Chapter Text
Rain in the fire nation was never accepted with open arms. It ruined celebrations and caused the locals to run for their homes. But for six-year-old Kimberly Hart trudging through town trying to get away from her parents, it was the perfect escape route. You’d think that being the princess of the fire nation would have been the dream, but all Kim’s ever wanted was a loving family and a normal life. Her overbearing mother and the royal responsibilities were too much for a young child. Her father was the only one who made life enjoyable.
Well, her father and her best friend, Jason, who she was currently trying to meet up with. Whenever Kimberly was feeling overwhelmed she always sent a messenger bird to him asking if they could meet up at their usual hangout. Jason and Kim first met in one of the parties her parents hosted for the wealthy families. Jason’s family was filled with largely respected firebenders so he was being taught to bend at a very young age.
Kim stumbled on a rock as she turned the corner to their hangout spot. This super secret hiding place was actually just a little cave they found a little ways away behind the palace, but it was perfect for the two kids to escape to. She sees that Jason is already sitting there with his back against the wall trying to make a bonfire using his firebending.
“Hey Jace!” Jason looks up and smiles at Kim letting her see that two of his teeth are knocked out. “I still think it’s unfair that your parents let you start training early and I have to go to all these stupid parties.”
“That’s just because I’m better than you,” Jason chuckles. Kim punches him in the arm and sits down next to him. She pulls her legs up and rests her chin on her knees. Jason finally gets the fire going and let’s the silence hang in the air for a while before speaking up. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Kim whispers pulling her knees closer to her chest. “Mommy got really angry again. She says I have to ‘be a formal, proper lady’ and that I talk too much.” Kim rests her head on Jason’s shoulder. “I wish that I was your sister sometimes. Then I wouldn’t have a mean mommy.”
“I can still be your brother! My mom says that blood doesn’t make family, so that means you can be my little sister,” Jason says excitedly.
“Why am I the little sister? We’re the same age,” she says and Jason rolls his eyes.
“I’m older by 4 months!” Kim laughs at Jason’s exclamation and repositions herself so that her head is resting on his lap. They stay like that for a while, just looking at the fire before Kim starts getting sleepy so she stands up.
“I have to go before she notices I left,” Kim says. Jason gets up as well and starts putting out the fire. “You’ll always be there for me right?”
“Of course.”
----
Kim was fifteen years old now and Jason just turned sixteen. It’s been a week since Jason’s big birthday celebration. Coming from a wealthy family meant having a large festival in your name, but that didn’t really leave time for Jason to celebrate with Kim as they both had to keep their images up and talk with the right people.
Right now the duo was walking through the market after buying some pink berries for the picnic they were gonna have later. Kim was wearing a bandana to disguise her face and Jason had a large hood on. Jason was eating the berries and they were joking around on who would be the better Kuai ball player when they were interrupted by a group of men wearing hoods in a similar fashion to Jason.
“You know, if you wanted to disguise yourself better with the locals, I’d suggestion wearing cheaper clothes,” one of the men says and Jason drops the pink berries in surprise. Kim snickers at his shock while Jason straightens up and recovers from his embarrassment.
“Who are you,” Jason asks while moving to stand in between Kim and the strangers. They take off their hoods and Kim finally gets a good look at their faces.
“Wait I recognize these people. They conducted my cousin’s wedding,” Kim recalls.
“Yes. My name is Shyu and we are the fire sages. We are responsible for managing coronations, weddings, and funerals for the royal family….among other things,” says one of them who Kim guesses is their leader.
“Is that why you’re here? Has something gone wrong,” Jason questions. Both him and Kim start getting a little anxious.
Shyu hurriedly waves his hand and says, “No no no. Nothing is wrong. We are actually here for you.”
“Me!? What? I’m not a part of the royal family,” Jason says while visibly confused. The fire sage behind Shyu moved up to stand next to him.
“No you are not, but we have some news for you and your family. Would you join us in walking to your estate,” He clarifies. Jason starts moving forward before hesitating and turning to Kim who gives him a shrug.
He smirks and asks, “Are you gonna be alright without me?” Kim laughs and shakes her head.
“I’ll be fine you goof,” she says. “Go!”
Jason smiles at Kim before joining the fire sages, leaving her behind to look at the crushed berries on the ground. The pink trampled into a red stain on the road.
-------
Kim hadn’t spoken to Jason in a week and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Anytime Kimberly visited he was never home and whenever they see each other Jason rushed out an excuse about something with his family or the fire sages. She started to get the message after the fourth “I need to take care of my sister.”
