Brothers Avatar
The Legend of Two Avatars
Book 1 – Family
Chapter 6 – A Struggle for Command
"Oh, are we stopping here?" Minege rest her hand on her cheek, "That's odd…"
"Do you think we shouldn't stop, I mean we went over the river, might as well." Lozulia pushed the hair from out of her face.
"Well, I thought we were heading through because the river was too wide and we were being nice to Tanton. It'd be weird to just stop here, don't you think?"
"No, Minege," Lozulia clenched her hands behind her back, "I don't think so. Do you think you have a better plan?"
"I'm not saying that I do, but I don't really think yours is going the right mileage, if you know what I mean?"
Lozulia jerked her head with every word, "I don't. Explain. Please."
"Well, it seems like you love to stop a lot." Minege laughed, "We could have been here a days ago, sweetie."
"I was trying to be kind to Tanton here," Lozulia put a gentle hand on Tanton's back, "I'm sorry if I don't want her tugging around your blubber 24 hours straight."
Minege went into full roar, "Child, I'm unsure of this tone you're having with me, but I don't think you're the one in charge of Tanton."
"Well, I don't think you're in charge of anything!"
"Oh really, hun? How long have you been on this trip? How long have you known Xulo? Where are your credentials here, because I'm not really seeing them!"
"I know basic information about the world; it's more than you have."
"Alright! Let's break this up!" Xulo finally stepped between the battling giants. The team was situated on the main road of the Township of Jin, the only town on its little island. The street itself was occupied by rows upon rows of empty stalls, once filled with fruits, now with dust. The ground was unkempt with little bits of garbage strewn about. Even the sky seemed to reflect the town, grey and empty. "Neither of you are in charge."
"You're not exactly navigating us." Minege spoke under her breath.
"I don't need to be pilot to be the leader of this troupe."
"Well who is leading the way then, Mr. In-Charge?" Lozulia said. Both Minege and Lozulia were looking at Xulo with bated breath.
Xulo turned away, "I don't know!"
"I thought you were the leader!" Minege clapped her hands in Xulo's face, "Delegate, Xulo, delegate!"
"What he's trying to say is that you both have wonderful qualities and picking one over the other would be a terrible disservice." Taresc jumped into the fray, "Now he really hopes that you two will make up and lead us to victory. Right, Xulo?"
"What he said."
Lozulia and Minege huffed and puffed, doing a myriad of unsatisfied motions. Lozulia muttering out little quips like, "That's some congeniality answering…" Still refusing to look at each other.
Just then from around the bend, a large group of disenfranchised looking individuals started walking by them. Parents were toting along children, mumbling things about how they've got a ways to go. They all had shabby clothing and worn faces, it was just about the saddest parade anyone had ever seen.
"What kind of mass migration is happening here?" Taresc looked around at the peasents and their sacks of belongings and other earthly valuables. Taresc decided to stop one of them, "Excuse me, ma'am. Where are you people going."
"Anywhere elsewhere, out of this cursed town." The old lady said, still walking.
"Cursed? What's wrong?"
"We tried, I tell you, we all tried. We said that we'd try to tough it out but if we didn't get rain in the next two days, we'd all leave. It's been two days and now we're leaving."
Xulo began walking besides the woman as well, "It's not raining? Just on our way here, it was raining up a storm."
"And that is where we're heading! I tell you this place is cursed."
"What a great place to stop, Lozulia." Minege socked Lozulia's shoulder.
From around a stall, a dapper looking man began running towards the horde of migrating townspeople, "Come on guys! Don't leave just now, I swear a storm is right on its way."
The flock stopped to see the commotion, but simply continued on, "Forget it; we'll all starve if we stay here." A townsperson spoke. The man continued to plead but no matter what promises he made, the people kept moving forward. As it seemed to be useless to yell anymore, the man fell into a slump.
The team approached the broken pile of man, "Are you alright?" Xulo said.
"No… not at all, I've been abandoned… abandoned, I say!" The man shook a fist to the sky, "Oh, the name's Jinh, by the way." He said in woeful harmony.
Taresc asked, "Jihn? From the Town of Jin?"
"No relation, there's an 'h' sound in there, totally different." Jinh waved his hands around to dispel the misconception.
"You seemed pretty upset about those people leaving, but I don't really see you packing up." Minege asked.
"Oh I feel so terrible about them," Jinh motioned in the direction, "they have to leave their homes and all their memories behind. Those are my people and now I have no one, I'm on my little island alone." Jinh wiped a tear away with his gilded robe.
