Chapter 15

In the weeks after the girl's father was taken away, her mother asked around about the Dai Li. As newcomers to Ba Sing Se, the girl and her mother hardly knew anyone. Most of their acquaintances were Water Tribers who didn't seem to know anything about the Dai Li or somehow managed to change the subject to something safe and mundane.

Desperate, her mother started to press Saitik for more information. Saitik was a talkative and friendly woman who had moved from the South Pole years ago and had taken the girl's family under her wing. But as her mother's questions about the Dai Li became more insistent, Saitik clammed up and began to distance herself.

But the more Saitik pushed her mother away, the more her mother scrambled to cling to the one person who might pity her enough to give her an answer.

Then one day, when the girl and her mother were walking home from the market, her mother marched right past the road that would lead them home. Several dusty street corners later, she turned down a different road—the road where Saitik's shack stood.

The front door opened at her mother's knocking, and Saitik's round face peered out. At the sight of the girl's mother, Saitik immediately shut the door—or tried to. Her mother stuck her foot in the door, wedging it open.

"I know why you're here," the other woman said curtly. "I don't have anything to tell you, except this: the Dai Li take away people who make trouble. Stir things up. I don't want any trouble." She narrowed her eyes at the girl's mother. "Nobody does."

Then Saitik kicked her mother's foot out of the doorway and slammed the door shut.

Months went by. The holes in the girl's shoes grew larger. Hunger pangs made her belly grumble more often than before. Her mother aged, lines appearing on her face the way leather cracked from neglect. New calluses appeared on her mother's nimble seamstress's hands, as well as raw spots that refused to heal. The girl's own hands became red and rough from soaking in alkali all day long.

Nights were the worst. The girl went to bed and huddled under threadbare blankets, longing for the evenings when her father would wrap her in his arms and sing softly about the murmuring night breeze and the gently falling snow of home. She used to fall asleep to the music of her mother and father talking to each other in their bedroom, keeping their voices low and quiet. But now, the muffled sound of her mother's sobbing echoed inside her own empty spirit. The girl would lie awake, unable to sleep until the house was smothered in silence.

As she struggled to fall asleep, the girl would try to distract herself from her mother's weeping and from her own hot tears. She would imagine herself back home, snuggled under blankets of sealskin pelts. Or she would pretend that her father had only gone away for a while with the promise to return after she had fallen asleep. Or she would dream that she was like the merchant's daughters who came to the laundry to pick up their clothing, wearing shoes embroidered with gold thread. She would go home to parents who tucked her in at night as she lay in a bed that wasn't lumpy and didn't smell like mildewed straw.

But even at this young age, the girl knew that Water Tribers stayed in the Lower Ring. Cut off from their homes by fire and by impenetrable walls and trapped in a life marked by the struggle for survival. They lived in a limbo of aching for the part of themselves that they'd left behind while trying to tread water in an unfamiliar land.

Then one day, the girl heard about the Water Tribe family that moved to the Middle Ring. They had saved up enough to buy a proper house, and there were excited whispers that the son planned to attend University someday.

How fortunate, the girl thought as she drifted off to sleep. She imagined—for the briefest of moments—that she still had both of her parents and that her belly was fat and full.

Aang stood in the middle of the snow fields, his face turned toward the broad expanse of the South Sea. With unseeing eyes, he watched the horizon where the ocean met the sky. He didn't see the string of ice floes in the distance that stretched across the watery landscape, forming a lacy white ribbon that separated the water from the air. He didn't see the soft oranges and yellows of the newly risen sun that painted the clouds and the sky. Nor did he see the slate blue of the ocean, the constantly rippling waters shimmering with the warm colors of the sky above.

He didn't see any of those things because he was waiting for Katara.

The previous evening, Hakoda had pulled Aang aside to thank him for mediating the trade meeting with a deft touch. After they had discussed the details of the meeting and future steps, the conversation turned to the inevitable subject of Katara.

"Katara goes to the ocean to waterbend every morning," Hakoda had said. "She takes a sled over the snow fields, then bends her way down the ice cliffs to the shore. She has a canoe hidden away that she takes into the ocean. That's where she goes to be alone in the morning."

Aang hadn't been sure what to make of this new knowledge. When he and Katara were still together, she only went off to waterbend alone when she was upset or needed to think. But now, after they had broken up and she had returned to the South Pole, she went to a spot where no one could follow so she could waterbend alone. The same way Aang would sometimes go off by himself to meditate in the mornings. It was almost as if she had picked up that practice from him and made it her own.

So what did it mean? Did she waterbend in the mornings because she was thinking about him? Did she miss him?

Or was she just trying to forget about him and the years they had twined their lives together?

