"Why can't he be more like his sisters?" Father asked. His voice, raspy and high, reminded Aida of the Instructor's when he dealt with an especially slow student. "Numbers and science. Science and numbers. Everything has to be so damn precise with him. He's an Air Nomad Pema, he oughta know what that means."
"Have you ever considered that he might be right Jinpa?" Mother asked sleepily. Aida smiled. Mother was always on his side. "Maybe the Fire Nation has changed. Maybe he really can rise up in the-"
"Oh please," said Father. "Not you too. Pema, you know how they look at us. That school of his is a waste of time. He should be here, helping me run the shop. Soaking up trade secrets. He needs to learn a profession."
"Maybe you're right," said Mother easily. "So what? Let him discover the world for himself. What's the harm?"
Aida pressed his ear against the door. Mother and Father hadn't realized the differences between their old house and the new. Back in the Earth Kingdom, walls were big and thick, made out of mud and bricks. In the Fire Nation they were thin and hollow, made out of paper and wood. Could hear right through 'em. It was nice to get them. Unvarnished opinions. He'd always hypothesized that Father was a paranoid, short-sighted, coward, and it was nice to finally get supporting verbal evidence.
"Right now things are good," said Father. "The Fire Nation will probably tolerate us until things turn. Then we'll see what they really think of us."
"And what makes you think things will turn?" Mother asked. "Remember the Earth Kingdom? It was so primitive there. So poor. They can barely feed themselves, let alone fight off Fire Nation steel."
Well, Mother had always been the smarter one.
"Things will turn," Father said confidently. "The world will balance. It always does. Just look at history: there was a time when Chin the Conqueror seemed unstoppable, but his conquest fell apart."
Aida rolled his eyes. Father always liked to compare current events with old ones. Foolish, foolish, the conditions were nothing alike.
"Because of the Avatar," Mother said. "Balance was, and always has been, maintained by the Avatar. But he's vanished. As gone as our airbending."
There was a sad silence. It was one of the few things Aida shared with his Father. The love of airbending. The forms, the philosophy, it was the only part of their people that Aida truly admired. The element of freedom! What a treat it would be to dance and glide in the sky! When he'd been a child he'd dreamt of being an airbender like the legendary Monk Gyatso! The forms he could discover, the things he would do! Air was seen as a defensive elements, but Aida knew how to make it deadly. How he could make it the most offensive element! But the air, as it did with all Air Nomads, had ignored his call. Air bending had become as inert as the Nitrogen within it. There hadn't been an airbender since the purge.
"He'll come back," Father said stubbornly. "Someday the Avatar will return. And then everything will change."
"Avatar Aang is dead," Mother said bluntly.
"Aang disappeared before they butchered our people," Father said, sounding almost as desperate as he did pathetic. "The records showed that he…"
Aida hated that his Father was a fool. Father had this dumb conspiracy theory. The idiot thought that the Avatar had run from his responsibilities after being informed of his status, had been caught in a storm, and used his Avatar powers to freeze himself in time. That the Avatar was floating around, cocooned in an iceberg, waiting for some dolt to stir him from his slumber. Aida was willing to concede that it was possible. It was well known among Air Nomads that the Avatar had been a young boy named Aang who had disappeared the night after being informed he was the Avatar. It was true that a hurricane had ravaged the South Pole on that very same date. But there were several more plausible explanations. That the Avatar had run and hid. That the Avatar had been killed in the storm. That the entire story had been made up by an Air Nomad elder trying to boost morale. All were more plausible than Father's sad little theory.
"...And the gods are waiting for him to find the perfect partners. The perfect companions to guide the Avatar," Father concluded. "Probably a waterbender, to guide him with the next element, and a scientist, to usher him into the modern world."
Mother giggled. "And you wonder where Daeshim gets his delusions from."
Aida sniffed. He was not delusional. The Fire Nation would eventually accept their people.
"I am not delusional," Father squawked. "The Avatar will return someday!"
"You're such a dreamer Jinpa," Mother said fondly, and the bed groaned. There were some squeaking sounds, and even a soft moan. Aida took it as a cue to leave, and walked out of his parents' house.
So what if father still disapproved of his education? So what if his mother didn't believe in him? The important thing was that he had a couple bronze coins in his pouch and the bar was only a few blocks away. He'd talk to a few Fire Nation women, get rejected a couple eh' times, and get very, very drunk.