"You must really love this town, after all you're staying through this major drought." Taresc said.
"I am the mayor after all…"
"Mayor Jinh of Jin."
"Also my family has owned this land for generations, I can't really just abandon it. What would my father Jiin or grandfather Jiyn say?" Jinh twirled a piece of his hair dolefully with his finger, "Can you imagine a whole town, full of life one day and ghost town the next?"
Xulo was looking into Jinh's weeping expression and his team's guilty faces and suddenly inspiration hit him, "I think I have an idea to get these people back into town. Let's go after those people."
The team ran through the forest and caught up with the migrants, almost at the river. Xulo found himself a stump to stand on, "Listen up! I have some good news, my name is Xulo and I'm the Avatar."
Taresc face flamed up and hit Xulo in the leg, Xulo bent down and muttered, "I know, I know, I want to keep it a secret too. However, if any of these malnourished old people want to try and assassinate me, I think I'll be able to retaliate." Taresc conceded and let Xulo continue with his speech, "I know that you all have been suffering, but I have come here to fix that. To do this, I present you with two of my best problem-solvers; Minege Baikal and Lozulia of the Fire Sages!"
From the crowd there were some murmurs and disgruntled talking, Lozulia and Minege took it just as well. They looked at eachother and stormed Xulo as he stepped off his pedestal, "What are you doing, Xulo?" Minege demanded.
"I don't like agriculture! When did we become problem-solvers to the stars?" Lozulia said.
"Since you two decided you wanted to be the leaders of the group, this is going to be your test. Whichever one of you two who can fix the people of Jin's problems will be named honorary leader. Until I get a better handle on things, that is."
Lozulia first glanced at Minege and then Minege glanced back. Minege quickly pushed Lozulia out of the way and yelled, "Alright people! My name is Minege and I will be helping you today, if you follow me back to Jin I can begin explaining the economic reform that I have planned." Minege smirked and gave a wink as she herded the people back to Jin. Lozulia turned solid red, to the point Taresc was legitimately concerned that she had a fire raging in her mouth. Taresc patted her on the shoulder and they followed behind like a bunch of unhappy tourists.
In Jin, Jinh was still bawling when he was interrupted by the sound of thundering footsteps and talk of economic restructuring. He looked up to see that his citizens had returned led by an insufferably helpful Minege, he approached Xulo who was rearing up the back, "What's happening here?"
"We're saving Jin, I set my team members up on a contest to fix your township." Xulo looked over at Jin and saw not gratefulness, but concern, "Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Oh, of course, of course." Jinh twiddled his fingers around, "It's just such a whirlwind of emotions I can barely keep up… weren't there two more of you?"
"Taresc and Lozulia are off in the field, trying to do… something." Xulo put a firm hand on Jinh's shoulder, "Get ready for change." Jinh grated his teeth but forced a smile as Xulo spoke encouragement. Slapping Xulo on the back, he set off briskly to the distance to speak small talk with his locals and welcome them back.
"Your plan is…?"
"Hell if I know." Lozulia sat in a pile of shriveled crops, fiddling brown leaves between her fingers. "I don't know how to fix a drought, are drought even the type of thing you fix?!"
"You want to lead, right?"
Lozulia got up and shook her fiery fist. "Well, yeah! If he gave me the task of organizing a bunch of old Fire Nation scrolls, I would have Minege lying face down in the dirt, wiping her tears on my expertly categorized lexicon of knowledge." She collapsed to her knees, "But he just had to give us a bumpkin farming assignment…"
"If you want to lead so bad, you have to come up with something, Minege was talking about new sources of income for the town. You have to have something to top that."
Lozulia stared at her nails, "Well if had a little waterbending power, I could probably heal these dried things. Sadly I don't have a waterbender, do I, Taresc?" Lozulia said innocently.
"No Lozulia, I don't think you do." Taresc said pushing Lozulia over.
Lozulia spit a leaf out of her mouth, "Come on, no one is watching!" Lozulia followed after Taresc on her knees pleading, "Plus, you did it in that mine, it's not like you don't know how to."
"One, I don't want to even risk a bird watching, let alone my brother. Two, the mine was life or death, I had to waterbend and it didn't exactly feel great. Three, I barely know how to waterbend, let alone how do this healing thing you're talking about."
"Fair." Lozulia looked behind her and saw a huge estate, "I guess you wouldn't someone watching you do Avatar stuff from there?"
