I do not nor have I ever had anything to do with ATLA or Nickelodeon
"BG" means "Before (Air Nomad) Genocide" which happens when Aang is 12 years old
I want to thank my Beta-Reader fanatla, without you Anila's Story wouldn't be as great as it is!
Chapter 11
(12 BG)
Anila was starting to miss all her friends and the people at The Eastern Air temple. She had spent so much time meditating, but she also got time in with the girls she had tutored. She also had spent a lot of time with her mother.
It was so different that knowing her as Sister Opame. She had truly loved Anila so much that she kept her and she pretended to be a new nun that was bringing a child to care for with her to The Eastern Air Temple. You can decide to be a nun at any point in your life, and there were always small children, toddlers, that arrived at the temples with their new guardians.
Anila thought about what her mother had told her, that she did have the option to keep the baby and raise it herself. It wasn't well known among the Air Nomads because True Enlightenment was supposed to be their goal, it was drilled into them as they learned and grew. If true enlightenment meant giving up this baby that she had grown to love; to talk to it, to sing to it, to feel it kick, even to feel it hiccup, then she had decided she didn't want true enlightenment, instead had decided she loved her baby and it was final she was going to keep it. "Hello, Little One." She told it as it kicked; she put her hand on her tummy where it was kicking. "I love you! Mommy loves you. I will never give you up, I promise!"
The weeks it took to travel to the temple all the women traveled to when it was time to have their babies, went by quickly. But at the same time it felt like the landscape below passed so slowly. She didn't know all of it, but she did remember much of it from her travels to the Yangchan Festival from The Eastern Air Temple. She also remembered some of it from her travels to the Fire Nation with Amitaruci, the father of her baby.
Just thinking about him made her heart skip a beat and she felt like she was falling. She smiled at the wonderful sensation. She was so confused about Amitaruci, she loved him dearly. He was always so kind and gentle and so concerned about her, she thought he loved her too... But if he did why would he just leave her like that? She needed to talk to him. She needed to tell him how she felt, how much she loved him. Maybe he will say he loved her too, and then they could be a happy family, stay together and raise their baby together. She imagined a happy family, her and Amitaruci... and their baby, maybe three or four beautiful children. They could teach them their Airbending forms, teach them to be the leaf, teach them to sore peacefully through the skies.
On her trip she passed over Roku's Island, it was a small island but was spotted easily by the huge smoking volcano on it. Anila remembered the special celebration she and Amitaruci attended there, it was Avatar Roku's birthday and she had had so much fun that day. She got to see The Avatar; he even gave them respectful bows. She doubted she would ever get a chance to see The Avatar again in her entire life.
"We're almost there Chesa; we're almost to the hidden temple." Anila told her sky bison as she spotted the small island the temple was on. Both Amitaruci and her mother had given her directions on how to get to the Western Air Temple, to look for the great chasm, the temple would be in that great chasm. They had both told her it was a magnificent sight to behold; it even had a giant Pai Sho board and all.
About an hour later she saw the chasm and flew down it. It truly was a magnificent sight, all the buildings were carved into the earth, all of them hung upside down. There were stairs and bridges everywhere. Anila saw women walking around with infants in slings or in their arms, some with them holding on to their mother's fingers, learning to walk. When she landed Chesa on a huge platform with giant statues of female Airbenders she was meet by a cheerful young nun, maybe only a few years older than herself. She had a board with some paper on it and a brush and inkwell.
"Welcome to the Western Air Temple." The nun said cheerfully. "We are happy to provide you with everything you need! May I ask you your name and age, for our records? We keep track of every birth, both the Mother and The father's names. These records are sent to all the temple so that they know who each child belongs to."
"I'm Anila, I'm 16… I'll be 17 in a couple months." Anila told the young woman.
"It is wonderful to meet you Anila!" The nun said making a few marks with the brush. "We can get the rest of the information from you later. If you will follow me, please, I'll show you to your new home for the duration of your stay with us!" They walked through the temple, upstairs and over bridges finally arriving at the door to a small room. "This will be your room! We have nuns on duty at all times; if you need something just ask the women at the desk just down the hall. If you have any questions, they can assist you as well."
