Title: Light as Air
Summary: Flying lessons from Avatar Aang.
Characters: Avatar Aang, Lin Beifong, Kya, Tenzin
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"Up, up!"
The little girl, still crawling on all fours, tugged at his robes insistently. Aang smiled down at the tiny face split in an expectant grin as she raised both of her chubby arms, almost bouncing up and down with unmasked delight. When the Avatar bent down to pick her up, the girl began to protest, and tried to squirm out of his hands.
"Up," she shook her head 'no' and struggled against his grip. Sternly this time, and with an adorable little frown, she commanded him.
"Up, up!"
They most certainly had an audience now. The other grown-ups at the dinner table were suddenly very interested in watching with various degrees of amusement as the legendary Avatar Aang met his match in the form of a pint sized toddler who seemed to have grown impatient over the towering adult's confusion. Aang held her steadily with both hands at arm's length as she wriggled and fussed. Then she started flapping her arms up and down, like a little chicken. "Up, up, up!"
Aang finally got the message.
"Oh," he said. "Up!"
Aang catapulted the baby upwards as carefully as he can, eliciting a few gasps of surprise from their audience. He quickly spread five fingers in the air below her, slowly twirling them as he flicked his wrist again and again, and the little girl, whose infectious squeals of joy and peals of laughter filled the room, rose up into the air, levitated by Aang's air currents. He lifted her a little over his head as she squealed "Up, up!" over and over and over, bouncing lightly in mid-air.
The grown ups giggled at them, but Aang only had eyes for the little girl.
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Kya was born on a clear, cloudless night in the South Pole. Some cosmic salt shaker must have spilled over the dark sky, he mused. Because tiny pinpricks of light met his sight in all directions. Aang could make out faint ribbons of light rippling green and yellow, the aurora australis outside their window. He was mesmerized.
But not quite as mesmerized as he was at the bundle in his wife's arms.
"It's a girl," Katara whispered, never tearing her eyes away from their newest addition. And who could blame her? Aang barely saw past the tears that pooled in his eyes. He looked down at the sleeping newborn with the same awe as he did when he looked up earlier at the night sky, possibly more.
He had a daughter now.
"Hello there, Kya."
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He was in the middle of a deep meditation session in the secluded part of Air Temple Island overlooking Yue Bay when he felt a subtle displacement of air, a soft rustling of fabric. A shadow seemed to have eclipsed over him, giving a little respite from the overwhelming brightness even his closed eyelids failed to ease. Without opening his eyes, without breaking his concentration, he knew exactly who his visitor was.
A few minutes of relatively comfortable silence with his guest have passed when that looming ache of sadness reappeared in the pit of his chest. He opened his eyes, instinctively expecting the harsh assault of light to hit him for having them closed for hours, but instead, a young girl's smiling face swam into view, haloed by the glow of the setting sun in front of him.
Six year old Lin Beifong regarded him intently. Aang felt vulnerable under the girl's unquestioning gaze.
"You look sad," she observed.
He let out a long sigh. He nodded, feeling the tears prick the corners of his eyes.
"Why are you sad, Uncle Twinkletoes?"
Aang finally smiled, and he motioned for the girl to come closer. She crawled onto his lap like she was three years old again, the same way Kya did when she was that age as well. But his little girl wasn't so little anymore, and she was halfway across the globe trying to carve out her own path, only five years after Bumi left for his military training. They grew up too fast.
"I just miss my little girl is all," he confided, setting his chin on top of the little girl's head, enveloping her in a tight hug.
"I miss Kya, too," Lin said. "But Tenzin told me she'll be back soon and she'll be a really good healer when she comes back!"
"I bet she will," he agreed. "Doesn't mean I can't miss her, though."
Lin looked up at her Uncle Aang, who was always so vibrant and smiling and light as air, but today, she almost felt the heaviness in his heart. She slowly untangled herself from his embrace and stood in front of him, once again blocking the now buttery bright orange cast of the sun behind her.
"Uncle Aang," she said, her head lowered shyly. "Maybe I can be your little girl while Kya's away? I don't like seeing you sad."
Aang choked back more tears as he pulled her back in for a tighter hug, thinking you've always been my little girl too.
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"Put her down, Twinkletoes!"
Toph feigned toughness in the background as Lin continued to make delighted noises mid-air, their little family watched in rapt attention as the little baby seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself. Aang catched the baby and gave her a swift eskimo kiss before he returned her to her mother.
"I told you to stop calling me that, Toph."
"Up, up!" The baby reached in vain for Aang once she was returned in the earthbender's arms.
"Now look what you did," snorted Toph. "You broke my kid."
The room erupted with laughter.
"Isn't that something," Sokka interjected. "An earthbender who started flying first before she could walk."
"Her first word is 'up' and that's probably your fault, Sweetie," Katara teased him. "I think Toph has the right to call you that 'til we're old and gray."
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