But Aang didn't dwell for long on what Katara's morning waterbending might mean. Because it really didn't matter. Just a few hours ago at the trade meeting, Katara had pledged to spend the rest of her life in the Southern Water Tribe. Upon hearing her words, an ache in his chest had opened up and left him hollow. Empty. Guessing at the reason for her morning waterbending was not going to not make that emptiness go away.

Besides, he knew exactly why Hakoda was bringing it up.

"I'll try to see her before I leave in the morning," Aang had said. He wasn't sure if he said that because he really wanted to see her, or because he was expected to say it. Probably a bit of both.

As they both shifted their feet in awkward silence, Aang realized that this was the moment to ask Hakoda the question that had burned in his mind for the last six months. If anyone had the answer, it was Hakoda. And Aang knew he would not get another chance.

"Chief Hakoda…" he began.

His voice wavered as his courage started to slip away.

Don't think about it. Just ask.

He ran his tongue over the rough skin of his dry lips. Then the words rushed out, a burst of breath he'd held for too long, before he could stop to think about what they meant.

"Why did Katara break up with me?" he blurted out.

If Hakoda was surprised at Aang's question, he didn't show it. The older man frowned, but the creases that lined his face were concerned, not hostile. "The only thing she would tell me was, 'We're not right for each other. We should have just stayed friends.'"

Hakoda's answer brought Aang back to that fateful day in Hai Bian. "I wish we had been friends from the beginning," Katara had said as she twisted her fingers together. "It would have been better that way."

Katara told her dad the same thing she told me, Aang thought to himself. She told him that we should have been nothing more than friends.

So that means…

That means she really did fall out of love with me.

Aang knew that Katara had fallen out of love with him many months ago. But hearing it from someone else—from her father, no less—drove home that truth like a hammer pounding a nail into his heart.

The empty ache in his chest deepened into a pain that almost split him in two. But he also felt strangely numb. He didn't mind that, though. He didn't mind feeling numb.

He remembered the white ribbon with black triangles in his satchel back in his tent, coiled up like a string of memories and pointless hope. No, he didn't mind feeling numb. Because feeling numb would finally allow him to do what he could not do before. He would finally be able to set down the past and leave it behind.

So Aang waited for Katara on the snow-covered plains. After he saw her, after he did what he needed to do, he would go to the massive shelter he had icebent for Appa and bury his face in the sky bison's fur. He would grasp the coarse hair of Appa's coat in his hands, a futile attempt to halt his freefall into the void. And then he would find Sokka, gather up the Air Acolytes, and fly back to Ba Sing Se.

It would be that simple. Make a clean break—from his end, anyway, since she had already made her break months ago—leave the past behind, and fly home.

When Aang saw the speck of blue in the distance, he knew it could only be Katara.

As she drew closer, he saw that she was riding belly-down on a sled made of two long wooden slats bridged by a bed of wide crossplanks. This type of sled was designed to be pulled by snow leopard caribou, but her sled had no snow leopards tethered to it. Instead, she was gliding over the frozen terrain using icebending alone.

He could tell, from the lift of her head, that she had noticed him, too. But he was probably hard to miss, clad as he was in vivid red and gold and saffron on a landscape of brilliant white snow.

For a moment, he thought she might veer away from him, pass him by. But this was Katara. Even if she didn't care for him anymore, this was going to be the last time they would see each other for a long, long time. She might not seek him out to say goodbye, but she wasn't going to pretend she didn't see him, not when they had both obviously spotted each other.

She slowed as she drew near and came to a stop more than an armlength away. With jerky movements, as if his eyes on her made her self-conscious, she climbed off her sled and straightened up before him.

"Hi Aang," she said. Her face showed no emotion, but she reminded Aang of a fawn, her eyes wary and nervous.

At first, he couldn't respond. He could only see Katara. The fine loops of braided hair, framing a face so dear. Eyes of deep blue that had once been his safe haven. Her slender figure swathed in a fur-trimmed parka, not unlike the one she had worn when they first met three years ago.

All he could see was Katara. This was the last time he would ever be able to see her this way, gazing at her openly. Because not long from now, she was going to be gone.

Gone from his life.

Gone from his heart.

"Hi Katara," he said, his voice grating from somewhere deep within his chest and emerging thick and hoarse.

They stood just looking at each other. Her eyes didn't leave his face—almost as if she was trying to memorize what he looked like before he left for good.

Déjà vu hit him, a sudden blast of wind that stole his breath away. This was just like the time they had said goodbye on the docks of Hai Bian.

Only this time, Aang was the one leaving Katara.

