The Warrior And The Pacifist

Taking flight

No she was not honored, not in the slightest. In truth she should be. Since Avatar Wan's successor Avatar Jetsan had begun the tradition of Avatar's bringing companions with them in their travels. Those companions became almost as famous if not just as famous as the Avatars they served. She could think of more than one off the top of her head that had done heroic things during their time with the Avatar, things worthy of praise. But that life wasn't for Leki, she didn't want fame and praise just because at one point she had been associated with an Avatar.

Leki had only intended to deliver a message, nothing more. Yet somehow Abbot Gephel had roped her into a task that she truthfully wanted no part of. This wouldn't be the first time he had done such a thing. Leki had known Abbot Gephel for many years, and considered him one of her closest confidants...but spirits forbid did he enjoy taking her out of her comfort zone. But what was she supposed to do? She couldn't say no to the Abbot, let alone the Avatar himself!

She kept that forced smile as the man known to her as Avatar Tamura stared at her. Those ember eyes of his seeming to look at her as if he was sizing her up, a chill ran over her in that moment. She and practically everyone who didn't live under a rock had heard of how Tamura had made his debut as the Avatar. He had evoked the Avatar State during a battle in the Fire Nation and almost completely changed the landscape. Just the thought of him tearing at the very ground itself as people had ran in fear of him...terrified her. Tamaru was...he was a killer, and he certainly wouldn't have been her first choice in being Avatar. An Avatar was supposed to keep the peace through peaceful means, not kill everyone in sight. But the Universe must have saw something in him that she couldn't, him being given the title couldn't have just been a fluke.

Avatar Tamura just stared at her and kept staring at her as if a sort of trance before snapping out of it. "Very well..." He mumbled. "I will retrieve my gear and then we can depart." He then half turned to Gephel and preformed a quick bow which the Abbot returned, Tamura then turned around and went back the way he had come soon vanishing around a corner.

Leki held in a breath that she didn't know she had been holding in, the relief at being out of that man's presence taking a weight off of her shoulder. "Abbot I greatly respect and admire you, but I do not appreciate being put on the spot like that."

Gephel smiled at her, chuckling softly to a joke that only he knew. "Why, did you have other plans that I wasn't aware of?"

Her cheeks feeling warm. Of course she didn't have plans, she never did. Her days at the Western Air Temple were run by a routine that she had long since become accustomed to. Right at dawn she awoke and preformed her yoga routine to help keep her chi paths open. She then went to the common area to help prepare the morning meal for her fellow sisters. After that it was an hour of silent meditation followed by rather long hours spent in the Temple Library. Mid afternoon she attended the noon meal, afterwards devoting a few hours to practice her Airbending to keep her form sharp. Finally she devoted another hour to silent meditation before going to sleep.

"T-that's beside the point." She quickly stammered. "I don't know anything about the Earthlands."

"Exactly." Abbot Gephel replied, sitting back on his pillow and picking up his cup of tea. "You have had your tattoos for eight years now and yet you have rarely if ever left the confines of the Western Temple and when you do it is only to travel to one of our many religions sites. There is an entire world out there to explore, full of amazing sights and even more amazing people."

Abbot Gephel in the option of many was unorthodox in his beliefs. While his fellow abbot of the Northern Temple, and his Mother Superior counterparts in the female run Western and Eastern Temples believed that unless absolutely necessary no contact should be made with the outside world, Gephel preached that the Air Nation as a society should make strides to communicate with the outside world.