Earthly Attachments
By Bard Child
AN: GenFic, Sweet Gyatso and Aang fic. With a pet theory of mine, enjoy.
You're getting too attached to him! You're letting the relationship cloud your judgment…
It was hot, as most days are in the months of the "Greater Heat." Aang was sleeping on a mat on one of the balconies. Sweat highlighted his young body as he slumbered. He was working so hard, so hard to please Gyatso and the elders. Gyatso walked over to him and sat down, and watched him sleep. The elder monk always liked to watch Aang sleep ever since he was colicky infant.
"Drat! That boy is keeping all of us awake! Do something to shut him up or I'll use one of Jing's chloroform bottles!" Pachu growled with annoyance and lack of rest. I was feeling cranky myself, but I wouldn't be that drastic, Aang was gassy as most infants are at his age. I remember long nights of watching him sleep afraid that he would wake up and awaken the whole temple.
"Monk Gyatso!" Aang shouted to get his guardian's attention. Gyatso jerked awake from his reverie. "Oh! Aang, I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Gyatso asked, slightly startled. Aang chuckled and sat up; he took his cloak top that was lying on the ground and brought it closer.
"I hate the heat, it's so uncomfortable to move and breathe, and I have been practicing the same drills all day. It's so draining. Pachu won't give me a break, either. I mean, I just got my tattoos, why is he drilling me so much?" Aang whined a bit, his voice belling his annoyance at the old monk. Gyatso scooted next to him and looked at the blue above him. The air was thick and humid, a storm was possible.
"Pachu is just a cranky old bison; you should cut him some slack anyway. The only pleasure he gets is watching younger ones suffer, the old sadist." Gyatso chuckled. A cool breeze ruffled the old monk's cloak and the bamboo wind-chimes above them. Aang looked confused but didn't vocalize his thoughts.
"If you are so hot, Aang, why don't you go for a dip with Mao and Pemba?" Aang wrinkled his nose. "Mao is just going to dunk me throw algae on me, Pemba too. It's fun for a while but then it gets annoying. I'll go later after lunch, that's when Yomi is swimming; he won't bother me like the others." Gyatso nodded and stifled a yawn. "Excuse me, I must have caught your sleep," the elder laughed, as he got up and began to walk to one of the mediation halls to reflect.
"I'll see you at lunch Aang; maybe after, I can join you in swimming." Aang laughed as he got on his cloak and with a push of air proceeded to go to the Dining Hall.
Gyatso lit some incense and sat in the cool stone walls. He couldn't help but feel a strong connection every time he sat and talked with Aang even it was just for something brief, like swimming or drilling air bending lessons. The old monk knew that his relationship with Aang was something far deeper than with his other students. Gyatso closed his eyes and reflected when the bond first began.
She was too young, far too young. Only around her mid-teens when she came to temple with her twenty-two month old son. I remember her eyes, most are the cool grey of the clouds, but hers were so much brighter, almost blue. She dropped the wiggly little boy from her arms. She look frightened as most mothers do. I remember when she was searching my eyes. What was she looking for? The chubby toddler pulled out the first four toys, and started playing with them. It was what we needed, the boy chose the Avatar toys. Pachu walked over to her,
"What is the boy's name?" The girl fidgeted and looked at the ground.
"Senge has been calling him Aang. I think he heard it from a story. His name is Aang" I lifted an eyebrow. Was Senge the boy's sire? Pachu picked up Aang and looked at the girl whose eyes showed fear. "And your name is?" The girl might have been crying either from now realizing that she will never see her child again, or from the truth that we have found the avatar, or maybe both.
"Devika, my name is Devika. Please give me back my son, please!" Pachu handed me Aang and I looked into the eyes of the god-child, he was innocent and didn't seem to understand what was going on. I couldn't help but smile at the little boy.
"Looks like you're going to be my new ward," I whispered. I heard Pachu tell me to take the child-avatar away.
"He's your responsibility now, Gyatso. Remember, it is your duty not to get attached!" I could here the sobbing of Devika, crying that she wanted to hold her son one more time. I would have gladly obliged but under the eye of the abbot it was now forbidden. Aang was now crying, he wanted his mother, the only being he ever had any bond with. It was now harshly severed, and I had to soothe him. He wouldn't stop wailing. Though, it was odd. Why was the woman so attached to Aang? Most nuns raised the little ones communally. Why did she exclusively raise Aang alone? I tried again to soothe the little air-child.
"Hey now…it's alright. Aang is it? Well little Aang, we need to cheer you up, how about we visit the bison? You would like them." As I was carrying him out to the pastures I saw the woman again, she stared at me with harsh and bitter sadness.
"Senge told me to tell you that you better raise him right and that you better not ignore Aang as you did to him." I was confused, but then a bolt of lighting surged through me as the woman was escorted to her bison.
Senge was my youngest son.
