Chapter 1: Benders without a Nation​

My mother once told me that long ago, airbenders used to be able to fly all throughout the sky. I have a hard time imagining that though. Any time I tried flying all I could do was jump a couple of feet up into the air. It's useful when my brother's ball gets caught in a tall tree, but not so much otherwise. My mother isn't so wild about me climbing up trees though. Like today for example.

"Tashi! Get down from there, you're going to break your neck if you fall!" my mother shouted.

I winced. I could have sworn she was still doing laundry. "Sorry Mom. I was just getting Ceba's ball for him."

My little brother Ceba, standing at the bottom of the tree, came to my defense "Yeah, what she said. It's not her fault."

"I swear you two are going to give me gray hair before I even turn forty. Now get down this instant Tashi." she demanded.

I was just a few feet away from the ball, but my mom could be very unforgiving about following instructions. Being raised in the Fire Nation probably had something to do with that. She had told me how lucky I was that she didn't use a switch branch to discipline me like parents in the Fire Nation did.

So I picked my landing spot and moving forward off the branch I used my airbending to slow my body as I jumped down. I could see Mom's body tense up at first when I left the branch. My landing was pretty soft but Mom didn't seem impressed.

"When I said get down I was expecting that you would climb down." she said.

"I could have lost my grip, airbending seemed safer." I replied.

"That's hard to believe considering you're not supposed to be bending, let alone practicing, without me supervising. When exactly did you learn how to do that?" she said

I was about to reply before I realized that she probably wouldn't be too pleased to hear I had figured it out by jumping off a small ledge a couple dozen times. Instead I went to my usual cover story when I was practicing a move.

"I uhhh.. found it in a scroll?" I said, hoping she would buy it.

From the look on her face she probably didn't, but she knew trying to press me wouldn't go anywhere. I could be very good at dodging the question when I wanted to.

Instead she sighed and said "Well now that you're done risking your life for a ball, I need your help sewing some clothes. The captain wants his socks darned immediately and I need help."

"Again? How does he keep wearing through them so quickly?"

"Probably has something to do with one of his feet being made of wood, dear. Now come on."

"Yes Mom." I said, and I followed her to the sewing room. When I saw little Ceba looking forlornly at the ball still in the tree I mouthed to him 'later' as a promise. He seemed to be cheered up by that.

Another thing that was unthinkable to me were the stories about how airbenders used to travel all over the world, with hardly anyone giving them trouble. With the war on, nobody under the Fire Nation's thumb was allowed to even breathe without their permission. The way my parents describe it there was so much paperwork before they could get a colonial emigration pass to move to this former temple.

Here the person who made the rules was Kochin, a semi-retired army captain who got the job watching our little community after he lost a leg. There were only a dozen of us here at the former southern air temple, which meant the Fire Nation only had him and his assistant watching us. Any more than that would have been considered a waste of manpower probably. We were allowed to settle here so we could tend the nearby fruit groves to supply the military.

Captain Kochin wasn't the worst possible petty overlord to have. He was old and riding the war out here until he could retire in a year or two. Because of this he wasn't so strict about the "no airbending" laws we lived under. So as long as someone didn't make trouble or flout the laws too obviously then he wouldn't call in the nearby garrison to arrest them for bending in private.

His assistant Lieutenant Gero however was a real killjoy. Being younger he was much less thrilled about being in a 'backwater' posting. There weren't that many opportunities to win glory around here. That meant Gero was always scheming for ways to get himself transferred or promoted.

For example when Prince Zuko visited the temple searching for the Avatar a few years ago Gero made a huge deal about it. Made us do all sorts of stuff to butter up the prince like preparing a big feast and cleaning the whole temple from top to bottom. He didn't even let us talk to him lest we ruin his rare meeting with royalty.

But all the work felt worth it when the prince royally chewed Gero out for potentially destroying evidence of the Avatar by having the temple cleaned so thoroughly ("You idiot! How am I supposed to find anything if it's all been wiped away!"). The look on Gero's face was priceless.

It probably didn't help that the prince must have been irritated by his injured eye getting exposed to the cold mountain air. The scar looked pretty bad from what I could see. I don't think I saw him smile the entire time he was here. Prince Zuko was so angry about Gero's mistake that he didn't even stay for the feast we had made, which meant the extra food went to us. So I counted it as a good day.

Aside from that, life here at the temple was pretty quiet. We occasionally get a few tourists who come to see the site of the Fire Nation's great triumph over the Air Army. The history books say that the Nomads were afraid of the Fire Nation and were preparing to invade. So Sozin launched a pre-emptive strike that devastated them. The only survivors were a few children that the Fire Nation 'benevolently' took in, one of which was my great grandmother.

If they were treated anything like my mother though, I'm sure they would've rather died. For a long time after that, children with either a certain amount of air nomad ancestry, one quarter or more, or had airbending were expected to attend 'residential' schools. Mom didn't like talking about her time in the school, but what she did tell me was truly terrible to hear.

