A/N: If I owned Avatar, I wouldn't have to sell my belongings to get money for bus fare to go to work. A possible ongoing story which may or may not be updated, depending on my interest, my attention span, and, well, whether or not I remember it exists.

"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. The Avatar, master of all four elements, saw to it that each was able to coexist together peacefully. One day, though, in a desperate attempt to seize power over the world, the Fire Nation attacked, and when the world needed him most, the Avatar was nowhere to be found."

"That's because Daddy froze himself into an iceberg."

"Yes, that's because your dad had frozen himself, along with his bison, into an iceberg. That's where Mommy and your uncle found him, 100 years later."

"Wooow."

"Yup. Wow is right. Together, your dad and I, along with Uncle Sokka and all of our friends, were able to defeat the firelord and restore peace to the world."

"You still didn't tell me why I'm different than all the other kids. Why they can all bend water and I can't."

"That's because when the Fire Nation attacked, they killed all of the airbenders. Every single one, except your dad."

"Because he was in the iceberg!"

"That's right. Now you two are the last airbenders in all the world. And that's why you can't bend water. You're an airbender, and when you're old enough, one day, you'll learn to airbend just like your dad."

"When's old enough?"

"Trust me. You'll know."

He awoke with a jolt, the kinks in his back made worse by the fact that he was unable to stretch due to the well-endowed woman lying on top of him. There was a faint throbbing at the base of his skull, a lovely leftover present from the gallon of beer he'd had the night before. The sun's rays streaming in through the window burned the back of his eyes, and he closed them again, trying to return to his dream. It was the same one he'd had every night since leaving the South Pole, four years ago, and it always ended with that tantalizing promise of hope which could never be fufilled. He smirked angrily to himself; why he clung so desperately to the stupid wish when it quite obviously was never going to come true was beyond stupid. He roughly shoved the still heavily snoring woman off of him, grateful that he hadn't even bothered learning her name before bedding her. It made leaving in the morning so much easier. He let the door slam on the way out, then cursed as his hangover hit him full force. He was never quite sure why he drank as heavily as he did every night. He always wound up with a throbbing migraine, ill in a gutter somewhere until he could pull himself together enough to stagger into work. Quite frankly, he wasn't even sure he still had a job. It had been days since his last visit to the shop, and he wasn't sure how much grace from Ping he could count on anymore now that he had done his daughter. His headache faded slightly at the thought of her rich, ample thighs and dimpled cheeks. He smiled slightly, and began to whistle an old song about the girls of Ba Sing Se.

As he walked to the shop, he felt a gurgle rising from his stomache. He knew if he ate, he was going to throw it right back up. However, it had been two days since his last meal, and if he didn't eat soon, he was going to faint. Again. He checked his pocket, sighing as he realized he was down to his last copper piece. Damn. He was going to have to start actually going in to work, or else he was going to starve. Or he could just stop binge drinking...Nah. He would just go into work and get some food there. Ping would never notice. He never did, not with Li helping him sneak out food. He grinned evilly. Despite his glaring deficiencies in most aspects of his life, at least with women, he was completely within his element. With that thought, he sauntered in through the door of the shop, and promptly ducked as a large jug of malt liquor was aimed directly at his head.

"TENZIN!"

Oh shit. Not only was Ping standing before him, holding a butcher's blade he looked all too willing to use on something other than animals, his wife and daughter were standing on either side, teeth bared and fists clenched. This only meant one thing- they knew.

"Um," he stalled, trying to figure a way out of this one. One of them had said something, despite his coy suggestions that it would be oh so much more romantic if this had stayed between the two...okay, technically, three of them. And oh, how women, even more so than men, desperately hated to share.

"GET OUT OF MY SHOP!" Oh, how incredibly red Ping's face got. It was as though someone had glued several fire lily petals to it. "NOT ONLY DO YOU SCREW MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER, YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO SEDUCE THEM WITH YOUR LIES! BLATANT LIES!"

"I don't know. If they were so blatant, I'm surpised Li and Meng didn't catch on sooner. They must not be to bright, eh?"

It was literally as though all three of their heads simultaneously exploded. That was the danger of pissing off firebenders, one which never seemed to occur to Tenzin till he had several balls of fire coming directly at him from people he had just insulted. He turned and ran like hell in the other direction, nearly bowling over some girl in the process. He ignored her and kept going, ducking down a nearby ally as the cries of the enraged family grew fainter behind him. Slumping behind a pile of crates, he carefully considered his options. He had one copper piece, and needed beer, food, and shelter. He had slept outside before; he could do it again. Life in the South Pole was a great preparation for life anywhere else. Once you'd lived in subzero temperatures, anything else was a piece of cake. Speaking of cake, he was desperately in need of food. Food and beer. He knew which one he wanted, and which one he needed. He could get food later. Right now, beer was the necessity.

