Never Ever A Good Replacement
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"Aram! Aram! Aram!" babbled Aram, crawling from his grandmother's feet all the way across the vast wooden floor over to the big wooden desk where the other old lady sat. She was the same color as the trees and leaves outside. The same color as oranges. Aram thinned his eyes and racked his mind; he was sure that there was a name for that color. In any case, the leaf-colored lady scooped him up and plopped him on her thigh to start rocking him up and down, watching the giddy toddler's face shift between uncertainty and wondrous elation.
"Aram," she said back to him.
"Aram!" he replied.
The old woman let out a warm chuckle. "Does the child only say his own name? What is he a pokemon or something?"
The grandmother, stood in the room, laughed and reddened slightly. "Mur says he knows other words, but his name is his favorite."
"Is that right, Aram?" she pulled him away from fidgeting at the red ball earrings hung from her ears. "Can you say 'grand-aunt?'"
Ah, that's right, that's who this person was. It was his grand-aunt. No wonder she smelled so familiar. But who could fault him for forgetting such a distant relation anyway? And for her information, yes, he could say grand-aunt. "Brunt art!" See? The two women giggled. One of them even praised him, but Aram barely noticed, he was too entranced by his grand-aunt's hair. It swished backwards in a mesmerizing wave. And the sides were grey, and they swooped behind the tip tops of her ears and curled around them, eventually emerging once again from beneath the deep red earrings.
"How is Mur? She barely visits," the grand-aunt asked. "You think she'd come by since I'm not bedridden anymore."
"She's pregnant again, you'll be glad to hear. With her sixth. She's going on maternity leave soon."
"That's great!" A hand from above plucked Aram away from the complex cavern tunnels hidden between the old woman's cape and her chair. "Six airbenders? Your mother's really doing her part for the Air Nation, isn't she?" Were they talking about Mommy this whole time? "Do you want a younger brother or younger sister, Aram?"
His brothers and sisters both showed immense care towards him. And they always took the time to play with him too. It was hard to decide. "Aram," Aram said, decidedly.
"Oh, I see." His grand-aunt said. "You want another Aram. Good choice. I'll relay the message to Mur."
Grandma laughed again.
"Mua," the boy suddenly exclaimed, his hands raised in celebratory fashion. "Mua, Mua!"
"Mua?"
"Mua!" He had noticed his sister's ash-colored eyes peeping in from behind the door. They were definitely Mua's eyes and not Maya's, since only Mua's eyes were overcast by her long fringe.
"Oh, Mua! Perfect timing, darling," Grand-aunt said.
The girl timidly let herself in, making sure to close the door behind her. She always had her hands behind her back, like she had now. It wasn't because she was hiding something behind her back or anything, it was just because she used to always cover her face with her hands, but Mommy didn't like when she did that and made her stop, and since then she always puts her hands behind her back instead. Ever since before Aram could talk. "Good morning," she said, bowing slightly.
"Good morning," her Grandma standing in the middle of the room cooed.
"Good morning, Mua," her Grand-aunt sat at the desk said. "Mua, could you come take Aram away somewhere? Me and Grandma Ikki need to talk about something." Aram reached out towards his sister, curling and uncurling his pudgy fingers.
The baby boy liked being carried by Mua. When the watchful eyes of grownups turned away, the little girl would run as fast as she could with him in her arms. In those few moments they became a free streak of laughter, darting around open spaces, feeling the whispers of the wind brush against their flushed cheeks.
"Yes, Chairwoman," Mua replied obediently, the hem of her little yellow dress hovering slowly and level across the room. Aram noticed that around adults, her vibrant nature was replaced by diligent reserve, something akin to their older siblings. "Come, Aram. Do you wanna watch Tiam practice his airbending?" Aram eagerly climbed into her familiar embrace.
Their grand-aunt pulled them back to kiss their heads, "Blessed children," before sending them off. Their grandmother did the same once they'd reached halfway across their path.
"They'll be finished soon," Mua whispered to her little brother as they edged closer towards the door. "We better hurry!" she said, punctuated with an almost devious wink.
"Aram!" he said excitedly as they walked out. He knew what she was insinuating.
