This was totally based on Inverted-Typo's Nordic Avatar AU...or well...all the artwork that they created for it. Here's their Tumblr page, knock yourselves out; .com
Human names, to an extent, are going to be used. This'll probably only be a one shot but d: oh well.
"Now, push the water back and forth, move it slowly and carefully. This isn't something you can force."
The small wave, if you could even really call it that, situated right on the edge of the Southern Water Tribe wavered, jerking back and forth as if unsure of itself. That's silly, he knows it's silly, but the fact that the water just wouldn't listen made him feel pretty unsure himself.
"Breathe, let it flow like the melted snow off a tarp."
The words were calm and monotonous and so very unhelpful. He felt his own face scrunch up with effort, attempting to pull the water back and forth, yearning for that smooth transition his brother could somehow perform. With his frustration, the water quivered, pulling upwards in a small spiral. For that split second Emil felt himself relax, begin to smile and-
The pretty spiral sputtered before dropping into the water unassuming and barely rippling.
He was on the verge of angry tears. Why wouldn't it just listen and follow what he wanted it to do? Why was the stupid water so hard to hold onto and form and do anything with! Why was Lukas so good at this junk! If Luka could be that good then why couldn't he be too!
"Shh, shh, Emil please don't cry over this." Smooth warm hands cupped Emil's young cheeks, holding them gently and somehow commanding his ears to listen. Luka's thumbs swept over Emil's cheeks, brushing away the only water he could ever get to move. "This is a beautiful first step, you're making progress my little starlight."
Emil sniffed up the stray snot that threatened to spill down his face, eyes scrunched up with water steadily slipping out. His bright violet eyes were blurry with tears, his face pulled taught in distress. "Luka!" He cried, letting gravity pull him further into his brother's hands. "I've-I've been on step one forever n-now! Why can't I do it?" The young child wailed, his small hands reaching up and clenching tightly around Luka's warm blue tunic.
Emil felt his brother's hands drift up from his cheeks into his air and down along his back, pulling him into his brother's waiting arms. "That's okay Emil, you'll get it in time. Sometimes," he started, an uncommon smile pulling itself onto his face, "the most powerful people take the longest to get there. Don't cry over this. You'll get there."
Emil felt this memory bubble to the forefront of his brain. Eyes trailing back briefly to his brother, fighting and spinning, sending water flashing out from his fingertips in deadly ice. Once again, Emil was reminded of how beautiful his brother was, so graceful he could have been a water spirit in his past life and no one would be the wiser.
Luka had long since shed his dark blue thick coats, arms wrapped down to his knuckles in deep ocean blue, his shirt cropped short and jagged. Matthias was the one who altered the outfit for him.
A fireball whizzed past his face, nearly scorching Emil's silvery hair as it blew by.
Oh right.
Matthias.
When Luka had said he 'knew some old friends in the Earth Kingdom' Emil certainly hadn't expected Matthias.
Twelve years old and able to sustain a water bubble, Emil was more than surprised to see one of Luka's friends be...Matthias.
Matthias was loud and crude, open in personality and fashion sense, exposing his broad chest for all to see. He was acrobatic and deadly as the fire he controlled, easily as brash as it too.
Matthias clapped him on the back. Hard.
Emil lurched forwards, righting himself quickly and shooting a glare over his shoulder.
Matthias just threw his spiky golden head backwards and laughed.
Luka looked ready to begin chuckling himself, his smile hid behind a tasteful hand.
As Matthias began to teach Emil fire bending, they slowly grew closer. While Emil had grown colder in personality, he had to admit he began to build a soft spot for the slightly older bender. He also wasn't blind when it came to Matthias' advances on Luka which were...half heartedly returned at best.
Emil found that while water was hard to grasp, slippery and thick, fire was quick to jump through his veins. It used the water that was naturally imprinted in his blood like a starter and raged from finger to belly back to finger. Fire jumped from his hands and spun gleefully between his toes.
