it turns out EOD has twenty subscriptions?
Nov. 8th, 2019 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineThat's about 18 more than I expected, so... :)
fic: one more tomorrow (2/?)
verse: the edge of darkness (Amon backstory + f!Tarrlok)
characters: Noatak, Tarrlok; Hiroshi Sato, OCs—background characters
stuff that happens: Amon keeps an eye on Taraka as he escalates his efforts to bring equality.
previous sections: one
CHAPTER TWO
Amon quickly gathered his senses and his composure, conscious of raising questions if he just stood there gawking at the newspaper. He rolled it up and set out on his daily business under the most impenetrable of his disguises—his own face, unmasked and unscarred, and faded blue clothes. Nobody ever saw anything in that man but a poor if polite waterbender.
Except the triads, but he didn’t quite trust himself with them today.
That night, Amon put on make-up, anonymous grey, and his mask, and headed out to lead an advanced training session. He was as confident and decisive as ever with the students he taught, and careful to keep an eye on those he’d assigned to his most advanced pupils. With his own, he patiently offered suggestions that would lead to the solutions he meant them to reach. He couldn’t fail them or risk himself just because someone he no longer knew had come to Republic City.
Afterwards, he disappeared into the night, hid the mask in his bag, and gradually wound his way to his apartment, alert to anyone who might be following him. Nobody dared. Locking the door, he tossed the bag aside, lit a lamp, and washed the carefully constructed scar off his face. It was everything he always did.
Then he unfurled the newspaper and pored over the column and photograph again, his pulse thudding in his ears. He felt almost certain that the woman in the picture was his sister. Not broken after all, but successful and, to go by her expression, contented with the course of her life.
He’d forced her to stand on her own two feet. Maybe it’d been good for her, difficult though that was to envision. Perhaps some lucky chance had befriended her, like their parents dropping dead. Perhaps—he couldn’t know. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even know her public facade.
The last, at least, he could change.
Dimly, an idea tugged at the back of his mind, though he couldn’t pin it down. Never mind; it would emerge in its own time, as all his ideas did. For now, he’d find a way to attend a speech or some such that Taraka might attend. In person, he would know for certain.
It wasn’t difficult. Almost immediately after Taraka’s arrival in Republic City, the council held a public assembly—something to do with crime—at which each of the members spoke. Amon stood well to the back, jostled by other eager attendees, but he didn’t care.
It was her.
Before she spoke a word, he knew. He could feel her there as he felt himself. His sister had found her way to Republic City.
Was she here for Yakone’s revenge, after all? Or did she mean to do good? That, he couldn’t say. Amon watched and listened as the other councillors droned through their speeches, mouthing the words with little interest and less charisma. Would Taraka be more of the same? He remembered that she had been a good speaker as a child, in the right circumstances able to wheedle even Yakone, and a ready liar. Maybe she’d found the right career after all.
For a certain value of right.
When her turn came, Taraka strode up to the podium, the ropes of her hair swinging. Amon, accustomed to performance, scrutinized her. She wore fine clothes in appropriate shades of blue and white, but they didn’t seem to quite fit her; it gave the impression of a certain carelessness that he didn’t approve of. They also gave the impression that she was bigger than she could really be, however, which might be the real purpose. Or perhaps she’d been ill.
Taraka adjusted the podium with a slight frown, then lifted her head and gazed out at the audience with every appearance of confidence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, leaning forward intently. Her voice was deeper than he remembered, but unmistakably hers, and pitched high enough to be heard throughout the crowd. “Words, words, words. All you hear is words while the triads invade your neighbourhoods and homes!”
A jolt rippled through the audience. From the back, Amon could see it clearly. The other councilmembers glanced at each other.
“We’ve had enough of meaningless talk. It’s time for action,” she went on, her gaze running over the people gathered in front of her. “Believe me, I understand that. I was appointed to represent my people, but I have every intention of representing all of you and advancing your best interests. As your councilwoman, I’m going to pursue the criminals and predators in this city with every tool at my disposal and get them off our streets!”
She slammed her hand down on the podium.
They were with her now. Amon clapped alongside the rest, if with somewhat less enthusiasm. She seemed strong, assertive, determined—everything he could have hoped she’d become. Yet it disturbed him, deeply. This was wrong.
Taraka went on, “Trust me. They will pay for what they’ve done!”
Around him, the applause grew louder, joined by the occasional cheer. Taraka straightened up and lifted her other hand until the crowd quieted.
