Chapter 2

"Aang, I didn't want to make you angry. I just want to know what's going on. We haven't talked in months and I need to know where we are going from here," I said, pleading with him.

"What you do from here is not up to me. That is your decision. We both need to take our own paths," he said, pulling his gaze away from mine and looking down again.

"So we are not going to stick together? This past year we have done everything together as a team," I said. "What are you going to do? What is it that you are going to do and we cannot go with you?" I crossed my arms and turned towards him.

"I have a responsibility to the world. I must do my part in rebuilding what Ozai destroyed."

"Than let us go with you and help. We were a part of this and want to be with you, Aang. You heard us at dinner, none of us want to stay in Ba Sing Se. Plus, I think the White Lotus will be more than okay rebuilding this city." I took my hand and laid it on his shoulder. "Aang, please."

He looked up at my hand where it was touching his shoulder and then his gaze travelled back up to my eyes. Those light blue eyes still reminded me of a small and innocent boy that I had known so well. He reached his hand up and put it on mine. I could feel the heat that radiated from his touch and the tingles of excitement that ran up my arm. I missed this. I missed him.

"Okay Katara, I need to return to the Eastern Air Temple. I need to find something… someone." He stood and turned, making his way back down the street before I had the opportunity to ask any questions. What could that mean? Who would he be looking for? I stood and followed him, feeling almost more confused than when I got there. My anger may have subsided slightly, but was now replaced by curiosity.

It would be another few days before we left for the Eastern Air Temple; it was still unclear why Aang needed to go there. However, we all packed our things, which to be honest was not much, and prepared to leave on the journey. Sakka and Toph were both happy to be leaving Ba Sing Se, a city that we knew too well at this point. I was excited to be moving around again, but the familiar nervousness of travel began again. Any secret communication that Aang had, we assumed he would have shared with us.

At dawn, we packed out belongings and headed out for the Eastern Air Temple. Sakka, Toph and I had not been here yet but we all knew that Aang had been to learn the final lesson of entering the avatar state. We flew for a few days, only stopping to sleep. Though the Eastern Air Temples were close to Ba Sing Se, it still felt very far considering our lack of travelling in the past few months. Getting out on Appa and travelling seemed good for the group, though. We needed the time together again and everyone's spirits seemed happier. Since we were all stuck in a such a small space, Aang had less opportunity to isolate himself, even though it seemed there was still more on his mind.

I will say that every Air Temple that we come upon appears significantly different than the last. As we broke through the mountain range and the Eastern Air Temple came into sight, I could see the separation of the three different mountains and that the three temples were all connected by bridges. However, it quickly became obvious that this temple was the most damaged by the Fire Nation, at least in comparison to the last temples we had seen. Only the framework of the bridges remained, and the once green-tiled roofs only had pieces left. I heard Aang pat Appa on the side and say "remember meeting here?" This place had a lot of sentimental meaning for him.

Once we landed, the overgrowth became obvious. Most of the builds were destroyed and the ones that were not were begin to fall apart.

"Aang, why are we here?" Sakka asked, we were all becoming curious at this point. "Not that this isn't exciting, but I don't know why something abandoned could be important. Do you need some spiritual guidance or something?"

"This place is important," Aang said.

Sakka just rolled his eyes but we each went our separate ways to explore the temple. I walked through open spaces and enclosed tunnels, finally coming along to a large room with a tall ceiling and a statue of an air bender, sitting in the mediation position that Aang always sits in. Her eyes were closed and her face was at rest with a small smile, her stance looked firm but calm.

"Do you know who that is?" I heard Aang's voice behind me.

"No, I have no clue." I responded quietly.

"Avatar Yangchen," he said, "she was also an air nomad. Also an avatar. I asked for her guidance before facing Ozai, hoping she would tell me that I did not have to kill him. But she reminded me that my duty was too the world and I could not let my spiritual life overcome my duty as the avatar. She was devoted to humans, and kept the world in peace." I nodded, looking up at the large statue, one of Aang's past lives.

We went back up to the surface of the temple, Aang led me to where the air bison were born and raised, and then showed me where he and Appa met. He told me of how the Eastern Air Temple took care of the sky bison, and how only female air benders lived here. I never knew so much about the air nomads, but I suppose that was because by the time I was born they had all vanished.

We moved back out onto a platform that looked over the three mountains, connected to the center one by a still remaining bridge. Appa laid comfortably, obviously this was as much of a home to him as it was to Aang. Though Aang seemed happy to be here, he was still disconnected and distracted. It almost looked like he was looking for something, for subtle differences in the rocks or overgrown vegetation. Sakka and Toph soon joined us, interrupting his distraction.

