Thaaaaaaaaaat's...a lot. [ give her a minute to figure out where to start. This is stuff that has been taught to her and practiced around her for as long as she can remember. Ikki frowns a little, trying to sort out what might or might not be important, and starts with what seems best to her. ] I don't know what you know about us from grandpa, but it's prob'bly important that we grew up different. [ She's not sure how to explain this, because she's never exactly broached the topic with her grandfather, even, although he's heard stories about her childhood by now. It's just that the differences in her culture and his culture are hard to pinpoint, but they exist. ]
When grandpa was younger, there were four temples. The East and the West Air Temples housed the nuns; the Northern and Southern temples had the monks. Air Temple island does have female and male dormitories, but...see, they didn't have families, then. Not actually. If I had been born then, I wouldn't know daddy or Meelo or Rohan or my aunt and uncle or my grangran, and I probably wouldn't know mommy was my mommy, or that Jinora was my sister. And the Air Temples back then could only be reached by flying, so you had to have a bison or be an airbender, 'cause they didn't have airships back then. The Air Nomads kept themselves...kinda apart, you know? They did travel places, and see other nations, but I think they had a lot less to do with what happened, although I'm pretty sure that was true of all the nations, because they didn't have all the ways to talk to one another and travel that we do now. But anyway, spiritual concerns came first, and it was...different. [ Her family knows there are differences, Ikki is pretty certain, but she's not sure how much they think about it, if at all. ]
We're not seperate now. Air Temple Island is right next to Republic City. We have a seat on the council, and we're...daddy is very very involved in what happens in the world, and eventually we're gonna be, too. Pilgrims come to the island sometimes. The other temples, the ones they restored, can be reached without flying, because most of our people can't airbend. A lot of the air acolytes remember other ways of life, too, because they're people who decided they wanted to follow the air nomad way of life, and so they came from all the other nations. The younger ones were born air nomad, but I know air nomads who were born fire nation or water tribe or earth kingdom. Those things they used to be didn't go away, just kinda...became a part of who they are now?
Some things are the same, but some things can't be, because when they destroyed our culture they kinda did a pretty thorough job. All our scrolls and things - only a few of them are from a long time ago, you know? Most of them came from grandpa, came from what he knew and remembered.
[ That...more or less sums up her disclaimer, Ikki thinks. She sits down again, crossing her legs and leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees as she keeps talking. She's making an attempt to speak slightly slower than her usual pace, but the results are mixed at best.
And she's going to pause here before she gets into the basic philosophy because apparently in a conversation it is polite to pause once you start drowning someone in words. ] Y'see?
october 4th
When grandpa was younger, there were four temples. The East and the West Air Temples housed the nuns; the Northern and Southern temples had the monks. Air Temple island does have female and male dormitories, but...see, they didn't have families, then. Not actually. If I had been born then, I wouldn't know daddy or Meelo or Rohan or my aunt and uncle or my grangran, and I probably wouldn't know mommy was my mommy, or that Jinora was my sister. And the Air Temples back then could only be reached by flying, so you had to have a bison or be an airbender, 'cause they didn't have airships back then. The Air Nomads kept themselves...kinda apart, you know? They did travel places, and see other nations, but I think they had a lot less to do with what happened, although I'm pretty sure that was true of all the nations, because they didn't have all the ways to talk to one another and travel that we do now. But anyway, spiritual concerns came first, and it was...different. [ Her family knows there are differences, Ikki is pretty certain, but she's not sure how much they think about it, if at all. ]
We're not seperate now. Air Temple Island is right next to Republic City. We have a seat on the council, and we're...daddy is very very involved in what happens in the world, and eventually we're gonna be, too. Pilgrims come to the island sometimes. The other temples, the ones they restored, can be reached without flying, because most of our people can't airbend. A lot of the air acolytes remember other ways of life, too, because they're people who decided they wanted to follow the air nomad way of life, and so they came from all the other nations. The younger ones were born air nomad, but I know air nomads who were born fire nation or water tribe or earth kingdom. Those things they used to be didn't go away, just kinda...became a part of who they are now?
Some things are the same, but some things can't be, because when they destroyed our culture they kinda did a pretty thorough job. All our scrolls and things - only a few of them are from a long time ago, you know? Most of them came from grandpa, came from what he knew and remembered.
[ That...more or less sums up her disclaimer, Ikki thinks. She sits down again, crossing her legs and leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees as she keeps talking. She's making an attempt to speak slightly slower than her usual pace, but the results are mixed at best.
And she's going to pause here before she gets into the basic philosophy because apparently in a conversation it is polite to pause once you start drowning someone in words. ] Y'see?