I like to think that at least once, the Avatar cycle seemed to skip the Water Tribe—like people knew it was the water tribe’s turn, everyone was looking for them, the tests are done on all the kids, but like 60-80 years go by and no avatar until some Earth Kingdom kid shows up. People wonder if the cycle skipped a generation or what, but nothing serious was going on at that time so they shrug and move on.
It’s only many many years later that someone is researching Swampbender oral history and someone tells the story of “Ol Stinky Jess, she was a funny one, could light the swamp on fire an’ all sorts o’ shenanigans! Best catfishgator catcher in the tribe, she was” and thats literally it, she just lived a totally chill life in the swamp and nobody knew what an avatar was at the time so they just rolled with that funny gal’s odd bending ways.
Researcher, equally eager and afraid to ask: “So…so why was she called Stinky Jess?”
Cheerful Swamp Elder: “Well y’see, them gases what come out of the swamp in the real dank places, they’s as smelly as a skunkcoon’s hind end, and Stinky Jess, so the legend goes, well she were a bit of a prankster, an’ she’d find a real ripe part o’ the swamp, and then she’d whip up her wind magic an’ waft them stinky smells right into yer house and get er’body hollerin’. They say no one annoyed Stinky Jess for fear o’ being visited by her stink in the night! O’ course, Ol’ Stinky Jess also taught us that soma them gasses are flammable, on account o’ the time she sneezed durin’ a stinkup an’ set half the town on fire, an’ that’s the story o’ how our tribe learned ter harness methane and ter fireproof things even when they’s surrounded by water—”
Researcher: (scribbling notes so fast his quill is smoking)
