Disclaimer: I don't own AtLA.
Warning for mild descriptions of genocide/child murder/allusions to slavery, etc. They are not detailed but be aware if any of these topics are triggers.
Also, in this Gilak, one of the southern tribe warriors who went to fight with Hakoda replaces Zhao. I know that it's usually Bato, but I have other plans for him.
Also, according to Avatar wiki the Fire Islands is another name for the Fire Nation, so I'll be using them interchangeably. Waterbenders will prefer to call it the Fire Islands, as it sounds less impressive than Fire Nation to them. Also, I don't know if I said this before, but in this verse the Fire Nation remained a theocracy, ruled by the Fire Sages with the Fire Lord being their leader. Prior to the 100 Years War there were warlords ruling each of the islands who were sworn to the Sages (and to the Avatar by default), but only a few islands still have that due to the war.
Shtiya means 'strength' in the Inuit language, and it's the name I gave the Coalition capital. Kassuq is 'drifting ice', what I named Kaito's original ship.
The Kyoshi novels mention Kuruk getting airbending arrows, so I'm going on the assumption that all Avatars, regardless of their nationality, got them, but when they were from another country their clothes and hair covered them from view. And I'm giving the Avatars pendants with the Avatar symbol (the four elements intertwined) to symbolize their status. They add the symbol of the element they've mastered after completing it. Like the necklace Aang had after winning the war that he used to help commune with his past lives. They also gave similar necklaces to their retinue members, announcing they were servants of the Avatar and to harm them was to invoke the Avatar's wrath.
Finally, Korra was the Water Avatar before Kuruk, so I can use her memories of fighting bloodbenders. Obviously, there was no Harmonic Convergence/stupid separation from the past Avatars in this verse.
12 May 21: Realized a few problems for Spirit World Part 2 that comes from putting the Water Temple in the capital of the Coalition, so I've changed that now.
Read, enjoy and review!
Chapter Six
The Western Air Temple Part 2
Coalition Base: Hanno'wu, Fire Islands Coalition Territory:
Kaito's expression was blank as he watched the labourers prepare a new ship for him. After the Avatar had destroyed his original one so thoroughly, his crew had salvaged what they could from the wreckage before they worked together to freeze a wave into a large ice barge which they had then used to get to the nearest base. Thankfully, although it was well known that he was in disgrace in his father's eyes, the youngest prince remained a member of the High Family. Requisitioning a new ship had been simple though humiliating, given the important links between a man's ship and his manhood. Regardless of the increased stain to his dignity when he arrived with the admission of having lost the Kassuq, the base had no wasted time outfitting a new one for him. Unfortunately, nothing could save him from dealing with Chief Gilak while the chained prisoners of war stocked and prepared the new ship.
"So, Prince Kai," the elder man said in a too familiar tone, eyes glinting with cold mockery, as per usual. "What caused such damage to your ship and injuries to your men? Surely none of the ash savages could manage such a feat."
"It is Prince Kaito!" Master Pakku snapped before his pupil could respond. "Have respect! You speak to a member of the High Family!"
"Ah, my apologies, Your Highness," Gilak answered insincerely with a glint in his eye. "The long-term friendship I have been honoured to share with all of the High Family has caused me to forget myself. Oh, and might I add that, last I saw her, Chieftainess Kanna requested that were I to cross paths with you while we were both in the region, I would send you her love? That is, she sends her love to her grandson, of course. Apologies, I misspoke there."
Pakku clenched his jaw. No doubt he too sensed the not-so hidden poke at the betrothal Pakku had once shared with the Mother of the Nation before the late Emperor Nanurluk, then heir, had spotted Kanna during a visit to Agna-Qel and decided he wanted the beautiful and strong waterbender as his own bride, regardless of her prior betrothal.
Gilak himself had been best man at the wedding. He spoke truly when he mentioned a long-term friendship with the High Family. He was a maternal cousin and companion to Nanurluk, and had been the combat instructor for Emperor Hakoda and his brothers, and then later Sokka, though not Kaito. He had served as a general with distinction in multiple warzones, and was one of the best bloodbenders alive. Currently he oversaw their Fire Islands territory out of the base on Hanno'wu, the best placed geographical territory they held there. That Kaito's crew had needed to go there for healing and supplies was typical of his abysmal luck.
"You are forgiven," Kaito said curtly, knowing there was no other option. His father would favour Gilak over him in a dispute, if subtly to preserve their family's reputation with the masses.
