#dude ancient peoples lived and died by their comfy bedding

[jacksprostate]

kind of a tragedy that the narrator condemned himself to a damp mattress in a drafty mold-filled house because I'm warm and comfy as shit right now and toasty bedding totally IS necessary in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word if you don't think your life's purpose is to be miserable and die young of an avoidable and/or curable disease

[emberbent]

Book 2: Air | Chapter 3: The Spirit Room

[Content warning: Death of a child]

“I’m concerned about you.” Jinora lifted her tea cup to her lips and sipped at her tea pragmatically. 

Shinza pushed her rice around with her chopsticks. “Why?”

The Elder eyed the Avatar through the steam that came from her tea. “Lo Sang tells me you progressed quickly in the beginning. You even showed a strong aptitude for the foundations, until your accident. Ever since then, you haven’t progressed at all.”

Shinza said nothing. Jinora was spot-on. Since the day she’d learned that her parents had hid her status from her, she hadn’t been able to produce a single gust of wind. She was having trouble meditating, too. Behind her eyelids, thoughts came to the surface that she couldn’t make disappear: visions of the light circling her head, of Amrit’s look of disappointment when she couldn’t produce a flame.  

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” Shinza replied after a beat. “I don’t know what to do with this anger.”

Jinora set her tea cup down and gazed sympathetically at Shinza. “You’re being overly hard on yourself,” she soothed. “While it’s true you don’t have all the time in the world, you’re forcing yourself through something that will clearly take more time than you think.”

Shinza’s eyes flashed upward at Jinora for a second. The kindness she saw in her dark brown eyes was too much, and she looked dejectedly back down into her bowl. 

“Will you take a walk with me?” Jinora requested. 

Shinza felt like walking back to her room and crawling into her bed, despite the fact that the sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so. “Okay.”

Crickets chirped their evening melody as the two of them strolled in silence. Jinora held onto Shinza, who walked slowly so that Jinora could keep her pace, despite the pain in her joints. Eventually, they came to Jinora’s favorite place in the temple. The meditation circle was a patch of packed dirt in a grassy clearing, twenty yards in diameter. Around the perimeter, enormous stone monoliths jutted from the earth, towering over the two women. On each stone, the ancient air nomads had carved the symbol of their element. Stepping over the threshold, Shinza immediately felt the potent spiritual energy that permeated the space. The little hairs on her arms stood on end.

“Have a seat,” Jinora instructed gently. Painstakingly, she settled down on a patch of moss growing in a crescent-shape around the center of the circle. Shinza settled across from her mentor.

Jinora studied her for a moment. Then she said, “You feel overcome by your emotions.”

“I guess I do,” Shinza sighed.

“The true mind can weather all lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed,” Jinora recited. “Avatar Aang, my grandfather, received this advice when struggling to decide how to proceed on his journey. He passed it down to my father, who passed it on to me.”

Shinza scoffed. “So you’re telling me I need to get over it?”

“Not at all,” Jinora replied patiently. “By all means, you should take the time you need to process this new information and the way it makes you feel. What I’m saying is that it’s important to remember that your emotions are pieces of information, just like truths. Just like lies. Study the emotions you feel as if they are not your own, as if they are bottled in little glass jars. Accept them. Catalog them. And then let them go. A fully realized Avatar understands that emotions should inform, but they should never dictate.”

“What you’re saying makes sense,” Shinza replied as calmly as she could, scarcely veiling the frustration in her voice. “I just can’t see past this resentment. This disgust.”

Jinora snorted amicably, surprising Shinza. “You remind me of Korra,” she said. “Perhaps you should speak to her.”

Shinza’s brows furrowed. “How do I do that?”

“Through meditation,” Jinora instructed. “Do you remember the way you reached inward and found my name within you when you first arrived? You can reach Korra the same way.”

