He had been travelling for days, and (Your name) had been forced to put his boots back on due to the heat of the sun upon the golden sand. (Your name) felt perspiration starting to drip into his line of sight once again, and wiped it away with the back of his left hand. Yet he could feel the droplets slowly making its way down once again. He sighed with the little energy he had and then looked up; the expense of land never seemed to end, although it was the largest desert in the world, and for good reason.
The Earth kingdom green shirt clung to his sticky back, and his water tribe pants and his ceremonial blue coth flaps dangled from his hips helplessly as he slowly walked on. His shoulders and face were bare and they burned, quickly turning from light skin to a deep red as the days progressed, even to the point where skin was starting to peel. (Your name)'s right hand was used to drag his bag along the sandy floor, leaving a small trail behind him.
His throat was parched and he could not drink the water from his water container that hung at his hips, only because if things turned bad, he would need to use it as a weapon if need be.
And then he spotted it, a bright green plant, that looked like it had small spiky balloons at atop of each other. Little pink and yellow flowers blossomed from the top of the plant.
(Your name) gradually came closer to the plant until he stood before it. The plant looked simple enough, if only just a random cactus. (Your name) felt the juice streaming through the plant.
It could be poisonous, he told himself, yet why would a plant grow in the middle of a desert if it wasn't meant to be consumed, he reasoned with himself.
Not much longer after he made his decision, he quickly took out his carving knife and slashed a part of the cactus in half, gently holding the spiky, half orb in hand. A white, liquid substance sat within the cactus half. It would not have looked appetising on a normal day due to its... complexion, but considering that (Your name) had been traveling in the sweltering heat for so long, he just didn't care at this very moment. (Your name) quickly lifted the piece of plant up to his lips and swallowed it down, licking his lips as the cool liquid soothed his throat.
...
A group of people on their sand raft were sailing over the sandy plains, before the leader of the group ordered them to stop the wooden craft. One of the sand benders pulled down his cloth mask from his nose as he lifted a hand over his eyes, trying to look further into the distance. "What the Aang..."
In the distance was a what could the group assumed was a man, who seemed to be running around in circles, waving his arms around and talking to himself.
The Leader of the group, Sha-Mo the II nodded towards his men. "Head straight there. We'll see what all the fuss is about."
Two out of the four benders of the Si Wong Tribe waved their arms in an intricate motion, pushing the sand with their bending, and thus, pushing the sand sailors forward. By the time they arrived at their destination, they were met with a man who had long black hair and omunious green and greyish/brown eyes.
"Oh my spirits, its magic sand!" the man yelled as he dived head first into a nearby sand dune, to which he flipped onto his back in a rather ungraceful manner. "Oh my spirits," the man's eyes landed on Sha-Mo's form. "Its a walking spirit sand dune stick creature... thing! Heya' mate! Come to take me away?" the man suddenly stood up. "Because you ain't gonna' do that, no no no. Not today. I need to find the Avatar, and we are gonna' sit down and have a party. We are gonna' party and then..." the man made a punching gesture. "Then I'm gonna' stab them in the back, yeah and I'm gonna' use my Avatar powers on them, yeah, like 'WHHHOOOSSSHHH'!!!"
"Alright, your not going to stab anyone today." said Sha-Mo as he saw a piece of cactus on the ground. He sighed. "Of course, just another one of those Cactus juice addicts."
Ko-Lek, a young, cropped brown-haired, hazel-eyed lad scratched his head. "A bit further than usual, for an addict to travel so far..." He squinted at the abrupt man who continued to ramble to himself. "And he's wearing some water-tribe garbs. Unusual, ya know?"
The men nodded. "Good point Ko. Must have been thirsty." Sha-Mo glanced at the man again. "I'm guessing he's a traveller then, although a little inexperienced, and young. Suna, what do you think?"
"Leave him to die."
"What! No! He's young, maybe my age even!" Ko-Lek challenged. "He can't be left to die. He... ummm... he could be useful..."
Suna bristled, turning to glare at Ko. " And how could he-" He gestured to the man who was still madly muttering to himself. "-Be useful?"