She’s walking through the palace halls when she turns a corner and bumps into one of the guards.
“I’m so sorry Miss Hart,” he says.
“Koda! I told you to call me Kim,” she laughs.
“My apologies Miss Kimberly,” Koda says with a nod. “Are you heading to dinner?”
“Unfortunately,” Kim answers. The guard gives an understanding smile before continuing to his post. Kim opens the door to the dining hall and mentally prepares herself for the evening. She lets out a sigh of relief at the sight of Ted, her father, already seated at the table.
Kim never understood how her dad was always so busy as the general of the fire nation army when there was no war to fight. She always loves having him around because he’s so much nicer than her mom and he usually keeps her temper down whenever she’s about to go into one of her rampages.
Her mother is already seated at the end of the table with her father sitting next to her forcing Kim to sit on Rita’s other side.
The waiters arrive with the food and Rita asks, “Hello Kimberly. Have you had a good day so far?”
“Mhhm,” she says having already stuffed her face with food in order to avoid conversation. (relatable)
Ted notices her discomfort so he shifts the conversation. “How are things in the fire nation dear?”
“Everything is well,” Rita says after taking a bite of the roasted duck. “The news about the avatar has gotten everyone in a celebration,” she grumbles with a roll of her eyes. Kim picks her head up in interest.
“I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. They reincarnate every year. I mean,” she says with a chuckle, “it’s not like it’s a surprise.”
“Well the avatar is very important for maintaining the balance,” her father says.
“What’s the point in keeping the balance anyways,” Rita utters. Ted lets out a deep sigh as if he’s dealt with this before and Kimberly furrows her eyebrows in confusion.
She doesn’t know what that statement was supposed to mean so she instead she asks, “Who is the new avatar?”
Her father repeats Kim’s early expression of confusion as he sets his fork down. Her parents share a glance before looking back at her.
Rita asks in disbelief, “You don’t know? Surely he would’ve told you by now.”
“What? I don’t know who it is. That’s why I asked,” says Kim.
“Honey,” Tedd says, “the avatar is Jason Scott.”
-------
“When were you going to tell me?”
Kim was standing outside the same cave from their childhood staring at Jason who was inside. He seemed to have been sitting there for a while contemplating before being startled by Kim’s sudden appearance.
She didn’t yell at him. She’s more sad than angry and the look of hurt on her face has Jason regretting his decisions a hundred times more than he already had. He walks up to her hoping to apologize.
“I was going to-” he tries to say before being interrupted by Kim.
“What? You were going to tell me!? What the fuck Jason,” she yells while giving him a shove. “Why keep this from me? We’re best friends and you disappear for a week. You ignored me every time I went to talk to you. It would’ve been easier if you just told me the truth instead of leaving me to wonder what the hell I did wrong. What’s the big deal?”
“I have to leave,” he mumbles with his head down. It was quiet but loud enough for Kim to pick up on it and stop her screaming. “The avatar needs to go through training and that requires finding masters on the other elements so I have to leave.”
He picks his head up to look Kim in the eyes and she finally sees that he’s crying.
“I was going to tell you but I didn’t want to say goodbye and I thought it would be easier to put distance between us before I left so it wouldn’t hurt as much,” he says. “I’m so sorry Kim.”
She feels sorry for him for a while. They stand there for a bit while Jason silently pleads for forgiveness before she rubs the tears from her eyes and looks away.
Kim asks, “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” he whispers. All sadness that Kim was feeling disappears and is replaced with rage.
“You should’ve told me from the beginning,” she says getting angrier as she says each word. “You’re a selfish asshole” she yells as she burns a patch of grass in outrage. Jason flinches even though the fire struck a few feet away.
“Hope you have fun on your world trip,” she mocks. “Heard the fruit pies from the air temples are to die for.”
She walks away and Jason goes back to sitting down in the cave like before.
-------
Her father dies a week later.
The days in between his death and the funeral went by fast. Kim thinks there were too many people there. All of them were aristocrats or generals who didn’t know him at all. Kim wasn’t able to give a eulogy so one of the generals did one instead. The fire sages were there as they’re supposed to be, but they only reminded Kim of another person’s she’s lost.
They’re lowering him to the ground when Kim looks up to see the disinterest in most people’s faces. Jason was gone, her father was dead, she didn’t know half the people in his funeral, and her mother was too much in grief to show up. It was all too much for Kim so she ran away.
Kim feels the mud as stone paths turn to dirt and that’s when she finally notices that it’s raining. She stumbles a little when she accidentally hits a branch that she was usually to short to hit when she ran this path as a child.
