Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Why do I wake up?

I laid on my cot with my eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling of my tent. That question reverberated through my mind, just as it had the past several mornings. It felt as if a leaden weight suffused my body, keeping me stuck in place.

Everything felt disconnected. I shouldn’t be waking up at all. And yet, I did. I still moved, still breathed, still felt — not the bugs, only myself.

Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe I really had died, and this was nothing but a hallucination.

Everything felt disconnected. Not in the same way that it had during the fight with Scion, when I had been losing my mind to my passenger. Even now, it was still a jumble of sensations and emotions I couldn’t even begin to fully interpret: a being that was me and yet wasn’t me, the golden man, absolute control, a swarm, a door. I knew enough about what happened; we had won, Scion was no more. It had been at the cost of so many lives and nearly completely sacrificing myself to the whims of my passenger, but he was gone.

And so was I, as far as anyone who had known me was concerned. Taylor, Skitter, Weaver, the monster I was at the end — what had Contessa called me, Khepri? All of my names were dead to the world I had fought to protect. 

If my senses could be believed, I was in fact alive, but nowhere near Earth Bet, or any of the other known Earths for that matter. This unfamiliar place I had found myself marooned in was called Republic City. I had overheard that it was the biggest and most modern city on this Earth; and based on the sheer amount of people wandering the streets and how much the cityscape stretched beyond the horizon, teeming with skyscrapers, I believed it. “Modern” was relative, though, given that the general feel of the place was more akin to the 1920s, based on the fashion, the prevalence of streetcars compared to automobiles, said automobiles having simpler and boxier designs, as well as the architecture of the buildings. The aesthetics of this world were distinctly similar to what I had known about cultures from eastern Asia on Earth Bet, which admittedly wasn’t very extensive knowledge. 

Regardless of how much the city teemed with life, something clearly chaotic had happened to it recently. It was a bit difficult to parse the exact details based only off of what I had heard and my very limited knowledge of this place, but it seemed that the gist of it was a guy fusing with a “dark spirit,” growing to the size of a skyscraper, wreaking havoc on the city and then getting stopped by someone called the Avatar. Entire blocks of buildings had their windows shattered and facades smashed, roads were torn up and strange, thick vines had grown to overtake entire neighborhoods. Those who were unfortunate enough to be in the crosshairs were, like me, stuck taking shelter inside makeshift tents in what was probably the main park of the city. From how people were talking about it, it seemed to have happened right before I had found myself in this world about a week ago. 

I was literally worlds away from everything I had known, and despite how alien this world seemed to be in some ways, there were already parallels to my own experiences. The damage wasn’t quite as devastating, the casualties seemed minimal in comparison, and the circumstances were different; nonetheless, my mind had seen flashes of post-Leviathan Brockton Bay in the scenes I had been witnessing. Scenes of devastation, ones where I had risen from the ashes to start claiming territory and aided in reconstructing the city, all of it for people just like the ones who surrounded me in the present.

I shook my head, as if it would physically clear those images from my mind. A spider — no, not a spider, a spider-rat — crawled its way through the tent flap, skittering across the grassy ground and interrupting my ruminations. I tried to reach out to it, straining my mind to have any sort of effect on the creature. Of course, there was no feedback and no indication I was exerting any control over it, just like all the other times I’d tried. 

An infinite sky of stars. Contessa aiming a gun at my head, blackness. 

I closed my eyes and sighed heavily, massaging my forehead. I had to accept that I was living here and that I needed to get up and start my day, with or without powers.

When I opened my eyes again, I threw the blankets off of myself and sat up on the cot, reaching for my glasses. I got up from my cot and shooed the spider-rat out of the tent the old-fashioned way, the creature backpedaling quite forcefully as I waved it away. 

I scanned the small enclosed space to make sure there wasn’t anything amiss, listening for the sounds of footsteps getting closer or any other alarming commotion. I reached into the inside pocket of my ratty coat and felt my hand grip around a knife. It was a simple kitchen knife that I had swiped from some rubble, but with no powers and only one arm, I’d take whatever I could get my hand on. 

Not hearing anything out of the ordinary, I decided that I was in no immediate danger and took my hand out of my pocket. Even in the circumstances I found myself in, bereft of everything that had defined me, there was a part of me that burned with the restlessness that years of fighting had instilled in me. If nothing else, it reminded me that I was here, in the moment, and alive.

I gripped the sides of my cot and twisted my spine to the left, going as far as I could without hurting myself, repeating the same process by twisting to the right. As much as I was itching to go on a morning jog, I had learned the hard way that jogging in the early morning hours had made me suspicious enough to be told off for “public tomfoolery.” The policewoman had grilled me about my intentions, who I was, where I lived, who I knew. I didn’t give her much to work with, not that she would have believed the truth of who I was anyway. Luckily for me, she had decided she had bigger fish to fry with the city in disarray than a vagrant not clearly doing anything illegal, and had let me off with a warning. How merciful. 

Though I craved the stimulation that my morning jogs provided, I had settled for sitting stretches in the relative privacy of my tent, for the time being. The last thing I needed was more attention from the police.

I continued the rest of my stretches in relative peace, finally concluding after the exertion had sufficiently whetted my appetite. I crawled out of the tent and started walking over to the spot where volunteers were running a soup kitchen. People were joining together on the way there, congregating in little groups and chattering. I stuck to the back, ignoring the glances towards my right arm that were hurriedly masked by a scratch of the head or a pointed look at something random in my general direction. 

Once I got in line, I took the time to survey the scenery around me. Even with the circumstances surrounding the encampments and my own misgivings, there was still an undeniable beauty to the park that shined through. Various trees were just starting to regain their leaves and blossoms, adding bits of color to the bare branches. Ponds teeming with fish twinkled under the light of the early morning sun. Were the city in better shape, it’d be a perfect place to sit, read a book, and have a picnic like I used to with Mom.

I shivered, feeling colder for reasons unrelated to the brisk air. She was so far away, Dad too. Everyone was. 

Yet, they were still with me. Haunting and judging every thought and action.

I knew I deserved it, too. I had always done what I thought was necessary, but there was no changing all of the mistakes I’d made because I hadn’t reached out when I should have, had given too much of my time and attention to the wrong people. There was no changing all of the pain that my path had inflicted, on myself and on others. 

“Excuse me, miss?”

What was the point of dwelling on all of that? I already knew my conscience wasn’t clear. All that had mattered was striking back at the cataclysmic threats that I had faced. There hadn’t been time to think about anything else. Here, though —

“Miss?”

— I was removed from it all. What awaited me here? What could a one-armed vagrant do? Was I really going to find —

“Miss!”

I wheeled around, hand at my knife's handle, instincts suddenly screaming that someone was right behind me. However, all I found was a bespectacled, balding man in his forties, wearing a bemused expression. The rest of the line behind him looked over at me as well, mirroring his confusion at my reaction. 

Damn it! I hadn’t even noticed him right behind me, something that would have been absolutely trivial with my bugs. 

I narrowed my eyes on the man, heart thrumming in my chest and reverberating in my ears. The man raised his hands up defensively and said, “I didn’t mean to scare you, kid, but you were holding up the line.” He gestured to a gap that had formed between myself and the line in front of me. 

“Oh. Right.” My face burned in embarrassment and frustration as I turned myself around and let out an irritated sigh. Why was I being so jumpy over something as small as that? I had been up against world-destroying threats and yet all it took to lose my composure was an ordinary, harmless man trying to get my attention. 

I hesitantly walked up to the next person in line to bridge the gap I had unintentionally made. I caught the man staring a few times from the corner of my eyes as the line steadily moved, though I pointedly ignored him.

After a while, I found myself at the front of the line. A savory and hearty scent hung thickly in the air as various volunteers moved frantically from improvised prep stations to bonfires with large soup pots on them. A teenage girl dressed in a red tunic stood directly behind the stand, holding a bowl in her hands. She turned around, ladled some soup from the pot closest to her and poured it into the bowl. When she grabbed a pair of chopsticks, I said, “No chopsticks.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, but after glancing down at my right coat sleeve and seeing that there was no hand poking out of it, she gave me a sympathetic glance. “Oh, okay. Just be careful with the soup. It's piping hot!”

I took the bowl, clamping down on the annoyance rising within me. Careful to balance it so that I wouldn’t spill or accidentally scald myself, I walked toward a nearby seating area, complete with tables and bench seats made of stone that rose up abruptly out of the ground. I looked around to find an empty table to sit at, settling with one that offered a slightly elevated view over a pond.

As mundane as they were, these makeshift tables were a manifestation of this world’s version of powers: bending. As far as I could tell, it seemed to be the ability to manipulate a particular substance, like fire, water, metal — or in this case, stone. Unlike my world, its practitioners used bending openly. As far as I could tell, it was also something passed on only through genetics, so I was pretty sure that passengers had nothing to do with it.

I blew on my soup, then sipped the broth and slurped some noodles. It was a bit undignified, but my previous attempts to use chopsticks with my remaining non-dominant hand hadn’t gone so well. As quickly as I could, I polished off the bowl, got up, and plopped it down onto the cart with other empty bowls. 

Somehow, even with nothing to do, there was an urgency in the steps that carried me out of the park and deeper into the city.

