Tanza
As she steadily experienced her second year amongst the Airbender Monk Culture, it was keenly obvious they too followed the strict diet of monks she knew from her past life. A vegetarian life. If anything, growing up with abundant food to feed her growing body was better than none at all.
One can not turn one's nose up at vegetables, when you experience war, famine and awful frontline rations.
Besides the vegetarian life she was fine with accepting, the rest of her second year was filled with observing and practicing what she was able to achieve with a two year old body and its motor functions.
Other than that, she spent a lot of her outside time either watching the older girls on the other terraces practice their airbending and mimic the minor things she could, while testing other methods that she can achieve with airbending.
One such day had her sit to relax after feeling the need to for a short break, before noticing as she sat on the stone terrace, tiny rising columns of warm air lifting; while such a thing is invisible to the naked eye, the small dust from the ground allowed her to see the effect.
With an idea coming to mind to play and test more of her airbending, Tanza let out a huff of air from getting up on her legs, and stood near the rising column of hot air. Bending down at her knees to view the effect closer, Tanza held her hand out with her palm open, and gently airbended to direct the flow of air.
With easy success, she smiled a bit and stood up and played with the warm air visible by the dust of the ground. This easily helped her learn that not only could she direct wind from within herself, but she could also affect external air/wind.
But her quiet experiment did not stay private for long like before. From across the terrace, Sister Silon's sharp eyes caught the subtle, rhythmic swirling of the dust motes. With a joyful gasp, the creative elder hobbled over, her bright orange robes billowing behind her like a sail.
"Oh, look at you go, little Tanza!" Silon chimed, her voice a melody of pure delight. "Dancing with the warm breath of the mountains!"
Before Tanza could pull her hand back, Silon swept her arms in a graceful, sweeping circle. The elder joined her little exercise. With a gentle flick of her wrists, Silon channeled a soft draft that fed directly into Tanza's tiny wind column, expanding it into a wider, stronger vortex, but gentle enough to not be harmful to a toddler.
To make the invisible currents truly come alive, Silon reached into her deep pockets and threw a handful of dried, colorful flower petals straight into the air.
The bright colors instantly caught the updraft, spinning and dancing in a beautiful, floating column right above Tanza's head.
That burst of color acted like a beacon for every other toddler on the terrace. Within seconds, a chaotic swarm of young girls noticed the commotion and came charging over.
They squealed, shouted, and got right into Tanza's personal space, clumsily waving their arms and blowing air from their mouths to catch the floating petals. Their wild, uncoordinated movements immediately smashed the neat air column Tanza had created and made larger by Silon.
But for Tanza, this created an opportunity for her as she watched the toddlers make a mess of the wind column; her eyes tracked the petals that were easier to see than dust up close.
She wanted to test the limits of her control, and planted her feet in a steady stance she saw the older girls do, and began weaving her arms and hands slowly to control the gust of wind visible by the petals.
With another mark of success, she guided the messed up wind column to flow around the other toddlers, who chased and spun around to catch the flower petals Tanza used to see the wind with. And the more she airbended, the easier it was to see the wind itself as she led the toddlers around like cats chasing a toy.
Silon's eyes widened in absolute delight as she watched the display. "Look at our little shepherd!" she cheered, clapping her hands and laughing as the toddler swarm swirled happily in the direction Tanza pointed.
To the elder, this was a beautiful, spontaneous manifestation of past-life instinct, a sacred old soul naturally finding harmony with her peers through the art of play. Silon immediately stepped back, entirely content to let the toddler lead the game while she simply watched with a warm, supportive smile.
Tanza completely ignored the spiritual awe she was causing. Her focus was locked entirely on the wind she was controlling.
By using the colored petals as a visual helper, she did not need to strain her eyes to track the dust in the wind funnel. She could see the boundaries of her own wind gust as she led the girls around, while she herself tracked the boundaries, velocity and holes in the air flow she directed.
Every time a toddler lunged forward and broke the current, Tanza weaved her arms and hands to repair the gust of wind to keep it going.
