Chapter Text
There was a little rectangular garden tucked behind the apartment building, with a small shed to one side that the residents used to store their gardening tools. In the space between the shed and the brick wall dividing the garden from the next row of apartments, Sunal huddled, hugging her knees, staring at the dirt.
She could hear her sister calling for her, but didn’t think to respond. Instead she sat there and willed herself not to cry, focusing on her breathing, feeling the earth beneath her feet and the comfort of the close space. The little garden spirit stopped to stare at her as it passed by the opening, then continued on its way.
“Sun!” her sister called again. She was in the garden now, Sunal could tell. She always knew exactly where to find her. It was only moments later when Jinnak’s face poked around the corner, and she peered down at the girl.
“Sun,” she said again, now in a calmer tone. “There you are.”
“Now everyone knows, Jin,” Sunal said. She could hardly breathe or speak the words.
“They were going to find out eventually,” Jinnak knelt down at the edge of the shed, smiling halfheartedly at her younger sister. “You only had seven months left anyways.”
Sunal just buried her forehead in her knees.
“Come on,” Jinnak said, “let’s go inside.” She waited for a moment, and then sighed when Sunal still didn’t respond. “You’re not getting anything done just sitting out here, Sun. Come inside and wash up and eat or something.”
“Did mom send you to get me? That sounds like something mom would say.”
“Mom didn’t send me. I haven’t even seen mom yet.”
Staring her bent lap, Sunal thought about that. It was still the middle of the day; her mother should be at work, as should Jinnak. She’d have to have left work early to come get Sunal. Slowly, Sunal began to stand up. Jinnak looked relieved.
“How did you hear?”
“I’m extremely perceptive,” Jinnak said, trying to brush off the question. Sunal followed her out into the garden, but she stared at her, waiting for a real answer. A frown creased Jinnak’s face. “One of the other drivers mentioned there was some hubbub at your school. I asked for the day off. It’s no big deal.”
“So everyone knows then.”
“You’re going to be fine, Sun. It’ll all be fine.”
*
When her mother walked into the apartment, Sunal was sitting on the couch deeply engrossed in the game playing out on the screen before her. The cord from the game controller in her hands snaked across the floor to the machine under the TV, joining all the other wires and cords scattered about. Her mother set her purse down on the kitchen table and instantly went to hug her daughter’s shoulders. “Is everything OK?” she asked. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, mom,” Sunal said.
“She’s fine,” Jinnak repeated from the kitchen where she was washing dishes.
“You sure?” their mother asked again. She stood up to let her daughter go, and Sunal frowned. She’d complain about it a lot, but secretly she liked having her mom’s arms around her.
“I’ll be fine,” she said instead. Sunal pretended to still be concentrating on the game, but it was more a distraction than anything else. A game she had played many times before already, which she didn’t have to think too hard about to win.
“That’s different than what you said before,” but instead of pressing the point Sunal’s mother headed back into the kitchen to retrieve her purse. “I’m allowed to worry you know,” she added, as if trying to stand up for herself. Jinnak paused what she was doing to turn the faucet off, then turned to give her mother a quick, if slightly damp, hug.
“Of course you are,” she said, and then in a lower voice, “she’s still dealing with it, don’t push her.”
Sunal said nothing. Now that she was calmer, she was started to mentally berate herself for her reaction, reminding herself of everything Jinnak had already said, that this was going to have come to light eventually anyways. That there was no good in freaking out like that. The words of the White Lotus delegates repeating themselves in her head, wondering why she should have kept it hidden in the first place.
The thought suddenly occurred to her, and she paused her game. “The White Lotus will be here soon,” she said, turning around on the couch to face the open half of the kitchen, “won’t they? Have they called yet? They usually call.”
Her mother seemed hesitant to respond, to which Sunal frowned and turned back to the screen. “They must know what happened,” she muttered loudly, “it’s not like anything I do is secret from them. They always know when something happens.” She pursed her lips, remembering.
“I told them to hold off for a while.” Sunal’s mother strode through the living room to the hallway towards the master bedroom. “They might be here later this evening but not until your father gets home, at least.
