#this is very much inspired by the season fuckery in hadestown

[dont-leafmealone]

Summary: the elements are thrown out of balance, and the spirits are angry.

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Rating: General audiences

Category: Gen

Characters: Tui, La, and other spirits who remain nameless.

Content Warnings: discussion/depiction of war, genocide, colonization

After the first massacre on the Air Temples, smoke hung in the Air, still and thick and heavy. The Winds did not blow it away, too overcome with grief at the great loss — spirits don't often get attached to mortals, but the Air Nomads had a special affinity for things otherworldly than their own, and the Winds have never been shy about showing favor. 

In the following times, as the remaining Airbenders were lured in with false promises of fellow survivors, the Winds' grief turned to anger. Their chosen children had been hunted, slaughtered — senseless cruelty, in the name of greed, of power hoarded like a dragon's treasure.

The Winds were angry. And so came the storms. So came the gales. So came ruin to those who would dare harm the innocent. So came the wrath of Air.

~

After the first raid on the Southern Water Tribe, the tides stilled out of time with their cycle. Tui and La's mortal bodies may have resided in the North, but all those who lived by the Push and Pull of the Moon and the Ocean dwelt in their domain. As the North closed their gates and swore to remain impartial — Impartial, in a war that shattered the very balance of the world! — the Moon and the Ocean wept for their lost children in the South, torn from their homes and bound without the Push and Pull that defined them; wept, and then raged.

The Moon and the Ocean were angry. And so came crashing waves. So came the monsoons. So came ruin to those who would upset the balance of life. So came the wrath of Water.

~

When heavy, steel boots touched their shores, the spirits of the Earth trembled. The Mountains, already witness to the murders of the children of the Air by the might of Fire, whispered a warning, and watched in horror as the Forests were razed and sturdy settlements scorched to ash. The children of the Earth fought defiantly, but year by tiring year, they were beaten back and subdued, forced far from their elements, digging coal to power the machines that drove their own destruction. The spirits of the Earth saw all of this. From the injustice grew fury.

The Earth was angry. And so came the quaking of the ground, the sandstorms. So came dry, rocky ground, too hard and unfit for growing. So came the landslides. So came the ruin of those who would beat and break a people's spirit. So came the wrath of Earth. 

~

The children of the Sun, of the Volcanoes and Dragons, wrought harm and ruin upon the world. The spirits of Fire all watched as their gift was turned against the innocent, was used to enact unspeakable harm. The Dragons were the first to intervene; and just like that, all but two of the Dragons, hidden away in secret over their last clutch of eggs, were hunted in the name of glory. At this — this final injustice — the sun had enough. Her children had to learn.

The Sun was angry. And so came blazing heatwaves. So came crops scorched as seedlings. So came riverbeds run dry. So came ruin to those who would corrupt the sacred and pure. So came the wrath of Fire.

~

And what of the Avatar? What of Balance? Balance — a naïve notion of the past, to some, gone as a pebble under waves. Balance cannot remain when greed and cruelty and war reign, when whole Nations are decimated. 

Balance lay encased in ice, and guarded her sleeping vessel, and waited for the moment he would wake.