Speaking of masses. The prince bit down hard on his tongue, gut twisting into knots when he saw one of the chained labourers ('slaves' a voice in his head that sounded like his mother whispered) drop his load, though from here Kaito could not see what he was carrying. He saw it break, however, and the overseer instantly began lashing the man brutally with a leather whip. The labourer took the beating stoically, staring blankly ahead as the old scars littering his back, most merely scabbed, were ripped open again. Kaito wanted to intervene, but he didn't. Instead he turned away and shoved down the guilt. He had interfered with such things before, and all it had gotten him was an unofficial banishment on a futile, now suicidal, mission and a scar destroying most of his face. And his efforts had failed anyways.
"We were caught in a storm," Kaito claimed, trying to ignore the sound of leather tearing flesh and the way it made bile rise in his throat. "It damaged our ship too badly to continue sailing."
"Is that so?" Gilak asked with a small, knowing smile that made the prince almost as uneasy as the beating.
"Yes," Kaito confirmed with a sharp nod, Pakku backing him up.
"It is," Pakku agreed calmly. "A very sudden storm. These things can happen at sea. Of course, I hardly need to tell you that."
Gilak's eyes narrowed at the waterbending master's returned jab. It was a well-known fact that, for all his skill in waterbending combat, hunting and tactics, Gilak was an abysmal sailor, who had nearly failed his ice dodging. In fact, he got seasickness, an endless source of mockery by his enemies. A waterbender who could not sail? Preposterous!
"How has your hunt for the Avatar been going, Your Highness?" Gilak asked with a small smirk, ignoring Pakku. "Any signs of him?"
Kaito's jaw clenched and his teeth ground against each other painfully. "No, no sign of any old men wielding all four elements," he responded, which was true.
"Well, it's been a long time," Gilak said with false sympathy. "But if anyone could do it, I'm sure it would be you, Prince Kaito."
Kaito couldn't contain his angry scowl at the condescending note in the elder's voice.
"Chief Gilak, Sir!" Just then, a relatively young warrior came hurrying up. "We interrogated the prince's crew as instructed! Sir, a young girl claiming to be the Avatar destroyed the ship singlehandedly wielding both air and fire before escaping with two Fire Nation savages on a flying monster covered in fur!"
Kaito went pale and Pakku stiffened.
Gilak was stunned for a second before turning to give them a pointed look. "No sign of the Avatar, huh?" He repeated in a cool voice. "The High Chief will not like this."
"How dare you interrogate my crew!" Kaito exclaimed furiously. This was a deep insult to his dignity. He gripped the hilt of his knife and Gilak's eyes narrowed.
"Are you challenging me, Prince?"
"Yes!" Kaito exclaimed impetuously, ignoring his teacher's hand on his shoulder, trying to restrain him from anything foolish. "I challenge you to Holmgang!"
Western Air Temple:
The halls were littered with corpses, air and waterbenders alike. For all they were a pacifistic society, when their children were threatened, the Nomads had fought as fiercely as any parent protecting their children. It had not been enough.
Despite what most outsiders believed, the Air Nomads had not taken babies from their blood parents. They were a communal society, where everyone was each other's family. If a blood parent wanted to personally raise their child, they had every right to, but mostly the sisters all cared together for the young babies and older girls in the Eastern and Western Temples, with boys over six sent to the Northern and Southern Temples for training. Each child had a primary mentor, but the process involved both parties choosing one another. Otherwise it would be cruel to separate children from the caretakers they truly wanted. It was a complicated system for outsiders to understand, but at the core of it, it came down to blood being irrelevant for Air Nomads. Blood connection or no, they were all family. They were all connected and loved equally by everyone else in their community.
There were problems, as with every family, but overall, they were a very inclusive society. Anji had stood apart as the Avatar, but the adults treated her mostly the same as everyone else save for having higher expectations, and as her identity had not been kept secret from the community this time, the other children had rarely taken notice of it, too used to it to make a fuss. The sky was blue, grass was green, Anji was the Dalai Lama. It was just another fact of life to her brothers and sisters.
