"Thoughts from the End of the Day of Black Sun"
I really wanted to know "what happens at the western air temple?" (cuz im syked about it!) so this thought came into my head "what if I tried to get what everyone was thinking on Appa while they flew away?"(Zuko in air balloon included) So I tried to get all of their real thoughts down on paper...here's what I got. No intentional shipping here, but Zutarians better avoid the first chapter, unless they can accept the way Aang thinks.
Note: This is not as long s it looks, it just has a lot of spaces and short thoughts.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters (but they are all brilliant), or the episode The Day of Black Sun part one and two. All of these ideas belong to fairycloud, so please do not copy. Thanks.
xxx
xxx
xxx
Let us begin...
xxx
xxx
xxx
"Voice upon the Wind"
Aang's view (With a little Appa and Momo action)
The air bison shifted slightly under Aang at takeoff, seeming nearly reluctant to go into the air at all with so much extra weight. But Appa would never refuse to take the almost lightest boy on his back wherever he wished to go, especially since the boy had a tone of command in his "yip, yip" with none of his usual lightheartedness.
This strange urgency had happened only once since the tiny airbender had claimed the once little air bison as his own. When leaving the dark skinned man in the temple behind, Appa had needed no "yip, yip" to get him going, only a few anguished yet almost familiar words, "Appa, I have to go to save Katara!" from the boys distraught face, and Appa went to the skies.
So the huge lumbering beast simply groaned out a long grunt and blew a tuff of white fur out of his large eyes.
Momo, the active lemur, could sense this to in his master, and sat still for once on his haunches, crouched intently on Aang's rigid left shoulder, as if to pounce.
After a plan, or a route that had some sort of logic behind it, had occurred to the avatar, he had yelled back into the wind "I know just the place where we'll be safe for a while," then paused, "The Western Air Temple."
Would they ever be truly safe again?
Now Aang wallowed in serious thoughts. Occasionally he would caress patient Momo stiff upon his shoulder for support, then would dive back in, eyebrows thickly knitted together.
Maybe if I close my eyes I will find a center to all these feelings and thoughts, a balance. Or only if I opened them, none of this would have happened. I have to know if this is nothing but a dream.
Grey-hazel eyes flashed in the bright sun above the clouds with boyish expectancy, and he turned to see if everything had changed.
No.
His determined shoulders sagged a little and Momo clung on for support as the airbender gazed, depressed, at the bison's passengers.
We still have Haru, Teo, and the Duke with us, and I can't pretend we're just going on a picnic.
He grimaced.
The battle did happen. They, Katara, and Sokka...they've left all the family they have (if Pipsqueak counts) behind in the firenation, and I failed them.
His shoulders drooped all the more.
I have failed everyone.
Depression started to settle in, but Aang's sense of purpose warded most of it off into the clouds below to fall as dreary rain.
I need a plan, not just a place to go. But I can't think of ANYTHING. And the comet is coming!
It was the first time he had considered the problem of not just the fire lord, but the power filled comet that would come by summer's end.
I need Sokka.
He looked back into the face under the wolf headdress and saw a similarly emotionally distraught face, the same face that was reflected on almost all the faces riding in the back.
The older, beardless boy took off the warriors wolf mask in silent frustration, showing his face to be a handsome olive brown in the piercing sun.
But he hasn't spoken at all.
Sokka began to toss the wolf headgear back and forth softly and occasionally fiddled with his sword in its hilt to distract him.
In fact no one has said anything this entire time.
Aang's eyes swept each face before he turned back towards the front.
Yeah, sometimes I can come up with some pretty handy...and maybe slightly ingenious...ideas, but that's when I'm in tight spaces or quick moments. I'm not an army general or something!
He threw his hands up in the air with a huge "Urrrrrrgh", then grabbed Appa's reins before they could fall off.
Sokka's the one with strategies and battle plans, not me.
His talent came at random times to his aid when he needed it, like the avatar state used to, but unlike the combined power of his previous selves, this trait was something he could call his own. It gave him a bit of an identity in the group.
What could he call it...
Split second strategy?
No, that sounded stupid.
Quick thinking?
That was it. A grin flashed in his open face.
Aang rarely had need or wanted to hide his emotions, except with Katara...
That made him want to look back again, even if just for a second, yet he was afraid what would meet his eyes if he did.
Is she thinking about me too?
Without thinking twice about it, he clutched at his stomach, because it seemed to be somersaulting.
Would she also be off in her own thoughts, her back turned towards him as her hair blew in the breeze?
Could she also feel the slight awkwardness...
He shuffled in his seat uncomfortably.
And incompleteness of the silence between them, even though she was several heads away?
I sure do, even if she doesn't
He rocked back and forth as his stomach began to do back flips and drop to his feet. There was also this tingle in the air, somehow attached to his spine, feeling like static electricity, but in some ways better than that...connecting him to Katara.
Maybe it's just a guy thing.
He sighed and tried to ignore it, continuing with his thoughts.
Did she want to talk to him in her Katara-way, to bridge across the gap between them, or say what she had no time to say or do when he had left her, to confess that she felt the same way...
The feeling got worse, but it was a happy thought, all the same.
To kiss him back...
Only if...
A whole bunch of images and daydreams popped in his head. He sighed, his closed eyes full of wishing.
...she had.
But she kind of did.
He said resolutely to himself.
I mean...she didn't pull away...did she?
This did not help very much.
Or...
He winced.
...to push him away in unrequited love. More like waterbend him away. In a huge wave. You really didn't mess with Katara.
He put his hands on his head in horror, and then paused, rubbing it. He would have to get used to being bald again. Then he remembered that Katara had said she liked his hair...
Maybe I shouldn't have cut it off...
But the monk side of him banished that idea.
