Consulting Hyojin - A One Shot

Avatar Aang sat in his meditative position in the Sacred Hall of Hyojin deep within the Fire Sage Temple. Of all his past lives, he hadn't had may words with the Fire Avatar for whom the hall had been built, but for the current issue, they seemed like the perfect person to guide him.

After several moments of silence, a pale blue pillar of light formed in from of the monk and shaped itself into the very Avatar whose portraits covered this part of the temple. “Hello, Aang. What brings you to my temple?” they said in a kind and warm tone.

“Avatar Hyojin, I need advice on how to handle a restless situation regarding the Fire Nation and its colonies. In your time, wasn't the Fire Nation divided as well?”

“Indeed it was. Allow me to take you back to my time...the time before the Fire Islands became the Fire Nation...”

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I must have been five, maybe six years old. It was a warm, sunny day, as if there weren't many of those on our island, that graced my village yet again as I ran through the fields, playing with the various tiny creatures that happened to me by. One creature in particular happened to catch my eye further out on the beach. The black stripes complimented its bright red feathers in a way that drew me in instantly. Its ears peeled back and its snout took in the oxygen around it. I tilted my head when I recognized the animal. It was a dragon fox. But it was behaving strangely. My parents had always told me to beware of peculiar animals, but I had always had a sixth sense of whether their intentions around humans were good or bad. Carefully, I approached the creature and noticed it wasn't moving. “Hey little fella, are you hurt?” I asked as I noticed it was keeping its hind leg away from me. As I tried to get closer, it started to growl and its feathers stood up on its back. “Well I guess I can't help you if you don't want me to...”

As I turned to walk away, the ground started to rumble below us. “That can't be good...” I looked up to see the nearby volcano shaking, and before I could react, hot lava was plummeting out of it. I could get away if I ran, but... “My new friend!” I cried as I ran over to the dragon fox. I tried to pick it up, but it snarled at me, failing to realize the true danger of the situation.

“Hyojin, get away from there!” I heard my father cry as I looked up to see him and several of the other men from the village. They all looks of what I would later understand to be pure terror on their faces.

My father made to run down after me but one of the other men held him back. “It's too dangerous Hyako!”

As the lava grew closer and my father and the other villagers grew more terrified, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just leave the poor creature to die, but it would not come with me.“Hyojin! Please get up here now!” my mother cried from the ledge above.

I turned to the dragon fox and the approaching lava one final time before surging forward with my hands out. “Go...AWAY!”

Suddenly, I felt as if I had pushed something immensely heavy. I looked up to see the lava, its searing heat overwhelming my face, changing direction. It had completely stopped coming towards the tiger fox and me and instead turned and plummeted into the ocean.

The villagers above were silent for a moment, and then I started to hear murmurs.

“Congratulations, Hyako. Hyojin’s a bender!”

“I didn't know firebenders could bend lava...”

“Did that kid just bend the lava?”

“Is lava even fire?”

“I think it's rock...”

“But it's melted, so maybe...”

At that time, lavabending was unheard of in the Fire Islands. There had been a few rare cases of earthbenders, but none of that news had ever reached my village. But the day a child bent lava into the ocean quickly spread to the other islands. It did not find out until much later that the Fire Sages had identified me as the new Avatar.

Ten years later...

Sweat dripped down my face as I carefully placed one foot to my left, not taking my eyes off my best friend. Yalah Sei’naka, daughter of the chief of my village and my best friend for as long as I could , was currently my opponent. “Looks like big sis is gonna get ya again, Hyo,” the cocky firebender chuckled. She then pivoted her right foot forward, thrust her fist in my direction, and launched a blazing ball of flame directly at me.

“Gotcha,” I whispered as I dropped to the ground, avoiding the fire ball. While I was still low, I spun around and swept my leg out at her, firing a streak of orange flame at Yalah’s feet. She jumped and did a flip in the air to cover the distance to between us, as I suspected she would. I somersaulted forward and shot up, then shot fire with my left hand at the ground to launch myself to circle around her to her right. In the split second her golden eyes were off me, I formed a fire dagger in my right hand and held it to her neck.

“Cheater!” Yalah growled.

“Yield.”

“...”

“Yalah...” the trainer warned.

“I yield,” Yalah grumbled.

Satisfied, I withdrew the flame and backed away. A low growl from the sideline let me know that Toru, the now fully grown dragon fox, approved of my victory. “Excellent work, my students. Both of your fathers would be proud.” Master Tazu was the most experience firebender in our village, which was why, despite his old age, he was always tasked with training the most promising young benders.