"Let me guess, you were here one-hundred years ago and need to find the pieces to something," Toph said in an exaggerated tone as she plopped down on the ground.

"I was here one-hundred years ago as a matter of fact," Aang snapped. "It's where I met Appa. It's also where I was supposed to finish my air bending training." He took a moment of silence, standing at the ledge and looking out over the three mountains. "And the last time I saw another air bender."

"What does that mean?" I asked. Before answering, Aang took his staff and glided off over to one of the temples.

"He has to be looking for something, but he hasn't told you what it is yet, Katara?" Sakka asked and I just shook my head. I knew nothing more than him or Toph.

The three of us set up camp on the ledge, just like we had set up so many times before. Aang stayed out and looked around the castle, we could occasionally see him gliding from mountain to mountain. Sakka and Toph did not wait for him before they fell asleep, but I did out of curiosity. It is obvious that no one had lived here since the genocide of the air nomads, and there was almost no way anyone could have been here since Aang was here with Guru Pathik. Aang did not seem to be acting that way. He was the last one here, he should know that nothing had changed.

When he finally came back to us for the night, he sat in silence, seeming disturbed.

"Aang, can you talk to me and tell me why we're really here?" I asked quietly, trying not to wake Sakka and Toph.

Aang sat with his knees up in front of his body with his ankles crossed in front of him. His arms draped over his legs where his hands laid on top of one another. "I don't understand," he said. "I should have been the last one here, but things are different."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"I was told to come here. I'm not sure why but I know I was supposed to. The last time I was here, there were more vines covering the statues and buildings. The walls were broken down and some have somehow been rebuilt."

"That doesn't make sense. Because if things have changed since you have been here, that means that someone else was here. Unless Guru Pathik did all of that after you left?" I questioned.

"No—he left. This was not him." Aang shook his head in confusion and almost looked like he was in disbelief. "Someone was here to rebuild."

"Who would have come? Do you think Zuko sent people from the fire nation to help?"

Aang shook his head. He knew that someone had been here, and the only one who would know that someone would have been here was him. The only issue in someone being here is that they would have had to get here. This means they would have had to know where this was and have a means of getting to the tops of these three mountains. I thought for a moment and said, "they had to be air benders."

I knew that the fact that air benders were here was very unlikely. The Fire Nation got rid of all of the air benders. There should be none left, none except for Aang. It would be easy to convince myself that someone else came and rebuilt in order to save history, but another part of me had hope because Aang did not deny my claim. He continued to sit in silence. But how would they have survived? Where would they have been?

"I think they were," Aang finally said. Immediately his eyes began to light up, he knew he was not crazy. If I came to the same conclusion, he found justification in his own thoughts. "Katara, do you know what this means? It means I'm not alone! I'm not the only one!" He said, his voice the happiest I had heard in months. He turned his body towards me and grabbed my shoulders, "Katara, this is why I came here. The spirits wanted me to know and wanted me to find them! They were nomads, they could have not been in the temples when the Fire Nation attacked and they could have gone into hiding. They are out there." He looked at me with such happiness, a large smile across his face. His fun-loving grin and excitability was back again.

I smiled, only happy to see how happy he was. It only lasted a few seconds before thoughts began to cross my mind. "Aang, we don't really know," I said, my stomach dropping as I realized that this was going to crush the dream that he must have been focusing on for the past few months. "I'm not really sure this is enough to show us that there are other air benders. No one has seen any besides you for more than one hundred years." I knew it would be better to not get his hopes up than to crush them later.

His excitement turned to a face of sadness and then an all too familiar face of anger. "No, Katara. I know they are alive, and I know they are trying to find me as much as I am trying to find them."

"Aang, if they were still around, they would have come out of the shadows by now. There has to be a better explanation of this," I argued.

"Look, if you don't want to help me find them, then I won't mind taking you back to the Southern Water Tribe and dropping you off so I can go look for them!"

"You will be wasting your time, Aang; they're gone. You cannot get your hopes up for something that is impossible!" I began to yell. There was no way that this was possible and it would do nothing but hurt him if he had to find that out the hard way. "You have more responsibilities than to be worrying about this!"

"Fine, if you don't want to be a part of this than I'll drop you back off with your father, and then I will be off. It would rather I go, and you can go back to the water tribe where you belong," he snapped.

I huffed and crossed my arms, laying down and facing away from him. He couldn't really mean that… could he?