Avatar: The New World

Chapter 8: Neon Bending

Rorrick

"I found you a teacher." Rorrick had barely even greeted Lotus and already she was all business. "We don't have a lot of air benders around and most of them are nowhere near capable enough to actually teach someone. Mae is the best, she's usually overloaded with students but I got her to make some time for you."

"How did you do that?" Rorrick asked, already anticipating the answer.

"I told her."

"No!" Rorrick pressed his hands against his face. "What happened to keeping it a secret? I don't want people to know what I am, especially not any teachers. She's gonna think I'm supposed to be some sort of genius or something!"

"Don't worry, I warned her."

"Warned her about what?"

Lotus just shook her head and picked up an apple from Rorrick's table. "You know, you're insubordinate and rude and just an all around slacker. That sort of thing."

"At least she knows going into this thing that I'm never gonna live up to the impossible expectations she has. That everyone has." Rorrick grimaced as Lotus bit into the apple and added, "That's my breakfast, by the way."

"Oops." Lotus held out the fruit. "You want it back?"

"No I don't want it back! Why would you just come into a person's home unannounced and eat their food?"

"We've got plenty to go around."

"That's not the point. It's just weird! It's rude, that's what it is."

"People tell me that about a lot of the things I do."

"I guess if you're part of a family that enforces life long isolation for generations in order to achieve a singular goal you're bound to have a couple social... quirks."

"It's no good anyway. I like the green ones." Lotus tossed the apple aside.

"You just threw it away!"

"Why not?"

"Oh God, we can't do this. I'll just accept you for who you are, I guess I have no choice if we're gonna save the world together."

"That means a lot coming from the freakiest freak in freak town."

"Can we get back to the whole teaching thing? Who's Mae and what makes her the best?"

"She was a chemistry professor. She understands air bending on a molecular level and some of the things she does... I mean the Lotus Library doesn't have a lot of information about air benders but judging from what I do have, there has never been an air bender quite like her."

"And when do I meet her?"

"Right now, come on." Lotus scooped up Rorrick's hand and dragged him from his home. He nodded to a couple of his neighbors. The quarters were tight in freak town, and the population was so small everyone knew everyone's business but Rorrick and Lotus had successfully kept his secret, until now. "Mae likes to call herself a 'neon bender.' She says it's not entirely accurate but it's some kind of historical reference I don't get."

"A neon bender? What does that mean."

"She likes to put on shows for the people sometimes. She told me to bring you by today and she'd talk to you backstage after."

"A show?" Rorrick smiled, it had been awhile since anything entertaining had happened. They didn't have much in the way of luxury in the bender colony but at least he was safe from the sadistic Toro Corporation. "I like shows."