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When Toji was born, it was cause for celebration. The chief of the Northern Water Tribe and his family rejoiced; at long last, after many attempts, the current chief had been able to bring an heir into the world. Any anxiety or uncertainty about the issue of succession melted away. Instead, it was replaced with mounting expectations of the chief-to-be.
As soon as Toji could not only walk but stand, he was put under the tutelage of one of the finest waterbenders around. After all, it was only to be expected that a member of the chieftain’s line would be able to not only waterbend but bloodbend at a high level. When signs of neither ability showed signs of manifesting, however, it was then Toji’s existence shifted to one that was admonished rather than revered.
When Toji was 6, he was put under an extremely strict training regime. Since the young heir showed no signs of bending prowess, it was decided he should at least make himself useful by becoming remotely adept in combat. Lucky for them, Toji picked up combat quickly. From that point on, nothing short of perfection was accepted from him. If Toji failed to deliver, he suffered the consequences. When he was younger, the punishment he would incur would be minor: being sent to bed without food on occasion, ordered to do chores, or a lashing from time to time. But as he became older, however, the punishments for lack of perfect execution in combat drills grew in severity.
When Toji was 12, he incurred his first adult punishment: isolation. For a full 24 hours, he was left alone in a room with no windows, no food or drink, and no source of light save for a small fire at the center of the room. He’d thought nothing of it at first. What was a mere few hours of time to himself? But as the hours drew on, the dead silence grew unbearable. When sunlight from the following day finally poured into the room, Toji had bounded towards it almost like a feral creature. He’d practiced harder afterwards. But it was never enough.
When Toji was 13, he finally realized the ways in which he was treated differently. He’d noticed when he was a child, but thought nothing of it. At the time, he’d been under the assumption that that’s just how the world worked. But when other strapping young men around his age, especially those who could waterbend, were treated better than he was, Toji grew angry.
‘Why do I get treated differently?’ he often asked, sometimes to himself and other times to those who would listen.
“Because you’re the chief’s son,” was the answer he was always supplied.
But what did being the chief’s son have to do with not only being treated differently but being treated worse than those with lower-standing, especially if those individuals were waterbenders?
Waterbenders. Waterbenders…
When Toji was 14 he finally realized: it was because he wasn’t a waterbender. That fact drove him mad like nothing else. That wasn’t something he could help or control! He hadn’t asked to be a non-bender! It wasn’t fair!
When he’d conveyed as much to his father, the chief, Toji had paid the price for it: an even stricter training regimen, fewer meals, and lashings that had struck so deep into his skin that they remained as scars forever after.
When Toji was 15 he was done. He was tired of being pushed around. He was tired of being looked down upon. And above all, he was just tired . He decided, one fateful night, to return the “gifts” that had been given to him to the man that had brought them and him into existence.
His plan had been nearly flawless: wait until the late evening/early morning after the winter solstice, when his old man was sure to be well inebriated, slit his throat, and be done with the matter all together. With quick cleanup and a few bribes, it could easily be written up as a death by natural causes. Toji could then ascend as the new chief followed, finally , by an end to the shitty status quo he’d suffered through.
Toji failed to properly enact his revenge, however. There was one fact he’d overlooked: just how much power waterbenders received beneath the winter solstice’s moon. He wasn’t daft: Toji knew waterbenders’ power surged beneath the moon. But what he’d expected and what actually occurred were two different matters.
The young chief-to-be remembered it clearly: it had all started according to plan. It wasn’t as though he’d needed to sneak in, and meandering around his father’s quarters wasn’t exactly out of the question given that he was the chief’s son. The rest of that night had been a blur; Toji remembered rushing his father and catching him off guard, his adrenaline fueled by the utter contempt he felt for him. He was just about to lop off the bastard’s head when his body suddenly began moving of its own accord. Toji remembered the unsettling sensation of his limbs moving jerkily as his father bloodbended him. He remembered his father’s utterly disinterested gaze staring back at him as he easily made Toji point his own blade towards himself, remembered the feeling of the blade cutting into his own flesh rather than its intended target, remembered the white hot flash of pain that seared in his face and the feeling of blood pouring from it… Anything after that was hazy.
When Toji was 15, he was exiled from the family altogether. The young man at the time couldn’t have been sure whether it was the best or the worst thing that happened to him. Yes, he was free of the expectations placed upon him from that hellish household. But he had nothing to sustain himself with, no means of taking care of himself. Just when it seemed he’d nothing else to live for, he met her.
When Toji was 16 he fell in love with a simple woman at the edge of the Northern Water Tribe. She had jet-black hair that spiked every which way and the kindest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen. On paper she was nothing special; just a simple woman who ran one of the general goods stores with her father. But when she’d found Toji wandering out in the streets and reached her hand out towards him, she became much more than just some simple woman to him. She gave him a job, a means to get back on his feet. She smiled not only at him but with him, an expression he wasn’t used to seeing or receiving. She was the absolute love of his life.