I walked out the door of the jobs office with a sigh, running my hand through my hair. Still no jobs, same as the last few days I had tried. Not for me, anyway. So much of the work was centered around reconstruction, and nobody was willing to hire someone down an arm. I was still in great shape from my years of training and fighting, but my newfound disability seemed to overshadow that. Even if I hadn’t been handicapped, a lot of the work could only be done by benders, such as one listing calling for lightning benders for a power plant. Support roles that didn’t need bending were already filled, or needed qualifications or knowledge I didn’t have.

Instead of going straight ahead on the street that would take me back to the park, I took a right and found myself on a main boulevard of the city. It was mostly bereft of cars due to the street being all torn up. Construction crews were busy at work, either using tools or their bending to help clear rubble and start repairing the streets. Plenty of pedestrians still milled about on cleared out parts of the sidewalk, dodging rubble whenever necessary. 

Joining the crowd, I made my way south for a while, until I was face to face with a large, ornate building overtaken with vines. Though much of the facade was destroyed, enough of the inscription remained so that I could make out what it said: Republic City Library. At the bottom of the staircase leading up to the main entrance, a sign read “closed indefinitely.” 

Again, I found myself at this place, and I didn’t know why. Logically, I knew that the library wouldn’t be fixed with the amount of damage it had sustained in just a week. And yet, like clockwork, I was in front of the library, expecting something different without any sign that construction was going on. 

That was that, then. Just like every other day, all I could do was wait.

As I turned myself around to start walking back toward the encampment, an inexplicable pit of dread knotted itself in my stomach. Why? Why now, with nothing left to harm me. 

This could be a fresh start, but what was the point in it if I couldn’t even answer that one question that I kept asking every single day: Why do I wake up? Why was I here, instead of being lost to the void?

I put my face into my hand, but it didn’t even feel like I was touching my own skin. My breathing was growing shallower and more frantic. Everything felt like it was closing in on me.

I needed to stop, I just needed these damned thoughts to stop. 

But I had nothing. No powers, no family, no friends, no threat, there was nothing I could do. I was stuck here, and I was stuck remembering everything, and I was stuck with whatever the fuck that mess at the end was. 

“There are no loopholes, no tricks, no ways out.”

Gripping the stump of my arm and gritting my teeth, I turned away from the library and dashed into a nearby alley, my heartbeat pulsating through my body with sickening throbs. After weaving aimlessly through the labyrinth of alleys and side streets, I was abruptly met with a dead end. Panting, I held my hand out and leaned on the wall for support, staring at the ground. 

What could I do? 

I hung my head, eyes squeezed shut as the sting of tears started to prick at my vision. 

What could I do?

I took in a shuddering breath, a strangled gulp of air against the vise clamping down on me. What was weighing me down? What kept filling me with all of this pain?

What could I do?

Nothing. I was nobody, and I had nobody, not even to condemn me.

I crumpled to the ground and sobbed, pounding my fist on the ground as I let out a strangled, visceral cry. I could have died. I should have died. I could have killed them, and we’d have been dead anyway. 

Would they even be able to look me in the eye? Mom, Dad, Lisa, Brian, Rachel. I could accept every single one of them hating me, but I didn’t even have that anymore. 

I was nothing, just a discarded shell of a person.

I don’t know how long I remained doubled over in the alleyway. It could have been a few minutes, or a few hours. Still sniffling, I picked myself up from the floor, taking off my glasses to wipe tears on my sleeve. I bumped my head deliberately into the wall, letting out a shaking breath as I tried to collect myself.

Before I could think of where I would be going, however, I heard a pair of voices that immediately jolted me from the pits of despair back into a state of heightened alertness. They were too far away to make out the words, but one was that of a woman — distressed, panicked — and the other was a man — sneering, belligerent. 

Even without the words, I could tell that the situation could be any number of dangerous scenarios. A mugging, a domestic dispute, a pimp threatening his prostitute…or something even worse.

I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. I needed to act. 

Springing into action, I put my glasses back on and started walking towards the sound of the voices, careful to be as quiet as possible while walking on hard stone. I momentarily had the urge to start setting up my bugs before I remembered that I couldn’t. I bit back a frustrated snarl, keeping my mind focused on the potential scenario that lay ahead of me.

The source of the voices was coming from another smaller alley ahead of me and to the left. As I got closer, their words became clearer to me.

" — making this more difficult than this has to be."

"P-please, I don't know anything! Leave me alone!"

"That’s a load of gemsbok-bull! I know your brother Guanting is tryin’ to hide from us. Thinks he’s real smart trying to outwit the Triple Threats. But I think I know how to make him reappear.”

I ducked behind some crates around the corner from the alley. I peeked into it and saw the two of them. The thug — a beefy guy with black, slicked-back hair — had his back to me as he menaced the woman backed up against the wall. Even from this distance, I could see the fear in her expression. He started conjuring a small flame in his hand and inched it toward the woman. 

It was now or never. I could do this. I had dealt with far, far worse than some common thug threatening a civilian, even with me being broken, down an arm, and with no powers. My heart was once again thundering in my chest, but I was filled with a sense of focus, a purpose. 

I got up from my crouching position and charged toward him. Still absorbed in his confrontation with the woman, he only had enough time to turn his head ever so slightly before I kicked him as hard as I could in the back of his right knee. 

He crumpled like a house of cards and fell to his knees. I could hear the woman let out a startled gasp, but I soon found myself blocking out everything else as I bent down and wrapped my good arm around his neck. I stepped on his hand with my left foot then leaned on it, dragging his neck back and pulling with all my strength. 

His scream of pain turned into a harsh wheeze as my chokehold constricted his throat. He was clawing desperately with the arm that wasn’t trapped, but to no avail. 

I still had his arm pinned to the ground, so he wasn’t going anywhere fast. I just had to hold him in this position long enough for him to pass out, and that would be the end of the danger. I could make sure the woman was okay, and that would be —

Woosh. A fireball just barely missed hitting me dead on, burning a searing flame right above it and bringing the scent of burning flesh to my nostrils. I recoiled, off balance, and screamed, giving him enough leverage to wrestle free from my hold and get his arm out from under my foot. 

As I stumbled back up into a fully standing position and held the area where he had burned my face, he stood up and turned around to face me. He coughed and took in a few wheezing breaths. He managed to get to his feet, though he winced when he tried to take a step forward. His left arm hung limply at his side. His face contorted into a mask of rage and malice, burning into me as intensely as his flames had just a few seconds ago. 

He hoarsely growled, “You! You fuckin’ dare sneak up on me like a little spider-rat, trying to mess with my business?!”

I looked past him to see the woman petrified, still sticking to her spot backed up against the wall. I reached into my coat pocket, but before I could feel the knife’s handle, the thug made an arcing punch that launched a steady stream of fire at me. 

Red and orange hues whizzed by as I threw myself out of the way, milliseconds away from being barbecued. My knife fell out of my pocket, clattering onto the pavement. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. This was bad. Really, really bad. I had no protection. I had twenty different ways I could solve this situation with my bugs, but they were all useless. I couldn’t blind him or hit his vital areas with my bugs, and this bender was far less of a threat than even a Brute-less, Changer-less Lung. Hand-to-hand was useless when I couldn't get in range of the Blaster. I didn’t even have my pepper spray to try and stun him.

“Go!” I shouted to the woman, trying to break her shock. “I can’t hold him much longer! Get out of here!”

Loath as I was to abandon the fight, I had little other choice if I wanted to come out of this to live another day. I only hoped the poor woman would be able to forgive me for recklessly starting a fight I couldn’t finish. 

And, I hoped, I would be able to forgive myself.

Luckily for her, the woman snapped out of it and complied with my directions, fleeing toward a side alley, easily outrunning her assailant. Making sure I was visible to the firebender, I started taking off the other way toward the alley that led back out onto the side street I had come from, dodging various passersby that quickly moved out of my way. My would-be pursuer was nowhere to be found, thankfully. 

Just as I thought I would be in the clear, I felt a sudden blast of water that started getting progressively colder until I found myself encased in a thick layer of ice from the torso down. Disoriented, I tried to wriggle my way out of the ice and face the source of the attack.

A lean, dark-skinned man dressed in blue with a tan trilby hat strutted forward, a glob of water swirling around his wrist. Unfortunately, my frantic struggling didn’t budge the ice block. All I could do was glower at the waterbender until two more figures came out of the alley. The firebender leaned on a large, stocky woman dressed in green, both of them walking right toward me.

The woman handed the firebender off to the waterbender, before leaning forward and making a raising gesture with both of her arms. The ice instantly shattered, only to be replaced with a layer of stone that welled up from the ground and molded around me like clay, going up to my knees. 

“Got you now,” the firebender snarled with glee. “You’re tricky for being a one-armed nonbender. But this is where your tricks end.”

He carefully took his good arm from around the earthbender’s shoulder. He conjured some fire into his palm, quipping, “Let’s show this broad what happens when you mess with the Triple Threats.”

I should have been feeling some sort of fear or anguish. I should have been drowning in my regrets that had been weighing me down, taking me yet again down a road that was doomed to keep destroying me. 

But I didn’t feel any of that. 

What did I feel?