“I look forward to fighting for each of you and all of Republic City. Thank you for your time and patience,” she said, with a sudden bright smile.
In the front, reporters lifted their cameras.
“Do you have specific measures in mind, councilwoman?” one asked.
Taraka held her pose and her smile. “Yes, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t immediately reveal them in a public forum.”
Another raised his hand. “Councilwoman Taraka—”
It was too late. The other reporters, encouraged at receiving an answer, sprang up.
“Do you think the triads are the greatest threat facing Republic City?”
“What do you think of Chief Beifong? Are you planning to coordinate with her?”
“Are you going to run for election?”
Taraka laughed outright. “Forgive me—this is a very serious matter, but I’ve been in office a week. Right now, all I’m thinking about is how I can best serve Republic City. Thank you, everyone.”
With a slight, dignified nod, she withdrew from the podium to her seat among the other members of the council. As soon as she did, a half-dozen conversations broke out near Amon, the other listeners paying virtually no attention to the closing remarks of the chairman. He himself felt as if she had taken some part of the air with her, the atmosphere flattening in a peculiar, inexpressible way.
He took a deep breath, thinking of his students’ intense focus when he walked into a room, and his sense of their deflation when he left it. This must be what they felt. Yes: whatever else Taraka might have become, she was no Nuniq or Tenzin. As for the rest—
Well, he’d wait and see.
Taraka was as true to her word as any reasonable person could expect. The city ramped up its pursuit of the triads and increased sentences for anyone found attacking a citizen. She personally brought in more than one group of bending criminals, which Amon should have approved of, but instead found unsettling.
It didn’t stop them, any more than a certain vigilante waterbender had stopped the Red Monsoons, but it succeeded in giving the impression that the city was taking action. Where others dithered impotently, Councilwoman Taraka got things done.
That, he suspected, was her real intent, or at least the primary one. He had no reason to doubt that Taraka hated criminals, but everything she said or did seemed geared to benefit her. She made no sacrifices that he could tell, risked nothing, revealed nothing, instead constantly projecting stern authority or breaking into pleasant, satisfied smiles. Her pictures in the paper were always flattering and the coverage fawning; she’d clearly cultivated good relationships with the press.
At no point did she evince the slightest concerns for non-benders. Rather the opposite—if she slipped at all, it was in using earthbenders, waterbenders, and firebenders to refer to entire populations, bending and non-bending alike. Whenever anyone raised attention to the plight of non-benders after a speech, she shrugged them off, dismissing protesters as lazy and sheltered.
“We all have our problems,” she said. “But the triads don’t stop to check if you can bend or not.”
He was disappointed in her. Very disappointed. The girl who had wrung her heart over elephantrats and wolves had since become a slippery, self-serving woman with no sympathy for an entire group of human beings. What had happened to her?
If it was Yakone—if it was Yakone’s influence without Noatak there to shield her from it—then—
No, it wasn’t his fault. She had stayed behind.
She was a child, part of him protested. He could have gone back for her. He repressed the thought, and the memory of her voice calling after him; he had enough problems without resurrecting pointless recollections of a past that scarcely belonged to him. Taraka had made her choices.
And those choices meant he couldn’t trust her.
For himself, the crackdown complicated his already-complicated existence. The Equalists had to avoid the city’s increased scrutiny, and when he ventured into triad territory, he had decent odds of encountering city guards unless he planned his excursions with care. The difficulty sharpened his interest, however, and he found himself doing it more and more, trying different techniques. Bloodbending without giving it away while dodging and chi-blocking was a challenge—but he liked challenges.
A year passed, then two. Once Taraka’s interim appointment ran out, she did run for her seat, executing a particularly ruthless campaign against her opponent and smiling all the while. She easily won.
Meanwhile, among the Equalists, an introduction to the friend of an acquaintance changed everything.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Amon said. In the moment, he felt more distant curiosity than anticipation.
“The pleasure is all mine,” said Hiroshi Sato.
Hiroshi was delighted at the chance to help—so delighted, in fact, that Amon kept a sharp eye out for betrayal. It never came. Eventually, the man revealed that his wife had been murdered by benders. He’d gladly see every single one of them wiped off the face of the earth.
Amon had no intention of perpetrating mass slaughter. But he did understand the necessity for benders to experience the fear they inflicted on so many—the fear that Yasuko Sato had felt. There would be no true equality until they understood what they’d done.
