Disclaimer: I don't own AtLA.
3/5/21: AN: Just made a quick edit. There's 36 levels to airbending, not 32. Sorry about that. I was wondering though, anyone know how mastery of the others elements is obtained? It seems like firebending is by the student defeating their teacher, but I can't see for the others, and that might be a fan thing. If no one knows I'll come up with something, but if they do I'd appreciate it!
Chapter Two
The Girl in the Volcano
Smoke billowed from the broken orb, and the two siblings stared in frightened awe as the girl who'd been trapped within walked out. Her tattoos and eyes were still glowing, expression blank as she strode straight forward, seemingly unaware of their presence. She seemed to ghost over the magma that had spilled from the broken rock, and it glowed and solidified into bumpy stone every time that her bare feet touched it.
Azula wondered, looking at the glowing girl, if she was some messenger of the spirits, or perhaps a spirit in her own right. Certainly, glowing tattoos and eyes were not in any way a human trait, yet, looking past the glowing, unnaturally blank expression, and everything else, she appeared to be a human, if a curiously dressed one.
The girl's hair, which was shaved to show off her forehead and the glowing shapes on it, was not-quite as dark as their own, the wild and frizzy curls brushing her shoulders and two thin braids with a multitude of colourful beads framing her face. She wore a long yellow dress paired with a short red-brown shawl draped over her elbows. One thin hand clutched a long staff of some sort. She had a slight figure, and Azula was startled at how small she was. She was already developed as Azula, but very short, her eyes level with Azula's cheekbones, and Azula herself was not very tall. The dress had a tear in it, showing a raised and painful-looking scar around the girl's ribcage. It took seeing the scar for Azula to realize the dark stain spread over the material must have been dried blood.
The glowing young girl came to a stop a little before the stunned siblings and the light faded away, revealing a pair of grey eyes and blue arrows painted on her pale skin in its place. She swayed for a second before collapsing on the ground, unconscious.
Azula moved over to the girl slowly, crouching down to peer at her.
"What is she?" Zuko wondered. He poked the girl's arm with a long stick suspiciously, and Azula slapped him away.
"Don't!" She hissed at him. "What if this a test of some sort by the spirits?" Zuko swallowed heavily at that and muttered an apology.
The girl groaned and cracked her eyes open, squinting up at them with an exhausted, bemused expression. "Where'm I?" She mumbled in a hoarse voice.
"Sweet Agni, she's actually alive," Zuko exclaimed. "How is that possible?!"
The girl struggled into a seated position, groaning and rubbing at her forehead, looking around with a confused expression. "Where am I?" She repeated, seeming more alert now, frowning.
"You're on Ember Island, in the Fire Nation," Azula told her cautiously. The girl was not giving off a dangerous aura, but she had been glowing and power had rolled off her in waves at the time. Plus, she was alive after being stuck in an orb in a volcano, which wasn't a skill most humans had to Azula's knowledge.
"Azula don't give her information!" Zuko exclaimed. "She could be a Coalition spy!"
Azula gave her brother a scathing look. "Seriously?" She scoffed. "Right Zuzu. The Coalition picked a girl, taught her to make her eyes glow like she's possessed by a spirit, invented and taught her a technique to survive being stuck in rock for who-knows-long on the half-chance someone from the island they hid her on, an insignificant island with a single village that has a population of less than fifty people, no defenders and barely any strategic importance save for geography, would come across her and free her.
You, my dear brother, are clearly an utter genius to have seen through their nefarious plan. Truly, they'll be promoting you to Chief Strategist of the Fire Navy any day now."
Zuko flushed bright red and sputtered incomprehensibly at that. The girl just looked confused, eyeing them like she doubted their sanity. Azula held out a hand to help her stand.
"I'm Azula, and this moron is my brother, Zuko," she announced. "You are?"
"I'm Anji," the girl responded, releasing her grip on Azula's hand once she was steady on her feet. "Of the Western Air Temple."
Azula paused, feeling her eyes widen. Zuko stiffened beside her and looked at the girl with a shocked look.
"Are you saying that you're an airbender?" He demanded in disbelief.
The girl, Anji, gave them another look of bemusement at the reaction her introduction garnered, nodding slowly. "Yes," she replied, blatantly puzzled. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"Yes, actually," Zuko responded loudly. "The airbenders-"
"It's been a while since any airbenders passed this way, that's all," Azula cut him off hastily. "Plus, you know. You were stuck in a rock in the middle of a volcano."
Anji blinked. "I was what?"
