Author's Note: Well, I watched like two episodes of this show that I've never seen before and fell in love with Aang and Katara's little story. It's obvious that Aang likes her from the beginning, but, since I'm a new fan of this series, I'm not sure how it will turn out and if Katara will requite his feelings. However, that does not stop me from entertaining this plot bunny. This story will feature an older Aang and Katara...I'm venturing an estimation at 17 for Aang and 19 for Katara. Enjoy!
Disclaimer - Aang and Katara don't belong to me.
Remember Me
Prologue
by Harlequin Sequins
I wait for him.
Wait with each ebb and flow of the tide, each rise and fall of the sun. No other man can make me willingly sacrifice logic in the name of love, pine slowly away like this, a daily ritual. It would seem rather strange that a mere boy should hold this honor as only a man seemed capable of such a feat, but he managed to make me fall in love with him long ago. Maybe before he even knew it...before I even knew it myself.
His loyalty proved a worthiness for faith that only a few could boast…and for that loyalty I will continue to wait until he is here again. With me, where he belongs.
I don't know where he's gone or the reason behind his parting. When he will come back to me is a mystery that I hardly have the heart to entertain. All I have as proof that he ever existed or that he ever loved me is a plain piece of parchment and a few brief explanations, his writing scrawled in black ink across the surface. But never has anything been more certain than his honesty in all the years since the beginning of the world.
It is rather worn now, the goodbye letter, with creases beginning to blur some of the most poignant words, my favorite passages. They are on the precipice of illegibility even after only a few weeks of his absence from my continual nervous folding, as a sort of dread takes hold on me and I cannot help but worry for his safety.
But the words are there…lulling me into a false sense of comfort with a merging of nonchalance and gravity in his rationality.
Don't fear for me, Katara. You know I'll come back. I promise I will never abandon you. Don't I always keep my promises?
His bedside is empty. The sheets where he used to lie have long since grown cold and empty, like some sort of corpse of memory. A silken grave.
Every corner of the house in which his playfulness and his eagerness to please used to dwell seem so absentminded and dull now, a mere vacant reminder of their gentle master. There's a weatherworn cloak lying on a chair by the fireplace, where he always left it hanging after his usual meditations in the temple on the hill. His shoes, one straight and tall in its stature while its twin slumped to the side, lay forgotten by the door. The jasmine flowers he had gathered for me the morning before he left have withered in their vase.
But none of the recollections I have of him have withered. They have not been misplaced or forgotten or taken with him on his journey. I still recall his faintest expressions in repose when rest evaded me, sleep forming little veils of tranquility over his pale skin. Stitched into his unruffled brow as he breathed. Little murmuring ghosts of his heartbeat tremble through the walls of our sanctuary when the deep stillness in the dead of night brings the essence of his spirit to placate me.
His wild laughter keeps me company during a lonely afternoon down the forest walks and his natural scent, though slowly fading away on his clothes, is as strong as it ever was…even when he was here.
I don't want you to be afraid. I will be there with you, even when I am away, as it has always been. It will be like I never left. Maybe, if the winds are quiet and the moon is still, you will even feel my presence there with you and you will be at peace.
But even in longing and sacrifice, there is a ray of hope to be found. There is a sort of transformation in the air, a sigh in the earth that seems to bear a song of life in its deep-rooted veins. I embrace this newborn sensation and its strong familiarity, bearing a strong semblance to existence, to him.
And the more I meditate on these little chimes of fate set into motion by the winds of change, the more apparent it becomes.
Aang has left me the gift of life.
The night before his departure, our intimacy was forceful. Almost desperate. At the time I did not think much of his vehemence, of the ardor in every gesture he made. But as I reflect on the moment, revisit out last night together, I realize he was trying to reveal to me his confessions. He poured out each and every crushing emotion he held behind the walls of control and their currents flowed freely into me like a sacred river. As if I were the temple and he the prodigal believer, praying for forgiveness, for love and for redemption.
He had tried to tell me. But I didn't heed his warning.
Even for my ignorance, he has given me a part of him to keep always. A fragment of his being that, even if he should never return, would be a reminder of him. A swansong.
A daughter. A son.
If time should go on without me, Katara, I can only hope that you will remember me.