The punishments for even minor rule breaking were often cruel. Despite being a non-bender my mom was treated harshly just because of her ancestry. One time when mom had broken curfew she had been forced to loudly sing the fire nation anthem over and over until her voice gave out. Then she was beaten for not being able to follow orders and sing it again.

The only reason me and my brother had avoided going was that we were less than a quarter air nomad on my mothers side, so we weren't automatically required to go. Our dad is from the Fire Nation, but that didn't mean he didn't love us. When Mom and Dad discovered I had inherited my grandmother's airbending, they both agreed they would never send me to one of those schools.

That was partly why we moved out here, there's fewer people around willing to tattle if they saw me bending. The other residents all have air bending ancestry, which was why they chose to come back to the temple. I'm pretty sure some of them can airbend, but between the laws and stigma attached to airbending it's rarely brought up. Since the temple has so few people here there was plenty of room for us. Plus it was far from the war.

Currently Dad is serving in a regiment near Omashu, so I needed to help out with a lot of the chores. Even if I was less of a fan of certain tasks.

"I still don't understand how you avoid pricking yourself with the nee- AH!" I withdrew my hand from where it was working and examined it to see if it was bleeding.

"You just need to pay attention to where your hands are dear. Don't think I didn't notice that you were letting your mind wander." she said.

I returned to working on the sock I was holding. "Well sorry, darning socks isn't exactly the most interesting thing in the world."

"You'll learn to appreciate having the skill. Why else do you think the Captain always comes to us when he needs his clothes mended?"

"I always thought it had more to do with the fact he didn't want to do it himself."

She gave me a look and said "True, but it's important to make yourself useful to others. I've learned that's the best way to find your place in the world."

"I'm trying to be useful. Why do you think I was helping Ceba get his ball out of that tree?"

"I meant other ways. You don't need to use your bending to help people. I remember the Noharas saying they need someone to walk their goat dog since they're getting up there in years."

"Oh boy, walking a goat dog. That sounds like a real step up from darning socks." I said, my tone of voice showing how little excitement I actually felt.

"When you're older you'll appreciate how important little things like that are. Not everything in your life needs to be exciting, Tashi." She told me.

I finished the last sock I had and handed it to Mom for inspection. "Well I'm done, is there anything else I need to do?"

My mother thought for a second before saying "Not right now, I won't be starting making lunch for another hour. So you can enjoy some free time."

"Alright, thanks Mom. I'll be back soon."

"Just don't wander off too far. And if you see Mr Nele tell him I finished mending his winter coat."

"I'll do that." I said before I was out of our little temple apartment.

I took advantage of the free time to go for a walk for some exercise. This time of day Ceba liked to play with the only other kid here, a little girl named Opame who was around his age. They were cute together, so long as they weren't up to some mischief. As the fifteen year old to Ceba's ten years old, I had to reign him in sometimes. Since he was a firebender I literally had to blow out his fires for him on several occasions.

I made sure to dress up in my gray coat and scarf. The temple grounds were pretty large so I had plenty of space to stretch my legs. It was useful for keeping warm as I enjoyed the clear mountain air. It was a bit windy today so I made sure to pull my brown hair back and secure it into a ponytail with some string.

One of the downsides of living up here was that it was almost always near freezing. I idly wondered if any airbenders froze to death from living on top of such a cold mountain. At the very least it meant most of the other residents stayed inside as much as possible so they could stay warm. It wouldn't be for another few months before it was warm enough to do anything besides tend the nearby fruit tree groves down in the valley.

I had just finished a lap around the grounds when I spotted something in the late morning sky. At first I thought it was a bird, but then I saw it getting closer. As the thing in the sky approached I suddenly realized it was big, furry, and had horns. Was this a sky bison? I had heard about them but they were so rare I had never seen one.

Then it turned directly towards me, and it began to dawn on me that it was going to land here. I looked around and realized I was standing in the plaza where it was likely headed to land, so I moved to avoid getting in its way. My timing was good because once I had moved towards one of the gates I saw it land in the middle of the plaza. To my amazement I saw the huge beast was wearing a large saddle, with two people riding in it with a third on the bison's head.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. My Mom had been scolding me for climbing a tree an hour ago and these lunatics were riding a giant bison that could easily throw them off thousands of feet in the sky while it flew.

I wondered if they would let me take a ride with them.

But even more strange was that the two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were wearing blue parka's. They were probably water tribesmen. We weren't that far from the south pole so it was pretty likely they had come from there.

The boy on the bison's head however was a different story, wearing an unusual orange and yellow outfit. I tried to place it for a moment before I realized where I had seen it before. It was traditional air nomad clothing. I remembered finding one or two old sets of it while exploring the temple.

Even more striking were the large arrows on his head and hands. Were those tattoo's? I really hoped not because from what dad told me getting tattoos hurt. And this kid had tattoo's all over him. I could hardly imagine any sensible adult giving so many tattoo's to a kid his age. Maybe they were just painted on. Was this kid an Air Nomad enthusiast or something?

Before I could study the strange visitors further they spotted me standing a few yards away. The boy seemed eager to greet me.

"Hey there! My name's Aang, do you live here?" he shouted.

I guess I was going to have to go say hello.