When Toji was 17 he made her a betrothal necklace and proposed. When she’d said yes, it might have been the happiest Toji had ever felt. Their wedding followed soon after. And soon after that , Toji found out he’d be a father. That they’d start a family together.
When Toji was 18, he simultaneously experienced the best and worst day of his life. Toji tucked his crying newborn into his parka while the blizzard passing through Agna Qel’a continued to whistle and shriek just outside the igloo. No matter how many times the new father cooed, rocked, and patted the clearly distressed baby in his arms, Toji just couldn’t seem to get the child to calm down.
“It’s not like I can blame you, though, squirt,” Toji muttered darkly, glancing towards the prone figure of his wife beside him. Her body had given out mere moments after bringing Megumi, their blessing, into the world. Toji laughed bitterly at the irony of his son’s given name; he could still remember her agonized screams as she desperately pushed and pushed and pushed . The sheets she laid on were absolutely drenched in blood and amniotic fluid with her parka and underclothes following close behind. Her skin, which had already gone pale, was starting to bear a telling blue tint the longer the sheer cold from both inside and out settled into it.
He hushed the squirming babe that lay flush against his chest repeatedly as the babe in question continued to howl and shriek in distress. The tiny creature’s cries echoed loudly around the small space they inhabited, only deafening slightly when the blizzard’s intensity increased outside.
“What am I supposed to do?” Toji whispered, at a loss. Soon it was the young man’s own cries that filled the interior of his igloo as his son’s distraught, futile struggles gradually lessened the more he tired himself out. Toji wasn’t able to help the tears that streamed down his face and dripped off his chin. It was only Megumi’s faint heartbeat drumming against him that eventually brought Toji out of his grief long enough to settle himself and take a deep breath. Eventually he felt his eyelids grow heavy, and before the new father could blink he was slipping into unconsciousness.
The first thing Toji noticed when he came to was how quiet it was inside the igloo. The blizzard that had plagued them and prevented a doctor from being able to come aid in the delivery had run its course. Toji brought one hand to his chest to hold his son close while the other rose to his eyes to rub the sleep out of them. But when he felt no child on top of him, the young father’s heart leapt into his throat. He sat up straight with a start, quickly flitting his gaze every which way as he tried to discern what happened.
“Oh! You’re awake!”
Toji blinked slowly and looked down towards the sound of the voice. Standing right in front of him with her small hands atop his knees was a little girl he’d never seen before. Her hair was dark brown and put up in a high ponytail while her smile stretched from ear to ear as she stared at him.
“Mama! Mama, he’s finally awake!” the little girl exclaimed before running off.
Toji watched the toddler run across his small abode towards a woman who might as well have been a carbon copy just older. Nestled against the woman’s bosom was his son, who was clearly in the middle of eating… drinking? Toji shook his head and dispelled the thought. Megumi was swaddled in multiple blankets, some familiar looking and others not. As soon as he’d finished the meal, the young baby yawned wide before quickly letting sleep take him.
The woman placed a single index finger against her lips, pointed at the baby in her arms, and smiled at her daughter before turning to look at Toji. Neither said anything for a while as they continued staring at each other. It was almost as though nothing needed to be said.
“Um, excuse me?”
Toji blinked and shook his head before slowly glancing downwards at the little girl who’d greeted him earlier. She stood directly in front of him and stared with wide, brown eyes.
“My mama asked you something,” she said simply as she pointed to the woman in question. The toddler then ran back to her mother’s waiting open arm to lean happily into her side.
“I’m sorry to come in unannounced,” the woman started, flashing an apologetic smile. “But once the blizzard finally passed, some of us decided to check on those who lived further from the center to see if anyone needed help.” The woman’s smile turned sad as she cast a glance towards the now covered corpse of his wife.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she breathed, eyes shut tightly for a moment. When they opened again and linked with Toji’s, the young man felt his heart skip a beat. Though they weren’t azure blue, they still sparked a similar feeling of warmth he was familiar with. A feeling Toji had already resigned himself to never feel again.
“I-I hope it’s not too forward of me to suggest this, but…” the woman’s voice trailed off as she slowly looked to the sleeping baby in her arms. She gently swept inky black tresses out of the newborn’s face. “I don’t mind helping you out to feed him. Raising a newborn out here even with both parents present is tough. Besides,” she flashed him a playful smile before continuing. “It’s not as though you’ve any milk to give him.”
Toji stared blankly at the woman in front of him. This didn’t feel real. “What about your husband?”
“Don’t have one.”
