Summary:
On this day, every year since waking in the iceberg, Aang takes a moment to allow all his fears and memories to culminate into a selfish moment...until Toph does what she does best and points out the obvious. Post AtLA and Pre AtLoK. KatAang.
Author's Note:
Moments may seem out of character for Aang, and if you think that, then I apologize. While Aang is certainly my favorite character from Avatar, I don't believe he's above being human. And that is exactly what I wanted to show here.
Takes place during Aang's life, years after AtLA and before AtLK.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Aang. If I did, we would have seen more older Aang with his shirt off.
Yin and Yang.
by Maria Sophania
Of Fears and Futures.
It was a day like any other. The warm sea breeze sifted through the land in its way, the ocean splashing softly against rocks, the birds just beginning to sing. But before the sun even thought about rising, Aang was wide awake, leaning his head in one hand as he stared at a sleeping Katara. She slept on her side facing away from him, the slight rise and fall of the blankets the only indication of life. From his point of view, he could not see the round of her belly but knew without a doubt Katara held a hand there even in her sleep.
The mighty Avatar sighed to himself, no smile to be found despite all the wonderful things that were happening in his life. Today was not a day to think on the things he had, the things to come.
With another sigh, he rolled out of bed with ease and little disturbance of the mattress, years of practice and a little airbending making it seamless. He pulled only pants on, and with one more look to the sleeping Katara, closed the door.
He paused outside his daughter's room, soundlessly opening the door to see the three year old sleeping as deeply as her mother. Legs and arms everywhere entangled in sheets, Aang allowed his daughter a small smile before closing the door and continuing down the hall.
In moments he was walking barefoot across cold stone, and for a moment, like every year on this day, he forgot he was in Republic City. Closing his eyes, Air Temple Island and its structures were no longer framed by a growing city on one side and an ocean on another. Instead, he saw mountains, bison, lemurs, and men who defied gravity.
When he opened his eyes again, he stood staring at the open ocean, one foot on the black of yin and the other on the white of yang. Taking in the scent of the pre dawn air, Aang pushed himself into the air with little effort, all the forms the monks had taught him long ago second nature.
The rising sun had lightened the sky before a sweaty Aang felt a need to slow down, moving from rudimentary airbending forms to simple aerobatics. The flips and bends were meant to keep him limber, but this morning, they sent him back to another time. Every time his feet hit the ground they merely pushed him off again, the motions automatic as his mind turned the small island into a massive mountain. So caught up was he, Aang never felt the ground beneath his landing feet shift until it was too late.
Without preamble, the airbender fell. His shoulders sagged as he turned, watching as Toph sat on the few steps leading down to the Avatar.
"Want to talk about it?"
Aang slowly stood, the heavy motion completely uncharacteristic of an airbender.
"No."
Toph leaned forward and put her head in her hands, elbows supporting the weight on her knees.
"Never knew you to run from anything."
To Toph's satisfaction, that must have been the worst possible thing to say.
"I'm not running from anything!"
Toph held up her hands in surrender before returning to their support position.
"Sorry, twinkletoes. But whether you admit it or not, that's why you're out here. That's why you never even heard me come up. There's simply no excuse for that."
Aang sighed, defeated with shoulders sagging. Quietly, he walked over and sat beside her, pulling his knees to his chest as he looked out onto the water. Toph had grown up a lot; a master earthbender among the elite, a metalbending school of her own, and the prestige of leading the growing task force of peace enforcers in the city. Sometime in the meantime, though, she had grown into a beautiful woman and as close as a sister.
"You're right. There isn't any excuse. I should have heard you coming."
"So where were you?"
Aang stayed silent for a while, allowing the lighting morning to wash away the nightmares of the night. He had just decided to keep his thoughts to himself when Toph's words broke his resolve.
"You do know that whatever we talk about stays between us, right? I'm not going to run off and tell the sugar queen whatever you have running around your head, and quite frankly I'm a little offended you don't trust me enough to think that."
Aang gave her a surprised look, wondering just how Toph had read his thoughts. Without thinking it through any more, Aang folded his arms around his knees and allowed his pounding heart to speak where his mind had doubted.
"It was today, you know. The day the Air Nomads left the temples silent."
Toph's unseeing eyes widened in surprise.
