"Life is not just the passing of time. Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity."
— Jim Rohn
Interlude: Turbulent Passage
The sun set.
The moon rose.
The hours of darkness passed the world by.
The moon set.
The sun rose.
The light of day touched the Earth.
New tasks were set. Daily schedules were renewed. The diurnal rhythm of chores and errands recommenced.
For most people, a new day meant a new lease on life.
For young benders in training, that also meant another day's worth of hard work ahead of them.
There is a large provincial town nestled in one of the tallest mountain ranges of the Earth Kingdom.
It's not so elevated to the point that snow can touch the place in wintertime, but many travellers can attest to having more developed lower limbs after traversing through that area. The elevation, combined with the challenging terrain, thick brush, and the winding, twisting paths, makes for a formidable journey.
The town in that area is known as Gaoling, and one young resident was making her own gruelling journey today.
Having snuck out of her family's home grounds, this young earthbender was spending the day honing her newly-discovered gift. For she was born blind, and yet she could still see.
Her blindsight worked through the blessing of her earthbending. Having previously been under the assumption that her ability to earthbend was rendered moot by her blindness, she instead found that her earthbending allowed her to sense vibrations in her environment with her bare feet. These vibrations then painted a picture of her surroundings in the seismic sense. As long as her surroundings were earth-borne, then she could perceive the world around her, in her own unique way.
Goat-deer trotting in the forest were as beautiful and magnificent as she imagined the extinct moa-horses from her mother's bedtime stories to be. Moth-crickets hovering in the grass were the elusive embers that she sometimes found herself swatting whenever she huddled next to the fireplace in winter. Squirrel-budgies leaping into flight off rooftops and branches were the frost angels that one of her tutors from the southern coast loved to talk about in cultural studies.
Reaching a clearing in one of the surrounding forests, the little girl got into a low, firm, still stance. She was mimicking the badgermoles, the originators of Earthbending, and the creatures who had come to her aid when she had wandered too far from her home several weeks ago. Badgermoles, before they went on a hunt for their prey, would sit or stand in a meditative-like state. This trance phase, as determined by biologists, would help them focus all their faculties, both mental and physical, on where they would travel, and how they would obtain their food. Useful deliberations to plan and consider, given the fact that their eyes were all but useless, serving only a vestigial aesthetic due to their species primarily dwelling underground in the darkness.
It was also a well-known fact that, just before ambushing their prey, badgermoles would hide underground in wait, remaining undetected until the very last possible moment, so as to be able to surprise attack their prey in order to take them down swiftly, in one or two devastating strikes if possible.
The blind earthbender child knew enough about the world that real fights were rarely decided in one or two strikes.
Regardless of that, she had her heart set on training to become the best earthbender there ever was.
Grass sheared, soil trembled, and rocks flew as the little earthbender stomped and stepped, and shifted and lifted.
She was the potter, and the Earth was her clay.
She pushed herself, trying to see how much earth she could move in one go, how much seismic activity she could generate in one set, before she tired out and needed a rest.
When she found her limits, she swore to herself that she would train and train until she pushed past them, and found new boundaries to break, and new frontiers to explore.
She would show them.
She would show them all.
She was not just a blind, helpless little girl.
I will be a master!
One day!
One day…
On a small island in the southernmost part of the Earth Kingdom, another little girl was training.
Running barefoot through the forests of her homeland, this young girl aimed to do two things today. One, build up the strength, stamina, and endurance that she was sorely lacking in comparison to her peers. And two, maintain the thick calluses on her feet that helped her to run barefoot on almost any terrain without flinching.
She was smaller than the rest of her peers — a result of a difficult and premature labour from her mother — and she came from a poor and lowly family. She barely had enough to eat growing up, and up until last year, she had gone barefoot all her life, for footwear was a luxury that her family couldn't afford for her.
That all changed a year ago, when she began her warrior training at the tender age of eight. Now, she no longer went to bed on an empty stomach. Her clothes were no longer tattered hand-me-downs from her older siblings. She had a pair of boots to wear whenever she wanted, and socks that she could don in addition to those boots during the winter.
No longer would she have to traverse her home island in her bare feet all the time. Especially during the harsh frigidness of winter.
She didn't mind running around barefoot during the warmer months, though. She took pride in the fact that being unshod for so many years had toughened up her bare feet.
She didn't want to lose that toughness.
And so, she was spending the day barefoot.
Soon, the girl reached the midpoint of her course: a generously-sized brook that cut through the middle of the forest, the water flowing in the direction of northeast to southwest.