“And yet my father still won’t bring me along to the next meeting of the Clan Leaders,” Yalah growled.

Tazu stroked his beard and chuckled. “You must understand, to some clans, you are not the legitimate future leader of Clan Sei’naka.”

“Or maybe they must understand that my clan doesn’t care about their misogynistic beliefs!”

“Look, Yal, I’m not disagreeing with you, but maybe for peace talks your dad just doesn’t want anything to make the talking go...south,” I added.

Yalah sighed. “Ya know, Hyo, you really should have been born into royalty...with your level head and your tolerance for people’s bull-”

“Young lady!” Tazu snapped.

Yalah and I shared a grin, but the sight of a red, pointed hat got our attention. “To what do we owe the honor, Chuzeh?” Tazu asked. Our village Fire Sage was about as old as Tazu. They both had graying beards and modest guts to compliment their slowly wrinkling skin, but Chuzeh’s topknot was hidden by the headdress that signified his status.

“The honor is mine,” Chuzeh stated. “Young Hyojin, if you would be so kind as to accompany me, I am going to meet with the other sages.”

“Me? Meet with the sages? But why?” I asked. I somehow knew the answer to that question, but at the same time didn’t know. It was like my own mind was telling me something that I refused to listen to.”

“All will become clear in time if you just-”

“Ships sighted!” The shout came from the watch tower stationed by the dojo. “Chim-za flags, by the looks of them!”

“The Chim-za? Why would they be here?” Tazu asked. The Chim-za Clan was part of an alliance that opposed ours. The peace talks Tazu and Yalah had been talking about were planned in an attempt to reach a truce.”

“That sexist old coot has wanted this island since he was my age!” Yalah spat. “Of course he wasn’t going to wait for some peace treaty!”

“No, I fear we’ve been betrayed,” said Chuzeh. “Hyojin, you must come with me now!”

“While our village is under attack?” I asked. “I can’t just leave-”

“Hyako!”

My head spun around as I heard my father’s name. I looked just in time to see he harpoon launcher take a direct hit from the canons of one of the ships. “Dad!” I cried.

“Hyojin, don’t!” Tazu warned, but I was already seeing red. Yalah and Chuzeh cried their protests as well, but it all became white noise as I generated scalding hot flames in my palms and launched myself toward the shore.

In the next moment, I became completely overwhelmed, as if the thoughts and feelings a thousand other people invaded my mind. I jolted into the air and cyclone of wind and water suspended me over the attacking ships. I began move my arms in motions that were foreign yet familiar to me. I bent not flames, but the ocean below me, lifting the vessels and raising them high into the air. Once I had raised every last ship as high as I possibly could, I brought them down, destroying them all in a torrent of wind and water.

When the attack ceased, I floated back down to the shore, completely drained of all my energy. Then, everything faded to black.

When I came to, I was in the Fire Sage Temple, surrounded by my mother, my father, whose arm was in a sling, Yalah, Tazu, and Chuseh. “Hyojin!” Yalah threw her arms around me.

“What...what happened?” I asked as the memories flooded back to me.

“The Chim-Za Clan attacked because their sage betrayed the order. They came to take you.” Chuzeh explained.

“M-me?”

“It is as we feared,” the sage said solemnly. As he paused, I heard a loud but low grumble as something extremely large fell to the ground outside. A tree? But what was the grumble? Chuzeh continued as a man with a bald head dawning a blue arrow tattoo and orange and yellow robes walked into the room. “We must move you to the Southern Air Temple to begin you airbending training at once...Avatar Hyojin.”

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Aang breathed out slowly as Hyojin finished telling their story. “That was...the first time you went into the Avatar State, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed. I thought my father had been killed and I just snapped,” the former Avatar explained.

“I when I found out that the Fire Nation had killed Monk Gyatso...I suddenly felt overtaken by the rage of thousands of other people.”

“The Chim-za had a feud with my clan and the Sei’naka Clan. It wasn’t uncommon for the warlords of the different clans in those days to battle over land, but their village sage, along with the other Fire Sages, had known I was the Avatar, and talked their leaders into trying to capture me. After the initial reaction to learning I was the Avatar, I knew it was my duty to learn the four elements and unite my country as one Nation, just as you now must unite the divided colonies.”

The young monk nodded. “Thank you, Hyojin. I know what I must do.”

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Original artwork by Jean