She sits at the end of the cave. Enough to protect herself from the rain but still be able to reach out and touch it. She lets the drops hit her hand and is reminded of how her dad who would always play Pai Sho with her when they couldn’t go out and how when they were on vacation in Ember Island she got so upset because it was raining half the time it was there but her father never failed to make her smile.
The rain comes to a stop as the sky clears, and she turns her attention to a singed patch of grass near the cave.
“You’ll always be there for me right?”
“Of course.”
-------
Jason laughs as his trainer misses another shot directed towards him. They’re in the middle of what Jason hopes to be the last day of firebending training. He’s eager to move onto the next element and actually do some avatar-ing, instead of what he’s been doing since he was a little kid. Their match comes to an end when Shyu waves the firebending master way.
“You have excelled in firebending, Jason. You already demonstrated amazing abilities in your younger years, but now we can officially say you have become a firebending master at the age of sixteen,” Shyu says. Jason has a huge smile on his face as he runs over to hug him. Shyu is surprised at the contact but returns it nonetheless displaying his own smile.
He knows it’s been hard for Jason since they separated him from his family, so he tries to be more friendly towards the boy whenever possible. They have had to travel south of the fire nation in order to find Jason a proper teacher.
“I think it is time to move onto the next step in becoming the avatar,” he says while removing himself from the hug . Jason looks up with an excited look on his face.
“Does this mean what I think it means,” Jason asks.
“Yes,” says Shyu. “Pack your bags because we’re heading to the Southern Air Temple!”
Jason lets out a whoop as he fist bumps the air with a jump. Shyu laughs at the boy’s excitement before motioning him to follow so they can head back inside.
-------
Kim swipes the sweat forming on her forehead before dodging the next strike. She nearly gets hit as her exhaustion catches up to her. Her shirt was discarded an hour into this 4 hour long session that she’s been having daily. She punches out another series of fire strikes getting sloppier with each punch.
She tries to dodge another attack but is too late this time and is sent flying backwards. Colliding with a wall causes Kim’s vision to go blurry. She barely hears her mother’s scoldings before she blacks out.
Her mother is standing over her when she regains consciousness and she hasn’t been moved from where she passed out. For a second she thinks she sees Jason but it’s just the firebending teacher who’s meditating in the corner of the room.
“You are too slow,” Rita says. “You need to sharpen your punches and be lighter on your feet.”
Kim groans as she slowly sits up. “I’m exhausted mother. It’s been hours and I haven’t had anything to eat.”
“Get up from the floor. You’ll train for another hour,” she says while helping Kim up. “I think your master said something about introducing lightning.”
“Lightning!? I can barely bend regular fire at the moment,” Kim grumbles.
“I don’t care if you don’t have any arms or you’re actually a lemur in disguise. Your master is going to bend lightning at you and it is up to you to decide if you’re going to defend yourself,” Rita says before walking off to sit on a chair next to the right wall in the middle of the room.
Master Trent Mercer rises up from his meditation session and goes to stand opposite of Kim. She cracks her neck and nods towards Trent indicating she’s ready.
“I will teach you how to redirect lightning and then I will teach you how to generate it yourself,” Trent explains. “To redirect lightning you must create a pathway from your fingertip, up the arm, to the stomach, and up and out the other arm. The lightning must pass through the stomach so that it doesn’t damage the heart.”
“No pressure,” Kim laughs. Trent quirks an eyebrow but gets into position.
“Are you ready?” He asks.
“All fired up and ready to go...Get it?” She says and Trent shakes his head. “Because I’m a firebender?”
“You can die doing this, Kimberly. I suggest you take this more seriously,” he says.
“Right,” Kim says emphasising the t. The situation dissolves light hearted joking manner when she sees Trent charging up his lightning strike. She takes a deep breath and does her best to focus on the situation.
He fires at her and Kimberly feels the lightning surging through her body. She feels powerful yet terrified knowing that one wrong move could kill her. Kim holds onto the lightning for too long and the pain starts building up in her stomach before she successfully directs the lightning strike to the left wall.
She would’ve slumped to the ground if Trent didn’t run over to catch her.
“The redirection has drained her energy,” he says to Rita. “I think we should let her rest.” Kim groans as she slips from Trent’s grasps and lands on her knees.
“She had enough rest in her coma. Do it again,” her mother snarls. She stares Kim in the eyes and Kim knows what happens when she disobeys that stare, so she quickly gets up from the ground in fear and mumbles an “I’m fine” to Trent.
He still seems worried because of the dazed look in her eyes but she seems stable enough. He wasn’t supposed to speak out in the first place so he shouldn’t defy the firelord anymore. They get into their respective positions and Trent launches some more lightning at Kim.