Sunal just nodded. That was what she expected. She unpaused her game as her mom disappeared into the hallway, and Jinnak went back to washing dishes, no one saying anything. When she was done, Jinnak left to go to her room as well, leaving Sunal alone in the main room of the house.
The music from the game filled the otherwise quiet room but it was no longer much of a distraction. She tried for another few minutes to focus on the screen, but found she couldn’t get her mind off of what she most wanted to forget. Dwelling on it was dangerous, she knew, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.
When her face started to get hot and she realized she’d been sitting there, staring at nothing for several minutes, Sunal paused the game again and promptly stood up, taking a deep breath and heading towards the kitchen. In the sink, she let the water run for a bit to cool before cupping it in her hands and wetting her face. It soaked the black strands hanging over her cheeks and the fringe over her brow, but it felt nice. The dishtowel Jinnak had been using was still damp, so Sunal grabbed a new one to dry her face with.
It didn’t make her feel a whole lot, but she didn’t feel like she was about to cry anymore either.
There was a sudden knock on the door and Sunal’s stomach filled with dread until she realized it was much too early for the promised visit. Light was still streaming in through the cracks in the kitchen window curtain; it was even too early for her father to be home.
She crossed the kitchen to the foyer to open the door. Mi-ryung stood on the other side, staring up at her unblinkingly through messy curls. Behind her was a neighbor woman, the lady who lived upstairs and walked all the children back to the complex after daycare.
“Hello Sun!” The woman said brightly, and Sunal plastered on a smile.
“Hello!” she said, “thanks for bringing Mi back!” They exchanged pleasantries for a moment while Mi-ryung passed into the room, dumping her shoes and her schoolbag on the floor, then Sunal said goodbye and closed the door.
“I had a good day,” Mi-ryung said without being asked. She had the fridge door open, staring inside. It was the same thing she would recite to whomever opened the door when she came home in the afternoon, a habit formed out of protest for their parent’s constant questions. She didn’t say anything else and Sunal didn’t feel the need to ask anything else.
Sunal closed the fridge door after a moment when it was apparent her little sister wasn’t getting anything out. “The white robes are coming over later,” she warned. She sat back down on her spot on the couch, but the game remained paused.
“Did something happen?”
“Sorta.” Sunal didn’t know what to say. To change the subject, she said, “get your stuff, and go tell mom you’re home.”
Mi-ryung obeyed wordlessly, picking up her shoes and her bag and leaving down the hallway.
Sunal didn’t realize how much time had passed when she heard footsteps out the front door again, and suddenly realized just how dark it had gotten in the family room. Setting her game to save, she quickly jumped up to turn the light on just as the front door opened. When her father walked in to the kitchen, she was standing in the archway between the kitchen and family room, staring down at the floor unassumingly.
“Hey,” he said softly. There was a pause as she said nothing back, and he skipped through all the ‘how was your day’ parts of their usual greeting. “Is everyone else home already?”
“Yep.”
“Anyone been by?” They both knew what he meant, and Sunal shook her head.
“Not yet.”
Her father sighed, then pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat down. “We should probably eat,” he said. “Before it’s much later.” Sunal nodded.
“We have leftovers,” she said, “I could reheat something.”
“I should cook something properly,” her father countered. Sunal wanted to point out that he was still wearing his shoes, still sitting at the table, had just barely come home.
Doors opened elsewhere in the apartment, though, and Jinnak reappeared moments later carrying some book she was reading. She positioned herself on the couch while their mother came out, hugging their father and asking about his day, making small talk.
“What do you want?” Sunal asked Jinnak while their parents chatted. She’d scavenged the refrigerator and held up two different glass containers of leftovers from the previous nights. Jinnak glanced up, then made a face.
“Not leftovers,” she said, “I want real food.”
“This is real food.” Sunal grimaced a bit at her own words, but she was too emotionally drained to worry about sounding rude now.