Anji knew the story of how she had ended up as Kelsang's ward well. Her surrogate father had recalled the tale fondly and frequently to her. The ritual to reveal the Air Avatar had just occurred, the visions saying the new Avatar would be needed soon and her predecessor's instructions that his airbending varlet be responsible for the instruction of his successor had meant Kelsang had not taken any wards yet. Although not a councillor, as the Avatar's guardian-to-be, Kelsang had attended the Revelation Ceremony. According to him, toddler Anji had spotted him as soon as she entered and promptly went over and tugged him after her to choose her toys. Kelsang claimed he had known whom she was the second he looked into her eyes. His suspicion was confirmed when Anji had barely glanced at the other thousands of toys laid out for the children, selecting the four Avatar relics unhesitatingly.
Anji had never felt truly alone since birth, surrounded as she was by other airbenders and her teachers, as well as Hei-Ran's son Kuzon and Bumi. She could identify each of the fallen Air Nomads by their clothes and each one struck as deeply as the previous. Her past selves were as shaken as her. Thousands of years of battle and wars, and never had they seen something like this. Her Air predecessors were mourning as deeply as her, silent and heavy with grief and pain. The Fire and Earth Avatars all called for vengeance in voices distorted by pain and rage, advocating Anji storm the capital of the Coalition and show them the wrath of the Avatar. Kyoshi suggested Anji count every body and for each fallen airbender, she kill two Coalition soldiers (even furious and eager for revenge as they were, they had enough of a clear head to agree that civilians remained off-limits, as always. The Avatar would not become a tyrant.). The Water Avatars were silent, reeling with shame over their people's sins. Kuruk especially was crippled by guilt, blaming himself for not preventing the tragedy.
When they came to the nursery, her breath hitched, and her vision blurred. It was only the faint sting in her palms that told her she was clenching her fists.
Hei-Ran's body lay before her, fallen where she had been guarding the door. She was still dressed in her usual red and black robes with the symbol of Clan Seidna'ka on the breast intact save for the wound to her skeleton that one of Anji's past lives recognized as being caused by a knife going deep into her throat. She would have choked on her own blood. Like Jianzhu and the nuns, Hei-Ran had gone down fighting. Sections of the hall were scorched black, and there were at least two dozen dead Coalition soldiers with damage from fire and lightning the powerful and skilled firebender had struck them down with. Even with only skeletons left, you could see the burns they had died of.
"That's Sifu Hei-Ran," Anji told her two solemn companions in a dull voice. She thought she might be past the ability to feel grief and had reached that numb place where too many emotions were felt to feel anything. "She was defending the nursery. I-Mother Cahya, the Mother Superior of the Temple suggested that the little ones be handed out the windows to the older girls waiting on bisons who would fly away, while the nuns would hold the waterbenders off to give them time to escape. That's-the nursery is just in there. They breached it."
"You don't have to go in there Anji," Zuko assured her in a low voice. "You don't have to see everything today. We can come back."
Anji felt guilty at thought, but she was seriously tempted by his suggestion. She was haunted by the memory of seeing one escaping bison be shot down by a giant spear of ice during the battle, and the terrified wails and screams of the young girls and babies riding it as they crashed, the children too young and untrained to save themselves with airbending. She had, like all the students in the Western Temple, helped in the nursery. Kelsang had doted on babies, and often volunteered the two of them to play with the children and look after them. Anji had loved it. The bodies of the nuns and her teachers were horrific enough. The thought of seeing the tiny, damaged skeletons of those sweet, innocent and defenceless children, all massacred because of her...the thought made her sick.
"They deserve for me to see them," she whispered through a dry throat. "It's cowardice, not identifying them. They deserve to be given my respects. They're my family."
"We're not saying abandon them forever," Azula said, slightly awkward. It was clear to Anji that Zuko was the more understanding of the pair when it came to emotions. Azula had the air of someone who had walled off their emotions to protect herself, while Zuko had gone the opposite way and chosen to embrace his feelings.
"Just for the moment," Azula continued. "You already look on the verge of having a break-down, Anji. Don't push yourself. If they loved you half as much as you clearly love them, they wouldn't want you to."
Anji bit her bottom lip, then slowly dipped her head. Avoiding looking at her firebending master's body again, she continued walking through the halls.
Most of her was stricken with grief and guilt. She had tried to defend the Temple, but there were so many and she wasn't fully realized yet. At some point, she'd felt a pain in her chest and realized that her lung had been pierced by an ice dagger. Her last recollection was of Kelsang crying out her name as she collapsed. Next thing she knew she was tumbling off Appa's back amid a deadly storm after he was hit by a lightning bolt. The Avatar State had kicked in automatically to preserve her life, and then what seemed like seconds later she was waking up on the volcano slope on Ember Island, her wound healed and a hundred years having gone by. She assumed Kelsang must have gotten her to her bison and sent him away with her. And of course, he had stayed behind to continue trying to protect the others there.
