The storm was raging around him. Beneath him Appa was roaring, trying and failing to fly through the strong winds and rain. Aang knew with complete certainty that this was the storm that had (would? Might have?) led to him becoming trapped in ice for a hundred years- in his Spirit Quest at least. He was vaguely aware of the glowing light emanating from his tattoos and eyes. He was in the Avatar State. Aang felt the otherworldly sense of calm and detachment that always accompanied the State, and felt his arms rising towards the sky. Except for the last time he had used the Avatar State in his quest, he had never been in control of himself while under its influence.

Aang saw himself wave his arms around in a complex series of motions he recognized as both waterbending and airbending, and the storm around him obeyed him. It was massive, but the immense power of the Avatar State was capable of overcoming it. First, his hands cut a massive line through the dark clouds all around him, and then the clouds on either side of the line parted. He could tell that the clouds' path had changed, and instead of the storm front moving in one direction, it was now moving in two separate directions, opening a path between the two fronts. Aang wasn't certain where he was in relation to the Southern Air Temple, but he figured that his best bet would be to follow the massive trail in front of him.

He patted his soaked Sky Bison as the light faded from his eyes. "C'mon Appa. We need to get back home as fast as possible." Appa roared in agreement and flew towards the Temple. Aang didn't know if Appa could sense his urgency or just wanted to be out of the storm as quickly as possible, but either way the bison flew faster than Aang remembered him ever flying before. The entire way, he was in a sort of numb haze. Intellectually he knew that his people were still alive, but he still had a paranoid fear that when he reached the Temple everyone would be dead.

His fears were proven baseless when he saw the Southern Air Temple in the distance. His heart had jumped to his throat then. So far away, it looked barren and lifeless, but as he flew closer he could see gliders and Sky Bison in the air. Aang felt tears well in his eyes. He could save these people. When he had almost reached the Temple, he saw Gyatso and four other monks waiting for him serenely. The entire Council of Elders of the Southern Air Temple was awaiting him. Before he would have been ashamed and nervous, but now the only emotion he could summon was exhilaration. Aang threw himself off of Appa and into Gyatso's arms.

"Gyatso!" Aang's cry was muffled by his mentor's shirt. "I missed you so much."

"Aang, you were only gone for a few hours," Gyatso said soothingly.

He didn't get a chance to reply because another monk, monk Tashi he recalled, cut into the conversation. "How dare you do something so reckless? Flying off into a storm all by yourself! Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

Monk Tashi's interjection was unwelcomed, but it reminded Aang of his purpose. "I need to tell you-"

"No, what you need to do is listen to your elders!" Tashi snapped.

"But I-"

"We were right to decide to send him away," another monk interjected. "His attachment to Gyatso clouded his judgment."

"Listen! I went on a Spirit Quest-"

"A likely excuse," Tashi said again, scowling.

"Listen to me!" Aang shouted, except this time it wasn't in the high pitched voice of a child, but rather the deep, echoing voice of the Avatar State. He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He knew that the monks wouldn't respond to threats or displays of power. He had to be calm and show them that he wasn't just a distraught child (even if he was). Aang swung his arms in a flowing motion, and the puddles from the storm obeyed him, swirling in a loose spiral. Then he stomped his foot on the ground and a pillar rose from the smooth stone. Finally, he thrust his fist forward and a fireball burst through the air. The monks around him were stunned speechless. Monk Tashi was gaping at him open mouthed. Even Gyatso looked at him, amazed.

Aang swallowed nervously. "I went on a Spirit Quest," Aang said again. "And Avatar Roku warned me that Fire Lord Sozin is planning to use the power of a Comet," he could hardly call it 'Sozin's Comet' "To attack all of the Air Temples. He wants to start a war, and needs to make sure that the airbenders- and the Avatar- are out of the way."

There was a pause before High Monk Pasang, Abbot of the Temple, spoke. "Hmm. We must meditate on this."

"Meditate!" Aang cried indignantly. "There's no time to meditate! I don't know how long we have until the Comet comes! It could be any moment now. We need to evacuate the Temple, and send word to the others!"

"We cannot act without considering the consequences," Pasang said sternly.

"You need to consider the consequences of not acting!" Aang countered hotly. "The fate of our people rests in your hands!"

"We will meditate-"

"Then I'll get everyone ready while you waste time being indecisive." Aang scowled, refusing to back down. Pasang frowned down at him, but before he could reprimand Aang a voice spoke up to the side.

