𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄
𝘌𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥
┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
THE VERY FIRST THING THAT Elua noticed when she began to come to was the odd sound of silence and the rough feeling of grass scratching against her skin. However, it was about what she had expected to feel when she woke up, seeing as the last thing in her sight before she blacked out had been a bunch of pine trees advancing nearer and nearer to her when had she fallen off of her glider. The next thing she detected was her mind ever so slowly starting its journey back into a conscious state along with her body beginning to stir from its earlier post laid on the ground with nothing save the darkness behind her eyelids to keep her company while she had sat there in lifelessly. Although, she wasn't actually lifeless or dead—obviously—, it almost felt as though she were...
It was an odd feeling—coming out of unconsciousness induced by an unearthly source, rather similar to the act of waking up from a deep sleep plagued by nightmare, and yet, it was just foreign enough to make everything feel distorted and confusing as some sense of delirious thoughts boggled her mind. None of them made any sense, in all honesty. It was just a bunch of slurred remarks and nonsense swimming around her somewhat empty head.
A massive headache immediately hit her like a punch to the face while her whole body ached as she tried to push herself up and off of the rough grass ground, wheezing out in misery as she did so, feeling sharp pains within her ribs, and struggling to use her arms—not unlike when she had first woken up out of the iceberg back in the South Pole only a few weeks ago. All of the discomforts soon forced her back down onto the ground while she grumbled in irritation and misery as she squeezed her eyes closed and placed a gentle hand to the side of her head. This was the last thing she needed, right now...
It felt as if she had fallen out of the sky and landed on– oh, wait. That was exactly what had happened, wasn't it?
Elua's eyes instantly snapped open at that thought as she quickly recalled what had happened right before she had passed out. A frantic look took over her cedar eyes as she began to look around herself. Her lungs struggled with alarm, but as she began to glimpse over the world surrounding her, a frown of confusion sank over her face and her breathing soon fell into a rhythm of bafflement, as well.
She had been expecting to find herself near the burnt down forest that she and the others had come across only a few hours ago, but she wasn't there at all, instead, she was now sitting in the middle of a random bamboo forest that she had never seen before in her life. Weird. An exasperated sigh soon left her lungs as she took her mind out of its confused state and continued to glance around. She had to admit that all of it was rather bizarre. There was a strong sense of sadness looming over the forest of tall and lean trees while the atmosphere held an odd orange and red hue to it. A frown still stuck to her brows as she looked up at the trees, viewing them all reach up towards the skyline with ease, and even if she couldn't see the sky from below, she knew that their towering height could possibly help her figure out where she was.
Easy enough— she thought to herself as she dropped her shaky arms down to her sides and went to airbend herself up and onto the thin branches of the tress... but when she tried, nothing happened, not even a puff.
Elua frowned, looking down at her hands in confusion, but then tried again... still, nothing happened, and her eyes went wide with shock and panic, "What the h–"
Suddenly, an unfamiliar giggle cut off Elua before she could finish her sentence, causing the young Airbender to gasp out of shock and take a step backward... only to tumble over an uncovered tree root and slip back onto the rugged and uneven ground below with a semi-painful sounding 'thud' noise. Another laugh was not something she expected to hear after that. Elua swiftly lifted her hand and pushed her dark hair—that had fallen out of its earlier braid—out of her cedar eyes and look back up to where the giggle had come from, quickly spotting a familiar-looking light flickering around in front of her, its soft laughter still echoing off of the leafy green tree trunks.
"I've seen you before– who are you?" Elua all but whispered as she stared at it in some sort of awe, "-or... what are you?" she frowned again out of confusion, but before she got a response to her inquiry, it took off deeper into the forest's labyrinth of bamboo trees, shoots, and tall grasses, "Hey– no, wait!"
