Prologue- He Dreams of Water

I laughed as I felt the snow cover me from head to toe. “Aang, get back here,” I said, as I saw my oldest, my first friend, begin to run away in the distance. I sighed, and pulled at my inner power, my bending, to catch up to him. The snow embraced me like an old friend and allowed me to cut through the air as I chased him as he jetted away.

I felt my smile bloom into completeness as I noticed that he was getting closer. He wasn’t slowing down, no. I was speeding up. I was beginning to catch up. And when he looked back, it was clear that he noticed the same thing as well. So he stopped running. Instead, he took his stance and began to use his air scooter.

“That’s cheating,” I cried after him as he rocketed away.

“Maybe you can catch me when you learn it yourself,” his laughter trailed after him as he zoomed away.

“I’m not an Airbender,” I skulked even as I focused on the new challenge. Instead of just letting the snow carry me as I lay upon it, I forced myself up to my knees, feeling the snow beneath me harden to ice as I focused and then that ice began to be carried by the snow. I moved my hands in long circles like I was swimming and the snow obeyed my bidding like water had since the day I was born.

“I’m coming, Aang,” I said when I felt myself begin to catch up again.

“No fair, when’d you learn that one?” he asked. I laughed. He was sulking again.

“Lunatak!” I turned to the direction of my mother’s voice, Aang disappeared, and the next thing I knew I was crashing into a mound of snow double my height and so thick that I found myself halfway buried through it.

A hand ripped through the snow, grabbing hold of me and dragged me out.

“This is the boy?” I heard someone else ask as I wiped my eyes.

“What did I say about racing in the village, Lunatak?” I heard her hiss in my ear.

“It was Aang, Mum. He was--”

“Shut up. I’ve told you a million times. There is no Aang. Stop playing with imaginary friends in your head and come back to reality.” She removed her hand from the collar of my tunic and moved to my ear, squeezing and pulling.

“Ouch, Mum, you’re hurting me. And Aang is real, he was right…” I turned to point at my friend and sighed when I realised that just like always, he’d disappeared.

“Is he addled in the head?” one of the men asked. He looked as old as Pa Karnak and his parka nearly swallowed his whole body. He was tall, at least so he had that going for him.

“Unlikely. They say he performs the best of anyone in his age range at comprehension and bending.”

“Intelligent. At least that makes him a better candidate than the last one.”

“He can hear you, you know. And he doesn’t like being spoken of like he can’t,” I cut into their conversation. Mother’s hold on my ear tightened, but I couldn't care less about that. I’d just heal it when she wasn’t looking, and it wasn’t like she could do anything that hurt any more than the time Aang and I checked to see if I could heat just as I could cool it. Hiding those burns had not been fun.

“Harsh you are, Mother mine.”

“For the last time you little terrorist, you are not my son. Now bow and greet the elders.” She said, releasing my ear. I took one look at them, a group of three men who just reeked with smugness. I looked off in the distance and could see the snow that stretched out as far as the eye could see. The choice was obvious. I made a run for it.

In retrospect, I should probably have expected the old men to be capable benders from how much deference Mother had been showing them. I hadn’t even managed to make it two hundred meters before I was caught and tied up before being dragged up to their even older friend. We were in the Chief’s hut. Chief Tarruk was sat in the corner fiddling with his hands while the four old men—the three elders with Mum and their friend who seemed more and more like their leader now that I thought about it.

“Are you certain he was the only one who reacted during the test of the tides?” one of the old men said and Chief Tarruk nodded. I had them run it as many times as I could before the children got suspicious and he was the only one to react every time.

I wanted to ask what the polar bear dog dung they were talking about but I knew I was in enough trouble as it already was. No way Mum was going to give me dinner after that one. I didn’t even make it far enough to go fishing or anything before I got caught.

“Okay then. That settles it. There’s nothing we can do but confirm. Lunatak, would you like to play a game with me?” The oldest man said, taking out a board of some sort. He seems to genuinely be expecting me to respond so I judged it safe enough to say, “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Maybe not in this life.” Was he touched in the head or something? I wondered. I craned my neck over to look at Mum to see if she was hearing the same nonsense I had but she kept her face pointed straight ahead.

“Now can someone release the young boy?” He asked. I shrugged, and the ropes fell off. “No need. I got a bit bored of being tied up,” I said when he looked confused at me freeing myself. Instead of being offended, he barked a quick laugh.

“Come here then,” he said, and I followed his instructions, sitting atop the familiar chair in front of the Chief’s table. I’d been here a dozen times this moon alone. Mother liked to report me to the Chief whenever she felt I was misbehaving. Just as Mother was my mother, the Chief was my father. That was how it worked with all the orphans in the tribe. At least, that was my theory considering I was the only orphan in the tribe.

He set up the board, and looking at it, I could tell that the pieces were all supposed to do something different from each other. But that was all I could figure.

“You get the first move,” He said.

“You’re not even going to explain any of the rules?” Okay, this one was genuinely insane.

“Nope. Nothing at all. Just do what comes naturally.”

I picked up one of the tiles, looked at it, and then pushed it one square forward, testing his face. When he did not react, I pushed it another instead, and noticed he raised an eyebrow. That meant something happened, at least.

“Interesting,” was all he said, making his next move. I wasn’t sure what it did, but I got the feeling to move one of my tiles to the left and I just did it. Do what you feel like, huh? That was the perfect advice for me, because that was what I did anyway. ‘Life is more fun when you only listen to yourself’, like Aang always said.

I followed my instincts even as I felt the rest of the room fade away as I focused in on the game. It got to a point that I was making moves without even being sure which pieces I was moving or why I was doing so. All I knew was that at some point the man testing me took a breath and stepped back.

“It can’t be” one of the old foggies said, craning his head to focus on the board.

“A perfect emulation. Move for move” another one said, voice cracking.

“It’s your win, Avatar Lunatak.” The one I’d been playing against finally said, and then he bowed low to the waist.

What?

A/N: You can tell what this is, yeah? Imagine a world where Aang died in that storm. That means the Avatar spirit would have passed on. That brings us to our OC here. Meet Avatar Lunatak. This is going to be a very different story for many reasons. If I choose to pursue it, then I will publish it one chapter at a time here, and then have each of the chapters be part of a book. In total, I expect to have maybe three books that cover the meat of the story and to publish them publicly in giant blocks. Of course, that is only if I end up making this a thing. Let me know if you love it, and that is definitely going to affect the decision.