He pulled himself up, and staggered off to the nearest tavern. He knew he was self-medicating, but it was the only way to fill the void left by what should have been the largest section of himself.

Meanwhile, at the scene of his latest escapade, Ping was attempting to regain control of his life, and the women within it, with little to no success. His daughter was one thing. Of course, the boy had defiled her and taken her honor, so on and so forth, but really, when it came down to it, most girls had lost their virginity long before their wedding night these days. Everyone was selling damaged goods, and everyone knew it, so quite frankly, no one cared. It was his wife having the audacity to go and sleep with a man a third of her age that made him want to brutally slaughter something. Preferably the boy. Except for the fact that this would have resulted in being sent to the crushers, who were earthbenders that would lay him out between two rocks and then slowly grind him to a pulp. He could feel it though, his chi raging inside of him, threatening to take over him and to destroy everything in his path-

-the knock at the door caught him off guard, and he panicked and sent a whirling ball of flame through the wall. Agni above, he had finally done it, he had lost it and actually killed someone, damn it damn it damn it, oh Agni, oh shit-

Except there was no pile of slightly smoldering cinders beyond the wreckage of the doorway. Instead, there was a perfectly healthy, if mildly surprised girl standing within what appeared to be a whirlpool of flame. It danced around her, licking her gently in shades of green and purple, colors no fire should ever actually be. Both stared at each other, unsure of what move to make next. Ping backed up slowly, never taking his eyes off the freakish girl, feeling behind him for the butcher's knife he had left on the table. His hand closed around the blade, but as he went to throw it at the bitch's head, he was suddenly yanked down into the stone floor up to his neck. He stared slackjawed at the girl in the doorway, who had barely moved, and still hadn't extinquished the freak flames. Then, to his amazement, his finest wines, made from fruits so far deep within that damn creepy swamp that it had cost four men their lives just to retrieve them, wines that only the firelord himself could actually afford, sprung forth from their jars and doused the still smoldering embers from the wreckage.

She finally extinquished the flames, squatted down so she was mostly on eye level, and very politely stated, "I'm the motherfucking Avatar. Don't fuck with me, don't fight with me, and sure as hell do not try and blow me up. Now where the hell is Tenzin?"

Tenzin, as a matter of fact, was currently whoring himself out for beer. It was shocking how difficult it was to get really good and shitfaced off of a single copper piece, and so he had moved on to plan b. It was his choice option for when ligitimate methods of obtaining alchoholic beverages failed, and involved getting really, really good and close to the most attractive and rich woman available, and quietly whispering in her ear that he was, in fact, the son of the last actual airbender known to the world, and if he didn't have children, his entire race would die out. Would such a beautiful woman really want to take part in the genocide of an entire nation? And no, the would whisper back, of course not, and buy another drink while running their fingers through his hair. Tonight it was a busty girl with long dark hair, big dopey eyes, and what was turning out to be a bottomless pouch of money. He was on his sixth mug of ale when the door exploded inward, showering everyone inside with chips of wood (a particularly large bit of which managing to impale a certain unlucky cabbage merchant through the stomach, creating digestive problems he would have to deal with for the rest of his life. Realizing this, he went home and tried to commit suicide, and failed miserably. He did, however, manage to kill his wife and all four of his sons, one who's girlfriend decided to pay a visit just in time to see the crossbow bolt leave the cabbage merchant's bow and stick itself in her boyfriend's chest. She was down and out on her luck, and decided to blackmail him for all he was worth, which was exactly two copper pieces and a bit of string. She wound up whoring herself out on the street, and developed a venereal disease, and died). Tenzin, far too drunk to realize that this could mean nothing good for him, promptly fell off his barstool and landed directly on his skull. His buxom friend giggled inanely, but promptly ceased when the beer in her mug decided to enter her skull via her left nostril.

"WHERE IS TENZIN?" the apparition at what used to be the door bellowed. Several patrons, all of whom were familiar with Tenzin and his nightly drunken shenannigans at the various taverns he seemed to turn up in every night, pointly wordlessly at the drunken, sobbing heap on the floor. The girl stomped over and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him upright and holding him at eye level. Even his drunken state, he noticed that his feet weren't actually touching the ground.

"Tenzin."

"Well hello, gorgeous. Have we met?"

"Yes. You lived in my water tribe when I was young. Now, I'm the Avatar, and you're the son of the airbender, so you're going to teach me airbending. Now."

With that, she tossed him over her shoulder and hauled him out into the night like a sack of potatoes.