Guiding the other girls like cats chasing a laser pointer helped her immensely with different reasons. One, it kept the toddlers grouped and moving away from her space, preventing them from tripping over her feet or breaking her stance. Two, it proved her assumptions: she can manipulate air with her airbending not just from inside herself, but nature itself with fluid-like motions of the hands and arms she learned from watching the older girls perform.
There was indeed a big part of martial arts to weaving airbending, and while she did not know the name for the martial arts style, she knew one from seeing the older girls dance around each other in blasts of airbending and redirecting gusts at each other .
Back to reality though, the petals eventually lost their lift and drifted lazily to the stone floor after Tanza ceased her motions to relax her arms; the other toddlers were completely out of breath, giggling and collapsing onto the woven mats in a tired heap.
Tanza let out a quiet breath, and lowered her arms to herself, and plopped down to the stone floor. She had pushed her two-year-old stamina to its limit, but in return she was able to learn enough from the practice to grasp a functional grip on external airbending!
Tanza, 17 BG
The day she turned three, the soft baby blankets of the nursery were left behind. In their place, Elder Reshi presented Tanza with her first real outfit: the traditional yellow dress and long, flowing orange shawl worn by the young girls of the temple.
Standing on her small woven mat, Tanza looked down at herself. Her dark hair was left untouched, cascading down her back just like the other girls her age, but the clothing was entirely new. She lifted her arms, feeling the way the loose yellow fabric gathered at her waist and how the wide orange shawl draped over her shoulders.
To a normal child, the extra layers might have felt like a fun dress-up game. To Tanza, it was a brand-new tool to study. She took a step forward, watching how the hem of the dress caught the mountain air, instantly noting how the fabric acted like a small parachute, slowing down her movements but trapping the warmth of the stone floors.
She walked out onto the high terrace, the wind brushing against her face as she looked out over the deep canyon. Three years. She had been in this world for three full years now.
In her past life, she had relied on machines, fuel, and metal to survive and fight. Now, she was growing up in a place where people lived in harmony with the sky, eating simple vegetables from the gardens and sleeping on woven mats. It was a peaceful life, far away from the hunger and noise of her old memories.
Yet, as she watched a group of older girls gracefully twisting and leaping through the air on a distant platform, Tanza knew she couldn't just relax. Her body was finally getting stronger, her balance was steady, and her hands could finally move exactly how she wanted them to.
"Tanza, come along, little one," Sister Reshi's gentle voice called out from the doorway, holding a wooden tray filled with hollow practice balls. "It is time for your first lesson."
Tanza turned away from the canyon view, her face settling into the quiet, obedient look the elders always expected from her. The nursery was behind her. It was time to see what this three-year-old body could truly do.
Besides learning the written language, which she did her best to learn fast, her prodigy status was steadily gathering momentum among her peers. Recognizing her rapid advancement, the elders began providing her with harder vocabulary and more complex characters to study.
However, they made sure to keep her in the same class as her fellow toddlers. They spoke of keeping her 'wind' from becoming too chaotic, believing it was vital to let her flow alongside her peers in a gentle, harmonious current of air.
Tanza accepted this restriction with her usual quiet understanding. While her internal mind chafed at the enforced delay, she recognized the usefulness of staying embedded within the group. It allowed her to continue practicing her crowd-control techniques and deep-breathing drills right under the elders' noses, all while maintaining her flawless cover as a spiritually gifted, but perfectly balanced, young novice.
But as she neared her fourth birthday, she practiced more with her airbending, working to integrate it with the footwork she witnessed from the older girls on the other terraces.
While 'recess' was in session, she did her best to find solitude and practice what she had memorized, mimicking their flowing dances and fluid arm motions.
She even attempted a few backflips with the assistance of airbending, using the wind to lift her weight, direct her trajectory, and cushion her landings so her small joints could execute the action correctly. From there, she continually pushed to see how far she could stretch her growing toddler body before sheer exhaustion forced her to stop.
