Menewsha Avatar Community - believe in yesterday

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Sent by the spirits is Kosha, the guardian.

--

The woman laid in a pool of crimson, her red ceremonial clothes draped around her like a beautiful silk coffin. Kosha could see his brother weeping at her side, head bent between his legs. The air was thick from smoke, their house having been set on fire many minutes ago. The wood burned easily, as if wanting the flames to eat away at them, to break them. All their belongings, all their memories and photos... they were gone. Kosha's home destroyed. A small sacrifice to make when their duty was to protect the woman.

The woman...

Fire flickered in the blood's reflection. The woman stared lifeless across the floor. She was the Avatar. The link between life and death, mental and physical. She was to bring balance and peace to the world, to cure it of its weakness and greed. Now she was gone, and no more would the Avatar Cycle continue, for the Air Benders were gone. Extinct since early in the year.

The Avatar was gone, forever. The world would undoubtedly follow soon.

Kosha felt the ground shake as the earth was forced to slide in another attempt at destroying their house. Little did the men and women outside know, their duty was already finished. They had killed the Avatar. They brought the end of their planet upon the entire world. Everybody would die. They would starve, grow sick, murder one another. There was to be no more equality. Only hatred and anger.

Kosha's brother continued to cry, unmoved by the assault. Kosha wanted to grab the older man and demand he stop sniveling. Nobody would survive if he simply sat there and moped over the Avatar's passing. But then Kosha realized there was no point. Their family was given the task of guarding the Avatar. They knew better than anyone what the end of the cycle meant.

Kosha slid to his knees on the hardwood floor. The contact sent a dull ache throughout his body. His chest burned, as if a bender had ignited his heart and was allowing his torso to slowly char into nothing. What was the point in saving his brother? What was the point in saving himself? They would die no matter what. With no Avatar, there was no hope. They had failed the spirits.

Loud footsteps flooded the hall behind Kosha. "Avatar!" cried Kosha's father. "M'lady Avatar!" The door to the room flew open and his father's breathing stopped. "... No."

"She's dead," Kosha croaked.

His father crumbled onto the ground, a mess of murmurs and sobs. He softly spoke prayers, apologies, forgiveness. He begged the Avatar to rest peacefully within the Spirit World and curse all those who brought her death. Kosha couldn't help thinking, prayers won't do anything. Not now. Not when the assault took their only chance at life.

"... and please," his father whispered, "give the world a strong future."

'A strong future'. Kosha felt his eyes warm as he saw his family shatter. He stared at the Avatar's face, marred and bloodstained. Beneath it he remembered her smile, her laugh. How she tossed back her hair and used to tease him about girls. She had been so beautiful in a plain, ordinary kind of way. Not with the power most Avatars had in the past. She was trained to be simple, sweet, a perfect idol.

Tears slipped over his cheeks. Her face swam in them. He blinked to clear her image, to make sure he saw each detail before they died. He wished she'd jump up, flap her robes with a grin and cry, "Just joking!" He wanted to hear her voice one last time, to tell her how important to the world she truly was and not just a fake picture she had always believed. She was the single most powerful person on their planet, the only one who could ever make a difference.

Kosha.

A wind tickled his ear. Kosha glanced over his shoulder, searching for the source. Kosha, here. His heart skipped a beat, scared. The sound... it was...

He turned to the Avatar. Her head was facing him now, eyes still glazed and wide from death. Yet her lips moved. Blood drizzled out from between them as each word slipped from her slowly chilling corpse. This future is over, Kosha. You must find the old one and restore it. You must save it.

Kosha screamed, "Father!" but nobody heard. His brother continued to cry, his father pray. Kosha watched the Avatar extend her broken arm, fingers curling out towards him. Kosha, she gurgled. Save the future.

Kosha yelled through his sobs, crawling back to escape her touch. His back hit the wall, feeling the wood burning hot against his clothed skin. The Avatar continued towards him, her movements jerky and forced. Kosha, go, she commanded. He kept pressing into the wall, pleading it to cave and give him room to flee. But there was nowhere to go.

She finally reached him, her body dragged metres across the floor. Blood and charred skin followed in her corpse's wake. The Avatar reached out her hand and Kosha screamed with the utmost of fear as she placed her palm inches from his face

Go.