Elua didn't waste another second before she scrambled back up to her feet and immediately sped off after the little flickering light without a second thought to stop her from it—seeing this small creature as the one and only thing that could possibly tell her just where she was now. She flew through the bamboo forest, twisting and turning with every move that the small thing in front of her made, swatting a few leafy branches out of her way as she ran, and narrowly running into quite a few of the trees as she kept up a swift speed even without her bending. How far did this forest grow? She couldn't help but wonder to herself while she kept running for what seemed like miles upon miles of woodland...
The creature of flickering light soon slowed down when it inched closer to a small clearing encircled by the forest's tall trees, and as soon as Elua noticed its shift, she too came to a slow pace of strolling opposed to a swift pursuit of tracking. It didn't run from her this time. This time, it stayed still, in one place—center to the clearing while it made a soft humming tone that resembled that of a human lullaby. It was quite... tranquil now.
As Elua caught her breath, she inched closer to the light, and as she moved, it felt as if the breeze around her blew harder with each and every step she took—like a soft rode of silk wrapping around her body, brushing over her dark locks as if it were a mother's hand, and bringing all of the leaves off of the branches around the area as all of them began to encircle her and this soft white light that hovered ever so gracefully in front of her eyes. She breathed calmly and gently as she reached her hand out towards it. It felt warm, like a campfire almost, but not quite the same, warmer in the sense of... a hand—and when the light met her soft hand, it shined, it shined so brightly that she almost had to cover her eyes... but she didn't, and when the brilliance faded, the light was gone and someone else had taken its place.
"...Lohna?"
How was this possible? The woman that now stood in front of her had been dead for almost one hundred years. She had perished during one of the Fire Nation attacks along with the rest of the Air Nomads—or, at least, that was what Elua had assumed to have ensued unto her as it had been what had happened to Monk Gyatso back at the Southern Temple. It was more than likely that the same exact thing had occurred with both the Western and Eastern temples as well... but then, if that were true, how was she here? Was she still alive? No, of course not, that was impossible; even if she had survived the Fire Nation attacks, she would have been well over a hundred and thirty by now... it was simply impossible.
Lohna smiled gently at the girl in front of her now, "Hello, my dear," she said in the most loving and familiar tone, making Elua stare at her again, this time with some kind of bittersweet ache and grief lazing over her soft cedar eyes as she endeavored not to let herself believe this were real; not let herself believe that this was the Nomad that had always been there for her...
The praised Nun that she had almost broken the vows and morals of...
The kind woman that she had left without so much as a simple goodbye...
The Airbender that she had forsaken to a painful death filled with fear...
"Come," Lohna suddenly spoke again as she offered her hand to Elua with a soft and caring smile on her face, "I am sure you have many questions for me," she smiled again, this one compelling the corners of Elua's mouth to twitch upward ever so slightly, and even if this was merely just a figment of her imagination as her mind tried to find a way to cope with her grief—and likely minor head injury—at least she would get one last moment with the woman who had always been there for her...
⇢⇢⇠⇠
"So, you're telling me that I am, somehow, physically within the spirit world?"
Elua wasn't sure how to feel about this newfound information. On the one hand, it made some sense to her, seeing as she now knew how much the winter solstice carried both the spirit and physical world closer together—but on the other hand, it sounded like it was wholly made up, seeing as she had never once heard of someone uniting with the spirit world without their physical body still existing on the other side. Everyone who had ever entered this world had a physical form in the human world... even the dead.
"Is that even a possibility?" Elua asked with a frown, glancing over at Lohna as they both walked through the bamboo forest side by side with one another.
Lohna sighed with a heavy sense of amusement mixed with a smile, "It is with a spirit such as Hei-Bei bringing you in," she explained simply at first, making Elua frown in even more confusion, which caused the older—and far more experienced—Airbender to laugh ever so softly at her expressionist glances, "I am afraid that things in the spirit world are not nearly as straightforward as they are within the physical world, my dear."
"I think that I've gathered that much," Elua smiled with a sound of amusement in her voice, but then, it faded into a sigh of sadness and sorrow while she looked over at the woman who stood by her side, "Lohna..." she trailed off quietly, "I'd like—need—to know what happened after Aang and I left," she couldn't help but ask her about it, ever since the Southern Air Temple, it had turned a nagging thought at the back of her mind.
