The Lost Waterbender (Avatar: The Last Airbender Fanfiction)

8 Years Later

It was here. The day is been dreading for nearly my entire life. The day I was deemed old enough to begin working as a slave for whatever master paid the highest price.

I'd been selected from a Fire Nation orphanage when I was a baby. It was decided I would be raised to one day become a servant to some rich Fire Nation citizen.

Or that was the lie is been told.

I knew for a fact that wasn't the case. First of all, that was the dumbest excuse I'd ever heard someone come up with for explaining my situation. You were chosen as a baby... yeah right, and I'm also the moon spirit.

I didn't know where I came from or who I even was, really. The name I went by was Badger, because apparently when I was younger my crawling and bumping into things reminded the orphanage staff of a blind badger mole. If there even were any orphanage staff.

I lived in an orphanage-like establishment, but that's not what it was. These people didn't raise parentless children, they gave a place for jobless and homeless men and women to stay until a job opened up as a maid, servant, butler, etc. Most people who come in here are in their teens and early twenties at oldest. I'm no different than them, except for one important detail.

I don't remember any life outside this place. As far as I knew, I didn't have a family. I wasn't related to any of the staff here, and I was never in the orphanage, which would've been the standard procedure for a homeless, parentless child. But for some reason, I was brought here, as though I was a criminal of some sort; someone who didn't deserve a chance to be high up in society.

The lady who ran it, an old woman by the name of Seeka, had decided that as a ten-year old who had lived her whole life doing some sort of service in the building, I could now work somewhere for someone who would pay for me.

"You can get out of my hair!" She'd said.

I was told to pack my belongings, which consisted of one other raggedy tunic, a blanket that has apparently been in my possession when I'd ended up here, and a broken bracelet that had gotten to small for me a long time ago. I used two of the beads to tie off small braids in my hair. But I kept most of the beads under my pillow, as hopeful reminder there was someone out there who cared about me.

Downstairs, Seeka yelled at me to hurry up. I took one last look at the room I'd lived in for my whole life. As much as I hated this place, with the horrible food, bad treatment, and lack of heat, I was going to miss it.

Slowly, for the last time, I walked out of my room and to an unknown future.