4.
Nothing in the world could have ever prepared me for the upside-down towers of the Western Air Temple.
We arrived at the harbor only three days after Fire Nation Waters. However, we had a quite a climb ahead of us. Since we had stayed a bit longer than we had planned in the Fire Nation, we only had a day or two at the Air Temple, so we didn't have much luggage to bring with us and the crew stayed behind with the ship. I couldn't get all my excitement out and I practically skipped up the mountain. Arin, while she didn't share all of my enthusiasm, certainly was excited as well. Or at least, reinvigorated by the slightly cooler air up in the mountains.
"Look up!" I squealed pointing overhead as I turned behind me to look at Arin and Shil Hevat who were slowly lagging behind me during our ascent. "Is it a dragon?"
"No." panted Shil Hevat as he and Arin reached me. "It's a bison."
He was right. It was much too wide to be a dragon. It was big and furry and white, and it slowly came closer to us, diving down with surprising grace for a creature of its size. A young woman was riding it. It landed beside us sending up a cloud of dust. For a worried moment, I wondered if the suddenness of the landing and the dust would set Arin off again, but it didn't, though her face was very pale.
"Travelers- state your name." she commanded. I noticed the arrows on her forehead and remembered how they looked elegant and almost demanded respect. Her brown hair was short and flowed behind her. The bison growled.
"Shil Hevat." Answered Shil Hevat. "We are being expected by Kelisiting." The woman examined us very carefully as if checking to make sure we weren't lying.
"Shil Hevat…" she pursed her lips. "Very well, you may board." Shil Hevat helped us into the saddle of the bison and then hopped up after us.
"Thank you." He said. The bison took off, shooting straight up into the air and soaring above the mountains. Arin looked scared and clung to me. I had never felt more exhilarated. Shil Hevat grinned at me.
"So you like flying, Rika?" he asked. I nodded happily. "Me too."
"I don't." commented Arin unnecessarily. The bison turned sharply and began to descend. Below us, above us, and even flying right next to us, I could see girls everywhere, flowing brown hair, and yellow and orange robes. We landed in what I guessed must be a sort of bison stable. The woman helped us down and took us to what looked like the main temples. We passed fountains that made our fountain at home seem tiny. Everyone stared as we walked past. We couldn't have looked more out of place. All around us were girls who looked so much alike that it was almost unnerving. They all had light skin—though not as pale as Shil Hevat's—and hair that was as long as Arin's and mine, but more brown than ours. They also wore their hair differently, too, I observed. Most of them wore their hair down, or in a simple braid, whereas mine and Arin's were intricately braided and put in buns.
The woman opened a giant, intricately carved door, to reveal a large hall where several women were sitting, quietly discussing something. They all looked up when we entered. I recognized some. One stood and strode towards us. I remembered her. She bowed with a small smile on her face.
"Shil Hevat." She said.
"Kelisiting." He bowed in return.
"You're late." She replied flatly. He grinned guiltily.
"We got held up in the Fire Nation. We stayed a bit longer than we had originally planned to." He explained. "I hope you don't mind."
She sighed as if this was quite troubling to her. "No, I don't. Only for you." She turned to the women behind her. "Can you please show them to where they will be rooming?" They rose quietly and elegantly. We climbed up higher into the seemingly upside down buildings. We had one room with three small mats and a large window.
"Dinner is served at sundown." The Air Nomad woman informed us closing the door behind her. We settled down to relax for an hour or so. It had been an exhausting climb up into the mountains.
"When are we gonna see Yangchen?" I asked. Arin was half asleep already, Shil Hevat was sitting against the wall, looking calmly out the window.
"Maybe we'll see her at dinner." He replied. "Try to relax now, Rika."
"Okay." I mumbled. I tried to settle down, reminding myself that if I slept the time would pass quicker. I closed my eyes. Before long, I was awake again, heading down into the temple which was lit by delicate lanterns scattered every few feet. The women ate at a long table. The food was very different from the Fire Nation food of the previous week. It was much blander, and there was no meat. In the Fire Nation, all the food had been very spicy. I preferred the Air Nomad food, I decided. Throughout the meal, I glanced down the table looking for Yangchen. All the children ate at the far end of the table, though, and the memory of her appearance was three years old and a little vague in my head. When they had finished eating, and the table had been cleared, Kelisiting stood and raised her hands. The room almost instantly fell silent.
