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Hands clasped tightly in front him, Aang tried to convince himself that he wasn’t shaking. A familiar, wrinkled hand tightened on his shoulder while the man remained silent. Aang didn’t like that it made him feel better because he should have known better ( there were monsters in the garden; they would whisper deception into his ear, steal him away, and paint blood onto his skin ).
He knew, in a vague way, that a select few were talking to the temple’s elders though he couldn’t really parse out the meaning of the words. At first, he thought it was because of the daze, the static in his ears that had begun when the first warning bell had rung ( he was the Avatar how why - ). It took a minute for him to realize that they were speaking a different tongue, a different dialect.
He wasn’t scared, no, he was terrified . They were giving him away, they were making him leave his friends, and the monks, and Gyatso -
Where was Gyatso? Aang looked around, feeling his chest tighten when he realized that the elder wasn’t here. Why wasn’t he here?
“Where’s Gyatso,” he whispered to Monk Pasang whose hand remained firm on Aang’s shoulder ( keeping him from running away ).
The boy was afraid that if he was any louder that the “guests” would look his way ( they were already looking, why were they looking ). The elder glanced down at him with a flash of sympathy before grey eyes, so similar to his own, looked back to the outsiders in feigned serenity.
“Gyatso had other important matters to attend to.”
Aang had been alive long enough to recognize that the elder was tense and immensely unhappy. What courage he had fled with the confirmation that his guardian wouldn’t come, had found something more important than him ( why was everyone leaving him - how did he mess up so quickly this time ). His heart was pounding through his chest and his palms were unbearably cold. He could see the air nomads steadily forming a barricade between the other air nomads and them .
(He should have been behind the barricade, why was he in front )
The first impression Aang had of the outsiders was that they hadn’t seemed so scary. If the boy didn’t know better, he’d have thought they were monks and nuns from another air temple. That was, until he took in the excessive layers of clothing that covered a majority of the group in light shades of white and orange that looked one tone away from red ( was that dye or was that - his head spun and spun - ).
And then there were their faces. Their tattoos were familiar, almost similar to their own, but with stylizations that were… complex and only a shade or so darker than the base arrow. The ink was different as well, the base blue arrow looking almost violet in the direct light.
A few simply stared at him with subtle warmth that he had seen in glances with the nuns from so many years back, and occasionally with Gyatso. They smiled, raising their own hands in a gesture that Aang recognized as his own, his hands still clasped over his stomach. Tears came to their eyes and Aang furrowed his eyebrows in concern, an instinctive need to reach out and ask what was wrong taking him for a split second.
The hand on his shoulder gripped him firmly, stopping him from taking the step forward, and suddenly those eyes watching him tightened around the edges. Darkness overtook the previous warmth and Aang suddenly felt a bit breathless. From the very slight trembling of the monk a few steps behind him, Aang wasn’t the only one to be affected.
Sharp words in a contrasting lilt accent drew the attention of the Windwalker's elders (hurt.... go... blades...). Aang was barely able to parse out the meaning but the few words he understood had him pressing back into Elder Pasang. The nomads clad in almost-red paused and looked towards him, as if they hadn’t been holding a conversation ( or as if the conversation was suddenly meaningless ).
One of them stepped forward, singling themselves out from their congregation. Like the others, she wore robes of white and orange-almost-red. Unlike most of her peers, there was a black sash wrapped around her waist. The stray fabric trailed slightly on the ground behind her as she moved forward.
The following words were sharp and directed at something, someone, behind his shoulder. Aang held stalk still, hoping that she wouldn’t address him if he was silent enough. Despite his attempts the slight tremor in his arm seemed to give him away and draw her sharp eyes. Glancing from his arms to his neck and then up to his eyes, she turned her full attention to him. Her cutting demeanor melted to reveal some semblance of humanity underneath ( somehow that was more terrifying ).
Aang’s eyebrows furrowed as she held out her arms, fingers curling delicately towards him as if beckoning him closer, but she couldn’t -
And then the hand on his shoulder disappeared only to reappear on his back, gently pushing him forward.