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Once the innocence of youth had walked off stage, Ikki, all alone in the center of the room, felt the radiating heat of spotlights on her. Her sister was done playing her part. A dark and thickly palpable aura filled the room when Jinora's gentle expression became one of suppressed anger. Ikki planted the studs of her sandals into the office's mahogany tiles. As if her sister's next words would blow her clean through the wall behind her.
"Eerily... I didn't receive Remy's greetings this morning. He's not here in the Capital," the Chairwoman said. "Is he?"
"No," the Vice Chairwoman replied regrettably. "He's not."
Mur's older brother and Ikki's firstborn, Rem, was an extraordinary and beloved man. So beloved that the affectionate two-syllable variation of his name had caught on like it was his given one. Despite the fact that he hadn't fathered as many children as the second born had birthed, his esteemed position within the family was a source of great pride. From the tender moments of nursing in Ikki's loving clutches to his remarkable feat of transforming juvenile fledgling airbending forces into a formidable corps of elite masters of their craft year after year, Rem exuded an unwavering determination throughout his entire accomplished life. The drive within Ikki's son was perhaps too boundless to be chained to only one corner of the world. While the Capital was anything but humble, Rem was not the type of man to die within the same boundaries in which he was born.
"While you were out sick," Ikki began, "Rem revealed to me that he's been in contact with Desna for a few weeks-"
"Desna?" Jinora grabbed the bridge of her nose. "You mean... Desna Desna? Korra's cousin Desna? The Chief of the Southern Water Tribe Desna?"
"Yes... They were discussing an-... exchange, of sorts. Rem for a prestigious subordinate of theirs. He asked to partake in the program. And I allowed it. His flight was yesterday."
"Ikki..." the Chairwoman stood up, just barely managing to avoid knocking over her desk lamp and laptop, an unsettling deviation from her usually composed self.
Jinora's sister cast worried hands out towards her, "Jinora! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" the Chairwoman snapped, regaining her momentarily lost balance. "I just want to know the reason why you made such a decision without considering my opinion."
"Jinora, you were incapacitated for days. Rem came to me as his mother and Acting Chairwoman and I didn't see anything wrong with it. Rem and I are like-minded when it comes to these things, you know that, Jinora."
The caped woman pointed her accusatory finger, "And you knew my position on this already. You weren't acting faithfully in my absence, were you?"
"The Air Nation can't just cocoon itself away from others," Ikki dodged the question, "We need to build lasting foreign relations. We need to modernise. Everyone else imports benders nowadays, isn't it time we diversify too?"
Jinora: "And give away our most talented airbenders so they can be used against us."
"That's ridiculous, Jinora." The old woman sighed and turned around. "I made the most rational decision I could while occupying the Chair, for my nation and for my son. What's done is done. There's no point arguing about it." And she made to leave the office, thinking the discussion over.
Jinora: "Ikki."
The Vice Chairwoman's hand rested on the doorknob as her head reluctantly turned back, her expression a mix of anticipation and weariness. "Yes?"
Jinora: "Who did we trade Remy for?"
. . .
Torik took a leap of faith.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The roaring wind whipped through the fluttering stands of his hair and beard as the semi-urban expanse of the Central Air Temple below flew up to meet him at terminal velocity. He was half expecting the serene and tranquil ambiance of the Southern Temple he'd once visited to replicate itself here, but the skyline he'd previously gazed at from Yue Bay didn't betray him. This was the sown seed of a sprawling Air Nation metropolis that would one day rival it's decaying neighbor across the shore. Torik marveled at the sheer scale of it all. The cityscape stretched out like a vibrant tapestry, every inch pulsating with life and energy. The streets were like arteries, pumping with the lifeblood of the city, while the buildings of silver, white, grey, red, yellow and glass stood as monuments to human achievement. The view was too much to keep to himself. He scrambled around for his phone.
. . .
Somewhere in the Southern Water Tribe...
An old woman sitting in her couch turned down the TV. Her phone was ringing. "Torik wants to facetime?" She answered to a blast of audio clipping her phone's speakers, Torik's voice barely audible over the rumbling static.
"HI, MOM!"
"Torik? Torik, baby, where are you?"