Jinora was already hoisting herself up onto her feet, waving away Shinza’s protests. “I’ll give you your privacy,” she said. “I’ll make my own way back.” As she passed by, she put a friendly hand on her shoulder. “I wish you luck, child.”

Shinza sighed heavily, begrudgingly crossing her legs and seeing out of the corner of her eye that Jinora had left a stick of incense and a holder behind. She leaned over and pinched the end of the incense to light it. Fragrant smoke wafted around her. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Korra, she thought. She reached out into the empty space inside her mind. I need to speak to you.

“Dude, lower the volume.”

Shinza startled, opening her eyes and finding herself in a room whose layout was suspiciously similar to the meditation circle. She sat on a comfy cushion facing the middle of the room, smelling the incense that burned beside her on the physical plane. Across from her sat Avatar Korra, and in her arms wriggled a small boy, no older than a year and a half. 

“I… what?”

“You’re so loud,” Korra replied. “I can hear you just fine.”

Shinza’s vision slowly adjusted to the dim light, and she settled in the comfortable atmosphere. “Sorry. I didn’t know it’d be so easy to find you.”

Korra snorted. “No trouble. I had the opposite problem when I was the Avatar. Couldn’t meditate to save my life.”

Shinza studied the young woman across from her; sinewy, athletic build, casual Southern Water Tribe clothing, vivid blue eyes. She smirked. “So you’re her. My past life.”

“Well, no,” Korra replied, sticking her hands under the small boy’s armpits to lift him up and set him on her lap. “This guy is. Avatar Yeong.”

At the mention of his name, Yeong looked up at Korra and followed her gaze over to Shinza. Immediately intrigued, he wriggled away from Korra’s grasp and toddled toward her. Shinza held her arms out to him, feeling a complex knot grow in the pit of her stomach. “Hi there,” Shinza whispered. He stared at her, dark eyes glimmering with wonder as he reached out and palmed her dark braid. 

“Ah?” he said. 

Shinza nodded seriously. “Yes. Hi.”

“Ah.”

Looking at his small hands and the fine, downy tufts of black hair on his little head, Shinza couldn’t bring herself to imagine that he had died so young. He plopped his little bottom into her lap and contented himself with tangling his fingers in the end of her braid.

“It’s tragic, isn’t it?” Korra said soberly. 

Shinza replied, “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Had he had a chance to live, he would have been insanely powerful,” Korra said. “His mother had a very hard time with the pregnancy. She was all alone, you know - his dad wasn’t in her life anymore, and she had no money. No family to help her. Once he was born, she started noticing that Yeong wouldn’t look away from the fireplace. He’d stare and stare. And then the bricks around the hearth start to crack. Soon after that, she noticed she was being followed.”

“Lo Sang told me he died of an illness,” Shinza replied. “What was it?” 

“It was no illness. It was a biological weapon meant to assassinate the Avatar and his mother.”

Shinza’s heart dropped into her guts. “The Organization?” she whispered.

“You bet your fuckin’ ass it was The Org,” Korra spat. “Check the newspaper articles from the time. They tried to make it out like it was a contagious virus, but there was no outbreak of any kind in Ba Sing Se at the time.”

Yeong had stuck Shinza’s hair in his mouth. She looked down at him, into his eyes, and felt the same connection to him that she’d felt to Aang’s statue in Yue Bay, and the same connection she felt to Korra sitting across from her. She felt her arms circling around Yeong protectively. In Korra’s face, she found a reflection of her own abject disgust.

“I don’t understand how anyone could murder a child.” Shinza struggled to keep her voice even. “In Fire Fountain City, The Org has been spreading rumors that the Avatar eats children to maintain their power. But it’s them. They’re the murderers. I just can’t believe they’d be willing to go that far to end the Avatar cycle.”

“There has always been someone out to get us,” Korra replied. “In Aang’s time, it was Firelord Ozai. In my time, it was Zaheer. And now you have to deal with The Org.”