"Stuck in that," Azula pointed at the remains of the red orb, which still had a few small gusts of steam and smoke billowing out, though it was lessening. Anji turned to look at it, eyebrows shooting to the top of her forehead.
"I was flying," she muttered, eyes narrow as she spoke. "And-and there was a storm? Then-Appa!" Her grey eyes went wide with alarm and she swiftly jumped over to the orb.
Any doubts that she was lying about being an Air Nomad were erased by the flying leap, that could only be the result of airbending strengthening it. No one save an airbender could possibly make a leap like that. Zuko's jaw dropped so much it cracked, and Azula was hard pressed to avoid showing her own stunned reaction too. Anji didn't notice their shock, focused on her goal.
"Appa!" She repeated, searching through the smoking wreckage. "Can you hear me, Boy? Yip-yip! Where are you? Appa!"
The two siblings exchanged looks then scrambled after her. They found her crouching beside an enormous, fluffy animal with six legs, each as big as Azula herself and with a dark arrow pattern that matched Anji's tattoos. Anji was anxiously petting its giant cheek with blatant concern.
"Appa," she said again. "Yip-yip. Can you hear me, Boy?" One large eyelid cracked open as the creature let out a disgruntled huff. Anji sighed in relief, shoulders slumping. "Oh, thank Anila," she murmured, petting him lovingly. "You scared me, Buddy. I'm so glad you're okay."
"What is that thing?" Zuko demanded, expression a mixture of wariness and frightened awe. Anji turned back to them.
"This is Appa, my flying bison," Anji introduced with a small, careful smile. Her grey eyes studied the pair of them intently.
Zuko scoffed in disbelief at the claim, making Anji frown slightly. "Yeah right," he said sceptically. He patted his left dao sword as he continued to speak. "And these swords are made of pieces of the Great Comet that fell to earth."
Anji furrowed her brow at that before apparently deciding to just ignore him. Azula understood. She ignored her brother a lot too.
"So," Azula said. The memory of her mother's voice, urging she help those who needed it, as Anji clearly did right then, prompted her next words. "Uh-our village isn't far from here. Would you like to come with us? I have some clothes you can change into, and stuff. No offence, but you look like you could do with a meal and some sleep in a bed, not a rock."
Zuko shifted uneasily at the offer but then, taking in Anji's clear tiredness and ragged state, he softened and nodded. "Yeah, you should come back with us," he agreed.
She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip doubtfully. "I should be getting home," she answered undecidedly. "Kelsang and the others will be worried about me."
"It's almost sunset," Azula reasoned. "You can hardly go flying now. Unless airbenders can see in the dark? Besides, uhm, Appa, looks tired."
That clinched it. Anji glanced at her bison, expression softening as she scratched his large cheek gently. "I suppose you're right," she agreed reluctantly. "I'll wait for morning so Appa can rest. Are you sure it's not too much trouble to impose on you for the night?"
"Sure," Zuko agreed. "We should hurry and get back though. It's already dark." He grimaced in sudden realization. "Oh, we haven't caught anything," he remembered.
Azula swore under her breath and swept some hair out of her face. "We'll have to come out again tomorrow then," she decided grudgingly.
"Sorry," Anji apologized. "It sounds like I distracted you?"
"It's alright," Zuko assured her. "Game's been low lately anyway. We might not have caught anything even if we hadn't found you."
"We need to hurry," Azula stated, glancing at the sky in concern. "It's nearly sundown, and it'll take at least two hours to get back to the village."
"Just a second, so I can explain to Appa where I'm going and that I'll be back in the morning," Anji said, quickly jumping into the air to get level with Appa's ear where she hovered to whisper to the beast. Then she floated back down, oblivious to Zuko's wide eyed gaze and Azula's suppressed amazement. She smiled brightly at them, though Azula quickly noticed that her smile, though wide, never touched her sad eyes. "So, which way?" She asked with a cheeriness that seemed almost fake somehow, prompting them to start walking back in the direction they had come from.
"You're really good at that," Azula commented, eyeing the hovering girl. Azula was jealous of how nimbly Anji moved, showing her mastery of airbending by essentially floating through the jungle, feet only occasionally skimming the ground. She didn't seem to even need to think about it. She seemed to have bounced back from her time stuck in the volcano with surprising ease.
Anji grinned genuinely at that. "I'm the youngest airbending master in three centuries," she announced proudly. "I earned my tattoos just before I turned twelve."
"Wow!" Zuko breathed. "That's amazing. How'd you do it so fast?"
