The First Avatar
After a marathon of Avatar: The Last Airbender I became suddenly intrigued to how the Avatar came to be. This story popped into my head the other night, and I knew I wouldn't sleep until it was written. So here you have it ;)
Countless years ago there lived a man, a nomad in fact, who had garnered many followers during his travels due to his profound spirituality.
During a trek across the Patola Mountain Range the man and his followers discovered a pack of Bison's gifted with the ability to soar through the air. Fascinated by these creatures, the man dedicated much time to learning their art. Upon mastering this he taught it to all his dedicated followers.
The nomads settled down in the mountains and built a life for themselves revolving around the power of air.
Despite his happiness the man longed to know more about the bending arts. Soon he started to hear rumours of other people who were able to do as he and his people did, only with the other elemental powers.
He set out on a journey to learn them all.
He first travelled to a small tribe in the polar regions who had discovered how to control tides as the moon did, then to a city built entirely by a woman who could manipulated rock and earth as the badgermoles did, and lastly to a civilisation of people called 'sun warriors' who had been taught by the dragons to harness the power of fire.
After mastering each element the man returned home to demonstrate his findings to his ever loyal followers.
A person who could control all the elements at once was certainly an incredible sight, but it proved too much for one man to handle. After a brilliant show of his bending the man promptly dropped to the ground. His followers rushed to help him at once but he could not be woken.
Just as they began to lose hope the man's eyes fluttered open and, in his weakened state, he explained how he had contacted the spirits (as no man had ever done before).
The sprits had decided it was too dangerous for all four elements to be wielded by a single entirety, and had thus disbanded the ability to simply learn bending. While the art of bending still must be learned to harness their full power, bending was now a gift bestowed at birth to a lucky few.
The world would be divided into four nations, each representing a different element: The fire nation, the earth kingdom, the water tribe and the air nomads. A bender would only be able to bend the element of their given nation as to avoid tragedy as such as what had just now happened to this man.
But this man, you see, was the exception. Upon his death he would be reincarnated into the water tribe, then the earth kingdom, then the fire nation, and back to the air nomads again. In each life time the re-embodiment of the man would have access to all the power of all the incarnations before themselves when need be, eventually gaining the power to wield all four elements without mortal harm.
This unique bender would act as a connection between the mortal and spiritual world, as well as peace keeper of all four nations.
The man, happy with his fate, closed his eyes and smiled. He died peacefully in the arms of his fellow nomads.
This man was the first Avatar.
