ATLA Little Bender

Made to Feel Regret

Elaria's robes felt humid as Aang began to share with her, but she said nothing. It caused her to sweat uncomfortably yet she was more terrified that if she were to take his offer of drying her off then he would take that as an escape to the daunting conversation. She knew he would avoid telling her but it seemed as though Agni may be throwing her some slack for the whirlwind of revelations in her life. 

She shifted awkwardly as her clothes weighed her down. 

Aang's voice accompanied the crackling fire in front of them. "I'll never forget the day the monks told me I was the Avatar. I was playing with some other kids just outside the South Wall. I was trying to teach them how to do the air scooter."  As Aang besieged his past Elaria's gaze never faltered on the glaze in his eyes. The hues dimmed...

Despite her wanting to, she couldn't keep her mouth shut. Elaria despised the way they looked during this moment. She only wanted to see the affable radiance in them- that was one of the very few things she knew concretely. She just didn't know why. "Air scooter?" She asked him. 

They flickered to her, the glaze faded slightly; he nodded, "Yeah. First, you got to form the ball, then you've got to get on quick." 

Elaria tried to imagine it in her head, but came up with only those scrolls, "I'd probably fall off in my attempts to do that," Aang laughs then, reassuring her, he said: "Well I made it up, and here's a secret," He closed in on her, "You kind of have to balance on it like it's a top," 

The haziness in his grey hues is gone, for a moment she caught a glimpse of the flames beam. "So when you tried to teach it to them they fell a lot?" She continued asking. 

Aang's face dropped, "They got it after I was told I'm the Avatar." He recanted that day to her. 

He told her everything about his meeting with the monks. As a child, he had chosen four toys that are past Avatar relics. Elaria remembered learning about this test, for thousands of years those responsible for the search of the Avatar used that form to find the reborn Avatar. It had only failed once but that time was catastrophic for its own reasons. 

The names of the monks flew over her head but she remembered only one. The name Aang had muttered in his fitful sleep, Gyatso. 

Realization settled in as she realized how much this man influenced Aang, the two had a powerful bond that went beyond the relationship of teacher and student. It ran past the border into the concept of father and son...

"Being the Avatar didn't upset you?" Elaria asked. When she came to the Palace her father had laid down everything for her. How much her life would change, how daunting it would seem, but he soothed her fear by vowing to never leave her. 

"I didn't know how to feel about it. All I knew was that after I found out, everything began changing." Aang told her. 

Compassion weighed and lifted her body, pulling and pushing her as he poured out his heart. The doubt that buried him, the fear, isolation, and the weight of everything on him. The way everyone suddenly expected him to be more than who he is, to take everything on and sacrifice his joys for the world. It was all too familiar to her. 

"Monk Gyatso, he's your guardian?" Elaria asked him. Aang nodded. He's reminiscing about their game of Pai Sho until another monk demanded him to train. Her real question remains at the tip of her tongue but she didn't have the heart to jump to the worst conclusion about Gyatso. So she let him continue. 

Elaria understands why the Monks pressured him the way they did, in fact, she would have done the same if she had any influence over Aang. The world needs him just as the Fire Nation needs her.