know he'd kill me to save his Avatar seat. Lozulia—" Taresc started bursting into tears.

"Shhh…" Lozulia took him into her arms, "It's alright, Taresc, I won't tell anyone." She cooed as Taresc wept in the dead of night. After a couple of minutes, Taresc was able to regain composure, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine now, it feels good. I couldn't tell anyone until now, it was all blocked in." Taresc was still sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes.

"You're scared, I get it, it's not a great situation you're in."

"I love my brother, I'd do anything for him. I know his temper and sadly it's only gotten worse. He gets more and more comfortable with murder as we go on, I can see it happening all the time." Taresc wiped his sniffling nose on his sleeve.

Lozulia held onto Taresc's hand, "Do you really think he'd kill you though, he really seems like he loves you too."

"I don't know… honestly, I'd like to think he wouldn't, but those eyes. I'm not risking it, not now, maybe not ever."

Lozulia couldn't believe the supposed fratricide but she could hear the adamancy in his voice, "Well, you have me, I won't tell a soul."

"Thank you, Zul." Taresc smiled with warm trust.

"By the way, how do feel about Minege?"

"Well, I do not trust her with my Avatar secret, that's for certain."

"I mean in a more… ethereal way." Taresc was confused, "like in an extended friendship sort of way."

Taresc was still confused, "Like relationship-wise?" Lozulia eagerly nodded, "I couldn't really see anything happening between us, she reminds me too much of a callous version of her mother. Plus she despises me, for some reason."

Lozulia was secretly cheering in her head, knowing that at least she had one option in the group, "Aw shucks, I felt a real chemistry between you two." The two had a hardy laugh when they saw a familiar alligator-duck coming their way and decided to get up.

Minege and Xulo came riding over, "What are we doing over here, we were looking for you guys." Minege said.

"Just talking, Minege." Taresc said. Lozulia looked at Xulo and saw a flash of suspicion that Taresc talked about.

"Look what I got." Minege happily shook a joyful sack of coin; Taresc was about to ask when Minege explained, "I was able to bargain a price out of the mine owner. After all, he almost killed my friends."

"Bargain is a pretty lenient word." Xulo said.

"He learned to never anger a Baikal woman, it never ends well."

Xulo stepped off of Tanton and gave a wordless bear hug to Taresc, "Hey bro." Taresc said.

"I'm so sorry, Tare, I got knocked out and you had to handle everything by yourself. You saved my life, but all I did was endanger yours."

Taresc pathetically smiled, "It's fine, once it all filled up, it wasn't too hard to swim up. I'm just happy you're fine."

"Alright, no more of that, you two get your butts on that alligator-duck, we've got a long ways to go before we reach our next destination." Lozulia futilely pushed the two towards Tanton but only ended up getting enveloped into the hugs, "Yeah, yeah I know I also helped, no need to devote the rest of your lives to me!"

They all got onto Tanton and headed down the road, gladly leaving Tycee Ro. Xulo was looking out into the distance and Lozulia was massaging Taresc shoulders, "Do you know what happened with those thugs, Xulo?"

"When I woke up, I was so pissed I looked all over town and when I didn't find them there, I looked in the surrounding forests. There, in a little clearing, I found the leader camping with some of the men that accompanied him at the mine."

"What did you do?" Taresc's face was tense with worry.

"Let's just say that when I came back from the Avatar state, there was a mighty big hole where they were." Xulo laughed a heartily laugh and Taresc chuckled juxtaposing his despairing face.

Lozulia got close to his ears and whispered, "You're not wrong."

Taresc turned around with apathy and in a tone only meant for funerals, he said, "Thank you." He turned around and like a bag of water he plopped onto his side and slept, hoping that gravity might be lighter when he woke up.