Avatar:Voices of the Past

"Oh, little Yangchen. What are we going to do with you?"

— Tsering talking to a sleeping Yangchen after calming down from one of her "waking nightmares".

Template:Chapter infobox"Voices of the Past" is the prologue to The Dawn of Yangchen.

Overview

Jetsun and Tsering help soothe an eight-year-old Yangchen as she suffers a haunting vision from a past life.

Synopsis

Jetsun hears the echoing, pained screams of Yangchen from the infirmary. Not being able to bear it any longer, she rushes through the hallway, using airbending to enhance her speed, disturbing inkpots and ruining sand paintings on the way, though none of the sisters resent her, knowing of her plight. She jumps to the next tower of the Western Air Temple as she runs out of the room, landing in the Great Library. Jetsun meets a worried librarian, Tsering, and confirms that Yangchen is suffering from another traumatic vision, and that she is specifically speaking about someone called Mesose.

Tsering narrows it down to either a famous scholar of the Ru Ming era, a possible founder of a village in the Hu Xin Provinces, or someone entirely different. Certain that it must be the first option, Jetsun helps Tsering search the library's ancient vault, splitting up to look in the different sections, some books old enough that they were written on bamboo slips instead of paper. After five minutes, Jetsun finds a book written by Mesose, although she does not know anything about the topic. Tsering cannot find anything and tells Jetsun that she is holding their best shot. Before she leaves, Tsering chastises Jetsun on not using a glider.

Jetsun bursts back into the infirmary, with the elders parting to let her through. Yangchen pounds her pillow with an anguish uncharacteristic of an eight year old. Abbess Dagmola and the other nuns file out of the room, while Jetsun starts to read aloud from the book, A Discourse on Floodplain Management, privately confused by their possession of it. Yangchen takes a gasp of air and begins to relax, recognizing the words of Mesose, or "Se-Se". As she continues to read, Jetsun reminisces about the first time this happened to Yangchen and how they had no idea what she was talking about until they caught her talking to Earth King Zhoulai, who had died three centuries ago. Jetsun is grateful that the abbess had written down names, and they had pieced together that all of them had been past Avatar companions, even if some had been lost in the annals of history. She notes that most of the conversations are pleasant, taking place in renamed towns and extinct provinces, but that sometimes Yangchen has "waking nightmares", and screams names as if she has been betrayed by the universe. By chance, the nuns had discovered they could calm her down by figuring out who she was talking to and speaking back to her from the interlocutor's perspective, all more effective if they could dive deep into the performance, doing voices like a bedtime story.

Yangchen is asleep by the time Jetsun finishes the chapter on the construction of seawalls. Tsering enters the room without her own glider, Jetsun wondering if Tsering checked her own ability to make the jump, and asks about Yangchen's health, learning she is better. When Jetsun inquires who Mesose was, Tsering explains that they were a companion of Avatar Gun and a skilled poet and engineer who died in Ha'an when Gun failed to hold back a tsunami, after which the Avatar disappeared for quite a while before returning to duty. Jetsun disagrees with it being a failure, as the port city still stands, and realizes how Yangchen must be struggling with the grief of dozens of lives. Jetsun notes that Yangchen is intelligent, and that she will likely figure out that she is the Avatar before the age of sixteen if she keeps on having visions. Tsering sighs and reaches out to Yangchen, wondering what they are going to do with her.

Production notes

Series continuity

• The Ru Ming era is the transcription of an era name which appears on the second ring of the control panel in the planetary calendar room of Wan Shi Tong's Library in "The Library".
• Mesose is a village in the Hu Xin Provinces. Fire Lord Azulon's conquest of the Hu Xin Provinces are mentioned by the High Sage at his funeral in "Zuko Alone".

Character revelations

• Yangchen is revealed to have had strong visions of past Avatar companions some time before turning eight.
• Earth King Zhoulai, Angilirq, Praew, and Yotogawa were past Avatar companions.
• Mesose was a poet and engineer from the Ru Ming era and a companion of Avatar Gun who died when they failed to stop a tsunami.
• Avatar Gun disappeared for a while after Mesose's death before returning to duty.

Trivia

• A first look at the prologue was released by Gizmodo on May 24, 2022.
• The description of the sand paintings that Jetsun ruins is similar to sand mandalas, which take several weeks to build before being ritually destroyed in Tibetan Buddhism.