Chapter Text
Long before I had my arrows and even before I could properly use my own Glider. I had an interesting encounter during one of my early relief expeditions across the Earth Kingdom.
I was just shy of your age, thirteen, and it was the first time I had ever left the Eastern Air Temple. I had just started getting along with my sky bison, Jiji so it was also the first time she let me on her head and reins to fly.
Flying alongside the birds and creatures of the sky was more overwhelming than I could have ever imagined. I had always been fascinated by the ability to live above the clouds and even Temples. Occasionally coming low enough to allow children of each nation to be enamored by your beautiful colors.
I would sometimes veer just out of our neat formation of bison and the much younger Abbot Rema who was just Rema then, would scold me worse than Sister Yaina would before she even got the chance to.
His voice would crack, yelling through the wind. “Naanyen! Stay in line!” It lacked the command and wisdom then, but was still ever pedantic. “If Jiji throws you off, I am not catching you!”
“Jiji and I are very much past our disagreements!” I retaliated, feeling as smug as one could be that I had finally earned my bison’s trust. Much later than everyone else had though.
I remember giggling to myself each time he caught me daydreaming like that. I had no fear of doing so, because I knew he would’ve ended up catching me anyway.
“Yeah, Yeah! Just be careful!”
Soon after, Jiji and the other bison dipped below the clouds then through the snowy peak of the Yogshi mountains. It brought the most beautiful grasslands in the entire Earth Kingdom to view. Beautifully vibrant plains riding each other to climb higher and higher. Clear, turquoise rivers cutting through the ground like cracks on the earth’s skin and glistening like the finely polished Ba Sing Se ballrooms.
From that high up, the villages that patterned the fields looked like small brown dots when in reality, each held dozens of families within them.
But, the beauty of it fades once you get the first smell of smoke that polluted the community. During this time, the Earth Kingdom was undergoing major unrest. The Earth King was an arrogant man, the entire kingdom and even his own magnificent city had atrocities more frequent than ever seen before. The economy was in shambles and he did nothing to aid his people, harboring the mindset that it would all balance itself as humanity does.
This had resulted in a massive movement of all Nuns, Monks and even Abbots to leave the temples and try to help mediate the problems.
Every expedition we did felt like an apology on behalf of the Earth King and the people saw it as just this. They would say, “Why won’t the king come down and help us!” Always overseeing us nomads, but we could not blame them. It was a scary time for them all.
No-one could find work due to the several raider groups that terrorized the nation and tore down any attempt at rebuilding. Even if the kingdom’s authorities had attempted to stop this spree of brutalities, they would have simply been overwhelmed and the region would have fallen entirely.
The first town we stopped at was one that had felt the brunt of yet another Raider attack. The Komodo-Rhino Brotherhood were not the type to only plunder and kill, they were far more vicious than that.
At midnight they would burn the rice fields and crops of the people first, entire hills and rivers would be covered in raging orange light under the moonlight, as a warning that your village would be next on their spree. Many fled to only realize that every settlement within a five day distance had already been decimated and beyond rebuilding.
If you did not flee, that was when they launched their inferno of assault. They burnt houses, markets and they burned until there was nothing left. They did not kill, they made it a point that you would starve on your infertile soil and that is how they would indirectly kill you.
This is what we aimed to assist against. We would deliver food, clothing, help rebuild temporary shelter to withstand the elements, and stay some days to a week in the area until they were back on their feet. We would simply pray for them and give them our best wishes if they had refused our help.
You see, The Komodo-Rhino Brotherhood had firebenders in their ladders which was cause for suspicion that outlawed firebenders from the Archipelago Fire Clans were making their way into the Earth Kingdom and wasting the rest of their lives to cause senseless chaos.
Many noble mediators of the Earth Kingdom even travelled to the Archipelago to beg for their assistance, while charitable clans sent few fleets to the coastlines of the Kingdom, without the permission of the Earth King they would be illegally trespassing on the region and therefore would infringe on a peace treaty that had held for centuries prior.
It was a gridlock of frustration.
___
The town’s name was Razino. When our bisons’ tails had first flattened grass, we were immediately met with resistance. More so by the men of the village. They shouted “No, No! We don’t need your divine help!” Those who could earthbend stood ready with erected stone pillars prepared for offense.
Sister Yaina, who led our relief group, stepped forward holding two thick bags of grain that could feed multiple families for a week or more if they had rationed it correctly. We had about ten times that amount split across all of our bison’s saddles.
“I know these are trying times. You cannot trust another, not even those who say they are here to maintain and uphold peace. But I promise you we are only here to help you, please allow us to.” Sister Yaina spoke, she always had such a peaceful way with words that seemed to put even the most aggravated hog-monkey to rest.
I had turned my back to grab my portion of rations so I couldn’t hear the remainder of their short lived dispute. But I could hear the sounds of stones returning to their places on the ground and the dropping of a singular pitchfork.
When I turned my attention back to the scarred village, most of the adults had already dispersed around town. Tending to those scorched by the fires or damaged by falling debris. Nuns took the babies of damaged mothers, feeding them and laying them to rest while others cared for said mothers.