"Thank you very much." Anila said with a smile. After the young woman left Anila looked around her room, where there was a bed, a closet, a few tables, one with a couple chairs at it, and an adorable rocking cradle for the baby. Through a door she found a bathroom.
As Anila was exploring her room, a woman came into her room. "Hello Anila, I'm Sister Nele. I will be the midwife in charge of your care and the baby's birth, my room is just a few doors down so no matter what time you go into labour I'll be right here. As a new arrival we need to check you over and ask you a few questions. Let's take a seat."
"Ok." Anila said to Sister Nele.
Sister Nele began asking her questions, questions about when she got pregnant, who the father was, where she was from. "Ok, Anila, this is going to be very uncomfortable for me to do but I need to measure your belly and check you over, so we will know how much long you have until your delivery. Please lay on the bed."
After the nun checked Anila over, she told Anila that she still had a few weeks to go. After everything that needed to be done was done Anila walked down to the dinning haul to eat. Seeing that she was new they gave her a Welcome Basket, it had fruit and cookies and small pot of cheese curds as well as a couple loafs of bread. "You can come down and we will fill your basket anytime you need us to." One nun from the kitchen told her.
A few days later, Anila was woken suddenly, struck by an intense wave of pain in the abdomen. "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" she cried, the pain so unbelievably bad that she couldn't help but cry out.
A nun came rushing into the room, "I need to check you!" As the nun was checking Anila, her water broke and she cried out again. "The baby is coming" the nun told her.
"But..." Anila grimaced at the pain, she was scared, "But… Sister Nele said I still had a couple more weeks! Is something wrong?"
"No, Anila. Not that I can see, it looks like the baby wants to come now." The nun comforted her. "I'll be right back I need to get Sister Nele and a few more nurse nuns to help us. This is a birthing place we all already know what to do, and we are always prepared for the birth of a new Air Nomad." The nurse left the room but returned not five minutes later with Sister Nele and three more nuns. Two with white cloth folded and stacked nicely in their arms and the third with a tray with a pot, and some other metal items on it as well. They quickly readied Anila for the delivery of her baby.
Without them knowing, outside the delivery room, the sky in the Fire Nation became dark, a volcano was spewing molten Earth and poisons gasses in the Fire Nation covering the moon with ash. People from the volcano's Island were running away in fear for their lives, while they saw their home getting erased from Earth's face.
"Not much longer now... It will be time to push soon." Sister Nele told Anila.
Another pain wave hit her body with the start of a contraction, producing a choked cry from a very frightened Anila; she wasn't ready for this, not yet. She doubled over as the intense pain struck her again.
In the Fire Nation, one old woman stood amongst all the people. Her worried gaze never left the volcano peak, because deep within her, she knew she would never again see the love of her life, the man she had shared a lifetime with… 'Oh Roku… why did you have to stay and try to fix this… please dear be safe for me and your children… please don't die on me.'
That was her last though when she saw a red dragon, Roku's dragon Fang, fly to the volcano's pit before a sudden chain of great explosions shook the depths of the earth and a lava flow covered the entire island surface, followed by the deafening silence of death…
The woman fell to her knees crying her eyes out while her family embraced her with love and affection.
At the same instant, after an agonizing labour's hour had passed in the Western Air temple, a last piercing cry of pain from the young woman's lips tore the silence of the night and, a few minutes after, it was responded by the sound of a baby's wailing filling the birth room….
"It's a boy", announced the midwife nun while she handed the new mom a little male baby. Anila cuddled her newly born son between her arms detailing all his features with a gaze full of love and adoration.
"Do you have a name for him yet?" the midwife asked Anila, cutting the umbilical cord and massaging her lower abdomen to wait for placental expulsion.
"Yes", Anila answered softly, still mesmerized by the beautiful baby in her arms, who had started to nurse on his mother's breast milk.
"His name is Aang... peaceful soaring... Soar my tiny one, soar." Anila told him as she gently brushed the back of her index finger over his soft little red cheek.
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