Belatedly, he remembered that he was a bender himself. But he understood, thanks to Yakone. Yakone himself hadn’t; wouldn’t he have been a different man if he knew what it was to be afraid?
(Yet Taraka had known. As ever, Amon banished the thought.)
The Equalists needed to show the city what he, Amon, showed the triads. But the non-benders of the city couldn’t do what he did—not all of it. They’d need help.
It was Hiroshi, mechanical genius that he was, who came up with the idea of technological enhancements. Lightningbenders weren’t the only source of power in the city. It would take some experimentation, of course, and a great many resources, but Hiroshi was only too willing to offer them. Amon, pierced by hope of more than he’d dared to imagine, readily gave him the go-ahead.
They were talking, he realized, of revolution.
Amon was looking over some of Hiroshi’s latest designs when the thought returned to him: the problem was that anything they might do would be temporary. Either they’d be left with thousands of angry benders on their hands, or they’d have to keep chi-blocking every single person indefinitely. No, they needed to go beyond blocking chi; they needed to completely alter the flow of it. And there was no way of doing that, except healing, and—
Except healing. Except waterbending.
Amon’s thoughts raced around his mind, so fast that he could scarcely follow them. Waterbending did the opposite of what he needed. No, healing did the opposite of what he needed. Could he reverse it in some way? He’d never tried. With bloodbending, there was no need for—bloodbending! Was that the answer? If he tied it to healing somehow—
He didn’t know if it would work. Like Hiroshi, he’d have to experiment. He almost laughed at the idea of Hiroshi’s face if he heard his efforts compared to bending. But it was a necessary evil in this case.
Amon returned to his fights with the triads, this time with rather different intentions.
He needed live subjects.
He didn’t succeed the first time. Or the tenth. Sometimes he thought his epiphany must be wrong, and disrupting bending lay beyond his powers, however extensive they might be. Sometimes he nearly cringed from the results; some of the subjects turned catatonic, and a good number died. They were predators, he reminded himself, not innocent people. Still, he didn’t like killing, even on accident. He didn't want anyone dead at his hands. Nor did he want them wrecked for life. He just wanted them to fear and understand, and then to be purified.
Someday, he promised himself. Someday he would succeed. He could admit no other possibility.
In the event, it took him years—years in which Hiroshi tinkered and the Equalists began standing up for themselves, more and more publicly. The council responded by treating them as no more than another threat, and plainly regarded most non-benders as either suspect or victims. His hand-picked deputies, though always respectful, urged action that would force the city to recognize them as a major force; it was Amon who insisted on waiting until the time was right.
He didn’t mean waiting for the council to see reason. They never would, any of them. Even Taraka.
Particularly Taraka. He’d have liked to imagine that she had simply fallen under the malign sway of her peers, as she had lived under his sway in their childhood. But it was Taraka who spoke out most aggressively against the Equalists, Taraka who advocated for harsher penalties for attacks on benders, Taraka whose reputation rose until the council elected her chairwoman, Taraka who seemed the worst of them all. A monster.
And yet, his sister still. When the Avatar’s son voted present for her confirmation as chair, Amon prickled despite himself. Did Tenzin think he could do a better job? Pah. At least Taraka had made something of herself. Something terrible, to be sure, but she had more competence than the rest of the council combined.
She was thirty-six that year, Amon thirty-nine. No longer young, either of them; twenty-three years had passed since their last interchange. Twenty-three years, ten more than their entire childhood together, and it still haunted him at odd moments. Maybe it always would. They’d suffered from bending, and the bonds of suffering were not easily broken. The Equalists proved that by the day.
It was that year, also, that Amon first laid his thumb on a captive firebender’s forehead, concentrated on the paths he’d known from his youth, and with a slight, careful exercise of his will, severed his firebending. It was still there, but completely inaccessible.
The firebender crumpled, and for a moment, Amon feared that he’d failed yet again. Instead, the man scrambled up and punched the air in Amon’s direction. Nothing happened. The firebender stared at his fist while Amon waited patiently, then swung his leg. By force of habit, Amon tracked the movement, ready to dodge out of the way—but he knew he didn’t need to.
He’d found the solution.
He was the solution.
fic: one more tomorrow (2/?)
verse: the edge of darkness (Amon backstory + f!Tarrlok)
characters: Noatak, Tarrlok; Hiroshi Sato, OCs—background characters
stuff that happens: Amon keeps an eye on Taraka as he escalates his efforts to bring equality.
previous sections: one
When the Avatar’s son voted present for her confirmation as chair, Amon prickled despite himself. Did Tenzin think he could do a better job? Pah. At least Taraka had made something of herself. Something terrible, to be sure, but she had more competence than the rest of the council combined.
