Sunset

They had to hold two funerals. One for the Avatar, and one for Aang. The first was a grand public affair in Republic City, with a week of official events, culminating in a formal ceremony in the largest field of the city's park. Dignitaries from the Four Nations filled row after row of chairs set out in the wet grass, and the full six hours of speeches was broadcast on every radio station. A massive statue of the Avatar was unveiled on an island in the bay and dedicated by the City Council, "so that the Avatar will forever watch over the great city of his creation."

People from all over the world traveled to the City to pay their respects, and several ferry captains retired on the fees they charged to take mourners close enough to the statue for them to fling flowers at the base.

The second funeral was held on Air Temple Island a day later, and less than a dozen people were present. Even most of the air initiates left the island for the afternoon, to give privacy to those who knew him best, so they could honor him the way he would truly wish to be remembered. The man who was (no longer) the last airbender. They gathered in the courtyard by the airbending gates, where several jugs of wine had been neatly stacked, and they all settled down in rickety old folding chairs. Well, all save Sokka, who had his own motorized roller chair.

There were no speeches at the second funeral, but there were stories. Toph told the story of her first duel with Aang.

"Twinkletoes was such a cheater! I mean, it was an Earth Rumble! Of course you have to use earthbending in an Earth Rumble!"

The sinewy old earth-bender raised her glass to the sky. "But Aang, I forgive you for airbending in that fight. It's still the only time you beat me in a duel, Twinkles." She chortled as she drained her glass, and the rest followed her toast.

Zuko went next. "Aang was the first to forgive me, and, save my Uncle, the first to tell me that I could choose another path. Time and time again I ignored his offers of friendship, but he never turned his back on me. And when I finally realized where I belonged, he gave me that chance to prove myself.

The Fire Lord stopped and cleared his throat. "Aang found a way to stop my father with the same compassion and honor for life. And after the war, he found the solution that allowed the colonies to live in peace."

Zuko raised his glass. "Aang's compassion wasn't because he was the Avatar, but because he was Aang. And the world is at peace today because the Avatar was Aang."

There were many more toasts that afternoon. Sokka wasn't allowed to drink, on doctors' orders, but he told a hilarious story of Aang's latest visit to ride the Unagi, which had happened only a few months earlier. Tenzin retold the founding of Air Temple Island, while Kya and Bumi re-enacted a few choice scenes from their childhood.

The sun was just touching the horizon when Katara finally stood to give her toast. The orange light of sunset flooded across the island, turning the surrounding waters a rich, deep, golden yellow. She took a deep breath and started to speak.

"Aang was twelve years old when he was told he was the Avatar. He once told me that in all his other reincarnations, he had never been told he was the Avatar before he was fifteen. But in this life, there was no time for him to grow up. He was so young, and so much depended on him."

Katara looked down. "He was twelve years old when he went into that iceberg, and he was still twelve years old when we found him a hundred years later. There was so much pressure on him, to stop the war, be the Avatar, and save the world.

"We all lost a lot-" Katara's voice broke; Zuko flinched as she choked a little and stopped. No one dared move. After a moment, she began again.

"We all lost a lot in the war, but Aang lost more. He lost his teacher and all the friends he had ever known, save Appa. He lost most of his childhood, and his entire people.

"But he almost never mentioned his loss, or his pain. Even after the war, he was always full of plans of what to do next, and never dwelled on the past. I never really realized how much he still missed his people, until Tenzin was born."

Katara reached out to take her youngest son's hand. "I don't know how he knew, but somehow the moment you were born, Aang knew you were going to be an airbender. That's how we knew what to name you." She gently patted the blue tattoo on his hand.

"He cried so hard that day, I was afraid he'd never stop. He was so relieved to not be the last of his people, to know that there would be more airbenders in the world when he was gone.

"We all lost a lot in the war, but peace has given us so much more. In this little group standing here today, Aang found new teachers, new friends, and in our family, his people have been reborn."

Katara smiled at her friends and her family. At Aang's friends and family. "Republic City may be the Avatar's legacy. Somewhere, the new Avatar has been born. But we are Aang's legacy. What we have done, what we will do...that is how Aang's presence lives on in the world."

A/N: Thanks for reading! For those people following my other story, Cops and Robbers, I do have more scenes planned out, but I have to go back and revise quite a lot to match the revelations of The Revelation. (Heh!) In the meantime, I came up with this short story. I have some rather long author's notes to explain the thought process I had while writing this.

I hope that the toasts show a little bit what I think Aang meant to his bending masters. For Toph, it was Avatar shmavatar. He was always Twinkletoes to her. To Zuko, Aang and his Avatarness were inextricably intertwined; he was a friend whose personal qualities also made him a great Avatar. To Katara, being the Avatar was a part of the boy she found in the iceberg. But first and foremost, he was Aang.

I also wonder a little bit how Kya and Bumi felt, since I'll bet Tenzin would understandably be Aang's favorite. I could see some conflict in the family from that. I think there would be less tension there if maybe Aang and the others found some other surviving airbending families (the other monk initiates on Air Temple Island must have come from somewhere), but none of the other initiates have been shown to be airbenders, yet. Maybe The Promise will reveal something about that?

SPOILER for THE REVELATION

[Spoiler alert for LoK Episode 3: The Revelation - I wrote the last line of this story with a bit of irony...I am getting pretty convinced that Amon is Bumi, due to the spirit bending. Unless Amon met up with a lion turtle somewhere, he could only have gotten his spirit bending from Aang somehow. It would make sense for Bumi to inherit some type of bending from his parents, and with something as esoteric as spirit bending, he could have grown up without anyone, including himself, realizing he was anything other than a non-bender. Or maybe Aang taught it to his non-bending son so he could have a special power too. I would imagine that growing up as the only non-bender in the Avatar's family could cause quite a bit of stress and resentment and could lead him to something like the Equalists. I don't think Amon could be Ozai (too old) or could have learned it from Ozai (when would Ozai get the chance?), who is the only other person to have direct experience of spirit bending. And that's even assuming that Ozai could have learned spirit bending from having it done to him.]

END SPOILER

Lastly, I am a Zutara fan at heart, so I had to put in a moment in the story that is Zutara-friendly. However, I think it works even if they are just friends and is open to interpretation. Since in this story I imagine Mai to have already passed away, I had an idea for another, subsequent scene after the funeral that would be a canon-friendly "what happens now?" for Zutara shippers, but in the end I left it out because it didn't fit with the main theme of the story. Maybe I'll type it up and post it as a drabble someday.