starlit-aaravos

[starlit-aaravos]

Avatar of the Wild Hunt.

SALAI

Aliases:

The Avatar

Ice Witch

Skadi

Animal Companion: White Lycan (Large wolf.)

The early days when spirits and benders were free, Salai was a water nomad following the subsequent death of Avatar Gun.

She lived in the outskirts of the Northern Water Tribe. Her parents were the tribe's pariahs, accused of murdering the tribe leader's daughter. Instead of the death penalty, the tribe's leaders were convinced (having no evidence to prove Sarai's parents were responsible) they and their decedents were cast into exile. Exiled from birth, Salai lived alone with her parents as both her only friends and family. While unknown in this century, Salai had speech disability leaving her mute for the first 10 years of her life. Through adulthood, she would struggle with this speech impediment, stuttering and occasionally having periods where she'd be mute.

Living as nomads cut off from their tribe, Salai and her parents lived off the harsh lands having to rely on each other to survive. at 12 years old, Salai's father was killed in a hunting accident. His boat having capsized while fishing. This left Salai to be the sole provider for herself and her sickly mother. The two were close. Salai learned healing, her mother having been the tribe's shaman for 30 years. Even with her healing, her mother's illness didn't wane.

Salai took her mother and searched the nations for answers and perhaps a cure. Yet every turn was a dead end.

First snowfall was forever a memento of tragedy to Salai. Having set up camp in the forests outside the Earth Nation she and her mother were ambushed by Earth Nation raiders. They outnumbered Salai and her mother, without having trained in self defense, both women were overpowered by the raiders. Salai was beaten within an inch of her life. She survived by playing dead, but, she could hear everything they did to her mother.

Rage burned in her heart, even after the raiders left. She wrapped her mother up to cover her and the two tried to survive the night.

Salai survived but her mother succumbed to the injuries, 15 year old Salai was alone.

For years after, she didn't speak. Silence became her. She sought the men who murdered her mother, determined to find the wretched souls who touched her and ripped her mother from the world.

Salai didn't know she was the avatar or how dangerous a dark heart can grow when its power was this great. She brought herself to the edge of the Fire Nation and the great Scarlet Seas that spewed magma and volcanic ash.

There she laid beneath the stars and prayed for the spirits to bring back her parents, or deliver her every beating heart that betrayed her family. Her grief and rage triggered the Avatar state, sending her into a trance and brought forth violent storms.

Hurricanes and a massive tsunami ravaged the nearby Fire Nation islands, sinking several into the bottom of the sea. With over 1000 Fire Nation people dead and 3000 injured, Salai awoke to devastation.

She was captured and taken to the heart of the Fire Nation where she stood trial for the destruction she caused. Sentenced to death, Salai was locked away and spent months starved, tortured, and awaiting her day where she'd be burned alive for her crimes.

The day came, ravens squawked in mockery of the death row inmates, among the line of thieves, murderers and rapists who'd burn for their defiance, the Avatar silently awaited to rejoin her family in the afterlife.

Flames engulfed them, she heard the screams yet found the fires merely surrounded her but didn't hard her. Among the witnesses, Salai saw him, a tall hooded figure moving his fingers as if puppeteering the flames. She took this opportunity and with the figure's help, made her escape.

She fled, using nearby water wells to fend off the guards as much as she could with her lack of skills.

Aaravos followed her and eventually appeared to her, towering over her with his height and prowess. The deal was simple, he'd give her the men who wronged her family if she would help him and the spirit world as the great Avatar she was meant to become.

Without question, Salai's heart resolved to seek retribution. She joined Aaravos as his disciple and would spend the next 20 years learning from him.

Fire, Water, Earth and Air, became second nature for her to manipulate as she dedicated every day for those 20 years studying with him.

Now a grown woman, Salai looked up to Aaravos as a mentor and loyal friend-- her first in a lifetime. Still, even in those years speech was something she struggled with. Aaravos remedied that problem through telepathic communication from day 1. But to the outside world, she never spoke.

With the mastery of the elements, Aaravos' plans were coming together, his sights were set on teaching her a greater power, primal magics. In his eyes, he wasn't going to just make the Avatar, he was going to create something greater in his image-- a conduit for the Nexus and the great magiks it held. For all time, the realm of Xadia and the spirits lived divided. While they were a free nation, Aaravos saw a chance to unify Xadia with the other nations under the control of the Avatar-- and him by proxy. This would give the spirits a chance to walk freely between realms.

Salai saw his vision. No barriers, people and spirits could live as one world, safe and protected by her and Aaravos. The lands would still have their own government and freedoms, but, they operated under a base set of rules set out by her-- the Avatar and Aaravos the spirit. It would settle much of the worldly conflicts that divided nations and caused civil wars to break out among tribes and worlds.

The arcane magics became the greatest challenge she had to master. Dark magic being the hardest of them to master.

A pacifist to most, the idea of taking an innocent life sickened her. However, Aaravos found a fitting alternative. Using dark magic's power to exact justice.

Aaravos whispered these ideas and how perfectly fitting it would be. An eye for an eye and a claw for a claw. She too saw the chance to right wrongs for those who'd been victimized by the wretched. Dark magic became a fitting end to the lowly. Using their lifeforce to fuel her magic. One by one, criminals who walked free became victims to Aaravos' grand design.