"What's the harm?" Gyatso spoke calmly. Aang had forgotten that he had an ally on the Council. "If Aang is wrong, the worst that will happen is a bit of shock. I daresay that we could use the exercise, even. But if he's right, then we will have saved our race from annihilation. It seems to me that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain." Gyatso paused and smiled. "Besides, who are we to go against the word of not only Avatar Aang, but Avatar Roku?"

Head Monk Pasang sighed and looked defeated, and Aang knew that he had won. "They will never believe the messengers," Monk Tashi argued, but he didn't sound contradictory anymore.

Gyatso reached up and removed his necklace, the one that proved he was on the Council of Elders, one of the twenty monks and nuns that governed the Air Nomads. "They will if we give them these." Gyatso looked over at Aang and winked, and he knew that everything was going to turn out alright.

They had been in the Southern Water Tribe for a week. The Tribesmen had offered them shelter and protection. Aang was stricken by how different the tribe looked from both the Northern Tribe and the small village it had become in the Spirit Quest. For one, it was completely inland (as inland as a polar ice cap can get) and it wasn't on an incline. It was a massive maze of igloos, and although it was slightly bigger than the Northern Tribe, it wasn't as resplendent. Five days after the monks of the Southern Temple arrived, Aang was relieved to see another group of Sky Bison over the city. They turned out to be nuns from the Eastern Temple. The Elder Council had sent their fastest runners (in short bursts, an airbender trained to send messages could travel much faster than a bison) to the three other Temples right after the storm had broken.

Two days after the nuns had gotten to the Water Tribe, the sky turned red, and Aang could feel the power of Sozin's Comet filling him to the brim. "No," he said softly. "It's too soon. There hasn't been enough time."

"You don't know that for sure," Gyatso said. "Just because the others aren't here doesn't mean that they didn't get the message."

"There's no way that it would have gotten to the Northern Air Temple in a week. Maybe the Western… maybe."

Gyatso's eyes betrayed his sorrow, even if his voice didn't waver. "It doesn't matter. The only thing we can do it hope and pray."

It was only later that they found out the fate of the other two Temples. The messenger sent to the Western Temple had arrived before the Comet, but it took him a little longer to reach it, and it took the Council there a little longer to decide to evacuate. In the end, the most damning factor was their proximity to the Fire Nation. The Fire Nation forces hadn't reached the Southern and Eastern Temples before they started evacuating because they had to make sure that the Temples didn't get word of the assault until it was too late. Because the Western Temple was so deep in Fire Nation territory, they hadn't had to hide their troop movements. The nuns hadn't stood a chance. Only eighty of the one thousand nuns made it to the South Pole. Of those, only ten were unscathed. Aang wept openly when he saw the burnt and blistered flesh of a five year old girl. Not even the waterbending healers could do anything but amputate her left arm and leg.

Of the Northern Temple, there was nothing. The messenger hadn't even gotten to it before the Comet. By the time he had gotten to the other side of the world, the Fire Nation had already slaughtered every man and boy in the Temple. In a way, Aang mused, it had been kinder to wake up a hundred years after the genocide. There had only been bones and dust left over. He hadn't had to see the blistered, blackened flesh of the innocent. He hadn't had to listen to children crying for their lost loved ones, children crying in pain. He hadn't had to witness the broken gaze of respected elders who before had known only the peaceful life of a nomad.

The Councils of Elders were meeting to discuss what to do next. Only one of the five Elders from the Western Tribe survived the attack, and the blistered, still fresh burn on the left side of her face and neck showed that she had fought her way to safety. Despite the pain of her injury, she insisted on attending the meeting. For whatever reason, they had also invited him to join. Gyatso was guiding him gently to the hut that the Southern Water Tribe offered to them for the occasion. The mood inside the hut was solemn, and the Western Elder, Gu-Lang, sat on a cushion, looking weary, half her face swaddled in bandages. Aang had thought that he had cried all of the tears he had in him, but tears welled in his eyes at the sight of the once-proud woman looking so beaten down.

He ignored Gyatso pulling him towards his place at the back of the room, and walked over to Gu-Lang. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't protect you and your Temple from the Fire Nation," he whispered brokenly. His gaze was down at his feet, so he was surprised when he felt a gentle touch on his head, telling him to look up. He was shocked to see the woman getting down to her knees in front of him. He wanted to protest but the sight of the raw emotion in her one visible eye made the words catch in his throat.

