Before Time

Before Time

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender or the song 'Before time'

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If the sky opened up for me

And the mountains disappeared

If the seas run dry, turn to dust

And the sun refused to rise

Tai had been crippled from birth, his foot was malformed and clubbed, his left leg shorter than his right resulting in a pronounced limp and the inability to stay on his feet for very long. The local children shunned the young boy in their games and he couldn't keep up with them anyway.

So Tai spent his time in the local temple. No one paid any attention to him there, a cripple boy at a temple well surely he was coming to beg for healing from the spirits. But that wasn't why Tai came, he came to learn. The temple of the Fire Sages was comprised of four inner rings, each holier than the last. The outer ring was dedicated to vendors selling fortunes and offerings to the temples patrons. Tai liked to watch the vendors on the days he couldn't afford to enter the temple. It cost a copper piece to enter the temples first ring. Dedicated to the lesser spirits the first ring attracted the most people, Women praying to the spirit of things lost to help them find misplaced items, Merchants offering ceremonial wine and rice to the spirit of commerce and children praying to whatever spirit would listen for sweets and indulgences from their parents who were most likely busy at other alters.

The second ring was dedicated to ancestors. Richer families paid the temple to erect shrines to their deceased, Tai usually passed strait through the second ring spitting to ward off any evil spirits or ghosts that might be lurking among the shrines every few steps. It cost five copper pieces to enter the second ring.

The third ring was where the shrines of the higher spirits were. Tui, La, Agni they all had alters filled with offerings and tributes. It cost a silver piece to enter the third ring so it was usually relatively empty and quiet. Tai could spend hours sitting in front of the ocean spirits shrine day dreaming and contemplating.

But the forth ring, the holiest and most expensive, a gold piece to enter, was Tai's undoubted favorite. That was where the Fire Sages preached their philosophies and gave out personal blessings, the inner sanctum was also in the forth ring. Tai had never entered it; only the sages were permitted to journey to where the Avatar statues were. But he was content to spend his days listening to the stories of righteousness and the blunderings of the heavenly fool in the teaching stories of the sages.

Because of the price Tai couldn't always make it to the forth ring, some days he couldn't even buy his way past the first. It could take him months to scrounge up enough coppers to make up the sum of a gold piece. And after all of his saving Tai was considerably disappointed one day to arrive at the gates to the forth ring and be turned away.

"No one is allowed to enter the forth ring today by the order of Fire Sage Li Hu"

The Novice standing at the grand gateway to the forth ring announced when Tai approached him. He was only a teenager and had probably only been in service to the temple for a few years. Tai had never seen him before and being that he came to the temple so frequently Tai knew everyone.

"But I have the correct payment"

Tai protested the novice frowned.

"You're just a child. What could you possibly hope to learn from the teachings of the sages? They're far to advanced for you!"

Tai was about to explain that he knew more about the teachings of the sages than the novice when the great gates creaked open and an old man stepped out slowly.

"Fire Sage Sho!"

Tai cried bowing formally as well as he could. The old sage smiled.

"Hello young Tai how are you this fine day?"

"I want to enter the forth ring Fire Sage Sho. But I have been told it is forbidden is this true?"

Tai asked bluntly.

"Yes I'm afraid it is. You see today we have a visitor to the inner sanctum"

The elderly man explained with a small smile.

"Avatar Yang Chen."

Tai's eyes widened. The Avatar? She was in the inner sanctum?

"Really?"

"Of course my lad would I lie to you? She has come to us to reconnect with her past lives. It is a great honor to have the Avatar with us but you cannot disturb her Tai. Come perhaps you should make an offering to La for your mother"

Fire Sage Sho said leading the boy off

"Why would my mother need anything from La?"

"She is a washerwoman is she not? La is the ocean spirit"

"My mother uses well water for her washing!"

"It's still water my boy it's still water"

Tai stayed at the temple in the third ring for the rest of the afternoon. He used his gold piece to buy a bottle of rice wine and an incense stick to offer to La like Fire Sage Sho had suggested. He then proceeded with one of his favorite games, temple watching. Tai found a comfortable shady spot and watched who came to offer what to which spirits. As the sun began to dip lower in the sky bathing everything in a golden glow Tai realized that he should start heading home before his mother worried. He eased himself to his feet and managed to walk a few paces before his leg gave way and sent him tumbling to the ground.

He wasn't down for very long. Dazed and in pain Tai vaguely felt himself being lifted back up he stared into the kind face of a woman with a shaven brow revealing a blue arrow on her forehead, Avatar Yang Chen.

She smiled sweetly at him.

"Are you alright little one?"

Tai nodded instinctively, he wasn't all right his elbows were grazed and his knee ached terribly but he couldn't think of any way to express this to the Avatar. Yang Chen gave him a once over, he looked to be about six or seven, why would a boy so young be this far into the temple? He certainly didn't look like the type of person with a need for divine intervention but then she saw his foot, too malformed and clubbed to fit into a shoe. Her gaze softened.

"Is this why you come to the temple?"

She asked Tai followed her gaze to his deformity and shook his head.