Toji’s eyes went wide at the statement while the rest of his expression inquired what he couldn’t physically bring himself to ask.
“To keep it brief, someone who’s unimportant now came and left me. But…”
The toddler beside her squealed with laughter as her mother pulled her close for multiple pecks on the cheek in quick succession.
“He left me Tsumiki, so it isn’t all bad.”
Tsumiki quickly stomped in place before gently tugging on her mother’s sleeve. As soon as her mother did as prompted and brought her head closer, Tsumiki put a hand in front of her mouth as she whispered into her mother’s ear. The young woman smiled and ruffled her daughter’s hair lightly.
“Yes, you can ask him that.”
Tsumiki leaned forward and pecked her mother on the cheek before bounding back towards Toji. The young man found himself lowering to meet the toddler’s level. A feeling he wasn’t used to coursed through him as Tsumiki stared right at him, her brown eyes wide with curiosity. He could feel her eyes wander onto the small scar on his chin and braced himself for the question he was sure she wanted to ask.
“What’s his name?” Tsumiki asked, pointing to the baby in her mother’s arms.
Toji paused for a moment, taken aback. That wasn’t what he was expecting. Slowly shifting his gaze from the girl in front of him to the young woman who smiled at his son as if she was the one who birthed him stirred something inside Toji he wasn’t expecting to feel.
“Megumi,” Toji breathed, unable to look away from his son and the woman whose arms he was safely tucked in.
“Can he be my little brother?” Tsumiki asked immediately afterwards, expression deadly serious. Toji noticed Tsumiki’s mother try to keep from laughing out of the corner of his eye. A shadow of a smile crept onto Toji’s face as he rested a calloused palm atop the crown of Tsumiki’s head to tousle her hair.
“I’m sure he’d like that very much.”
When Toji was 19, he, his new wife, Tsumiki, and Megumi quickly settled into their new life together. Neither he nor his new wife could explain it, but as soon as they’d met something just… clicked. The copious amounts of time they soon began to spend together had just felt normal. He would never forget his first love; he couldn’t, especially not with how Megumi grew with her likeness every day. But knowing her, he knew she wouldn’t want him to dwell on it too long.
‘Sitting around doesn’t suit you, ’ was a sentiment she’d shared with him often. It was what came to mind whenever guilt seized him for moving on.
For a time, everything just felt right. Toji worked at the same general goods store, came home to his family, then rinsed and repeated the process until it became routine. By the time Toji was 20, it had almost become second nature: go out, hunt, bring back the haul, prep the haul, go home, be greeted by his family, and so on and so forth.
When Toji turned 21, that routine disappeared. It had all happened suddenly. What was first diagnosed as a simple cold quickly evolved into something worse. Doctors struggled to fully diagnose the illness; there were too many unknown variables, too many possibilities. All Toji knew, though, was that his wife was in pain. That she was suffering.
She’d been able to mask it at first behind smiles and affirming words. But when Toji had come home one day to the sound of both children crying and the sight of his wife crumbled on the ground, he knew something else needed to be done. The healers could only do so much, even with their waterbending. Medicine also posed a problem since they still weren’t sure of the ailment they were trying to treat, meaning many possibilities had to be tested and swapped if they weren’t effective. To top it all off, it wasn’t as though medicinal herbs were abundant; the Northern Water Tribe relied on trade with other nations for things of that nature, making any purchase of medicinal herbs very expensive.
The family only had so much income at their disposal. With only Toji’s modest income, his wife being indisposed, and his two children being… well, children, it soon became apparent that there needed to be another way to make money. How else would they be able to pay for the medicine?
“Where are you going?”
Toji stopped in his tracks and let the pelt covering the entryway fall back into place. He gradually turned and looked over his shoulder. Standing behind him outlined by the dim light the hearth provided was Tsumiki. Her hair was down from its usual ponytail while her eyes were still clearly glazed with exhaustion.
“Out,” Toji replied simply.
Tsumiki tilted her head slightly. “You’re coming back though, right?”
Toji knelt in front of his 7-year-old and tousled her hair. “‘Course I will.” He glanced behind her towards where Megumi and his wife lay huddled beside dying embers.
“Look after things for me while I’m gone, okay?”
Tsumiki nodded and proceeded to yawn wide. “See you when you get back, then.”
A shadow of a smile showed up on Toji’s face as he watched her go back to snuggle up beside her mother and little brother. “Right.”
The mercenary jobs he took at first were simple: guard this official, dispose of that vagabond, basically do the behind-the-scenes dirty work. No one seemed to mind or care that he was the chief’s estranged son (assuming they knew him as such to begin with). Because of this, it wasn’t as hard for Toji to accept jobs and still stay close-ish to home. The longer this new normal of his went on, the farther Toji was willing to venture from the Northern Water Tribe. At first, he’d only stay away for two days maximum. But as soon as he deemed that Tsumiki could, in fact, hold down the fort while he was gone, he began testing the limit of how long and how far away he could go.