"I'M TWO THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE CENTRAL AIR TEMPLE! IT'S MY FIRST DAY AT MY NEW JOB AND I WANTED TO MAKE AN ENTRANCE SO I'M SKYDIVING IN!" The camera turned to show the breathtaking scene below.
"Oh, that's nice, Torik. Are you coming home for the holidays?"
"OH- WAIT, HOLD ON, I'M ACTUALLY LOWER THAN I INITIALLY THOUGHT! I'M GONNA HAVE TO CALL YOU BACK!"
*facetime hangup sound*
. . .
The training compound skirted thoroughly about the mountainous cliffsides, its borders carefully drawn between the land and the sea with clusters of autumnal trees in an arc towards the heart of the city, declaring its territory perilously close to the outer regions of the urban hub. The air there seemed to carry a serene energy, charged with the essence of airbending mastery and no shortage of healthy competition.
To Torik it was just a circular sand-coloured blotch. One that he was about to crash straight into at terminal velocity because he'd apparently forgotten to take his parachute before surrendering himself to the heartless whims of the sky. Oops. Plan B it was.
Luckily, the vast ocean adjacent to the compound supplied him enough water to cast a tall watery vortex that he'd catch himself in. His arms shot in erratic swirls as the twirling column of water let him slip through unharmed just in the nick of time and let him touch his boots down amidst a flock of airbenders who'd each conjured invisible umbrellas to shield themselves from the spillages. Once he'd confirmed himself uninjured, there was one thing left to do. Celebrate.
"YEEAAAHHHHH! WOOOOOO! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! DID YOU SEE THAT!? THAT, WAS F**KING AWESOME! HIGH FIVE!"
A hand met his palm with a light slap, accompanied by giggles. The owner of the hand was about Torik's age, mid-twenties. Round eyes. No makeup, but she definitely didn't need it. The crop top she was wearing revealed just enough to arouse Torik's interest. "That was quite the entrance," she said with a playful smile.
"Hi," he said, eyes a little more relaxed than they should've been for a professional setting. "I'm-"
"-Captain Torik," she finished, "Southern Watertribe Shoreguard, Special Rank II, and one of Chief Desna's elite patrols," she listed off, her peers starting to gather around with fascinated expressions painted on their faces. It was a badass first impression, wasn't it? And no one even realized that he almost became a red pancake on the ground.
"Former," Torik said, humbly. "Now, I'm-"
"-Sifu Remy's replacement." She stuck her hand out for a gesture a little more civilized and formal than a high-five. "Ba."
He shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Ba. You sure do like to-"
"-Finish people's sentences? I know. It's my second most refined skill, right after airbending," she said, seamlessly assuming a stance that boasted flexibility rather than a low center of gravity.
The airbenders around began hooting and hollering. "Testing the waters already huh?" Someone said.
"Don't get your ass beat, Ba!" Someone else said.
Ba, distanced herself a few feet, maintaining deep eye contact with him while she did. For a second, it was just them two, completely alone. "May I have this dance, Sifu?"
It might've been completely tongue in cheek but it still made Torik's heart skip a beat. Nevertheless he reanimated himself, spread his boots across the sand, and raised his hands up. "Allow me to summon my guards," he asked politely.
Ba regarded him inquisitively for a second before deciding. "Very well."
Torik smiled. "Big mistake."
The spectators gawked as two massive dragons of ice cast their shadows on the island and landed behind the shoulders of Torik. The sunlight bounced off of the transparent sculptures, dripping with fresh salty sea as if they had come to life and swam up themselves before landing in the compound with a ground-shaking thud. "Meet Tal and Ral." They were both coiled like giant snakes, perpetually displaying their teeth in terrible roars.
"Uhh... So that's new..." Ba squinted, more impressed by the sheer quality and detail of the craftsmanship more than anything. "Did- Did you just... make those?"
"Don't get distracted! Fight!" Torik froze the wet ground, much to the challenger's surprise. "Did you forget already? I literally drenched the ground like a minute ago! Pay attention to your surroundings!"
Torik's new student didn't move straight away. She must've realised the slippery situation she was in. But the heavy sculpture called Ral, emerging from the shadows of her den behind Torik's right shoulder, was skating out towards her on the ice, spewing a pressurized canon of water to boot.
