Title: "A Special Mother"
Author: A6
Rating: T (violent scene, Kataang)
Summary: A very special mother in the Southern Air Temple gives birth to the first ever set of quintuplets, and has many challenges – and help - raising them.
Word Count: 1497
Author's Note: One of my older stories, written to the KF writing contest 1500 word limit.
...
The new mother's birthing pains were excruciating. She let out a long, blood-curdling wail that shattered the otherwise spiritual calm of the air of the Southern Air Temple a hundred years ago. All across the Temple people turned and smiled at the sound, knowing that new life once again entered the world. Mothers sighed knowingly, remembering their own birth pain experiences all too well.
It was a special day for the Air Nomad culture. Never before had the birth of quintuplets been recorded at the Temple! The young mother finished delivering the last of five - her only male! She was so proud of all of all five of them, but especially proud of her first son! They were all healthy and getting stronger by the minute. Her lifetime mate stood close to her, keeping the new arrivals warm as they took turns nursing.
The new mother applied her maternal skills day and night. She constantly cleaned their messes, and nursed them almost non-stop – someone was always hungry! Her mate took care of the new family on those rare times she rested. Despite her male companion's help, being a full time mommy was her job, and she put her complete soul into it.
This family of five was special not just because they were quintuplets born into the Air Nomad culture. They were quintuplet Sky Bison! Special creatures born into a special Nation! The Air Nomads celebrated the miracle of the multiple animal births as readily as they accepted their own human children's births. Such was the Air Nomads' love of nature and all creatures big and small.
Because of the gentle and non-stop care of the mother Sky Bison, soon the five new baby Bison started putting on weight and started to walk, which was a difficult proposition for creatures with six legs! With so many calves born to one bison cow, the Sky Bison shepherd knew Ariyappa and her mate Ghengappa were going to be overtaxed by the magnitude of the task of getting five baby Sky Bison to walk, and the harder task of teaching them to fly.
So the shepherd set about the task of helping the Bison parents with teaching. The sequence of getting their third set of legs matched in step with the other two sets was not a natural act for the little ones, and he used his shepherd's crook to aid Ariyappa, who naturally used her horns and tongue to push one leg then the other on each one to get them all in the right cadence.
Soon the shepherd could see and feel the pride – if that is possible - in Ariyappa as she paraded her own personal herd in perfect step past the other bison mothers, each with only one calf. She held her head high and horns erect. It was an amazing sight. The uniqueness of this Bison family was not lost on many others. Helping the shepherd nearly daily was a six year old air bending student named Aang, who was fascinated by this large family. He was an only child like most Air Nomads and Sky Bisons.
He loved playing, petting, and grooming all of them. He continually talked to and soothed Ariyappa, walking her calves when she and her mate were too tired. While all the calves liked Aang, one took a particular interest in Aang - the big male. He was the strongest and friendliest, not only among his littermates, but among all the other calves born that year.
Ariyappa liked this young human, and often shoved her son out in front of Aang to play and hug. There was something special about this human, she sensed. He understood the air far better than the other humans.
Teaching the calves to fly was Mother Ariyappa's work, and pushed Aang, her mate, and the shepherd gently away. After all, it was the Sky Bison who taught the humans to bend air and fly, not the other way around.
She was a magnificent animal. Scores of Temple dwellers came to the stable aviary just to watch her teach her offspring. She stomped the ground, to startle her calves to hover unsteadily into the air, and quickly bent currents under them to keep them aloft, guiding them with blunt edges of her horns, her nose, and her huge tail. She kept them all aloft and climbing. She grunted, pushed, and cajoled, showing them all how to maintain straight and level flight and keep balanced.
The male was the most adventurous and reckless, bumping his siblings around, and always got too far ahead of his mother. Ariyappa encouraged his more daring moves, helping him quickly to bank and turn by flying in close formation with him.
Soon they were doing loops and barrel rolls in perfect formation. Aang watched with awe.
Aang couldn't stand it anymore, and although he was a new student of flight himself, defied the monks' rules by choosing to fly with Ariyappa and her brood for hours. Once they saw how deftly Aang flew with this special Bison family, they relented. They witnessed how his own skills were enhanced by actually learning from Ariyappa as she taught her calves.
It was like watching the ancient Bison first teach humans.
But accidents do happen, and one particularly gusty day, Aang got blown into the male Bison, who then bumped his mother and sisters, and all of them crashed unceremoniously into the ground.
While the young human and little Bison were laughing – each in their own way - Ariyappa bared her teeth growled her scolding to both her young Bison and to the human Air Bender. Everyone was ok, except for the mother's broken horn.
Eventually they all gathered at the Eastern Air Temple – Bison and boy, with others – for "Choosing Day", the important day when the most talented Air Bending students chose their animal guides. Or more accurately, the Bison chose them.
Sister Ilio gathered the class, offered them big apples, and said, "Choose well, a Sky Bison is a companion for life!"
Ariyappa stood behind her calves. The Bison knew also – they had been choosing their humans for 1000's of years. Her youngest calf was nervous, pawing at Tempe floor. This was a hard. He loved his mother. How could choose now to leave her and spend his whole life with a very small human not very adept in Air Bending?
With moisture in her eyes and a heavy heart, Ariyappa nudged her five calves to find their cross-species friends for life.
As best student in the class, Aang got first pick, but Ariyappa's young male charged forward, pushing his weaker siblings away. He tackled and licked Aang happily with his tongue! He had his special human – so different from the others.
Pinned under the male Bison's affectionate slurping, Aang giggled, "I guess this means we'll always be together!"
Aang stood with his new animal guide. To the nuns, he announced his animal guide's name – Appa, the offspring of Ariyappa and Ghengappa.
All journeyed back to the Southern Air Temple, but Ariyappa's mothering was done now. Appa saw both his parents often in the stables, but all knew life was different now – Appa and Aang belonged together.
Ariyappa had other single female calves, but never birthed another male calf. She became the matriarch of the herd. Through Ariyappa, the spirits had graced the Air Nomads with an animal guide for the entire Temple!
Then she and her mate disappeared in the annihilation of the Southern Air Temple.
...
A hundred years later, Aang was not the only one finding the grim facts of the Southern Air Temple massacre. Appa sniffed the remains of several Sky bison skeletons. He stopped when he got to one. It was a terrible scene of carnage. A full grown Bison skeleton covering the bones of a hundred Fire Nation warriors, crushed by the behemoth. The warriors had swords drawn and had gutted the brave Bison, taking it with them in death. Then the broken left horn stopped Appa dead in his tracks. It wasAriyappa, his mother!
Appa's eyes clouded, and he started whimpering like a baby calf who couldn't find his mother.
Quickly, Aang and Katara, fresh from their own shock and first-time Avatar state experience, came and stood beside his trusted animal guide.
Aang knelt and wept beside Appa. Katara embraced them both, in a valiant attempt to console the inconsolable.
Aang croaked out the words between sobs, "Appa...so...sorry...for...your mother."
Aang suddenly understood the meaning of her name. Ariyappa meant "Eliminating the Enemy"! A terrifying name for such a gentle creature, until her final act to protect her own.
For the first time in a hundred years, the mournful wail of a Sky Bison's anguished loss reverberated across the silent graveyard of the Southern Air Temple, mixing with sobs of a human boy totally alone in the world, and the now silent echo of Ariyappa's birthing moan for her only male calf.