Tis the New Year, and it's the time the new beginnings. I must say while it is expected of me to be antagonistic, I stand in admiration of your poetry and your artistry. You've breathed life into walls haunted by death, and it's hard to find justifiable reason to be anything but appreciative and admiring. It's a stroke of irony seldom seen, and I am nothing if not a patron of the arts. So I have here a sweet red, if you wish to imbibe? (He pours two glasses.) To the first of many meetings.
Doug listens in suspicious silence as the stranger speaks, still wary of his intentions. He finds it odd, having a strange man come and... compliment his art.
He doesn’t know this man. This man doesn’t (or shouldn’t, at least) know him. Doug finds himself wondering why and how anyone, much less this stranger, could find anything positive to say about any of this.
He raises his glass to the stranger in turn, but then sets it back down and makes no move to interact with it further.
A large duffel bag lay open on Sunal’s bed, only a few items thrown in so far for the trip. More clothes lay piled on the floor in a sort of chaotic order Sunal did not have the energy to work through. Mi-ryung sat cross-legged with her curly black hair in a mess, sorting through what she could.
“So you haven’t actually done any research,” she said.
Sunal stared up at the ceiling from the floor beside her sister, unkempt and still in her nightshirt. “They talk about bending academies at school,” she said, “but I never actually looked into it before. There was no point. I didn’t think I’d be going to study there.”
“So you lied to the white cloaks”
“I lied,” Sunal agreed. She wanted to make up an excuse but there was no real way around it. “And it worked, and now I have to actually figure out what I’m doing.”
After a month longer than necessary, chapter 2 of ATGS, my earthbender!Avatar longfic, is finally finished!
The year is 256 AG and 15-year-old Sunal, who's known she was the avatar since a young age and chose to pretend to live a normal life, can't hide her secret any longer. Given the option to start formal training with the Order of the White Lotus, she decides instead to find her own bending masters, and sets out with her older sister Jinnak, a nonbender, to find out who she's supposed to be.
The first chapter of my Avatar Universe longfic has finally been posted! This first chapter is about 6k words long, and I'm projecting 12 chapters for the first 'book'. It's canon-compliant up through LOK Book 2 (fingers crossed for Book 3!) and follows Sunal, the Earthbending Avatar, on her journey to master her first element.
This is the first scene from the first chapter which I've finished self-editing and I love these characters so much I can't not show them off anymore.
Chapter 1, 'The Incident', should be done sometime tomorrow afternoon/evening, and posted on AO3. This is a next gen-ish future fic about Sunal ('soon-all'), the Earthbending Avatar following Korra. My goal is to be completely canon-compliant through LOK book 2 (fingers crossed for books 3 and 4!)
Avatar: The Guardian Spirit (preview scene)
There was a little rectangular garden tucked behind the apartment building, with a small shed to one side that the residents used to store their gardening tools. In the space between the shed and the brick wall dividing the garden from the next row of apartments, Sunal huddled, hugging her knees, staring at the dirt.
She could hear her sister calling for her, but didn’t think to respond. Instead she sat there and willed herself not to cry, focusing on her breathing, feeling the earth beneath her feet and the comfort of the close space. The little garden spirit stopped to stare at her as it passed by the opening, then continued on its way.
“Sun!” her sister called again. She was in the garden now, Sunal could tell. She always knew exactly where to find her. It was only moments later when Jinnak’s face poked around the corner, and she peered down at the girl.
“Sun,” she said again, now in a calmer tone. “There you are.”
“Now everyone knows, Jin,” Sunal said. She could hardly breathe or speak the words.
“They were going to find out eventually,” Jinnak knelt down at the edge of the shed, smiling halfheartedly at her younger sister. “You only had seven months left anyways.”
Sunal just buried her forehead in her knees.
“Come on,” Jinnak said, “let’s go inside.” She waited for a moment, and then sighed when Sunal still didn’t respond. “You’re not getting anything done just sitting out here, Sun. Come inside and wash up and eat or something.”
“Did mom send you to get me? That sounds like something mom would say.”
“Mom didn’t send me. I haven’t even seen mom yet.”
Staring her bent lap, Sunal thought about that. It was still the middle of the day; her mother should be at work, as should Jinnak. She’d have to have left work early to come get Sunal. Slowly, Sunal began to stand up. Jinnak looked relieved.
“How did you hear?”
“I’m extremely perceptive,” Jinnak said, trying to brush off the question. Sunal followed her out into the garden, but she stared at her, waiting for a real answer. A frown creased Jinnak’s face. “One of the other drivers mentioned there was some hubbub at your school. I asked for the day off. It’s no big deal.”
“So everyone knows then.”
“You’re going to be fine, Sun. It’ll all be fine.”
Sunal (pronounced ‘soon-all’, nicknamed Sun) 筍謁 (순알) (15) - Avatar. slight skill in all four elements (earth > water > fire > air). Takes after their father
Jinnak (nicknamed Jin) 辰諾 (진낙) (20) - Sunal’s older sister, nonbender. Takes after their mother
Mi-ryung (nicknamed Mi) 美竜 (미령) (11) - Sun and Jin's littlest sister, earthbender. Takes after their father
Parents - not named (yet). Mother is a waterbender immigrant from the Northern Water Tribe, father is a nonbender whose family lives in the United Republic of Nations and Earth Kingdom.
OWLs
Kalzang (nicknamed Kal) 格桑 (བསྐལ་བཟང་) (17) - airbender, Order of the White Lotus trainee, great great grandson of Aang (appears later)
Captain Zhong, area captain in charge of communication with the Avatar and her family
C1 (The Incident) Meeting family, white lotus, discussing what to do, decision to leave (~6k)
C2 (Departure) Packing to leave, exposition of characters, learning more about family, boarding the train (~4k)
OK but what if Sunal (earthbending!Avatar) whose mother is a waterbender who starts waterbending at age two whose family spends a year thinking she's just a waterbender until she learns about her dad's earthbending relatives and then she shows them she can earthbend as well and they're all confused because the next avatar is supposed to be an earthbender not a waterbender?
(like, by mixing her racial background I inadvertently left this weird opportunity for her where she's supposed to be an earthbender, but she also can bend all four elements and since the elements are coming more naturally to people over time, she could easily start by bending whatever she wants. what makes her an earthbender? maybe earth is the first element she bends, but if no one notices they might think water is her first element. SHE might think she's a waterbender when she's still that young and 'also i can sometimes make the ground do funny things and the air move however i want' and she wont even realize thats like not normal because adults can do all these incredible magical things too)
