Time's Spiral

Time’s Spiral

Avatar: The Last Airbender is property of Nick Studios, © 2007 Nick.

Monk Gyatso stood at the edge of the temple. The air was soft and warm that spring day, full of positive energy, the kind the air nomads thrived off of. He turned, after watching the sunrise, and sat in his garden, listening to the waterfalls and the wind through the well-tended trees. Lemurs swooped and scurried, bison chewed the earth. It was a glorious day.
The swooping of two gliders interrupted Monk Gyatso’s meditation.
A man and woman advanced toward the garden, hands clasped. The woman held a newborn baby in her other arm.
Monk Gyatso did not open his eyes to see who it was. He didn’t have to.
“Ah, young airbenders Sariah and Kai. What can I do to help you today?” the aged monk replied in their presence.
The young woman, Sariah, held her newborn with pride. She looked down at him with beautiful blue-green eyes, felt the tears fill them as she spoke.
“We want you to train our son.”
Monk Gyatso stood, opened his eyes. He advanced toward the young couple quickly.
“Kai, your son is but a few days old,” Gyatso reasoned. Kai bowed to his master, his brown hair short and soft. His airbending tattoos were all that gave away his skill. He stood, his gray eyes glinting, his jaw stubble bright in the sunshine.
“My son is the Avatar,” he said quietly. Monk Gyatso raised his eyebrows.
“Your son!” he scoffed.
“Please, Gyatso-san,” Sariah begged, bowing. “Our son woke in the middle of the night and his eyes were glowing brighter than the sun at noontime! The Avatar spirit is deep within him...we just know it!”
Monk Gyatso said, “Let me see the child.”
Sariah handed the baby to the aged Monk carefully. The baby boy’s face twisted, and he opened his eyes. They were gray, like his father’s. He gazed up at the old monk in curiosity. The monk smiled.
“We can run our tests, to see.” He handed the boy back to his parents. “But you know the rules. No training can begin before two years of age.”
“Yes, Monk Gyatso,” Kai and Sariah echoed, bowing.

Six months had passed. The air temple was now bitter cold, covered in snow. Kai trudged toward the gates, Sariah and their son in her arms.
The monks stood on their entry. Everyone bowed in greeting.
“Kai and Sariah,” the first monk declared. “You have suspicions that your son is indeed the Avatar?”
“Yes,” the parents softly replied.
“Give us proof before our tests can begin.”
“Very well...” Kai started. Sariah continued,
“Our son has had repeated incidences in which he awakens in the middle of the night, during which time his eyes glow a pure white and his body elevates somewhat above his bedding. When he gets upset...he...breaks objects from across the room, without even moving, just by glaring at an object and crying loudly. He also doesn’t seem to like any of the toys we gave him, from both my parents and Kai’s.”
“I see,” Monk Gyatso nodded. “Place him in this room and leave him with us. We will send a lemur to you when he is ready.”
The parents bowed, took their leave. Sariah looked back at her son, sitting in the center of the large room. She sighed sadly as Kai led her to the temple gates once more.
Monk Gyatso watched the boy carefully. The child was busy crawling around, looking at everything, drooling, smiling.
“He seems like an average infant,” one monk commented. Gyatso silenced him with an outward palm.
“We must wait. Very soon we shall see if the parents are telling the truth.”
The boy stopped. He sat. He stared at the monks, who stared back at him. He blinked, looked away. He pursed his lips. He pulled on his toes.
“Give him the toys,” Gyatso commanded. The monks set before the child a random assortment of toys, some of which being very old.
The boy looked up at the monks, then over at the toys. One in particular drew his attention–a small plane with a pull string. He crawled over to it, pulled it toward him, and began chewing on it.
“He’s chewing on an ancient artifact!” gasped one monk, horrified.
Gyatso smiled a little. “Let him do as he pleases. That is just one of the five.”
Soon, one toy after the other, the boy had found all of the toys which signified his spirit. The monks were astonished.
“He’s–he’s chosen all five of Avatar Roku’s toys!” another monk gasped.
Upon the word ‘Roku,’ the boy cocked his head a little, then went right on chewing on the ancient top.
Monk Gyatso suddenly stood, took the top from the boy’s mouth. He returned to his spot.
“Gyatso! What are you doing?!” a third monk cried.
The child growled. He frowned, he huffed. Suddenly, his eyes began to glow. He bellowed. The air shook so hard, the ground rumbled, the monks were jostled from their seats. The top rolled back to him. He sat, replaced it in his mouth.
He returned to chewing contentedly.
“My fellow monks,” Gyatso smiled, “I believe we have in our presence the new Avatar.”