I only had the briefest of moments to contemplate what that was before the jet of flames hit me. I closed my eyes and instinctively held my arm out in front of me.

I wasn’t even here anymore. There was nothing more to do. I was free. 

Then, I could feel…wind. It wasn’t a gust that just happened to be blowing my way, either. Even though it was a sensation that was fleeting in the moment, I could feel as clear as day what it was.

Air, as an extension of myself, flowing and unbridled.

Chapter Text

For several seconds, all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing, deep and rhythmic. No other sounds were registering. When I opened my eyes, the three gangsters were on their butts, jaws wide open. They weren’t the only ones either; the bystanders were similarly transfixed by me, frozen with awe.

Somehow, the force of the air blast had wrenched me free from the stone, leaving me prone on my back. I quickly stood back up while everyone else was still stunned. 

The waterbender was the first to break the silence. He turned to the firebender and exclaimed, “Wh-wha — this is impossible! You said she was a nonbender, Big Chin! How in the name of Tui can she be an airbender?!”

Big Chin growled irritatedly, “How the fuck am I supposed to know, Tiriaq?! Only the Avatar, that monk, and his family on Air Temple Island can airbend!”

The trilby wearing man, Tiriaq, helped Big Chin to his feet. The earthbender was the first of the three to get back into fighting position. My arm was going to be her next target now that she knew — now that I knew — I was capable of airbending.

I wasn’t going to give her the chance. 

The air moved with my breath, and swept forward with my arm. A wave of wind washed over the three goons, knocking over the waterbender and staggering the rest.

The earthbender righted herself while Tiriaq reached for a flask on his belt from his prone position. Pressing forward, I went in with a jab with the stub of my right arm, trying to channel the air through the motion. This more forceful move, however, made the air fan out and weakened it significantly, only having enough strength to knock over the already hobbled and off-balance firebender. 

Before I could even make another move, Tiriaq sprung back up and wrapped his fists in water. The earthbender got back into a planted stance and started hurling small rocks in rapid succession my way, forcing me to duck, dodge, and step back. 

The waterbender, in turn, used his long, flowing movements to send two tendrils of water my way. I barely sidestepped them, coming within inches of striking me and nearly sending me careening into a pile of rubble. 

A sobering thought started creeping in. How long could I keep this up? I was only barely keeping the gangsters at bay with my newfound abilities, especially with how weak they were. All I could do was defense, no way of striking back at them. 

The earthbender squatted down and ripped a motorcycle-sized chunk of pavement out of the street and sent it careening toward me, followed by yet another tendril of water sent my way.  

I strained myself mentally to summon more air, using another deep breath to control it, and mold a shield around me. But, the wind would not heed my directions, and it slipped from my grasp altogether.

The stone barrelled into my chest with a painful blow that knocked the wind out of my lungs. A tentacle of water wrapped around my arm, freezing into ice only around the skin, then forcing the limb into an unnatural angle. At the same time, I could feel more stone encase me, this time going all the way up to my chest.

I was trapped. My breaths were shallow and wheezy. Vision growing blurry. Thoughts growing disjointed through the pain and inability to breathe. 

I had been in so many worse situations, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t have any of my own backup on the way ready to help me out. I couldn’t even retreat.

I had nothing.

Just as I was about to close my eyes and brace for the finishing blow, a stream of fire shot passed my head at the two gangsters, forcing the waterbender to let go of me. 

Disoriented, I thought that somehow Big Chin had got up and made that fire until the earthbender shouted, “Shit! The cops!” 

She turned to where Big Chin laid and quickly got him to his feet. She called out to Tiriaq, “Sorry, this one’s on you. Me and Big Chin owe ya.” 

They hobbled as fast as they could away from the scene, with Big Chin leaning on the earthbender for support. 

Somehow, be it from adrenaline or sheer stubbornness, I managed to persevere through the pain to remain conscious and alert. Two tall, lean men approached from my right, one much younger than the other, the older one lacking a full set of hair. They were both dressed in a gray long sleeve top with buttons on the side and a strange gold emblem on it, brown gloves, gray pants, and a pair of near-knee length boots with a knee pad sticking out of each of them. 

The younger guy engaged first, windmilling his arms in front of him, before thrusting them forward to summon a continuous jet of fire. Tiriaq, in turn, deflected the hit with an upward strike of a whip-like tendril of water. He circled it back around his torso and snaked the stream of water for a strike on the cop’s side. The cop deftly dodged with a jump and retaliated with a sweeping kick that shot out a blade of fire, forcing the waterbender back.

The older cop took the opening by raising some of the rubble and delivering a series of rapidfire punches to launch the stones at him. The waterbender brought up his arms to shield himself with a curtain of water that thickened into ice. However, some of the stones broke through and hit him, sending him stumbling back with a cry of pain.

The earthbender cop raised a part of the street to trip him up. Tiriaq fell down onto his back, groaning some more before getting back up with a backflip. Were all benders capable of this acrobatic maneuvering? 

Then, the firebender cop went in with a series of short bursts of fire punches to keep him on defense, not giving him enough time to reclaim his water.

He growled savagely and kept backing away, his irritated gaze darting between the two policemen. “This ain’t over. Maybe it won’t happen today, but I’ll get you all!”

He leaped to duck behind the wall of ice and put a hand on it, the ice instantly disintegrating into a growing cloud of mist that covered the alley. The policemen let out growls of frustration as I saw their silhouettes shift around. 

Slowly, the mist cloud started to dissipate, and I could make out my surroundings again. The thug was gone, leaving me and the cops. They looked around for a few moments before doubling back towards me. 

The earthbending cop came up to me and with a swift downward motion with his arms, the stone wrapped around my legs lowered. I buckled immediately and started to fall.

He said, “Woah woah, easy now” as he and his partner took a firm grip of my shoulder blades, keeping me from keeling over. 

I screwed my eyes shut. Another ragged breath sent jolts of white hot pain through my chest. I let out a strangled yelp that only made it worse. My teeth clenched so hard that I could crush them into dust. 

“She’s really hurt, Mako,” the older cop said. “We need to get her to a hospital. I’ll radio an ambulance and give dispatch an update on the suspects, you keep her company.”

“Affirmative,” Mako replied as the earthbender let go of my shoulder blade, with Mako picking up the slack. He gently lowered me down into a sitting position. 

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Tay…lor…” I winced. “Hurts…to…breathe…”

“Alright, Tai, say no more. I’ll uh, I’ll just talk to you. I’m Mako.”

All of my focus was on the next breath, trying not to aggravate anything, so much that I almost didn't catch his words.

In a firm but soothing tone, Mako said, “You just gotta hold on a little bit longer. We got an ambulance that’s already on the way.”

Help was on the way. I could feel myself getting weaker and lightheaded. My will to stay awake was dissolving. Black nipped at the edges of my sight.

“C’mon, Tai. Stay with me.”

That was the last thing I remembered hearing before I slipped completely into darkness.

I awoke in a bed with blankets draped over me. I braced for the sharp stabs of pain that would accompany my breaths, only to find that there was no pain whatsoever. I inhaled deeper — five seconds in, five seconds out — and it was just as painless.

Using my arm to prop myself up, I sat up. I looked down at myself, my vision partially obscured and distorted from the smudges and cracks on my glasses. Even so, I was still able to see that I was down to my undershirt. Both of my arms were as unblemished as ever — or at least, as much as they could be with half of the right one missing. 

I knew that I was in a hospital because of the white walls, rows of beds and nurses darting back and forth between patients. Unlike a modern hospital, there were no partitions to either side of my bed, leaving me feeling exposed and vulnerable. The sunlight beaming in through the windows was much brighter than it had been during the fight. It didn’t feel like I had been knocked out for that long, so it was safe to say a few hours had passed, instead of having been unconscious for a day or more. 

The source of the pain I had been feeling when I was trying to breathe, more than likely several broken ribs, couldn’t possibly have healed that quickly on their own. The only conclusion I could think of was that there was another kind of power that operated separately from bending that granted the ability for nearly instantaneous healing.

Yet another curveball this world had thrown my way. Bending, healing, spirit magic, it was all so esoteric. It didn’t make any sense. Nothing did. 

I shook my head, staring down at my right arm, a reminder of the kind of life I had left behind.

I have powers again. 

All at once, I was struck by that thought with the weight of an oncoming freight train. I put my head in my hands, exhaling shakily. 

Why was this happening to me again? I thought I was done with that life. After everything I’ve been through, after all of my life had been consumed by grappling for power, fighting bigger and bigger threats, getting pushed to the breaking point over and over again. Fighting, conflict, power, responsibility, all weighing on me again. I just wanted it to stop.

But at the same time, I didn’t want to stop. The burden of power was all I knew at this point. It was all I was good at. It was a part of me. 

What kind of life could I even live without powers in this world anyways? I was homeless, aimless, hopeless.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t know the first thing about this place. I didn’t belong here, somewhere so far removed from my own experiences and everything I had ever known. I didn’t have anything or anyone guiding me forward. 

I just had myself, whatever broken pieces of a person were left. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Ah, you’re awake.” 