She was thirty-six that year, Amon thirty-nine. No longer young, either of them; twenty-three years had passed since their last interchange. Twenty-three years, ten more than their entire childhood together, and it still haunted him at odd moments. Maybe it always would. They’d suffered from bending, and the bonds of suffering were not easily broken.
She was thirty-six that year, Amon thirty-nine. No longer young, either of them; twenty-three years had passed since their last interchange. Twenty-three years, ten more than their entire childhood together, and it still haunted him at odd moments. Maybe it always would. They’d suffered from bending, and the bonds of suffering were not easily broken.
CHAPTER TWO
Amon quickly gathered his senses and his composure, conscious of raising questions if he just stood there gawking at the newspaper. He rolled it up and set out on his daily business under the most impenetrable of his disguises—his own face, unmasked and unscarred, and faded blue clothes. Nobody ever saw anything in that man but a poor if polite waterbender.
Except the triads, but he didn’t quite trust himself with them today.
That night, Amon put on make-up, anonymous grey, and his mask, and headed out to lead an advanced training session. He was as confident and decisive as ever with the students he taught, and careful to keep an eye on those he’d assigned to his most advanced pupils. With his own, he patiently offered suggestions that would lead to the solutions he meant them to reach. He couldn’t fail them or risk himself just because someone he no longer knew had come to Republic City.
Afterwards, he disappeared into the night, hid the mask in his bag, and gradually wound his way to his apartment, alert to anyone who might be following him. Nobody dared. Locking the door, he tossed the bag aside, lit a lamp, and washed the carefully constructed scar off his face. It was everything he always did.
Then he unfurled the newspaper and pored over the column and photograph again, his pulse thudding in his ears. He felt almost certain that the woman in the picture was his sister. Not broken after all, but successful and, to go by her expression, contented with the course of her life.
He’d forced her to stand on her own two feet. Maybe it’d been good for her, difficult though that was to envision. Perhaps some lucky chance had befriended her, like their parents dropping dead. Perhaps—he couldn’t know. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even know her public facade.
The last, at least, he could change.
Dimly, an idea tugged at the back of his mind, though he couldn’t pin it down. Never mind; it would emerge in its own time, as all his ideas did. For now, he’d find a way to attend a speech or some such that Taraka might attend. In person, he would know for certain.
It wasn’t difficult. Almost immediately after Taraka’s arrival in Republic City, the council held a public assembly—something to do with crime—at which each of the members spoke. Amon stood well to the back, jostled by other eager attendees, but he didn’t care.
It was her.
Before she spoke a word, he knew. He could feel her there as he felt himself. His sister had found her way to Republic City.
Was she here for Yakone’s revenge, after all? Or did she mean to do good? That, he couldn’t say. Amon watched and listened as the other councillors droned through their speeches, mouthing the words with little interest and less charisma. Would Taraka be more of the same? He remembered that she had been a good speaker as a child, in the right circumstances able to wheedle even Yakone, and a ready liar. Maybe she’d found the right career after all.
For a certain value of right.
When her turn came, Taraka strode up to the podium, the ropes of her hair swinging. Amon, accustomed to performance, scrutinized her. She wore fine clothes in appropriate shades of blue and white, but they didn’t seem to quite fit her; it gave the impression of a certain carelessness that he didn’t approve of. They also gave the impression that she was bigger than she could really be, however, which might be the real purpose. Or perhaps she’d been ill.
Taraka adjusted the podium with a slight frown, then lifted her head and gazed out at the audience with every appearance of confidence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, leaning forward intently. Her voice was deeper than he remembered, but unmistakably hers, and pitched high enough to be heard throughout the crowd. “Words, words, words. All you hear is words while the triads invade your neighbourhoods and homes!”
A jolt rippled through the audience. From the back, Amon could see it clearly. The other councilmembers glanced at each other.
“We’ve had enough of meaningless talk. It’s time for action,” she went on, her gaze running over the people gathered in front of her. “Believe me, I understand that. I was appointed to represent my people, but I have every intention of representing all of you and advancing your best interests. As your councilwoman, I’m going to pursue the criminals and predators in this city with every tool at my disposal and get them off our streets!”
She slammed her hand down on the podium.
