Red Lotus: Origin Stories

Chapter 1: The Boy

The boy was outside bending the rocks around him making a circle surrounding him, and then one by one with swift punches threw them forward until they were all gone. Standing with her arms crossed at her chest, foot tapping incessantly, his sister stood watching with a scowl on her face. When he looked to the side he saw the cause of her anger, he had earthbended a boulder into their small house. He shrugged sheepishly hoping to ask for forgiveness.

"I can't keep doing this!" She exclaimed. "What am I supposed to tell Mr. Rai this time?"

"How about the truth?" He asked knowing they couldn't.

"You know I don't mind if you practice, but not here in front of our house! Not here where anyone can see you," she explained. "You're 13, you should know better than this."

The boy did know better, but he was still just a boy. His parents were dead ever since a mining accident wrecked their lives and left him with his older sister who was 15 at the time. She took care of him, moving from place to place all around the Fire Nation until they settled on the westernmost island. They were tenants of a nonbending man who had great power because of his immense wealth. The boy and his sister farmed the land and made enough money to pay rent and for a few scraps of food, he sometimes wondered how they survived for so long. Either way he was growing tired of the injustice he and his sister found himself in.

"Why don't we just leave?" He asked his sister over dinner.

"Where would we go?" She asked annoyed.

"Back to the Earth Kingdom," he said remembering vague memories of a happier time in an Earth Kingdom village.

"We barely make money to buy food, what makes you think we have money for two passages for the Earth Kingdom?" She was on edge, the boy could tell. Normally she was sweeter, nicer to him, but the incident earlier that day had her worried.

"Are you mad?" He asked.

She took a moment, sighed, and answered, "No. I'm sorry. I'm just a bit stressed."

Guilt overcame him and he promised her he would stop practicing his earthbending and work harder in the farm. Suddenly, someone was at the door. When his sister got up and opened it, it was Mr. Rai.

"We need to talk," the older man said.

The boy's sister turned around and told him to go to bed. Knowing better than to argue, the young earthbender went to bed. From his room, he tried listening in to their conversation but they whispered. A few moments later he heard a door open and close, thinking it was the front door he stepped out, but no one was there. He heard voices coming from his sister's room, and then a loud moan of pain. He quickly went and opened the door, but was surprised to see his sister half naked in the arms of the older man while his face was buried in the curve of her neck.

His sister snapped away from Mr. Rai and hurried to explain everything to her brother, but it was already too late. The young boy went to his room and gathered what little clothes he had and stuffed it in the first bag he found.

"Ghazan, please," she pleaded. "I can explain! I had –"

"You had to do nothing! He's been controlling us for so long!"

"Watch your mouth boy!" Mr. Rai said from behind. The man walked over to Ghazan towering over him. "If you were a man, maybe then you could have saved your sister," he laughed menacingly.

"I'm a better man than you are," the boy defended himself.

"HA! Look at you! You don't even have a mustache boy!" Out of anger the thirteen year old boy bended the floor around him, he hoped to make it crack and swallow the man in front of him. Instead the ground grew hot until it was a stream of lava that separated the man and his sister away from him. He grabbed his bag and started running away, when he was looked back he saw his sister crying calling out his name, over and over, until he couldn't listen to her anymore.