Avatar Portal's
Avatar Renaissance Championships
AvRen RP:
Vision Seers' Intro Prologues
Anks as Northern Water Tribe's Anks Kisuke
LOSTfan as Air Nomad's young Lau (quest aborted - no character profile)
David TLCB as Air Nomad's David
Nuncle Zero as Earh Kingdon's Tsun Shou
These are the introductory prologues that lead to the visions and helped the first RP characters are develop.
He was on a guarding mission to protect a
village the Fire Nation had reclaimed for the third time from the Earth Kingdom.
This poor village has changed rulership so often the people barely knew who to
trust. It was a poor village, but strategically placed along a trade route where
travelers needed to stop to replenish and rest before moving on. It was busy and
packed full of refugees and hungry homeless people. There would no longer be any
resupplying for travelers, but they could rest for the night in one of the inns.
It reminded him of where he had grown up on the Fire Islands, in an equally poor
village ruled by brutal and cruel nobles. This village was being ruled by
generals… not much better than brutal and cruel nobles.
He paced ten yards out from the village in the darkness. He preferred the night.
The other Fire Nation soldiers needed to firebend to see their way about, but he
was trained for this, excelled at it. Long ago, he ran like a dirty orphan
through a similar village, spying on the soldiers and determined to crawl his
way out of this gutter and into a position of respect. He had learned to fight
and practiced at every opportunity. One grizzled soldier could not miss the
scruffy boy with white hair and almost ruby fiery eyes. He grabbed him by the
scruff of the neck one day and dragged him into his camp outside of town. The
boy fought like a wild hellcat. The old soldier threw the boy gruffly into a
tent and tossed in some salty food and stood guard on it till the boy begged for
water. The grizzled soldier then came into the tent with a waterskin and got a
better look at the boy. The boy was slightly darker skinned than the average
pale-skinned Fire Nation man. The boy’s eyes were more red than gold but still
held their own fire, perhaps a firebender in the making one day. The white hair
and small white tear-shaped mark on the boy’s brow was very eye-catching. It
made this old soldier think of stories his grandmother used to tell about the
spirits and ancestors that sometimes came back to this world or touched random
people for whatever reason. To prevent the boy from immediate discovery, he
pinned the boy down and shaved him bald. Then he wrapped the red sash from his
own uniform about the boy’s brow and eyes. “From now on, boy, you learn to fight
without your eyes or you will be killed.” He was not a friendly man, but he did
teach Shao Li to fight without needing his eyes, and later while seeing. He even
taught him the limited amount of firebending that he knew. It all started with
the breath and with the utmost self-discipline.
He paced back those same ten yards and then along the perimeter of the village.
A corporal passed him and saluted. This still made Shao Li feel odd. He had not
been a Lieutenant for very long and was still getting a feel for the new rank, a
rank that was embroidered into his new uniform sash. He fought hard for this
respect, struggled through the lower ranks. His skill with blade and
blind-fighting earned him some freedoms. Few commented on the mark on his brow
now. Few even glanced twice at the length of white hair he now had pulled back
in the traditional topknot and in a long braid down his back. He did not care
for wealth, having not really grown up with any and not ever wanted to turn into
the type of person that ruled his home village. He didn’t even have that much
interest in currying favor with Fire Lord Gotag. However, honing his skills and
moving up in the ranks, earned him the respect he sought… respect for who he was
and what he could do. He could be a deadly fighter in this army, but avoided
killing where he could and did so only when there was no other choice. This
sometimes held him back from rising in rank. At the age of 22, he was only a
Lieutenant while other’s his age were already higher in rank and with their own
soldiers.
He knelt down in a darkened alley by a boy that was dirty and hungry. He pulled
a ration from his pouch and handed it to the boy before continuing his patrol.
One more hour and he was off duty. It passed without incident. Another soldier
came to replace him and he headed across the village and out to the military
camp where his tent stood against the cool night wind that was stirring the dirt
of the ground and starting to bend the branches of the trees. The clouds
blackened the sky, hiding stars and moon from view. Another storm was going to
hit this western village. He checked the pegs on his tent and did a quick tour
of the camp. Most people were asleep or out on patrol.
The fire had died down in the center of the camp. If the storm hit, there would
be no fire to guide the soldiers back. He wasn’t worried about Earth Kingdome
soldier finding them. They already knew where the camp was since it was their
camp only last week. He put his hands together and focused his breath. With a
controlled thrust, and shot a short narrow blast of white flame to dry the
surrounding wood and reignite the current campfire. The wind made the flames
bend and flicker. He glanced up to see if the rain would come tonight. Not
likely, but definitely sometime tomorrow. He sat by the fire and leaned his back
against a rock watching the flames dance in the wind. They were mesmerizing. The
shifting colors, the hazy light, the cool damp wind all tugged him somewhere
else. He could hardly keep his eyes open, but did they really close? The yellows
and oranges of the flames became other images before his eyes. He thought he was
dreaming but felt too aware. He could not wake or look away as the wind rustled
his white hair.