Ko threw his arms in the air in exasperation. "Okay, maybe not useful necessarily, but..." Ko hesistated. "I don't know, I feel like... this is sort of important. You know, an important event."
Suna, along with their forth companion Iwao, gurgled out laughter, their cheeks tinting red with laughter. Suna raised a finger, pointing his finger at Ko. "An... an important event huh?" Suna cackled even more so. "You've always been the dreamy type, haven't you? Can't keep that head of yours out of the clouds. Have you been drinking cactus juice too? I be-"
"Quieten down Suna, Iwao. We have more important things to worry about." Sha-Mo's gaze landed on the odd young man again, who was lying on the ground making sand angels. "You, man. What is your name?"
The man stopped moving his arms around in the sand and lifted his head, glazed eyes staring at Sha-Mo, seemingly taking his form in the heat of the desert. "What is my name? The question should be what is your name... Mr Wrap-man."
Sha-Mo sighed, and fixed his gaze on the man. "Well whatever your name is, your coming with us."
The delusional man threw his hands in the air in celebration. "YAY! Will there be more cactus juice, pleeeaaassseee?"
Sha-Mo gave Suna and Iwao a silent command, and the two men quickly jumped off the raft and grabbed the erratic man, one of the sand benders holding each arm. The man's eyes widened and started to kick and yell. "Unhand me you annoying swine, I am the Avatar and you have no right to treat me as such!"
Once they had gotten him onto the sand raft, they tied his hands and feet with rope and threw him into the bunker of the sand raft, where the men could still hear his indignant yells.
"Let's head back to camp, shall we?" ordered Sha-Mo the II, and the sand benders headed back to base.
...
(Your name) woke up with a groan, as he felt something wet patting his face. He opened his green/grey eyes sluggish, taking in the sight of a young man with short brown hair, an unusual hazel-coloured eyes. The man before him let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness your awake. I thought you'd never wake up!" The boy removed the cloth and twisted the rag above a bowl of liquid, which released the majority of the contents of the rag into the bowl. "No, don't sit up, lay down... good. I'll get you something to drink, wait there." He placed the cloth on (Your name)'s forehead again before he quickly got up and ducked outside through what seemed like a tent flap, yet the tent was different from any he had seen, that being water bender tents of course.
Not even a minute later, the boy was back with metal cup that seemed to contain water, yet once (Your name) thankfully took a sip, his nose scrunched up in distaste and (Your name) started to splutter and cough. The young man lifted him up slightly, and gently patted his back.
"Don't worry, I'm not poisoning you, I've just added some herbs into the fixture, as well as some grounded Gilacorn lizard intestines to get some nutrients back into you."
(Your name) started to splutter again at the mention of the intestines, and felt himself start to gag. But he forced himself to swallow the disgusting mixture- like a man - and was left with the vile after-taste. "What ever happened to normal water?" (Your name) asked jokingly, yet there was a hint of disgust not directed at the young man himself, but more so at what he just drank.
"We do, but we are low in stock at the moment, plus, you were exceptionally low in nutrients, which must have been from all that sweating you were doing before we found you. Plus, Cactus juice has the hallucinogenic affect of seeming to quench your thirst, yet it dehydrates the entire body within hours..."
(Your name) blanched slightly, horror forming on his bright red, sun burnt features. "Hallucinogenic..." (Your name) grabbed his hair with both hands. "Oh spirit-shit, what did I do?!?"
The young man who sat before him chuckled, and then gave (Your name) a wry grin. "Oh, not much, just called the chief of our tribe 'Mr Wrap-man', ran around the camp proclaiming that we were all spirit-mushrooms, yelled about defeating the Avatar-" The hazel-eyed man seemed to laugh even harder. "-and then proclaimed, that, that you were the Avatar!"
(Your name) was sure that the colour had drained from his face, and his hands shook slightly as he tightly curled them in his lap. (Your name)'s bangs fell over his eyes, and he squeezed them shut and tried to slow his breathing.