Kim wants to get rid of the lightning as soon as possible due to the intense pain she endured last time. She quickly shoots it out the other arm but she was so worried about getting rid of it that she doesn’t put much attention into controlling where it goes.
The lightning is redirected straight at its original caster. Trent was not expecting Kim to have gotten the hang of the technique so quickly so he isn’t able to dodge the shock and it lands directly on his heart.
A scream rattles throughout the training room. A guard is already next to the body checking the pulse. Kim hasn't moved from her spot. Her hand over her mouth and the only change in movement is when a sob racks through her body after the guard announces that he’s dead.
She falls to the ground crying, not being able to make her way over to her friend. Her mother is calmly ordering guards to remove the body. Kim’s in her head yelling at herself for her stupidity . I killed him. I met his family last week and now they’re carrying him out in a bag. How am I supposed to face his children knowing that I shot lightning at his heart.
He’s gone.
Why does everyone I care about leave?
Someone tries to comfort her but she flinches from the contact, gets up, and runs out the room.
-------
A door slams shut and Jason’s clammering down the steps away from the temporary training center. Various grumblings and swears escape his mouth as he ignores the yells of the monks inside. They arrived at the southern air temple weeks ago but Jason hasn’t demonstrated any ability to airbend.
“Maybe you got the wrong guy,” Jason says. “Maybe I’m not the avatar.”
“No, you are definitely the avatar. It is normal to have difficulties with other elements at first,” one of the monks training him says.
Jason lets out a frustrated groan. “For two weeks without any signs!?”
The monk’s eyes wander and Jason takes that as all the confirmation he needs.
He’s been wandering around the temple lost in his thoughts before stumbling across a courtyard with an airball field towards the back. A bunch of kids are in the middle of a practice match but Jason notices a boy around his age who’s sitting on the ground quite far from the field just blowing a leaf up and down.
He approaches him as quietly as possible, not wanting to startle him. He sits cross-legged across from him which startles the airbender a little, but he manages to grab his leaf before it flies away. Jason goes to speak but his brain short circuits when notices how cute this guy is.
“Uh hello,” the boys says with a tilt of his head. Crap . He’s been staring.
“Um, hi,” Jason says ands rubs the back of his head. (this poor gay mess) “I was just wondering why you weren’t playing with the others.”
“Oh, they don’t really like playing with me,” he says causing Jason to frown. “ I get a little too excited sometimes. The monk Tang Xu, my master, thinks I’m not that good of an airbender because you’re supposed to be calm when airbending. I scared the other kids one time because one of my air blasts was too powerful and knocked him out of the tower.”
Jason’s eyes widen and the airbender quickly waves his hand in defense. “It was okay though. He softened the blow with air bending so no one was hurt. I felt really bad even though he said it was okay because I didn’t do it on purpose. The other nomads don’t really understand that though.”
“What do you do to help you bend?” Jason asks.
“Well...this,” he says and holds up the leaf he was bending with earlier. “Airbending has a lot to do with flexibility and it’s the most defensive of all the elements, but it also requires a calm state of mind. I use the leaf to force me to control my strength. But you’re the avatar so strength’s not really your problem-”
“Wait, how do you know I’m the avatar?” Jason interrupts his spiel. He gives him a confused look.
“Why else would you be asking me that question or sitting next to me? An airbender would be joining the others,” he says while nodding in the direction of the airball match. “Plus, you look uncomfortable in our clothing. I recommend getting a size larger because you firebenders tend to like baggy pant-legs.”
“Uh thanks,” Jason says. “So what do you recommend for airbending? I haven’t been able to do it, since I got here.”
“It makes sense you would have a harder time considering you’re a native firebender and that focuses more on aggression and harsh moments as opposed to airbending’s evasive and fluid movements. You just have to find your peace of mind. Meditating is what my master would instruct,” he says.
“What do you do instead of meditating?”
“I think of my dad,” he says. Jason notes the mood shift so he refrains from asking more questions.
““Thank you. I’ll try something similar to that,” Jason says while standing up and is about to walk away before he stops himself. “I never got your name?”
“Oh!” The airbender stands up. He rubs his hands on his robe before extending his hand. “My name’s Billy. Billy Cranston.”
Jason shakes his hand with a smile and says, “I’m Jason Scott.”
-------
In Jason’s next training session he tries to keep a level head. However, it was going just as usual. After meditating for hours, they have Jason stand there to receive a beating of airbending, hoping that one of these attacks will be the one to set things off.
