"I am never alone wherever I am. The air itself supplies me with a century of love. When I breathe in, I am breathing in the laughter, tears, victories, passions, thoughts, memories, existence, joys, moments, and the hues of the sunlight on many tones of skin; I am breathing in the same air that was exhaled by many before me. The air that bore them life; my ancestors. And so how can I ever say that I am alone?" ― C. JoyBell C.
When you are one of the only two of your kind still alive in all existence in the Physical World, having the Savior as your father-his legacy shared in your very being, in the wind that pulses from your palms with the wave of your hands, the very air that gives all creatures life, shimmering to your command- the pressures of continuing the ways of a nearly extinct people are hard not to adhere.
You know this with all that you are; sometimes you feel like the only reason you were conceived was to be the "heir to air" that your brother used to enviously joke about in childhood.
Yet, you had never told Bumi just how the truth of those ignorant words had stung your heart. How the fear of the possibility that, if Bumi, or even Kaya had been an Airbender...would your parents not had even tried for, or even wanted another child? Would you not have existed if not for the wind that whispers in your ears that you can whisper back to with the love and freedom of a thousand ancestors departed?
Your childhood had been far from normal and "free" despite the words of wisdom that your father so passionately preached to you in moments of reflection.
You were the golden child, the "heir to air", the prodigy; your father's pride and joy, his surmise at your ability to produce offspring to create the start of a new Air Nomad Nation resting as your destiny.
Yet, it wasn't a destiny you were sure you wanted, or even had the power to suffice.
At the age of ten, you had mastered all the forms, had meditated more than you slept, and your mother had stated you would fly as high as the sky. Bumi had said that if you stayed any stiffer during your mediation sessions that he called "the Cue Ball's hibernation" that you would turn into a statue so pure that even Aunt Toph couldn't move.
The origin of the manifestation of your bending had been passed down with pride so often through the years, that it left you modestly embarrassed. You had blown your first puff of wind when you were only four; Kaya's sea-prunes had splattered all over her face at the rush of oxygen in her direction seemingly coming from out of no where.
She ran to tell your parents, and Aang hadn't even blinked. He had no doubts, no disbelieving scolding words telling his daughter not to lie.
What he had done, however, was faint from joy.
Or, at least that's how the story goes. You'd like to believe the part where Kaya, in turn, supposedly waterwipped you so hard that it left a red mark on your bald head for a week, was just a result of your brother's theatrical story telling, and not what your siblings like to call as you just being 'sensitive'.
However he may annoy you, many times in your childhood, you wished you could trade places with your older brother; if only to give him peace of mind and add to his sense of self. To let him feel important, to give him the attention and pride of your father that he so, so desperately craved.
Attention that you had so desperately wished would turn away from you and go anywhere else. Anywhere else and make you stop feeling smothered; as if every little thing you did was being watched and solely about, you,you, you.
As if you being on the front cover of the City news paper for a year after you were born, and a month after you got your Tattoos wasn't enough...
You know how your bending and the fame it gave you, made your siblings feel- especially your ever wayward and rebellious brother, searching for his non-bending place among bending prodigies and the Avatar.
Bumi was a leaf in a garden of roses. He was a star among supernovas; always searching for a path that he could never find beyond the running streams and past the endless clouds that your family called home.
Oh, to be invisible for just a day...
You thought it very ironic, that you, the junior Airbender of supposed freedom, felt anything but free; limited, contained under the edges of the Island where you had to train day and night, smothered under your father's love that would not leave you alone for one minute. Yet Bumi was the free spirit, coming and going as he pleased, abiding no rules, unable to be tamed.
Little did Bumi know, you envied him.
When you had gotten your Tattoos at thirteen, fear griped you. Worry about the pain of the needle and ink on your skin, and looks you would get, the teasing. But you knew it was your destiny, who you were meant to be; so you swallowed your pride and bit down on a cloth as the points pricked your tender flesh, telling your father to continue on when he hesitated- that you weren't sensitive- concern in his eyes, telling you he could stop now and go on later.
It was a Right of Passage and you were the "heir to air". You would do whatever it took to become a Master and make your father proud.
Which was why when Jinora, your eldest, at ten years, asks you when she can get her Tattoos, you tell her that she doesn't need to get them if she doesn't want to. You say it won't make you any less proud.
With that determined gleam in her chocolate eyes, she tells you she wants to be a master Airbender, just like Grandpa Aang.
You think at the moment, you see more of Aang in her than you ever did with Korra, and pain twists in your gut, so strong that you have to leave the table.
You've been searching for your father in the wrong person all this time.
When you get to your bedroom, you cry.
You haven't cried since Jinora was born, since your father died.
And now you understood. You understood what it finally means to be an Airbender, something your father had never taught you.
It is not about how many bending forms you learn, or even about mediation or freedom.
It is not about how many children you will produce that will have the Airbender gene to make more of a legacy.
It is about love.
Love.
Love is the legacy.
You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. The Air Nomads love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love.
Let the pain flow away.
You remembered your father telling you the story- as well as many other adventures of him and his friends while they helped stop the war- of how he had to unblock all his chakras to be able to control the Avatar State. But he had given up that control because he could not let go of the love he had for your mother. Then Azula had shot him with lightning; killing him, but Katara had brought him back to life. Through love.
You understood now.
You didn't have to worry about making your father proud anymore, or wonder how many of your children, and their children, and their children would have Airbenders.
Because you knew. Somehow in your heart you knew.
Your father was proud. And his legacy would continue. You could feel it in you.
"Daddy? Are you okay?"
You turn, and see Jinora's hair and chocolate eyes peeking though the crack in the door.
"Oh, um, yes..." you clear your throat, as she comes towered you, "Yes, sweetheart, I'm fine...Just thinking of someone..."
"Was it Grandpa?"
You look down at your eldest, and wonder how she can be so mature sounding, yet still have that innocent glow in her pout.
You sigh, knowing there is no use hiding anything from your daughter. "Yes, darling, it was."
Then, without any warning, without any change in facial expression, she replies, "I saw him yesterday when I was meditating. He came to visit me. He said he misses you, and Grandma and everyone. He says you're an amazing Airbender, but a more amazing Daddy."
Something clogs your throat then, and you make a vague choking noise as you gaze at her.
"Daddy?" she asks, eyebrows furrowing, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry..."
"No...No, it's okay, Jinora. I'm happy."
"You are?"
"Yes." you whisper, as you embrace her, and feel her head burrow in the crook on your shoulder, "And proud. So, so proud."
Because love is the strongest form of energy, and it is always reborn.
The air that bore them life; my ancestors. And so how can I ever say that I am alone?