The girl stopped to rest. She would spend a few minutes here catching her breath, before continuing her run back down to the village.
For now, though, she just savoured the crisp mountain air, mixed with the scent of fresh pines — brought about by the passing of spring, and the ripening warmth of summer.
She stretched, relieving her aching, fatigued muscles. Taking deep breaths, she revitalized her chi levels. Talikha had taught her that proper breath control was the foundation of endurance.
She waded into the shallows of the brook, revelling in the soothing sensations of the cool water flowing over and across her bare feet. She did some more arm stretches, limbering up for some calisthenics that she planned to do when she got back to the village.
Aside from the water's soft babbling, the brook was quiet. The child assumed her presence was keeping the area's inhabitants at bay. She couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. She longed for some company, for it was lonely out here in this part of the island. She would have gladly settled for the transient presence of curious animals. Though not human, nor children around her age, wild animals would have sufficed.
All the other children around her age didn't even want to be with her.
She sighed sadly and shut her eyes, willing away the gathering tears that threatened to fall.
So lost in her thoughts was she, that she barely heard it at first.
Chirping.
Soft, sweet, and almost song-like in nature.
Her eyes snapped open, and she crouched down, not caring that the lower parts of her tunic and leggings were now getting soaked in the stream.
Her blue eyes scanned the immediate area of the forest, searching with anxious zeal until she found what she was looking for.
Four birds — blue jays, to be precise — consisting of a mother and her three chicks.
The chicks, to be specific, were in the mature stages of their fledging process, and were currently busy learning to fly by executing short hops between generously spaced branches. That way, they would exercise and grow accustomed to their developing wings.
For the next few minutes, the girl just sat and watched the mother bird and her chicks. She only moved once to quietly exit the stream so that she was sitting on the dry embankment.
Her interest spiked when she saw the smallest chick make a great leap, its fledging wings carrying it far and wide across the chasm that spanned two great branches of a tall oak tree.
Upon landing on the other side, the chick was greeted by its two older siblings, who showered their youngest member with affectionate jostles and rubs. The mother, when she arrived, engaged in this doting physical activity too.
The child below watched this display of familial love with envy and longing.
She had never known her mother.
And she had only known her older siblings for a short time before circumstances conspired to take them away from her.
That was why she was so alone, and so helpless. She had no family to look out for her.
Her comrades didn't count. Not yet.
She had only known them for less than a year, after she had began her training. They had not wanted to interact with her before then. Maybe they would all be sisters-in-arms one day. But not today. Not now. Not yet.
A small flurry of movement caught her eye as the bird family departed back to their nest, disappearing through the high, leafy ceiling of the forest canopy — leaving her all alone once again.
The little girl shook her head to clear it of melancholic thoughts that were rising and threatening to drown her. Her eyes blurred and burned as they held back unwanted tears.
She started jogging back. But her pace was halved, her desire to return home diminished.
For what was a home without a heart? Without a family?
A home without a heart. Without a family.
That surprisingly poetic thought was what dominated the mind of one little boy living in the South Pole.
Poetic though that thought was, there was no denying that it was very depressing. And a very, very apt description for what the current state of his home was right now.
Ever since the enemy had came in, murdered his mother, and taken his baby sister, things had never been the same.
How could life ever be the same after something like that?
His family had been sheared in two, his home forever scarred.
The rest of their family and friends had tried to help them pick up the shattered pieces in the days that followed, but it felt like a pointless task. A futile one. A hopeless one.
His grandmother and uncle tried to offer him and his father what little comfort and reassurance and solace they could. But their words fell on deaf ears, and their actions were ignored.
Friends were also turned away, not unkindly, but definitely firmly, and unequivocally. The boy and his father were in no mood to be consoled.
What was the point of going on when your entire world had ended?
To the concern of many other children and adults in the tribe, it looked like the boy was getting ready to die.
He rarely, if ever, exited his family's igloo nowadays, and when visitors came in, they usually found the boy bundled up under the fur sheets. Close to the spot where his little sister used to sleep.
Gossip soon spread. Rumours abounded throughout the tribe, whisperings of neglect on multiple levels, all considering the young boy. He wasn't eating much, exercising much, or sleeping much.
Those who passed by the igloo from time to time could occasionally overhear gentle chastising and quiet pleading. Those were the boy's father and grandmother, speaking to him. Reasoning with him. Trying to get him to see sense. To not give up.
But the boy just threw their words — especially those of his father's — back in their faces.
