The mother of the airbenders had been smooth and impassive before her older children, but tears had started flowing when they took her away from them and were growing into full-on hysterics.
She had obviously been fully indoctrinated into her cause. She railed at her guards, spouting every form of pro-airbending rhetoric known to man, accusing them of being the second airbender genocide. Though they were trained not to be provoked by prisoners, their blood boiled at the thought of being compared to Firelord Sozin. His oppression of mankind was the greatest sin of the benders.
Her preoccupation was so great that, when Amon entered the room, she didn't notice the sudden straightening of the guards as they came to attention. Neither did she notice Amon coming at her from behind, nor his well-placed touch of the hand sending her into an unwilling sleep. He caught her as she slumped out of her sitting position and gently extricated the sleeping child from her arms.
"Hold the infant for me, Lieutenant." And Amon deftly placed the child into his Lieutenant's waiting arms.
"Is he a bender, then? Can you tell?"
"Yes, Lieutenant. I can feel it in his blood."
When his Lieutenant later discovered Amon's true identity, he would think back on this remark and wonder how he had never seen the truth. But at that moment he held out the child as Amon placed his fingers over the tiny forehead and chest. If the baby felt Amon's feather-light touch, he gave no sign of it.
The baby's deep and easy breathing halted for a moment, then picked back up again.
As Amon's hands retreated, he said, "It is a blessing, indeed, to be equalized so young. Never will he know the impurity of his bending." He took the baby from his Lieutenant, placed him in his mother's arms, and left for the rally that he believed would reduce his father and siblings to the same fate.
The avatar would soon restore all Amon had taken away, but she would never think to energybend a child who seemed a born non-bender, a child who would have been among the last airbenders, but was now destined to be the last of the equalized.