"Thank you everyone for this wonderful feast." She said loudly. "We have guests tonight. Shil Hevat of the Fire Nation." Shil Hevat stood and waved. "And Princess Arin, and her cousin Rika of the Water Tribe." Arin waved happily, smirking that she had been referred to as a princess. I rose more timidly giving a small wave. I took the opportunity to completely survey the table. Many pairs of grey and brown eyes stared back at me from pink faces and under brown hair but I didn't know which one was Yangchen. I knew she had to be there. The moment passed and I sat back down in my chair.
After dinner, Arin and I were sent to get ready to sleep. Shil Hevat did not come with us, though but he assured us that we'd be getting an exclusive tour of the palace the next day. I was disappointed. I wanted to find Yangchen, but it was clear Arin and I did not have a choice of what to do. Arin didn't argue. Despite her nap earlier, she was still tired. We washed in a small fountain with several other young Air Nomad girls but none were Yangchen. These girls were all younger and like us were assigned an early bedtime. They examined our hair curiously as we brushed and braided it. Finally, Arin and I headed back up to our room.
"Arin." I whispered as we settled down next to each other. It was shockingly relieving to be sleeping in a room so close to Arin again.
"Yeah." She replied. She turned over in her little sleeping bag to face me but in the dark of the room, we could barely see each other. The only light was the tiny sliver of newly risen moon coming in from the window.
"Where do you think Yangchen was during dinner?"
"I dunno." Yawned Arin. "She was probably there and we didn't see her. All the girls looked so much alike."
In the dark, I frowned. "But we came here to see her. Isn't it sort of peculiar that we haven't seen her yet?"
"I guess." Replied Arin softly. "Why are you acting so obsessed with her?"
"I'm not." I protested, but I sort of knew it to be true. "I just was so excited to see her, and…" I trailed off. Arin had shifted in her sleeping bag and judging by her breathing she sounded like she had just about drifted off to sleep already. I turned over in my sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable. I closed my eyes and found my body relaxing.
"Psst! Rika." Something nudged me in the back.
"Arin?" I mumbled sleepily.
"No, dummy." Whispered the voice. I opened my eyes and peered up at the silhouette above me. The person leaned closer to me so that we were face to face.
"Yangchen…" as realization dawned upon me, I sat up quickly, my senses rapidly returning to me. She reached out a hand to help me get to my feet. "How'd you get in here?" I glanced around. Shil Hevat, I observed, had not returned, and Arin was still fast asleep. She could sleep through anything. Judging by the moon high in the sky, I guessed an hour or so had passed.
"How d'ya think? I flew, obviously." She replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Grab your coat and let's go." I grabbed it and buttoned it up quickly.
"What about Arin?" I whispered as I hesitantly followed her towards the window.
"Do you want to bring her?" asked Yangchen.
I sighed looking down at my sleeping cousin. "No. I guess not." I turned to Yangchen. "Let's go."
"Careful." She warned. "The ledge is about ten feet down so we've got to jump." I looked at her nervously. "Don't worry. I'll go first." She hopped over the window edge effortlessly and disappeared below. I peered down at her. She had landed neatly on her feet. "Are you coming or not?" I glanced back over my shoulder.
"What happens if Shil Hevat comes back and I'm not here?"
"Nothing's gonna happen." She put her hands on her hips. "I promise."
"Okay." I whispered. I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment then opened them again as I jumped. I landed on my feet, but my knees gave way and I fell backwards onto my butt. Yangchen giggled as she pulled me to my feet again.
"We're gonna have to jump along here to get to my room." Explained Yangchen. "I can usually make it by myself but I've never tried while holding another person, so we'll see how this turns out."
"That doesn't sound very reassuring."
"Well what's the worst that could happen? We'll fall into the abyss." She laughed crazily and we began our first jump. We barely made it across, nearly being pushed backwards by the cold mountain winds. The next jump was not much better. The third my feet slipped and I nearly tumbled off but Yangchen managed to grab my hand at the last moment and tug me back onto the roof where I was safe. We were almost spotted by a group of women walking along one of the open pathways of the temple.
"Nearly there." She whispered. "It's only a little further. No more jumps across, now only down." That wasn't much better, in my opinion. Flying with Bansi and Bae had seemed so safe in comparison. We slid down a few more angled ledges until we were back on the lowest level of the temple (which, admittedly, was still very, very high). We crouched behind a column as some women walked by then tiptoed behind them, taking a turn down a quieter hallway. She stopped suddenly and I almost knocked into her.