<VISION>
Soon it was over and he fought to breathe, the wind chilling the sweat that rolled down his back and chest. He blinked several times to be sure he was still in the camp and not where he just was. He didn’t understand what happened. For a moment he thought he was dead and somewhere else. And what he saw… he stood, a little shaken and quickly sorted his thoughts and what to do next. Something had to be done. He strode with firm purpose back toward the village.
A flat platform boat, common to the
Northern Water Tribes, rocked gently on the north-eastern seas. Its passenger
glowered back at the shore. His dark sapphire eyes were a cold shield against
his true feelings. Great annoyance, maybe anger tightened his chest and made him
grit his teeth as he refocused his breath to maintain at least an outward calm
compared to the stormy seas inside him. That wealthy Earth Kingdom merchant was
so rude to him while he bought his supplies for his journey, treated him like a
boy… a peasant boy. Frost crept along the edge of his boat. He lifted his chin
suddenly and left behind the man and the experience as worthless. He has his
supplies. Nothing else mattered.
He ran his hand over the carvings on the finely crafted wood. This boat was a
gift from his father. The emblem of the Northern Water Tribe was carved one the
left and the Kisuke emblem, emblem of one of the oldest noble families, graced
the right. He frowned and almost chuckled at the irony. Here he was stripping
himself bare of his family ties, abandoning birthright and tradition, and yet he
traveled in his family boat. With a practiced gesture, he bended the water to
push the boat forward. The great Master Pakku had been his first teacher as a
child, until Master Pakku allowed that Southern Water Tribe woman into the
class. Then Nanuk Kisuke, horrified at the disregard of tradition by a man who
held so firmly to it before, had pulled his son Anks out and trained him with a
private tutor. Under the private tutor he mastered his waterbending, but never
learned some of the more creative moves that only Master Pakku knew. Tradition
locked him into a rigid system, a cold hell, from which he longed to escape.
The few things he actually was glad for was the lessons in Pai Sho. With those
lessons came an intellectual stimulation that he craved. He was not interested
in becoming a warrior or mastering weapons as his father had. He kept himself
fit, lean as a water whip, but waterbending and the fine art of verbal battles
was more his leaning. Water splashed lightly against the boat and onto his blue
parka darkening it where it landed till the blue was as dark at his eyes. The
boat broke small crests on the waves and some large playful dogdolphins came to
race him for a couple hours.
The push and pull of his bending and the flow of the water around him was
comforting. It reminded him of the feeling he had the night he left home. He had
knelt by the pond in the spirit oasis, amazed at the lush green of the
vegetation on the ground and in the willow tree that canopied the pond. In it
swam to koi fish, one block with a single white dot on his head and the other
opposite and equal being white with a black dot on its head. The sawn in eternal
circles, balancing each other, moon and ocean, push and pull, yin and yang, Tui
and La. Balance is what he sought and did not find within the confines of his
family home. Home… Never again, he decided, never again is it my home. Anks
believed there was more out there, a destiny he wanted to fulfill somehow,
somewhere, a family he could call his own where they respected each other and
everyone around them as equals… an ideal his father did not approve of in a
first born son. And so he took the boat his father gave him and left the
northern shores for what he thought would be forever. He aimed southward,
determined to see some of the world on his way to his sister tribe.
When all that surrounded him was water and no shore could mar the horizon, when
the sky was a deep indigo blanket pricked by a thousand silver threads, only
then did he stop. Panting and exhausted, he sat on the flat middle of the boat.
He took a long gulp of the fresh clear drinking water he had in a waterskin and
nibbled some fruit from the rude merchant. Then he flopped onto his back to gaze
at the beauty of the moon. The brisk breeze that skipped across the deck was
still warmer than he was used to. He pushed back the hood of his parka and
tossed his mitts into the nearly deck box. His skin was fairer than most
Northerners and he sometimes wondered about his parentage… or maybe the moon had
simply kissed him in the blessing ceremony as a baby. He ran his fingers through
his shoulder-length black hair and retied it meticulously before laying back on
the deck. The gently rocking of the boat on the waves lulled him into an almost
dreamless sleep. The breeze picked up the scent of the sea and soothed him into
a deeper sleep full of strange visions and not releasing him till the dream was
done.