"Definitely not, I'm guessing that's Jinh's mayoral mansion." The mansion was larger than any building that Taresc had ever seen, even larger than the Fire Sage Tower on Crescent Island. It looked to be five stories tall and probably took more lumber to build than all of the houses in Jin combined. It was a gated property with large stone walls protecting it from any thief wanting to steal his fortune. Juxtaposed to the barren fields, it was a wonder why Jinh couldn't spread his wealth, but that was none of their business. "I can't and I won't risk it."
"I have an idea!" Lozulia jumped to her feet once again.
"What would that be?"
"You know how fire is basically the element of destruction?" Taresc nodded, "Well I'm going to anti-firebend! By reversing my inner-energies, I should be able to shoot out beams of goodness to heal this land and save Jin!" Lozulia held her hands out in front of her and started to deeply concentrate. Taresc saw her struggling, sweating to change her auras. It was at that peak that she shot out two infernos from her hands, blasting the withered crops to ashes. Taresc began frantically stomping the embers out while Lozulia sunk to her knees again and whimpered, "It didn't work."
"Are you sure Lozulia?" Taresc was still viscously stomping away, "I think this earth looks plenty fit for farming now."
Lozulia laid on her back in stupor and gazed at the midday sky, once Taresc was done saving the field, he joined her, "What could be wrong here? It can't be spirits…" Lozulia said.
"And how would you know that? I never thought the Fire Nation to be particularly spiritual."
"Reasons, reasons…" Lozulia said in vagueness, "There isn't anything here that would be offensive to spirits and cause them to dry spell the whole island. It takes a lot, something sacrilegious to really set them off and cause harm." Lozulia's forehead furrowed and her eyes cringed.
Taresc sat up, "What is it then?" He then looked over at the mansion and saw motion, "What's happening over there?" There were large mysterious crates being led into Jinh's estate.
"Food? I'm guessing he'd have to import food since local isn't quite producing right now."
"But look who's bringing it."
Lozulia looked again and saw that the people carrying the crates were in Team Avatar's favorite blue, white and gray uniform. "Hooray! Stormbenders." Lozulia stood up and headed off in the direction of Jinh's estate.
"Where are you headed?"
"Jinh's; If Jinh wants to get in bed with the Stormbenders, I want to know why. You're coming with by the way."
"Why?"
"I'm not breaking down those walls with firebending, don't tell me you're also scared of earthbending now?"
Taresc rolled his eyes, "Fine, but let's make it quick."
From a distance, Minege was leading a pack of villagers to the field. "As we can see, the field is barren, but there might be other uses—What's happening over there?" Minege spotted Taresc busting a hole into the side of the Jinh's estate, "Hold on a moment, folks, go and talk amongst yourselves." Minege left her group to chat while she went up to Xulo who had come along to appreciate the nature, "Xulo!"
"Yes, Minege?"
"Did you know your brother is helping Lozulia?"
"Is he?"
"I just saw him put a hole in Jinh's estate and now they're sneaking into his mansion."
Xulo looked over Minege's shoulder and saw Taresc closing the hole he made, "It seems more like he's helping her perform a felony, more than anything."
"It's official, you have to help me now. It's only fair."
Xulo groaned, "What am I helping you do exactly?"
"We're going to teach some people the importance of worms."
Taresc and Lozulia found themselves in the precarious situation of sneaking around a labyrinth of well-decorated rooms and hallways adorned heavily with Jinh's family. One would have thought it was the house of a king with the amount of heirlooms posted in every nook and cranny. It was especially hard with the company of Stormbenders in the house. Every creak they'd hide in a room to only discover that there's Stormbenders in said room. Never were they caught, but that was due to Taresc's innate and adept ability to run. After running out of the last of the rooms filled with preserved meats and exotic fruits they found themselves overlooking what seemed to be the foyer. They found themselves in a comfortable little room that had a whole side missing, with railing in its place. It seemed that it would be used for musical accompaniment during fancy parties.
"Is that all the food?" Taresc and Lozulia were collapsed in the room from exhaustion but sprung up as they heard Jinh's voice.
The peeked around the railing, a Stormbender spoke back, "I believe so, will you be done with our services at the end of this week?" Lozulia mouthed the word, 'Services?' and Taresc shrugged back.
"I wish it were, but these strangers showed up in town and they're keeping these stupid people on my property for even longer." Jinh's voice was full of disgust.
