might as well be broken
aang/toph
.
He was always expected to be the hero—the one who would set things straight, make things better. Because they never really got that he was just like them—except he was weaker, because he was twelve years old—but he could have been a baby and they'd still put the world on his shoulders.
So he likes to pretend sometimes—he likes to bring back the days when he was just Aang, not the Avatar, not the runaway, not someone he isn't. So he likes to paint the walls orange and yellow and think that he fits in. He likes to wash all the blood and tears down the drain and watch them float away.
But then another noble, governor, lord, will come up to him (dressed in his long Avatar robes) and shake his hand and say (in their stuffy noble voice) "congratulations!" and he'll wonder why he's being congratulated, because what did he do, really? What did he do that Katara, Toph, Sokka, Suki, Zuko, Yue didn't? And a little voice will pipe up and say, "you're the Avatar. You didn't have to do anything" and he'll feel like scratching the blue out, washing it off, because he doesn't deserve all this! And he smiles bitterly, because no one deserves to be so cracked and twisted as he is.
Except he'll always smile back to the (stupid) noble and thank him, because he's the Avatar—he can't leave again.
.
She was always expected to be the little girl - her parents fragile, utterly useless porcelain angel. They never saw (at all) that by god, she was the best damn earthbender in the entire world! So as soon as she breaks free of her petty little world, she runs and runs and runs away from her old life and jumps into the new.
And so she can tell that Aang—'Avatar Aang, darling,' her parents always remind her, and she just snorts and rolls her eyes because she can call him whatever she wants —is screaming for air, lost in the stupid world of society that she once lived, breathed and felt all around her, and so she desperately wants to save him, reach out (because she loves him), but she's always pulled back by her leash, told to stay still, until she wonders why she went back to her parents and just turns away and tries to ignore it for the littlest while.
After all, she tells herself bitterly, he's the Avatar. He can take care of himself.
She knows she can't get any further from the truth.