The sky stretched vast and star-speckled above them, silent witnesses to the battered remnants of a people who had once been untouchable. Now, they were nothing but scattered embers drifting on the wind.
The great sky bison moved as silent spectres across the night, carrying the last remnants of the Southern Air Temple on their backs. Kalsang sat at the front of the lead bison, his posture deceptively still, his senses stretched thin over the group, feeling the weight of their grief, their confusion, their helplessness.
He could hear the quiet sniffles of the youngest, the tight breathing of the elders who did not know how to process what had happened, the emptiness in those who had already retreated inward.
Then, he felt a tug on his sleeve. He turned his head, finding a young girl standing beside him. She had yet to receive her tattoos, her forehead unmarked, but her face was lined with exhaustion beyond her years. Her eyes were swollen, red-rimmed, and filled with the aching, endless grief of a child who had lost everything.
"Where are we going?" she asked, her voice quiet, fragile as a breath of wind.
Kalsang studied her for a moment before exhaling softly. He reached out, placing a firm but gentle hand on her head, fingers threading through her hair with a familiarity he had long forgotten he was capable of.
"We are going forward," he said, his voice steady.
She blinked up at him, confused, "But… we don't have a home anymore."
"A home is not stone and wood," Kalsang replied as though recalling a distant memory with bitter fondness, "A home is those who remain. If you are alive, then you carry your home with you."
The girl's lower lip quivered, "Then why does it feel so empty?"
Kalsang's expression did not change, but something flickered behind his eyes, "Because emptiness follows loss. But it is not a void to be escaped; it is a space to be filled. The future does not come to us, child. We must carve it ourselves, not flee from it."
She sniffled but did not speak. Instead, she pressed closer, her fingers curling around the edge of his robe. Kalsang let her stay there, quiet and small against his side.
A future must be fought for.
…
As the sky bison soared over an ocean of darkness, Kalsang slowly gathered the remaining airbenders onto a single beast. There were not many. Too few. The devastation had been complete, swift, merciless.
The great Southern Air Temple had been reduced to whispers in the wind, its people turned to ash. And yet, they remained. The survivors sat before him, their expressions drawn and weary.
They were still too deep in their grief, too shaken by the weight of what had happened, but beneath the sorrow, Kalsang could sense something else. Resistance. They knew about him, his way of airbending. They did not like it, but they would listen. They had no choice.
"You have all been taught that air is freedom," Kalsang began, his voice even, quiet but firm, "That it moves without resistance, that it cannot be bound. That it is a thing of peace, of avoidance, of letting go."
Some of them nodded numbly, as if the words had been etched into their very bones.
"And yet," Kalsang continued, his gaze sweeping over them, "where is that freedom now?"
A heavy silence ensued.
"Did the winds protect us from fire?" Kalsang asked, his voice calm, measured, "Did detachment save the temple? Did letting go grant our people safety?"
The silence deepened. A young monk, one of the older survivors, frowned, "But the Air Nomads do not seek conflict-"
"No one seeks conflict," Kalsang interrupted, his tone like the edge of a blade, "And yet it comes all the same. The wind does not seek to become a storm, yet the storm forms regardless. The hurricane does not choose to exist, yet it does."
A few of the monks exchanged uneasy glances.
Kalsang leaned forward slightly, his gaze sharp, "You believe that air is freedom. That it should move with the world, without resistance. But the truth is that air does not only flow; it shreds. It tears."
He lifted his hand, and with a mere flick of his fingers, a sharp gust of wind sliced through a loose strand of fabric, cutting it cleanly.
"The wind does not only carry," Kalsang said, "It breaks. It destroys."
The youngest among them flinched. The older ones stared, uncertain.
Kalsang's voice softened, but his words remained just as sharp, "What is freedom without the strength to defend it?"
He paused, letting one of the monks, an elder barely clinging to his beliefs, speak his mind, "But the Air Nomads believe in harmony."
"Harmony?" Kalsang echoed, tilting his head slightly, "What is harmony, if not balance?"
The elder frowned. Kalsang continued, "If a fire grows too large, it must be extinguished. If the ocean surges too high, it must be calmed. And if the world tilts too far toward war…" John pushed the sky bison to tilt slightly causing everyone seated to be forced to use Airbending to keep themselves attached to the creature's back.
His eyes darkened as he pounded the air as the creature rapidly returned to its original flight path, "Then it must be tilted back!"
Silence stretched between them, long and heavy.
"You speak as though you understand balance," Kalsang said at last, "But balance is not passivity. It is action. If we do nothing, we do not uphold harmony; we abandon it. We let the scales tip without resistance. And that is not balance. That is surrender."
Some of the younger airbenders looked down, shame flickering in their eyes.
Kalsang exhaled, "A hurricane does not ask for permission. It does not seek destruction, nor does it shy away from it. It simply is."
He met their gazes, one by one, "You must learn to be the storm."
The wind howled around them, carrying his words into the night.