A small part of her was not thinking of the nuns and monks and children all mercilessly slaughtered for no reason other than the Water Coalition's need to eliminate her before she could stop their quest for world domination. That part was thinking of how utterly furious she was.
How dare Amak lead his people in a genocide of innocents? And how dare those involved have the audacity to die before she could kill them herself?
Time had robbed her of her ability to gain her rightful justice, and it enraged her to think those murderers had not faced justice in life. Jianzhu and Hei-Ran's lessons on maintaining her composure, the instinct to keep her emotions under wraps and her own fear of the damage she could do were her emotions to break free, all worked against her desire to unleash her rage and grief however. She clung to what shreds remained of her composure with the metaphorical tips of her fingernails as they arrived at the bison stables.
Her efforts were destroyed the instant she pushed open the door. A cry of anguish, her own accent overlaid with that of a Northern Water Tribesman's voice as she laid her eyes on the orange-robed mummy sprawled before one of the stalls, in the eye of a room that looked as if it had been ripped apart by a typhoon. Anji would have recognized those remains anywhere, even without the straggly pieces of beard that she had loved to plait as a child. The Air Nomads were a tall people, Anji being uncommonly short and delicate looking due to a premature birth, but Kelsang had been a giant even for them. Yet for all his fearsome appearance, he'd been gentle with a cheery sense of humour, and was happy to let little ones climb him like hogmonkeys climbing trees. And if she'd had any doubts about the body's identity, the necklace that hung around his neck, a replica of the ones on Jianzhu and Hei-Ran's bodies, would have crushed them.
Those necklaces should have protected them. Anyone who saw them should have given way to the trio, knowing that to harm them would be calling down the Avatar's wrath on their heads. Instead, they had probably only drawn more opponents to them.
Like his fellow defenders, Kelsang had gone down fighting fiercely. The stables were destroyed, the rock walls cracked and the blue-clad bodies in pieces from the force of the storm he had summoned. The effort of conjuring such a typhoon alone, Anji knew, would have killed him either way. Only an Avatar could manage such a feat alone.
Anji scrambled over to her father's body and fell to her knees beside it. "Kelsang!" She wailed, Kuruk's voice still echoing from her throat as her most recent predecessor too mourned his friend.
"Oh no," Azula muttered.
"Anji-" Zuko began to say, but he was cut off when Anji's double-toned cry gained what seemed like hundreds more, men and women, young and old with accents from all over the globe, some from civilizations long collapsed, and the Avatar's eyes began to glow.
Few people understood the Avatar State, even the Avatar themself. Before mastering it, the State was activated by negative emotions. Fear, anger, desperation. Things that caused humans to feel a need for protection, making Raava react to her host's distress. Prior to the Avatar being fully realized, their control of the State was limited, their minds going into a trance that left them in a primitive state to protect their sanity from the flood of knowledge and memories that rushed through them too fast to process properly. All they could recall was a need to protect themselves and their loved ones. When the Avatar was first learning to use the State, the lack of threats confused the State and caused them to simply wreak havoc, the way a frightened toddler might throw a tantrum but with far more dangerous consequences. Although it endangered them too to a degree slightly less than a stranger, it was better if someone the Avatar was emotionally connected to was nearby when it activated, as they were able to reach the distressed and confused Avatar. The other way to activate it was by sheer pain and sorrow, the Avatar too overwhelmed by pain to contain it. Bending was partially connected to emotions, after all, and the Avatar was the post powerful bender in the world.
That was why, when Anji finally succumbed to her grief, the mountain started to shake and wind began to whip dangerously through the temple, forcing her two companions to grab hold of nearby wooden columns to keep from being blasted right out of the stables. Anji hovered in the air, head flung back so her glowing eyes were directed at the destroyed rooftop, thousands of voices all wailing their grief through her throat.
Azula and Zuko were not the only ones to witness the activation of the Avatar State, though they alone knew what triggered it. All around the world, sages of every nation were struck with feelings of enlightenment and, depending on their allegiance, hope or terror.