Jinnak sighed and set her book down before standing up and joining the others in the kitchen. “Move,” she said, not unkindly. Sunal stood out of the way and watched as Jinnak riffled through the pantry for a bit and set out an assortment of vegetables. “Is fish OK?” she asked, turning to their parents sitting at the table.
Their mother seemed a bit surprised. “Are you cooking?” she asked.
“I’m hungry and I don’t want to wait much later. I’m guessing fish is OK? I’ll have to go buy more tomorrow,” she added almost absentmindedly. Without waiting for permission, she pulled out the boiling pot and steam basket.
“There are leftovers,” their father said, but then he slowly stood up and led their mother to continue their conversation in the family room. Sunal stayed to watch her sister fill the pot and lay the fish from the ice box along the bottom.
“Will there be enough?” Sunal asked.
“There’s only five of us,” Jinnak huffed. She started chopping vegetables while the fish defrosted, and Sunal sat down behind her at the table, staring at nothing in particular. After a moment, Jinnak said, quietly, “have you given much thought to what you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Sunal said. “I suppose I’ll have to go train properly now or something.”
“It’s still your choice, you know.” Jinnak moved the fish onto the steam basket and set the fire below the pot, then sat down where their mother had been sitting. “Don’t let them pressure you into doing anything you’re uncomfortable with.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable with anything,” Sunal said. “That’s the problem. I can’t just hide from the world, that’s not fair to anybody, but I don’t want to fight, I don’t like to fight, and I don’t want to be some important leader because I’m not a leader-” she paused to take a breath when she noticed her voice getting too loud “-and there’s no way to be myself and make everyone happy, and I just wish I hadn’t been born the avatar.”
For several moments Jinnak didn’t respond. She sat on the kitchen chair watching the flame under the pot of water with her arms crossed, then closed her eyes.
“Well, you were born the avatar,” she finally said, frowning. “You have to deal with that. You spent fifteen years learning the best ways to not deal with it, and now you have got to learn how to deal with it. You can’t-” she sighed, then spoke quieter. “You can’t just keep hiding who you are or wishing it away, Sun. You have to accept yourself and work with yourself.”
With that, she went back to the stove to dump the vegetables into the boiling water. Sunal stared down at the table, the words repeating themselves in her head.
Their father called Mi-ryung in ten minutes later when the meal was done, and the five of them set the table together before sitting down. With her back to the front door, Sunal couldn’t glance at it every few minutes even though she wanted to, her nerves tensing even more as the night wore on. She volunteered to wash dishes when everyone was done, to give her hands something to do. Mi-ryung helped, and they didn’t talk, working silently as they usually did until the table and sink were both clean. Then, trying not to seem too eager, Sunal headed straight towards her bedroom.
Her bed was the bottom of the two, neatly made at all times. She climbed onto it and sat inconspicuously behind the ladder, hugging her knees loosely to her chest, hiding. Mi-ryung followed a few minutes later, closing the door behind her and sitting with her back against the frame of Sunal’s bed. Neither of them said a word for a minute.
“It’s getting late,” Sunal finally spoke.
“No it’s not.” Sunal glanced up at their wall clock, hanging above the bedroom door opposite, and realized her sister was right. Though they had eaten dinner, and everyone was home from work, there was still plenty of the evening left. On a normal night, Jinnak wouldn’t have even been home yet.
“I don’t want the white cloaks to get here, but I won’t be able to calm down until they do. I still won’t be able to calm down when they’re here. I just wish this hadn’t happened.” Sunal buried her face into her knees for the second time that day, and again Mi-ryung said nothing. Still, Sunal found her presence comforting.
“It’ll probably be better,” Sunal said, mostly to herself, “once they do get here. They can finally tell me what to do. I haven’t known what to do this whole time.”
“What if you don’t like what they want you to do?” Mi-rung asked. She was still watching the doorway.
Sunal thought for a second. “They’ll want me to train with them,” she said. “That’s not news; they’ve wanted me to train with them since everyone found out, when you were a baby. I’ve always known that. I guess I just… wish there was some other way to do it. Training with the Order of the White Lotus…. I’ve never really wanted to. I have no reason to not want to, though.”
