Chapter Text
In a slightly different world with a vastly different outcome, the spirits looked at a young boy, barely older than a baby himself, delighted as he laid his hands on his mother’s swelling middle, already planning all the wonderful things he would do with his new sibling as his mother looked on, her eyes full of love for her son, love that very nearly hid the deep-rooted grief etched into the lines of her face and her soul.
In this world, the spirits looked at the life growing inside of the grief-worn, unwilling princess.
“We should remove the spark from the child, before it grows into a flame that will consume them all,” one remarked quietly.
“It is not our place to interfere in the world of the humans,” another declared loftily, reprovingly.
“Isn’t it just, in this case?” a humanoid, feminine-adjacent figure with a paint-striped face rebutted, her voice filled with just as much fervor. “When her brother is favored by the dragons and the Sun Themselves, and destined for such great things but at such a high cost? If we have the ability to make this one thing a little easier, is it not our duty?”
“You say that about every sorry human that bemoans their fate,” another spirit in the guise of a ferret-fox muttered. “It’s not our job to interfere, and it’s wiser by far not to.”
“Perhaps as a general rule, but this boy’s lifelines are wound tightly with those of not one but two incarnations of the Avatar. If Raava were not in her great sleep, I think She Herself would agree with the Painted Lady,” another spirit, this one wearing the face of an armadillo-bear, chimed in loudly.
“If Raava hadn’t been Asleep, she very well might have picked the boy herself,” a little turtle-duck spirit spoke out. “His heart is kind, and his chi would have melded well with Her Light.”
“You say that because he loves your little mortal friends,” a cat-gator-shaped being harrumphed.
“It’s not just that and you know it!”
Before the spirits could begin a most decidedly un-spiritual brawl, there was a roar, and a red dragon unwound itself from the bark of a nearby flaming tree.
“ENOUGH!” he roared. “I spent my whole mortal existence with Raava’s last incarnation, and I am the spirit of the dragons who made the final decision to Bless the boy, so I shall determine the fate of the girl.”
If the other spirits needed such mortal things as respiration, they would have been watching with bated breath. As it stood at the moment, they were merely watching.
The Immortal Spirit of Fang and Spiritual Representative of The Great Dragon Race (and yes, he’d thank you to use his full title when speaking of him, since he’d spent his whole mortal life suffering through the indignity of being called Fang )drew himself up to his full, impressive height.
“I will take the girl’s spark,” he declared, his voice a smoky rasp that was at once powerful and soothing. “Not just for her brother’s sake, but for her own. It is the will of Fate for her to be powerful and ambitious, but she does not need Flame to do so. Already she will spend her life fighting to find the balance between right and wrong; were she allowed to add fire, she and her nation would burn from the inside out.”
Nobody dared contradict The Immortal Spirit of Fang and Spiritual Representative of The Great Dragon Race. Had there been a breeze, you could have heard it blow through every intangible leaf and branch, so quiet were the rest as they waited for the inevitable. In their world, The Immortal Spirit of Fang and the Spiritual Representative of The Great Dragon Race took a breath inwards, a blue spark appearing from nowhere and then just as suddenly disappearing into his chest.
In the human world, the unborn child kicked angrily in her mother’s womb, forcing her to cry out. Not noticing his mother’s discomfort, the child squealed his delight and placed his tiny, warm hands gently against the bump in her robes, and the furious squirming stilled.
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Not even a month later, as a boy eagerly awaited the arrival of a new sibling, the world hitched slightly, nearly imperceptibly, and for one short moment aligned itself around a Prince and the mingled screams of the two princesses in the birthing bed.