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"Ba!" one of the spectators yelled, throwing her a get out of jail free card - a glider. She caught it and let the wings out, using it to fly high and away from the advancing statue. Were these the types of waterbenders Chief Desna had stashed away in the South?
Ba dove towards Torik and curled her flight path upwards before contact, her feet kicking from under her orange skirt propelling shots of air at him. Ral slid in the way and ended up taking the brunt of the force. What kind of waterbending is this!? Ba thought, now flying in the other direction. I was expecting the usual watery tentacles and stuff, not- "Oh!" She looked down at her right ankle to see a watery tentacle wrapped around it.Well, I kind of deserve that. Ba sighed as she was dragged back down to earth, managing to break her fall just in time with a gust of wind. She was ready to give up. Too bad she'd spotted the chauffeur of the most important person on the planet while she was up there. He was helping her out of a white cayenne at the compound entrance while Ba was busy getting snatched out of the air. Surrender wasn't an option when she was around. And it looked like she would be here in a couple minutes.
Ba, now possessed by resilience, landed on her toes and slid on her heels, the sandy dust smoking as her feet scraped across the ground. The retracted staff was rigidly set in front of her figure by the end.
"And now you know why that was a big mistake." Torik heaved his limbs that extended from broad shoulders. The frozen surface extended forward at the grinning waterbender's command, Tal and Ral's frightening jaws following not too far behind. Ba sliced once to her left and once to her right, making four statues out of two, the top halves of each statue sloping and crashing to the icy floor with shards splaying out as a smirk played upon Ba's face. "Good job!" Torik praised. She turned her attention to him, who had an equally confident look. "But Tal and Ral aren't the only threats to look out for." The sculptures had been neutralized, but she had failed to keep an eye on the crackling sheet of ice that had been stalking towards her like a pack of wolves operating under tree-shaded moonlight. "Make sure all threats are neutralised before dropping your guard!"
"Gah!-" she embarrassingly cried as her neck and wrists were taken prisoner by the cold spikey maces that emerged from the frozen ground.
At that moment, the sea of watchers parted to let through a slender old lady who wore a red cape that dropped to her ankles, whose neck was adorned by a wooden necklace with a circular pendant that had the symbol for 'starry night sky' etched onto it, and who had cherry-red ball earrings hung from her lobes. Her similarly colored lips parted to address the airbending student by way of greeting. "Ba."
"Miss Chairwoman!" The captive put on her best smile. "How nice of you to visit! I was just showing Torik here my airbending."
The gray woman regarded the airbending student taken hostage by frozen spikes. "I can see that," Jinora said.
Tal and Ral, or whatever was left of them, returned to their natural liquid form. So did the sharp ice threatening Ba, freeing the loosely dressed airbender.
Ba saw her captor approach the Chairwoman. "Nice to meet you. I'm Torik," he stuck his hand out to greet her. "I'm going to try my best to serve as Sifu Rem's replacement." She definitely saw it but decided to keep her hands behind her back. Ba snorted when Torik pretended that his hand was merely on its way to scratch his head instead.
"Yes, well," Jinora said, flatly. "There's been a more important appearance." Everyone looked around, confused. "I suppose it's a good thing that you're not aware. That means your phones are off." She turned to face the majority of the gathering.
"Mine's not off," the waterbender decided to awkwardly announce, drawing everyone's attention as he retrieved it from the pocket of his navy blue cargo pants. "...I need to call my mom back actually..."
. . .
"Dude. Dude, dude, dude! Look!" Yyet shoved his phone in Aem's face.
"Stop, bruh, we ain't supposed to be on our phones during training," Aem told his younger cousin.
Yyet: "Just look!"
Aem: "…What's this?"
Yyet: "Pink Dream Nightclub."
Aem: "The one off fifth?"
Yyet: "Yeah. Footage from yesterday night. Watch."
Aem: "In the ladies room? Someone must've leaked thi-… Dayum! …Is he… Shit, he's dead… The f**k going on?"
Yyet: "Triple Threats. Killed a bunch of people."
