The Southern Air Temple
The news spread fast through the Southern Air Temple. Aang, one of the youngest airbending masters ever, was the Avatar. The council had tried to keep it under wraps, but trying to keep a secret in the air temple was about as pointless as challenging a sky bison to an eating contest.
Owyn scoffed at the rumor when he first heard it. He even thought that Aang may have been the one to start it just to gain more attention.
If it was his plan, it certainly did backfire. Ever since the rumors had circulated the temple and subsequently confirmed by the High Council, Aang had been treated like he had a bad case of pentapox. This suited Owyn just fine.
It wasn't that he didn't like Aang as a person, in fact they had been the closest of friends just a few years back. That changed quickly though when they both turned nine and made the jump between Nava airbending training and Gavala airbending training. Or as all the young airbenders in training called it, they made the jump between being baby sat and actually using airbending.
Once they began it had become quite clear that while airbending came naturally to Aang, while Owyn struggled with the most basic of forms. Their friendship began to falter very quickly.
Three years later later and Aang had already mastered 35 of the 36 airbending forms and became a master when he invented the air scooter, which Owyn thought was rather unfair that he could use his own move to earn his mastership. Meanwhile, Owyn had only mastered 5 airbending forms, half of what was to be expected of someone of his age.
So instead of beginning to work on advanced glider techniques like the rest of the air nomads his age, Owyn was stuck in Master Gyatso's class, usually reserved for the youngest air nomads. He smacked his shaved head in frustration as he listened to Gyatso drone on about proper breathing and how to flow with the wind.
The young air nomads in the class, ranging from 5 to 7 years old all gazed intently at the aging master, while Owyn stared out towards the air surrounding the air temple, where several of his friends rushed past on their gliders.
After what seemed to be an eternity Gyatso dismissed them from their lesson and Owyn ran off to the upper parts of the air temple, hoping to find his friends as they finished their lesson.
"Hey Owyn, wait up!" A cheery voice called from behind him.
Owyn groaned in frustration, being able to pick out his voice from anywhere. He stomped his feet dramatically and turned to face Aang. "What do you want?"
Aang either ignored or didn't pick up the animosity of his voice as he continued to smile brightly at Owyn. "Have you seen Master Gyatso?"
"I'm sure that the Avatar doesn't need any help locating someone." Owyn spat out and turned on his heel to continue on his path, missing the pained look on Aang's face as he slowly walked towards the direction Owyn had come from.
He arrived at the top of the temple only to find that his friends had already made it back and dispersed. Owyn sighed heavily and was about to leave as a gust of wind drew his attention back to the outer platform.
Standing there was a young master airbender with a glider being held firmly in his grasp, wearing a loose orange vest over a yellow shirt while his bottom half was covered with dark brown pants and high boots. Owyn looked down at his own apprentice clothes in disgust. The man walked up towards him and it finally dawned on Owyn that he in fact knew this man.
"Kiron!" He yelled excitedly before propelling himself into the man's arms.
Kiron stumbled backwards slightly at the unexpected weight before righting himself once more. "It's good to see you too Owyn." He patted the young boy on the back before setting him down.
"So?" Owyn looked at him expectantly.
"So what?" Kiron rubbed his small goatee quizzically.
"You're not going to tell me how your spiritual journey went?" Owyn practically jumped into his arms once more from excitement.
Kiron chuckled lightly, "Maybe later, for now I have to go talk to the council." Upon seeing Owyn's face drop he hunched over to the boy's level. "I'll tell you what, tomorrow you and I will sneak off and I'll tell you all about my adventures."
Owyn nodded vigorously before hugging Kiron once more and running off to the living quarters, eager to tell his friends that Kiron had returned. His mind raced back to the last time he had seen the young master. It had been nearly two years since Kiron went off on what the air nomads called a "spiritual journey". All that entailed was basically any new master airbender would go and explore the world before returning to help teach a new generation of air nomads. Of course, usually nobody returned as fast as Kiron did. Most stayed in the other nations for upwards of twenty years, Owyn thought that maybe his early return was because of the rumors.
Owyn shook his mind to clear his head of such thoughts, knowing that the rumors were nothing more than just simple gossip. Instead he focused back on his and Kiron's past.
Despite their ten year age difference, Kiron and Owyn were quite close before his departure. Kiron tried his hardest to teach Owyn everything he could about how to airbend and it really helped. Kiron seemed to be the only one whose teachings actually stuck with Owyn, so it was no surprise how much he regressed after his friend had left.