"Today?"
Aang's arms tightened around his knees as he lowered his chin to rest atop a blue arrow line.
"Yah. Today's the anniversary of the day I became the last airbender. The day I failed them completely."
"You didn't-"
"I know, Toph. But that's not true and that's not how I feel. I can normally put it aside, be happy I survived, but this day makes it difficult. So instead of looking to the future, today I look to the past."
As always, Toph bluntly stated what Aang refused to admit.
"So today is the day you set aside to feel sorry for yourself."
Aang lifted his head and gave a wry look to his friend.
"That's not-hm. Maybe a little. But don't I have a right to feel selfish for a moment?"
"Of course you do. I'm surprised you only do it once a year."
A quiet settled over them for a moment, the sun finally cresting to bathe the world in a blanket of sunshine. At last, the airbender spoke, his voice so soft Toph leaned her head just a little closer.
"I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of failing them."
Toph lifted her head again in surprise, turning a little to face his general direction.
"Aang, you haven't failed them at all. You survived, you ended the war, you unified the world, and became the greatest Avatar to have ever lived. In what way could you have possibly failed them?"
Aang dropped his head to his arms again, this time hiding his face. He spoke even softer, ashamed of his selfish thoughts.
"Kya isn't an airbender."
"What does-"
"All Air Nomads are airbenders. So why isn't Kya?"
Toph blinked a few times in confusion until in a an instant, it clicked. In a soft voice so unlike the rough and gruff earthbender, Toph returned her head to her hands.
"You worry too much, twinkletoes. You've got another little sprout on the way, that one might be an airbender."
"He's not. Or she."
"How do you know?"
He shrugged as best he could in his position, his forehead still rooted to his arms.
"I can just tell. Airbenders just...feel different. I'd know."
"Well, didn't you two make a deal about not stopping until you get an airbender?"
This time Aang raised his head and Toph could both feel and hear his aggravation.
"Yah, but what if we never get an airbender? Are we supposed to be old and crippled when we finally stop populating the world with waterbenders? What happens in four generations when the Avatar cycle comes back to the Air Nomads? Why can't we have an airbender when all Air Nomads were airbenders?"
He was standing now, fingers spread across his bald head as though they were running through imaginary hair as he continued his rant.
"There's nobody else, Toph, and all I'm spitting out are everything but airbenders! Kya is supposed to be an airbender, Toph! The child growing inside my wife is supposed to be an airbender! But neither are when both should be!"
"And you resent them because they're not what you expected?"
Aang whirled on her, his grey eyes wide.
"No! I love my children! So much I sometimes wonder how I can always love them more than I did the day before. I just...ugh."
He dropped his head in shame, flopping to sit on the edge of the black and white circle.
"I'm a terrible person and an even worse father, aren't I?"
Toph stood and walked over to him, plopping down so that she sat right in his line of sight when he looked up.
"No. For the first time, Aang, I can believe you're human."
More quickly than he intended, Aang turned shocked eyes to the woman before him.
"Wait, what?"
"Aang, you've been through more than any of us can imagine. There was no way you were ever going to be normal. Raised by monks, told you were the Avatar so young, frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years, the last of a nearly extinct people, single-handedly responsible for the survival of all the nations...I can go on. You've only ever done one selfish thing I know of and that was running away from your people.
"Taking today to remember all that you lost is also a good day to not forget all that you've gained. Yes, Kya isn't an airbender, but she does have Air Nomad in her if you only look to see it. And so will your next kid and the next one. You're the Avatar, you have to trust the world will know how to keep its own balance. You can only do so much, you know."
"I know. I just...sometimes, even in the midst of all of my friends and family, I sometimes feel...alone. Surrounded by people I feel lost. It's in those times I'm reminded of how there is no one left alive who knows the things I know, who has seen my people in their greatest of days. And when I die, I'm afraid they'll just be forgotten. Their spirits and their ways nothing more than words in a book."
Toph leaned back on her hands, turning blind eyes to the blue sky in thought. Silence settled over them until the earthbender finally had something to say, an observation she was sure Aang has missed.