In... out... in... out... in... out... in... out... in-
"Hey, are ya alright?" said the young man as he grabbed his shoulder with his cloth-wrapped hands and gave (Your name)'s shoulder a light shake. "Hey, its alright, keep calm, its alright, the chief wasn't too worried about your hallucinogenic rambling and weird name calling. He understands what that stuff does to ya." The boy said, referring to the cactus juice (Your name) had consumed.
(Your name) calmed slightly, but only because the cactus juice might just have given him an excuse for his forbidden release of information. "Thank you, tell me, what is your name?"
The young man gave a wide grin, a row of pearly white teeth coming into (Your name) line of view. "The name's Ko-Lek, but you can call me 'Ko' or 'Lek'. What's your name?"
"My name's (Your name) of the Northern Water Tribe."
Ko-Lek raised a thin, scruffy eyebrow. "Besides your attire, you don't look like your from the water tribe clans."
"Have you ever heard of evolution?" scoffed (Your name), giving Ko-Lek a glare.
"So your saying that dark skinned, blue-eyed people are suddenly turning into white skinned, weird eyed people?" Questioned Ko-Lek.
"What?!? No!" Yelled (Your name). "Not like that, you know like... you know what? Never mind." (Your name) gave an almost inaudible 'humph' as he sat up slightly and crossed his arms over his chest.
Ko-Lek laughed, holding his belly as he leaned over with one hand still on (Your name)'s shoulder as his body shuddered with joy. When Ko finally gained control of his sense's, he looked up at (Your name)'s stunned expression, his shit-eating grin meeting his eyes. "Just messin' with ya!" Ko laughed again, and gave (Your name) a fond pat on the shoulder. "But seriously, ya look like you were adopted or somethin'."
(Your name) rubbed his arms with both hands, despite the humid weather, and then blew one of his bangs out of his face with jittery breath. "Yeah... I think I was adopted... but my parents never told me." (Your name) ran a hand through his hair. "I know I don't look like I have water-tribe ancestry. I know I look different."
Ko-Lek suddenly looked sympathetic, a look (Your name) hated directed towards him. "Don't worry abou' it, I mean, you do look like ya have some water tribe ancestry... just not much."
(Your name) raised an eyebrow of his own.
"Ok, no, I can't see any water tribe ethnicity in you, besides your pants... and boots..."
An awkward silence prevailed, and the two sat there twiddling their thumbs and looking anywhere but at each other. This went on for several minutes before a rag-covered hand gruffly opened the flap of the tent and poked his head in.
"What's takin' ya so long Ko-Ko The Slow-Slow?" The man's green eyes stared at (Your name)'s own. "Bloody spirits, your eye's are creepy!"
"Go away Havilah!" Ko-Lek growled, a scroll adorning his usually good-natured features. "We'll be out inna' moment."
"Alrigh' then, but be quick, the chief is gettin' a littl' twitchy. It's been two days ya know," He nodded his head before he added. "So be quick Lek-ky." And Havilah's head ducked out of the tent.
"Ahhhh, I absolutely hat- despise him." Ko grumbled, running a hand through his short, brown hair, chartreuse green eye's seething with anger. "Always on my back, they are."
"And why's that?" asked (Your name), generally interested.
"I don't know!" Ko threw his arms in the air in exasperation. "They always have... I've always been different from them. While they are quite content to run around the desert, stealing and bargaining for goods for profits, I..." Ko hesistated for a moment. "... I wanna' see something other than sand... I wanna' explore the world! I wanna' ... wanna' have an adventure..." Ko nodded to himself, a grimace deepening further onto his face. Then he sighed, as he looked towards the bowl of water that lay abandoned, along with the cloth that (Your name) had taken off not long before. "Why am I even tellin' ya this? I don't even know ya. It's flammin' silly, that's what tis' is."
"It's not silly at all." (Your name) disputed. "In fact, I am sort of doing the same. Travelling I mean." (Your name) watched Ko-Lek, to which Ko looked up, making eye contact. They both knew, they both understood what it was like to be different, to be hated by others, to not belong. "Anyway, I should be getting up for this Chief-guy, shall I?"