During one such practice session, she attempted to push herself even further by twisting her body into a mid-air side roll, hastily adjusting her arms and legs to catch her landing with a sudden gust of stabilizing air.
Such an advanced aerial maneuver would be physically impossible for a normal toddler. But by using airbending to override her physical limitations, Tanza opened her eyes to how else the manipulation of air could fundamentally expand her mobility.
But the moment Tanza twisted horizontally mid-air and snapped down onto her feet with a sharp whoosh of wind, the shouting and laughing on the playground instantly dropped. A dozen toddlers froze in mid-play, their eyes wide and their mouths open in stunned silence.
And life before, within a second, the quiet broke into high-pitched squeals. The toddlers abandoned their wooden toys and came charging across the stone terrace, completely crowding into Tanza's personal space.
They instantly tried to copy her, throwing themselves wildly into the air, flopping onto their sides, tripping over their new yellow dresses, and landing in tangled, giggling heaps on the woven mats. To them, Tanza was a playground hero.
Up on the shaded walkway overlooking the terrace, Sister Silon and Elder Paarru were watching the children. Because of Tanza's flawless timing, the two elders interpreted the incredible feat in completely different ways.
Silon clasped her hands together and let out a bright, musical laugh. To her, this was just another beautiful example of Tanza's sacred old soul instincts coming to the surface. She saw a child naturally expressing the joyful, weightless spirit of the wind. "Look at her go!" Silon giggled. "She spins just like a falling autumn leaf!"
But Elder Paarru did not laugh. Her sharp, weathered eyes narrowed as she leaned over the stone railing, watching Tanza land perfectly in her stance. As a realist, Paarru knew that a three-year-old's muscles lacked the natural torque to twist like that mid-air.
She had noticed the precise, deliberate way Tanza's hands moved to catch her fall with a gust of air. Paarru crossed her arms, a small, knowing smirk tugging at her mouth. She respected the grit, recognizing that Tanza was able to watch and learn from the older girls on the other terrace, and was capable of mimicking them to an incredible degree.
Little Tanza was simply trying her best to explore what the wind gave her, and explored with it all she could till she grew tired.
Feeling Paarru's sharp eyes locked onto her from the balcony, Tanza did not panic or lower herself to act like a giggling, clumsy toddler. She didn't need to. The elders already firmly believed her mind belonged to a deeply enlightened past-life spirit, and she knew exactly how to use that sacred old soul reputation to her advantage.
Instead of faking a fall to blend in, Tanza simply stood her ground amidst the screaming, tumbling crowd of copycats. She let out a slow, controlled breath, lowering her aching arms to her sides as her posture returned to its usual quiet, stoic calm. She paid no mind to the toddlers flopping onto the mats around her.
Up on the walkway, Paarru's smirk widened slightly, noting the young girl's total lack of reaction to the playground chaos. To the sharp elder, Tanza's unwavering focus was simply the mark of a tiny prodigy who possessed a fierce, independent drive to master the wind. She saw no reason to interfere with a child who was so beautifully exploring the boundaries of her gift until her physical body ran out of steam.
As the recess bell finally rang to call the children back inside, Tanza calmly turned toward the classroom doors, walking with a steady, measured pace that completely defied her three-year-old shell. She had successfully pushed her physical body to its absolute limits and opened her eyes to how airbending could fundamentally expand her mobility.
With the elders perfectly content to let her "old soul" run its course, she was ready to step across the threshold into her fourth year with invaluable new data securely locked in her mind.
Tanza 4 years old, 16 BG
Life continued as usual for her toddler life as she steadily grew to become a child, and her practice with Airbenders extended further with the longer she could maintain her exercises and acrobatic exercises. But the more she practiced these simple exercises, the more she wanted to figure out what else beyond bending air was.
Which began today a bit into her fourth year, mid recess and during her observation of the older girls on the other terrace going about their daily routines of practicing their airbending. She even saw several utilize their glider staffs to extend their airbending moves into the tool like a weapon.