Or the deep, darkest, barely-even-thought-about, worst of his fantasies...
That she would just wave up at me as she always does when I smile back at her... and the kiss...was just a dream. As if nothing had ever happened.
That was one thing he hoped he hadn't dreamed, but he highly suspected it all the same.
It felt like a bird had laid her eggs in a tangled nest made up of twisted odds and ends upon his heart.
But now after that one moment of bliss, it seemed like he had finally set the mama bird free to soar weightlessly, and the heavy nest had been whipped mostly away.
Now the baby birds, whose eggs had begun to hatch slowly quite some time ago (like when he had first laid eyes on Katara) were free to grow and develop at their own pace, unhidden from the world, and himself.
Is this how young love is supposed to feel?
He rested his hand on his cheek thoughtfully.
Well, not so young, for a 112 year old. Almost 113, officially that is.
He sat up a little straighter, smiling widely.
Still, he was sure his little birds would have brilliant plumage and beautiful feathers, because that was the way he felt...as soon as he could show them to Katara.
Maybe she does feel the same way, like there's a lot of fluttering birds in your heart and stomach, making it hard to breathe, to think, to even talk straight!
He fell backwards with a "kerplop", sprawled out and staring at the sky, so he could think better.
It would be oh-so-satisfying or utterly devastating, or knock-you-off-your-feet surprising to hear how she felt, and oh, how he longed to!
He sighed in his imagined contentment of her voice, her voice saying, three...no four clear words.
"I love you Aang."
And mean them, like he did.
It's almost too good to even imagine.
He was a hopeless romantic at the moment. (Or a lovesick monkey, he couldn't tell or care.)
A question popped in his head.
But what then?
Pausing suddenly in his daydreaming, (And these days, his daydreams where almost always Katara-filled) he racked his brains for an answer.
I'll...Marry her! At least, as soon as we're older, if I have to wait that long...
The idea clicked perfectly into his innocent sense of the natural order of things, so he accepted it gladly, dropping back onto the bison.
I mean, what else would I do?
He almost laughed to himself.
If only girls weren't so complicated.
He sighed contentedly, settling his head lightly in his hands. If his chin felt a little stronger and more pronounced, like a man's should, in his open palms, he showed no sign of it. What he had noticed was...
I've grown...4 INCHES
Katara had only grown one.
His chest was broader than it once was and...
I'm a bit more muscular in my upper arms than Sokka is...
He looked to his exposed right arm to check that it was.
Not counting his main sword fighting arm. Must have been all that training...
Grinning mischievously to the side he flexed slightly while holding the reins in a firm grip.
I need to remember to challenge him to a left handed arm wrestling contest.
His concept on maturity was not only limited to that stuff.
Like Sokka.
He looked to see him sharpening his sword...again.
Sometimes.
Then he saw Sokka pat his sister to comfort her and let Toph hang on to his arm, and he smiled to himself.
He was also aware that he had grown as the Avatar to. When so much responsibility is put on one person, in his case, literally the whole world, they almost have to change. It aged him inside, and affected his actions to.
He was not the "goofy little kid on the ice burg anymore", like Katara had said. That kid had run from responsibility, but now, after all these adventures, he faced it head on.
Maybe I have a little earthbender in me after all.
He looked back at Toph, and silently thanked her.
As a person, he had experienced joy, pain, anger, sadness, and love...he had lived...and that was partially what made him who he was. That iceberg had been a bubble, nothing to hurt him there, or to care for him. The real world outside was nothing like that. It meant constant exposure, and that shaped him.
I am who I am.
And he was proud of that.
Unknown to him, he had jumped three well chosen steps ahead of himself, and his age, when he had kissed Katara just at the right moment, with just the right sincere "good-bye" words. She had noticed. Plus, they hadn't bonked noses.
Even buoyant thoughts like these could not completely lift his spirits.
I will not, will never, forget.
The faces of those he had left for a firenation prison floated to join the images of the air nomads and all the other countless people he had been unable to help.
But they're not dead.
He shook his head in denial.
They won't die in a cell, because I will not...
He was afraid to even think the word "fail".
Let them down; let everyone down.
He clenched his fists.
No, never again.
He grasped to feel his new staff firm in his hand.
Because I will either save the world...
Looking towards the now-empty lands of the people of the air, he held his blue glider even tighter.
From Ozi and the firenation attacks...
An image formed in his mind of a pale-skinned tawny-eyed expressionless man, haughtily proud, with a face not unlike Zuko's, and he shivered slightly.
Or die trying.
He gritted his teeth.
Even if I have to leave people I care about behind.
Then suddenly, he felt a tremor in his heart, calling him to go and grasp Katara to him and never ever let go.
So that she would be safe.
Shaking his head, he tried to clear his thoughts, tried to think bravely.
I can't let her distract me from what I must do.
He clenched his jaw even tighter and furrowed his eyebrows in concentration to try and stop the overwhelming feeling. He could not.
I can't.
Moving his eyes with hesitance, inner longing and almost helplessness filled them and colored them hazel. He turned towards Katara.
But I won't ever let her down.
His eyes found her tinted blue ones facing his.
EVER
They were open and inviting, framed by dark lashes and her face had an expression similar to the way he felt.
The corners of his mouth tilted heavenwards.
A bright assuring smile broke forth, seeming almost like a pure white light in the perfect, creamy, nut brown face.
And for that moment, to Aang, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
This will be several chapters, all moving down the back of Appa in this order: Aang, the Duke, Haru, Teo, Sokka, Toph, Katara, then Zuko. (the ones most likely to be hard are Zuko (don't even go there), the Duke and Teo and Haru (since they are minor characters and don't talk much), then Sokka...so they will take a little while...but I will do them)
Next up is the Duke!