“Every time I make a little progress,” Shinza started, “Every time I think I start to understand my place in all this, I learn something that sets everything back. Sometimes I think maybe the world doesn’t deserve an Avatar. Not if they kill children.”

Korra looked on. “Maybe some people don’t,” she replied. “I know I encountered my fair share of people who didn’t deserve a damn thing. But most people do. Yeong deserved to stay alive, and so did his mother. You have to find a way to stop them, Shinza. No matter what it takes. If you let them kill you - if you let them kill the Avatar state - their deaths will have been in vain, and there will be no fixing the chaos that will ensue. Those few undeserving will destroy everything.”

Yeong squirmed and grunted as he removed himself from Shinza’s lap, content to trot around in the room they occupied. Korra pinned Shinza with an intense gaze. “Promise me you won’t let them win.”

“I promise,” Shinza hissed with resolution. “I swear on my life. On all our lives.”

Korra launched herself forward and surprised-embraced Shinza in a long, tight hug. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, but I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she gushed.

“You too,” Shinza replied. “You’re the first past life I’ve ever spoken to like this.”

“Yeah, well,” Korra snorted. “Sorry about that. It’s kind of my fault you can’t talk to the others. But I’m always around if you need me. All you have to do is reach out. Quietly.”

Shinza settled back on her pillow. 

“One more thing before you go,” Korra said. “Jinora and I have this Pai Sho game going in the Spirit World. It’s been running for decades. Will you tell her it’s her move?”

Shinza promised she would. Then she brought herself slowly back to her body.

The next morning at sunrise, Shinza came to the mountaintop wearing the Fire Nation clothes she brought with her to the temple, with her small pack slung over her shoulder. Lo Sang took one look and knew what was happening. “I think you should stay here,” the young one advised from her cross-legged position.

“I know you do,” Shinza replied, “And I respect your position, Sifu. But I need to find my own way to get past this.”

Lo Sang scanned her pupil’s face. “Did speaking to Korra not help you?”

“I found a letter on my bed last night after I spoke to her,” Shinza replied. “It was from the contract Dai Li agent that suppressed my memories and my bending. She regrets her actions and wants a chance to apologize in person.”

“I see,” Lo Sang sounded. She unfolded herself and stood, looking way up at Shinza. Her teacher-mask dissipated, and concern made her pale eyes glimmer. “I can see how this might help you work past it. I just want you to be careful.”

“I will,” Shinza promised. “I’ll come back as soon as I’m finished.” Then she whistled for Xia, mounted, and rode west.

Gaoling, in the southeastern region of the Earth Kingdom, was a small but thriving town. As Xia brought her to the outskirts, Shinza slid off her back as a misty rain began to fall. “Thank you,” she said to the dragon, pressing her palm affectionately against her scarlet scales. Xia’s whisker brushed Shinza’s cheek. Be careful.

She made her way into town at a brisk pace to outrun the rain, which started pouring down in sheets just as she ducked under the awning of a nearby stretch of shops. Pulling the letter out of her pack, she reread the address, comparing it to the street signs she passed. By the look of it, she was headed toward an inn. What business did this woman have in this town? She wondered. Why weren’t they meeting someplace like a restaurant? Once she found the building, she paused, breathing deeply and preparing herself. For what, she wasn’t sure. The innkeeper scarcely noticed her as she strode past the front desk and down a long hallway, stopping at door three. 

She knocked. No one answered. 

She knocked again, and when there was still no answer, she tried the doorknob, finding the room unlocked.

“Yanyu?” she called, stepping carefully inside. Something was wrong. The room looked to be empty. Then the door closed behind her with a creak.

“Shinza,” purred a woman’s low voice from the shadows. “You are a good, quiet girl. You are not a bender.”

Her vision faded. Her pupils widened, drowning out the red-brown of her irises. “I am a good, quiet girl,” she repeated, falling to her knees. She felt earthen cuffs gripping her wrists, felt herself being dragged along the wooden floorboards. “I am not a bender.”

___

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