A brown flying lemur landed in the windowsill of Kai’s home the next morning. The snow had finally stopped falling, but the air was still cold. Kai saw Sariah sleeping, snuggled in the bedsheets. He smiled. He kissed her on the cheek, then left.
Kai landed on the temple foyer. Monk Gyatso bowed.
“Your son is the Avatar,” he said quietly, so as not to disturb the other children playing and learning airbending. “Our tests proved it was so.”
“So...what should we do?” Kai asked tentatively.
“First, tell me the boy’s name.”
“Aang.”
“A unique name,” Gyatso commented. He led Kai to his private chambers.
“I can’t just come home without my son,” Kai began, realizing where things were headed. “Sariah and I will miss him.”
“Now that we know he is the Avatar, you must leave him with us. This is the safest place for him.”
“No!” Kai argued, the wind whipping around him and his master. “He is my son! He will grow up as a normal child!”
“What will happen when your son gets upset at school?” Gyatso argued. “Or in the playground? He must learn to control the Avatar state! He must learn to master the elements, air being his natural element!”
“My son is only a baby!” Kai shouted, rage flooding his mind. “What could he possibly do?!”
“Kai!” boomed Gyatso. The wind from his anger nearly set the young man on the ground. “Aang is the Avatar! He must learn air from the best airbenders in the world, and this is the best place for him!”
“I love him!” Kai cried, clenching his fists.
“I will be your son’s guardian.” Gyatso came closer to Kai, placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I trained and took good care of you, didn’t I?”
Kai looked away, his gray eyes burning like ash.
“Gyatso-san, I...I’m scared. If my son...is the Avatar...”
“I know...” Gyatso agreed. “The Fire Nation has become increasingly more hostile toward its neighbors. Every year they become more restless...it’s as if they’re waiting for something...”
“It will take years before he is ready!”
“Perhaps more than I can spare,” the aged monk chuckled gently. “But, Kai, please. Go and see your son, bid him goodbye.”
“I’ll need to wake Sariah...”
“You already did,” came a forlorn yet strong voice from the corner of the room. Kai embraced Sariah, gave her a warm kiss. “It’s time, then.”
“Your son is in the most capable hands in the world,” Gyatso continued, his arms around both parents.

Sariah gathered her son into her arms, smiled despite the warm tears filling her eyes. She nuzzled him, and he laughed. She felt his warm, dark brown hair, much like her own, flowing and free.
Kai held him next, gazed into the mirror of his son’s gray eyes. Tears filled his eyes.
“My son,” he whispered. He kissed Aang on the forehead. “May the winds from all directions forever keep you aloft, and may your heart tread lightly as the softest breeze.” It was the airbender’s goodbye, and Kai had a difficult time keeping his voice from cracking.
Both parents held their son, heard his laughter, much like his mother’s, watched his gazing gray eyes, like his father’s. They wept as they leapt off the balcony of the air temple, never to see their only son again. Aang reached out to them, fussing in the arms of Monk Gyatso. He cried furiously.


Aang swallowed nervously. Now three years old, he was deathly afraid of the whirring sound coming from the man above him.
Whrrrrrt. Whift. Locks of soft, brown hair floated to the floor around his tiny feet. Whift. Whift. More hair. It piled up worse than a blizzard’s snowpile.
Aang looked at himself. He cried. He was now bald, as were all other monks.
“Come along, Aang,” Monk Gyatso said softly. He took the boy’s hand.
Aang was still wiping his tears away. Gyatso had an idea.
“How about we go see the pig-chickens and the bison?” he suggested. Aang had an affinity for animals, and even though he only knew a few sentences, he knew this sentence especially well:
“Yeah! Let’s go see the aminals!” He was instantly cheered up.