Ko nodded and quickly stood up, holding out his hand towards (Your name). (Your name) hesitantly grabbed Ko's hand and Ko pulled him up, letting go of his hand as he walked towards the entrance of the tent and lifted up the flap, as he looked back at (Your name). "His name is Chief Sha-Mo the II by da' way. Itta' be smart if ya remembered that." Ko mumbled, to which (Your name) nodded and thanked Ko-Lek quietly as he ducked out of the tent.
Ko-Lek led the way, walking through what could only be described as communes, except the communes were all tents. People who had been moving boxes to-and-throw, hanging their washing up, or had simply been spending time outdoors, stopped to stare at the weird, young man that walked with one of their own. (Your name) tried to hold his head high and only look forward, just like how his Father had taught him, instilled into him until he understood. No one would ever be able to claim that any family of Yakone, even adopted family, were not tough.
They kept walking, people following them, wanting to hear the action, and (Your name) felt beads of perspiration spill down his shirt, and he lifted his left hand to pull the stiff collar of his green shirt away from his body, letting the humid air take away some of the heat. He let go with a sigh, and scratched behind his ear where he was sure sand had gotten to.
If he was brutally honest however, on how the sand had even gotten there, (your name) would not be able to answer such a simple question. And you didn't even want to know where some of the sand it had gotten into...
They finally came across a tent that was slightly larger than the others, yet (Your name) saw a guard standing outside the tent, clad in brown and green cloth. The man looked at both of them, his green eyes looking him up and down through the only gap in all the cloth that he wore. The mans voice came out muffled. "Ya seek ta' have an attendance with da' Chief?"
Ko nodded. "Yeah, our friend here has some explainin' ta-do."
The guard nodded before opening up the tent flap, gesturing for them to go inside. Ko entered first, and gave a slight bow to Chief Sha-Mo and the other four elders who sat cross-legged there in attendance. "Good Mornin' Chief, got Mr (Your name) from the Northern Water Tribe here, what ya wanted."
Chief Sha-Mo II nodded and tilting his head towards the door. "Then let him in Ko-Lek. Thank you. You may come in too." Then Chief Sha-Mo turned towards another man, cloth headwear covering his mud brown hair. "Suna, pass me the water-pouch will you?"
Suna did as (Your name) finally entered the tent, standing in accordance as the Chief, and four other elders sat there.
A man spoke, in what (Your name) recognised as the voice he had heard conversing with Ko. "Sit down my boy, and tell me, what were ya doin' in the Si Wong sand bender territory?"
(Your name)'s eyes widened, as he took a seat, in between Ko and Chief Sha-Mo II. "Sand benders... their real?! I thought they were just a myth!"
All four stared at him as though he had gone mad, before they all, minus Chief Sha-Mo and Ko, started to laugh, and (Your name) couldn't help but awkwardly sit there in silence as they did.
The man who looked as though he may start crying with laughter, held his right hand to his chest, his chest heaving from the effort of laughing. "I-I cannot believe that you, Ko, thought that he," the man pointed to (Your name), "Was anythin' special!"
(Your name) could see Ko's eyes darken with anger, and (Your name) nudged Ko in the shoulder, taking Ko's attention away from the man. Bullying like that didn't bother (Your name) anymore, especially considering how much he got bullied in his childhood.
"Quieten down Suna." said the chief as he gave Suna a look of warning, before turning back to (Your name). "Yes, we are sand benders, but ya still haven't answered my question; what were ya doin' in our territory?"
"Sorry, got off track." (Your name) waved his left hand around slightly. "I was just passing through, but I made a bit of a mistake not carrying any supplies on me. I just came from Foggy Swamp, Ba Sing Se way, and I was thinking of travelling a bit more to find myself a metal bending teacher, but then I came across this cactus..." (Your name) scratched the back of his neck in slight embarrassment. "Yeah... Ko explained to me not too long ago the Hallucinogenic affects of drinking cactus juice... yeah... sorry about that Sir."
The Chief nodded. "That's fine, I thought as such." he scratched his beard in thought, then he picked up the water pouch, passing it to (Your name). "Ko said your from the Northern water tribe... then how come you can earth bend?"
