New Arrivals

"Hey, Kozan! Look!"

The children rushed to gather at the edge of the courtyard, pressing themselves against the bars of the fence to get a look at what was drawing their attention.

The 7-year-old Kozan pushed his way through the others to spot the wagon pulled by a couple of ostrich-horses as it approached the orphanage. There were countless colonies along the western Earth Kingdom coasts. Chief among them was the colony of Yu Dao. Established thirty years before the beginning of the great war, it had become the wealthiest and most prosperous Fire Nation city outside the motherland. Further down the Earth Kingdom coast, many smaller settlements such as this one were built to aid the conquest of the mainland. Having been established in the early days of the war, the natives in the region were swiftly gathered to live in these colonies without knowing what was truly going on, and were since all but subjugated into Fire Nation rule.

Kozan had a feeling that was what the wagon was doing here now. All the children in the colony orphanage knew what it meant: new arrivals. Sometimes it was Fire Nation children who lost their families in the war, other times they brought in children from elsewhere in the kingdom. Usually, Kozan and the others could tell the difference by the way they were treated. In fact, Earth Kingdom children were treated horribly.

At last, the driver stepped down from the wagon and swiftly ordered two servants to open the rear and usher out the cargo. From the courtyard, they watched as half a dozen children lumbered out of the wagon. There were five boys and only one girl. Their ages looked as though they might have ranged from five to 13-years-old. What was more, their clothes were poor and battered, not at all like the garments worn by the Fire Nation colonists.

"They're Earth Kingdom," the boy standing next to Kozan pointed out. "All of them."

"Do you think they'll get adopted, too?" another of the children asked.

"No way! The master will definitely put them to work in the kitchen."

All the children laughed, but Kozan just watched silently as the new arrivals were lined up outside the wagon that delivered them. Just then, a tall and slender man with greying hair and whiskers on his face approached them, followed closely by two masked guards. He walked with a straight and authoritative posture with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Welcome," he said in a tone that was both pleasant and grim as he paced before them. "My name is Sao Min. I am the master of this facility, and as such it is my responsibility to ensure that you find your place here at your new home."

Several of the children watching from the courtyard snickered at the speech they had all heard before. If only the new arrivals were aware of the facade of the master's welcome. Kozan knew that he could be especially harsh toward the Earth Kingdom children.

"But what was wrong with our old homes?" the tallest and oldest of the arrivals asked rather brashly.

As if the universe had responded to Kozan's thoughts, he watched as the master came to a halt. He didn't even turn his head to face the boy, but instead reversed his pace until he was standing in front of him. The courtyard had gone silent as everyone waited anxiously to see what would happen.

Out of nowhere, the master raised his hand and struck the boy across the face so hard that he stumbled backward onto the ground. The children in the courtyard gave a series of, "Oohs!" almost as though they had enjoyed the show. The other five Earth children stood frozen in terror, none more, Kozan noticed, than the one girl among them who was standing next to the boy that had been struck.

"Get back in line, boy!" Sao Min growled. The boy stood shakily to his feet, his head now looking at the ground in front of him. "As the rest of you can see," he continued, "do as you are told and your stay here will be as pleasant as can be, and with any luck, some of you may be chosen by a family that finds themselves in need of you." As he stepped away from the children, he cast a sly grin back at them and said, "But I rather doubt it. Show them to their quarters!"

At the command, the two guards who had accompanied him ushered the children to follow them. The oldest boy led the group behind the first guard, the girl following along with the rest of them and the second guard bringing up the rear.

"I think he went easy on them," one of the kids in the courtyard said.

"Just wait till we get the chance to welcome them properly," another replied with a malevolent chuckle.

As the group began to depart, Kozan was about to turn away from the new arrivals when he suddenly noticed the girl trip and fall forward. The boy in front of her turned his head just in time to see her and quickly stepped out of the way to dodge her fall. It all happened in the blink of an eye, but as the girl and the boy's foot both hit the ground at the same time, Kozan felt a soft tremor as a small crack suddenly appeared in the ground between them.

Everybody froze. Kozen looked around as the other children rushed back to the edge of the courtyard to see what had just happened. The two guards guiding the group exchanged glances of surprise with one another. Before anyone could react, the master had already returned to the party of newcomers, his eyes wide with disbelief. He scanned the crack in the ground, which zigzagged outward in several different directions. The girl continued to lie there, too afraid to move. The master's eyes quickly returned to the boy with whom he had just had a confrontation.

"Ah! So we have a troublemaker, do we?" Sao Min said with anger in his voice. "Get him out of my sight!"

The front guard snatched the boy by the arms and dragged him away. Unsure of what was happening, the boy kicked and resisted, crying out for mercy and insisting that he hadn't done anything. The others who remained could only watch helplessly.

"Any more troublemakers want to make themselves known?" Sao Min swept his piercing gaze across the others. Nobody dared to say a word. "Better stay that way," he said as he looked down to see the girl staring up at him. "What are you looking at? Get up!"

The second guard made his way to the front of the line. "Follow me," he said, "and don't be stupid." The girl scrambled to her feet before the kid behind her could step on her heels and the five remaining children followed the guard up the hill to the orphanage.

The children in the courtyard were all taken aback by what had just happened, unsure of what they saw as they exchanged sentiments of, "Did you see that?" and "What do you think is gonna happen to him?" Kozan, however, found himself focused on something else.

As the group of new arrivals neared the courtyard, Kozan's eyes fell upon the new leader of the line. There were far more boys at the orphanage than there were girls, but he had never seen one from the Earth Kingdom before. She looked so much different than any of the Fire Nation girls. Her skin was tanner and her hair, though ragged and dirty, was lighter and shorter than the jet black hair typical among the Fire Nation commoners. As they passed right by the courtyard on their way into the orphanage, the girl's eyes scanned anxiously around the area, and for a brief second, they crossed with Kozan's.

Kozan wanted to look away as their gazes met, but he was transfixed by the gleam of her hazel-colored eyes. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he felt more at ease than he had in a long time during his life at this miserable orphanage. Before he could comprehend this feeling, the girl looked away again as the children were all taken inside and the doors closed behind them.