The voice shook me out of my melancholy, causing me to flinch and take my head out of my hands. A young dark-skinned woman with black hair intricately braided and dressed in a flowing blue tunic of some kind came up to the right side of my bed. She wore a leather pouch on her hip that was stuffed with a bunch of medical supplies.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her voice was sweet, almost sickeningly so, and the way she was looking at me reminded me of the look one would give a wounded puppy. She pitied me.

Trying to clamp down on the annoyance spilling out of my voice, I replied, “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” she said, her brows furrowed in an unsure expression. 

She straightened her face back into a more neutral expression and told me, “You were pretty beat up when they brought you in here. Burns on your face, sprained arm, broken ribs, I guess you found yourself on the wrong side of a fight with some benders.”

“Something like that,” I said cryptically.

She nodded. “How are you feeling? Physically, I mean. Any lingering pain in your chest or anywhere else?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Wonderful! That means that my healing has done its job. If you don’t have any further questions or concerns, I can go ahead and discharge you. The police have been waiting for you to regain consciousness. I believe they have a few questions to ask you.”

I could feel myself start to tense up as I remembered who brought me to the hospital. I swallowed a growing lump in my throat as I asked, “What do they want with me?”

“I think they wanted to ask about that fight you were in that brought you in here.”

My first thoughts were to flee. Even knowing that they would have no idea of who I was, police attention was not something I needed. Not when I had started a fight with some gangsters that left one with injuries. They could see me as the instigator, and maybe even play up the angle if they interviewed the bystanders who saw my airbending. 

I got off of the bed, my eyes flitting between the nurse and the exit.

The nurse backed away a little bit and moved her hands in front of herself in a placating gesture, “Miss, it’s okay. There’s no need to panic. You’re not in trouble.”

I could do it. There was enough time to make a dash out of here, forget any of this ever happened. I didn’t even need to hurt anyone, I just needed to run. 

Was it really the right thing to be doing? 

All of my paranoia, coursing through my veins with every throbbing heartbeat, tensing every muscle in my body, told me that it was. 

But all that I would be doing would be running from my new reality, constantly looking over my shoulder for non-existent ghosts, and living a life with no more meaning than the finality of death. All I had been doing was spiraling further and further in a never-ending cycle, feeding itself and coming up with new ways of justifying violence and conflict. It was hard to even know what was because of my passenger, and what was just me acting on my worst flaws, and now it didn’t even matter. 

It hurt all the same.

“Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?”

I did what I had to, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have been different. It didn’t mean that it couldn’t be different now, with a chance to do things over again. 

I had to at least try.

Exhaling deeply, I plopped back down on the bed, staring at my worn shoes. “Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll talk.”

“Okay. I’ll go get him.”

She left, leaving me to my own devices. Every second ticked by slowly, passed only with idle observations of my surroundings. Even with my resolution to stay, thoughts of running away still intruded my mind, leaving me with an unease that I could only sit and stew in. 

A man with the gray police uniform started walking into the room. I sat up straighter and watched as a flash of recognition gleamed in his eyes when he spotted me. It was the firebending cop that had been on the scene: Mako. 

He stopped at the foot of my bed. Despite his attempts at putting on a reassuring smile, I could see the bags under his strikingly orange eyes. Even with the uniform giving him an air of authority, I was struck by just how young he was. He couldn’t have been that much older than I was, a year or two at most, and yet, he was a fully fledged police officer. 

“Hey,” he greeted. “Glad to see that you’re better.” Mako gestured to the ward’s exit. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to get your statement on what happened back there with the fight. Me and Shou will drive you back to the station.”

I tensed, searching his eyes and voice for any sort of deception or trickery, any indication that I was walking right into a trap. I could very well be, and now it was too late to back out without a direct confrontation that I’d undoubtedly lose, even if it was just one on one.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Mako said. “It’ll just be an interview, to gather some more information that can help us catch these guys.”

Would they bother expending resources on this case? Even if he wasn’t lying, the police force probably had way too much on their plate to go after some petty gangsters when the whole city was in disarray. Not to mention, there was the woman who was threatened in the first place. 

What was going to happen with her? A pang of guilt settled itself in my gut as I averted my gaze. I already had way too much collateral damage on my conscience, and this one was unambiguously by my own hand. Sure, I wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — have shirked my responsibility to help her, but my half-cocked response opened the door to more retaliation against her and her brother. 

“I know that you must be going through a lot right now,” Mako said, breaking the uneasy silence. “Maybe you aren’t used to trusting the police, but we’re here to help you. And…” He cleared his throat, before continuing in a lower voice, “I know some people who could help you with your…airbending.”

“So you know about that,” I said, raising my head to look at him. Not that it’d be surprising, based on the sheer amount of people that were spectating the fight. Although it was improbable that no one would have reported the airbending, now I knew that they knew. So much for keeping that card to myself.

“Yes,” Mako replied. “I have to admit it’s hard to believe, but we have a lot of eyewitnesses backing up the claim.” He paused, looking directly into my eyes. “So you really can airbend?”

Would there even be any point of denying it at this point? “Yes,” I answered. “I only found out during the fight, I’ve never been able to do it before.” I tried recreating the impromptu technique I had used, breathing deeply and straining to channel the air through my outstretched arm, but all that came out was a small puff of air, barely enough to ruffle Mako’s uniform. 

He rubbed his chin, mulling over my response with a hum. “Well, I’ll be. Korra and Tenzin will be excited,” he said, more to himself than to me. 

“Korra? Tenzin?”

“Yes, Avatar Korra,” he explained, addressing me this time. “She and Tenzin are the go-to authorities when it comes to airbending. I filled them in while you were incapacitated, and told them to meet us over at the police station. I’ll give them a ring to let them know you’re released from the hospital. We can talk more once we’re over there.”

This was it, my chance to start doing things differently. Even if every guilt-ridden, traumatized, self-loathing part of me still wanted nothing more to scurry back into the dark, I owed it to that woman to at least try and get some help, much more than I could offer her myself. 

“Or were you really a hero? Do the good intentions win out? Was it Glaistig Uaine’s strength or yours, that held her back from saving Scion in those final moments?”

I got off of the bed and followed Mako out of the hospital, off on a new path more uncertain than the old one.

Chapter Text

The steady humming of the engine reverberated throughout the car, the vibrations more noticeable than any modern car I had been in. Occasional chatter from the police radio and honking from the other cars served as additional background noise. Shou and Mako were quiet for the time being, leaving me to look out the window and take in the surroundings of our meandering route. They had tried making small talk with me, but I wasn’t really in the mood to engage with any of it. 

There was no shortage of traffic crammed into the narrow side streets that we were forced to traverse on account of many roads being blocked off by rubble or the thick vines that crisscrossed various buildings and roads, forming a seemingly impenetrable jungle. 

Despite the chaos, life chugged along for those fortunate enough to not have taken a devastating hit. Some shops were open, crowds of people going about their business weaved themselves around the line of cars, and work crews of earthbenders in cordoned off areas worked on clearing away some rubble. 

It was a more optimistic scene than the ones I had been used to in the aftermath of disasters. The destruction wasn’t anywhere near as absolute as it had been after an Endbringer attack, or in the face of an all-powerful being wiping out billions of people across several different worlds in the blink of an eye. 

I sighed heavily. The irony, that I had been such an instrumental part of beating back Scion, and now I couldn’t fend off some common gangsters. Even though I wasn’t in handcuffs — not that they would have worked on me anyway — I was made acutely aware of the policemen’s power over me every time I spared a glance in their direction. Based on how adeptly they had fended off the gangsters, they could easily dispatch me in my weakened state, and that would be that. 

I wasn’t any stranger to combat under insurmountable odds, but that was on familiar ground, literally and figuratively. Now, my old powers were gone, one that I had spent years honing. If I had my bugs, I could be scouting my surroundings, plotting an escape, and getting myself into the headspace that had helped me survive and even thrive at times. 

With all of that gone, though, I hadn’t seen the point of trying to do more than the bare minimum for survival, because there was nothing left to guide me. Until now, I had been looking at this place from the perspective of someone with no power and no identity, much like a lone roach that was scurrying about, retreating to the darkness at the slightest hint of danger.

All of that had changed in an instant. I had that burden of power again. I was at the mercy of this world, stuck following the whims of people and rules I didn’t understand. That more than anything was fueling the dread that pooled itself in my gut.

It just had to be airbending, too, a power that seemed almost nonexistent outside of the references I had heard about Tenzin, his family, and the Avatar using it. Me having it was so valuable that some of this world’s most important people were going out of their way to try and get me on their side, and I had no recourse if it was for nefarious means.

No control, no knowledge, no power. 

Shou let out an irritated huff, jolting me out of thoughts. From the corner of my eye, he was tapping his hands impatiently on the steering wheel. He grumbled, “Curse this traffic. That Unalaq guy sure made a mess of the place. I feel like I’m wasting half of my shift being ass to ass in traffic.”

“At least you don’t have another job to do on top of this,” Mako retorted. “I’m still trying to get ready for the charity Fire Ferrets game in a few days. It’s nice to get back in the ring again, but I’m pretty tired from patrolling and practicing my forms.”

“You didn’t have to take that shift last night,” Shou said. “We coulda had Wong or Chen take it. Always the hard, diligent worker, ain’t you, Mako?” 

“Well yeah, of course I am. People need our help out there, and I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I’m always at the station anyway now that our apartment got wrecked.”