This itself made sense, as much as the monks of her first life.
While she leaned against the stone railing of the terrace, she watched the other one across the chasm filled with girls practicing their airbending with their gliders folded up as staffs, and utilized them to varying degrees of success.
Besides the fact that it was an ingenious tool of such a caliber, a two in one, Tanza watched as the girls flipped, spun and twirled their glider staffs with some to expert degrees.
Like Shaolin monks, Airbender Monks not only practice their bending with just their hands and feet, but they even use a weapon and tool that complements their lifestyle and ability.
As she watched a senior girl twirl her staff so fast the air whistled, Tanza looked down at her own bare, small hands. The staff worked by physically trapping and pushing the air with wood. But Tanza's mind went deeper, stripping the movement down to raw physics.
Air wasn't empty space; it was a fluid state of matter, packed with real, physical molecules of oxygen and nitrogen. If a wooden staff could force those molecules to pack together and whistle, what could she do by forcing the air to fight itself?
She knew from the basic rules of nature that water boiled when its molecules violently frictioned against each other. If she could use her bending to compress a pocket of air and force two opposing currents to violently grind in opposite directions, those air molecules would have no choice but to smash together and heat up.
Stepping away from the railing toward a quiet corner of the terrace, Tanza decided it was time to see if she could make the invisible wind burn.
Once she was within a sensible spot away from the other girls to avoid any accidental harm, Tanza took a stance with her feet planted in such a way that would keep her firmly stabilized against the ground. The motion she had in mind would require her feet to keep her from losing her balance from her arms moving too fast.
Relaxing her body just enough, she calmed her mind and let the cold breeze of the monastery flow naturally around her. Tanza began making precise motions with her arms and hands to gather up a small gale in front of her chest.
Rolling her left arm below her right arm, she made circular motions with her fingers splayed to guide the wind between her hands. With her right hand, she made circular motions as well, but in the exact opposite direction. She carefully guided the air from her right hand to connect directly with the wind her left hand was driving forward, forcing the two opposing currents to violently collide and meet right between her open palms.
As the two opposing winds violently met between her splayed fingers, Tanza refused to let them slide past each other. She anchored her feet, tightened her core, and forced the clashing currents to grind harder and faster in a tight, compressed loop.
Suddenly, the space between her hands began to change.
It wasn't fire, but the sheer molecular friction generated a rapid pocket of intense heat. Because the trapped air was superheating against the freezing mountain breeze, the light passing through it began to refract and bend.
A distinct, watery heat shimmer blossomed right between her palms. Looking through the spinning pocket, the straight stone lines of the distant terraces began to wobble, warp, and distort as if she were peering through a piece of uneven glass.
Tanza stared at the visible ripple, her heart hammering against her ribs from the exertion. She was actually doing it. By forcing the air molecules to agitate just like boiling water, she was making the invisible wind visible through heating the air against itself.
Holding the watery distortion steady, Tanza carefully tilted her wrists inward, testing how the hot pocket reacted to movement. The heat was intense enough to warp the scenery, but she needed to see if it had physical utility.
With a precise, sudden snap of her hands, she drove the spinning ball of hot air downward, directing the thermal blast right beneath the hem of her loose yellow dress.
The effect was instantaneous. Because the superheated air aggressively rushed upward against the freezing mountain breeze, it created a massive, buoyant draft of heated air lift. Tanza felt her tiny body instantly become weightless, her feet lifting completely off the stone floor as she floated upwards a few inches higher than a normal air cushion would ever allow. It was a flawless, energy-efficient mechanical boost.
But maintaining the intense compression required an immense amount of stamina from a four-year-old body. After just a few seconds of floating, her focus faltered, and her aching arm muscles began to tremble.
Tanza ceased her hand motions, letting out a heavy, exhausted sigh. The heat shimmer instantly popped and dissolved into the cold mountain air, dropping her back down onto her feet. She collapsed onto her knees right there on the stone, her chest heaving as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead.