“Maybe you do. It might be OK now, but mom didn’t want you to go when you were younger, and she must have had a good reason for it. She doesn’t do things without thinking-” Mi-ryung stopped midsentence as the sisters heard the sound of the front door opening. Sunal felt her breath hitch as they strained to listen through the walls of the apartment. After a moment the door still hadn’t closed, and she quickly climbed off the bed.
Mi-ryung stood up to get out of the way as Sunal quickly changed from the white school shirt she had been wearing to her green tunic. They heard the front door finally close, and a moment later there was a knock on the bedroom door. Jinnak opened it without waiting for a response.
“They’re here,” she said, then “calm down. It’ll be fine.” Sunal nodded but didn’t feel any calmer. Jinnak led both her younger sisters out into the family room, where three men in white cloaks stood waiting. They weren’t in their official Lotus robes, Sunal was relieved to see. Her parents stood, side by side, at the entrance from the kitchen, looking both courteous and anxious.
Captain Zhong was the first to react when the girls walked into the room, bowing slightly. His flanking officers immediately followed suit. “Avatar Sunal,” he said, and she halted immediately at those words. They always called her that when they came over, and she could never them how she disliked it. “It’s a pleasure to meet with you again.”
“Ah,” she said, unable to think of a response. Instead she gave an unconvincing smile
Jinnak crossed the room to join her parents while the officials went to shake Sunal’s hand, as was their custom. Since her parents hadn’t spoken yet, Sunal cleared her throat and offered the men a seat while Mi-ryung, without being told, went to fetch more chairs from the kitchen table. She could feel herself shaking slightly, but forced it down while everyone took a seat, her on the couch with her parents squeezed in next to her, the White Lotus men on wooden kitchen chairs with their backs to the TV, her sisters on either side.
“First things first,” Captain Zhong said to start the meeting. “Because of today’s incident, word of what happened has been spreading around pretty quickly. There will almost definitely be something in the papers tomorrow about this, but we tried to contain things as much as possible. We’ve spoken with your classmates, and their families, and asked them not to talk about what happened for now.”
Sunal nodded along.
“If you wouldn’t mind, though, could you tell us what happened, from your point of view?”
Sunal gulped. She hadn’t actually told anyone in her family about it yet; whatever they knew would have just been the rumors that were already going around town, which must be wildly inaccurate.
“Um, sure,” she stammered. “It was during class,” she said, nervously spinning the ring on her right hand, “bending class. Ah, we were just doing drills, during group practice, but there was one girl, and…” she took a deep breath before continuing. “And I think she was trying to show off or something? She was firebending, and it went a bit wrong, and I guess she wasn’t paying attention or something, but she, uh, couldn’t control it, and I just… took over? For a second. I thought she was going to hurt someone,” Sunal quickly glanced up into the officer’s eyes before returning her star down to the floor.
It wasn’t an entirely complete account, but she didn’t want to get into the specifics. No one else had been paying much attention at the time; drills were over, the other kids were just chatting amongst themselves while they waited. Sunal was the only one to see how the rogue fireblast had started, and the only one who could respond quickly enough to redirect it. It hadn’t even occurred to her to try making an earth wall to block it. She just grabbed the ball with her bending and slammed it into the floor, for it to fizzle out. No one could even tell what had happened at first.
Captain Zhong nodded while one of his officers took notes. Sunal could feel her mother’s hand move to squeeze her shoulder. It was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture, but she wanted to hide instead of feel the weight of familial pity.
“Your birthday is in seven months,” Zhong said, “you would be turning 16, which is when your official training would begin. However, due to the circumstances, I wanted to offer you a chance to move that up ahead of schedule, and start your training now.”
Sunal swallowed. “What does that mean?” she asked, even though she could hear how stupid the question sounded while she asked it.
“It means leaving home,” he said, now glancing at Sunal’s parents before looking back to her. “We having training facilities across the world, and masters in each art ready to teach you everything you need to know. We’d provide everything you need, as well as instruction.”
