Chapter 1
The workshop was never quiet. There was always a saw screeching, an engine revving, or someone shouting. The forge in the back room meant that it was always sweltering. The men who worked there were all hulking and tough as old leather, built for the jobs they did and prideful in their efforts.
It wasn't the sort of place one would expect to find a scrawny fourteen-year-old boy dressed in the under-layers of a school uniform sitting in the corner, angrily tinkering with a long dead scooter engine.
"Stupid hunk of crap." He hissed, as a piece that wasn't supposed to move pinched his finger. As he nursed the reddening skin, he was overshadowed by a brawny man in grease-stained coveralls. His face was stern as he loomed over the youngster.
"Don't swear, Takaro." He stated in a commanding tone. The dark-haired boy shied away from the Water Tribe mechanic and pouted.
"Sorry, Nakkos," Takaro grumbled. Nakkos could barely hear the boy's low voice over the noise of the blowtorch at the other end of the room. The owner of the workshop sighed and crouched down in front of his youngest-ever apprentice.
"What're you even doing here? Your next shift isn't 'till tomorrow and school would have only just let out. Why didn't you just go straight home?" The boy's light brown cheeks darkened with embarrassment. "Did you get in a fight with Shuna or something?"
Takaro shook his head, still not looking at Nakkos. "No, not with her…" He trailed off, leaving Nakkos to figure out the rest. The man groaned and let his head tilt down.
"You shouted at one of your teachers again, didn't you?"
"No." Takaro defended. "…It was the principal."
Nakkos took a deep breath and gestured for Takaro to go on, knowing of the general disdain the students had for the old man.
"He was lecturing me like I'm an idiot in front of everyone, just because I didn't have my uniform all straightened out. He's always doing this. He thinks he can talk down to me just because I'm not a bender." His face wrinkled into a scowl as his yellow eyes finally met Nakkos'.
It was common knowledge around Yugan that the local school's principal was particularly demanding on the non-bending students, believing that they needed to be pushed harder to keep up with the others. It was likely a way of thinking he retained from his days in the Earth Kingdom's military.
"So yeah, I called him out for being a jerk and he said he was gonna call Shuna, big deal." Nakkos gave him a flat stare.
"You didn't call him a jerk, did you?" He knew Takaro (and his temper) well enough to also know his vocabulary, though he supposed he was partly to blame for it; people in the workshop rarely strove for politeness.
Takaro huffed and shrunk away again, silently answering the question. Nakkos stood up straight, rubbing his forehead.
"Okay, how about this? You go for a walk by the river and clear your head, and I'll give Shuna a quick call, tell her your side of the story. But you have to head straight home after you've calmed down, all right?"
Takaro's hotheadedness was a frequent problem for the boy, but the people around him had figured out a few little tricks that usually got him back in line; some time alone in nature was one of them.
The boy nodded and rose to his feet. He pulled a tarp over the engine, wrapped up the tools he'd been fiddling with, and left the workshop without a word. Nakkos gazed after him for a moment before making his way to the phone in his cramped office.
He'd maybe walked for a bit longer than he should have. The river was very shallow at this time of year and therefore much less impressive to look at; just a stream a few feet across, running through a wide trench of wet mud.
So instead of focusing on the familiar scenery, Takaro chose to wander a bit farther upstream than normal. The river flowed west, past the edge of the small town, through the Kolau mountains, and out into the ocean.
Under the bright sun, Takaro strolled over the grass and tried to think of what he was going to say to Shuna. It took a lot to get her genuinely angry about anything, but Takaro was sometimes a lot for one woman to deal with.
He didn't get himself into trouble too often and avoided confrontation whenever he could, but his tendencies to bottle up his aggression and his unwillingness to tolerate any unfair treatment (particularly from his teachers) would now and then result in him doing something to get himself admonished: cursing, breaking things, ditching class, and the like.
Whenever he would act in such a way, Shuna would sit him down and try to get him to properly understand the causes and consequences of his anger. If Nakkos had spoken to her like he said he would, she probably wouldn't be too upset with him, but considering the number of times that they had had the conversation, she may very well be disappointed in him.
Takaro let out a deep breath and was about to turn around when something on the other side of the narrow stream caught his eye.
Half buried in the mud of the riverbank, there was a long, straight piece of metal. Typically, he would have thought nothing of it; just more junk someone had carelessly tossed away, but what made him pause was the colour.
It was caked in dirt and coloured completely black, but still shone in the sunlight: it wasn't painted.
Curiosity piqued, Takaro backed up a few steps and took a running jump across the river. He cleared the flowing water but landed heavily in the wet mud and stumbled onto the grass over the riverbank. He grumbled, knowing that his dirty school shoes and trousers would add to the trouble he was in with Shuna.
Careful not to slip and go into the water, Takaro stepped over and went to nudge the metal with his foot. It was a second too early that he noticed that it was sharp. Very sharp.
Now aware of the potential danger, he pressed the sole of his shoe against the flat part of the metal and dragged his foot back and forth, trying to wiggle it from the dirt. Eventually, he dislodged it enough to be able to make out the general shape beneath all the mud. It looked like… a sword?
Still careful to avoid cutting himself, Takaro reached for what he assumed to be the hilt and dug his fingers into the wet earth. With a firm grip, he pulled it loose. Salvage in hand, he clambered back up the riverbank and onto the adjacent grassy plain before finally inspecting the weapon properly.
The handle was a completely bare cylinder, meaning that the grip had rotted and fallen away, and the strangely coloured metal of the guard and pommel were rusty and battered. The blade itself, however, was near flawless.