"So you'll be hiring us for a little longer?"
"Until I got all my land rightfully back from these squatters, I suppose I'll have to. The White Lotus can't really complain if they leave on their own right. I'll be sending your payment in the mail, that'll be all." The Stormbender bowed to Jinh and exited, "I guess I should voice my support for this 'operation,' what great lengths I must go."
As soon as they heard the door close, they both started freaking out, "What just happened?" Taresc held his head between his hands.
"Well we learned that Jinh is cahoots with the Stormbenders and he's buying some service from them. What a twist!"
"We need to tell Xulo."
"Not yet, I have a feeling that Jinh is more involved with the drought than we think. I think this 'service' will be our key." Lozulia exited the musicians' area and head down the stairs, "Let's see if we can find a private study in this godforsaken house!" They opened one door and found themselves in a room with a large desk with a bookcase behind it. "Well, that was easier than expected." They immediately began rummaging through the papers on his desk and in the little drawers contained within.
"A-ha! I think I found something, Lozulia." Taresc held up a piece of paper. On it was what seemed to be a letter addressed to a Stormbender.
"Dear Commander Mio,
I have come to need your services once again in my time. The White Lotus has put me into quite a pickle, they seem to find my ownership of the island concerning. They believe that it threatens their authority and creates a dictatorship. In order to undermine me and my fortune, they demand I relinquish three quarters of my land and allow for the residents to spread onto it. 'Integration Welfare,' they call it. I've hoped that I could adjust, but it's become too hard to bear witness to and I ask for your assistance. I propose that you take your Stormbenders into the clouds and meddle with the atmosphere. Make it so not a drop of rain touches this land again. Hopefully they'll starve out and I can have what rightfully belongs to my family once again. I'll have to ask you supply me with food during this time of course. Obviously, I'll pay for these services in handsome quantities.
Sincerely,
Jinh"
"I think this is decently incriminating. Let's go."
Jinh stood on a stage in the center of town, Minege was just finishing up for the day when Jinh decided to make a guest appearance, "I just wanted to say that I think that Minege is doing a great job here and I'm so happy that you guys are willing—"
"Hold up Mr. Jihn of the Jin-sounding lineage located in the Township of Jin!" Lozulia came tearing through the crowd with Taresc right behind. Standing before the stage, she stood defiant and proud.
"Ah, you're the other little lady trying to fix the city, right? I must say, your competitor is doing a great job, it'll be hard to top her."
Lozulia grinned and turned to the audience, "Well, I think I might have a way." Lozulia stepped onto the stage, "Listen everyone, this man has been swindling you all!" Xulo and Minege quickly looked to eachother, "He has been sour ever since the White Lotus made him give away his land. He's been paying the Stormbenders to create an artificial drought to starve you guys out."
Rumbling came from the audience, people began bickering with eachother, one man said, "Is this true?"
"He said he was dispersing the land out of the kindness of his heart." A woman said.
"Jinh has been so nice to us… would he really?" Jinh was showing signs of absolute flustering, but he kept his composure like a noble should. Minege stepped aside, seeming to forfeit.
"Is this true, Jinh?" Xulo approached Jinh.
"Hardly, I'd like to see some proof, if you could." Jinh spoke sharply bent over to look down over Lozulia.
"I would love to." She walked up the steps of the stage while reaching into her dress to find the letter. "Here you are."
Lozulia held out the letter to Xulo, Jinh tried to snatch it, but Xulo held tight. "It's a letter addressed to a Commander Mio. It says exactly what Lozulia says." Now the rumbling was getting louder from the citizens, no longer was it a question of guilt, but a declaration.
Surprisingly, Jinh wasn't fazed by the new evidence at all, "This is petty, honestly I'm disgusted to even have to grace this mockery of a trial."
Xulo approached Jinh, "Explain yourself, Jinh."
"I've figured it out, Lozulia, that's your name, right?" Lozulia sneeringly nodded, "It's my understanding that this is a competition between you and Minege, but really? Did you have to resort to forgery?"
"Excuse me?" Lozulia was shocked and so was the rest of the crowd.
"Minege here was doing such a good job of circumventing this problem with all of her intelligence. Your idiotic brain couldn't handle such a task, in fact when I saw you in fields, you were lighting them aflame, that wasn't much of help was it?" Lozulia turned bright red and was gripping tightly to her dress, "Being so far behind, you decided that your best course of action was to take the easy way out, framing me. Desperate and utterly pathetic, you infiltrated my house, stole my ledger and now we're here."