Right before more homes could collapse inward with their melted, black ceilings, the skilled of us airbenders would rush to hold them up and balance their foundation. Some were unpreventable, they would fall into each other and coalesce into charred debris that looked like used campfires that were put out the night before.
Cloth medicine shelters were put up in minutes, but what had I been doing while everyone had their hands full? I was paralyzed from indecision with a bag of rice cakes clutched tightly in my arms that was just about to pop.
That feeling of being overwhelmed had returned but this time not in a remotely good way. Rema and my other close friend Sizi had to have noticed my internal collapse that mirrored the village homes and jumped onto Jiji’s saddle.
“I think there are people who need those, Naanyen.” Sizi had said with her smug laughter. It was a genuine attempt at airbender humor to evoke a shred of laughter from me, but it failed. It only served to make my panic worse which she seemed to have noticed when she dropped her head.
Despite him being so discreet about it, I had noticed the nudge of frustration he bored into Sizi’s elbow with his own. He scowled at her before attempting to reassure me, “I know how strange it feels having such responsibility to people outside of our temples. But maybe just start slow, don’t try to fix everyone in front of you. Just hand them out one by one, speak with the person, get to know them.”
Rema always spoke in mouthfuls back then, even now if you best him at Pai Sho. Nevertheless, his words helped me a lot. My platypus-bear grip on the rations had relaxed and I spoke, “I’m worried I will mess it up. I’m barely a proper airbender.”
Sizi jolted up before Rema could respond, I assumed she wanted to get back into my good graces. “Just because you can’t airbend does not make you any lesser.” At the time it felt like a pompous lie coming from the perfect nun in growing, but it also helped me.
“Thank you, Rema and Sizi.” I had forced past the lump in my throat and pulled them into a hug. Feeling their arms reciprocate was that final push I needed to go out there.
“Go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Is what I told them. It was as if they were waiting to hear that I was okay because they immediately flapped their gliders open and soared to the village ends, supplies in tow.
I did not have the luxury of being able to fly like my peers without Jiji, but it made me feel grounded in some strange way. Like the earth was part of me and I was part of it, so it did not make me uncomfortable when I slid down Jiji’s soft fur and hopped through the charred mud to the first person I saw.
___
After some time of handing out rations, I had made it down to my last pouch. By this time, I was almost sure that everyone at the village had been given a share already, but I still asked Rema if he had seen anyone who hadn’t.
He leapt into the sky with his ever impressive bending and snapped his glider open. He drifted about for some time before regaining contact with the ground, spinning his glider close. He shook his head at me, “I do not think so. Sister Yaina wants the younger ones back before it gets too dark so we can set up camp.”
I nodded in understanding, but something still tugged at my heart in disappointment. When I got into the motions of helping the village people, I almost did not want to stop. I could have been helping tend to the damaged, even though I knew it wasn’t in my power then.
I turned and slowly walked toward our bison, dragging my gaze accordingly when I passed by. The villagers had begun to settle into the little comfort we provided for them. Children sat under the bison fur blankets, all too large for them while the older men worked with Monk Katsen to clear debris out of the pathways.
That pungent smell of smoke still lingered over Razino even though the fresh mountain air brushed overhead now and then. But I knew we would get there eventually.
I had made it back to Jiji and lifted a leg to climb onto her saddle when I heard something crunch behind me in the thicket of bush, untouched by the fires. It was not the crunch of a koala-sheep getting its evening fill but the crunch of leaves under weight.
My first instinct was to call over Sizi to go see what it was with me, or even just leave it alone. It could have only been an innocent animal, but my legs had already turned from Jiji and took a step in the direction of the noise against my better judgment.
I held on to my staff as tightly as possible, thinking it would give me some courage knowing I had some weapon with me, but it did not.
I stood before the same shrub now, it rested still. I could have turned back with a shrug of my shoulders, but I swiped my hand through it and shoved a leg in.
After peeling the final branch out of my way, I was half confused by what made the noise. It was a person, a boy. He could not have been any older than I was at the time, but he looked as if he faced struggles far beyond his age, just from a first glance.
He had shagged, brown hair that ran down his forehead. It looked unwashed and matted like how Jiji’s would after months of refusing my baths. His sun-bruised face was covered with mud and leaves, and his mouth gaped open to reveal his missing front tooth. He must have been as shocked to see me as I was to see him hiding in the bush.
At first, I thought he was the son of a villager, so I approached him slowly. Using the same kind of care I learnt to approach a skittish animal with. I loosened the grip around my staff and put my other hand out slowly, and put on the warmest smile I could. I would take a step forward, and he would take one backward, shifting his balance to completely turn and run.
He was painfully thin, his oversized robes hanging off one shoulder and stained with dirt and ash. It must have torn at the other shoulder from some branch because there was a small cut, fresh underneath.
His eyes kept shooting past me at the village until he finally spoke, “Are you going to tell them I’m here?” his voice held a spell of pain.