Much of the wet mud cleaned away when wiped on the grass, revealing a straight length of black steel. Was it steel? Takaro didn't think it could be, to have survived in such a good condition. The edges were razor sharp, and the tip had a fine point. It was clearly once a proud weapon, lost by its master a long time ago.
A relic from the hundred-year war, perhaps?
Takaro finally remembered both that he was supposed to be headed home and that he was in trouble. Sword in hand, he walked back the way he had come, towards the bridge so that he wouldn't have to jump over the water again.
Maybe it would make a good distraction.
Their house wasn't anything too special, just a two-bedroom bungalow on the outskirts of Yugan, but they kept it warm, clean, and comfortable, and the fact that it was so close to the forest was nice. Coming home to it was usually comforting for Takaro. Usually. Shuna was waiting for him on the shaded porch, with a sharp look in her green eyes.
His guardian sat in her wooden chair, waiting patiently for him to approach, her face stern but not angry. Her dark, greying hair was tied up in a bun and the beige pants and tunic she wore were dusty and wrinkled; she had been earthbending. Her right leg was in its brace, her ankle resting outstretched on a cushioned stool in front of her, and her walking stick was leaning against the arm of her chair.
Because of a bad injury she had sustained before she took Takaro in, Shuna wasn't really able to walk properly, much less fight. The two of them mostly made it by on her doing odd jobs with her earthbending, and recently the meager amount Nakkos could afford to pay Takaro for helping out at the workshop every now and then.
Shuna may have been past her prime, but she still had a commanding presence. Takaro was reminded of this when she completely ignored the old sword he was carrying and fixed her eyes on him, unwavering.
"I've had two phone calls this afternoon telling me two sides of the same story. I already know how this whole thing played out, so why don't you and I talk about what happens next." Takaro gave a small nod and moved towards the porch steps, but stopped when she raised a hand.
"Leave the sword on the grass, take your shoes off before entering, and go get changed. I don't want you traipsing mud everywhere."
The boy gulped, dropped the sword, slipped his shoes off at the bottom step, and hurried inside to do as he was instructed. He emerged two minutes later, wearing a pair of worn jeans and a grey flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Shuna gestured to the chair next to hers, and he promptly sat down.
"So, this year alone, you've shouted at three teachers, kicked a chair across the classroom, gotten into several arguments with your classmates, two of which turned into fights, and have now apparently 'made inappropriate remarks regarding the principal and his uniform rules'. Meaning…?"
Takaro fidgeted in his seat. "...I told him to shove it up his ass."
Shuna raised an eyebrow as she stared at him.
"Well now, that was gutsy." Takaro's face brightened just slightly. "But still immensely stupid." He winced. This was going to be painful to sit through.
"Takaro, do you remember the talk we had a while back about how to speak to adults that you don't like?" The teenager bit his lip and thought back.
"You told me that they need to think that they're getting what they want by giving me what I want."
Shuna nodded. "And what did you want in this situation?"
"For him to stop lecturing me and go away," the boy spat. She ignored his tone.
"So, did yelling at him accomplish that?"
"... No." Takaro let out a deep breath, realizing where this was going.
"I should have just let him talk himself out." He grumbled, looking down at the wooden floor. Shuna stared at him for a long moment before speaking.
"Takaro, do you really believe that people at that school single you out because you're a non-bender?" He looked her straight in the eyes for the first time since sitting down.
He could say for certain that a lot of the other kids picked on him for that reason, but he didn't have any proof that it was the same for the teachers. Most of them were benders and often showed favouritism to students who also were. All the non-bender teachers were hired before the current principal took over, which at least vilified him.
The student body was pretty evenly split between bending and non-bending children, but when it came to who got higher praise or harsher punishments, the divide was clear.
Takaro thought back and remembered every time he'd been tripped by an earthbender or a firebender had flicked sparks in his face, every time a teacher had looked through him or talked down to him, and compared it to how he was treated by Shuna and Nakkos and the other people at the workshop; people who helped him and took care of him.
He was smart enough to know what people were thinking and feeling when they looked at him, and he knew which ones he had more faith in and respect for.
"Yes." He answered firmly.
Shuna leaned back in her chair and stared off into the middle distance.
"Well then, I suppose it was a good thing you found that sword."
Takaro's eyes widened. "Wait, I can keep it?"
"Of course, you can keep the bloody thing; you went and got yourself all muddy for it." She lifted her leg off the stool and sat upright. "You need to learn a few things about discipline; swordsmanship may be a good teacher."
Before Takaro could get too excited, Shuna's expression turned stern.
"But the sword's not coming into the house until you get it a sheath, and if you so much as scratch the floorboards with it, I'll bend it to scrap."
Takaro flinched, recalling that he was still in trouble.
"You're also going to be doing the laundry and cooking dinner tonight. I want that uniform clean and dry before the sun goes down, got it?"
He nodded meekly and quickly went inside to start his chores at her signal. After he closed the door, Shuna turned her attention to the blade that he had dropped on the grass. With a flick of her wrist, the sword lifted itself up and floated over to her outstretched hand.
She immediately recognized the feel of metal in her bending; meteorite. The previous time she had encountered this material, Suyin Beifong had been in a fierce bidding war for a lump of it the size of her head.
Shuna couldn't help but grin at the memory of her old friend from Gaoling, but she also wondered what exactly she would think of a sword made of the stuff. Would she have any knowledge about its origins?
She shrugged and sent the weapon back down onto the lawn, leaning it against the house. She then hoisted herself up with her walking stick and headed inside to give instructions on dinner preparation.