The Lion Turtle

Aang speaking to his past lives, Wikipedia

In preparation for the battle that was fast approaching, Aang decided to meditate at the edge of the cliff.  He was trying to find his way to the spirit world so he could seek advice from the past avatars.  As he sat their and focused entirely on his meditations, he found himself entering the avatar state and was able to speak with his past lives.  Aang was searching for the answer to the most difficult question: how can he defeat the Fire Nation without killing the Fire Lord.  Avatar Wan came forward and told Aang a story from his time as the avatar.

Avatar Wan was in fact the very first avatar.  He was gifted the powers of the elements from a great lion turtle.  The lion turtles are the creators of this world when it was still connected to the spirit world.  The humans began to have many problems with the spirits attacking and the humans would attack the spirits in return.  Wan searched for an answer to keep both sides safe, but was at a loss.  Then, he was gifted powers of the elements while he was away from his village.  Wan was to return the powers to the great lion turtles before returning to the humans, but Wan began to think of a way to keep both sides safe.  Wan kept the powers over the elements and separated the humans from the spirits and created another world, the spirit world.  Here, the spirits would reside and be safe from the humans.  In the human world, Wan's people would be safe and would no longer be attacked by the dark spirits. In the beginning, the spirits were angry with Wan for betraying them.  They had gifted Wan his powers and he used them to remove them from this world.  The lion turtles understood the wisdom behind Wan's decision, though.  When Wan finally went forward to the lion turtles to return his powers, the lion turtles told him he would keep them.  The two worlds would need someone to be a bridge between them.  While the separation would keep both sides safe, spirits cannot continue without the humans and the humans need the spirits to keep the world in order.  The lion turtles decided that Wan would be the avatar and when he died, he would be reborn into another human and the cycle would continue.  The lion turtles trusted Wan, because he thought of how to protect and save both sides, not just the humans like him.  The great creators were humbled by his acts and knew he had made the right choice.

After Avatar Wan finished, Aang sat there in amazement at the tale of the avatar origins.  Through this story, Aang learned that there is always an option to protect both sides and restore balance to the world.  He just hoped he could figure out what the answer was now.  The Fire Nation had holds all over the world. Separating them from the rest of the world wasn't really an option and Aang didn't think it would solve anything.  If only he could find a great lion turtle to seek wisdom from...

Author's Note:

I based this story off of the tales about Avatar Wan from The Legend of Korra, the sequel to Avatar the Last Airbender, and the story from Krishna where Krishna humbles Brahma.  I was really intrigued about how a creator god was humbled by another, because in most western religions, the creator god is all powerful and is not humbled by any.  I wanted to keep this idea in and find some similarity in the Avatar universe. 

You can check out an updated version of this story on my portfolio site here.