<VISION>
Anks sat bolt up as if the boat were
about to capsize. In his panic, he almost caused that notion to be fact. He
panted and his breath came out is visible puffs in the chilling air. His
sapphire eyes, wide, sought the moon again as she stood frantically. Dreams were
sacred to those who remembered them in the Water tribes, but what did this one
mean? He sat hard on the deck. There was no one to ask advice from. He was alone
and never thought he would feel more alone than now. He licked his lips to
moisten them and gazed back at the moon. He had to do something. Such a vision
would not have been given to him for no reason. He patted his parka and took a
firmer stance on the deck. In a great sweeping motion, he summoned wave upon
wave to hasten his travels.
At the Western Air Temple, on the northern banks where the nuns meditated in their temple and tended the sky bison nests, there stood a young 16-year-old woman. She leaned on a staff and was daydreaming yet again. She had not mastered airbending yet, but was learning. She completed the 14th level just yesterday. Now she could shoot powerful air burst with control and even use her staff to do so for attack or defense. The nuns strongly encouraged their pupils not to attack with their martial arts, that it was a style of self discipline and avoidance. “You can force an attacker back with a gust of wind and then be gone long before they can recover,” her mentor, Shan Mei, had suggested once. The more important use of the powerful burst of air was to help lift the young sky bison into the air when they practiced their own flying.
The wind on this rock was not comfortable. It gusted up and stopped suddenly over and over, setting her a little off balance while she leaned on that staff. She shook off the reverie and glanced back at the sleeping bison on the plateau being tended by others of her temple. They were so cute curled in a big furry pile. She could not help but grin to herself. This place, these people meant everything to her. She lived here all her life, raised in the temple with its jokes and laughter, its games and open loving faces, its baby sky bison and wise nuns. She sighed. There was still much fighting in the world and part of her wanted to be involved, to protect all these people and creatures she cherished.
Annoyed by her dark thoughts, she wanders up a long path to a high meditation ledge. She had to focus carefully on her breathing techniques to climb in the thinner air of this part of the mountains. At the ledge, she sat in a semi-lotus pose with her staff across her lap and her hand resting gently on it. The slightly damp breeze teased at her short brown hair. Like others to the temple, she had her head shaved at different stages of her life. When her body moved from child to teen, she learned what that meant and the cautions and care she now had to be aware of. Again her head was shaved at her fifteenth birthday when she was considered a woman. At that time, she was asked if she wished to be a nun like her mentor or join the Air Nomad to marry and have a family. She did not know. So she remained and they continued her training, giving her the time to decide.
She closed her grey-green eyes and took slow even breaths. With each breath came calm. With each breath came the meditative state she was accustomed to. The cool clouds swirled even in her mind. The spirit of the wind opened them up with its mysterious message… not releasing Lau from her trance till it was over.
<VISION>
Her breath came short and fast and sweat beaded her brow. She blinked several times as she realized she was gripping her staff tight enough to cause her hands to ache. “What was THAT?!” she exclaimed to the wind. It took her maybe another hour or so to sort through what she saw and what she wanted to do about it.
**This character was unable to continue the RP and so the prologue and vision were cancelled and the vision was given to a new seer***
Clouds and cool thin air wafted by
with the scent of sky bison as David lounged in the wide riding saddle for his
bison, Goro. He had, as the monks called it, itchy feet. He had this need to be
on the move as most nomads do. The monks shared the Northern Air Temple with the
small group of Earth Kingdom mechanics who swore loyalty to them for the right
to stay and fly with them in their crafted gliders. These monks had high hopes
for David. He was a good novice and leader, determined and studious. He thought
things through and had great plans and dreams. David stretched out his hand to
touch the clouds as Goro flew and gazed long at the tattoos along the length of
his arm. The monks had carefully shaved him and marked his body two years ago
after he managed to master the 36 levels of airbending and even invented a new
type of airbending. The monks really hoped he would stay and become a leader in
the temple. However, something else called to David instead, a music on the wind
that kept him now on the move.
He reached up with both hands and splayed his fingers, looking at the sky that
showed between them. He considered the spaces and how these spaced needed
filling. Koans and haikus came to mind. He reached into one of his bags and
pulled out his musical instrument. It required airbending to play, his new
invention that earned him the rank of master airbender. As he played, her
remembered how impressed the Northern Water Tribe members had been by it. He was
just leaving them now.
When he visited, he has an opportunity to learn something new there, healing.
This was another of his personal interests. They had some of the best healers.