···

One night, she was out hunting and tracked down a woman who'd been accused of beating her children. Determined to get justice for a sickly act, Salai had the woman in her grasp ready to kill her when her husband came out and found them. In a twist of fate, or perhaps Aaravos' promise she found one of the men who raided her camp years back. Salai released the woman, but the rage and trauma from those 20 years ago flooded back in a fury of bloodshed. Overkill. The man wasn't recognizable and Salai was covered in the man's blood. Hearing the wife screaming and bleeding with her to stop, Salai spoke her first words since her mother died.

"He killed Mammy. I kill him." Still, the sight wasn't without conflict. Salai now faced her deepest thoughts. Had she become an animal and a ghost of herself in the years spent hunting her attackers? Had she laid down with the devils and monsters of the spirit world and been doing their wicked tidings?

From that night on, Salai (the Avatar) was named the Ice Witch or Skadi by others. She became something of a ghost story across the realms. A woman who bleeds bad men like hogs and uses their blood for evil magic.

She fled, leaving Aaravos and what she believed she knew and once again became a nomad adrift between the spirit realm and the living. She spent years in Xadia near a great nexus of power. There she lived in the deep forests on the edge of the Moon Shadow realm. Where she tried to connect with the spirits and seek guidance for herself and her ultimate purpose. There she remembered the actions that lead Aaravos to finding her; the tsunami and hurricanes she created and the lives she'd taken. It all became a vivid map in her mind. An avatar between spirits and man, she was fated to bridge the balance between them. Determined to make up for the lives she'd taken, Salai took a deathly risk and tried to turn back time to stop herself from killing the people she had.

Instead of turning time back, Salai ended up in a future. A distant future where the world they'd called home for millions of years now was dying. Ash and snow blanketed the world and there she stood with the last Avatar.

For five years, Salai walked with her, an avatar of the Fire Nation and hailed to the world as the Phoenix King; the last hope. There, the last avatar taught what it meant to be the living conduit of life, death, and the forces of nature and nexus. Salai was shaken to her core, fearing for the first time she'd committed the greatest taboo-- to kill innocents-- thus unfit to be an avatar. Recalling the tsunami, she confided in her her fears and renounced herself as the Avatar in favor of a title befitting to "the killer she is." There she embraced her name as the Skadi the God of Winters.

Having seen herself go down this path before, the avatar promised Salai safe haven in the inner walls of the Fire Nation; the last city able to withstand the raging destruction of the planet. Should she kill again though retribution would be exacted.

Salai stayed with she heeding her warning and vowing not to kill. However some saw Salai's presence with her a threat.

In the finals years spent at world's end, the avatar became sick and not even the greatest healers on the planet or the spirit world could heal her.

The Fire Lord blamed the Avatar's illness on Salai, believing the Avatar of the ancients had brought a deadly virus through to this world. she tried to convince them otherwise.

Believing that she was meant to die with the planet, she tried to convince the people that her illness was the result of the dying planet and not Salai.

In a span of weeks, the last avatar died and with it the planet's time left quickly ran out. Salai watched the planet crumble around her in a horrendous blaze.

Her soul returned to her dormant body, now having seen her final days at the end of time.

Aaravos wasn't far, having followed her in secret. Eventually he revealed himself to her again. Offering up his servitude, playing the role of a misguided archmage who'd seen Salai's ways. Salai welcomed him back into her world. He loyally served her, acting as her loyalist friend and ally, however, all the while he could see her deeper fear that now was buried beneath a new strength and resolve.

In the later days of Salai's life, she acted as a mantle of judgement. being the mediator between victims and those who'd blame them. Criminals stood no ground against Salai, while she no longer killed them under the veil of black magic, she became their public executioner after sentencing was handed out. Salai became known as a bloodhound for justice and hunter against criminals. Before long, she was herald as the Avatar of the Hunt. Stopping at nothing to bring criminals to justice.

At the end of her life, Salai left for Xaida and made a home in the cold lands of the north. Aaravos, having remained at her side for 55 years waited for his opportune moment and in the later hours of her birthday, he drained the life force from her, leaving her to start a new cycle.

Aaravos however didn't expect to see the final Avatar. In draining her life force, Aaravos was thrown into a psionic trance. His Astral form now stood before the blazing white energy of the Avatar's essence, and there embodying that power, was the last avatar. There he saw what he believed to be the most powerful and beautiful avatar of all. The Avatar spoke, every incarnation that ever existed spoke to him a single warning:

"Should you seize this lands in your image, it will not just be the planet that is laid to ruin but all life that ever lived or would have lived."

Aaravos spent 30 days and 30 nights in the aftermath of the worst psionic attack he'd ever experienced-- the worst pain he'd ever endured, it nearly drove him mad and the lifeforce of the Avatar never fully left him, leaving him connected it's lifestream.

The threat of mass extinction didn't detour Aaravos's mission. Merely, knew then that he would have to plan better, and work harder to ensure the future the Avatar spoke of wouldn't come to pass.

He became transfixed on what he'd seen, the end of time itself the great uncomprehensive power of the Avatar, and the Avatar bathed in fire at the end of time. He wanted to see that power again, to touch it and embrace its warmth as his own.

Aaravos would see the last avatar again throughout his thousands of years watching the Avatars come and go from the shadows. The last Avatar became a ghost or an apparition his magic and lingering Avatar essence created in his subconscious fixation.