Lohna glanced back at her with tenderness in her eyes, coming to an abrupt stop in her tracks, and causing Elua to stop with her in the middle of the bamboo forest, "It is one best left for another time," she told her softly, "I will soon tell you everything, but for now, all you need to know is that you are far more important than you have ever known before," Lohna explained briefly, making the young Airbender frown, uncertain what that could have possibly meant.
"What?" Elua asked with a frown of confusion, "I don't understand," she said.
Lohna did not even try to explain anything further before she spoke again, "The winter solstice is upon us and you cannot remain here with your physical body less you be trapped here when it ends," that wasn't exactly what Elua had expected to hear, but as Lohna waved her hand over the forest floor and sprigs of bamboo sprouted up from it, she knew that there was no time for any questions nor arguing with this woman... no one was ever able to win an argument with her anyway.
"Wait," Elua said suddenly as she shook her head in shock, "You said that a spirit like Hei-Bei could bring humans into the spirit world, but when I was brought here, I was with my friend," she said softly, looking into her mentor's eyes, ones that held a knowing look of kindness within them still and that was when Elua knew... "I can't leave without him, Lohna!"
Lohna chuckled softly at the young teenager, "You aren't, my dear," she smiled at her softly, laying a motherly hand onto her shoulder, not a hint of doubt in her eyes, "He, and the others, are waiting for you on the other side of this forest," she explained gently before she took her soft hand away from her shoulder and took a step back.
Elua didn't know what to do as she stood split between the small bamboo sprouts that would take her back to her brother and friends, and her long time mentor, half of her wondering if she should stay within this world instead of returning to her own... but the other half of her knew that was a horrible idea, and that her brother, needed her there in the physical world more than anyone else—in both worlds. A troubled sigh left her lungs as she looked at the smaller forest within the treelines. Aang needs me more. She told herself silently before she turned back around to face Lohna again, and when her eyes met hers, a blinding light was beginning to fall over her again as she started to fade.
Lohna smiled at her one last time, "Remember, my dear, death is not an end... it is a new beginning," and with that, Lohna faded completely, and Elua, was left to begin her journey back into the physical world alone...
⇢⇢⇠⇠
It was her name being called that she heard first, "Elua!" then, it was followed by several pairs of arms wrapping around her torso, producing a smile as she caught the familiar scent of her little brother and their two Water Tribe friends surrounding her now.
"Hi," Elua said in a tired whisper, "What did I miss?" she asked with a chuckle.
Katara chuckled negligibly with her, "Oh, you know, just Sokka losing his mind with worry," she smirked, glancing over at her brother with a knowing look in her blue eyes, one that made the young Water Tribe boy's cheeks burn with embarrassment.
"We were both taken by a giant spirit monster!" Sokka shouted as he threw his arms up in exasperation, "What did you expect me to do!?" he huffed out loudly, which made Elua laugh again, shaking her head at his dramatics before she sighed happily.
Aang smiled up at her with a relieved, yet tearful, look in his eyes, "I thought I'd never see you again," he told her honestly as he enveloped his arms around her again and held her tightly as if she were the only thing left in the world—and to him, retaining so much lose already in his short twelve years lived, perhaps she really was...
"Are you joking?" Elua asked with another chuckle, "You can't get rid of me that easily," she told him with a wide smile, her words making him laugh before he let go of her and stepped back, a bright smile pointed up at her now. "You have been stuck with me since you were born, little brother... I'm not going anywhere."
"Never?" Aang asked with a softer grin on his face.
Elua sighed happily as she looked down at him, "Never, ever... forever."
⇠┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⇢
𝘼/𝙉:
𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩'𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙣𝙤𝙬. 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙪𝙣𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙙. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙚𝙨, 𝙄 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙜𝙖𝙢𝙚, 𝙨𝙤, 𝙪𝙝... 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙞𝙩? 𝙇𝙤𝙡. 𝙄 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙙! 𝙃𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. 🤍
-𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙮.