Dual Contentions - Chapter 1 UP!

[ItsMuffinTime]

PLEASE READ BEFORE ACTUAL FANFICTION

~ Okay, first off, the main character's name, Thaen, is pronounced "Tain", like the first part of "Taint". I know that's probably how it isn't ACTUALLY pronounced after being scoured over by grammar nazis, but that's how I called it when I was writing this, so I'd like people to know that that's how I see his name being spoken.
~ Next, this story begins roughly 18 years after Aang is frozen in the ocean. I estimated the Air Nomads would have gone extinct roughly 3 years after Aang disappeared, so I based some character's ages off of that estimation.
I think that's all I'd like to say beforehand, so please enjoy.


~ PROLOGUE

Do I know when we started to disappear? No.
I do know that we're supposed to be extinct. Long forgotten science experiments by the four nations. So I continue to ask myself, why me? Am I just the last ring on the chain of a withering people? The last remains of a lost gene pool?
These questions remain unanswered.
The fate of the Dualists, Benders who pushed the limits of their spiritual capacities and mastered two elements, should be reality. It should be the truth. But here I am.
I never asked for this, but fate rarely stops to ask questions.
So here I am, my life withering away in this prison of the mental and physical, waiting for the solace of my life long lost. I know now there is no hope for me, but hope in the future for one who may inherit my will and continue my struggle. And so I oblige you, dear savior...
Read on,
Into the hell that is the Four Nations.

[ItsMuffinTime]

~ CHAPTER 1 : A FOOL'S BEGINNING ~

It all began, in the inferno of hatred known as the Fire Nation.
I never knew my father, who was an Air Nomad who drew astray from the Nomad lifestyle and fell in love with my mother. Immediately after learning my mother was pregnant, he left us and went back to the other Nomads, who shunned him until he eventually took his own life.
My mother, who was betrayed by my father and was desperate, went back to her own family looking for support. But they shut their door on us, and left us out on the streets.
Mother never told me what she did during those months to survive, but I remember soft hay being the first thing I felt when I was brought into world.
She didn't care much for me. To her I was simply an unwelcome gift left by my father. When I was old enough to wield a simple wooden sword, she thrust me out of her sight, and I was happy to be gone.
I held simple and odd jobs here and there, but most of those early years for me were tainted with poverty. Not all of that is bad, though, because every night I got to enjoy the stars up in the sky. Sitting in green fields, the wind blowing the grass and tickling my side, was one of the more happy moments in my life.
Moving on into my early teens, I got steadily better at swordplay, and eventually wooden sticks suited me no longer. Looking to gain myself a fine blade, I took up work as a blacksmith's apprentice in a small village. For many months I stayed there, earning my food and keep in a small room near the blacksmith's shop.
My last task before I was able to take my smithy skills abroad, given to me by my teacher himself, was to "Craft a blade that could tear a tree stump asunder." Given free usage of the shop, I worked day and night to craft a fine blade made of steel. When the sun shone on it's tip, and reflected down the blade onto the hilt, it looked almost like a sword crafted for Kings.
Testing the sword, I cleaved through a tree stump almost as a knife would move through butter. The smithy gave me a pure black sheath as a graduation present, and it was then that I took my skills abroad.
I traveled for days with nothing but dirty clothes, my sword, and a hand carved cane. I eventually made my way to a well sized city, Toshikaen, and it was there that my life changed...