“Yeah, but ain’t you got Ms. Sato’s place, that big old mansion up in the hills? Or you could call up the Avatar and stay on Air Temple Island.” I could hear a smugness in Shou’s voice. 

Another mention of Avatar Korra. From the way people had talked about her, whether it was out of reverence or condemnation, she was a very important and powerful figure. 

I knew frustratingly little about her. I knew she was powerful. I knew she could airbend. I knew that she was the one who stopped the “dark spirit” that had wrecked havoc on the city. 

Yet another person I was putting my life in the hands of, and I hadn’t even seen her face. 

Shou chuckled. “I know they’re your exes and all, but surely you can let bygones be bygones so you don’t have to sleep under a desk.”

Mako faltered a bit as he replied, “No, I…couldn’t impose on them like that. I’m fine where I’m at.”

Scoffing, Shou said, “Suit yourself, kid.”

The conversation ended there and the car fell back into silence for a bit. It might have been comforting if I didn’t have to steel myself for a police interview.

Beyond the incident itself, I was probably going to be asked basic things about myself — my name, my age, where I was born. I didn’t have any reason to lie about my name or age since nobody would recognize me for who I had been, so that would be very easy. 

As far as I could tell, there were no parallel or equivalent civilizations to the ones on Bet, so telling the truth and saying Brockton Bay or the United States would be meaningless. While I had heard mentions of other nations beyond the United Republic (the larger nation that Republic City was a major part of), I only had their names to go off of in terms of any concrete information. It would be best to just leave it at being born and raised in Republic City. 

There was also that fight with the gangsters. Big Chin was the one who had been threatening someone who was defenseless. I was the only other person there who could have helped. I had to get involved, even if I wasn't able to fight like I used to. 

So what was I really afraid of? If worse came to worst, they’d lock me up, and it’d be a slap on the wrist compared to what I could have gotten on Bet.

But then, I’d be stuck, trapped with all of those damn memories in a cramped cell, being forced to live through all of it again. I was already coming apart at the seams and I haven’t even been here a week, never mind for months or years on end. 

Maybe I deserved jail anyway. I wasn’t even supposed to be alive. 

After a while of driving, we finally arrived at our destination. I spared a moment to stare up at the building that the cops were presumably going to take me into. It must have been the central headquarters for the police, with its sheer grandiosity and size, towering twelve stories over the plaza we were walking through. Domed roofs and steeples adorned five protrusions from the rectangular facade that resembled a castle wall tower: one in the center, two to each side of the building. In the middle of the central tower, the statue of a woman stood on a pedestal with her hands on her hips, looking out toward the city below with a stoic expression. 

If I had been in a better state of mind, I might have been able to appreciate the building for what it was, but it only made me feel like I was a fly heading straight into the mouth of a venus flytrap. 

Shou and Mako stepped out of the police car from the driver and passenger sides, respectively. Mako opened the rear passenger door, the side I was on, and ushered me to follow them.

This was it. If I wanted to make a break for it, this would be the last chance I could get without having to put up a fight. 

In the end, I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t. Even with nothing left, I still had to do the right thing.

I walked behind the two policemen into the building and through the main lobby, a room that was elegant and restrained compared to the exterior. Desks were all lined up neatly in the back, a throng of people lining up in front of each one. 

Mako and Shou led me down a corridor and into a common area with a lot of police officers milling about, making me feel more on edge. Shou said to Mako. “You may be a detective these days, but you’re still pretty green. Why don’t you get some more hands-on experience and do the interview yourself?” He grumbled, “I’ve got a mountain of a backlog to clear, and it ain’t getting any smaller.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Mako replied. “Do you, Tai?”

That was unusual. Usually, even if it was just an interview, both of the cops should be present, especially if they were both on the scene. Given Shou’s comment about his backlog and the general disarray the city was in, though, they must have been hard-pressed for manpower. In the grand scheme of things, this irregularity wasn’t worth quibbling over, so I shrugged and said, “I don’t care.” 

“Great! I owe you one, Mako,” Shou said. He patted Mako’s shoulder and laughed as he walked away. “Just try not to lose her with that ‘Mako charm’ of yours, okay?”

Mako rolled his eyes, but quickly recovered as he looked back over at me and put back on his professional demeanor. “I told the Avatar and Tenzin to meet us at my office, for propriety’s sake. I would have normally just done the interview back at the hospital, but extenuating circumstances have required me to take some extra precautions.”

“Precautions?” Immediately, I was suspicious. My own experiences on Bet made me reluctant to give Mako or the Republic City Police the benefit of the doubt. With the Avatar seeming to have a lot of sway over things in this world — I could only guess as to Tenzin’s role, but it seemed similarly high-profile — they had the power and influence to make this affair go however they wanted it to go, away from prying eyes. By his own admission, Mako had a personal relationship with the Avatar, so how could he possibly be impartial in this?

Most of all, though, this was another aspect in living here that I didn’t have control over, and being in the dark about this world really didn’t help to ease my nerves.

Probably sensing my suspicion, Mako said reassuringly, “Again, I have to stress that this is just going to be an interview, and not an interrogation. You’re free to leave at any time, though I highly advise against it for your own safety, at least until we can talk with Korra and Tenzin. The people you were fighting with aren’t exactly people that you want to risk retaliation from, especially not in your condition.”

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t really argue with that. My new powers were of little use to me right now. I had barely stalled them long enough to be rescued by the cops. I did a number on the firebender even before I realized I had airbending, so I was no doubt going to be on that gang’s shitlist. 

Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to play along for now. “I understand,” I said. 

“Good. Let’s get started.” He led me to a door with his name engraved on a wooden placard and opened it. Inside was an office space complete with a desk, a rotary dial telephone, and wooden chairs to sit down on. Decorations were sparse, though I did spot a mattress under the desk. Large windows at the back of the room let ample sunlight into the room.

“Go ahead and take a seat.” Mako gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk, taking his seat behind it. 

I complied, a wave of exhaustion suddenly washing over me. I took off my glasses and leaned back, rubbing at my face so I didn’t start falling asleep on the spot. 

“Why don’t we start with the basics?” He said, getting out a notepad and pen from his uniform pocket and setting it down on the desk. “Tell me your name, age, where you’re from.”

Putting back on my glasses, I said, “My name is Tai…” I cut myself off from saying the second syllable. Even if the name Taylor meant nothing to this world, it still didn’t feel right to use it here. Mako had already called me Tai, so why not go by it as my thinly-veiled pseudonym? “I’m eighteen years old. I was born and raised here in Republic City.”

“Where do you currently live?”

“I’m homeless, but I’ve been taking shelter in Republic City Park.”

“Do you have a job or occupation?” 

“Not currently,” I said. “I’ve been out of work for a while.”

Mako nodded. “Do you live by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any immediate family or relatives within the city?”

“No,” I replied. “Both my mom and dad are dead, and I’m an only child. If I have any relatives, I’ve never met them.”

For the briefest of moments, his expression was tinged with sympathy, but it was gone just as quickly as I had seen it. “Any friends or acquaintances?”

“No.”

Mako hummed. “Alright, one more thing for clarification. Before you were able to airbend, you were a non-bender, correct?”

“That’s correct,” I confirmed.

He scribbled down more notes. Once he finished, he looked up at me and said, “That does it for basic information. We’ll go ahead and move on to discussing the fight. Are you still up for it?”

I sighed. “Yes, I’m fine. Let’s get this over with.” 

“Very well, start at the beginning.”

“I was walking south on Long Street toward Republic City Park. I ducked into an alley…” I paused, thinking about the best way to describe why I had done that. I wasn’t exactly eager to tell him that I was having a mental breakdown. Best just to leave it at that. “...and I heard a pair of voices. One was a man, the other was a woman.”

“Were you able to hear anything from their conversation?” Mako asked.

“No,” I answered. “But the man sounded threatening, and the woman was terrified. I followed their voices, and I found the man backing the woman against the wall, summoning a flame in his hand.”

“What did they look like? Do you know why he was threatening her?”

“The man had a stocky build, dressed in all-red, had slicked back hair, probably about six feet tall. I couldn’t see the woman that well because he was blocking the way, but I think she had straight hair down to her shoulder, and was wearing something green. He said that he was using her to make her brother Guanting reappear.” 

“Were either of them able to see you?”

“Not at first,” I explained. “I was crouching behind some wooden crates so I wasn’t seen. While he was still busy threatening the woman, I kicked him in the knee, stepped on one of his hands, and used my arm to put him in a chokehold to incapacitate him.” 

Even though up until this point Mako had been fairly unflappable, a look of surprise flashed on his face. “You…you put him in a chokehold?” 

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Like I said, I needed to incapacitate him, and make sure that she wouldn’t hurt the woman. Unfortunately, he used his free hand to lob a fireball at me, and I let go.” 

I decided I was going to leave out the part where I tried reaching for my knife; it was an irrelevant factor anyway since I had lost it in the alley and hadn’t even been able to point it at Big Chin or any of the other benders. “I didn’t have anything else to attack him with, so I yelled at the other woman to run away. She did so, and then I made my own retreat.”

He asked, “Do you remember what direction she ran in?”