Matthias was quick to approve, moving with him in dragon-like stances. He cackled and roared and was just so warm, Emil could've sworn raw fire raged behind Matthias' unnaturally blue eyes once.
Luka and Matthias grew closer too, opposites seemed to attract after all.
Emil often found himself outside practicing when they started getting mushy together. Matthias would come out soon after, making sure everyone knew just how big his heart was. It just kept expanding. Emil was proud to be in that humongous heart, wormed happily in next to his brother as Matthias spread his knowledge and love into their family.
Matthias wasn't too far away, lurching forwards onto his hands with fire trailing after his arched feet. Hurling the fireball straight towards an enemy in a completely improvised sort of front flip. For some reason, even though they were all in the heat of battle, Matthias was grinning.
A vicious grin that split his face as he split other people's bones.
His fire raged around and within him in such a way that made his silhouette practically burn in the setting sun.
The hiss of the spirit portal releasing the heavy souls snapped Emil's attention back onto it. Enough reminiscing he growled, pushing back on the souls, his hands burning atop the portals glowing light.
Emil felt his own soul being tugged into the portal, his body quaking as the soul within yearned to be pulled out.
Berwald flicked the back of his head with a stray pebble, shocking Emil back into his body with a renewed sense of anger. He must have been screaming or...something to grab Berwald's attention like that.
Berwald always had a knack for knowing exactly what to do even during the most hectic of times.
"Ow! Ber, what the heck!" A not so young Emil asked hotly, rubbing the back of his head where a rock had just hit. Berwald just stood still from far away, arms crossed and expression stern.
"You were not concentrate-ing." He said simply, shrugging and sending another pebble flying with a twist of his ankle. It thwacked Emil right in the forehead, a red spot already forming as the rock bounced off and away.
He hadn't been learning earth for very long, but Emil could tell it wouldn't be as fun as fire bending. At least with Matthias they worked together and created something new each time. Earth just seemed so...repetitive. But Matthias wasn't here, it was just Emil and Berwald. Emil knew that his brother and the fire bender were off being happy and mushy, and he really wanted to be happy for them back! Honestly!
"Ow! Would you stop that!" Emil hissed, catching another rock off his shoulder. He rubbed at the agitated skin, glaring across the quarry.
Berwald didn't seem to care too much. "You need to ground yourself. Stop think-ing and start do-ing." He instructed, shifting down and pulling a wide stance. With a firm punch a sizeable rock ripped itself from the ground. Without batting an eyelash, Berwald sent it hurtling towards Emil.
He'd scrunched up his face in surprise and fear, dropping down low and wide and thrusting his hands out in front of him as if the water he was used to being surrounded by wasn't days away. The rock, surprisingly, didn't make any squashed avatars. Instead it hovered in the air, quivering slightly, but hovering nonetheless.
Berwald smiled, it was the kind of smile Emil was used to seeing mirrored on his brother's face. It made his lungs relax, his stance deflate slightly, and his ace to smooth itself out.
For some reason, Emil found himself smiling back.
The burning on his hands was getting harder to ignore. It rippled across his fingers and palms, pulling away ribbons of skin so thin it was hard to tell it was being lost at all. Blood started to appear in tiny drops inside the portal.
Emil blinked tears of pain away from his eyes, the dust swirling around already made it hard to see. Grounding himself only seemed to make the tugging in his chest worsen. Berwald has told him how to stay in reality, but that just made his soul all the more eager to bridge over to the new world.
Emil's chest burned as he heaved for air, every ounce of energy focused on closing the Southern Water Tribe's spirit portal. He couldn't be sure what was happening beyond himself and the portal, vaguely aware of an ice prison beginning to build itself.
The tearing ripping burning in his chest wouldn't go away. He had to let go. Become lighter. Become air.
Emil had decided early on that Tyso was nice. Easy to get along with, and even easier to learn from. Tyso the monk was at times, the most and least monk-ly out of all the other air nomads.