They were with her now. Amon clapped alongside the rest, if with somewhat less enthusiasm. She seemed strong, assertive, determined—everything he could have hoped she’d become. Yet it disturbed him, deeply. This was wrong.
Taraka went on, “Trust me. They will pay for what they’ve done!”
Around him, the applause grew louder, joined by the occasional cheer. Taraka straightened up and lifted her other hand until the crowd quieted.
“I look forward to fighting for each of you and all of Republic City. Thank you for your time and patience,” she said, with a sudden bright smile.
In the front, reporters lifted their cameras.
“Do you have specific measures in mind, councilwoman?” one asked.
Taraka held her pose and her smile. “Yes, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t immediately reveal them in a public forum.”
Another raised his hand. “Councilwoman Taraka—”
It was too late. The other reporters, encouraged at receiving an answer, sprang up.
“Do you think the triads are the greatest threat facing Republic City?”
“What do you think of Chief Beifong? Are you planning to coordinate with her?”
“Are you going to run for election?”
Taraka laughed outright. “Forgive me—this is a very serious matter, but I’ve been in office a week. Right now, all I’m thinking about is how I can best serve Republic City. Thank you, everyone.”
With a slight, dignified nod, she withdrew from the podium to her seat among the other members of the council. As soon as she did, a half-dozen conversations broke out near Amon, the other listeners paying virtually no attention to the closing remarks of the chairman. He himself felt as if she had taken some part of the air with her, the atmosphere flattening in a peculiar, inexpressible way.
He took a deep breath, thinking of his students’ intense focus when he walked into a room, and his sense of their deflation when he left it. This must be what they felt. Yes: whatever else Taraka might have become, she was no Nuniq or Tenzin. As for the rest—
Well, he’d wait and see.
Taraka was as true to her word as any reasonable person could expect. The city ramped up its pursuit of the triads and increased sentences for anyone found attacking a citizen. She personally brought in more than one group of bending criminals, which Amon should have approved of, but instead found unsettling.
It didn’t stop them, any more than a certain vigilante waterbender had stopped the Red Monsoons, but it succeeded in giving the impression that the city was taking action. Where others dithered impotently, Councilwoman Taraka got things done.
That, he suspected, was her real intent, or at least the primary one. He had no reason to doubt that Taraka hated criminals, but everything she said or did seemed geared to benefit her. She made no sacrifices that he could tell, risked nothing, revealed nothing, instead constantly projecting stern authority or breaking into pleasant, satisfied smiles. Her pictures in the paper were always flattering and the coverage fawning; she’d clearly cultivated good relationships with the press.
At no point did she evince the slightest concerns for non-benders. Rather the opposite—if she slipped at all, it was in using earthbenders, waterbenders, and firebenders to refer to entire populations, bending and non-bending alike. Whenever anyone raised attention to the plight of non-benders after a speech, she shrugged them off, dismissing protesters as lazy and sheltered.
“We all have our problems,” she said. “But the triads don’t stop to check if you can bend or not.”
He was disappointed in her. Very disappointed. The girl who had wrung her heart over elephantrats and wolves had since become a slippery, self-serving woman with no sympathy for an entire group of human beings. What had happened to her?
If it was Yakone—if it was Yakone’s influence without Noatak there to shield her from it—then—
No, it wasn’t his fault. She had stayed behind.
She was a child, part of him protested. He could have gone back for her. He repressed the thought, and the memory of her voice calling after him; he had enough problems without resurrecting pointless recollections of a past that scarcely belonged to him. Taraka had made her choices.
And those choices meant he couldn’t trust her.
For himself, the crackdown complicated his already-complicated existence. The Equalists had to avoid the city’s increased scrutiny, and when he ventured into triad territory, he had decent odds of encountering city guards unless he planned his excursions with care. The difficulty sharpened his interest, however, and he found himself doing it more and more, trying different techniques. Bloodbending without giving it away while dodging and chi-blocking was a challenge—but he liked challenges.
A year passed, then two. Once Taraka’s interim appointment ran out, she did run for her seat, executing a particularly ruthless campaign against her opponent and smiling all the while. She easily won.
Meanwhile, among the Equalists, an introduction to the friend of an acquaintance changed everything.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Amon said. In the moment, he felt more distant curiosity than anticipation.
“The pleasure is all mine,” said Hiroshi Sato.
Hiroshi was delighted at the chance to help—so delighted, in fact, that Amon kept a sharp eye out for betrayal. It never came. Eventually, the man revealed that his wife had been murdered by benders. He’d gladly see every single one of them wiped off the face of the earth.