“Can’t remember. It was all happening so quickly. All I knew was that I was back out of the alleyway and Big Chin’s friends were there waiting for me. The waterbender got me, froze me in some ice, and then the earthbender replaced the ice with stone and wrapped me in it.”

“Was your whole body trapped?”

“No, just my legs, up to about my hips. Wasn’t going anywhere regardless.” I sighed, massaging my temples. I was too fucking tired for this. “They were about to hit me with their bending. But then… I held out my hand, and I could feel air. Wasn’t able to keep it up for long, though. You and Shou were there for the rest.”

Mako looked down at his notepad, jotting down some more notes with a pensive frown and furrowed brow. After he finished writing, he tilted his head back up, pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling deeply. “You’re very lucky that you, that woman, or a bystander didn’t get hurt.”

“Your point being?” 

“My point is that you’ve stirred up a buzzard-wasp’s cave, and neither you nor the woman are going to be safe from the Triple Threats.” His expression intensified in scrutiny. “They aren’t going to forgive what you did to Big Chin.”

Straightening up to meet his gaze, I replied coolly, “I did what I had to do.”

“What you did was reckless,” Mako chastised. “Reckless, and downright suicidal. If we hadn’t gotten to you when we did, you could have been killed and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation!”

I looked away from him, my irritation growing. “It doesn’t matter. I had to try. She had nobody else there but me.”

“That doesn’t excuse your recklessness. You escalated the confrontation into a very dangerous situation.”

I should have known better than to do this interview. This was a mistake. I couldn’t feel any bugs, just me. Nothing else to focus on.

Indignation started burning inside me, dripping from my words as I said, “What was I supposed to have done, avert my eyes and pretend I never saw her? Be a fucking bystander and let her get hurt?”

“No, of course not,” he started to say, “but the reality is — “

I couldn’t take it anymore. In an instant, I slammed my fist on the desk, glaring daggers into Mako. “Reality?! What the fuck would you know about reality?! I’m stuck here in this office, having to justify myself trying to protect someone, waiting for people I don’t even fucking know, with a power I don’t know anything about, all while everything I’ve ever known has…has…”

The words died in my mouth. I stared past Mako, trembling and breathing heavily. A ringing in my ears filled the deafening silence.

I hung my head, grasping my missing arm. What was happening to me? I was unwound, and this wasn’t even the worst of what I had been through. 

I was weak. I wasn’t good enough to even save a single person. 

“Tai,” Mako said. His tone, though firm, was softer than before. “I don’t doubt you had good intentions, but you put other people in danger with your actions, and that’s not something I can just excuse or look past.”

I should have knifed the guy immediately. If I had done that, all of this would have been avoided, and the woman wouldn’t be in danger any more. I could have taken the other two by surprise as well, the instant threat eliminated and then —

And then what? Go on a knifing spree against every single member of the gang, or anyone I thought was affiliated with them? I’d just be inviting retaliation toward innocents like the woman, and much worse. 

None of it would even serve a purpose.

“Listen,” Mako said, stopping my thoughts in their tracks. “You made mistakes during this encounter, but it’s not the end for you. Even if I can’t condone the way you escalated the fight, I understand where you’re coming from. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in punishing you more than what the Triple Threats already did. It’s not going to help me catch these guys, and it’s not going to help you get a better life.”

So I wasn’t going to jail. I should have been relieved, but at this point I was too exhausted to care. 

“I can’t say I understand what it’s like to suddenly have powers I don’t understand, but the best thing you can do now is take responsibility and do things differently. Put your best foot forward.”

My best foot forward? How was I supposed to do that, when I didn’t know where I was going? 

“I know that it’s easier said than done,” he continued. “Maybe from where you’re sitting, I’m just some cop getting on his soapbox, but I’ve been where you are now. My life hasn’t always been on the straight and narrow, and I’ve had my fair share of mistakes that I’ve had to pay for.”

I doubted whatever transgressions Mako had done compared to anything I had ever done. There probably wouldn’t be anyone on this whole planet that could come close.

“Think about it,” he requested. “That’s all I can ask.”

Before I could do anything else, a knock on the door shook me out of my thoughts. I immediately straightened up as Mako called out, “Come in!”

When the door opened, two people came in through the door. The tall and lean middle-aged man — Tenzin, by process of elimination — had a mustache and goatee, wearing a stern expression. His pale head was completely bald and had a strange blue tattoo in the shape of a downward-pointing arrow. With the flowing orange and yellow robes he wore, he looked like he could be a Buddhist monk, and he had the air of gravitas to match.

Then there was Korra, the Avatar. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting based on the vague notions I’d had about her, but the self-confidence that she carried herself with reminded me a bit of how Glory Girl had been. Korra was a teenager with medium brown skin, probably around the same age as me, with long dark brown hair done up in a high ponytail and loose pigtails. Her eyes were a piercing shade of icy blue, matching the form-fitting sleeveless shirt she wore that accentuated her prominent curves. A brown fur pelt of some kind wrapped around her waist, going over her dark blue pants. 

The most striking detail about her appearance, though, was how athletic she was. The way she was built made me think of a martial artist or a fighter. Her shirt exposed muscular and well-defined arms, no doubt built from an intense regiment. Based on what little I had seen of bending, she might have a more physically intensive style, though how that was possible with air eluded me. 

“Tai,” Mako said, gesturing to Tenzin. “This is Tenzin. He’s the airbending master who lives on Air Temple Island, along with the rest of his family.”

Tenzin bowed to me. “It is an honor to meet you, young lady.” 

“And this is Korra,” Mako said, briefly glancing at her before looking back at Tenzin. He cleared his throat. “I mean, Avatar Korra.”

“Hey,” she said cheerily, waving at me. “Nice to meet ya, Tai.”

I stared warily at them, saying nothing. 

“You two came at a good time, I was just finishing up my end of things,” Mako said. “What I had told you all over the phone.” 

Tenzin fixed his gaze on me, gawking as if I were a fantastical creature. He said with a note of awe in his voice, “So you’re an airbender. Are you able to demonstrate?”

“I can try,” I answered with a sigh. I stood up from my chair and attempted to airbend in the same way that I had during the fight — arm outstretched, channeling my breath — but this time, I couldn’t even manage a waft. 

“It’s quite alright,” Tenzin assured me. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t be able to consistently airbend without proper training.”

“Yeah, and you also wouldn’t be the only one who unlocked their airbending during a crisis,” Korra added, giving me a sympathetic look. 

Did that mean bending could manifest later in life? People were born with bending, weren’t they? And why did airbending seem to be the one form that I never saw people practice? Besides myself, I had only heard of Tenzin, his family, and Korra being able to airbend.

My head had already been spinning, trying to make sense of why I was here. The more that I tried making sense of bending or of this world, the less sense it made.

“I don’t get it,” I said, sighing in frustration as I sat back down. “Why did I get airbending? Why me?”

Korra got a little closer and crouched to be level with me. “Maybe this wasn’t the change you asked for, but it’s one that I know you can handle. Sitting here and talking with us is proof of that. You might be having one of the worst days of your life right now, but we can help you. Air Temple Island is one of the safest parts of the city to be in. You’ll have a roof over your head and some great food to eat. We can train you in airbending.”

It felt condescending to be talked to like this, being given pity I don’t deserve. None of these people knew me, and it was probably for the best they didn’t know anything about what I had been. 

Despite that, the offer to train stood out to me. If nothing else, getting better at my power would mean I wasn’t defenseless and vulnerable.

“Well said, Korra,” Tenzin praised. “It brings me immense joy to see a new airbender outside of my family, the first in over one hundred and seventy years. If only Father were here to see this…”

As if the burden of having this power wasn’t already heavy enough. 

“What do you mean by that?” I asked Tenzin. “Why weren’t there any airbenders until I came along?”

In an instant, the room went dead quiet, and everyone stared at me with utter confusion.

Shit. Whatever the answer to that question was, I was supposed to have already known it. 

Tenzin was the first one to break the silence. He asked me incredulously, “Have you…never heard of the Air Nomad Genocide?”

Oh. 

What the hell could I even say in response? ‘I came from a different world and know next to nothing about this one, sorry for being an insensitive ass’ would be a one-way ticket to the loony bin. 

I settled on the abbreviated version of the truth. “No. I really didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

Another moment of silence passed as the three of them looked at each other before Tenzin started explaining in a solemn tone, “One hundred and seventy one years ago, the Fire Nation, under the leadership of Fire Lord Sozin, enacted a campaign to wipe out the entirety of the Air Nation in order to further his imperial ambitions, knowing that the next Avatar in the cycle would be an airbender. He nearly succeeded, but the Avatar, my father Aang, was hidden away from the world when he got lost in a storm and survived for one hundred years frozen in an iceberg while in the Avatar State.”

Having all this explained to me only cemented the fact of how little I knew. The dizzying implications of even that small sliver of history made my mind race with what else there was, but at this point, I was too exhausted to make anything of it. 

I just wanted to rest, and nothing more. 

Tenzin kneeled down so that he was able to face me directly, and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “There is more that I can tell you about our history, but right now is not the time or place. I sense that you are overwhelmed about everything that has taken place today, so I will only say one more thing. As an airbender, you are like a part of our family now, and we will welcome you as one. If there is anything that any of us here can do for you, please let us know.”

