Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Notes: Originally this was just a Zutara/Aangst piece. It morphed into pure Aangst. Sympathetic Aangst, of all things. Clearly I'm ill.
1 0 0 y e a r s
for this one night, we are immortal
There is a saying among the monks: Life is precious because it's so short. Never harm another because your own time on this earth is all too short, too fleeting. Aang whispers that saying like a mantra. Once, he believed it. Now, he's not so sure. Life is precious, and it seems so desperately, desperately short. But…
As if it knows his pain, the wind caresses his cheek. A soft touch, so reminiscent of Katara's gull wing soft palms cupping his face to bestow a kiss on the cheek or a gentle encouragement. He knows though that the wind does not sympathize and does not mean to call mind to the woman who was both his first love and the closest he ever had to a mother. The wind does not care, the wind does not feel. The wind is only there because he is here on top of the Fire Nation palace.
Below him are mourners with their tears and their broken hearts. Below him are conspirators with their fake condolences and secret victory smiles. Below him are friends with their hollow eyes and their cracked voices. Below him. Always below him. Below him is the world that is allowed to feel and express and define. Aloud to be everything, anything they want.
Somewhere in the palace, he knows, there is Zuko. Zuko is not crying. Zuko is holding his baby girl tightly and telling her how he will protect her from all the evils of the world. Zuko is praying that the child, when she opens her eyes fully, will have Katara's brilliant sapphire eyes. Zuko is rocking his newborn and demanding that despite Fire Nation tradition Katara will have blue flowers. Zuko is living but only by the grace of a tiny being with too-big lungs.
Aang is not so lucky. Katara left Aang no child to love and nurture and protect. She left him nothing. Nothing save for her mother's necklace which he clutches in his hand until the carving has left an imprint in his palm. But his grip doesn't loosen, because he wants the imprint to be permanent so he'll never forget her, forget them.
They say life is precious because it is so short, but, Aang knows now, it's is the longest thing he will ever do.
The wind brushes his cheek again.