Crescent Temple, Fire Nation:
In the Temple of Fire, where the Fire Sages who ruled the theocratic Fire Nation (or what was left of its free islands) resided, devotedly tending the temple, the sages were gathering for their morning meditation in the Great Hall when the eyes of the golden statues of past Fire Avatars all lit up with the same ethereal glow of starlight as Anji's eyes blazed that same moment. For a moment, the Sages were all stunned speechless, frozen in place, some looking ridiculous in half-crouches as they froze in the process of sitting down in their meditative poses. The Fire Lord, Shyu, was the first to react.
Shyu scrambled onto his aged knees and pressed his forehead against the floor, kowtowing to the statue of Roku, the most recent Fire Avatar and the Lamane preceding the famed Kyoshi. The other disciples all copied him, giving obeisance to the statues as hope sprang to life within them like their inner flames had burst into bonfires.
Kyoshi Island, South Sea:
Some distance away, on Kyoshi Island, the villagers were going about their daily routines when the eyes of their revered founder's statue also lit up. Several people dropped their loads, others cried out in shock, and two outright fainted from the shock. Amid the chaos a warrior fell to her knees before the statue and bowed her head, and the rest imitated her, parents tugging confused children down to their knees as they started praying.
State of Gaoling, Earth Kingdom:
In a temple in the Earth Kingdom, a man nearly had a fit of apoplexy when he saw the mosaic of Avatar Kyoshi he was meditating before suddenly light up so brightly he was temporarily blinded and forced to shield his eyes.
Southern Air Temple, South Sea:
In the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, the Hall of Avatars that held statues of every Avatar since the beginning of documented history, arranged in order, went from dark as midnight in the middle of winter, to being as bright as the sun from the glowing statues.
Agna-Qel, North Pole:
And finally, in the Poles, the Water Coalition also saw the same signs as the rest of the world did. In Agna-Qel, the empty Spirit Oasis glowed ethereally. The Water Sages were struck with terror, all instinctively understanding the terrible truth, just as their foreign counterparts did. But unlike the fire and earth sages, the sages of the Coalition did not greet the news with joy, but with horror and fear, sensing the wrath of the Tulku pulsing from the light. They were struck by a feeling they interpreted instinctively as 'we have returned, and we are coming. We will have vengeance.'
Southern Water Avatar Temple, Chena Mountain Valley, South Pole:
In the Water Temple of the South, in the midst of the Chena Sierra, the sculptures of the Water Avatars had not been neglected despite the Coalition turning against the Tulku. Perhaps part of the reason was lingering guilt on the first High Chief's behalf for poisoning his old friend, Avatar Kuruk, when Kuruk demanded he desist in his expansionism. Perhaps it was pride in the many feats the Water Avatars had preformed, regardless of the Coalition turning against them.
Whatever the reason, the Water Temple had been carefully maintained, including the hundreds of ice sculptures of men and women from the North, South and even a few from the Froggy Swamp (though those benders had never joined the Coalition, their swamp was left alone on account of them being waterbenders, if inferior ones in the eyes of the Coalition). New levels had been added whenever one was filled, with the latest Water Avatar kept in centre of the ground floor.
The lowest level held the last two Water Avatars, Korra, daughter of the then-Chief of the Southern Polar Bear Dog Tribe, dainty yet fierce looking with a spear strapped to her back and a regal expression on her face. To her left was the newest statue showing Kuruk in his full regalia. The skin of a massive polar bear was draped as a cloak over his old Water Tribesman clothing, which showed his high status even when it came to those primitive times. A sharp spear was clutched in his fist (one airbending arrow on display), his expression stony and filled with judgement, as were his predecessors'. A pair of necklaces hung around his neck. One was full of different types of teeth from animals he had hunted down and taken as spoils. The other was the same pendant worn by all his fellows, no matter their nationality. A pendant with four interlocking circles, each with the symbol of an element carved onto it to show they had mastered all four elements.
When the Avatars' eyes began glowing, the southern Water Sages, like their northern fellows, were struck with a feeling of terrified enlightenment, for the sculptures radiated a cold fury and judgement, as if they had peered into the souls of the sages attending to their temple and deemed them unworthy. One young apprentice whimpered and fell to her knees, praying for mercy from the powerful wrath seeming to radiate from the sculptures. Another, aged and experienced sage, ran out of the temple and frantically yelled for the attention of the nearby soldiers.
"Alert the Emperor immediately!" He cried. "The Avatar has returned!"