“There’s only one thing I need right now.” I turned to Mako, looking at him intently. “Mako, catch the guys that are threatening that woman. Give her the help I wasn’t able to give. Prove to me that you aren’t all talk.”

“I promise,” he said resolutely. “Korra, Tenzin, make sure that Tai stays out of trouble. Keep an eye out for the Triple Threats, don’t put anything past them.”

“We will, Mako.” Korra grinned, punching her fist into her palm. “She’ll be in good hands.”

Why do I wake up?

I was getting closer to an answer to that question. I had a new power. I had a new identity, in a world where I didn’t have any before. 

None of that meant that it’d be easy. I was still whoever that discarded broken shell of a person was. I still had all of the bits of my past that I remembered. I was still weak. 

At least now I was on my way to something more than the aimless existence that I had been living up until this point. 

I got out of my chair, and followed Korra and Tenzin out of the police station.

Chapter Text

I wasn’t kidding when I said all I wanted to do was rest. As soon as I had arrived on Air Temple Island and was shown my new quarters, I passed out on the bed and slept. 

The next thing I knew, light filled the room and I woke up. Groggily, I sat up in the bed, barely able to keep my eyes open against the brightness. How long had I been out? It didn’t feel like any time had passed; my lethargy, aching head, and growling stomach told me otherwise. 

Blinking away the rest of my sleepiness and adjusting to the light, I reached over and put my glasses on. The room was spare, consisting only of a bed, a nightstand, and a wooden bureau. It was a definite improvement from a tent and a cot, though, and I didn't have many possessions to begin with anyway.

Oh right, and there was a clock, right there on the nightstand. Reading its face, the time was around half past eleven, assuming it was accurate. I couldn’t remember what time it had been when I got here, but I was pretty sure that it was later than that. 

Damn. When was the last time I had slept like that?

Turning my legs over so my feet would touch the ground, I glanced up at the ceiling. After everything that had happened yesterday, I wasn’t homeless anymore. I wasn’t locked up in a jail cell. 

I wasn’t dead.

A bitter taste still lingered in my mouth, but regardless of my misgivings, I was here. As much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t in a position to hone my airbending without outside help. There was too much I had to learn about this world, and a place named Air Temple Island seemed to be a fitting enough location to learn about my new powers. 

I didn’t know how long I could rely on this arrangement, but for the time being, it was all I had, and it was up to me to make something out of this.

A knock at the door interrupted me before I disappeared any further into my ruminations. “Who is it?” 

“I’m Jinora, one of Tenzin’s daughters. May I come in?” 

Hesitantly, I replied, “Yeah.”

I got out of my bed and opened the door, with Jinora standing on the other side. She was a girl with short brown hair that curved down to her chin in a bob, with part of it done up into a topknot. Though she was dressed in the same orange and yellow robes as her father, the physical resemblance wasn’t readily apparent, but it did come out a little in the poise that she carried herself with. I guessed that she was somewhere between ten and twelve. 

She asked, “Did I wake you up?”

“No.”

“Good. My father wanted to make sure you got up at some point to eat and receive your new airbending robes.” I noticed that Jinora was clutching a folded pile of said robes.

“I have a few different sizes for you to try on,” she explained. “There should be three of each. Just leave the ones that don’t fit here, we can have someone retrieve them later. There’s a bathhouse next door for you to freshen up in, too.”

I nodded. Jinora started handing over the robes to me, but upon glancing at my missing arm, she instead set them on the bed herself with a sympathetic look on her face. 

I had the urge to shoot her an annoyed scowl, but thought better of it. Being mothered by a girl roughly half my age was a bit demeaning, but I wasn’t about to take it out on her. 

Casting aside my irritation, I could practically see her eyes shine with admiration. Given that only she, her family, and the Avatar could airbend until I showed up, I suppose I couldn’t blame her for looking at me with that starry-eyed innocence. 

It still made me uneasy, though. I remembered how well I had done last time I was face-to-face with children in a non crisis situation, and I already knew what a terrible role model I was. 

“It’s an immense honor to meet you, Tai,” she said, smiling. “I’m really excited to have another airbender here! I was talking with Dad yesterday about all the different texts we can use to teach you some of the tenets of airbending, and if you’re into history like I am, I have some great books from Avatar Kyoshi’s time about — “

She cut herself off and blushed, giving me a sheepish look. “Sorry, I got a bit excited there. I’m usually not this much of a chatterbox like my other siblings are. I guess you’re not one either, huh?”

“No,” I said. That much had been true for a while now. 

“I think me and you will get along quite nicely, then,” she said. “I love Ikki, Meelo and little Rohan, but they can be a lot sometimes. Well, all the time, really. It’ll be nice to hang out with someone who’s more quiet and reserved.”

She was probably better off keeping her distance from me. 

“Oh, and by the way,” Jinora added, clasping her hands together. “We’re going to have lunch with everyone in the dining hall in about a half hour, but there’s no rush.”

“What’s for lunch?” I asked.

“My mother is making us a mung bean and tofu curry with some rice and vegetable dumplings,” she answered. 

“Is the curry spicy?”

“No. Air Nation food isn’t spicy,” she said. “Especially not like the Fire Nation.”

“Okay, good.”

Maybe it was my American sensibilities talking, but the lack of meat was conspicuous. I had never even tried tofu before. Then again, it might have been conspicuous here too as I recalled that most of the soups offered by the volunteers in the park were made of some kind of meat stock, aside from the ones set aside specifically for vegetarians.

Wait, were airbenders supposed to be vegetarian or something?

Whatever. Food was food, and I was going to eat it. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I had been a vagrant in this world until now. 

I had more pressing concerns than the food. “Who all is going to be there?”

“Let’s see,” she said, looking up in thought. “It’s going to be you, me, my father, my mother, my younger brothers Meelo and Rohan, my younger sister Ikki, uncle Bumi, aunt Kya, and Bolin.”

“Who’s Bolin?” I asked, a note of suspicion rising in my voice.

“Oh, don’t worry, Tai,” Jinora assured me. “He’s our friend, and Mako’s brother. He’s helped Korra and our family many times over, so you can trust him.”

For all of her serene sophistication that gave her an air of precocity, her reasoning was as simple and unyielding as a child’s. If only things were ever that simple.

As if sensing my trepidation, Jinora said, “If you want, I can tell them that you’re not ready to come out, and we can bring you a bowl so you can enjoy it here in peace and quiet.”

I sighed. “No, it’s fine. I can do it. I just…”

What do I even say? I was never the kind to bare my soul, let alone to a stranger, but I felt like I owed her some kind of explanation.

Why? What was it that even made me think of entertaining the notion? 

I grumbled, “I’ve been through a lot, and it makes me paranoid.”

Jinora tilted her head to look up at me. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Tai. I can tell you’ve had a pretty rough life, and I’m sorry that it was like that.”

“Not your fault,” I replied, casting my gaze to the side.  

A moment of silence fell between us, before Jinora said, “I’ll leave you be for now. The dining hall is in the long building facing the bay. Follow the stairs behind these dorms and it’ll be straight ahead.”

I stared out the door as she walked away. Somehow, I had gotten through that conversation without completely alienating her. She actually seemed to like me. It was as unbelievable as the moment I first woke up in Republic City.

How long would it last? 

I stood in front of the door to the dining hall. Though the shower refreshed me and the new robes were surprisingly comfortable — if not a bit…airy, which was probably the point — the prospect of eating with a group that had taken such a keen interest in me for my powers made me wish I had taken my chances on the streets. 

Now wasn’t the time for being a shut-in. If I was going to be training here, I needed to learn more about them, what made them tick, and what other motives they might have. 

My curiosity was also piqued by the short interaction I had with Jinora. Were the rest of the children as well-adjusted as she seemed to be? She hinted that her siblings were rambunctious, but nothing to suggest that they would be as fucked up as kids like me that got their powers from the most traumatic parts of their lives.

Maybe she was more messed up than I gave her credit for. She looked up to this broken version of myself, after all.

I opened the door and was immediately struck by a savory smell, no doubt from the curry. Everyone was chattering around a large square table that was low to the ground; it had cushions rather than chairs to sit on. From the head of the table going clockwise, there was Tenzin, a woman with graying brown hair cradling an infant boy, and an empty seat next to the woman. After the empty seat was Jinora, followed by a little boy with a bald head and a girl with two short pigtails. The woman looked a lot like Jinora and Ikki, so she was probably the children’s mother.

“Hey, Tai!” Jinora called out to me, waving me to sit in the seat between her and her mother. 

They were all staring at me with curiosity. It made me feel like I was being examined with a magnifying glass, every detail being used to form a picture of who I was. Given the tidbit I knew about the airbenders’ history, I had context to their awed looks now, but it didn’t make it any less unsettling.

As I walked over to sit down, the excited chattering from Ikki and Meelo that had been in the background reached fever pitch. 

Ikki chirped, “Welcome to Air Temple Island, it’s so nice to finally see you! I’m Ikki, and this is my sister Jinora — “

Jinora snorted. “We’ve met.”

Heedless of Jinora’s interruption, she continued in rapid fire, pointing to each person, “ — my brother Meelo — 

“You’re in my domain, now,” he said in a childish attempt at intimidation.