(Your name) nodded his thanks when Chief Sha-Mo II gave him the pouch, taking a big glump of the liquid before answering. "Yeah, my parents never really told me, but I'm positive that I'm adopted." (Your name) had known after a few attempts without the full moon that he couldn't bend blood, unlike his brother Tarrlock, who could bend blood without the presence of a full moon. Yet (Your name) had only ever been able to bend blood during a full moon. And plus, everything didn't make sense; he neither looked like his mother or father, could not bend blood without a full moon, had different mannerisms such as wild gesturing hands (that he had tried to stop for years), even down to how long it took for him to master water- not because his father was a horrible teacher, but purely because he was a horrible student. Trying to learn water bending was almost like trying to learn his opposite. Yet earth bending, besides the first few weeks, after learning how to seismic sensing, had almost become second nature to him. (Your name) had a feeling at least one of his parents had been an earth bender. "I grew up in the water tribe, along with my two parents and my brother. My father died a few years ago, and my mother-" he closed his eyes slightly, hearing his adopted mothers scream as a wave of torturous memories hit him. "-she died when I was little..."
Chief Sha-Mo nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Well, I cannot offer you a metal bending teacher to learn from I'm afraid, but I think there may be someone who can teach you sand bending if your willing, you seem like a nice enough bloke, and I already have someone in mind who could teach you. You both already seem to get on pretty well."
Before either (Your name) and Ko could react, Suna shot out of his seat. "Chief, I beg to differ. This man is a foreigner!"
"One who is quite polite."
"And one who started wilding running around after butchering a cactus, and drinking from it!"
"As all men do when they drink cactus juice, even the late Chief Sokka of the Southern water tribe did, that's how the cactus got famous, and illegal..."
"But he showed himself as a fool!"
"Then let him redeem himself then." The Chief announced, his voice becoming firm as he stared Suna down. "And I say you sit back down, before you show yourself off as a fool."
...
That night, all was quiet as (Your name) and Ko lay side-by-side in the little tent that Ko-Lek owned. Ko had made (Your name) a bed out of spare blanket's, none of which (Your name) had on him due to the humidity. After a while, Ko spoke up. "Well... it looks like I'm teaching ya sand bending."
(Your name) chuckled slightly. "So you are... does that mean I have to call you Master?"
Ko grinned in the darkness. "Of course it does! What teacher would I be without a title?"
(Your name) cracked-up, trying to stifle some of his laughter as to avoid waking up nearby tent inhabitators. "Alright then. Goodnight... Master Ko-Lek..."
Ko threw the palm of his hands into his eyes. "Nooo, ya know what? Never mind the title, ya sound too creepy."
Laughter could be heard from within the depths pf their small tent, along with swearing from nearby tents hurled in their general direction.
...
Word Count: 4061
Havilah- Means 'stretch of sand' in Hebrew. What a creative name I chose.
Suna- Means 'sand' in Japanese. Again, what a creative name I chose.
Sha-Mo- Remember that scene in Avatar The Last Air bender where a group of sand benders stole Appa? Well there was the leader of the sand benders (Sha-Mo) was the father of the sand bender who stole Appa. Sha-Mo had gotten angry at his son and had been very nice to Avatar Aang. Sha-Mo is the great grandfather of Sha-Mo II. Sha means 'natural/good' in hindi, and Mo means 'dark-skinned, Moorish, and saviour' in Latin and Hebrew. Also ironic.
Ko-Lek- Ko means 'cultivate, plow, till', which is sort of ironic really, living in a a desert and all. Lek, I chose because Lek was the earth bending teacher of Avatar Kyoshi, as well as being a sand bender. Lek is actually a Scottish/gaelic name, which can mean 'flagstone' and/or 'place'. Whether Ko-Lek is related to Lek is up to you. Do you think he is related to Lek?
Iwao- means 'rock' in Japanese.
I know there isn't such a thing as 'angels' in the Avatar-verse, but I wasn't sure exactly how to describe it. Such is life.
Korra's current age: 23 and a half.
Your current age: 26 and a half.