WORDS: 2.6K
.
. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
.
CHAPTER SEVEN - THE TALE OF THE FLYING MAN
170 AG
"Pema!" Tenzin heard the cries as he ran down the hall. He opened the door to see the midwife and doctor by the bed that Pema sat on.
But there was also someone else. Tenzin sat next to Pema on the bed.
"Tenzin,"
"I'm here, Pema."
"Our new son." She handed him the boy.
"Hello!" Tenzin greeted him.
The baby cooed. The rest of the children popped their heads into the room.
"Come," invited Tenzin. "Meet your new brother."
"A brother?" Meelo said. "Well, it's about time!" The three ran in and surrounded the new-born.
"Welcome! I'm Ikki and this is Jinora and Meelo. We have a super great family and we're so happy that you're a part of it!"
"What are you gonna name him?" asked Jinora. "Can I pick?"
"We already chose a name," the mother informed, leaning her head on the father's shoulder.
181 AG
"Rohan," Tenzin said proudly. "You look more and more like your grandfather every day, especially today."
"That means a lot, Dad." Rohan bowed to his father before seeing him leave the room, Meelo and Ikki were surprised that he was even capable of such a gesture of respect. Maybe his new tattoos actually humbled him somewhat?
Rohan raised his head, the cocky expression spread across his face pointed at Ikki and Meelo. "Don't worry, guys, you'll get your tattoos eventually."
Nope, still the same Rohan.
It was Rohan's big day. His natural talent and hard work had combined to result in him becoming the youngest airbending master in recent history.
"Whatever, egghead," Meelo shot back. "We're not too far behind."
"You know," Rohan said, stepping in front of the mirror. "I kinda like this look for me. Once I grow a beard I'll really look like grandpa Aang!"
Rohan could see the two slightly jealous older siblings roll their eyes in unison in the mirror.
"Kiss-ass."
182 AG
"No, Jinora, I can do it! Just show it to me one more time!" the boy begged.
"I don't think a demonstration is going to help you, Rohan. Look, you're a great airbender, and I'm proud of you. We all are, but the problem is that you have too much pride in yourself." Rohan dropped his stance and turned his hand to look at his new tattoos. Jinora knelt down to his level and grabbed his hand. "These tattoos aren't meant to be a source of pride," she explained. "They represent your relationship with the air. You have power over the air, but the air also has power over you." She stood up. "If you don't believe me, just hold your breath."
Rohan laughed.
183 AG
The boy made the sand dance. He controlled it. Higher and lower, faster and slower. He sent wave after wave at Jinora but she dodged and blew them all away with ease. The kitchen timer which they had brought out into the mountains went off.
"Times up!" said Jinora.
Rohan swore and fell on all fours, panting.
"You didn't manage to hit me even once in twenty minutes. I think you need to bend more sand," Jinora suggested.
"I can only bend this much," he rasped panting. "How… how do you bend so much at once? How do you keep track of the air flow?"
"Practice." Jinora began to walk back home, leaving Rohan behind. "If you weren't chasing girls all the time you'd have more time for it."
Rohan scoffed. "I don't chase girls! Girls chase me!"
SPRING 184 AG
"This isn't working." Rohan opened his eyes. "I've been meditating for minutes!"
"Patience," advised Jinora, "is the key."
"Patience!" Rohan mimicked in a mocking tone, "is the key!"
Jinora's twitched, and so did her finger, sending Rohan into a nearby tree without opening her eyes.
SUMMER 184 AG
Rohan howled and bellowed as he tried to disintegrate the boulder with air. It was a feat that was seemingly impossible. Rohan saw Jinora do it millions of times, but still couldn't fathom it. Rohan thought that his struggles might be heard by everyone back at the Temple, but didn't care, he kept blasting and blasting away at the boulder, screaming and shouting, waiting for something, anything to happen – a little chunk of the rock to fall off, a chip, a crack at least – but nothing. His minutes of relentless assault had achieved nothing at all. He had finally given up.
"Weak!" yelled an unimpressed Jinora. "That was weak!"
"I'll show you weak!" Rohan grumbled as he turned around and blasted Jinora with all he had, the last of his strength.