“ — my baby brother Rohan, Mom, Dad, Korra, Bolin, Aunt Kya, and Uncle Bumi!”

From the foot of the table going over to the other side, there was Korra, Bolin, Kya, and Bumi, just as Ikki had pointed out.

Bolin had bushy eyebrows with black, slick-backed hair, dressed in green pants and a robe-like shirt that went down to his upper thigh; it was all tied together with a sash. Like Korra, he was well-built with musculature, although he was stockier than her. 

Kya was a middle-aged woman with medium brown skin and long grey hair that was tied back in a segmented ponytail. Her eyes were the same light blue that Korra’s were, though the similarities stopped there in terms of her face, with the most noticeable details being a longer head and a sharper nose. She wore a flowing blue dress that went all the way down to her ankles with a dark blue shirt under it; her arms were also covered with blue sleeves. 

Despite Bumi’s lighter skin tone, there was no mistaking that he was siblings with Kya, and Tenzin by extension. He had long brown hair that was layered in a way that reminded me of a lion’s mane; his full beard and sideburns only added to it. He was dressed more shabbily than either of his siblings, only having a sleeveless olive green shirt that went down to his thigh and some pants. 

Bumi let out a hearty chuckle, matching the murmur of laughter coming from the table. “Well, our introductions are already out of the way thanks to our one woman welcoming committee!”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Kya said with a smile. 

The children’s mother turned to me, a warm smile on her face as well as she said, “Feel free to call me Pema, Tai. I’m glad you were able to show up here with us for lunch.” 

Rohan followed her mother’s lead in looking at me, staring at me in curiosity and making a cooing noise. 

“Umm…thank you,” I replied, averting my gaze from theirs.

“Yeah,” said Bolin. “I’m glad too. This right here is doing two of my favorite things in the world: eating, and meeting new people! How’re you doing, Tai?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Why are you on Air Temple Island?”

Bolin took a bite out of a dumpling before replying. “I don’t know if Mako already told you this — and he probably didn’t, being all ‘I’m a super serious cop now’ —” His voice deepened into an admittedly fairly accurate imitation of Mako before returning to his normal speaking cadence. “— but we lost our home during Harmonic Convergence, so I’m staying here until we can find another home. But it’s not all doom and gloom, I got Pabu, I got my friends, and I got to meet the first new airbender!” He scooped some more curry out of his bowl and shoveled it into his mouth. 

“You sure your two favorite things aren’t eating and eating?” Korra snarked.

“Like you’re one to talk, Ms. Already-on-My-Third-Plate!”

“You are too! I’m the Avatar,” she said, smirking. “I’m allowed to be different.”

“And this is why I always make extra,” Pema remarked. “Those two devour my food like a bark beetle chews through wood. On that note, Tai, help yourself to as much food as you like.”

“Yes,” Tenzin agreed. “It is important that you have your full strength when you start training with us.” 

That was something I couldn’t argue with, so I nodded in assent. The center of the table had a large pot filled with curry. The rice was in a pot and the dumplings were provided in an opened bamboo basket. I scooted my bowl and plate forward so they could be closer and then started serving myself, ending up with a medium-sized helping.

When I took my first bite of the curry, I was immediately struck by the flavor and the freshness of the ingredients. It was earthy, nutty, with just a hint of spice from ginger and something else; I could also taste a cream of some kind that balanced it out. Apart from vegetables like carrots, radish, and peas, there were also little rectangular blocks of tofu in there. The tofu didn’t have a lot of flavor in and of themselves, but they soaked up the curry well and had a satisfying firm and spongy texture. It almost made me forget that there was no meat in it. 

As I continued eating, I must have been so focused on my plate that it elicited a laugh from Pema. “I was going to ask how you liked the food,” she said. “But it looks like I got my answer already.”

“Prepare yourself, kid,” Bumi interjected, clutching his gut. “Her food is so good that you might start putting on some pounds if you’re not careful.”

“That won’t be something Tai needs to concern herself with,” Tenzin replied matter-of-factly. “Her regiment will be rigorous enough to keep her in shape.”

“Way to really sell airbending to her, Tenzin,” Kya said sarcastically. 

With excitement in her voice, Ikki looked at me and said, “You’re going to love airbending! You can do all sorts of cool stuff, like make air scooters and ride on them, just like Grandpa Aang!”

“Uh huh,” I said. Ride on air scooters? What did she even mean by that? Was it just the fancy of a little child’s imagination using airbending?

Whether it was from the skepticism in my tone or simply because it was known that I was not at all knowledgeable about airbending, Jinora explained, “Air scooters are when you make a condensed pocket of air in the shape of a sphere that spins rapidly as a means of propulsion and can support your weight so you can ‘ride’ on it, or use it for short bursts of levitation. It’s a technique our grandfather invented when he was a boy, and it’s what earned him his stripes as an airbending master.”

“Huh.” 

“And you can use them to race!” Ikki said. “Just like me, Jinora, Korra, and Meelo do!”

“Yeah!” Meelo added. “Race with us, tall lady!”

Another murmur of laughter erupted from the table, with Tenzin breaking it up by saying to his children, “I know you all are excited for Tai to learn more about airbending, but it may be a little while before she’s ready for that particular technique. We’ll be starting with the basics first.”

“Oh, right.” Ikki looked momentarily crestfallen, but perked right back up. “But that’s okay! You’ll still have lots of fun, and as long as you don’t burn the gates down like Korra did you’ll do great!”

Burn? Did she knock over a lantern or something?

“Hey!” Korra protested, though the outrage in her voice sounded fake. She turned to me and chuckled. “That’s one silver lining for you. You literally can’t be any worse at it than I was.”

I hummed in acknowledgment. I put my attention back toward my food, steadily finishing off my plate. I blocked out the conversations that happened afterward, making me feel even more removed from this whole scene that I already was.

Airbending, the lunch with banter and pleasantries, the happy family, how was all of this real? How was this the endpoint after everything that had happened?

Before I could indulge any more in those repetitive thoughts that kept plaguing me, Tenzin came over to me once I finished with my food. “Tai, thank you for coming to meet our family. I will give you some time to relax, and then we can start training in earnest, if you feel you’re ready. There’s no pressure if you wish to postpone it for another day.”

I said resolutely, “I can start today.”

“Very well. Will you be in your quarters, or do you wish to explore the island a bit?“

“I don’t know.”

“Alright. In any case, we’ll come and get you in a few hours.” 

Tenzin took his leave from the room, as did other people when lunch started to wind down, with the children in particular giving me an enthusiastic goodbye. Before long, I followed the others’ lead to leave the room, but before I was able to completely exit, Korra was at my side.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked.

“No, I was just checking to see how you’re holding up. You looked pretty out of it.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

In a placating gesture, she raised her hands and said, “It’s okay, I believe you. I just wanna be sure, because I know this hasn’t really been easy for you. And…well, like you already know, I’m the Avatar. It’s as much my duty as Tenzin's to look after you. I really wanna get to know you, too. Maybe I could show you around the island, and we can chat a little.”

Korra was the one that a lot of this world seemed to revolve around, with all the talk about the Avatar. What little I had been able to glean from her made her seem like she was every bit the teenager she appeared to be, with her head in the clouds and being full of herself. Was she really the person I’d trust to care for me?

Then again, I didn’t really trust anyone, not here. How could I, when everyone was up my ass about everything. It was all pity, or trying to get me to spill my guts, or inane attempts to inject levity into my life. 

The only people I had trusted I betrayed several times over. 

I couldn’t even trust myself.

“Tai! You’re spacing out on me again.” I was jolted back from my thoughts with Korra’s words. She looked at me with a concerned frown on her face.

“Yeah, I know.” I didn’t even bother to hide the contempt in my voice. “It happens. What do you want from me?”

“Tai…” She looked lost on how to respond to that.

I exhaled deeply. Why was I getting so flustered over nothing again? 

“I…” I looked down. “I need to be alone.”

“Okay, but I really think you need to talk to someone about this. It doesn’t have to be with me if you don’t feel comfortable.” 

I heard her footsteps as she started walking away, but then they stopped. A heavy pause filled the air before Korra broke it when she said, “I’m not trying to be your enemy. You look like you’ve been through way too much already, and I hate to see you suffering like this. Please, give us a chance. We want to help you.”

Once I was sure she had walked away, I took my leave and started wandering throughout the main grounds of the island. Men and women in similar garb to the one I was now wearing occasionally crossed paths with me. I wasn’t sure exactly what their role was, but it was probably more menial in nature.

If I were in a better state of mind, I might have found some solace in my surroundings. The island was no doubt beautiful, with the buildings in a more traditional style compared to the modern touches found on buildings in Republic City; the tall white tower imposing on the island was an especially impressive example, with a very striking design made up of green layered roofs. Trees lined a lot of the paths, which were only just starting to bloom, giving a subtle perfumy scent in the air. 

Eventually, I found a pavilion overlooking the bay and stooped myself over the railing, looking out toward the water.

A light sea breeze was blowing a leaf into the pavilion. I tried to control the wind carrying the leaf, but I could not detect any difference in its trajectory as it sailed past me. 

I felt a lot like that leaf these days. Fragile, easily swept away, and with no control over the larger forces that carried it.