Chapter Text
October 16th , 1989
In the hospital of the small beach town of Phoenix Drop, a woman by the name of Sylvana Odinson was in the process of giving birth. Her husband, stepdaughter, and stepson were sitting the waiting room, anxiously watching the televisions as they wait for a doctor or nurse to come get them.
“Papa! Look on that TV! It’s the Avatar!” Three year old Katelyn whisper-yells to her father, pointing at a television in the corner of the waiting room.
Erik looks up from bouncing his babbling five month old son, Kacey. His daughter was indeed correct. A picture of a smiling Avatar Irene, an earthbender, was on a breaking news station. The televisions in the hospital were muted, but Erik’s eyes sped along the captions.
Avatar shot dead minutes ago.
As soon as Erik reads that fateful line, a male nurse enters the waiting room and calls his name. He quickly stands and takes Katelyn’s chubby hand, leading her towards the nurse, who simply gives Erik a sincere smile and waves for him to follow after him. The walk towards the room only takes four minutes and soon, Erik is standing next to his wife, staring down at his newborn daughter, Katelyn clambering up onto the bed to see her as well.
“Erik, Katelyn, Kacey, meet our new family member, Aphmau.” Sylvanna says, smiling at the child as her little hands curl up around Erik’s finger with a coo.
December 22nd , 2005
Loud laughter rings through the air as large group of teenagers chase each other with snowballs in their hands. The first day of Winter Break had greeted the town of Phoenix Drop with a four inches of snow (a truly rare and special occurrence!) on the ground and pretty much everyone between the ages of six and twenty three was outside, playing in the snow. As stated earlier, though, our focus is on a large group of teenagers running through an empty field on the edge of a very nice neighborhood.
A sixteen year old girl of Hispanic descent turns around, her arm poised to shoot, only to not be able to see her opponent. A whistle behind her causes her to twirl around and her amber eyes widen at the sight of the wall of snow in front of her. It crashes over her, waves of cold rushing through her winter coat. Her head of oil black pokes through the white snow with a string of loud Spanish curses.
“Garroth! No bending! That’s cheating!” The girl finally cries out in English, a seething glare on the blonde haired waterbender, who was bent in half, laughing hysterically while clutching at his stomach.
The girl, named Aphmau, growls at Garroth for not listening and quickly burrows her way out of the snow. She twirls her arms before ending with her fist pointing at her friend, a puff of red-hot fire slashing at the ground in front of Garroth, startling him backwards.
He tumbles over and lands in a fluffy snowbank, disappearing from view for a few moments before returning, a little red in face, though no one could tell if it was simply from the unbearably cold snow or from embarrassment of getting scared by Aphmau. Probably both.
Aphmau snickers to herself, but is cut short by her phone buzzing in her pocket. She pulls it out and notices a text from her mother.
Mom:
Mija, please call me when you get this.
Aphmau’s brain begins to race at what she could have possibly done. Were her grades bad? No, she checked them just before break and she had A’s and B’s in every class. Did she forget to do her chores this morning? Maybe… Did Thorgi tear up the toilet paper again? Probably. Wait, did Kacey burn himself on Katelyn’s hair curler again?! God, she hopes not...
She shakes herself out of her thoughts and waves to her friends, motioning to her phone. Lucinda, an airbender, catches her eye and nods, flashing her a thumbs up before chucking a handful of snowballs at Vlyad, Garroth’s little brother and a non-bender. Aphmau walks a short distance away and scrolls through her contacts, clicking on the picture of her mother and putting the device to her ear, listening to it ring for a few seconds. It clicks and Sylvana begins to talk in Spanish, seeming to want to keep the conversation a secret.
“Aphmau, cariño, hay gente aquí para verte.” Sylvana says, anxiety seeping through her normally confident tone. (Aphmau, honey, there are people here to see you.)
“Mamá, por favor dime qué pasó.” Aphmau responds. (Mom, please tell me what happened.)
“Por favor, solo ven a casa. Te prometo que no estás en problemas.” (Please, just come home. I promise you’re not in trouble.)
And the line goes silent.
Aphmau pulls the phone away from her ear and finds that her mother hung up on her. She groans, but slinks back to her friends, finding them all lying in the snow, staring up at the clouds and a few making snow angels. Upon noticing his latina friend’s return, Zane, Garroth’s other little brother, Vylad’s older brother and another waterbender, reaches a pale hand out to her and pulls Aphmau down next to him in the white blanket covering the earth.
Aphmau remains silent, just watching the clouds with her friends, but her peace only lasts a moment before Zane opens his big, fat, stupid mouth.
“So who were you talking to, Aphmau?” He asks, unaware.
Aphmau groans, turning onto her stomach and staring into the snow for a couple seconds, but lifting her head and explaining that she needs to go home.
“Oh, well… That’s a bummer.” Aaron, another firebender, says to break the silence that had went on a bit too long.
The group laughs softly at Aaron’s social awkwardness. Aphmau stands and bids farewell to her friends, only stopping for a second when her older sister tells her to wait up and departs from the group as well. They back home, which was just a few houses away, in silence. Opening the front door of the housel leads to the reveal of Sylvana, Erik, Kacey as well as two strangers sitting on the sofa. Sylvanna notices her daughters first and motions for them to sit as well. Katelyn claims the last open seat on the couch, leaving Aphmau to climb onto the giant armchair on the left end.
“Okay, everyone is here now. Aphmau, Katelyn, this is Mr. Ivanov and Miss Lacroix.” Erik says, nervously picking at the end of his shirt, further confusing Aphmau.
“Hello, girls. My companion here and I are representatives of Republic City. We were sent on a mission to identify the new Avatar and we believe we have found her.” Ivanov says, a thick Russian accent making it hard for Aphmau to understand him a little.
“Really? So, what doesn that have to do with our family, though?” Katelyn asks, the dense bluenette she is as always.
“We have reason to believe that Miss Aphmau is the new Avatar.” Lacroix says in a light French accent, gesturing towards the short and unthreatening firebender sinking into the large, plush armchair.
The family stares in shock at the representatives and Aphmau, fear of losing the normality of her life, shakes her head and sinks deeper into the chair, gripping at the arms until her knuckles turn white.
“No, no, no, no, no! That’s impossible, I’m just a firebender!” Aphmau exclaims.
“Aphmau, we simply need to know is you examine these relics and tell us if you recognize them. That’s all.” Lacroix says, reaching into her bag and pulling out from very old looking toys.
Unfortunately, Aphmau recognizes them and that expression shows all over her face, the representatives looking pleased with themselves. They quickly pack up all there things and tell Aphmau to pack some things for her journey and be ready to leave by nine o’clock tomorrow morning.
She needs to master the elements after all.