There were days when Aang felt very old.

Though his limbs and body always felt like a child’s body should, sometimes he would hear the beat of his own heart and it would sound tired, unfamiliar, each pulse resounding in his head with the weight of years he knew he didn’t have.

Sometimes, he would brush against an element that was not his own, and realize that a familiar beat was waiting for him there, whispering, telling him things he’d already known but never knew.

And the unfamiliar pounding of his own heart would strike up again, and he would feel it...

Aang had sensed from a very young age there was a- something else inside him. It always remained on the fuzzy edges of his consciousness, teasing, tempting him to dare and uncover that pulse which always slept in a corner of his soul, a pulse that beat in time with the essence of the world and threatened to swallow him whole if he wasn’t careful…

He usually kept these concerns to himself. Something told him that no one else had felt these things, and the thought of how others may react to it worried him…  

But he could never keep something like this from Gyatso. So in the hopes of receiving the perfect solution, or even just some reassurance, he opened up to his mentor and father figure.

The response had been a sad, sad smile.

After that, he never brought it up again, and decided to simply live his life and not let it get in the way. But even though he did live the life of a normal Airbender kid, his spirit would sometimes remind him that he was not “normal”.

So when the monks called him one fateful day and told him of his destiny, he was not surprised: Frightened and disbelieving, yes…but not surprised.

Because deep in the pulse of his too-old heart and endless soul, he’d always known.