Sunal stared down at her hands in her lap. She knew already that she didn’t want to; it wasn’t something she really even had to think about. She could picture in her mind the compounds of training schools, places where benders devoted their lives to fighting, honing an artform that many considered outdated. If she was honest with herself, Sunal sort of agreed with the naysayers.
But she couldn’t say that the men sitting in her living room. They’d devoted their lives to upholding a tradition she didn’t care much about.
When she didn’t respond, Zhong repeated the question. “What do you say?” he asked. “You can train with us and learn all the skills you need to be able to become a fully realized avatar.”
“I don’t…” she started to say, her voice trailing off. “I don’t know,” she tried again.
Jinnak cut in. “You have to make a decision,” she said. Her arms were crossed in her chair and she stared straight at her sister, unwavering. “You can’t just say ‘I don’t know’ and put this off indefinitely.”
“Now, we don’t want to push you,” Zhong said, bringing the attention back to himself. “Or rush you into doing anything you don’t want to do. But you will have to train eventually, Sunal, and there isn’t much reason to delay any longer.”
“Is this my only option?” Sunal asked in a rush, before she could lose the nerve. Her heart was pounding and she instantly wanted to apologize for the question, but she swallowed and left it. The two officers beside Captain Zhong exchanged looks.
“What do you mean?” Zhong asked. “Did you have something else in mind?”
“Not… necessarily. Just… we’ve been talking about my going to train with the Order for so long, like that was the only option. But aren’t there any other options? Avatar Korra was the first one to actually train with the Order of the White Lotus, wasn’t she? Before then, avatars found their own teachers, didn’t they?”
“Before Avatar Korra’s time, the Order of the White Lotus operated on their own, upholding traditions on their own. She was the first to train with the order because she was the first Avatar born since our Order moved to a more… public format.”
It felt like an impromptu and unneeded history lesson. “Right,” Sunal said, “I know that. I’m saying, what if I… found my own bending teachers?” It wasn’t an idea she’d even brought up with anyone before, but judging by the looks on the mens’ faces, it wasn’t a surprise to hear from her.
“On your own?” Zhong asked. “Are you sure? We have the masters of each of the elements all ready to train you at our own facilities. You wouldn’t have to hunt them down on your own.”
“I know,” Sunal looked down at her hands again.
“How do you decide who’s the best?” Everyone looked in surprise at Mi-Ryung, who rarely ever spoke up. Sitting in that chair, the heels of her feet didn’t even hit the floor, so she sat kicking her toes against the carpet, staring at Captain Zhong with her usual serious expression.
“Uh, by skill level. We find the teachers around the world with the highest skill.”
“But you haven’t tested everyone yet, right? Just teachers?”
“Of course we can’t test every single individual in the world – perhaps there are teachers out there unaffiliated with our Order who may be able to teach you more about bending than we can. But if we don’t know about them, I’m not sure how you’re supposed to find them either.”
“It was just an idea,” Sunal cut it. “I don’t want to leave home without knowing what my options are.”
“Isn’t there an option that doesn’t require leaving home?” her mother asked. Her hand was no longer on Sunal’s shoulder, but Sunal knew that was probably for her benefit rather than her mother’s.
“We might be able to bring instructors here to the city to teach Sunal. That would involve coordinating with the city council and finding a place where Sunal could be taught every day without causing a problem, but I’m sure it can be done. The Republic government will probably make as much time and space for the Avatar as needed.”
Jinnak shifted slightly in her chair and spoke up again, asking “can I make a suggestion?” When Zhong nodded, she uncrossed her arms and looked Sunal in the eye. “I think you should leave home,” she said. “Not for any of those reasons,” she added, as Sunal’s face blanched in sudden fear. “Part of your job as Avatar is to watch over the people of the world. You can’t do that if you never leave home. You can’t be expected to know anything about the world if you don’t see it.”
“That’s true,” Captain Zhong said with a nod, turning back to Sunal. “Of course I’d want you to do whatever you felt most comfortable with, but the reason we have training camps all over the world is to enhance the learning experience. You’re not just learning about how to bend each element, but the different cultures of the people where each element comes from.”
