Chapter 63 – Ahimsa
(A/N - Ahimsa is an Ancient Indian philosophical term meaning "nonviolence")
Toph is thrown into the air by a crowd of cheering soldiers as they go to set up an impromptu party in the barracks. Dan follows her along to keep an eye on her and gives her confused looks every now and then.
Once the news passes down to the Outer Ring, even the people in the slums start celebrating. Nuwa forced some nobles from the Inner Ring to come with her and see where their “protection fees” were going. Needless to say, they were scared halfway to death at the sight of the combustion blasts and ran back to the Inner Ring with their minds much more at ease with the idea of supporting the military.
Azula picks up Aang, who doesn’t resist, and uses fire thrusters to bring him up to Katara on the ramparts. Aang looks even worse when Nuwa looks at him up close. He’s got bloodshot eyes that are opened a little too wide, an impassive face, and he smells entirely of puke. Nuwa cleans him up with some waterbending before she lets Katara hug him.
The Council of Five seem intimidated by the fact that Nuwa can both waterbend and earthbend, but they know enough about her not to have any ideas, ask any questions, or speak of it. They had made some conclusions about why those corrupt noble families are falling apart given that some of the intelligence goes through them. She’s definitely a vicious woman! The generals look at each other and go to find Kuei. Compared to standing on the tip of a needle around her, they’d rather serve the laidback King.
The Dai Li notice the state of the Avatar and look troubled. What’s the public going to think if they see the Avatar like this? Azula orders them to clear a path and start escorting all of them except Toph and Dan back to the Palace.
Iroh looks at Aang with pity and sighs. He’s definitely killed the most people among everyone here during his long military career. It took him a long time to come to grips with the fact that some things are fated. Resolving to have a talk with Aang, he strokes his beard and follows along.
Aang totally ignores the celebratory mood of the entire city as they pass through each of the rings back to the Palace. The only one he reacts to is Katara, but even then he’s still on auto-pilot, only holding her hand.
When they’re almost at the Palace, his grip on Katara’s hand is tightening so much that she feels her bones creak. Nevertheless, Katara doesn’t complain or resist. If it was anyone else, they wouldn’t care much about the death of someone who was trying to actively kill them. They would most likely feel relief.
Aang is not like that. He’s the last airbender. The last holder of the culture of an entire civilization! Although he’s also a fun and cheerful guy, the truth is that he puts a lot on his back. The critical point here is that the primary precept of the air nomads is non-violence! Whenever Aang fights, he never goes for crippling or killing blows. At most he roughs up the opponent while dodging their blows until they run out of chi.
Today, he blames himself for the death of Combustion Man and faces a harsh lesson that threatens his spiritual foundation. Katara leads him to their room and sits him down. She feels that the reason Aang is holding her hand so tight is to keep himself with her and prevent his mind from slipping away into despair.
Although no one saw what exactly caused Combustion Man to blow himself up, Nuwa had an idea of what happened based on canon. She told this to Katara on the ramparts in hopes that Aang will react positively to the coincidental circumstances surrounding the death. Katara hesitantly explains how combustion bending works and that most likely a pebble blasted from the nearby battle temporarily blocked his chakra. In other words, Aang is not directly responsible.
Aang dry heaves minute amounts of stomach acid into a chamberpot listening to the exact circumstances that caused Combustion Man’s own bending to blow his head up. Aang breathes heavily with his hands on the floor in front of the chamberpot. Feeling Katara’s comforting hands on his back, he slowly starts sobbing.
“I.. I.. I still.. helped..”
Katara comforts, “It was an accident, Aang. No one would have expected something like this to happen.”
Aang quiets down in exhaustion and squeezes in through sobs, “I have.. disgraced the Air nomads.”
He passes out in emotional fatigue onto the floor after that. Katara cries softly and picks up Aang to put him onto the bed. She gets a sudden craving for blueberries. She can’t skimp out on her appetite only for Aang’s sake. She’s got a baby on the way to take care of too. Nuwa, Azula, and Iroh are outside the door when Katara opens it to get some food.
Katara shakes her head sadly and heads out the door. The enlightened trio look into the room to check on Aang’s state of mind. Iroh presses his fingers to his head and says, “His chakras are dangerously unstable. Raava has taken him into the Spirit Realm.”
Nuwa tells them, “As a child in the Air Temple, Aang grew up excelling at airbending, but the monks there made him separate from his friends to spend most of his time in Avatar training. Monk Gyatsu, Aang’s mentor, was the only one who tolerated his mischievousness and encouraged him to have fun. When the other monks wanted to move Aang away from Gyatsu to do serious training, Aang ran away on Appa. He and Appa got caught in a storm where Raava sealed him in ice for 100 years.”
“He undoubtedly has great regrets over the events that transpired, despite knowing that there would not be much he could have done to save either Gyatsu or the air nomads who raised him. It seems like he takes the airbender pact of non-violence way too far for a related reason.”