Gyatso got out of his memories of the past and sighed. That was why he was so attached to Aang. It was because Aang was his grandson, and moreover, he barely had any relations with Senge, and Gyatso was playing catch up. Though Aang would never know that Senge, his father was Gyatso's third eldest, and apparently neither did the abbot. Then again, why should he? Most of the Air Nomad marriages were open ended. As long as the spouse knows who the other was seeing it was quite normal for a "married" monk or nun to have at least five or six sexual partners. In the Chrysanthemum Festival, Gyatso recalled many of these open marriages having orgies in the grottos of the Eastern Air temple. Gyatso gave a wry smile as he remembered his younger days with many of his old lovers. Aang could have definitely been the result of a liaison between Devika and Senge in one of those grottos. Gyatso got up and doused the incense, letting the smells of jasmine and orange blossom fill his nostrils. Gyasto walked to the door and stopped a bit, remembering Pathik's warning. "You're blaming yourself for Senge's neglect, Gyatso. He was in the Northern Temple all his life, he never knew you unless you met him during the Cherry Blossom and Chrysanthemum Festivals, why are you making up for lost time that was never lost to begin with?" Pathik's honest words stung, so I had to counter back.
"Because I knew my sons Nima and Yeshe, they also lived at the Northern Air Temple. I wrote them letters and I visited them during the festivals. But I never gotten to know Senge, except that he loved the bison and he was a good Air-Ball player. I was just so busy at the Southern Temple with my many pupils I didn't have much time to spend with him, plus...Senge was reclusive child unlike his half-brothers. He spent time alone and never seemed to want to talk to me at all, now I know now that I should have tried. He wanted attention and I never gave it to him. I was being neglectful and now with Aang I could give him the attention that never gave Senge." Pathik gave a groan of concern. "But Gyatso, my brother, Aang isn't not the one you should give attention to. Senge is. Your attachment to Aang is clouding you and blocking your seventh chakra. You won't be with him long. One day you will have to give him up. Will be able to do that? Or will you act like Devika on that day?" I frowned, knowing that he was right, and also seeing my selfishness.
There was a pound on the door, two young voices called out.
"Sifu! Monk Gyatso! Aang is hurt, you need to come out!" The monk recognized one as Yomi, a young monk with a love of gardening.
"He twisted his ankle at the mountain pond while going up the bank. Pemba and Mao are with him," shouted an older voice, it was Zigsa, he was young teen that just got his tattoos. Gyatso burst out of the room. "Take me to him." He sounded frantic, and he was. Gyatso followed Zigsa and Yomi to where Mao, Pemba and Aang were. Aang had a very unhappy look. Only clothed in his briefs he could see his right ankle was swelling. Aang looked up, looking very uncomfortable.
"I was walking up the bank and I slipped. My ankle twisted as I tried to airbend to keep me from falling. Well…it didn't work. I twisted my ankle and fell. But Mao picked me up and sent Yomi and Zigsa to come get you." Gyatso picked up Aang and the boy limped up with him and other boys. "Well you'll be fine, you have a bit a limp for a while though. Akash knows how many times I slipped and twisted wrists, knees, hips and ankles. It's just part of being an Airbender. Even the greatest of benders, they get a few scrapes in the process." Aang frowned and limped to where he had put his clothes.
"Oww…it's so sore. I can barely move it," Aang said, wincing as he got on his pants and cloak top.
"I know. I twisted my hip once doing a few tricks. I had a limp for a few days," Gyatso recalled. Aang looked up, "You looked really frightened when you came down to help me." Gyatso walked with Aang to his cell; Gyatso noted that later he would have to help Aang get to dinner tonight and evening mediation.
"I was scared. You were hurt, I had reason to be." Aang laughed as he got on his bed. "Even if was just a twisted ankle?" Gyatso smirked as he left the room to get some gauze. "Yes, even if was just a twisted ankle, hold on for a minute Aang." Gyatso returned shortly with gauze. "When you're not moving, please keep your leg up. It will keep it from swelling and muscles from moving around so much," Gyatso instructed as he wrapped his pupil's right ankle. Aang moved his leg on the bed propped up by a pillow as he lay there.
" 'member to wake me for dinner, we're having vegetable soup with sweet potato rolls," Aang mumbled dozily, as Gyatso watched his apprentice fall asleep.
"One day you will have to give him up. Will you be able to do that, Gyatso?" Gyatso pulled up a chair and sat down and watched as Aang slept.
"Right now, he is not the Avatar. Right now he is just my pupil. Right now, he is my grandson."
AN: Thank you for reading! Most of this fic was pretty much theories. One was Gyatso was related to Aang is some fashion, hence his deep connection to Aang and feeling parental responsibility. Another theory was Air Nomads were very open sexually and didn't believe in monogamy, also, that other raised each other's children. That the children weren't raised by their parents, they might have known them. But their biological sires weren't involved with them too much.
Here are some notes on the means of some of the character's names.
Devika: (Hindi) Little Goddess
Senge: (Tibetan) Lion
Pemba: (Tibetan) Lotus
Zigsa: (Tibetan) Snow Leopard
Nima: (Tibetan) Sun
Yomi: (Hebrew) my day
Mao: (Chinese) Cat
Yeshe: (Tibetan) Wise One
Reviews please!