Chapter Text
It had happened so fast. One moment, Jae had been holding out his hand towards the little airbender, hoping that she would take it and allow him to bring her back to the safety of Ellora. The next, the glass ceiling exploded, and the world around them shook.
He was flung back, the sand roaring around him as it whipped into his eyes. He instinctively brought up an arm to shield them, was able to barely make out the shape of a tall pillar collapsing into itself. And then a terrified cry rang out that stabbed right through his chest.
“Little airbender!” He called, scrambling to reach the source of the voice, the place of the impact. He did his best to bend the coursing sand away from his face, his eyes alleviated briefly from the stinging sensation as he peered through the storm.
There the girl was. Buried under a mountain of stone and debris, arm clawing around herself in what had to be panicked desperation, but undoubtedly alive. Jae allowed himself a singular moment of relief, then pressed forward.
His instinct was to pull the girl out of the rubble right then and there, but years of training told him that that would do more harm than good. Instead, he reached out towards the rock pieces at the very top of the pile, shifting them away one by one, careful not to collapse the rubble further.
“Don't worry,” he said in-between panting. “I'll get you out in no time.”
He hoped the promise helped calm her somewhat. He didn't dare check, too worried about breaking his concentration on the task at hand.
In the end, it didn't matter.
“Look out!” the girl shouted, and he glanced towards her long enough to see her gaze fixated on something behind him.
He turned.
There was an object four times his size hurtling straight towards them.
His breath hitched. He could get out in time, he knew. His hands curled together instinctively, readying an evasive stone slide.
He glanced behind him. The little airbender’s eyes were filled with terror.
He turned back around. The object had only gotten closer.
He shifted his stance. His arms moved to his side, his wrists twisted.
Then he whipped the limbs to the other side. The object followed the momentum, as if he'd flung it.
Except he hadn't felt the object. Hadn't reached out to it the way he'd done with the rubble just mere moments ago.
No. That had been as if he had-
“You- you can airbend?” The girl’s voice rang out behind him, voicing the thought that he hadn't been able to form himself.
Because that was ridiculous. He was an earthbender. How would he be able to bend air? That was impossible.
Impossible unless-
He turned back around. The girl’s eyes still held that fear from before.
That time, it was directed at him.
He ignored it, stomping his leg down to move away the remainder of the rubble trapping the girl.
She scurried out like a squirrelmouse, moving away from him as best as the terrain and the storm allowed her to. Her catmonkey hurried to her side, curling their body around her as if to shield her. Jae felt the sudden urge to defend himself. Which was stupid, there was nothing he needed to defend himself for.
He instead stomped his foot down again, that time growing stone slabs out of the ground to surround the three of them in a makeshift shelter.
“Are you hurt?” He asked, crouching down to her level. “Did you get hit on the head?”
The girl stared at him, mouth slightly agape, but eventually shook her head.
“Alright. Alright, that's good. We should stay here until the storm dies down, then we go back to Ellora.”
The girl continued to stare at him. Jae shifted uncomfortably.
“Can you- can you stop that?”
“You're the avatar!”
And there it was. The accusation, finally laid bare for him to have to confront.
“I'm not the avatar,” he countered, lamely.
“I saw you airbend that thing away!”
“That was just my earthbending.” Looking back on it, the object had probably been made out of metal. It made sense for him to be able to bend it out of its trajectory. The fact that he hadn't felt it had to have been due to the stress of the situation distracting him.
“No no no,” the girl furiously shook her head. “I could tell it was airbending. I felt it!”
“There was a huge storm all around you. You must've gotten confused about the currents.”
“Stop making up excuses!”
“I'm not making excuses!” He pressed his thumb and index finger into his eyelids. “I'm not the avatar. Do I look like a world destroying monster to you?”
The girl squinted her eyes together as she looked at him, finger tapping her chin as if she were actually thinking about it.
“You know, that was meant as a rhetorical question.”
“I don't know what that means.”
“It means it's a question you're not meant to answer.”
“Why ask it then?”
“Because-” he broke off, his patience running out in real time. “Oh, it doesn't matter. Forget about it.”
“I'm not gonna forget about you bending air!” The girl protested. “It was all like swish and whoosh, and then you just catapulted that thing away!”
“Again, it was earthbending,” he told her. Told himself.
“Nu-uh! I know what it was!” The girl fixed him with an unnervingly inquisitive gaze. “But you really don't seem like a world destroying monster. That's so weird.”
“Yeah. Because I'm not-” his eyes started drooping. “I'm not the avatar.”
He thought back to that mural of Avatar Korra. She was gone. The avatar was gone. They weren't able to hurt anyone anymore. Because that's what they would do if they did return. That's all they were capable of. So there was no way that Jae could be the next one, he would never do something to hurt his home. The fact that he was even entertaining the idea was absurd enough as it was.
He didn't notice himself drift off into unconsciousness, but images of destruction and catastrophes followed him into his dreams all the same.
Left behind in that stone shelter was a girl and her catmonkey. She buried her fingers into her companion’s fur, eyes not leaving the sleeping form of the brigade member. The avatar.
The catmonkey let out a soft meow, sensing her human’s unease.
“I know Geet,” the girl said, before shaking her head. “No, actually, I don’t. I thought the avatar was meant to be evil! And yeah he was scary when he was running after us earlier, but when he caught up to us he was actually nice. And then he saved my life! An evil person wouldn’t do that, would they?”
The catmonkey rubbed their face against the girl’s, who let out a small laugh in return.
“Alright. We’ll have to wait until he wakes up, I suppose.” She leaned back into the catmonkey, cushioning her head with her hands. “I’ll just… rest a little as well, until then.”