The rest of the way north was hard, but it was made interesting by how often the bearmoose showed up in camp to slumber beside them. They no longer slunk away while it slept, but allowed it to be part of their camp for as long as it wanted.

Duu took the opportunity to spread some antiseptic goop on its healing wounds, and once the bearmoose even brought them a huge salmonsturgeon, bigger than any of them could carry, as a thanks.

They had eaten well as they paddled upriver, and it seemed they had made a new friend. Everyone was happy for the addition to their merry band; everyone except for Grunt, that is.

The wolfboar was a large beast itself, a master of the mountains thrice the weight of Torun in his full armor.

But the bearmoose was in a different league. It was two or three wolfboar put together, and between its claws, antlers – or one remaining antler – and its thick fatty hide, it was a force to be reckoned with even for a whole pack of wolfboar.

Grunt kept casting nervous glances at it whenever it was in camp, and once when the bearmoose had settled down so close that the beasts were practically snuggling, Grunt cast beseeching looks toward each one of them, before finally, very gingerly, getting up and choosing a new spot to sleep.

It was only when they had to portage the canoe up over a rockey rapid, that the bearmoose became a true member of their group.

It had shown up and settled down to watch Torun and Yaosen struggle to pull the canoe from the water, invert it, and place it on their heads. They took a few steps before they felt the canoe go weightless, then lift entirely.

The bearmoose had tucked an antler under the middle of it and rolled the canoe onto its back. It was all Torun and Yaosen could do to raise their hands and steady it.

Before either of the adults could stop her, Duu ran up to the bearmoose and jumped to hang on its antler.

“I want a ride! I want a ride!”

“Duu, I don’t think-”

Yaosen didn’t finish his protest as the bearmoose launched Duu in the air to settle just behind his ears.

With all the salmonsturgeon they could eat, the bearmoose carrying the heavy canoe, and nothing in the riverlands crazy enough to bother both a wolfboar and a bearmoose, their troubles were practically nonexistent for the span of a few days.

Yaosen was even finally warm at night, often waking up to the misting breath of the bearmoose on his feet.

Their biggest trouble in that span was Duu’s insistence that the bearmoose needed a name. Rootshoe was her canoe, and it was a temporary solution to a temporary problem. So they didn’t mind if that was a horrible name.

But Yaosen argued that the bearmoose deserved just a little more dignity.

No one actually decided on its name. But children can assign meaning to the world in a way that is both purely logical and absolutely ridiculous at the same time. Thus Duu started calling the bearmoose Headbutt, and when Torun started inadvertently calling it by the same name, Yaosen knew that he had lost.

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The name Headbutt had stuck.

So much for the bearmoose’s dignity.

***

“Fire is the element of willpower and passion,” Yaosen sent a furious salvo of red-hot fire-firsts up in the air as Duu watched, cross-legged on the riverbank, “For the darkest decades of Fire Nation history, the Fire Lords insisted that it was a violent force. One of destruction.”

Yaosen’s movements grew more controlled, flowing almost like an airbender, and a purer brighter flame danced across his hands, arms and shoulders, like a thing alive. “But the true nature of fire is energy and life. The Light Temple monks have spent nearly two centuries correcting the misunderstandings that began with The Hundred Year war.”

Yaosen cut the demonstration off to look at Duu, sitting there covered in moss, beside a fallen log covered in mushrooms. Grunt was scraping them off with his tusks and making a snack of them.

“But there is another school of firebending, I think, one you may know more about than I do.”

“Me?” asked Duu, surprised that the lecture had suddenly become a discussion, “But I’m not a firebender. I’m barely even a waterbender. I’m a treebender.”

Yaosen nodded, “Fire in the Farwilds isn’t anger and it’s not light. Fire is warmth and survival. Fire is the thing that separates human ingenuity from animal instinct. Fire is knowledge.” Yaosen looked to Torun, a non-bending soldier who had taught one of the greatest firebenders in the Light Temple how to build a campfire.

Duu looked confused, but Yaosen gave her a minute to mull it over, to draw her own conclusions before continuing on.

“And where I come from water is the element of change. It moves between three phases…”

Duu looked like she wanted to argue, but studiously said nothing.

Yaosen grimaced and went on, “...but in the school of the Farwilds, water is growth, renewal, and connection. It's the river that connects the glaciers to the rivermouth, the mountain to the valley. It's the springwater that renews us, and the bogwater that rests beneath the dragonfly. It's a dozen types of water that grow a tree, sustain its grove, and feed the moss as well as the oak branch it rests upon. Because in the Farwilds water is not just water, ice, and steam, just as fire isn’t just fire.”

Yaosen punctuated the end of his lecture, by summoning a flame that burned red, orange, yellow, and then with a considerable effort… blue.

He split the blue flame between his two hands with a slow precise movement, and then, let them disappear. Ostensibly, he knew, it seemed as if he had released the energy, but he was now channeling it inward, letting it ripple in a wave from fingertip to stomach to opposite fingertip, and then, with a sudden snap, he released a bolt of lightning skyward.

Grunt jumped, and Headbutt looked up. Even Torun paused in his tasks and hmphed, though he had likely seen lightningbending before, living in a Fire Lord’s court for many years. Duu for her part, sat wide-eyed, and when she recovered she began clapping and cheering.

“Wow! That was awesome! Can you do that because you’re a firebender or are you two things? Wait three things. You’re a lightbender too. Can one person be a bunch of different things? Like maybe I’m a waterbender and a treebender, and then can I bend like, I don’t know, pollen and stuff…”

She picked up a dandelion and threw it in the air, mimicking Yaosen’s lightning technique as she rambled on.

“I’ll tell you all about the avatar and answer as many questions as I can. But first…” Yaosen held up a finger, as Master Aangatsu had done dozens of times before an important point in a Light Temple lesson, “You must tell me everything I said that was wrong, and help me correct it. After all, I’m not a treebender. Or a waterbender. And I’m still new to the school of the Farwilds.”

Duu looked confused, then even more elated at the chance to teach, rather than to listen, “Ok, first of all there are seventeen types of treewater. And dragonflies don’t just rest on the bogwater…”

The rest of the way up the river, Duu told Yaosen just how wrong he was about just about everything.