A/N: This was also written for my atlaland bingo card, filling in the prompt of "what if."
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Warnings: Post-series, hints to Kataang.
The Last
By: Nuit Songeur
Aang was sulking again, hiding in the far-off pocket of the room. He had his back to the doorway, but Katara didn't need to look around him to know what he holding in his hands.
Monk Gyatso's prayer beads.
She had long since memorized the seventy-two wooden beads, threaded through a braided string of bison hair. The pendant that dangled at the tip was smooth from age and wear and still showed the Airbending character quite visibly.
She hated it when Aang became like this. He would snap at anyone and brood until he had had enough of wallowing in self-pity.
The mood swings were becoming much more frequent lately, which would have seemed odd because the war was officially over. But, Katara knew. Katara always knew. They traveled to all the broken-down, decimated cities and villages of the Earth Kingdom to help rebuild the world, both physically and morally.
However, there was always at least one person. Someone— man, woman, or child— would step from the crowd and toss careless insults at the Avatar, demanding to know why he had disappeared and allowed this to happen in the first place. Some even dared to criticize Aang's mercy of letting Ozai lived.
It was, more or less, the same as when they ran into the fisherman before the storm hit and Aang told her his story, of why he left. Since then, Katara had thought, maybe hoped, that he had moved on, forgiven himself. But, with Zuko's peace declaration, she found that to not be the case.
Because no matter how many wars he won or how many peace treaties he mediated and signed, Aang was still the last of the Airbenders. Despite the fact that he had his friends, the loneliness of being the only Airbender perturbed him. He was practically an extinct race. Sometimes, when she passed by him, Katara heard him muttering old sayings under his breath, old poems, lessons. She didn't understand most of it, until one day she realized that he was trying to remember everything from his childhood, the ways of the Air Nomads. Sometimes, Katara believed, he was trying to remember the Language of the Wind, a language that sounded a lot like whistling that was made by the throat.
"You shouldn't do this," she said, entering the dark room all the while bracing herself for the sharp words she knew Aang would say.
"I shouldn't what? Be here? I already know that. I should have stayed and stopped the war a long time ago." Katara bent down and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You're being ridiculous again," she said with an edge of exhaustion. "You need to learn to forgive yourself. And, if you don't, then forget it and move on." Her words, uncharacteristic of herself, worked and made Aang turn to look at her in surprise.
"You don't sound like yourself."
"Because I'm absolutely tired. I'm tired of you moping, and I'm tired of doing everything I can and it still not being enough. I can't do this anymore, Aang. You need to learn to get over it yourself." Aang shook his head.
"You don't understand, Katara," he said. "I'm the last Airbender."
"I was the last Waterbender of the Southern Tribe."
"That doesn't count," he said. "You had Hama and the Northern benders and even the Foggy Swamp benders." Katara sighed, reaching for the scroll she had tucked away in her shirt, a map given to her confidentiality.
"What if you're not the last Airbender?" she asked tentatively. Aang perked up at this, and turned to look back at her, wide-eyed.
"What do you mean?" Katara took a deep breath.
"I mean that there's a strong possibility that there are other Air Nomads out there, and I'm not talking about Teo and his family or Guru Pathik."
"Where?" Aang asked eagerly, turning his body toward her. Katara sucked in another breath and produced the map.
"Kyoshi Island. Suki told me about it…"
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed, please review!
-NuitSongeur