Title: Under The Skin

Author: overlithe

Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender

Summary: Avatar Yangchen learns waterbending. Her methods are somewhat unconventional.

Characters/Pairings: Yangchen, OCs; gen

Prompt: avatar_500 prompt 035. Water; fanfic100 prompt 051. Water

Word Count: 497

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and concepts created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and owned by Nickelodeon and various other corporations/people. I'm not making any money and do not intend any copyright or trademark infringement.

Author's Note: Once in a while I take a break from writing about people I'd move to a different continent to avoid in RL, and write about people I'd actually like to hang out with. ;) Also, if you like the whole "Avatars learning the other elements" concept, you may also enjoy my ficlet Up In The Air, about Avatar Kyoshi learning airbending.

Under the Skin

Yangchen arrived in the ice city wearing a pig-wool coat she'd traded from a farmer in the Northern Fiefdoms in exchange for a gust of wind to bring down the melon-berries and two turns of the Lotus Dance for her children. It was three sizes too big for her, so she waddled rather comically by one of the canals when Chief Katuk came to welcome her. She'd been studying a patch of sculpted ice—it reminded her of an airbended mandala—and so his voice startled her. At her side, her sky bison sneezed, sending a few of the smaller children flying in a flurry of snow and giggles.

'You must be the Avatar.'

'Oh. Yes. I'm Yangchen. I'm here to learn waterbending. Obviously,' she added with a little chuckle. It was not returned.

'Female Avatars generally undergo their instruction in our sister tribe,' Chief Katuk said after greetings and welcomes were over.

'I see. Well, you were closer.'

The younger man by Chief Katuk spoke up. 'Our women gifted with waterbending learn only the healing arts.' Her eyes widened at this but he went on. 'Naturally, the Avatar is exempt from our traditions.' He made it sound like he'd be willing to see her as an honorary man; it felt rather disconcerting.

She frowned in concentration. 'Oh. No, I think I would prefer learning with the other female students. If it's all the same to you, of course,' she added brightly.

:=:

Her first lesson with Master Naja had so many new words—about the organs, the vessels, the flows of blood and air and energy—that Yangchen was sure some were going to spill down as she stumbled back to her feet. A sea of younger faces surrounded her, asking her about airbending and being the Avatar; Master Naja shooed them away.

'Thank you, Master Naja,' Yangchen said. 'I learned a lot.'

Naja offered her a bowl of sea prune soup, which smelled sweet but tasted heavy. Naja's features were bramble-sharp, but when she spoke her voice was smooth. 'Healing waterbending can be…' She paused. 'It is not a lesser art.'

Yangchen thought back to the heart diagram, so thick with valves and nerves she was sure she was going to take a month to learn it all.

'Oh, no,' she said. 'Not at all.'

:=:

Yangchen stood by one of the canals and thought of this world she was supposed to cradle in her hands like a living thing. It was alive—it breathed and aged and bled. Maybe that was the reason for the Avatar: a human body to understand the world's body, the same spirit under the skin.

The canal's water flowed sluggish and dark, like the blood in a vein. She dropped into a stance that was half healing lessons and half the stances from the boys' lessons she'd sometimes glance at.

The world is a body and the Avatar its healer.

Below her, the water rose into a wave.

++The End++

Notes: I think only an Air Nomad Avatar would get around the Northern Water Tribe's gender essentialism using a method like this. I'm sure that, in addition to her lessons with Master Naja, Yangchen eventually got the male waterbending master to give her some informal tutoring, probably telling him she just wanted to make sure her forms were correct, and ended up going away as an expert on all waterbending traditions, leaving some very confused people behind. ;)