Finally arriving at the living quarters, he was quite surprised to see that those were practically deserted, save for a few younger nomads. The sun was setting just as Kiron arrived, which normally meant that the air nomads would be returning to their bedrooms. Owyn shrugged before deciding to turn in early for the night.
"Aang left."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Owyn turned to ask Kiron as the pair descended a staircase leading to the lower parts of the temple.
"He just...left. Apparently he took Appa last night and just took off. He left Master Gyatso a note saying as much."
Owyn thought back to the last conversation he had with Aang, a brief flash of guilt ran through his body before it was quickly replaced by the resentment he held towards the young Avatar. "Good riddance."
Kiron frowned at the boy. "How can you be so mean to the poor guy? He just found out he was the Avatar, that's a lot of responsibility to put on a kid."
"Oh no, poor Aang got even more attention than before."
"Listen Owyn, you cannot understand how much pressure is on Aang with the way the world is now."
"Yeah, whatever." The two air nomads turned down a hall leading to the bison stables. Owyn briefly looked out the window and was surprised to see that instead of the early morning sunrise, the whole sky had been dyed a deep maroon color. "What's up with the sky?"
Kiron turned to look out the window. "I thought we had more time." Nearby footsteps from the staircase they came from drew their attention away from the blood red sky. "This isn't good." Kiron looked around nervously, leaving Owyn even more confused.
"Kiron what is-" Owyn's question lingered in the air as two men entered the hallway, each adorned with matching armor consisting of reds and blacks, their faces hidden behind menacing skull masks.
Before either air nomad could question just what was happening the two armored men sent out two flame blasts towards Kiron and Owyn. Kiron acted quickly and spun his glider around quickly in his hands, the outgoing air barely deflecting the fire away. The intensity of the flames was like nothing Owyn had felt before and he worried that he could catch fire just by looking at the now ablaze hallway.
"Owyn, run to the stables and find a sky bison!" Kiron's sharp order brought him back to reality.
"But-"
"Get as far away from the temple as you can!" Kiron snapped at him again before shoving him towards the stables with an air blast.
Owyn ran as fast as his legs would take him, his lungs nearly suffocating as the air all around him had seemed to turn smoke. He arrived at the stables and looked around in utter shock. The stables were no longer occupied by the air bison, but in their place was even more of those armored firebenders, as well as the most terrifying creature Owyn had ever seen in his young life.
He had heard stories about dragons, the loyal companions to a very few firebenders, but those tales truly failed to grasp just how massive they were. They easily took up the length of four air bison put together and even their wings made the sky bison look tiny by comparison.
"There's another one!" One of the armored men finally took notice of Owyn, who was still standing there gawking at the beast.
Finally the impending rush of heat awoke him from his stupor and he used a gust of air to propel himself over the blast. The near proximity of the flames were enough to char his clothes. The other men quickly caught on and Owyn's eyes widened in horror as flame erupted from each of their outstretched hands.
Having only one escape option he once again used an air gust to push himself closer to the cliff side, once again narrowly avoiding being burned. It wasn't more than a split second that another rush of flames was coming towards and forced Owyn to do the only thing he could. He jumped.
The fire went harmlessly over him as he plummeted to the ground. Owyn shot off several puffs of air below him, only for each one to fail to slow his rapid descent. He clamped his eyes shut, awaiting what he hoped would be a quick and painless death.
Instead of the hard ground though, he felt a strong arm wrap around his waist. Owyn opened his eyes to see none other than Kiron hanging onto him, his glider keeping both of them up in the sky safely.
Owyn opened his mouth to speak, but upon seeing the tears forming in Kiron's eyes, thought better. He shifted slightly in Kiron's grasp to get a better look at the temple, which they now were flying away from. A silent gasp escaped his lips as he took in the scene.
Above the temple was the source of the reddened sky, a comet grazing awfully close to the nearby clouds. Below the comet was a sickening sight, one that was burned into Owyn's memory instantly. The temples were all ablaze, fire seemingly clinging to every surface. From this distance he could still see flames being shot off in various directions, as well at least ten dragons circling the towers.
He tore his eyes away, his stomach not being able to handle much more of the sight.
AN: Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of my new story, Running from Fire. As you can see, this story will be focusing on the last of the Air Nation after Aang was frozen in the iceberg. There are so many stories that you could have read on this site, so it means a lot that you clicked on mine. I hope you enjoyed it enough to stick around and thanks again.
Pronunciation: Owyn (Oh-when) Kiron (Key-ron)
Word Origin: Nava= young in Sanskrit, Gavala= bison in Sanskrit