"No that's my mothers reason for coming to the temple. I come to learn"

Yang Chen's eyes showed instant surprise

"A philosopher! So tell me young one what is your name"

"It's Tai"

"I'm Yang Chen"

"You're the Avatar I know I wanted to go into the forth ring today but you were in the sanctum so I couldn't"

Tai explained

"Well next time you shall have to come with me!"

The Avatar smiled gently stroking the boy's hair away from his forehead

"Next time…"

Avatar Yang Chen was selfish. She may have been the Avatar but she was still human and all humans have flaws hers was selfishness. It was a rather unfortunate flaw considering that along with being the Avatar she was also an Air Nomad a race who strove to rise above earthly ties and possessions. Yang Chen wanted many things and she to her credit had denied herself all of them. But the one thing she wanted more than anything else was a child.

She might, had she not been the Avatar, have been permitted to have a child. Most nuns were, it had to be that way, the Air Nomads might have removed themselves from earthly wants and desires but they still needed children and in a complete contrast to what the younger children were told babies did not drift into the air temples while they were asleep on a magical breeze. But Yang Chen was the Avatar, a representation of the Air Nomads, their culture and their ideologies.

Yang Chen still wanted a child and she loved Tai from the minute he told her of his love for learning. One day after meeting him Yang Chen journeyed to Tai's home and told his mother of all the wonderful things her son could achieve if she allowed him to travel with her. She could show him so many things, the great library of Wan Shi Tong, the air temples, far grander than the ones he currently frequented, the great divide. She could train him in his Fire bending, no school would take a crippled boy and Yang Chen was a Firebending master. Tai could become so much if he could come with her.

Di Zhu was a middle-aged woman with a weathered face and hands raw and bloody from the soaps she used in her washing. Her husband had run off rather than live with the shame of a crippled son and that crippled son was all she had. But Di Zhu was smart. She agreed to let her son travel with the Avatar well aware he would not be coming back to her.

It was cruel. But Yang Chen was selfish. She loved Tai like a son and within time as the memory of his mother faded he began to view her as one. Unfortunately for as selfish and cruel Yang Chen had been fate was even more so. Avatars weren't meant to have earthly attachments and fate decided to teach Yang Chen this.

She was asked to come to the tip of the northern earth kingdom where a drought had been raging for six years. Yang Chen wasn't sure what she could do to make the rain come but the position of the Avatar was often far more than maintaining a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. She was a beacon of hope.

Tai eagerly accompanied her and quickly made friends with several other children form the surrounding villages. They spent their days in what had once been the reservoir that supplied the towns water but since the drought it had become a dusty bowl. The children spent their days sledding down the slides as though they were made of snow and building tiny villages out of sticks and leaves in the middle. Yang Chen was pleased to see him having so much fun. He even talked her into going 'sledding' with him.

"Yang Chen you've got to try it! It's like gliding on the ground!"

Tai had been in the reservoir when the rains came. The clouds had sprung up from nowhere and with in seconds of their appearance the dusty ground was sodden. All of the children had been in the reservoir as it began to fill up like the bowl it was most of them had escaped it when it burst in waves of water and mud. Tai with his foot never stood a chance.

Yang Chen found his body three days afterwards. Mud filled his mouth and his limbs lay broken and dangling at odd angles his skin yellow his eyes wide and glassy. She shut them gently and held his broken body in the mud crying bitterly

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Katara held Aang's body in her arms her fingers skimming over the burn on his back as they flew away from that cursed city. He was going to die if he wasn't already dead. And she cried gasping sobs as she took the healing water from her neck and molded it to her hands pressing them to the young boys broken body desperately

'We're not going through this again'

Katara told herself with an iron resolve.

It wasn't until Aang opened his eyes long enough to mumble something before falling back into a stable unconsciousness that Katara allowed her self to wonder about why she had said 'again'.

I would still find my way

By the light I see in your eyes

The world I know fades away

But you stay.

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STORY NOTES

A love before time: The theme song to the movie 'Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon' preformed by Coco lee. I am splitting this song among the chapters of this story. I believe it to be appropriate to the theme of reincarnation.

Tai: is a character I made up although I'm not entirely sure if he counts as an O.C as he's meant to be one of Katara's past lives…

Reincarnation: As a Christian I do not believe in Reincarnation.

Temple: I read somewhere that many temples worked in the way I have described. I know for a fact that the ancient temples of the Israelites were similar to the set up I have presented; only they worshipped one god instead of many spirits.

Tui and La: I'm so confused! I read somewhere that Tui was the ocean spirit then I read somewhere else that La was! I don't know who to believe anymore! Any help you can give me on this would be appreciated. On a side note Tui is also the name of a native New Zealand bird. And are you ready for this? It's black with a white plume on it's neck! They're lovely birds but they mimic the noises they hear. If I have to wake up one more time to the phone ringing outside my window I'm gonna scream!

Avatar Yang Chen: Not much is known about Avatar Yang Chen so anything you read here is purely speculation in an attempt to give her a personality.

Airbenders: I truly have no idea how Air Nomad society works, from what I've read they're all deeply spiritual and live in their segregated air temples, which makes one wonder how do little airbenders come about when they're all monks and nuns? Surely they have to procreate! Even if it's only for the purpose of procreation! Right!?