A warm breeze mussed her hair from where she sat by one of the small ponds on Air Temple Island. Katara and Kya stood at the other end, in the water, practicing. Lin watched them, toying with the stone bracelet on her wrist. Her mom had given it to her when she was very little. She'd been crying that she didn't want to go stay with Tenzin and his siblings while her mother went to work. Kneeling down Toph ripped up a handful of rock, folding her hands over it and bending it into a thick circle. "That's from the foundation of our house, Linny." She'd said pointing to the small hole in the center of the floor. "It's so you can always take a bit of home and a bit of me wherever you go." Lin smiled, remembering. Every few weeks her mother would take it back and bend it a little bigger so it never got too tight for Lin's growing arms.
Aang and Bumi were sparring with long staves and Tenzin stood nearby practicing his air scooter. Bumi swung his staff in a high arc forcing Aang to jerk back far. His free hand swept behind him bending a small gust of air to keep him from falling. He sidestepped as Bumi swung at his legs. "That's cheating, Dad! No bending!" Aang laughed.
"I thought this was a duel. There aren't any rules saying benders can't fight with staves and bending." Bumi groaned, their sticks slapping together a few more times before Aang stepped back, lowering his stick. "Alright, so maybe I did cheat," Bumi nodded forcefully. "but in a real fight people don't fight fair anyway. Now how about you go get a drink and we'll practice some more later." Bumi took off running towards the kitchen, twirling his staff in one hand- narrowly missing Tenzin's head. Aang complimented Tenzin on his air scooter and gave him a few tips before coming to sit cross-legged in front of Lin, setting his staff beside him.
"Did you want to practice some today, Lin? We could go down to the beach and do some sand bending." Lin shrugged, bending her bracelet into a square and then a rod. He looked up to watch Kya and Katara bending a ball of water between them. She took a deep breath.
"Uncle Aang?" he looked over at her. "Did you know my dad?" His old grey eyes stare at her for a long moment before he sighs, looking back to his family.
"What makes a family, Lin?" he asked. She thought for a moment, bending her stone bracelet into a ball.
"A mom…" she hesitated a moment, "a dad. And a baby."
Aang shook his head. "That's not what I meant. Family isn't always about blood. Yes, you are your mama's daughter. Oh Lin, you're so much like her. But there's more to it than that." He rubs his hands on his knees awkwardly before clasping them tightly. "How much has your mom told you about the war with the Fire Nation?"
Lin shifted a bit. She knew a lot about the war. Her mother and Uncle Sokka loved to tell stories from back then. "A lot, I guess. You were trapped in an iceberg for one hundred years. The Fire Nation attacked your-" her voice stuck in her throat. Aang nodded.
"Fire Lord Sozin attacked my people. Firebending is hundreds of times more powerful during the comet's passing. He eradicated them all." Lin feels so sad she wonders if her heart might fall out of her chest and onto the ground. She takes his hand. He smiles at her gently, taking a deep breath. "That was a long time ago now. Fire Lord Sozin had been friends with Avatar Roku, the Avatar before me. Roku warned Sozin not to go ahead with his plans for war but Sozin didn't agree. He thought he would make the world better if everyone was Fire Nation. And when the volcano Roku lived next to erupted, Fire Lord Sozin rushed to his friend's side. But in the end, Sozin chose his war over his friend…" Lin gasped. She'd never heard this part of the story before.
"He just let his friend die?" Aang nodded sadly.
"I'm not telling you this just to make you sad, Lin. Do you remember who became Fire Lord after Sozin?" she nods.
"Azulon. And then Ozai. And then-" Aang smiles.
"And then Fire Lord Zuko. When we first met, Zuko tried to capture me. They were afraid to kill me and restart the Avatar cycle. Within a year, I defeated his father and took his bending. Zuko became Fire Lord and we welcomed a new era of peace." Lin nodded. She still didn't understand where he was going with this but she listened intently. "Zuko and his father, his sister, his grandfather and great grandfather all did horrible things during the war. But Zuko changed. He understood that the war was wrong, was pointless, and was destroying families." He sighed.
"What I'm trying to say, Lin, is that your family doesn't matter as much as you and your friends do. Maybe one day your mother will talk about your dad. Maybe she'll never talk about him again. But your friends, they are the family you chose. Those are the ones that matter." He squeezes her hand. "I know that it's not the same but I would be proud to have you as one of my own children." She smiles and blushes, looking down at her lap.
"I know it's hard to live without your dad. I never knew my dad either, you know?"
Lin looks up at him confused. He shakes his head. "Things were different back then. That was over 125 years ago." Lin laughed. Avatar Aang looked good for 140 years old. "When I lived with the Air Nomads there were four Temples that we traveled between. Two for the men and two for the women." Lin cocked her head puzzled. "When each child was old enough they would separate them from their mother. If they were a girl they would go to live and train at the temple their mother didn't live at and when it was a boy he would go to the temple opposite the one his father lived at. None of us ever knew our parents, really." Lin blinked at him slowly.
"That seems really sad, Uncle Aang." He smiled gently, mussing her hair a bit.
"It wasn't really. Every child gets an adult airbending Master to mentor them. Mine was Monk Gyatso. He had been friends with me in my previous life, as Roku." He looked up at the tower in the center of the island. "We would play Pai Sho together and bake fruit pies and then use airbending to throw them at the other monks. You see, the Air Nomads understood that who you are comes from within, not from who you're born to." Lin nodded finally understanding.
"So it doesn't matter that I don't know who my dad is… or that my mom is the greatest earthbender in the world." Aang snickered.
"Nope." He poked her forehead. "What matters is what's here," he moved his hand to gently poke her chest over her heart, "and here." He clapped her on the shoulder gently. "That's all. Bender or not, Earth Nation, Fire Nation or even Foggy Swamp Tribe, all that matters is what's in you and what you do with it." She smiled and threw her arms around his neck.
"Thanks, Uncle Aang." He hugged her tightly, patting her back.
"Don't mention it, Lin." He pulled back. "Want to practice some? I bet in no time at all your mom will have to settle for being the second best earthbender in the world."