Everything went black.

--

[days later]

Kosha tugged on the red tie around his neck and sighed with relief as it loosened. The school system of the past was horrendous. Walking to each class? Holding your belongings in a metal storage compartment? The social aspect was even worse. The jeers, sneers, and snide comments made at him in the single day he had attended this high school was uncountable. Kosha had never gone to public school before. Instead, his family sent him to a special academy designed to continue the old bending teachings. Fighting, survival, and defense. Public school taught material unneeded in a world which was riddled with violence and hatred. How could mathematics save you when a man comes charging wielding fire in your face?

Kosha leaned his head against the tree's trunk and stared up through the green canopy to the sky. He had to admit, the past was much more attractive. Less buildings, less pollution. The planet seemed healthier. Even if it wouldn't last too long. His brother would have liked to see this...

But he was dead. Or unborn. Whichever way you wanted to call it. Kosha found out rather easily what had happened to him when he awoke in the bushes of the nearby park. A single question about the date told him everything. This was the past. Almost three hundred and fifty years from his home. And the Avatar was indeed still alive. A teenager, just like him. A fire-bender at heart.

Had she been taught in any of the other elements already? Kosha couldn't keep wondering. He knew his duty now. He knew what he had to do. Save the Avatar. Keep her safe. Be a guardian. But how? And what was she in danger from? He had no idea what she looked like. Obviously she went to his school, since he simply had to ask a younger boy if she was there and he more than willingly told Kosha detail upon detail about the Avatar and how "exotic" and "badass" she was. The more the boy went on, the more Kosha began to believe this Avatar was nothing like the one from his time. The one who made him smile and laugh with her sweet voice.

Kosha rubbed between his grey eyes. He had to protect Nike, not the Avatar from his time. Nike. He didn't know what from. The uprising wouldn't start for another three hundred years against the Avatar Cycle. Kosha didn't know his history well enough to be able to figure out any specific event that happened to the Avatar in this year... If only he had bothered to crack open a book or two when he was younger...

Something like a bell rang in the distance. Kosha sighed and straightened. He had skipped his last class because past-teenagers were so much ruder than future-teenagers. Or would they be present-time-teenagers? His head throbbed and he shook the question away. Too much wandering around in an area that hurt his brain to think.

He stepped over leaves and branches, listening to them crack and pop under his running shoes. Obtaining the uniform was easy enough. Simply sign up for the school. However, pretending to have parents and a home was a completely different story. He stayed at the park the last few nights and knew his hair was beginning to shine with grease. No matter how dark it was, it would always lose its natural softness if he left it to grim too long. He had to find somewhere to stay, even if it wasn't the most legal... But where? His money was different from the past-currency... The bills completely redesigned. They would laugh at him and throw him into jail if he tried to fraud.

As Kosha broke through the forest line he glanced up and saw the crowd of the student body leaving the school. He looked up into the sky once more. It hurt to put his parents names down as his guardians when he applied. He knew they were dead... no, non-existent yet. Not for three more centuries. A long time to wait to see his mother and father again. If ever.

The parking lot began to fill with classmates of his age grabbing their car keys excitedly to leave the compound. Kosha watched for a moment, studying their movements, their smiles and laughter. It was all so... different. Free. These children were completely unaware of any troubles except for their own. Kosha felt a sting in his chest. "Ignorant bastards," he murmured. Instantly, he regretted the remark. Cursing was never in his nature. But his anger had exceeded his politeness.

From the entrance of the lot he caught sight of a blonde noticing him. From so far away he couldn't quite tell her expression, but her stomping pace towards him told Kosha he wasn't in her good books. She neared him closer and closer, almost until he thought she would yell something. Then she stopped.

She was quite pretty. Her long hair wavy and curled around her shoulder. Her eyes were narrowed, as if judging him, and she paused in her movements to instead turn away. Her heel pivoted her slightly and she brushed past him, calling for her friend. Kosha followed her figure for a moment as she ran over to one of the parked vehicles.

Strange.

Past-or-present-time-teenagers had a problem with newer students, apparently.

Kosha turned to the entrance of the lot and led himself out to the street. No bag hung over his back. Instead his shoulders were heavy with questions. Where to go. What to do. Who to find. When to help. Most importantly, how could he save the future?