"Avatar Aang," Gu-Lang said. Her voice was soft, but it had a certain melodic quality to it that made it carry across the silent room. Aang could feel the gaze of the ten other Elders on his back. "You are only reason there are any airbenders left at all. Every single Air Nomad here in this room and in this village owes their life to you."

Aang's eyes met hers, and he found that he couldn't speak. Her gaze was piercing, but not accusatory or angry. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "Thank you, for saving my people from extinction." Her grip on his arms was tight, and Aang could feel her trembling with the force of her grief. Gu-Lang broke eye contact to bow her head to him. He felt himself choking up, and he didn't know what to do. Gyatso helped Gu-Lang up and took Aang's arm gently, leading him away. He was reminded in that moment of why he loved his mentor so much. Everyone was looking at him. Even though he was the Avatar, he was still a child and Aang knew the Elders couldn't forget his acts of youth and immaturity. Even so, they looked at him with respect, grudging respect sometimes. They also couldn't forget that he saved their lives and the lives of their people.

Head Monk Pasang cleared his throat. Because Gu-Lang was only an ordinary Elder, he and Mother Superior Iio, leader of the Eastern Temple, were the highest ranking airbenders. Clearly the meeting was beginning. Aang was in a daze, and he ignored the talk about numbers- the numbers of the dead, injured, and dying. Gyatso prodded him, and he listened to the conversation.

"We cannot go back to the Temples," Pasang said.

"No," Iio agreed. "But neither can we stay here. We would bring too much danger to the Water Tribe, and they do not have the force to protect us from the full might of the Fire Nation."

"Where will we go," asked Tashi softly. Aang wouldn't mind if Tashi's face would regain its arrogant, all-knowing look, if only it wouldn't look so broken.

"There was a time," Gu-Lang began hesitantly, "Where the Air Nomads had no homes. We would wander for our whole lives, going where the wind took us."

"Could we live like that?" Gyatso asked.

"We must," said Pasang. "Eventually it will be safe to return to the Temples, when the full force of the Fire Nation is not focused on us."

"If…" Aang spoke quietly, tentatively. "If I were to draw their attention away…"

"No," Pasang said. "The Fire Nation does not know who you are, or even what your gender is. As long as one airbender still lives you will be safe. And as long as any one of us still draws breath, you will remain safe." Pasang shook his head. "No Aang, you will stay here, in the Southern Water Tribe, and master waterbending. The Fire Nation will not expect you to train in the other bending disciplines until you are sixteen. We will lead them away from you so that you can learn in safety."

Aang stared at him, before looking around at the other Elders. Some were scared, but none of them lacked the spark of determination in their eyes. They were going to act as scapegoats for him. "I can't allow you to do this." It was his responsibility to keep them safe, not the other way around.

Pasang smiled. "Ah, but I'm afraid you have no choice. You saved our lives, Aang, and now it's our decision what to do with them. Until you are fully trained, we have no hope of defeating the Fire Nation. We will scatter to the four winds, and the Fire Nation will never be able to catch us all. Their only hope was catching us by surprise and overpowering us using Sozin's Comet. Now… they might as well try to catch the air itself." Pasang did a good job of hiding it, but Aang still detected the hint of scorn in his voice when he spoke of the Fire Nation. It seemed like even the wisest of the Elders were still human.

Aang wanted to protest, but Iio held up her hands. Even the normally mothering and passive woman looked firm. "Our decision is made, Avatar Aang, and this meeting is dismissed."

Airbending wasn't about controlling the wind, not really. Air was a friend, a companion, and it could only be bent by moving with it. It was not a servant to be ordered around. Aang could see that he could no more force the Council of Elders to change their minds than he could force the wind to blow. "I don't want anyone to die for me."

"No good man ever does," Gyatso said, smiling down at him. "But this is a choice that you cannot make for us, Aang. We aren't just doing this for you, but for the world. Fire Lord Sozin will wage war on the world, but he will not attack in earnest until he is sure that the Avatar is dead. Until you are sixteen, the world will be safe from the full force of his wrath. If you can master the elements before your sixteenth birthday, Aang, you can stop this war before it truly begins."

Aang tried not to feel bitter as he watched his people fly away from him. He had lived with the guilt of his people's deaths for a year, and the fact that they were going to fly off to die for him only weighed on him more. Only those too injured to fly remained in the Tribe, and they would leave (or be carried away, he thought angrily) as soon as they could. No one wanted the Fire Nation finding out that he was training to master waterbending.

