The Origin of Roh-Shan

Wheat Field

It was late, and there were no kids left to be picked up, so Maita's mother was surprised to hear a knock at the door as she was cleaning up the house for the night.

Cautiously, she opened the door to find a thin figure wearing all black, only his pale face standing out. For a split second, she thought he was a robber, or worse, a cop, but she soon recognized the face. "Oh, you're Kota's brother, right?"

"Yes, ma'm. Is Maita home?"

Maita stepped into view. "What are you doing here?"

"You said to come by if I needed anything."

Her mother stepped back into the house to finish cleaning up.

Maita leaned on the doorframe, arms folded. "And?"

"Um, can I talk to you outside for a moment?"

Maita frowned. "What can't you say in front of my mother?"

Dagon lowered his voice. "I just don't want her to worry."

Maita caved and stepped outside.

"Blow out the light when you get home, honey!" Her mother called.

"I'm not--"

But Dagon grabbed her arm gently and pulled her away from the house. "Take a walk with me." He said firmly.

Maita yanked her arm away and dug her heels in.

Dagon looked back at her, took in her defiance, and sighed. "Please?"

She crossed her arms again and started walking with him, keeping an eye out. They walked down the small cobblestone street towards the swampy woods, where a nice boardwalk path had been installed recently for leisure walks. Again, suspiciously quaint and made her uneasy about the whole Sarsero situation.

"Look, I don't know if Roh ever mentioned, but I was sorta part of the rebel forces in Ren Haru--"

"Do you have information about my sister or no?"

"Well no, I never said that I did..."

"So what's this about?"

"I'm getting to it. There's been two attacks on rebel meetings in the past few weeks alone. We've lost more than 75% of our members in the Ren Haru chapter. We're trying to rebuild our forces and I think you'd be a good candidate. Mayor Suley thinks he wiped us all out, but--"

Maita laughed. "Wait, you want me to join the rebels? That's what you're here for?"

"Uh, well..."

It was almost worth it just to realize Dagon really wasn't half as smooth or collected as he'd always seemed. "Let me tell you something. If you want to recruit people, don't mention the 75% death rate in your pitch."

"I'm being serious, Maita."

"So am I!"

He stopped and looked her in the eyes. "You know Suley's not done pushing our families around. His new city is already expanding beyond the old Ren Haru borders. There's boatloads of new people coming in every day. The expansion is pushing more Fire Nation citizens out of their homes. Our neighborhood is untouched for now but it's not going to stay that way. I think you should have a way to protect your family."

"And how's that?"

"The rebels --the Black Iris-- teaches and invents firebending techniques that the police don't know about yet. Even having the upper hand on them for a few extra seconds can make all the difference."