Chapter Text
Knowing what he must do to defeat her only made him feel uneasy. Roshan steeled himself, clutched his cup, and wrote “Do you know why I left Republic City?”
His words lingered in the air while he took a sip of ginger tea that had sadly turned lukewarm.
It took some time for Goli to notice the faintly glowing sentence that he held aloft with his bending, being busy with the lentil soup and all, but her deft movements meant dinner would be ready soon, so he avoided intruding on her directly. When she turned with two bowls in hand and the savory smell started wafting over, she gave a surprised hum at the sight of a gentle, waiting Roshan. She took a moment to read his question, before sitting at the small table.
“I… I have my guesses, but not really, no,” Goli said with her heavy accent, hesitantly adding, “Why’d you bring it up?”
The light of the previous sentence faded to nothingness, slowly replaced with another set of glimmering words as Roshan rhythmically drummed his fingers on the table.
“Because after three years, only we and Zaofu still resist the Great Uniter. But with the Earth Kingdom dissolved, the king of Omashu has also lost most of his authority and hope. I am afraid that he will–”
“Sign Kuvira’s offer? Join the Empire?!” Frustrated, Goli shook her head. “He wouldn’t, not after all you’ve done for him. He can’t just toss away the effort we’ve put into makin’ Omashu tied only to the Republic!”
Roshan frowned, blowing a bit of air onto the scalding food as his next words materialized, “He announced his decree to the Assembly of Four today.”
Her eyes widened. “And you couldn’t get the others to a unanimous vote, to overrule this kind of decision?”
“The king of Omashu did not need to request a vote from the Assembly this time, my dear,” he wrote with a sigh, resting his head on his hand in a defeated manner. ”He invoked his precursory veto.”
Goli stared at the last few words in utter disbelief. They remained motionless for what must have felt like ages, looking at one another and wondering what the future had in store, until Roshan broke the standstill. He circled around to peek past the window blinds for a few moments, wary of any nearby activity, and then turned back toward her. His face was lit with hope as he leaned forward in his chair, placed his slender hand on her clenched fists, and held on tenderly. The lamplight flickered as he made a little wave of healing warmth flow through her, and she started feeling mildly relieved of her mental distress.
While they finished their meal, however, Goli still pondered on their conversation. Of course, she knew exactly what his facial expression meant: across her sat a man with an almost certainly ingenious plan, someone who always had to think several steps ahead. She knew that the way he held her hands signified a plea for optimism. Yet, despite this knowledge, the insidious worm of doubt snaked its way through her thoughts until she could not hold the question any longer.
“Why did you leave Republic City?”
Roshan had been waiting, and his evasive answer came quick. “I just do not know how to talk about it.”
“You could start by dropping this– I don’t know, this measured act that you’ve got to keep up out there,” she said with a weary chuckle. After some thinking, she continued, “Quit saying what you wanna say so neatly, and just be blunt. Let your thoughts run wild for once.”
His expression soured at the idea. These were memories that he had neither divulged to others nor actively explored on his own for such a long time, that he felt claustrophobic simply recalling, so his only reaction was a resigned shrug. He got up abruptly, stacked the two empty bowls, and took them over to the sink. Letting the water wash over them as he stood with his head hung low, he felt his eyes well up at his inability to speak up and be forthright.
It took only a moment for Goli to notice. “You need to get whatever it is off your chest. It’s why you brought it up.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she walked to his side and caressed his tears away, softly turning his gaze toward her. “Look, it ain’t a weakness to let yourself be vulnerable, all right? Do it for me. With me. I promise you, there’s nothing you can say that’ll change this,” she said, holding his hand to her heart.
Only words could ameliorate the mind in this manner, Roshan thought to himself.
He gave an imperceptible nod.
After pouring some more tea for the both of them, Goli led him back to the table. Several minutes passed before he returned to a steady state of mind. For the sake of her understanding, he decided it would be easiest to start at the beginning.
“I should say why I went to Republic City in the first place,” were the first words that emerged, written as if they represented his stream-of-consciousness.
“Oh, you weren’t born there?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I was a waterbender from the Fire Nation.”
Shocked, she asked, “You could bend? Before Harmonic Convergence?”
“Precisely. Got it from my father’s side, despite him not being a bender. My mother was beyond herself with anguish when she found out he had been born of Water Tribe war prisoners and not… not just a colonial like he had said he was. I never quite understood her aversiveness, and they ended up drifting apart.”