His new teacher stood beside him. Ahnah was in her forties, but she stood strong and tall, with only a hint of gray at her temples. She dressed in the traditional blues of the Water Tribes, but unlike most benders, she also carried a spear. The first thing she had done was made him wear the blue clothing and furs of the Water Tribes. "Do not forget that you are of the Water Tribes, Aang. You are not just an Air Nomad who also waterbends," she had said.

"Come, Aang," Ahnah finally said, when the Sky Bison were out of sight. "It's time for us to go train."

Waterbending training was easy. He had spent the most time in his quest learning waterbending, and Ahnah was just testing what he knew. She seemed to be pleased by his knowledge of the discipline, and ended training before the sun had set. Aang walked with her back to their igloo; he would be staying with her and her daughters. Apparently part of becoming a waterbender included living like a waterbender, and so he would be staying with her to learn the importance of family in the Water Tribes. He didn't see any problem with the arrangement until it came time for dinner.

"I'm sorry," Aang started, "but I don't eat meat." They had served him seal jerky.

Ahnah raised her eyebrow. "My daughters worked hard to prepare this meal and you refuse to eat it?"

Aang blushed. He had travelled across the whole world (at least in his mind) and no one had ever made a fuss about his dietary needs. He wasn't used to having to defend them. "Err, I'm really sorry but it's against Air Nomad beliefs to kill other living beings to sustain ourselves."

Ahnah looked unimpressed. "As long as you are living in my house, you will eat the food that I serve you."

Aang's mouth was hanging open. "But- but you… In the Quest…"

Ahnah glanced at her daughters, and they left the igloo wordlessly. Very few people knew about Aang's Spirit Quest, but as his teacher, Ahnah was one of them. "In my Spirit Quest," Aang began again, "I trained in the Northern Water Tribe, and they never made me eat meat."

Ahnah sighed. "Yes, I assumed as much. Don't forget that even though the quest was as real as it could be, you were still ultimately in control. Beyond that, it was a hundred years since the Avatar was last sighted that you trained in the North Pole."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Aang asked, trying to reign in his temper and confusion.

"Aang… do you think that just anyone gets to train the Avatar?" Ahnah asked.

"Uhh…" In truth, he had never thought about it.

"I was trained to be your waterbending teacher since your birth. I am descended, very distantly, from Avatar Atka, the waterbending Avatar before Avatar Kuruk (1). When I was a little girl Avatar Roku taught me waterbending because he suspected that I would one day teach his reincarnation. Not only am I a master waterbender, but we have a spiritual connection. I am certain that your Master Pakku was nowhere near as prepared to train the Avatar as I am. It's not only my job to teach to waterbending, but to turn you into a real waterbender."

"But why do I have to sacrifice my beliefs that I learned as an airbender to learn waterbending?" Aang protested. He had managed to defeat the Fire Nation without letting go of his airbender morality, and he didn't want to throw that all away.

"I have studied your history," Ahnah said, unyielding. "Avatar Yangchen, and Avatar Rinzen, the Air Nomad Avatar before her, ate meat when they learned the other bending arts. You must integrate yourself into our culture, not only to learn bending but to learn our ways so that you can be an ambassador between our people and yours. That is the duty of the Avatar. You don't learn our bending just to become a stronger weapon, but you learn it to learn us. You are not an airbender, or a waterbender, or an earthbender, or a firebender. You are all four. That is why you're the only one who can truly understand all of us and mediate between us in times of strife."

Aang imagined that he must look extremely stricken, because Ahnah's face softened. "Once you become a fully realized Avatar, you can choose to live your own way. But until then…" She gestured to the seal jerky on his plate.

Aang gulped, before picking up his knife and ever so hesitantly slicing off a tiny piece of the sausage. He looked up at Ahnah, and saw her staring back at him intently. He figured that no tricks would get past her, so he raised the meat up to his mouth slowly. Aang had sacrificed many things for his destiny, but he had managed to avoid sacrificing his principles. He screwed his eyes shut as the morsel hit his tongue, and he felt a piece of himself die. Aang chewed slowly, and gulped down a glass of water, swallowing the meat with it. An image rose to his mind unbidden of an innocent baby seal being slaughtered just to feed him.

