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The thing most people forget is that sound travels. Sound travels through the air and through the ground, muffled and muddled the further it goes. But if you know how to listen and watch you can learn a great many things. They carry on the wind and rustle the leaves; they travel through the ground and stir the soil. Earth benders are stubborn and brash and rarely hear anything less than a rumble of stone. Air benders float on a breeze and shift with the seasons, the wind is their guide and they’ve learned how to hear the subtlest of whispers.
“The Fire Lord’s gone mad,” They whisper, in hidden alcoves and abandoned corridors of the palace. The Avatar stormed out in a rage years ago and with each passing month the Fire Lord slowly grows colder and more paranoid. He’s started muttering to himself after meetings and seeing betrayal in every argument. In the next decade Sozin will start seeing assassins in every shadow.
“How can other nations be lesser if we depend on them for so much?” They question quietly as rumors spread about the inferiority of the rest of the world. Fire Lord Sozin has recently started raising taxes on all non-fire nation citizens. There’s talk of growing the army and forming a navy. A shortage of ice, sugar, coal, and oil has started. Small protests have formed and been dealt with quietly.
“An army of air benders? It’s absurd,” They mutter as propaganda floods the streets. It hasn’t even been a year since the avatar died. The education system has been overhauled and soldiers have started patrolling more regularly. Every protest is met with either force or belittlement.
As the years go by the whispers grow. The Air Nomads have heard them, preparing for the worst long before the avatar died. Still, they hoped everything would be resolved peacefully as they taught their children how to amplify the smallest of sounds, silence the loudest of catastrophes, and (most importantly) always listen to the winds. They spread themselves far and wide, traveling by foot instead of bison and playing games to teach the children how to blend in.
The Earth benders have started noticing the tremors of the earth. Something is coming and not even they can ignore it anymore. The Air Nomads have hidden several herds of bison on various mountains. Air temples are occupied by only the oldest and most hopeful Air Nomads. The Earth Nation was unnerved by the discovered absence of so many of their friends. The Fire Nation was barely in contact with the others anymore. Even the Water Tribes have sensed the building tension and rarely leave their waters.
“The Avatar cycle must be broken,” Fire Lord Sozin said to himself, alone in his study. Unknowingly uttering the words that would cause the very avatar he was looking for to vanish for the next hundred years. The Air Nomad Council had heard him, the echo dancing on the breeze through the temple.
“Summon Aang. It’s time we tell him,” The council decided. Only Gyatso had the slightest hint of what would happen next. After all, he knew how to listen to both the whispers of the wind and the song of a heart.
~
A hundred years later a young air bender is freed from the ice. Two siblings and a banished prince see the resulting light and later that day a message is delivered. The wind spreads the words throughout the world bringing hope to many. “The Avatar is back”