Sunal nodded. “Yeah,” she said softly, then, louder, “I just haven’t really made up my mind of what to do yet.”
“What about tomorrow?” Jinnak ask. “What do you want to do tomorrow?”
“What?”
“You still have school, Sun. Were you planning on going, or had you not thought about that yet?”
“I wasn’t really planning on it,” she reluctantly admitted, staring down at her hands again.
“If you want to take a couple days off school while you decide,” her mom said, “that’s OK with us.”
Her dad finally spoke up as well, saying “you can’t take off school indefinitely, however. If you don’t want to go, you have to do something.” Sunal nodded again.
“If you come with us,” Captain Zhong spoke up again, “we’ll probably want to leave sooner rather than later. The sooner we can start on your training, the better. We already have transportation ready in the Republic City harbor, and Firebending instructors ready to teach you as soon as we get there”
Sunal raised an eyebrow at that. “I haven’t even learned enough about earthbending though,” she said. “Shouldn’t I master the elements one at a time?”
“Of course, but… you don’t have any practice with any of the other elements, do you? By your age, Avatar Korra had already gone through most of her basic training, and Avatar Aang was already a master of all four elements. What’s wrong?” he asked when Sunal suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
“Those two,” she said, “Korra and Aang… they’re the exception.” Every avatar before them, she thought to herself, did things differently. Stop comparing me to them. I already know that I’ll never be as good as them.
“Sure,” Zhong agreed, “but they both ushered in this new era of the world. Things were different back before the Hundred Years War; we can’t always afford to take things slow now. The world needs its Avatar.”
Sunal took a deep breath to steady herself and gather her courage. “Thank you,” she said, somewhat methodically, “but I’ve done some research already, and I believe there are some instructors in Ba Sing Se that I could learn-“
“Sunal,” Zhong tried to cut her off.
“-that I could learn a lot from,” she went on. “I mean no disrespect to you or your order. I know you’ve only ever done the right thing regarding me and my family. But I have to do what I think is the right thing too. And while I believe I could learn a lot from the White Lotus… I think it would be better if I tried to figure things out on my own first.”
“Sunal,” Zhong said again, “are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
She hesitated before responding. “I don’t know if this is what I should do,” she admitted. “Maybe I’ll end up just wasting more of everyone’s time, and I won’t learn anything. But I think even that will be better for me than just doing what everyone tells me all the time.”
“We’re not trying to force you to do anything,” Zhong repeated for the umpteenth time, but at the same moment Jinnak also spoke, with a smirk on her face.
“You’re finally growing up.”
Sunal wasn’t sure what to say to that. From his seat across from her, Zhong just sighed, and she could see his shoulders sag just a little. “I’ll train with the Order,” she said, “if things don’t work out like I want. If I go to find a teacher but can’t find anyone who can help me, or if no one will, or if, after six months, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any better. Then we can call my experiment a failure and I’ll train with the Order. But I want to try it on my own at first.”
It wasn’t until Captain Zhong finally nodded that Sunal realized she was shaking, just slightly. The effort of speaking up, of defying a plan that she had constantly been promised wasn’t even set in stone, had taken its toll on her. She already felt a bit weakened, and wasn’t sure she had the energy to speak up much longer.
“I think we can work with that,” he said. “It’ll be tough, for you, and to be frank I’m not convinced this plan will yield any result. But it’ll be better for everyone if you do things your way, and figure out what’s right on your own.”
“Thank you,” Sunal said, somewhat breathlessly.
“But,” and he raised a finger to emphasize his point, “I can only promise you six months. If you can’t show any improvement in six months, the Order of the White Lotus will want you to come train properly with us.”
“That’s fine,” Sunal said.
“Wait a moment,” her mother cut in quickly. She sat up a bit straighter as well and gave her daughter a stern look. “I don’t know if I really like this plan. You’re telling me you want to cross the border, travel through the Earth Kingdom, all the way to the capital, all on your own? Do you realize how dangerous that is? Do you realize why this concerns me?”
“Sorry,” Sunal mumbled, and her mother sighed. She hadn’t really thought about that yet. She hadn’t even given this plan that much consideration.