Two years flew by like the breeze through the trees. Aang was now five years old, and loved to play airbending games with air balls, as well as seeing the animals at the little stable near the school.
Gyatso took him on a special trip to the stables one day after his third airbending lesson at school.
“Something wonderful happened last night, Aang,” Gyatso explained. “A cow bison gave birth.”
“She did?!” Aang squealed.
“Yes,” Gyatso smiled. “We’re going to visit her babies today.”
“Oh, boy!” Aang gasped, excited.
He ran over to the fencing enclosure. About ten little bison were stumbling around on their six stubby legs, squeaking and crying. One was apart from all the rest, tinier and sleepier. Aang smiled wide.
“I like that one, Monk Gyatso!” he cried, pointing at the little runt.
“But it’s a runt,” the monk farmer grunted. Gyatso smiled.
Aang grabbed the baby bison, held it in his arms. He rushed over to Gyatso, his eyes pleading.
“Can I have him?” Aang begged. “Please? I promise I’ll take really good care of him!”
Gyatso smiled. “Of course, Aang.”
“This one’s special! I just know it!” Aang held the little bison in his hands, so that it was face-to-face with him. It licked him on the face, and he laughed. “I’ll call you Appa!” he said. He ran over to Monk Gyatso, past him, into the pavilion and past bewildered young children.

“Appa, yip, yip!” Aang whispered to his sleepy bison friend. The bison was now some ten feet long, fully grown, maybe five years old. He yawned. Aang, panicked, shushed him.
“Appa! No! We have to go!” Aang begged his furry friend. “The other monks say I’m the Avatar, buddy,” he confessed. “They want to take me away, from you and Monk Gyatsu and all the other monks. We’ve gotta get out of here!”
The bison grunted. He was very tired. The sky was littered with stars.
“Come on!” Aang persisted, on his head now. “Yip, yip!”
The bison slapped his tail as a beaver onto the marbled temple balcony floor. They lifted upward, ascending quickly into the icy cold air.
Aang looked down and back. He knew he was leaving his post, but at the same time, he felt he had done the right thing. “Those monks are crazy to think that I’m the Avatar!” he mumbled as soon as the temple seemed far enough away. “I’m just me...Aang. I’m just a better airbender than those other kids. That’s all. Maybe they wanted to send me away to a special airbending academy.”
Appa grunted, as if in protest.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Aang reassured the bison with a scratch behind his cow-like ear. “We’ll be home soon.”
Aang suddenly felt a pang of guilt, of loneliness, of sadness. Tears filled his gray eyes. He realized, softly,
“But...where is home?”
Aang sat, thinking about this. He had never seen his parents, nor even known their names. Aang had always been told his parents were master airbenders, learning from Monk Gyatsu.  Monk Gyatsu always told him he looked just like his father, and that he had his mother’s smile. But Monk Gyatsu also refrained from telling him he was the Avatar.
A crack of lightning lit up the sky. Appa, startled, dove downward, toward the inky black sea. The rumble of thunder that followed frightened both Aang and Appa.
“It’s just a storm,” Aang muttered. “Nothing to be afraid of.” But his voice had lost all reassurance. Appa cried out. The water beneath them rose in huge swells. Aang had never seen water do that. He felt the cold, sharp rain lash his cheeks, the icy wind battering him, the heaviness of the dark clouds obscuring the starry evening sky.
“It’s a really big storm,” he swallowed. He decided he should turn back.
But then, Appa pulled up fiercely, without warning. A wave some twenty feet high towered over them both, its foam spraying them, its power immense. Aang cried out, horrified. The wave slowly descended on them, then smashed them.
For a moment, Aang felt nothing. The cold of the water, the muted rush of it in his ears, was all he felt. He was weightless, free, in the water, something even airbending could not give him. But waterbending could.
A tremendous sensation filled his young body. Wisdom, power, strength, balance–they all flooded him as the wave seconds before. He suddenly felt very old, ancient, part of the earth and sea and air. He felt large, humbling. His eyes snapped open, revealing an ancient spirit’s white gaze. His tattoos erupted light. Bubbles exited his nostrils. He slammed his fists together. The water vortexed, drew Appa closer to him, drew air from above inward, pushed the cold away.
He was now frozen, his heart thudding away as the core of the earth throbbed thousands of feet beneath the waves. He was lost to time, and it was his keeper.

