I am the only one left.
The temple is cold, alone at night. If you wait long enough, even the sounds of the children cease.
Tenzin has yet to explain to little Rohan where the Avatar has gone.
Give her time, he said to Mako, and that stupid bastard was out for hours in the snow, only coming home frostbitten and blizzard-torn.
Give her time, he said to all of us, and we cowered inside like imbeciles until Naga brought her body home, the poor beast whining and crying. Water and rocks and impact had rent her skin like cloth, cracked her bones like twigs. A note tucked into Naga's saddlebag read, "The Avatar must be able to bend. I cannot bend, so I cannot be the Avatar." The children vomited and cried out in their sleep for weeks, and we joined them all too often.
Give him time, Tenzin said, every day until we found Mako, too, washed up on the shores of the island with his body bloated and his face picked clean by hungry fish. He left no notes, only his scarf for Bolin to keep.
Time, time, time, Tenzin said, even as Bolin became a different person, one darker and crueler and cold as the water that brought two deaths before him. Only chance saved the children from finding him hanging from the temple's rafters, that red scarf tight around his neck.
Time, Tenzin whispered, and it became my mantra, my lullaby, my every thought and breath. Once we were Team Avatar, a joke, a mockery of our proud predecessors. Now we are reduced to my dry sobs while the temple is silent, my shallow breaths as I wait to join the ones I love.
I am the only one left.