Aang ran outside and hurled, falling to his hands and knees. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ahnah kneeling next to him and felt her hand rubbing circles into his back. "I'm sorry," he said bitterly, not meeting her eyes. To his surprise, the woman lifted him up into an embrace.

"Oh Aang, there's nothing to apologize for. Avatar Yangchen threw up the first time she was made to eat meat as well." Aang heard her sigh. "I never said that I expected it to be easy, only that I expected you to do it. I know that this will be hard for you, and it probably won't be the first time you can't keep it down."

Ahnah went on to explain how they didn't kill any animal needlessly. All parts of the creature were used- nothing went to waste. The furs were used for clothes and protection from the cold. The fat and meat was eaten, and the bones made into tools. "There isn't enough vegetation in the Poles for us to survive on," Ahnah had explained. "The Air Nomads have been vegetarians for millennia, and their bodies have adapted certain ways of living without meat that we simply haven't. We do what we must in order to survive."

It took him a month and a half to keep any meat down and not vomit it back up. He was improving as a waterbender faster than ever though. The only time Aang had spent focusing solely on training one element, and not running around the world, was when he had been in the Northern Water Tribe. He had been so childish back then, though, and he hadn't really put his full effort into learning. The fact that every day he spent training, another one of his people might die for him was a good motivator. Aang threw himself into his training and he grew more and more skilled. He might even be better than Katara was.

The thought of Katara still made his heart ache, but he was slowly getting over it. It also reminded him of the realization that he had made early in his training. Ahnah had three daughters, but her youngest (who was a couple years younger than him) was named Kya. Aang remembered that Katara told him that her mother had been named after her great-grandmother. Although the resemblance wasn't striking, Ahnah and her daughters did look similar to Katara. Also, even though Master Pakku had taught him originally, through the majority of the Spirit Quest it had been Katara (who through her potentially great-great-grandmother Ahnah was descended from Avatar Atka) who had taught him waterbending. Zuko was Roku's great-grandson, and it wouldn't surprise Aang if Toph had a hidden Avatar ancestor somewhere. Aang wondered if the Avatar Spirit had been pulling the strings behind the scene. Nevertheless, it comforted him to know that he might someday see Katara again. Little did Aang know that it would be in a way he'd have never imagined.

Waterbending wasn't the only thing he learned in the Southern Water Tribe. They taught him how to sail a boat, how to fish and hunt (although Ahnah had to twist his arm to get him to do that), how to prepare the food that he caught, and how to clean up his igloo. He learned the basics (make that the very basics) of using a spear and a boomerang. Aang also learned Water Tribe politics, and travelled with the Tribe to the North Pole on the New Moon Celebration. He learned that it was disrespectful to speak about your wife's mother unless your wife brought her up first, and that breaking someone's spear would result in a blood feud between families (legend had it that the Southern Water Tribe was born from such a feud). He realized that he wasn't just trying to master waterbending, but also to master Water Tribe Life 101.

Eventually the day came that he threw a boomerang and it hit the target more often than the hut next to it, he caught the seal more often than it escaped, and most importantly, he won his spars against Ahnah more often than he lost them. He had just recently turned thirteen, and he could tell that Ahnah didn't have much left to teach him. Aang had been learning from her for nearly a year, and he knew that he had come a long way. Ahnah was the best waterbender in the South Pole, and she was the only one who could beat him at all anymore in a spar. Lately she didn't even win most of the time. "You still can't steer a ship worth an otter-penguin's tail," she said stubbornly.

"Master Ahnah," he said gently, "It's not my destiny to be a shipman. It's my destiny to be the Avatar." He knew that she considered him her own, and she didn't want to see him leave the nest. Ahnah scowled before drawing him into a fierce hug. That was something he'd grown used to- the affection. Gyatso sometimes hugged him, but that was far more affection than the man was supposed to show as a mentor. Ahnah, on the other hand, was an overbearing Water Tribe mother, and she wasn't afraid to smother him in love. It was important though, because as an Air Nomad he had never been able to understand the emphasis that the Water Tribes put on family. It wasn't until he had someone love him unconditionally that he had understood why Sokka would throw himself off the end of the world to keep Katara from getting hurt.

"Fine, fine. You're a master waterbender, brat." The jibe had no heat behind it. "You better not forget about us off in the big bad Earth Kingdom, alright?"

Aang smiled. "No way. You can leave the Water Tribes but the Tribes can't leave you, right?"

Ahnah smiled back. "You'll be alright, kiddo."