His mind went blank for a split second before his senses slowly came back into focus (in time to see her step forward and something was screaming who was screaming). Something was clawing at the back of his head and twisting violently in his chest. The gusts of wind swirling around him had become suffocating (he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe) and the cold of the mountain’s looming winter was suddenly biting. Aang whispered a tiny, barely audible ‘no’, and reached back and up ( up up like the monks and nuns who used to carry him to sleep ) to clutch desperately at the robes of the one that had taught him his first katas, that had personally been there to help choose his toys -
Don’t leave me don’t let them take me, he wanted to scream, heart pounding faster and faster against his chest until he thought everyone could hear it. The acolyte flinched when he felt gentle hands on his arms (they were intended to be soothing, but why did it feel like a noose tightening around his neck ).
“Avatar Aang.”
The boy did his best to not flinch at the foreign voice. It was melodic and sounded so different from anything he had ever heard ( he had learned the earthen and fire dialects so easily, so why did her dialect sound so muddled in his ears )
“N-no please - “ he choked out, holding on tightly to the elder monk who was looking down at him like - “Don’t send me away. I’ll do better, I-I’ll practice my forms from sunrise to sunset, I won’t prank the other elders anymore!”
Help me help me why are they all just -
“Avatar Aang, this is no punishment, nor is it forever.” The woman carefully stepped forward until Aang could almost feel the rough fabric of her robe brushing against his skin. “We are your brothers and sisters just as the air nomads of the temples. It is important you learn from us as you’ve learned from them.”
The uninitiated air bender risked glancing away from Elder Pasang to look up at the nun. She seemed utterly sympathetic, her face a picture perfect portrayal of consolation. Aang’s fingers tightened in the divots of the soft robes of his elder ( but they were giving him away, Monk Pasang wasn’t his elder anymore) .
The woman’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. One of Aang’s friends had commented once or twice that his eyes reminded them of the steel of their knives. Suddenly, he understood those words intimately. If the eyes of the Air Temple's monks were stormy clouds, then the eyes of the Windwalker's were pure steel and ash . There was no remorse or guilt. There was death and tragedy and suddenly Aang felt tiny ( they were - they were - )
He was going to learn from them. He was going to become one of them .
“I don’t want to go with you,” he yelled, breaking the hush that had fallen over the air nomads of both sects. Aang looking back to Pasang, breathing harshly as the hands of the nun lightly reached over and wrapped around his palms.
“This is my home! Don’t make me go - “his voice cracked at the end as his fingers were gently uncurled, as if coaxing a kitten’s claws from a stray piece of fabric, and he felt himself slipping. His last chance, his light was dying and the end of the tunnel was looking farther and farther away.
“Avatar Aang, you are destined to learn from all cultures and learn each form of bending. You have learned all you can from us.”
Lies
“Avatar Aang, you must come with me.”
They said they cared.
“Your forms are nearly flawless, Avatar Aang. A few steps off - “
Why were they always -
“The boy has had enough training - ” “I will decide when the Avatar stops training for the day”
LIARS
“Do I mean nothing to you?!”
The following silence was deafening and for a moment all anyone could hear was the rage and sheer pain in the young air bender's voice echoing through the mountain. The shock in Elder Pasang's eyes ( hurt he was hurt, what right did he have to be hurt ) left Aang feeling… empty for a horrible second. And then the black pit in his stomach was overflowing to the point that he was almost choking on it. The acolyte was bowled over by an overwhelming wave of guilt. Nausea pooled in his stomach and he felt seconds away from being violently sick. Tears welled in his eyes as he felt the chills take over his small form.
“P-please,” he choked out, voice high pitched and wavering.
He had no strength left to stop the very last of the familiar fabric from leaving his fingers. He was quickly enveloped into the arms of the nun, tucked tightly into her robes until he could see nothing but shades of gray and red. Not even the sun’s rays were able to penetrate the cocoon she had formed around the boy.
The air bender sobbed desperately into her, hating that any part of this gave him comfort ( she was so warm and he was so so tired ). She crooned into the bundle in her arms, humming an unfamiliar tune that he barely registered.
He coughed and heaved into her, breath coming quicker and quicker until he was choking on his saliva and the little air that passed his lips.
The last thing he remembered of that day was a nearly unbearably cold hand clasping the back of his neck and a quick flash of pain.
When had the Avatar overshadowed Aang?