Xulo began staring inquisitively at Lozulia, "Tha- that's not t-true!" Lozulia was so rattled, she could barely speak. "Taresc?"
"We didn't forge that; that was in your private study."
Jinh laughed, "Do you think we are about to really believe what the boyfriend says?"
"Boyfriend?" Taresc was turning red alongside Lozulia.
"Also, Xulo my dear, it's come to my attention that you are the Avatar. While I have greatly enjoyed your team company up until this point, there has been a high penalty raised for people who conceal the Avatar and honestly that scares me. In order to protect my citizens, I ask that you leave immediately. I will not inform them, I just ask that you depart as soon as possible."
Xulo looked out into the angry crowd and saw only accusative and offended glares, he went up to the team and grumbled angrily, "We're leaving. Now!" He directed it to the whole group, but stared directly at Lozulia. The group began moving towards the edge of the stage and Jinh began to quell the crowd.
Minege stood in the crossroads, wanting to move off the stage and take her win, but looking at Lozulia she knows what she needed to do, "We're not going anywhere, Xulo."
Taresc said, "Minege, we can't put these people at risk. We should just take our losses and leave."
"If what Lozulia said is true then the only thing these people are in danger of is that man over there, leave this to me." Minege grabbed the letter out of Xulo's hand and went up to Jinh, who was currently speaking to the crowd. "You crook!"
"Minege?" Jinh said playfully trying to play along.
"Sweety, I have had it with your slander. No one, and I mean no one, calls my friend stupid, especially not your prissy ass! She would never go to such a low just so she could win a stupid little contest. If she says this is real, then this is the genuine article." Minege poked Jinh's chest with the force of an elephant-ram.
"Minege, you've done me no wrong up until this point, how cutting are your words." Jinh casually moved Minege's finger, "I've been nothing but kind to my citizens, it just doesn't suit my nature, am I right?"
The crowd dully roared in confusion, with no consensus in sight, Lozulia stepped in, "Oh really? Let me ask you crowd, when you all were starving, what did Jinh do?"
"From what I could tell, he gave you all nothing." Minege said, the crowd was getting more centered and it seemed they were switching sides.
"Let me tell you," Lozulia said, "when me and Taresc were running around Jinh's house there were rooms—Rooms!—of food. Did he offer you any of that when your children's stomachs were rumbling?" The crowd was finally disillusioned and from the crowd came a resounding 'No!'
Jinh began panicking as he saw the crown surround the stage. Minege and Lozulia got to either side of Jinh, "This isn't about me or about Lozulia, this about justice, honey."
"And I think you deserve a trial by your peers," Lozulia got behind Jinh and pushed him into the angry mob, "And I was anti-firebending, look it up!"
"Well, who won Xulo?" Minege was turned around on Tanton's neck, excitedly waiting to receive the news and letting Tanton lead herself. Xulo sat cross-legged on Tanton's shoulder with Lozulia and Taresc facing him.
"While I think that both of you had a lot to do with how today resulted, I've decided that our official leader is…" Lozulia closed her eyes and crossed her fingers, "Lozulia."
"Yes!" Lozulia jumped up and quickly stumbled back to Tanton's body, "I just want to say, that I wouldn't have gotten this far if it wasn't for Izum back home, thank you daddy!" Lozulia wrapped Taresc in a headlock, "Also this little shit, he helped a lil bit." Taresc and Lozulia would continue to wrestle around for a while.
In their preoccupancy, Xulo went to check on Minege who had since turned around. "You alright?"
"I'm fine and I completely understand," Minege refused to turn around, but Xulo could see a tear, "Lozulia did most of the legwork," when Minege did turn around, Xulo saw a mournful smile, "I'm just here to see the sights." She turned around again and yelled, "So Zuli, what is your first command?"
Lozulia stopped wrestling Taresc and said, "I'm glad you asked, as the leader I command that Minege be made co-navigator."
"What?" Xulo and Lozulia said.
"I realized that what I have to say isn't always that bright. If it wasn't for you, we would have been out of there before justice was served, all those people would have left again in a couple of weeks and that slime-nugget would have gotten his way."
"Also we wouldn't have all this coin, but I digress." Minege hugged a sack of coins.
"I need a second-hand woman, someone to keep me on course."
Minege creeped off of Tanton's neck and sneaked up behind Lozulia, "I accept." Minege kissed Lozulia on her head, "Hate you."