Goli sat speechless, arriving at an inadvertent realization as Roshan spoke of his childhood.
The words were appearing and replacing the previous ones much more speedily as he focused on what he wrote, rather than on how he wrote.
“It was not as if he could help me improve my bending.” Hemming and hawing for a moment, he continued, “But he cared. He taught me how to play Pai Sho and that is… something I am eternally grateful for.” There was a faraway look in his eyes as he smiled to himself.
“What happened?” she egged him on.
“Change. I felt compelled to move, to live on my own, anything to not feel so suppressed. When I suddenly showed an affinity for healing, I knew it was something I should not waste. It was a connection, a talent to develop and nurture. And I could only start doing it by leaving when I came of age.”
“Do you know how he’s doing?” she interjected.
“My father? No… I used to–” Roshan sniffed, losing a bit of his composure. The words fizzled out momentarily before he summoned them once more. “I used to send him letters, but I never received any back.”
The silence persisted as Goli took a small sip of tea. She wanted to let him continue at his own pace, having noticed the slight disturbance that she caused with her last question.
“The most logical destination was Republic City. I was sure that I would find someone to help me learn proper waterbending there, but it was not so easy, and I was very naive,” he said with a melancholic handwave. “Plus, the place was too different from the posters. I expected a safe haven and instead experienced some of the worst that they could offer.”
Refusing to dawdle over the harsh recollection, he continued “I was poor, a barely adult outsider, and despite being a bender, I was not able to actually bend. All of this strife accumulated over two years, and I could not take it. I resented leaving my home in hopes of, what? Becoming some kind of master? No, I started hating it.”
Roshan scoffed at himself, standing up. “Back then, I found it so easy to blame the governing council, blame the triads, blame all the real benders for all the lives and hopes ruined in the boroughs. So, when the Equalist revolution found me, I gave all of my livelihood to serving it.”
“You worked for Amon?”
He glanced away. “Worse, alongside him. I had even entered his inner circle. Before his secrets came out, sometime before the Revelation,” he asserted, scratching the back of his neck.
“Why– I-I mean, you’ve–” Goli stammered, at an absolute loss for words. “ How…?”
“He saw a broken, desperate boy with untapped potential and a mind to mold. The madman that he was, he secretly started teaching me waterbending techniques. All with a promise that I would only ever use it for healing the wounded in our ranks,” Roshan wrote, the only sound present in the house being the dull thuds of his wooden leg against the stone floor while he slowly paced around the living room.
“...wait,” Goli said slowly. “You knew he was a waterbender and you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I said techniques, my dear. He never bent when he was with me… He just showed me the motions and taught me with some scrolls. I should have been able to deduce it, in hindsight, but I… I think I was just too happy to have a teacher to even think critically… Over the year that I served him, he must have realized how easily I followed orders, how dedicated I had become to his vision, so he took me even closer under his wing. It was him, his Lieutenant, Sato, me, and a few others…”
Roshan’s face darkened. “Of course, in the end, it was all too good to be true. Because somewhere along the lines, the purpose behind the movement shifted from an opposition to bending due to its violent, discriminatory nature, to a desire to throw the world off-balance by eradicating it. The Equalists, so many people, they all embraced this. But it left me completely disillusioned with what we did and who I wanted to be.”
Goli did not quite know what to make of these confessions. Her prevailing sentiment was empathy, but a close second was outrage at the sheer amount of his life story that he had kept secret. She wondered how someone, who vehemently denounced the old Equalists and had begun reforging the movement in a new light, could have been so closely tied to its former, disgraced leader.
Her expression must have betrayed her flurry of emotions, because Roshan hurriedly sat down, his face tinged with panic, and wrote, “You must know how sorry I am now, yes? How much I have been toiling to achieve the true vision of equality? I could not have revealed all of this about myself from the beginning! No one would have even considered rallying behind the cause. When the time is right, when a democracy is established in Omashu, that is when I plan to reveal–”
Goli threw her hands up and snapped, “Oh, what is it with you and your plans?! Can’t you see how much it’s anchoring you and your head? I’m not mad about how you kept this all to yourself – Spirits, I’m mad that you’ve let it burden you for so damn long!”
Roshan froze at the outburst. He wanted to urge her that it was not as simple as she made it to be, but part of him found some solace in acknowledging the extent of the duress that he had lived through.
