"Bending. The art which lies between birthright and belief, a sacred and mystical practice which, to many, is an honor to be cherished. The talent of manipulating nature; to wield fire, to move earth, to direct water, and to control the air which we breathe.
"The world is divided by these four elements, joined and mediated by the Avatar, who is the Spirit. In a world of harmony, the Avatar assures that all citizens of all nations are accepted wherever and whenever, but even the Avatar is biased against the Fire Nation these days. One hundred years ago, they began their conquest of the world, decimating first the Air Nomads. It was a hard battle, and they moved onto the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom, who at times collaborated to protect each other. Thus, the North Pole lasted throughout the entire war, and Ba Sing Se was only under Fire Nation control for one season.
"The practitioners of each art can generally be characterized by the style of bending. Airbenders, or at least the last Airbender, use negative jing to evade attacks and often are calm and hard to anger, seeking to resolve conflicts without harm. Waterbenders redirect the attack, a degree between negative and neutral jing, and thus try to resolve conflicts as a balance between avoidance and dismissal. Earthbenders intercept the attack and stress neutral jing, facing the problem head on when the timing is perfect. Firebenders practice positive jing, which is the attack. They are angry and tend to respond out of proportion."
The man who spoke looked young, too young for the immense hatred which burned in his eyes. He wore no armor to signify which nation he belonged to, leaving his torso bare and wearing neutral brown pants. He placed his hand on the shoulder of the young man tied to a metal chair, smelted carefully to remove any impurities of the Earth, stripped down to the customary undergarments of the Earth Tribe as to assure that he was not keeping any rock hidden for his escape. "But you knew all that. We are both very aware of the differences between us."
For one brief moment, the man's eyes softened. "May I tell you a story?"
The city of Nionii existed several hundred miles to the north of Omashu, just where the mountainous range came to an end. Its settlers were prominent Earth Kingdom families who founded the city as an economic enterprise, meaning for it to become a mecca to desert wanderers, but when the plans proved unsuccessful the rich families moved back, and the descendents of the servants who helped settle the city lived a quiet, peaceful life. There were indeed successful merchants living in the city, but their profits were nowhere near high enough for the Earth Kingdom investors to take notice.
Just before sunrise, a woman's pained screams woke every person in the village, though it was a sound that all of them had heard and many of the women had made. Kai, married to the craftsman Moku, screamed and pounded at the people around her as knowledgeable women and their apprentices worked to deliver the two babies she carried inside of her. Though they had been woken up prematurely, the villagers breathed relief as they lay in bed; Kai was a kind woman at heart, an outsider to their village who married in, but was never known to keep her temper particularly well. As her pregnancy stretched on in months and her belly grew too large for her to walk with, the agony of the fully-grown infants inside of her stretched the patience of her neighbors. Hopefully, now that she was about to experience raising children, instead of just growing them, her moods would stabilize.
Several hours later, as the men and women worked in their respective trades, the optimistic outlook they'd had at dawn had vanished as Kai's screams had only become louder, and several parents were forced to explain to their children colorful new words and why they should never say them.
"Get these children out of me!" Kai screamed. Moku continually brought her water and cool cloths for her forehead, but in her blind pain she batted away at even him. They had given her large rocks to squeeze; originally she had held her husband's hand, as was typical in such situations, but her powerful grip bruised each of his hands. Moku, in addition to being a craftsman, was a hulking and burly man, the most skilled Earthbender in the village. Though he had spent many years honing his body with the raw, solid power of earth, he did not seem particularly emasculated by his injured hands.
Near sundown, just when a coup was beginning to form, the screams suddenly stopped. The villagers ran to the adobe house, sure that something was wrong, but were met with the massive form of Moku, beaming with unrestricted pride as he held a healthy, beautiful son in each arm. They peeked inside to see Kai resting, clothing, hair, and bedsheets completely soaked through with sweat, with an exhausted but happy look on her face.