Aem: "Daammmnnnn… That's crazy… Yeah that guy's dead… What's she doing?"
Yyet: "Watch."
Aem: "…She ain't gonna… They ain't coming in. Oh, they ain't coming in… …Oh my god! Shit man! She just shot her in the f**king head!"
Yyet: "Hahaaaa yeah man!"
Aem: "What? That ain't funny that's f**kin- Where she going now?"
Yyet: "Oh, c'mon she was a gangbanger she deserved it! But, ay, look, she kinda bad tho that's all I'm tryna say!"
Aem laughed.
Yyet: "Nah, look, that ain't even the best part."
Aem: "No way. Daaayum they got cameras in the vents?"
Yyet: "Hahaaa perfect angle, too!"
Aem: "Why the hell they got cameras in the vents? Dayum… That dress… Goddayum… I feel bad, but, goddayum!"
Yyet stuck his hand out excitedly and dapped him up. "And you don't even know who that is! Hahaaa you don't even know!"
Aem: "Huh? What? Who is it?"
Yyet laughed, barely containing his excitement. "She's the Avatar, man!"
Aem: "Man shut up! Always playin."
Yyet: "Hahaaa you think I'm f**king around! Hahaaaaaaa!"
Aem grabbed the phone and saw the woman throw a live grenade out a door. "Are you serious?" he asked, almost laughing.
Yyet: "Go to the beginning broo!"
Aem scrubbed back to the start. "…No f**kin way that's Kuruk! She is the goddamn Avatar!"
Yyet: "And she's a baddie! Hahhaaa!"
The doors of the dojo burst open, Aem's little sister and brother. "How many times I told y'all stop runnin around," he scolded Mua. "Buss yo heads open."
"Sorry," Mua said, letting Aram down to give herself a rest from his weight while she stretched and looked around. "Where did Tiam go?"
Yyet's face lit up as he helped Aram stand, holding his little hands above his head to offer stability as the infant waddled around.
"Why," Aem folded his arms. "Mine and Yyet's airbending ain't good enough to watch?"
Mua waved her arms in denial, "No, no, that's not it, we can watch you guys-"
"-Tiam!" Aram exclaimed. "Tiam! Tiam!"
Yyet deadpanned, letting go of the boys arms and letting him fall on his butt, giggling. Mua picked Aram up again, offering an uncomfortable laugh.
"He's proly at the compound by now," Aem said. "Everyone's proly there. The Avatar's been found."
Mua: "Wait, what? No way! Can I see!?"
Aem pushed her head away and gave Yyet's phone back to him. "Maybe later... A decade later… Come on," he jangled the keys to his altima, "I'll drive us to the compound."
Aram's scrunching nose caught a scent in the air and his eyes suddenly went wide.
Mua: "Uhh, I think Aram smells trouble..."
Someone's burst into the court, their loud boots stomping as they came in. "I call shotgun."
It was another one of Aem's younger cousins. More widely known as the famous (or infamous) only child of the Chairwoman. "Jadore," Aem said.
Her sadistic smile made Mua and Aram take refuge behind Yyet. "I hear they're having a meeting about the Avatar at the compound," Jadore said. "Our mom's have got to have some information the rest of us aren't privy to, right Aem?"
Aem: "Why do you care so much about the Avatar?"
Jadore folded her arms. "I have my reasons. In any case I'm coming with."
Yyet: "I was gonna ride shotgun but... you can sit on my lap if you want," he offered suggestively.
Jadore: "Gross. You can sit in the back with the other kids."
Yyet: "I'm not a kid I'm older than y-"
Aem: "-Why don't you just fly there, Jadore?" Being one of the few airbenders besides her mom who could fly, she was always ominously spying on people from the roofs of tall buildings, spires, and other high places. Like some kind of anime villain or something.
Jadore: "I've been flying all day," the caped girl complained. "Now let's go before we miss all the juicy intel!" She set her eyes on the children, making her hands into claws and her teeth into knives, growling and chasing them out the door and into Aem's car, genuinely enjoying the screams of terror she extracted out of them.
Aem shook his head. If Aem knew Jadore, she definitely wasn't interested in the Avatar for no reason.
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