Avatar:The Trade

"Enough playing around, [...] Tell me what I want to know."
"[...] It's like you suspected. Your brother's gone."

— Kavik receives news about Kalyaan's whereabouts from Qiu.

Template:Chapter infobox"The Trade" is the thirteenth chapter of The Dawn of Yangchen.

Overview

Having arranged a meeting, Kavik exchanges the document he stole from Yangchen to his broker, Qiu, for information on his missing brother, Kalyaan. After being informed his brother has likely left Bin-Er by himself, Kavik reminisces on how Kalyaan slowly became ostracized from his community and family, and the impact his actions had on both.

Synopsis

En route to a teahouse, The Golden Cloudberry, for a clandestine meeting, Kavik resolves to never again travel through the square near Bin-Er's Gidu Shrine, as even along his detour route, he can hear the sounds of intensifying protests against the shangs from it. With such sentiments being bolstered by Shang Teiin's earlier crackdown at the square, Kavik likens the situation in the city to tempestuous waters forming below the ice, ones he has no intention of ever traveling on. Despite such measures, Kavik arrives at the establishment on time, empty but for the cook in the kitchen, and is soon joined by Qiu, his information broker, who sits facing away from him in the next booth.

Already annoyed with Qiu's amateurish behavior, Kavik accuses the youth of knowingly sending him to steal from Avatar Yangchen. However, after Qiu attempts to placate him with the excuse that an Air Nomad would never kill someone, Kavik realizes that Yangchen's visitation to his family home has remained a secret to the rest of Bin-Er. With his reputation and the value of the envelope he stole from the Blue Manse still intact, he exchanges the intelligence with an excited Qiu while demanding the information he requested about Kalyaan, his brother. Qiu reveals he had used his source inside the city's pass control office to search for records of a Water Tribe man with Kalyaan's features, namely the two missing fingers on one of his hands, and confirms to Kavik that his brother, having used an alias, left Bin-Er some time ago.

Looking back on his family's initial experiences emigrating to Bin-Er, beginning with their arrival at the city, Kavik recalls being afraid to set foot on the solid ground of the Earth Kingdom continent for fear of falling through the unstable ground or being attacked by hostile soldiers. At Kalyaan's urging, however, Kavik held hands with his brother and parents, and in lockstep with them, stepped from their umiak onto the shore, his fear of their new home temporarily abated. Steady work as a junior bookkeeping clerk at the Water Tribe-owned and operated business Nuqingaq's and Partners was initially for Kavik another source of stability, in addition to the luxury of working and living together with his family, unlike many other of his other kinsmen who had to leave their loved ones behind. After six months, however, Kalyaan was fired from his job at Nuqingaq's for being absent several times. Though Kalyaan explained that his absences from his work, and later from his family, were due to his new, lucrative work, he refused to tell his family what his job was, despite the strain it caused their cohesion as a group. Even after Kalyaan ensconced Kavik and his parents inside a new house in the city's International District, he refused to tell them his reasons for doing so, which his family could only reluctantly accept.

Throughout all this, Kavik would eavesdrop on his fellow workers at Nuqingaq's, and not only learned that Kalyaan was under suspicion of being an errand runner or spy for outside forces due to his behavior and actions, but also how his brother was violating the unwritten assumption in Bin-Er's Water Tribe Quarter that if its members remained isolated from the corrupt activities of the ruling shangs or the groups of other nations, they would be afforded better freedom of movement, including the ability to leave the city by attaining exit passes from the authorities. These suspicions were only exacerbated when Nuqingaq's clients were poached by other competitors after the details of their contracts were leaked; while many employees of the business were fired, Kavik and his father were not. As Kalyaan disappeared completely not long after, blame for the incident and its impact on the community was placed on him, and by extension the rest of Kavik's family.

Separated from his brother, estranged from most of his countrymen, and frustrated by Bin-Er's policies of deporting those without the means to support themselves, Kavik recalls his solution to all these problems being to leave the city with his entire family. Driven by the hope that following his brother's footsteps would help track him down, Kavik left his job at Nunqingaq's to be an errand runner, and pursued every lead he could in pursuit of his goal, even if it meant dragging Kalyaan back home against his will. In light of Qiu's revelation, however, Kavik is rendered overwhelmed and speechless, not only at his long search reaching a dead end, but at the thought that his brother left his family behind in Bin-Er without any word. Sensing Kavik's discomfort as he tries to repeatedly clear his throat, Qiu offers his sympathies, knowing of the strong bonds present in Water Tribe families. Eager to change the conversation, Kavik asks Qiu what he intends to do with the envelope, to which the youth, oblivious to Kavik's burgeoning envy, states his intention to leave Bin-Er, sell the envelope to interested parties from overseas, and use his connections to set up such a trade in the comparatively warmer city of Taku. With a parting message to give Kalyaan his best, Qiu leaves Kavik behind in the teahouse; alone, his plans in ruin, the Water Tribesman silently presses his head back painfully into the wall of the booth behind him.

Production notes

Series continuity

• Qiu states his intention to move to the shang city of Taku. The ruins of that city were eventually visited by Avatar Aang during his travels several centuries after Yangchen's era.

Character revelations

• Kavik and his family arrived in Bin-Er five years ago.
• After taking what the rest of his community suspected was espionage work, Kalyaan left Bin-Er without leaving word to his family.
• Kavik has been searching for his brother with the intention of them all leaving Bin-Er together.
• Kalyaan is missing the pinkie and ring fingers on one of his hands.