The young man in a nice warm new coat pushed the canoe through the icy waters. His sister sat behind, angry at him for getting them lost in the ice floes again.
“I just need to find us some fish,” he said. But the girl huffed.
“Sokka, you always get us lost!”
“Katara,” Sokka argued, “I do not always get us lost.”
“What about the time when you saw that penguin, and tried to hunt it down?”
“We have to eat!”
“Only you can think about food 24/7.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sokka shot back. “Well, what do you do? You don’t hunt, or sew, or do anything useful! All you’ve been doing, for a year, is playing with your stupid magical water tricks!”
Katara flushed, fury filling her mind. “Waterbending is an ancient art! It is not magical tricks! Nor is it stupid!”
“Whooo,” Sokka said, moving his arms as if to pull invisible water around him. “Look at me! I can make the water move around me! Ooooh...”
“Stop it!” Katara cried, becoming angrier. The canoe, unbeknownst to the siblings, had hit the edge of the iceberg in which Aang was frozen.
“Katara,” Sokka said, in a smug tone, “both you and I know that no matter how magical the water is, we still need to put the safety and well-being of our tribe first.”
“The water isn’t magic!!” Katara snarled. “I bend to protect us!”
“What’re you gonna do? Splash the Fire Nation a little?”
“That is it!!” Katara roared. The iceberg behind her began to crack. Sokka noticed.
“Um, Katara...”
“I’ve had it!! I’m a waterbender, Sokka!! It’s a part of who I am!! Nothing is ever going to change that!!” The iceberg began to rumble.
“AND IT IS NOT STUPID!!” she bellowed. A terrible crack and boom signaled the opening of the iceberg. Katara turned, shocked and frightened.
“Now look at what you did!” Sokka squeaked.
“Oh, so now this is all my fault!” Katara snarled.
Aang released the Avatar spirit. The siblings gasped as they watched the boy slide free from his icy prison and slump down in front of Katara gently.
Katara rushed over, and Sokka cried, “Katara!! What are you doing?!”
Katara shot a dark glance at her brother. “He’s waking up!” she hissed. She turned her attention to the boy. He was only a little younger than she was. She noticed his strange blue tattoos, his sweet and gentle face. She gently cradled his round head in her gloved hand.
“Mmm...” Aang grunted. He opened his gray eyes slowly.
The most beautiful thing in the world was holding him in her arms, a beautiful young woman, with brown hair in loops and a bun. She smiled as he came to. He noticed how blue and how bright her eyes were, how she glowed in the winter sun. His heart skipped a beat.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hello,” he croaked. Sokka pulled back, in shock.
“He’s alive?!”
“Of course he’s alive!” Katara spat.
“But he was frozen in that iceberg!!”
“I was?” Aang asked. He sat up. Katara helped him to his feet. “Where am I?”
“I’m Katara,” Katara introduced, “and this is my brother, Sokka. You’re in the waters of the Southern Water Tribe.”
“So you’re waterbenders!” Aang cried. He recalled Monk Gyatsu reading stories to him about the waterbending tribes, of how they used their opponent’s forces against them. He smiled at Katara. “I’m Aang. I’m an airbender.”
He instantly swept onto an airball, wanting to impress Katara. Sokka’s jaw dropped, then he said, sarcastically:
“Great. Even more magic.”
“It’s not magic,” Aang corrected. He swept around Katara and Sokka, now facing the frowning young man. “It’s bending.”
“Sokka can’t bend,” Katara smiled, finally glad to meet another elemental bender. “But I can waterbend.”
“That’s great!” Aang said, landing gently. “Show me what you can do!”
“Well, I...” Katara began. “Oh, all right.” She pulled the water upward, Aang watching in fascination and admiration. She managed to catch a fish, keeping it in an orb of water. She released it.
“Hey!!” Sokka said. “You could do that all along?!”
Katara winked at Aang. He blushed.
“You never want me to practice when you go fishing.”
“Ugh!” Sokka groaned.
Aang laughed. Katara giggled.
“Let’s head back before Gran-Gran starts to worry,” Sokka said. They turned the canoe around. Aang sat behind Katara. He smiled wistfully at her.
“Hey, Katara,” Sokka announced. “Looks like the new kid is checking you out.”
Aang blushed furiously, and looked away. Katara made a face.
“Sokka, stop teasing him!”
“Hey, I can’t tease just you all the time. It gets boring.”