"Are we there?" I asked her.
"Shush." She hissed. "Stand back. I've got to use airbending for this door." I obeyed and watched with interest as Yangchen aimed several gusts of wind at it. It swung open and we both went inside. It revealed a small staircase which she sprinted up. I did my best to keep up with her. It went around and around. At the top, I discovered, there was another staircase going down.
"Why are we going back down now?" I asked as I followed her down.
"Because remember all those upside buildings?" I nodded. "That's where my room is. They're filled with individual chambers for the airbenders residing here." We walked down past different doors on each side. Yangchen chose one and opened it with some more airbending. She held the door open and I walked in as she closed the door behind us.
"Welcome, to my little room." She said. It was quite little. There was a small comfortable looking hammock stretched across a whole side of the room, and a small clothes chest. There was no window so she lit a small torch with a piece of flint and steel. In the light I could finally examine her clearly for the first time since we met.
Her hair was the first thing I noticed. It was shorter and neater and it was shaved very far back on her head though she didn't wear the arrows yet. She was taller and skinnier as if all her baby fat had finally left her and though she was the same age as Arin, she seemed more mature. But I noticed that she still didn't possess that elegance of the older Air Nomads though she contained an air of powerful confidence that was genuinely enviable. She put her hands on her hips and I could tell that she was analyzing my changes as well. She sat back on her hammock and rocked on it for a moment before speaking.
"Well? What do you think?" she asked.
"It's nice." I answered truthfully. "I'd love having my own room at home."
"I could imagine." She giggled then she jumped up causing her hammock to twist over and over behind her. "Wanna see where I keep your letters?"
"Yeah!" I exclaimed. I had always wondered what she did with them. She ran past me and I whirled around to see that she was opening the trunk behind me. For a moment I thought she would disappear into the deep trunk but she came back up holding a small wooden box. It was rectangular and about six inches long. The box looked beat up as if Yangchen wasn't the first one who had used it. It was decorated with all sorts of different carvings that I wondered if Yangchen had done herself. Some of the carvings were embellished with different pieces of colored stone. It opened with a small creak as Yangchen handed it to me.
"See?" I saw all the crinkled papers in it and I recognized my handwriting. "One of the older women gave me the box. Isn't it perfect?"
"Yeah…" trailed off as I delicately picked up one of my letters and unfolded it. "I never realized I had written so many."
Yangchen laughed. "You're an excellent writer. Did you know that? Much better than me." I blushed as I put the letter back in the box. "We have to do a lot of writing instruction here, and nothing I ever wrote to you was ever as good."
"I like your box." I mumbled in a lame response. "I just kept your letters in a drawer at home all bundled together."
"Well, I haven't written half as many as you have." She countered. I handed her the box back and she placed it delicately in the trunk. "So now where to?"
I shrugged. "You know this place better than I do." We were about to leave when the door swung open nearly knocking into us in the tiny room.
"Yangchen." One of the women stood in the doorway. I could see Shil Hevat behind her. I glanced over my shoulder at Yangchen who shrugged with a guilty grin on her face.
"I thought you said I wouldn't get in trouble!" I hissed at her.
"You're not in trouble." Rumbled Shil Hevat but that was hard to believe judging by the look on the woman's face. "Come alone Rika." I walked past the woman sulkily.
"Why weren't you at dinner, again?" I heard the woman reprimanding Yangchen behind me.
"Didn't feel like it." Yangchen answered a moment before I heard the door slam. Shil Hevat and I walked down the hallway and down the stairs.
"So I'm not in trouble?" I asked him as we continued towards our room. He shrugged.
"Who am I to stop you?" he replied. "I'm just here because I promised your parents and would make sure you stay safe during this journey, so when I come back to the room and realize there's only one little girl there, I'm sorry I worried a bit."
I felt bad now. "No, you don't have to apologize. I shouldn't have snuck out. I'm sorry." I let him hold my hand in an almost fatherly way as we walked back to the room we were staying in. "Do you think that Yangchen will be in too much trouble?"