Her muscles were completely spent, but a small, victorious smirk cut through her exhaustion. She didn't need a weapon or a glider staff to create force. By making the air fight itself, she could change its temperature, bend the light, and create her own mobility.
Inside the cool, shaded corridor overlooking the terrace, Elder Paarru stood perfectly still behind the arched window, her old wrinkly arms crossed lightly over her chest. While the playful Sister Silon stood outside on the stone platform watching over the other children, Paarru's sharp, weathered eyes were locked onto Tanza's hands with focus.
Paarru didn't believe in floating spirits or poetic dances. She was a realist, and she knew exactly what that watery, wobbling ripple in the air meant.
Paarru thought to herself with a sharp, knowing grin slowly cutting across her wrinkled face. 'The little rascal is forcing the wind to fight itself.' She remarked internally.
Paarru had spent her entire life mastering the wind, and she recognized raw force when she saw it. Normal three- and four-year-olds could barely blow a candle out without losing their balance.
Yet here was Tanza, standing in a rock-solid stance she had clearly stolen from watching the older girls, deliberately generating a thick pocket of heated wind under Silon's oblivious nose.
The fact that Tanza then dropped that heat blast downward to lift her own body weight off the floor made Paarru's eyes widen just a fraction. It was incredibly smart, useful, and practical. She was treating her bending like a handmade tool, testing its boundaries to see exactly what she could squeeze out of the gusts.
When Tanza finally ran out of energy and collapsed to her knees, Paarru uncrossed her arms and leaned against the opening of the window, her grin widening. She watched the young girl immediately assume her usual calm, stoic face, completely refusing to cry or complain about her aching muscles.
'The gale doesn't just run wild in that one.'Paarru chuckled softly to herself. 'She's got the mind of a planner and the grit of a mountain badger.'
Paarru knew the other elders like Reshi and Pemi would try to slow the girl down, preaching about keeping her wind gentle so she could flow with the rest of the toddlers. But Paarru had no intention of helping them coddle a prodigy. If little Tanza wanted to push her growing body to the absolute limit, Paarru was more than happy to stand back, keep her mouth shut, and watch. The girl was a storm in the making.
Kelsang
The wind at ten thousand feet didn't care about monastic vows or peaceful meditation; it just howled, cold and biting, ripping through the clouds. High above the mountain peaks, Master Kelsang leaned forward on the massive saddle to warm her hands into her bison's fur from the cold air before she returned her hands to the reins.
Below them, the world was a sprawling map of jagged green ridges and deep, shadow-filled canyons. Kelsang let out a long, raspy breath, watching the mist form a cloud in the crisp air. She had been away from the temple for nearly two years, traveling across the Earth Kingdom and the coastlines of the Fire Nation, watching how the rest of the world actually lived. Down there, people fought for survival, empires built walls, and life required real, physical struggle.
"Almost there, big guy…" Kelsang remarked, her voice reaching Juun's ears. The massive beast offered a low, comforting groan in response, his heavy tail slapping the air currents to keep them steady against a sudden, violent updraft.
Kelsang shifted slightly in the saddle, adjusting the heavy, worn wooden glider staff strapped to her back. Her orange robes were a mess, patched with rough Earth Kingdom canvas and stained with campfire smoke from dozens of lonely wilderness camps.
The elders back home would undoubtedly sigh the moment they saw her, whispering about her lack of neatness. They would expect her to sit in the quiet halls, chant the ancient poems, and pretend the world outside their peaceful spires didn't exist.
As Juun broke through the final layer of thick white mist, the familiar stone towers and sweeping terraces of the monastery finally came into view. From this high up, she could see the tiny yellow and orange dots of her people living amongst the upside-down monastery.
Kelsang narrowed her eyes, she loved her home, but she always felt like a stranger among her own people, a rogue gale trapped in a room full of gentle breezes. She gripped Juun's reins and gave him a gentle nudge, guiding the giant animal into a steep, dramatic dive toward the main landing terrace.