Moku passed the twin boys around, identical in their chubby arms and legs, the thick hair atop their heads, and everything else. He could only stand being parted with his sons for a few moments before he scooped them back up and began to nuzzle them again, too filled with the miracle he'd spent a day helping to bring into the world. After two hours, he brought them inside and passed them to their mother, clean from the bath she had begged for, covered in sweat and the natural, if disgusting, fluids of childbirth. She was still weak from the birth; her midwives were amazed that she made through it at all and understood the pain she had verbally expressed. Kai was a petite woman, at least a foot and a half shorter than her giant of a husband and weighing no more than an adolescent girl. Birthing one child of that size would have been difficult for her slender frame, but she was bedridden for months with two of them and the fact that they came out naturally would become the inspiration for mothers in the years to come.
Moku and the birthing apprentices placed the children gingerly into her arms, and it seemed that this was the only thing that could have broadened Moku's smile. "What are their names?" he asked.
The matriarch of the village, also the wisest and most experienced midwife, took in a sharp breath. "You mean you haven't named the children?"
The large man nodded his head. "In the village where Kai was born, it was considered bad luck to name the children before their parents could look upon their faces, just as it is considered bad luck here to wait until birth."
"But still, do you not…"
"No, Josan. Our marriage is about compromise. She gave up many things to move here with me, and forgoing our silly tradition about baby names is nothing compared to that."
Speaking that way to an Elder, especially the Matriarch, was unheard of in the village. There was no formal punishment, but it could easily mean trouble for the family of the offender. However, Moku was arguably just as important in the hierarchy as she was; he was the elected leader of the Craftsman's Guild and second-in-command of the militia, overseeing the Earthbending training of all warriors. He did not share her birthright, but he'd earned respect just the same.
"Very well," Josan said. In addition to her duties as the head midwife, she was a diplomat who kept the peace within and outside of their village. She turned around, and ushered for her apprentices and the townspeople to leave. "Let us give this new family some space. This will be the first of many long nights for them." They all laughed quietly and went home to their respective beds.
Once the house had cleared out, Moku took the children back, tucking them into the twin slings that had been sewn for them as a gift. Sleep was quickly coming over her, so he quickly asked, "What are their names?"
She pointed first to the child on the left. "He is Hidaki, for my uncle." Then she pointed to the child on the right. "And he is Kisuke, for your father."
He bent over the bed and kissed her forehead. "Rest, Kin. I will spend tonight in the infants' room."
"I wish I could join you."
His hearty frame shook with a laugh. "This will be the only night of sleep either of us will get for some time. Be selfish while you can."
"I love…" she began to say, before her eyelids closed and she sank deeply into their mat. He pulled the sheets around her shoulders and kissed her one more time that night. "I love you too."
That night, his sons proved as strong as he could have ever hoped them to be. Though the night was cold, they barely shivered and Moku got them extra blankets only when his thick skin finally noticed the fall air around them. They slept soundly and woke only when they were hungry. Kin awoke angrily as she usually did when roused after only a few hours, but her mood turned around when she fed her children for the first time.
The next day, Moku took his first day off from his work and his official duties ever to sleep while Kin began her first day of motherhood. Josan had made the arrangements for her to take four months off to devote herself solely to childcare; in two months, she would decide if she wanted to be a caregiver full-time or wished to return to the workforce. If she decided to work again, full or part-time, Josan would help her find daytime childcare. If not, things would continue as they were. After that date, as Josan and her staff were extremely busy women, she would be placed on the end of the waiting list for daytime childcare; most children grew up and could take care of themselves during the day before they ever approached the top of the list.
Though their village was not extremely poor, it did not have a particularly well-developed agricultural system; more than half of its workforce was devoted to farming. Earthbending made growing crops easier; entire fields could be stripped of rocks and plowed in minutes. However, there were still those who had to run the dairy, raise livestock for slaughter, fish, and perform every other job involved. Even group childcare was hard to find for this reason; there were very few people to spare for such jobs.
Kin was lucky; when she had first come to the village, she amazed the villagers with an advanced education. They were not exactly country bumpkin, but her mastery of foreign literature and especially advanced mathematics were impossible to find in the village. She split her time between teaching advanced classes and acting as the village's only accountant. Insignificant as Nionii might have been to powerful investors, they still had to pay taxes to the Earth King like all citizens.