"I invented a technique," she explained. "There are two ways to earn an airbending mastery: inventing a new technique or else mastering the 36 levels. I invented a-well my friend Bumi called it an air scooter. Basically, it's a way of riding the winds very fast. I'd show it to you, but it needs more space."
"You can show us tomorrow," Azula suggested. "There's loads of space on the beach, so long as we stay away from the water."
"Before I head home," Anji agreed. "Anyway, I had already mastered 35 of the levels, and then I got the last and the sub-arts a few months ago, a little after getting my tattoos. That's when they sent me to-" she cut herself off, biting her lip, then shrugging. "Anyway, that's that. I'm a fast learner. Like I'm just re-learning stuff." A bitter expression crossed her face before disappearing. Azula eyed her suspiciously but didn't press.
She asked something else instead. "So, if you're an airbender, does that mean you know what happened to the Avatar?"
Anji tensed. "The Avatar?" She repeated. "Uh, sorry. Avatar Kuruk died shortly before my birth, and tradition dictates that the next Avatar is not announced until they're sixteen so it's too early for the presentation. Sorry."
Azula furrowed her brows. Anji's words didn't make much sense when paired with things such as logic, and time. Her brother clearly felt the same, a strange look on his face when he looked at the young airbender.
"What age are you now?" Zuko asked.
"Fourteen in autumn," Anji answered. The two siblings exchanged loaded looks at that. Anji, despite her short stature, did seem to be about thirteen. But Avatar Kuruk had died in unknown circumstances over a century ago. And the Air Nomads had been slaughtered only a bit over a decade and a half later at the latest. Azula wondered how you told someone they'd been stuck in a volcano for a hundred years, and everybody they knew was probably long dead, and their children too.
"I was fourteen last summer," Azula said instead. "And Zuko turns seventeen on the winter solstice."
Anji flashed them a warm smile. "Happy belated birthday then," she said cheerfully. "And early birthday too."
"You too," Azula replied with some puzzled amusement.
"Are you absolutely sure your family won't mind me spending the night?" Anji asked as the roofs of the village came into view.
Azula stiffened a bit at the question, biting the inside of her cheek tightly.
"Our uncle is away fighting in the war," Zuko told her as they clambered down the mountain. His voice was curt. "You can take his bed."
Anji started, brow furrowing yet again. Azula thought for a second she would ask about their parents, but she was surprised again. "War?" The airbender repeated blankly. "What war?"
They stared at her, before exchanging loaded looks. Azula was certain her suspicions had just been confirmed. "Anji," Azula said slowly. "How long were you in that volcano?"
Anji shrugged a shoulder as she swung lithely around a tree. "I'm not sure. When was the last really bad nighttime thunderstorm? The last thing I remember is lightning hitting Appa and the two of us falling." She briefly paled, shuddering at the recollection.
Azula and her brother exchanged looks and came to a stop. Anji also stopped, floating to the ground and looking at them with a wary expression, clearly detecting their distress.
"What is it?" She asked, voice soft.
"Anji," Zuko said seriously. "I think you've been in that volcano for a hundred years."
Anji stared at them with a look of horror and denial, shaking her head desperately. "No, that's impossible," she rejected the possibility without hesitation, a hint of hysteria and panic in her tone. "Do I look a hundred and fourteen to you?!"
"It makes sense though!" Azula backed her brother up. "Nobody's seen an airbender in a century! And you don't know about the war either, even though the Water Coalition's been at war with the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom since my great-grandparents' time! I'm telling you, Anji, Zuko's right. You've been in there for a hundred years. It's the only explanation."
Anji looked devastated, and she sank down onto a nearby boulder, burying her face in her hands. "A hundred years," she whispered. "And there's a war going on. Oh, Spirits forgive me. What have I done?"
Azula opened her mouth to try and find some words of comfort she could give to the distraught girl, but just then she heard a familiar, terror-inducing sound coming from the village. She had only heard it once before, but it was not a sound she would ever be able to forget, or hear without terror. A loud peel, designed to be heard from all corners of the small island. Anji's head snapped up, revealing red-rimmed eyes and an anxious face.
"What's that?" She demanded as she jumped back off the boulder, gripping her staff in white knuckles.
"It's the warning bell, telling everyone to hide or prepare," Zuko breathed, face pale as he stared down on their defenceless village. "It means the tide is coming in."
"Why is that a bad thing?" Anji pressed nervously. "Don't tides always change?"
"Not here," Azula gave her a grim look. "The tide on Ember Island is magic. It only changes when waterbenders make it change. It means the Coalition is coming."
"And then they're going to kill anyone they come across," Zuko finished, voice bleak.