Aang was leaving her, truly leaving her. He did not know much about her relationship with Takit, but they seemed close. Perhaps there was more than friendship between them now—or if not, there might be more in the future. He didn't know. But it was not his place to wonder or care. Not anymore.

He needed to say goodbye, but there was one last thing he needed to do. One last thing to make sure that when he removed her from his life, he also removed her presence from his heart.

Aang swallowed through the chalky dryness in his mouth. "I need to give something back to you," he said.

He reached into the saffron robes that he wore across his chest over his woolen winter garb. His fingers hooked around the last remnant of his devotion to Katara and pulled out a thin loop of cloth.

Katara's gasp was so loud that he thought something had struck her. He almost asked if she was okay, but the question faded on his tongue when he saw that there was no threat, no danger, and she was clearly unharmed.

Then he saw her tears. Streams of anguish, spilling down her cheeks. Blue eyes widened with recognition at the sight of her ribbon, then froze in a stare of disbelief, her face blanching pale.

Aang had been prepared for awkward acceptance and even tears—from him just as much as her—as they both remembered and mourned what they used to have. But he did not expect this. Nothing could have prepared him for naked shock and open grief.

Katara folded her arms tightly across her body with a mittened hand over her mouth, crumpling in on herself and hunching over. Almost as if…

Almost as if she was in pain.

He was about to ask her what was wrong—an ironic question, when nothing about their situation was right—when she spoke, a harsh whisper clogged with tears:

"So you didn't burn my ribbon?"

Aang stopped breathing. His heart hammered in his chest. How did she know he had almost burned her ribbon?

He remembered how he had stretched his arm over the flames and almost opened his hand. And then how he had pressed his head into the frozen ground, rocking with the agony of the deed he had nearly committed.

How did Katara know about that?

But his mind was too numb, too fractured to make the pieces fit in a way that made sense.

"N-no," he said stupidly. He had to try to answer her question, at least. "I didn't burn it."

Aang didn't know if Katara heard him. She was staring at the ribbon wrapped around his hand like it was a live cobra eel, coiled and ready to strike.

He wasn't sure what to do next. But he had to give Katara her ribbon. He had to rid himself of that cherished memento, or he would never be free of his attachment to her.

"Here," he said, abruptly thrusting out the hand that clutched the black-and-white strand. "This is yours. You should have it back."

She recoiled, as if he was offering her a vine of stinging ivy instead of the ribbon that had bound them in their love for each other. But after a tense moment, she seemed to understand. She cupped her hands together and held them out.

Aang unclenched his fingers and let the loop of cloth slide into her palms. At first, Katara just looked at the ribbon. Almost like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Then she closed her hand around the ribbon, that precious symbol of their bond, and tucked it into the sealskin pouch that hung at her waist.

Just like that, her ribbon was gone. Aang could no longer run the strand through his fingers, thumbing the black triangles as he dwelled on memories of happier times. He could no longer wrap the cloth around his hands, trying to remember what it felt like when they still loved each other.

Now he had nothing left of Katara, nothing left of the love they had shared.

He had set down the past. He had let her go.

The only thing left for him to do was to walk away and leave it all behind.

Aang jammed his thumbs into the vermilion sash belted around his waist. Even though he didn't want to, he hauled his gaze up to meet hers. "Goodbye, Katara," he said.

His words of farewell came with surprising ease. Maybe that was because yesterday, he had already let her go in his heart. Or because he had finally given up her ribbon. Or maybe it was simply because he was dead inside.

Empty.

She exhaled, almost like a sigh, as if she was letting out a breath she had been holding for too long. In that breath, he saw something in her die. The light faded from her eyes as the hope he had always seen in them folded in on itself and disappeared completely.

But that had to be his imagination. She had already let go of him many months ago.

Katara nodded, a downward jerk of her head. "Goodbye, Aang," she said in a voice that was as dull as her gaze.

Snow began to fall. Tiny crystals of ice drifted down, dancing in the gusts and eddies that swirled them about. Like white flakes of ash, as if the bond between him and Katara had been burned away.

Katara turned to mount her sled, her footsteps creaking in the snow. Aang stood there, watching her. He couldn't summon up the will to move. He would wait until Katara glided away, and then he would go find Appa.

She had only just knelt onto the sled when the sound of someone calling her name made her look up.

"Katara!"

Aang whirled to see where the voice was coming from. Then the person called his name, too.

"Avatar Aang!"

In the distance, running toward them, was the tiny form of Takit. He was waving his arms and yelling something. And trudging behind him, walking with a stoop to her shoulders, was a girl with twin braids.

Author's note: If you liked this chapter, please let me know in a review! Next chapter in 2 weeks ❤️