Origin of Airbending

I don't own Avatar: the last Airbender, and am making no profit from the following.

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Long ago, in a small village at the foot of a great mountain range, a baby was born.

And as the baby was born, her mother died, and the weak cries of the child were drowned out by the wails of the young mother's family. The woman had been young, not yet out of her teens, and had not been married to the baby's father. He was a humble herd boy from a neighbouring village, and he was also dead, killed by a snow moose-lion just months before.

The babe lay forgotten for the rest of the day, it's cries growing more feeble by the minute, until a cousin of the dead mother thought to take it to her home and give it some chicken-goat milk.

No one knew what to do with the infant. Not only were both of her parents dead, but she was premature and had a deformed leg where the umbilical cord had gotten tangled in the birth. In the village everyone was expected to do their share of the work, be it tending to the animals that were the main source of income, or small jobs like gathering berries and fetching water. Nobody wanted to take in a child who would have to be fed and clothed but who wouldn't be able to earn her keep.

It was the same with the father's family. So one night the dead mother's father took the baby, his granddaughter up the mountain and left her there for the wild animals. In the morning he told anyone who cared to ask that the infant had died in the night and he had buried her beside her mother.

A wild animal did find the child, but not of the kind the grandfather had hoped. A Mother Sky Bison out forging for food to feed her hungry brood of babies came upon the tiny bundle. The gentle beast's maternal instincts took over and she carefully picked up the baby the same way she would carry one of her own calves, and flew off to the nursery den, and plunked the infant between the two newborn Sky Bison.

On a diet of nutrient-rich Bison milk, the baby grew fat and healthy alongside her adoptive brothers. Years passed and she grew into an active and intelligent child, learning the ways of mountain survival from her bison mother. Her animal siblings grew and left the nest long before she did, but the mother showed endless patience at the human's slowness as she taught her everything a young bison needed to know, including their sacred Skylore. From her substitute mom, the girl learned how to read and direct the currents, a crucial skill to protecting oneself from the harsh wind that battered their mountainous home.

One day, when the girl was about six years old, she was limping down the side of the mountain, humming tunelessly. She had one hand buried in the thick fur on her mother's flank, the hulking animal providing a shield against the battering wind. All of a sudden, a skillfully thrown spear whistled through the air and thudded into the bison's side. The great beast threw back her head and bellowed in anguished rage, spinning around blindly to look for her attacker.

As the Sky Bison spun wildly, her great flat tail caught the girl and sent her flying. The child shrieked in terror and pain as her face made contact with a jagged rock.

Strange whoops and harsh yowls echoed around the valley as the group of hunters swarmed the injured Sky Bison and thrust more spears into the poor animal. With one last bellow, the great, shaggy head crashed to the ground, and her pain filled gray eyes glazed over.

The girl knew enough about death to realize what the strange creature had done to her mother. With a high, keening wail, she jumped to her feet, ignoring the blood running down her face, and stumbled toward the fallen beast.

But before she could get very far, one of the hunters caught her by the arm. She scratched wildly, and battered the men with air causing him to let go in surprise. But she was soon caught again, and held down by secure arms, she was carried away from the only home she had ever known.

The hunters that had captured the wild girl belonged to a group of Nomads that wandered the Earth Kingdome. One of the group took the girl in, and he and his wife, who was unable to have a child of her own, gave her food and clothes. They attempted to teach her their strange, fast language and even gave her a human name, Ling.

And Ling did learn. She learned their language, and their ways. she formed bonds within the group and carved out a role for herself as a skilled weaver so that she could earn her keep. But she could never quite forget what had happened on that long-ago day.

Ling grew into a beautiful young woman, and despite her deformed leg and the fact that due to her fall all those years ago, she wore a patch over her right eye, she had many suitors. But to the confusion of the other nomads, she turned each offer down and chose to live alone.

Then, without warning, Ling left the nomadic band and set off alone. She had raised enough money through weaving that she could support herself financially, but instead she chose to travel from village to village, living off the hospitality of the people she met, saving her money.

Along the way she gathered a following of children. Orphans like herself, those unwanted by their families, she cared for them, much like she herself had been taken in by the skybison. Soon she had a little family of children of all ages and backgrounds, and that was when she finally decided to settle down. Ling and her brood returned to the mountain where she had been raised. There, she constructed a makeshift temple using her saved funds to make a place for them to live.

The temple acted as a sort of orphanage/school where Ling taught the children everything she had learned in her time with the bison family, as well as with the nomads. By combining human technology with the bison's Skylore, they developed a way of life that focused on respect and harmony with all the things in the world.

Throughout her long life, Ling established three more air temples and took in nearly one hundred orphaned children. But after a while she stopped being involved with the running of her schools and left matters to the younger airbenders. She disappeared into the mountains with her beloved Skybison, and was never seen again.

-A/N-

Rather abrupt end, but I'm happy with it.

I toyed around with the idea that aribending is learned rather then inherited, because we never really see non-bending air nomads, but that's just my thoughts.

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