There was a time when Tyso had led Emil on a three day meditation journey. Exploring chakras, souls, and the world as it grew.
Emil couldn't say he enjoyed the whole 'going without anything to eat or drink really' for three days. But surprisingly, the journey was over sooner than expected.
Of course afterwards Tyso helped make some great pies which they happily ate together under the shade of a tree.
It was under such a tree that Emil decided to ask something that had been bugging him for a while.
"The world. It's so peaceful, growing and thriving together. I know you've seen it, the whole world, being peaceful." Emil started, hands twisted around each other in his lap. "So what's my purpose? I love that the world is at peace but...is there really any reason for me to exist?"
Tyso hadn't answered, not that day and not the next.
Emil shrugged off the silence and continued with his teachings, eventually forgetting he'd even asked.
It wasn't until Tyso had pulled him aside right before Lukas, Matthias, and Berwald were all supposed to arrive that he answered.
He'd tugged Emil off into a corner, a smile on his face and care in his eyes. The monk had hesitantly braced his arms on Emil's shoulders, keeping eye contact as long as possible.
"Peace, is not your ultimate goal. Simply because it is everyone's." Emil just stared up at Tyso, eyes wide out of sheer surprise. "If everyone in the world has somehow achieved that goal, only then will your purpose be void. But that's impossible, because there will always be someone unable to achieve their peace. Whether this life or the next, you will always be needed so long as others hunger, children steal, and parents walk away."
The way Tyso had said it was so full of sincerity Emil couldn't do anything less than believe in him.
The portal's light was dimming over the horizon. The spirit Luka had been fighting was wavering, unable to exist in the real world without the portal's energy.
Luka felt his chest swell with pride, Emil was doing it! His own brother, the avatar of all things, was saving the world; just like Luka had known he would all those years ago. The light from the portal flickered just as the ice beneath his boots began to crack.
Luka felt his eyes widen, starting forward to where he could see his brother's form standing, wavering through the swirling dust. He stopped as large ice hands jerked out of the frozen lake. They clasped around each other, creating a perfect dome.
Too perfect.
So perfect, it was like a snow globe, only this time there was his brother stuck inside.
Without so much of a thought Luka was sprinting forward, running so fast he could feel his chest ache after barely a few seconds of running. But that didn't matter, no no, nothing would matter if he couldn't get there in time.
He barely heard shouts from Matthias and maybe probably Tyso somewhere but Luka just didn't care.
He ran smack into the ice, banging his fists against it uselessly. It wouldn't listen to him it wouldn't, why-
Emil turned towards where Luka was staring, calm for no reason when he should have been running forwards just like Luka just did. Emil smiled gently, the glow of the avatar state leaving his violet eyes. His form shivered, as if a being could become cold trapped within ice.
Emil waved, such a slow motion, and Luka wouldn't take that no! No, no waving no saying goodbye there can't be any of that it's too soon, too soon.
With a flash of white light Emil was, not there.
Luka glanced upward hopefully, tears gathering gathering about to spill. He had to choke back a cry, a brand new star was glistening beautifully right above him. It was the perfect shade of silver, just like Emil's hair.
That...that can't just be the end.
Luka felt a sturdy hand he knew belonged to Matthias settle on his back and it took every ounce of life left in his limbs to not collapse right there.
In the end it didn't matter, his legs gave out and suddenly Matthias was there and they were hugging but it didn't matter.
Tyso was leaning into Berwald's side but I didn't matter.
They fought and they won and the portal was sealed but it didn't matter.
Luka swore, whatever life they found together next, this time he wouldn't let Emil get hurt or taken away ever again.
Once again, based on Inverted Typo's artwork for this au. Luka is Norway and Tyso is Finland if you didn't catch that. Ahem, hope that was...semi enjoyable at the very least. This will probably stay as a one shot for the rest of time, but I hope I did the art justice with this story!
Thanks for reading!