“Although he doesn’t consider himself as serious or as responsible as the monks, he’s always been attuned to the free-floating and nonviolent aspects of air nomad culture, even in his airbending. Perhaps nonviolence for Aang is something to remind him of a time long gone. Perhaps it was his subconscious plan to fight and beat the Fire Nation with nonviolence in order to prove a point: that his path of nonviolence can beat their path of genocidal war.”
Azula sighs in pity, “What a naive kid.”
Iroh calmly lectures his niece, “Who are we to comment on the fated path of the Avatar? We can only guide him back when he falls astray. What is naive to you is his very way of life. He grew up in a time of peace.”
Nuwa humphs and retorts, “Fate is a fickle mistress. It’s up to us to mold ourselves to overcome the limits fate places upon us.”
Iroh raises his eyebrows, “Oh? That’s quite ambitious of you to say. I’ll stick to my tea.”
~ ~ ~
Aang appears in a hot spring inside the Spirit Realm where he sleeps as he floats on the surface. Coincidentally, it’s the same one that Yue and Sokka had their first time in. The proprietor sees Raava looking at Aang with worry and runs off thinking, ‘Why am I getting so many humans lately?!’
Hours later, Aang stirs and as he moves, he destabilizes. Dropping into the hot spring, he panics and flashes back to the time where he thought he would drown from the storm after he ran away from the Air Temple. Unlike that time though, he easily surfaces after flailing twice.
He looks around and finds himself in a very comfortable hot spring. A miniature Raava looks at him from just outside the water, but floats up and circles him before sitting on his shoulder and cuddling to his face.
Aang submerges his body just up to his armpits and asks, “Hello Raava.. Will you also try to convince me that it’s not my fault he died?”
Raava sighs deeply and says in her motherly tone, “Aang, death is as much a natural part of life as is birth. For every death in a balanced world, there is a corresponding birth. Do you think that you can prevent all deaths as the Avatar?”
Aang raises his head slightly, “That’s diff-”
Raava interrupts, “That man died to a whim of fate just like Katara explained. If he survived, don’t you think some of the earthbenders, Zuko, or Ty Li might have died?”
Aang’s pupils shrink, “No.. no. I would have protected them.”
Raava floats around him onto his other shoulder and replies with sorrow, “You’re not strong enough yet, Aang. Consider this: Would you still be nonviolent if you saw the air nomads being slaughtered in front of you? I saved you from seeing it firsthand, but you saw how close that combustion blast had come to Katara. Will you always put your cultural ideals over the safety of your lover and child?”
Aang raises his hands to his head as he suffers a massive headache, “No. Not Katara.. that’s not fair!”
Raava softens her tone, “Aang.. Isn’t it enough that you try your best and let go of the things you can’t change?”
Aang’s head slowly stops hurting as he looks up and tears start dropping down his eyes. “That’s right. You’re right Raava!”
Aang hugs her to his face and gets her wet, “Thank you, Raava. I love you.”
Raava internally sighs in relief and hugs him back, “I love you too, Aang.”
Aang suddenly feels that he’s had extreme tunnel vision this whole time trying to carry the whole burden of the air nomad culture on his back. Of course, he will never stop trying to restore the air nomads, but he’s only human! He can only try his hardest and hope for the best! Everything other than that is out of his hands.
He tried his hardest not to kill in the earlier battle and even though the end result was death, that too was out of his hands. If he had survived, he would then try his hardest to attack Combustion Man with fire to protect the Dai Li agents! Aang, for the very first time, decided that he had to firebend in order to protect his friends!
Raava sees the light return to Aang’s eyes and relaxes as the tension in her body fades, ‘Goddammit, every Avatar has one moment like this in their lives and I have to be super careful with my words or they’ll go absolutely crazy. Thankfully, I should be fine for this life cycle now. Time for me to go back to sleep.’
“Ok, go back to your body now.” Raava unceremoniously kicks Aang out of the Spirit Realm back into his body and vanishes back into his soul. He shoots up and sees Katara, Nuwa, Iroh, and Azula around his bed. They all notice that something’s changed about him.
Aang shouts cheerfully, “Hey guys!” Then he scrunches his nose at his own breath. He quickly waterbends a glass of water to clean his throat and gurgle the vomit residue out.
Nuwa looks at him suspiciously, “Err.. you’re fixed already?”
Iroh coughs, “What Stella means is: Have you found your way back onto your path?”
Katara glares at her with slight dissatisfaction remembering that Nuwa has a bad habit of dehumanizing others at times. Swallowing a few blueberries without chewing, she quickly asks, “Are you OK, darling?”
Aang smiles warmly at Katara and the others. He says, “Yes! Raava and I had a talk and she helped me work through things. I can even do this now!”
Aang carefully firebends a candle to light it up. Katara widens her eyes, “Wow Aang! You can firebend again!” Aang puffs up his chest triumphantly.
Azula, Nuwa, and Iroh offer their congratulations as well and leave the lovebirds alone.
Nuwa thinks of what she remembers about canon Raava’s wisdom, compassion, and motherly demeanor with jealousy as she finds herself involuntarily comparing Raava to the [System]. She shakes her head and occupies her mind with happier thoughts like having a big celebration tonight! It’s been 3 months since they had an orgy, right?