He had left the Northern Air Temple on his 18th birthday to see the world and
learn healing techniques from all nations, if he could. Now that he left, he
felt a bit like an outcast, though they were proud of his decision. Air Nomads
are just that, nomads. He traveled all through the northern mountains learning
bits and pieces of folk medicine from the various Air Nomads that were not
monks. Then into the Northern Water Tribe he flew. The women healers were a
little awkward at this 18-year-old man in their training room, but the elderly
woman teaching welcomed just the same. He learned about the meridians of the
body and the chi points. Part of him wished he could heal like they did. The
elderly woman had taken him aside before he left and gifted him with some of her
wisdom, “David, air is as necessary for life as water. Humans need to breathe.
As an airbender, you can heal with air by helping with moving air in and out of
the body, something we cannot do. You saw how we used CPR. You can do it with
airbending. And the chi points where the meridians of energy intersect can be
pressure points. You are an Air Nomad. I know you can think outside the Ice
Block.” She smiled compassionately and gave him a small token, a bead of
aquamarine to remember this lesson by. He tied it to his wrist and was away on
his sky bison.
The sky showing between his fingers was the same color as the aquamarine bead.
He landed at some Earth Kingdom villages on the north eastern shore to restock
on foods. He had used up all his supplies while in the Northern Water Tribe.
They were meat eaters and he was not. Now he needed more grains and protein-rich
legumes, some fruits and vegetable, cheese and nuts and bread. Oh, they even had
some small sweet pastries. He smirked as he remembered some of the silly haikus
the older monks would make up at the food table around tea and sweet pastries.
Once restocked, he was again in the air. He aimed for the clouds once more.
There was an ancient herbalist he wanted to visit. She was old as dirt and
likely very insane, but her herbalism was legendary for healing. He directed
Goro in what he hoped to be the right direction into the heart of the Earth
Kingdom. It was going to be yet another long flight. He patted his dear friend
Goro and promised an overnight on the next mountain they passed. Goro was glad
to land and relax in the cave. David unsaddled him and brushed him down
thoroughly. After he fed him some melons from a nearly tree, David sat and
played music for a little while, at least until the haiku’s came to mind again.
His mind was always full of haikus. He pulled out a journal and jotted some
down.
I do want to know
How the love was carried, lost
There’s truth in sadness
As he thought back to the life around the communal food table, another haiku
made him smile and he jotted it down too.
the airbender bakes
secret lies in the fluffy core
halts meditation
From where they rested, the cave overlooked the smoky volcanoes of the Fire
Nation. He remembered a stay he heard from one of the old Water Tribe women
while training in the healing arts. They spoke of some of the old tragedies and
devastation that had happened during the One Hundred Year War. One struck home
and a haiku emerged from the doors of his mind to spill upon the page.
A great heritage
vanished into the ashes
sole survivor fights
the chosen skilled ones
deform our independence
unnatural ways
He frowned at the dark tone these haikus were starting to have. He leaned back
instead against Goro’s soft fur feeling the light breeze drift in from the cave
entrance. Goro’s warmth and gentle rumbling comforted him. He was never alone
with Goro around. He snuggled into the fur and slept. The breeze teased his hair
and clothes, teased his sleeping mind, and opened it up past the dreams of
music, healing and haikus. David struggled to wake from his dream, gripping
Goro’s fur tight in his fingers.
<VISION>
When he was finally free of it and his eyes snapped open, he apologized to his poor sky bison for the fistful of fur he had ripped out in the midst of the vision he had had. He let the wind carry away the loose fur as he sorted through his next course of action. The wind had told him something too important to not be handled immediately. The leader in him seized hold of his spirit. He saddled Goro and they lept from the mountain’s precipice to speed through the clouds in determined haste.
**NOTE: All Haiku's are copyright of David and were taken from the Haiku thread in the Avatar Portal Forum**
The hike from the northern lands of
the Earth Kingdom down through the dense forests and trade towns along the
riverbank, took the better part of a month. This was another day in a long
fruitless journey. His thick bare feet trudged along the sharp rocky shore
unperturbed by the edges. They had long since lost sensitivity from frostbite as
a child to intense training in Muay Thai martial arts to the tough calluses of
long walks over varied terrain. He stopped and leaned to scoop some fresh river
water to drink. His bald reflection surprised him. It always did. He paused to
inspect the red and green swirls and patterns of the tattoos on the right side
of his face. He scooped the water to break up the image and slurped up the
coolness to refresh him then sat back on stone he raised with earthbending.