Aang sat up, startled. The volcanic ash smell filled his nostrils, reminding him of where he was. Katara sat up quietly.
“Aang?” she asked, concerned. “Are you all right?”
“It was the dream again...about my past...about my parents...about...you,” he said slowly. Katara crawled next to him, wrapped her arms around him, held him tight.
“It was a dream, nothing more...” Katara reassured.
Aang turned, faced Katara. Startled, she moved back. He pulled her forward.
“Kiss me, Katara,” he said quietly. She blushed.
“What??” she said, blushing now. “Why?”
“I know it sounds silly. But...I need to know something.”
“Can’t we discuss this?”
But Aang kissed her. She closed her eyes, felt her shyness and uneasiness melt away.
She opened her eyes. He was smiling, his gray eyes bright. He grasped her into a hug.
“I enjoyed it, too,” Katara said. Tears filled his eyes as he held her.
“I don’t want to lose any moment I have with you,” he whispered. She blushed.
“I’ve lost so many people that I love...I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“I’ll be with you for always, Aang.” She rubbed his cheek gently. “I promise. I won’t turn my back on you, as long as you need me.”
“Sometimes, I wish it was just you and me, Katara.”
“Hey, no kidding.” Her sarcasm wasn’t as sharp as her brother’s but just as poignant.
“I wish you could meet my parents, that I could, so they could see the man I will become...”
“...that you already are.” Katara pulled him into her arms, kissed him again. She smiled. “Your parents would be extremely proud. And you know what?”
“What?”
“So am I.”
She produced her mother’s necklace.
“Katara, what are you doing?” Aang asked suspiciously. She smiled, turned away from him, after giving him the water tribe necklace.
“Help me put it on.”
“Okay.” He tied it around her neck gently. She smiled, touching the pendant.
She pulled a water tribe necklace from her pocket, a man’s version of hers.
“I made this while we were in the village by the river. I thought, since you made me one, I should make you one, too. I mean, since you’ve lost your glider and all...”
“Katara, this is awesome!” Aang held the necklace made of shells and serpents’ teeth. She tied it around his neck.
“Promise me you won’t tell Sokka, okay?”
“Why would I do that?” he asked, blinking. She blushed.
“Well...” she trailed off. She looked at the ground, fidgeted.
“Katara...”
“It’s not just any necklace, Aang.”
“What do you mean?” Aang asked, grasping her shoulders, looking into her deep blue eyes. “It’s not stolen, or anything like that, is it?!”
“No...it’s not that...”
“Why does it have to be a secret, then?”
“Because....” she began. Then, she spat it out: “It’s an engagement necklace, Aang!”
“WHAT?!” Aang cried, waking Toph. She lay there, silent, trying to pretend to still be asleep. Sokka snored on.
“Aang, I love you.”
Aang gasped for breath, his heart hammering, his head dizzy. “What??” he gasped.
“I love you.”
“Wait...you’re saying....you want to marry me??” he finally figured it out.
“Yes.” Katara held his hands in hers.
“But...we’re just kids!”
“An engagement is a promise. It lasts a lifetime.”
“An entire lifetime?!” Aang cried. Katara smiled.
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Katara...” Aang said, backing up. “I love, you, too. A lot. But....marriage? It’s an awfully big step, don’t you think?”
“I don’t see myself with anyone else,” Katara sighed.
They sat. Aang was stunned. He felt the necklace. He looked at the waiting Katara. He felt time moving under him now, faster than Roku’s spirit guide, faster than his spirit could move. A lifetime. How many had he seen? What did it matter, if a woman like Katara was here now? He was the Avatar. He would be reborn in the next phase of the cycle, in another form. He knew his path was one that Katara could never follow.
He swallowed hard. In that moment, Katara meant the world to him. She was his beacon, his hope, in times of darkness and doubt. She was by his side. She healed him when no one else could. He looked into her eyes. He drew a deep breath.

A comet, fierce and terrible, stood in his path.
Katara wept as she was shielded by the only man she’d ever truly loved.
He smiled at her, then. A little smile, but true. And its message, the one of hope, of love, was timeless and real.
And their fates were decided...