A/N: Written for chordatesrock for fandom-stocking 2014, finally got around to cross-posting it. Title from Xun Zi's "An Exhortation to Learning": "To pursue it is to be human, to give it up to be a beast."
水
He would not be welcome in the Northern Water Tribe – they don't let in outsiders, now, as a general rule. The Southern Water Tribe has no more waterbenders left. He has heard of another tribe, living deep in the swamps, but he is reluctant to try and cross the difficult, disease-ridden terrain.
There are other places to find waterbenders, though, places where the Water Tribes have traded for centuries, places where they have sometimes settled down if they found they liked the warmer climate. Places like, for example, Kyoshi Island.
The islanders greet him with unusual cheerfulness; the war has not much touched them, one of the few places left to its own. He stays in a small inn with fishers and the occasional visitor here to see Avatar Kyoshi's home and the Kyoshi Warriors. The island doesn't hold much, but it has its own charm, and among the few earthbenders, there are a few waterbenders as well.
They like to practice on the beach. Most of them are not very powerful, but they are some of the most graceful benders he has ever seen. On foggy mornings, he sometimes takes a pot of tea out and watches them as they flow from one movement into another.
One day, one of them asks him to join in. It's good exercise, she says, even for someone who can't bend the water. They have a lovely chat as he attempts to follow them from stance to stance. The most interesting thing, he finds, is that they often do not use attacks, as such. They turn shards of ice into streams of water and hurl them back at their opponent, they use slush to block a thrust of water and then turn it into a counterattack. They use what they have and adapt it for the moment.
The flowing exercises are relaxing to him, and he finds inspiration in watching how they change the energy of the battle from one instant to the next. Fire, too, is energy. Many days later, when he is alone and a storm is raging, he opens himself to a cold attack of lightning and changes its flow.
土
There is no shortage of earthbenders in the Earth Kingdom, and he has personally met with plenty of them in battle. He knows their movements, their strength, their endurance and persistence, but he has never studied them for a reason other than overcoming them. Traveling in the Earth Kingdom, dressed not in Fire Nation armor but in ordinary traveler's clothes, he sees much more than that.
All of earthbenders are, indeed, solid and strong; they have to be, to move earth and stone itself. It does not flow like the other elements, but must be overwhelmed. Most of them do so with the low stances and powerful kicks and punches that he is accustomed to seeing, but there are some who don't.
The sandbenders he meets on the edge of a desert use shifting, flowing movements, almost like waterbenders, but with more power and no hesitation. He sees people who use quick, precise steps and sharply choreographed moves, whose fast efficiency wins them matches and praise. There are even those who look like dancers, acting with grace that almost looks at odds with their element.
He has thought of the Earth Kingdom too much a monolith. The Fire Nation, he knows, has a dozen regional cooking styles, different fashions of dress and buildings, and many unique local arts. So why should the Earth Kingdom – which is several times larger and just as old – be reduced to a stubborn patch of people who eat like this and think like that?
After watching underground matches and public spars, he recreates them by himself. He can't kick up the earth, but he can feel the rhythm of the kicks and punches. It doesn't take long to realize the fine balance between offense and defense they seem to hold like instinct. Most firebenders would have pushed, and pushed, until they won or exhausted themselves; the earthbenders, he thinks, would wait for that moment before counter-attacking.
At that, he must sit down and breathe. This is why he could not take Ba Sing Se. This is why the Fire Nation will not win this war. It is not stubbornness; it is patience. He only wishes he had known that before, when he had not yet thrown all his energies to battles he would lose.
火
He has been a firebender for as long as he can remember. The breath inside him, the flutter of life that wants to expand endlessly, shaped to his will. Fire is the element of determination, his father taught him, but when he is cradling the limp body of his son, he has no determination left.
After that, his bending weakens, to the point where he can barely form a flicker of a flame. The breath is still there, but he has no will to shape it and pull it out.
Eventually he has enough of this. When breathing exercises don't bring back his bending, when pouring his grief and anger into his hands doesn't help, he decides that he must be mistaken about something. The best way to learn must be to seek knowledge from the source, the dragons which taught them so long ago and which they have thanked by driving to the edge of extinction. He announces he is going on a dragon hunt and ignores the whispers and laughter hidden behind sleeves. All they see is an old fool trying to recapture glory.
Ran and Shaw teach him so much about his own element that he wonders at how much his nation has forgotten. He dances with them as they coil and twist in the air above him, rejoicing in the sunshine, in the heat rising from the valley and volcanoes, the life that flourishes here despite all the danger. Fire, they teach him, is not rage and anger and devastation. It is the essence of the energy that flows between all things, it is the heartbeat of life itself, it is the sun that gives their world light and warmth and growth.
He feels like a child again. How did he forget this wonderful feeling and drive? How could he let himself be led so astray?
He cannot possibly thank the dragons enough for showing him the truth again. But he does what he can: he takes a few of their old, discarded scales and brings them back with him. The last dragons are dead, he announces with a fake smile, showing off the glittering scales, while he contains the breath that wants to waltz around his fingers.
气
He has read about the Air Nomads before, of course – in his history lessons as a boy, as a lesson in strategy when he was older, as an escape from pain after the death of his son – but he takes to the old books again. He spares some time to read about their culture, first. What is was about air that compelled them to become nomads. What they found in that lifestyle that they couldn't, otherwise. Why they were so peaceful.
Air is the element of freedom. In freedom from worldly concerns and attachments, what is there to fight over? When he reads about them, he wishes he could have met them. They sound like good people, who would be happy to share some tea and music and stories around a fire.
He is ashamed of himself for ever having thought – even as a foolish teenager reading falsified histories – that they deserved a massacre.
There are none of them to learn from any more. Or if there are, they keep themselves deservedly well-hidden. If the Avatar still exists, he must have given up his culture, at least outwardly. So he must learn from them second-hand.
There are, at least, still scrolls that teach their bending arts. Historical curiosities now, useful only for scholars and those seeking a little wisdom. He reads their philosophies, copies the movements from the picture scrolls.
The defensive nature of airbending becomes readily apparent the first time he traces circles around an imaginary opponent. He can see their avoidance of conflict in the movements; they are meant to open distance, to discourage attacks rather than directly harm. Even as a firebender, just going through exercises on the ground, he can feel a floating lightness.
When he returns home, he will, unfortunately, likely have no need for avoidant, flighty defensive maneuvers. But perhaps he can try to borrow some of their peace by giving up some of the attachments he doesn't need. What have politics done for him, anyway? Lost him his son, earned the banishment of his kind sister-in-law, driven his nation to atrocities. He could use a little harmony.