1. Another chance at life

…

Oliver turned his face to the side. The pain that followed the small movement was familiar, even if this body wasn’t.

In his previous life, he had been born with a rare genetic condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta, better known as brittle bone disease. His bones had broken easily—sometimes from something as simple as rolling over in bed. Because of it, he spent the majority of his life bedridden before COVID finally took his life at the young age of twenty-one.

What Oliver hadn’t expected was to wake up again the very next moment. Not in heaven. Not in darkness. But in the bleeding body of a four-year-old boy.

The realisation had hit him like a cruel joke from God—or a terrible nightmare. Reincarnation wasn’t supposed to be real. At least, not outside the light novels and anime he used to read or watch, respectively, to escape the monotony of his bedridden life.

In that moment, it appeared to him that he was going to die again. What luck. That his second chance at living was going to end as quickly as it had started, after all, he was bleeding a lot, and the ground beneath him was cold and smooth, pressing painfully against his cheek.

‘Umm… Ice qualifies as ground, right?’ he questioned himself as heat escaped his body with each passing moment.

Thankfully, his luck wasn’t that bad after all. He didn’t remember what happened, as he soon lost consciousness after thinking that, but he was apparently rescued.

And… now he was here.

“How are you doing, child?” the middle-aged woman sitting beside him asked in a soft voice, caressing his hair. There was a kind smile on her lips, though her eyes carried pity.

“Still hurts a lot in the stomach,” he said, feeling like someone had cut his insides with a hot metal rod. Sadly, it wasn’t far from the truth.

The lady nodded twice quickly, her smile turning apologetic.

“Here,” she said, lifting his head a bit with one of her hands while the other brought a bowl of white liquid to his lips. “This will help with your pain. Despite the extraordinary nature of your body’s response to my healing arts, it will still take close to a month for you to heal properly. Until then, I’ll regularly give you this medicine to numb your pain.

“Just remember, no pain doesn’t mean you’re healed until I say so. Don’t try to move without my permission,” she added sternly once he was done drinking the bitter liquid.

Oliver gave a small nod, though the movement made his stomach ache again. The woman noticed immediately and gently pressed his shoulder back against the bed.

“Careful,” she murmured. “Even that much is enough to reopen the wound.”

So he stayed still.

The futon beneath him was far softer than the ice when he first woke up in this body. A thick fur blanket covered his body, warm and heavy, trapping the little heat his body naturally produced. The room itself smelled faintly of herbs and smoke.

“Try to rest,” she said before standing up. “If you need anything, just ask for it. Someone will quickly arrive.”

She left soon after, closing the wooden sliding door behind her.

Oliver blinked before tenderly looking around the room. The walls and the floor were made of ice. Clay jars and bundles of dried plants were sitting in one corner of the room. His mind struggled to process it all.

Reincarnation was already ridiculous enough. But healing arts, strange medicine, and an ice room full of herbs made one thing painfully clear. He wasn’t on Earth. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t know where he was. He did know very much, thanks to the memories of the little boy whose body he was currently occupying.

He was in the world of Avatar. Not the one with blue-skinned humanoids, but the one with the Hundred-Year War sparked by the Fire Nation.

…

Tokka stepped out of her home and found Pakku leaning against the outer wall, his arms folded and his expression carefully neutral. Frost clung to his clothes and hair, and the cold air turned each breath into a pale cloud.

“How long were you standing here?” she asked, tilting her head.

“How is he?” Pakku asked, turning to face her fully with his usual serious expression.

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Tokka sighed, remembering the boy’s injuries. “He’ll be fully healed in a month,” she said, leaning against the door. Her face twisted with anger. “How can they be so cruel? Even if he has the talent for waterbending, he’s still only a child. Not only did they try to kill him, but it’s clear from the injuries that they tortured him first.”

She shook her head, jaw tightening.

“If it were any other child, Pakku, they wouldn’t have survived. Thankfully, it seems even the spirits don’t want this boy to die. The way his body responded to my healing… I’ve only seen something similar once before, when I treated another master waterbending healer.”

Pakku’s brow furrowed. “Another master healer?” he asked quietly.

She nodded and folded her arms. “Yes. His body didn’t just accept the water. It pulled at it, guiding it to the injuries as if it knew what to do with the energy. The effect was stronger too, many times stronger than it should’ve been. He wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for his constitution.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind swept across the snow, rattling the wooden beams of the house.