"I'll speak to her superiors, but I don't think she will be." He answered. "She's a very remarkable girl." I didn't quite understand the comment at the time but now I believe he was referring to the fact that she would be the avatar. I suppose that by now, only two years before her sixteenth birthday, the older women were sure of her destiny. "She's used to getting out of trouble-situations." Shil Hevat clarified. I nodded. "She'll probably be able to give us the tour tomorrow."
Shil Hevat was right. Yangchen was wide awake the next morning to join us at breakfast.
"I'm off the hook," she whispered to me, "as long as I don't skip any more meals. I'd already skipped four already this week. Just wasn't hungry, that's not my fault. But according to the elders meals are sacred together-time or some nonsense so skipping them, even if I'm not hungry, is sacrilegious or something." She rolled her eyes and helped herself to a piece of bread. "Hi Arin!" she waved at Arin who was sitting on our other side. Arin waved reluctantly. We had not given her the full details of the previous night but she seemed pretty bitter that I had snuck out without including her. Part of me felt that she deserved being left out, and the other part of me longed for her pardon. But, knowing Arin if I apologized she would probably act as if it didn't matter much to her anyway and write Yangchen and me off as just being childish. There was no way I could win.
Yangchen and another girl who was a bit older than her named Ilma lead us in the tour. We walked up and down the narrow cliff faces and across tiny stone bridges. We passed statues of previous Air Nomad women, all were huge and beautiful in a strange, intimidating way. They all sat in a line with carved stone eyes, painted blue arrows, and flowing brown painted hair, sitting peacefully with their legs crossed while their elegant orange robes flowed around them. It was hard to believe that they had been hand carved out of the mountain hundreds of years ago. We also walked past murals. I was mystified by the brightly colored scenes of bison and Air Nomads—both men and women—flying around the world. We also walked by the nursery where the very young children lived. Both boys and girls were there, I noticed, all being taken care of by motherly looking Air Nomads. Last, we visited the bison stables. I got to pet a baby bison and it was very adorable. We finished the tour right just in time to attend lunch.
"Want to meet my friends after this?" Yangchen muttered to me.
"I'll probably have to ask Shil Hevat this time." I said between mouthfuls of a delicious vegetable salad. "Do we take Arin?" We both looked at her. She was sitting on Shil Hevat's other side conversing with Ilma.
Yangchen shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to ask her. She'll probably decline anyway." Indeed she did, and lunch was barely over when Yangchen and I were dashing off to the other side of the table where the other girls were sitting.
"Hey, everyone!" Yangchen waved. They all greeted her. She seemed popular among them.
"Who's that?" asked one as the group started heading towards another part of the temple.
"That's the Water Tribe girl that was introduced last night." Snapped another.
"This is Rika, and she's my best friend." Declared Yangchen. The girls nodded and I blushed. "She's from the Water Tribe all the way in the South Pole so let's show her how Air Nomads have fun." The other girls cheered and I was quite literally blown over by their enthusiasm.
"Did you really mean what you said to the girls earlier?" I asked Yangchen several hours later. It was dusk, a half hour before dinner, and we were sitting on the highest ledge of the temple which overlooked everything I had seen on the tour earlier and more. It gave a chilling view down into the chasm that separated the two halves of the temple which I had almost fallen into more times than I would have preferred to earlier playing with the other girls. In the distance, I could see the path which I had climbed up the previous day to reach here and would be climbing back down tomorrow when we left.
"Mean what?" yawned Yangchen as she took a bite of an apple. The gardens of the temple were filled with blossoming apple trees. I had already finished mine.
"That I was your best friend."
She said nothing for a moment as she noisily chewed her apple. She took another huge bite and finished it up then tossed it down, down into the abyss below. We watched it disappear. "Yes." She finally said. "I did mean it. Why?"
"It's just that…" I didn't know how to explain it.
"Am I not your best friend?" she inquired. Her voice was surprisingly calm and non accusatory.
"No, you are." I assured her. Now that I thought about it, she really was. "I mean, I tell you everything in my letters, all my secrets, how I feel about things, things I don't even tell Arin. Isn't that what best friends are for? That's what I think anyway."
"And I agree." Said Yangchen.
"We'll always be friends right? Maybe if we're not always best friends, but still friends…" I trailed off again.
"No. Best friends, I promise." She said. "You have to write to me as soon as you reach the North Pole so I can know that I can come and see you there."
"I will." I promised. "And you need to write to me."
"Always." And like before, those years ago, she stood and bowed and as before, I did the same.