When things aren’t working out he decides to try out Billy’s method of thinking about someone. He thinks about Kim and him laying down in their cave and talking about people they find cute. The fire crackling and Kim’s laughter vibrating in the walls. He thinks of Billy sitting and smiling whenever he successfully keeps the leaf afloat. The crinkle he would get on his forehead whenever he was confused and the little smile he displayed when he was talking with Jason.
He’s in such a blissful state that he almost doesn’t notice that he manages to block and return an airbending attack. There’s several gasps throughout the room, while Jason just stands there staring at his hand in shock. He looks over to Shyu on the side of the room who’s sporting a similar expression.
“Did I just-” Jason says.
“Yup.”
He’s running out of the room grinning before anyone can stop him. People are giving him weird looks as he sprints through the temple but he couldn’t care less. Jason finally spots Billy sitting down eating his lunch and halts to a stop. Billy almost drops his food at the sudden appearance.
“Billy you’re a genius!” Jason yells swooping him into a hug.
“Thank you?” He says in confusion. “Can you stop touching me now?”
-------
Normally, lightning generation requires circular motions to perform. Kim is able to generate lightning with very minimal movement. She is also able to bend it at much faster speeds than would usually be required for a skill so complex. Shocking both her instructors and her mother, she mastered the new technique in merely a week once she was able to get back into it.
Rita’s constant insistence on training is what confused Kimberly. She knew those of the royal family were always highly trained but never at such a fast and rigarious pace. So when there’s a sudden influx of fire nation generals in the palace she decides to find out what’s happening.
They’re all currently inside the meeting room with Rita. She creaks the door open just enough to hear what they’re saying.
“We need more reinforcements if we’re going to go through with this,” one of the guys with a really large mustache says.
“That plan is going to take too long to begin. We need to start now while the earth kingdom is weak,” another man commands. Kim recognizes him as the one who took her father’s place.
“He’s right. Their queen is failing to control their outer reaches and small villages. She seems concerned only for Ba Sing Se,” someone says.
Is this what I think it means?
“Firelord Rita,” her father’s replacement says. “I suggest starting small attacks on failing earth kingdom villages. We’ll get a head start in conquering the earth kingdom and we’ll have more of an advantage with control around their main cities. We can also start on the southern air temple as it’s the closest one.”
“Yeah,” mustache man says with a chuckle. “Those airbenders are useless in a fight.”
“Very well Goldar,” Rita interrupts the laughter in the room. “We’ll go through with your suggestion starting next week. You are all dismissed.”
The shock of what she just learned made Kim almost forget that she had to run if she didn’t want to get discovered. She’s able to make it to her room without alerting anyone, but the sound of her loud sobs alerted Koda who was standing guard, who she quickly sends away.
She didn’t understand how her mother could go through with this. Rita had done many things wrong in her life but attacking millions of innocent people for more power was something that she never saw coming. She has friends in other kingdoms. How are all the fire nation officials in that room agreeing to this?
It’s been about half an hour when Kim decides to head back to the meeting room. The determination in her steps and anger in her eyes had the guards cowering. The doors to the room slam open and her mother is still sitting down writing in her journal. A map is in front of her with a dagger planted on Ba Sing Se.
“Is this why you’ve been training me?!”
Her mother slowly closes her notebook and looks up to her as if she’s just an irritation.
“You’re going to kill innocent lives and for what?” Kim yells. “I am never going to go through with this.”
Rita gets up from her seat in an instant and has Kim pinned to the wall with the dagger at her daughter’s throat. Kim’s heart rate dramatically increases as old memories start resurfacing from her childhood. All the times she had to hide scars and the panic that she would experience after behaving out of line.
“You are going to go through with this,” Rita says. “Unless you want the same experience you gave poor little Trent.” Kim eye’s go dark at the comment.
“I don’t care what you do to me, you’ve already done your worst,” Kim says through gritted teeth, the blade getting a little too close to her neck.
“Is that what you think,” Rita chuckles. “You don’t know the half of it... You, my daughter, are a vital step in this plan,” She says twirling a piece of Kim’s hair.
“If you don’t go through with it, I’ll make sure to kill all your friends, one by one.”
Kim closes her eyes not seeing much of an option and nods her head carefully. The blade is removed and Rita shoves herself away from Kim.
“Together we are going to conquer the world,” Rita says handing her the dagger which she grabs hesitantly.
“Who do you want me to murder mother?” Kim hisses.
Rita stares at her daughter for a moment. There’s a long pause before she speaks.
“The avatar.”
All that is heard is the clang of the dagger after it slips from Kimberly’s hand.