She didn't even flinch, her arms folded throughout. It looked like she had inhaled his attack in through her nostrils. "You're anger doesn't help your power, Rohan, this isn't firebending." Jinora exhaled through her nose and ejected Rohan's previous attack back at him, throwing him against the boulder he had failed to damage. "You should wear more clothes to cover your ink," she said. "You give airbending masters a bad name."
AUTUMN 184 AG
Whoa! Rohan thought, looking around. He had finally done it, he had entered the Spirit World. The air was fresh and the rivers were clear and there were all sorts of strange animals. Foxes and squirrels and-
I'm kinda hungry, probably shouldn't have done this on an empty stomach, huh? Imma just go back real quick, grab something to eat.
189 AG
Ikki: "Rohan?"
He stumbled out of the cab, "I'm home-" and fell flat on his face, right into the ground. Ikki went to pay the cab driver and noticed a foul smell. The driver pointed to the throw-up in the back seat. She grabbed the bridge of her nose, apologized, paid him extra for the clean-up and his troubles and saw him on his way. She then turned around to see Rohan getting up to his feet. Just barely.
"Rohan, where have you been?"
"What? Did you forget already?" he slurred. "I was celebrating! The big one-nine!"
Ikki: "Rohan, your birthday was three days ago! You can't fool around like this anymore! What's Jinora gonna say?"
"Really, three days? Damn, time flies, huh? So how old am I now?"
"Idiot," she smiled and shook her head. "Good luck tomorrow, birthday boy," she said. "We're all out of hangover pills."
"Aw, but you'll take care of me won't you sis?" He went to hug her.
"Wait, what's that in your beard? Ew, don't come near me!" She airbended his face clean before dragging him to his room.
"Thanks, Ikki. I love you."
"Yeah, yeah." Oh, boy, she thought, Jinora's not gonna like this.
. . .
A flurry of slaps woke Rohan up. "Wh-wha-"
Jinora: "Get up!"
"Wh-" Rohan felt a harsh breeze throw him out of his bed and stand him up in the middle of his room.
"Three days? You were partying for three days!?" Jinora was livid. She knew Rohan was immature but he had apparently never stopped surprising her with new levels of stupidity.
"Ikki ratted me out?"
"Don't blame Ikki for your mistakes! I can't believe you! Do you know how this reflects on me? On Dad?"
"Jinora, come on, it was my birthday!"
"Is that how children of the Chairman of the Air Nation are supposed to act? Three days? You probably don't even remember half the things you got up to!"
"Jinora, I-"
"No! I'm tired of your excuses Rohan, Dad might be a little soft when it comes to you, but I'm done warning you, we're past that now. I'm taking away your captainhood."
"What!?" Rohan wasn't actually a captain of the airbending defense forces yet, but his position was promised to him as soon as he reached twenty. "You can't do that!" Rohan protested.
"I'm the heir to the Chair. I can do whatever I want."
"But I earned that rank! I'm the strongest airbender on this damn island!"
Jinora's mouth twisted into a sadistic smile as she leaned forward slightly. Rohan had identified his mistake immediately. He forgot to say 'apart from you.'
"Oh yeah?" she challenged. "I'll tell you how you can earn your position back. If you can beat me, in a one-on-one, you can be captain."
Rohan would rather quit drinking. "B-but-but I can't… there's no way…" Rohan was fearless and confident and never backed down from anything or anyone. The only one who instilled fear, true fear into him, was his sister. His flying, rock-crushing sister.
The heir headed for the door. "Better get practicing."
190 AG
It was a historic location for the pair of siblings. A lot of blood, sweat and tears were shed here over the years. Rohan had come a long way. The sky was clear, the air was refreshing, the birds were chirping. One could meditate here. Maybe another time.
"I'm surprised," admitted Jinora. "I thought it would have been one of those things where you keep challenging me, like, every other day, and lose, over and over again."
Instead, Rohan had waited until the day before his twentieth birthday to finally challenge Jinora. He thought it was the best thing to do. After all, if he did manage to defeat his sister, he wouldn't become captain until he was twenty anyway. And he couldn't risk Jinora familiarizing herself with his tricks. But that also went both ways, so he had to be ready for anything. "Patience," Rohan bowed, "is the key."
Jinora couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.
The rules – or rule – was simple: First one to get knocked down loses.
She returned the bow and assumed one of her stances. "Whenever you're ready."
