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Xun never knew his mother. She died just months after he was born. She was beautiful though. Small and slender with thick, black hair that fell in waves to her waist and exotic eyes. Wispy like a piece of cloud and always bright, always cheerful. But never quite all there. Never quite fitting in with everyone else.
“Foreign whore,” the servants whisper even when they know he can hear.
“Some slut who stole the master’s heart.”
“So strange. Always going into the garden in the dead of night and watching the leaves in the wind.”
“Not even a bender. Couldn’t make a rock twitch.”
“Disgraceful. Just like her spawn.”
Only that last one is usually from his grandmother. She’s always despised Xun’s mother and Xun himself. Her own grandson, the eldest, has never been good enough for her. Never smart enough, head always in the clouds. Never large enough, too slight and not at all sturdy. Never strong enough, too weak to go fight the Fire Nation. Just never enough.
Too much like his mother. Too short. Eyes too grey and not green. Too eager to back away from conflict, to deflect and evade. Too much her spitting image, and that’s probably why his father can’t stand to look at him. Xun is too much like her. Too much of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The woman who enchanted him, bespelled him even.
His father saw her in the market one day and refused anyone else as his wife. Refused all other offers. Coming back week after week after week to the small and rundown stand she ran and buying up all of her goods. Using the rest of the day to talk to her until he finally wore her down a year later. They wed within two weeks of her agreement, and the whole town turned out to see the poor flower girl marry the richest man in the province.
His step-mother doesn’t like that story. Not that Xun blames her. She isn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s kind to him. Is fond of him even if she isn’t his own.
She’s just about the only one.
Xun isn’t an earthbender. Not like his father and grandfather before him. Not like his step-mother or all his siblings – half-siblings. He can’t make a pebble so much as tremble.
And that makes him an easy target. Makes him the favorite victim of everyone under the age of twenty. They know that they can get away with it. That he’ll never tell, and even if he did, no one would really care.
It doesn’t matter that his father is the richest man around. Or that Xun is his heir apparent. All they see is that he’s small and weak and can’t bend his way free. That his siblings don’t mind if he’s hurt or trapped. That his step-mother is the only one who will ever come to help him. That his own grandmother has caught them more than once but has only lifted her nose and turned away.
But it’s harder to be caught if they can’t find him. He’s too fast for them now, but Xun can still be outnumbered. It’s better to disappear. To be as invisible as the wind herself. Out here and up in the tall trees lining the edge of their property. Too high for any of the others to dare climb. But it’s so easy for Xun. Just one jump followed by another. Nestled in the branches as easily as he sits in a chair. Not the least bit concerned that one misstep would surely mean his death. It’s too much of a rush going this high, too exhilarating.
Air is freedom after all. The gentle breeze on a hot summer’s day. The rustle of his hair around his face and blackened eyes. The cool pull of it at his clothes. Flowing around him as he stares down at the town below him.
Air is freedom. Soft and gentle and always underestimated. But it is also a tornado. The gale force winds of a hurricane.
The air flows around him. It dances around his swollen fingertips and swirls over his bruised skin. Weaves in and out at his littlest whim. Soothes him completely when everyone else has long ago sought shelter from the glaring sun and the oppressive summer heat.
He twists his hand then, and the air responds eagerly, happily. Whipping through the trees around him and snatching up every single loose piece of debris. Cradling them all with the ease of a leaf floating on water. Racing forward at his command with the enthusiasm of an ostrich-colt and roaring towards the large boulder in the distance. He can taste the dust of the impact even from up here, and the biggest bit of rock left afterwards is barely the size of his fist. It even still has a twig buried inside, the leaves on the top swaying in the breeze.
Xun just smiles.
They’ll never laugh at him again.