Amon had no intention of perpetrating mass slaughter. But he did understand the necessity for benders to experience the fear they inflicted on so many—the fear that Yasuko Sato had felt. There would be no true equality until they understood what they’d done.
Belatedly, he remembered that he was a bender himself. But he understood, thanks to Yakone. Yakone himself hadn’t; wouldn’t he have been a different man if he knew what it was to be afraid?
(Yet Taraka had known. As ever, Amon banished the thought.)
The Equalists needed to show the city what he, Amon, showed the triads. But the non-benders of the city couldn’t do what he did—not all of it. They’d need help.
It was Hiroshi, mechanical genius that he was, who came up with the idea of technological enhancements. Lightningbenders weren’t the only source of power in the city. It would take some experimentation, of course, and a great many resources, but Hiroshi was only too willing to offer them. Amon, pierced by hope of more than he’d dared to imagine, readily gave him the go-ahead.
They were talking, he realized, of revolution.
Amon was looking over some of Hiroshi’s latest designs when the thought returned to him: the problem was that anything they might do would be temporary. Either they’d be left with thousands of angry benders on their hands, or they’d have to keep chi-blocking every single person indefinitely. No, they needed to go beyond blocking chi; they needed to completely alter the flow of it. And there was no way of doing that, except healing, and—
Except healing. Except waterbending.
Amon’s thoughts raced around his mind, so fast that he could scarcely follow them. Waterbending did the opposite of what he needed. No, healing did the opposite of what he needed. Could he reverse it in some way? He’d never tried. With bloodbending, there was no need for—bloodbending! Was that the answer? If he tied it to healing somehow—
He didn’t know if it would work. Like Hiroshi, he’d have to experiment. He almost laughed at the idea of Hiroshi’s face if he heard his efforts compared to bending. But it was a necessary evil in this case.
Amon returned to his fights with the triads, this time with rather different intentions.
He needed live subjects.
He didn’t succeed the first time. Or the tenth. Sometimes he thought his epiphany must be wrong, and disrupting bending lay beyond his powers, however extensive they might be. Sometimes he nearly cringed from the results; some of the subjects turned catatonic, and a good number died. They were predators, he reminded himself, not innocent people. Still, he didn’t like killing, even on accident. He didn't want anyone dead at his hands. Nor did he want them wrecked for life. He just wanted them to fear and understand, and then to be purified.
Someday, he promised himself. Someday he would succeed. He could admit no other possibility.
In the event, it took him years—years in which Hiroshi tinkered and the Equalists began standing up for themselves, more and more publicly. The council responded by treating them as no more than another threat, and plainly regarded most non-benders as either suspect or victims. His hand-picked deputies, though always respectful, urged action that would force the city to recognize them as a major force; it was Amon who insisted on waiting until the time was right.
He didn’t mean waiting for the council to see reason. They never would, any of them. Even Taraka.
Particularly Taraka. He’d have liked to imagine that she had simply fallen under the malign sway of her peers, as she had lived under his sway in their childhood. But it was Taraka who spoke out most aggressively against the Equalists, Taraka who advocated for harsher penalties for attacks on benders, Taraka whose reputation rose until the council elected her chairwoman, Taraka who seemed the worst of them all. A monster.
And yet, his sister still. When the Avatar’s son voted present for her confirmation as chair, Amon prickled despite himself. Did Tenzin think he could do a better job? Pah. At least Taraka had made something of herself. Something terrible, to be sure, but she had more competence than the rest of the council combined.
She was thirty-six that year, Amon thirty-nine. No longer young, either of them; twenty-three years had passed since their last interchange. Twenty-three years, ten more than their entire childhood together, and it still haunted him at odd moments. Maybe it always would. They’d suffered from bending, and the bonds of suffering were not easily broken. The Equalists proved that by the day.
It was that year, also, that Amon first laid his thumb on a captive firebender’s forehead, concentrated on the paths he’d known from his youth, and with a slight, careful exercise of his will, severed his firebending. It was still there, but completely inaccessible.
The firebender crumpled, and for a moment, Amon feared that he’d failed yet again. Instead, the man scrambled up and punched the air in Amon’s direction. Nothing happened. The firebender stared at his fist while Amon waited patiently, then swung his leg. By force of habit, Amon tracked the movement, ready to dodge out of the way—but he knew he didn’t need to.
He’d found the solution.
He was the solution.
