"And the Avatar strikes again; this time, she fought a giant knight... taller than the highest building in Republic City," Lrosa tells.
"They say it was made of pure platinum, and not even the Avatar with her was able to stand it... even with the assistance of the troops of air benders and friends, she had a hard time bringing it down," she continues.
"And after the courageous destruction caused, she continues to drag the battle into the swamp, our hiding place... our only home." She paused for a while.
"The only home I found for us after I lost my sister, your mother."
She continues the narration in a lamenting atmosphere as Kayne enters their house, which is in a state of ruin under a swamp root.
He drops his bag and sits on a nearby spirit vein, roughly made but comfortable enough to relieve his exhausted self.
Laying his back to the wall behind him, broken cracks on the wall fall like scree. He deeply exhales while looking up at the remaining roof above, embarrassed to be called shelter.
The room is dimly lit with the glow of a set fire in the middle and walls painted with covered veins.
The narration had stopped. Kayne turns his neck slightly to his left, leaning on the wall, taking a glance at his Aunt who was constantly gazing at the eye-piercing-titan-bright of the flames.
"Hey, aunt, here's some food, I got your favorites," he said, throwing a brown dirt-covered filled sac at her. His tone was as lifeless as a doornail, unable to break her focus and bring her back to earth. Luckily, her laps were able to catch it.
"Aunt!" he lifted his voice a bit.
"Huh!?" Lrosa was startled from her frozen position. She grabbed a dehydrated root nearby and broke a twig, pointed side directed at Kayne's assumed position. "Who's there?" she asked in fear. "Has she gone blind now?" he considered. "It's me, Kayne," he said calmly. He moved slightly closer to her and patted her shoulder, and her widened eyes returned to normal. She huffed and grabbed his fingers resting on her shoulders.
Lrosa had a sister, the mother of Kayne, who she lost some months ago. She still talks to her like she's there and claims to see children which she portrays the yarn of the avatar to, over and over again.
"Were you speaking to nothing again?" he asked in concern.
"I was with my children," her voice turns out to be soft and calm, but rather adverse during the narration out of the uncontrollable joy for her nonexistent kids.
"I met the monk today; he helped me cogitate and handed me this meat during the offerings," he said.
Lrosa was almost done with her food. She ate the last piece and gently began to speak.
"How about the Avatar, does she still breathe?" she asked.
Kayne was shocked but answered. "Yes."
"That energy blast doesn't just access the matter of the body but also denatures the spirit as well. She might die sooner or later... but this mess is unacceptable," she said.
"Aang would have done better. He solved conflicts upon wars, and she couldn't handle a metal bender with gadgets. I'm not surprised the Red Lotus abused her physically, mentally, and spiritually with ease," she continues.
Her eyes began to shut moderately. "I can't ask the Avatar to bring my family back, but at least to accomplish her duties and clean the clutter and restore true balance."
"Bringing the spirits to us, to the physical world, will lead to more threats only," she added. "What do you mean, Aunt Lrosa?" he inquired.
She lowered her upper body, placing her head on the laps of her nephew and began to doze.
"If a simple human could harness the energy of the spirits and wreak such havoc with Kuvira as the example, who knows what could happen next?" "She just threw reality to doom by making it even easier to recognize spirits." "The dumbest avatar in human history... the nobility of Aang stands tall, if only he would...." her sentence slowly faded off in sleep.
Kayne dimmed the fire, rested Lrosa's head on a sac nearby, made a pillow out of his shirt, and dropped, facing the sky through a broken hole in the ceiling until he finally slept too.
Whoosh!! Whish!! Swoosh!! The breeze of the sea swept across the shore of the memorial island. Kayne had fastened the boat, with a hypothesized motive to get a glance at the statue. He pulled his long hair back and tied it into a bun with a rope.
In the dark, he heard a chirp-like sound similar to a rock hitting the ground behind him. It was supposed to scare him, but rather he rose and turned to face whatever was behind him.
"Who's there?" he cried. "You better leave before I clean you off the shores of the living," he said, tracing a shadow figure behind the pillar.
The trek ends right in front of Aang's statue where he observes a cult of people on their knees bowing to Aang in rocks. The stranger he was after happens to be a latecomer and a member.
"What are you doing? That statue ain't gonna turn into a god, you morons!" he chuckled as he mocked them.
Their bodies ascended off the floor with their backs bent, hanging their heads like a horde of undead. In unison, they all turned their heads, showing their faces to Kayne.
Kayne was shocked at what he saw. The worshippers all possessed the Avatar state. With the white glow in their eyes, it was undoubtedly true that at that moment, they turned into avatars.
Kayne was terrified and lost. "How?"
He fell to the ground with a mindset to flee. And suddenly, all the cultists turned their heads and threw their faces up to the statue of Aang.
Kayn looked up at the statue's face and noticed a perfect crack in the eye. It started to glow, and so did the arrow markings with a resemblance to the Avatar State.
Rock fragments of tiny sizes fell down, and the statue seemed to have grown joints and broken parts. It began to move, as if it was alive. The intensity of the Avatar State light increased until he was blinded.
"Hah!" Kayn awoke from his sleep, covered in sweat. Sweat represented the fear that had engulfed him.
"What was that?!"