He had been awake enough for many a late night to know that his father was faring little better than himself.
It was only because of Gran-Gran's support and the unignorable responsibilities of being Chief that his father had the motivation to go on. The tenacity to persist in the face of despair.
But without those elements, however, the boy just knew in his gut — he just knew — that his father would have lost the will to live.
There was no point in dwelling on ifs or buts, though. At least not for those who were still here. Who were still safe. Who were still alive.
He hadn't spoken to anyone else in regards to the following personal thoughts.
If he did, they would chide him that those thoughts were unhealthy. Or they would try to provide him with comfort and reassurance, all of which would be in vain.
They would try their darndest to spell it out, plain as day, that he was not responsible. Not accountable. Not deserving of blame. That as the second-youngest child in the tribe — now the youngest, mind you — he was the last person who could be faulted for the tragedy that had befallen them all that day.
But he never saw it that way.
There was not a day that passed where he didn't find himself thinking back to that fateful hour, and the actions he had taken during that desperate, devastating event.
He could spend all day agonizing over what he had done, what he had failed to do. What he could have done differently to save his mother, and his baby sister.
But at the end of the day, he would be forced to face the bitter facts, and accept the agonizing reality that there was nothing he could do for his mother and sister.
They were gone.
And what was done could not be undone.
It was this crushing, heartrending fact — above all else — that caused him to cry himself to sleep, in the late hours of each and every night.
For he had nothing to live for, anymore.
Nothing to live for, anymore.
What was done could not be undone.
These depressing thoughts were what swamped the mind of a sad little girl who was currently detained in a Fire Nation prison.
Life now was nothing but torture for her.
Facing constant dehydration, borderline starvation, and unending confinement in a small cage, this young, heartbroken child felt that her short life may as well already be over.
She wanted to die.
And though it was even more demoralizing to think about, she strongly suspected that her fellow prisoners felt the same way.
They had nothing to live for.
Why did they have to watch each other suffer?
Why did they have to watch each other die?
Why couldn't their Fire Nation captors just do the decent thing at the very least and put them all out of their misery?
Everything hurt.
They had to watch each other slowly and painfully waste away, until nothing was left.
They were laid low by their enemies' brutality, stripped of their freedom, their rights, their identity, and their dignity. Not to mention that it was painfully obvious that their health and wellbeing in this place was clearly last on their captors' list of priorities.
Their lives were fading away into nothingness. And the world, it seemed, couldn't care any less about them.
The young child fought to keep from despairing as day after torturous day passed by… and she was failing miserably.
Not helping her already diminished morale was the fact that her young body would no longer remain unmarred.
The recent beatings and burnings that she had been subjected to had taken their toll. They would leave their mark. Several marks, in fact.
She shuddered with sobs as the echoes of pain throbbed throughout her body.
Whilst her body slowly recovered from the damage inflicted upon it, she spent her days lying down on the cage floor, unmoving and still, only mobilizing with great pain and effort when it was time to eat and drink.
When she wasn't moving, she was more or less dead to the world, her raspy breathing and soft crying the only signs of life. So still was she, that the elephant rats often scampered over her in mild confusion and curiosity, unsure whether or not this child would expire.
She didn't flinch or recoil when the rats scurried over her, nor when they scratched at her cheeks with their claws, nor when they brushed against her bare feet, sniffing with their probing snouts.
She whimpered, but it was less out of fear, and more out of agony and despair.
She kept her eyes closed throughout most of the day, for it was too painful to keep them open for long. Both her eyes had sustained bruising during that last torture session she had been subjected to. And it would take a few more weeks until they healed back to normal.
If only those had been the only injuries inflicted on her, she would certainly not have cried as much as she did.
Agony still lingered from the second-degree burns on her hands and feet. And the healing process for those would be slow as well. Those burns had stung painfully for days, and were still stinging painfully now.
The bruises on the rest of her battered body still managed to ache with a vengeance at times. For a long time after that calamitous day, it had been torture for her just to breathe. Her ribs had taken such punishment that her lungs had to fight just to get air. Her laboured breathing had become part of the prison's atmosphere for the last few weeks.
The guards reacted in two ways. Either they were indifferent to her suffering, callously unconcerned with how much her dying body was fighting for its life. Or they found cruel amusement in her pain, watching with sick pleasure as she cried her eyes out over her stinging burn wounds and her aching bruises.
The other prisoners could do nothing but watch her helplessly, their pitying, sympathetic gazes all the consolation they could offer her. It was hollow comfort at most.