Rohan closed his eyes, breathed deeply and focused his mind.
And then he shot. And kept shooting. All of his shots of air were met with little shields of loose earth. He noticed that the shields only had the durability to withstand one of his shots before shattering so he tried to hit her with quick-fire bursts, but she would just inhale any attacks that managed to avoid her shields, like she did all those years ago.
Predictable, thought Rohan as he slyly mixed in a barely-noticeable amount of sand into his attacks. Jinora smiled and blew them away instead of inhaling them. Damn it.
"Nice trick," she yelled over the noise, "but it looks like your fundamentals haven't improved much. I've seen enough already. I hate to cut things short, but I think it's time to end it." Jinora breathed in as much has her lungs would allow her. She bent over with her right hand on her hip and her other hand near her mouth, she kissed her hand and laid the palm flat, facing upwards. She puckered her lips, winked and blew a kiss. The concentrated air cannoned itself out of Jinora's mouth with more force than Rohan had ever seen before. And he was right in the middle of its path.
Rohan gasped and quickly put up a wall of sand, dust and pebbles, anything that was on the ground below him, and braced for impact. The wind was deafening. It penetrated through the wall with a kick and knocked Rohan right off his feet.
"Better luck next time Ro… han…?" Jinora thought Rohan had been knocked away and landed on the ground, but he hadn't landed on the ground. He hadn't landed at all.
"It's… not over… yet…" Rohan was levitating horizontally about an inch off the dirt. It was hard to tell at first glance because the loose parts of his clothes were definitely touching the floor, but he was clearly levitating. Jinora was actually impressed. No one had ever withstood that move head-on.
He launched himself to his feet and picked up the sand again before sending earth in the shapes of spikes and spears at his target. A spinning kick that summoned a cutting wind disabled most of them, the rest were easily dodged. "I think you're gonna need more sand."
"Oh, don't worry about that." He sent a slicing gale from the end of a front-flip and Jinora was forced to use the earth to make a wall, similar to Rohan's. This gave him enough time to focus for a moment to collect his energy before directing both of his hands to one of the nearby boulders. It disintegrated completely into sand which flowed through the air like the thunderous current of a river to crash into Jinora's wall and eventually Jinora herself. She could only use her arms as a barrier between her and the millions of grains pelting her. She had no choice but to attempt flight.
As she ascended, Rohan sent rocks at her and jumped into the sky himself as he saw Jinora dodge. Bingo. He had really gotten her now. She always dodges to her left when she's flying. He noticed this quirk of hers years ago and could finally cash in to use it against her.
Rohan was above her now, he turned his body slightly to the right and performed another front-flip air slice. And it connected. Jinora was caught and the gale knocked her out of the air and she was sent bouncing off of the ground.
No way. Rohan hovered down. He was shocked. He was speechless. He couldn't believe he actually did it.
Jinora gradually got back to her feet. Her face displayed the proudest expression Rohan had ever seen on anyone, ever. And he was on the receiving end of it. Jinora ran and held Rohan tightly. "You've worked so hard this past year, Rohan, I'm so proud of you. I knew you could do it!" She stepped back, still holding onto his shoulders. "You deserve this. You've earned it, Captain."
Rohan could do nothing but laugh and cry and return his sisters embrace.
Jinora: "Don't make me regret this by getting shit-faced tomorrow."
.
. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
.
NEXT: CHAPTER 8 - CHANGE IS IN THE AIR
Pema stood up. "Your father would be ashamed!" she spat.
The members of the gathering reacted audibly.
'Your father would be ashamed!' Korra's words echoed around the appalled room. She never thought that she would be on the receiving end of that spear, but it had pierced her heart nonetheless. Jinora was nothing like the previous Firelord, was she?
"You! You turned my children against me!" she said, despite the fact that she was screaming at one of them. Rohan and Ikki were noticeably uncomfortable. "When will your mission of revenge end? When will you be satisfied?" she continued.
The Chairwoman recovered and spoke unfazed. "Is there a statement here, Matriarch?"
"Here's your statement!" she roared. "I refuse! I refuse to give my forces to you! They will stay and defend the East, as they are trained! They won't become your... your tools of war!"
This wave of gasps was even louder.
"Are you sure?" asked Rohan.
"It's her. I felt it," Jinora said…