"I guess you have something of a point. It's true that no one truly remembers the Air Nomads, and once you're gone, those memories will be left to the scholars to keep. But there's something else that makes an Air Nomad an Air Nomad, and it's not airbending. There's something you're born with with, not something you learn. Those of us who are of the earth kingdom are born with something...sturdier inside. It's not something taught. It's something we just instinctively know.
"Air Nomads are no different. I know it's hard for you to understand, being engulfed by it, but I see it everyday."
Aang was now watching her in curiosity, confusion apparent on his face.
"What do you mean?"
"When you play with Kya, have you ever noticed how much she loves to be tossed?"
"Well, yah. All kids love that."
"Okay, let me put it another way. When you play with Kya, she laughs the loudest when she's in the air. She smiles the widest when you two fly. Her whole being is happiest when there is wind in her face. Kya may be a waterbender, but her spirit, what she truly is, is all you, all Air Nomad. Even though she can't airbend, she still has it in her. One day, she'll have children of her own, and inside, they'll have the souls of airbenders."
Aang fell back onto the black of yin, his face a little bewildered.
"Huh. That's...huh."
Toph smiled as she, too, fell back on the white of yang.
"Some monk once told me it's sometimes hard to see the storm through the rain."
They laid there for some time, Aang watching the clouds high above while Toph was feeling the earth breathing below her. Each engrossed in what made them fundamentally different. As if an afterthought, Aang was the first to break the silence.
"When, exactly, did you get so wise."
"You kidding me? I've had to listen to your mumbo-jumbo for years, something was bound to sink in sooner or later."
Aang laughed to himself, a smile making its way across his face. But just as he was about to reply, Toph cut him off.
"Don't mean to alarm you, Oh Great Avatar, but we're about to be ambushed."
As if on cue, a little girl not much older than three leaped down the stairs, running full speed as quiet as she could before jumping into the air, aiming to land right atop the oblivious man with arrow tattoos. But before she landed, a puff of air sent her flying high, giggles betraying her stealth as Aang leaped to his feet and caught her with ease on her way down.
"Good morning daddy!"
"And a good morning to you, my little lemur! Where's mother? Still asleep?"
The little girl pursed out her bottom lip in the most adorable pout Aang had ever seen, making the Avatar smile even more.
"Mommy's always asleep, nowadays."
Toph slowly sat up, turning an ear to father and daughter. She smiled at Aang's gentle tone, the patience of a monk evident.
"Well, mommy's working very hard growing you a little brother or sister, Kya. We need to let her rest so that everyone will stay healthy."
"Did mommy rest this much when she grew me?"
"She did, more in fact. So how about this...how about we go to the top of the temple and do some jumps?"
The little girl's face lit up, her blue eyes going wide and her smile larger than it was moments before. He had heard Toph before and even understood what she was saying, but in this moment he comprehended it. Kya, his little waterbender, had the soul of an Air Nomad, and in her blue eyes, he saw his people live.
"Yes yes yes yes yes!"
Aang laughed with a heart newly lightened as he offered Toph a hand, holding tightly to his daughter with the other. The earthbender took it gratefully, a wry smile accompanying her words.
"You two have fun with that. I think I'll pass." As she walked away, she turned as if in afterthought, "Hey twinkletoes, don't forget you got a council meeting this afternoon. Sugar queen's going to have to get her big butt out of bed."
Without waiting for a reply, she disappeared around the side of the temple.
Aang smiled down at his daughter, who waited patiently for her father to take her flying.
"Oh boy. Getting mommy up is always a treat." The little girl laughed, and like every moment he spent with his daughter, Aang was finding he loved her even more than he had moments ago. "So how about it, my little Air Nomad? To the roof?"
"To the roof!"
Fine.
UPDATE: It has recently been brought to my attention I made a major faux pas. And I have created a clever solution! Yes, Toph is blind...and yes, she can't see Kya laugh in the air (oopsy!), but we're going to go with the following solution so I look a little less like an idiot. When something makes them happy, children generally keep that joy with them longer than most adults. Children live in the moment and unlike adults they are able to stay happier longer. Because of this, Toph is able to see exactly what being in the air does to Kya even after they are back on solid earth. I'm going to also give Toph the benefit of the doubt in putting two and two together between insane laughter I'm sure she can hear while Kya is in the air and the look on Kya's face after she lands. I can't think of another way for this to work...so we're going with this. Mybad!