She would have preferred them to just look away.
If she was not crying, then she was spending most of the day asleep. Or more accurately, trying and failing to sleep, most of the time.
If every waking moment would only be a living nightmare now, then she honestly would rather go to sleep, and never wake up again.
Though she had yet to come up with a solution for the nightmares that came to torment her when she slept.
She could never win, either way.
With her eyes still closed, she tried to shut out the rest of the world — shut out her grief, shut out her anguish, and shut out her pain.
She would shut out everything, and everyone, and try to find sleep again.
Because there was no comfort, solace, or joy to be had in life anymore.
She wanted to die.
Elsewhere in the Fire Nation, there was another child who felt like they could never win.
At first glance, one would be tempted to call said child overdramatic. Hyperbolic. Prone to exaggeration, and extravagant theatricality.
But if you studied this child more closely, the pitiful inadequacies in his life would soon become more apparent.
He was the firstborn son and eldest child of the current Fire Lord. He was the heir apparent, the first in line to inherit the crown that was his father's.
But everyone else seemed to think otherwise.
They seemed to think that he lacked the spark of leadership. That he was too soft, too vulnerable, and too weak.
And how could he argue against that?
His younger sister was his superior in firebending, the sacred art of their culture, and the power of which determined just how respectable a person was.
She was also his superior in their studies. There was not a single subject taught to them by their tutors that his sister didn't excel at over him.
And boy, did she love to gloat of her many victories over him.
He was pretty sure that there was not one person in the capital that didn't know of how pathetic he was.
His little sister loved to gossip to anyone and everyone they met on just how much he sucked.
Father himself felt obligated to remind him of his failures and shortcomings each and every day.
In the past, the boy would usually go to his mother for reassurance and comfort. But nowadays, doing that was no longer an option. His mother had disappeared the night his paternal grandfather had died.
The boy's father had ascended the throne, and the boy himself had now become the first in line for succession — at great personal cost.
Why, his grandfather only had to die, his mother vanish, and his older cousin perish in battle for him to be bumped up the bloody queue.
Of course, knowing and accepting all this still did nothing to temper his self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy. Nor did it do much to bolster his low self-esteem.
In all honesty, he would have preferred his uncle to take the throne. And it would have made more more logical sense too, given that Uncle was Father's older sibling.
But when Uncle had lost the Siege of Ba Sing Se, at the cost of hundreds of Fire Nation Troops, among which was the boy's older cousin, Grandfather had deemed Uncle unfit to rule, and passed inheritance of the throne directly to the boy's father.
That was one of Grandfather's last decrees — revealed only in his will at his own funeral — before passing away.
So now, the boy found himself in the unenviable position of being first in line to the throne — with none of the experience, wisdom, or even charisma that a person of his standing would be expected to have.
Even his younger sister, with all her prodigious talents and abilities, was held in higher regard than him.
He had a very strong suspicion that even his status as first in line would ultimately be usurped by her.
That's just the way things were in this family.
You couldn't do anything about it, except try to be better than your rivals.
Privately speaking though, the young prince found himself more and more often thinking about what it would be like living a non-royal life where he and his family weren't subjected to the pressures of ruling a nation.
Yes, maybe they wouldn't get the best clothes, wouldn't get the best food, wouldn't have servants to help them with their chores — but maybe they'd be happier.
Maybe they would still be together.
All of them.
Of course, he kept these thoughts to himself, for if other people ever found about about these secret sentiments of his, he would not only be seen as weaker than he already was, but he would also be viewed as a traitor — to himself, to his bloodline, to his nation, and everything his nation stood for.
Maybe mother would take him into her arms and embrace him. Hold him tight, and never let go, whispering words of comfort in his ear. Reassuring him that he was not weak. That he was strong, and mighty, and adequate.
But his mother wasn't here anymore.
He had to be strong, and look after himself.
Because no one else would.
The days continued to pass.
The sun and moon danced their neverending dance through the skies above.
The world continued to burn at the hands of the Fire Nation.
Scores of soldiers and civilians perished on battlefields and in warzones.
Countless people from the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdoms begged and beseeched whatever spirits they believed in, imploring and pleading in their hearts for balance to be restored. Praying that the Avatar would come back to the world. That he would defeat the ruthless Fire Nation, and usher in a new era of peace with his return.
But it seemed that all their hopes, wishes, and prayers were in vain.
Almost a century had passed since the start of the war, and the world continued to burn.
The Avatar was never coming back.
PUBLISHED ON = 25 / 07 / 2024