After a few moments, he sheepishly wrote, “I should continue.”
“Damn right you should,” Goli replied with a slight smirk. Turning serious again, she asked, “So, what’d you do? After the Revelation and all.”
“Not much, for a short while. Amon had upped the ante so far beyond reason in so little time that there was no opportunity for me to escape. I had even considered going straight to the cops with all I knew about his plan to kidnap the council members. I think he knew my loyalty was wavering, because I was not allowed on outgoing missions anymore. Until… the day of the attack.” Roshan leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
“He ordered me to come along with him on one of Sato’s airships, and therein, I saw the terror we rained on the city firsthand. I felt it was my only chance to run, but he never let me out of his sight, from the airbase, to the city proper, and to Air Temple Island. He was after the Avatar, but when she escaped successfully, he ordered two airships to chase the airbenders. Somehow… the Chief of Police alone stopped them. But he captured her. And then ordered us to retreat, thinking he had gotten what he wanted.” He sorrowfully scrunched up his face beneath his hand.
With her eyes still trained on him, Goli asked “Which was?”
“He thought Chief Beifong would betray the Avatar’s location if he simply offered to let her keep her earthbending.”
“She didn’t, did she?”
Roshan shook his head. “He knew then, that the only way that he could lure out Avatar Korra, was by doing something he needed to do anyway. Capturing the last airbenders, before they fled too far away.”
Goli gasped, her deductions coming through. “And you– you tried to save them?”
“No. I tried to stop him.”
—————
Despite knowing what needs to be done, Roshan deeply wishes he could convince Amon to reconsider.
Instead, he speaks with and persuades the Equalist leader to allow him onto the last mission before the victory rally.
He argues that his faith in the revolution would last to the earth’s end.
How pathetic it was to think that the bloodbender believed him.
Everything goes according to his plan. He had known which airship they would use to chase the airbenders, and he had loaded the engine room and his internal escape route with hidden bombs. He is on the ship now, as it flies over the mountains in the northwest. After a status update, he excuses himself from the main hall.
That Amon did not react should have alarmed him. He takes his steps carefully, clutching his parachute and a makeshift detonator as he reaches the back exit near the engine room and opens it.
He knows this will work. He envisions it, as the wind blows his hair across his face. The ship will crash into the hillside, and along with it, down will go the momentum that the Equalists had gathered in their attack. He will float off, safe and sound, and return to Republic City as a hero. The button to redemption is in his palm.
All he needs to do is press it.
Press it.
Press. It.
He can’t.
He feels the blood freezing just in his fingers and he turns around with horror, only to face the masked man. With his free hand, he instinctively whips open his drinking pouch and tries to bend the water into an icy spear, but the Lieutenant emerges from the shadows to deliver a debilitating electric shock with his kali sticks.
“Roshan, Roshan… did you have to resort to breaking your own vow?” Amon says after a few moments.
He shudders and groans on the metal floor, his vision blurry as he barely lifts his head.
“I wanted to speak with you like an equal. Yet you leave me no choice.”
The Lieutenant silently holds him in a kneeling position and Amon walks around him, placing one hand on his neck.
“Any last words?”
In a final, fateful moment of defiance, he murmurs “Thank… you… for waiting… so long…”
The moon shines bright through the door frame while Amon places the other hand on his forehead and takes his waterbending away.
The last thing he remembers, as his consciousness fades and his body slumps to the ground once more, is one of his timed explosions sending him plummeting off the airship.
—————
“Countless factors aided in my survival,” Roshan wrote, motioning to his missing left arm, his wooden left leg, and the remnants of blunt trauma across his back and neck, “and I am more thankful with each passing day that I only lost these three. That I was blessed with the chance to atone, to reclaim my honor.”
Goli started sobbing quietly, and his eyes began to blur in turn.
“Why, only a few months later, I met you. You know the rest of it, my dear. I remember fondly how you read me like a book when I first came to Omashu as a hysterical, but exceedingly masterful, Pai Sho gambler,” he concluded with a drained smile.
This silence lasted even longer as they both let the reality simmer, until Goli finally spoke up. “So, um… why bring all this up… now?” she asked.
Roshan did not dwell on his reply. “Because I needed you to know all of this. To know all of me. To know there is nothing – and I mean, nothing – that can keep us apart. I need you, more than anyone, to trust me and be patient, for my plan to beat Kuvira to work.”