It was during one of these longer ventures that Toji received two types of news through the grapevine, both regarding family… just in different contexts. The first was about his son: apparently Megumi had shown signs of waterbending while he’d protected his sister from a wild animal. Toji didn’t know how to feel about it; on the one hand, he was proud of him. On the other, he couldn’t help but feel a little bitter at his son’s manifested talent. What if… No. He didn’t want to finish that thought. The second was that the chieftain and his family were still struggling to produce an heir and were visibly struggling. For a split second, the idea of making some sort of exchange with the chief in exchange for money or medicine flashed through his mind. They were obviously still obsessed with having an heir who could waterbend… and since Megumi was not only his own flesh and blood but had the ability… No. He wouldn’t begin to consider that either.
When Toji turned 22, he’d exhausted all other options in regard to making money. He’d given up his job at the shop once he realized he made much more money performing mercenary requests. The only problem was that you could only make money when there were mercenary requests to fulfill. That was the trouble with peacetime; no chaos or unrest meant no grudges that needed fulfilling. No grudges that needed fulfilling meant no murderous intent. And no murderous intent meant he was out of a job.
He was running out of options.
Soft firelight danced across his face as he slowly looked towards his family across the room. All three of them were fast asleep and snuggled closely together. Toji’s frustration rose when he heard his wife’s shallow breathing. He didn’t know how much time he had left.
Images of his first wife’s dead body flashed in his mind, causing an enormous wave of grief to crash over him. He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched at his chest. He couldn’t go through that again. If he did, he’d truly be alone this time.
“Papa?”
Toji’s head snapped upwards at the sound of Megumi’s voice. The mercenary watched as his son quietly walked around the hearth and towards him. When the light from the hearth occasionally came to dance across his son’s face, it would illuminate his dark blue eyes. Dark blue eyes he’d fallen in love with. Dark blue eyes his son had inherited from someone he’d never get to see again.
A small hand on his knee snapped Toji out of his musings. Toji blinked for a moment at the face similar to his staring back up at him.
“What is it, squirt?” Toji whispered, ruffling his son’s unruly black hair. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Megumi shook his head. “Mama’s breathing is super loud,” the toddler started.
Toji narrowed his eyes slightly, causing Megumi to gulp and avert his gaze.
“I-I know it’s because mama’s sick,” the child quickly added, wringing his hands nervously in front of him. “But I… I…” Megumi’s voice trailed off as he struggled to find what to say.
“Megumi.”
Toji’s boy’s blue eyes grew wide as they locked with their father’s. Toji shut his eyes for a moment. Megumi looked so similar to his first wife, the first love of his life, that it hurt.
‘He’s the reason she’s dead.’
‘If he hadn’t been born, she’d still be alive.’
‘What exactly has he done for you anyway?’
It was all these thoughts along with precious, bittersweet memories of his first love that prompted Toji to reconsider decisions he’d written off in the past.
“Do you want to help mama?” Toji asked, nodding to the woman in question.
Megumi nodded fervently.
“Then there’s something I need you to do for me.”
Toji sighed, causing his breath to appear as a gaseous wisp in front of him, as he made his way back to his home. Toji smirked slightly; he was returning with more than he’d left with.
‘This should be enough for a little while longer…’
Just as he lifted the pelt entry-covering at the front of his abode, he heard the sound of choked sobs. Toji’s heart leaped into his throat as he quickly made his way inside. The bag of money he’d come back with immediately fell to the ground as he watched Tsumiki kneel and cry over her mother.
As soon as the young girl noticed Toji’s presence, she sat up and rubbed her still-leaking eyes, unable to get the tears to stop. Meanwhile, Toji closed the distance between them to take place on his wife’s other side. The lack of sound or movement gave him an inkling of what had come to pass, but it was Tsumiki’s incoming statement that made the very possibility Toji had been avoiding all too real.
“M-Mama’s not breathing anymore.”
Toji flipped his hood over his head before casting one more look over his shoulder. The moonlight, stars, and lights set outdoors made Agna Qel’a appear as though it were twinkling against the night sky. The young man braced himself as an icy wind blew through him. With the amount of grief he bore, however, he hardly felt anything at all.
Images of Megumi in front of the chieftain’s lodging, Tsumiki in front of the orphanage, and his second wife’s prone form laying in what used to be his home flashed in his mind. The hand at his side clenched into a tight fist. Shutting his eyes and taking a breath, Toji didn’t open them again until he was facing away from the tribe he grew up in and towards the docks.
There was no need to stay in a place where he had nothing left.