“You don’t have to apologize, Sun, just use your common sense. I’ll worry about you no matter what happens, but I don’t think I’m comfortable with you heading out on your own.”
“We can provide protection,” Zhong said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. We would want to do that anyways, to make sure Sunal is watched over and no harm comes to her during her training.” Sunal frowned but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to counter with. She had proposed this idea in order to get away from the White Lotus, finally, but she also didn’t think it was a good idea to head out on her own, completely unprotected.
Accepting the White Lotus’ offer of protection meant traveling with them, she thought to herself, virtually no different that if she’d gone to their training facilities. The only change was the destination. She stared down at her hands some more, trying to make up her mind, when Jinnak spoke up instead.
“I could go,” she said, even raising one hand a bit before folding it back in her arm. The White Lotus men seemed to have forgotten she was there, and turned to look at her in sync. “I don’t want to speak for Sun but she’s probably a bit nervous about having you guys hang around her so much – no offense. Sun’s shy,” she turned to look directly at Sunal now, “you’d probably be more comfortable if I went along with you, right?”
Sunal didn’t feel much more comfortable at all, but she weighed the odds quickly in her head, and nodded.
“Wouldn’t that be fine?” Jinnak now asked. “I need to get out of the house myself, and Sun and I could use this time to bond. I’ll make sure nothing happens.”
Captain Zhong furrowed his brows before responding, as if trying to think of a good way to get out of this. “Are you sure you’d be up to the task?” he asked. “You wouldn’t just be guarding your sister, you’d be guarding the Avatar, and you don’t exactly….”
His voice trailed off, and Sunal could recognize the look of anger in her sister’s face. “What? I don’t exactly have magic powers like you all?”
“You don’t exactly have training for something like this,” he corrected.
“She’s my sister,” Jinnak retorted, “I’ve been ‘training’ for this since the day she was born. And I’ve taken classes, in self-defense, and boxing, and unarmed fighting. I’m not exactly defenseless.” She involuntarily flexed her bare arm muscles.
Sunal glanced at Mi-Ryung, who instead was gazing past her at their mother. She turned, and saw the look of muted distress in her mother’s eyes. “We’ll be OK,” Sunal said softly, and her mother looked down at her in surprise.
Speaking louder, she repeated, “We’ll be OK. Jinnak can take care of me if anything happens, but nothing will happen; it’s not that long of a trip if we take the trains, and we’ll find boarding at whatever bending college I end up training at. I may be too young to travel on my own, but Jinnak isn’t, she can legally take care of me.”
Her mother still looked worried. “It’s not that I don’t trust you girls to watch out for yourselves, I just don’t want anything to happen to you. And I think this would be good for both of you, I do, I’m just… worried as well.”
“It’s OK,” Jinnak said. She had uncrossed her arms, and when Sunal met her eye, she was actually smiling. “We’ll make sure to call every chance we get.”
Captain Zhong cut in before the conversation could go on for much longer. “I still don’t think I can fully advise following this plan,” he said, and Jinnak cut him off with a sigh.
“It’s Sun’s decision. What do you want to do?”
Except for Mi-ryung who was staring at the carpet, all eyes were on Sunal again. She didn’t have time to gather her courage or find the best words. “I want to go with Jinnak. I want to train like I’m supposed to and if Jinnak can watch over me, that’d be… nice.”
“Avatar,” Zhong started to say, but she shook her head.
“No, I know, but I promise that if I don’t show improvement in six months, I’ll come train properly with the White Lotus. I just want to test myself out first; I think it’s important that I test myself out first. Is that OK?”
Captain Zhong frowned and looked like he couldn’t make up his mind, but after a moment he finally sighed. “Alright,” he said, and Sunal felt like she was suddenly breathing a bit easier. “I’ll have to talk to my superiors about your plan, but we don’t have any authority or right to stop you.” Jinnak had a grin on her face.
“When would you be planning on leaving?” Zhong asked.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Jinnak said, looking to Sunal. Sunal didn’t feel even remotely ready at all.
“The sooner the better,” she said.