He absently touched the red dragon tattoos on his torso and for the millionth
time wondered what they meant. The breeze caused ripples in the water. He
sometimes wondered what that gentle touch of the wind would feel like. His
earliest memories were full of fresh and painful weeping tattoos, much ice, and
shivering till there was no feeling and no thought. Everything was lost in the
blindness of snow. He was maybe 5 years old. He was sure the snow demons would
claim him. Instead an old couple who lived in the mountains days away from the
Earth Kingdom’s most northerly town of Ido, where he was born, has come and
wrapped him in furs and taken him to their home. They tended his wounds and
tattoos. They tended his terribly frostbitten body. The trauma of the cold
ruined his nerves. He could hardly feel a thing against his skin. He has also
lost all his body hair never again to grow it back. Those were his earliest
memories. They gave no insight into the meaning of the tattoos or why he was
marked at such a young age.
The bindings around his wrists and hands were coming loose, so he took some time
to retie them, remembering the lessons of the old man. “The bindings are partly
to protect your joints from the impact of a blow and partly for tradition. This
is how you wrap them.” Tsun Shou rewrapped his bindings as the old man had
showed him. He knew this by heart having done it now for 13 years. The old man
was a master earthbender who taught Tsun everything he could. He also taught
Tsun his new form of martial arts that he called Muay Thai. It took some of the
traditions and ritual, some of the initial signature moves of the Earth Nation’s
Hung Gar and incorporated a good deal of the hits and kicks from the Fire
Nation’s Northern Shaolin, giving the style more of an aggressive offensive
tactic. Tsun excelled at it.
Now that the bindings were again firmly in place, he walked on. He was aiming
for the Serpents pass, but that was a long way off still. He knew from an old
map that at the Serpent’s Pass was a road to Ba Sing Se. He also knew from
listening to the old couple talk about the One Hundred Year War, that there was
a great library at the University of Ba Sing Se. Tsun hoped there would be
answers there.
Shortly after his 18th birthday, or the best rough idea of it, he had returned
home just before a terrible blizzard one day to find the mountain hut empty. He
made a quick tour of the mountain traps to see if he could locate his adoptive
family before the storm had hit, but with no luck. He found them after crushed
in a rocky avalanche. After burying them properly, as was customary for those of
the Earth Kingdom, Tsun gathered some belongings, the ancient map and travel
food. There was no point to stay there any more. He had been stayed because he
felt he owed them a life debt. But the mountain claimed them anyways and freed
him from his debt. Losing the only people he knew and who cared for him was
hard. What was hard was when he traveled northward to the village of Ido to see
if there was anything he could learn about his past and found the village
desolate. It was completely empty and abandoned. It looked like it had been that
way for at least 10 years. “Never give up, never give in.” That was another
thing the old man always said. So he promptly turned around and headed south. Ba
Sing Se was his destination.
It was perhaps another week before he reached the Serpent’s Pass. The wind tried
enticing him all the way. He pondered about warning of the Serpent’s Pass. And,
for the hell of it, made the run across to the western side. There was a gap
that was under water which he swam. “are you CRAZY!!??!!” said a traveler on the
other side. Tsun just grinned. That run was great fun. The thrill of potential
danger was exhilarating. Now however, he was on the wrong side of the Serpent’s
Pass and had to do the run again. He turned and charged the pass again. The
great serpent swam across the underwater part bringing Tsun to a skidding halt.
The serpent swirled and struck at Tsun. He earthbended the rock around into
armor. The serpent rammed hard into the rock armor covering Tsun’s body. He was
forced back several yards and almost toppled off the ledge of the Pass. The
traveler on the west side ran away in terror. The serpent soon grew fed up of
snapping her jaws on stone when it should be flesh. With a couple of chipped
fangs, she swam away. Tsun considered earthbending the pass up above water
level, but there wasn’t quite enough rock around to do so.
Though he was tired from the fight with the serpent, he made his way across
again and collapsed exhausted at the foot of twin mountains on the western side.
Tsun was not sure what was more fun, running the Serpent’s Pass or the look on
the other traveler’s face when he did. The wind cooled the sweat upon him. As he
drifted in a light nap, his mind wandered over all the things he had learned and
all the things he hoped to find. He fantasized about what Ba Sing Se might look
like. The images shifted. He tried to hold onto the lavish city of gems and
colored rock, but it blurred and changed anyways. There was a tension he felt in
his muscles. It started with the dragon tattoos of his body and he instinctively
earthbended rock armor about him despite the fact he was dreaming. Or was he?
<VISION>
When the vision finally passed, he woke with a start bald head knocking against rock painfully. His body was wrapped in rock armor. This was no dream or fantasy. He slammed the rock off him and stood with a different purpose. Discovering his past he do later. This… this vision… gave the world a short time limit. He had to act now.
BACK to Avatar: The Last Airbender