Author's note: This chapter picks up where the last chapter left off.


Chapter 3

Something tapped against Katara's shoe. When she looked down, a bright yellow ball was rolling away from her.

A girl who looked about eight years old ran after the ball. "Oh! I'm sorry! We didn't mean to hit you!"

Aang, who had been staring again at the monument with its awful flames and crystals, turned his head at the sound of the girl's voice. Soon, a small gaggle of children came running down the street and joined the girl, jostling with each other for the ball.

"Wait a minute…I think that's the Avatar!" said one of the boys, pointing at Aang.

Now that the tension between them had been broken, Katara stepped back from Aang, who greeted the children and bent the wind to swirl the ball around in the air. The children shrieked with delight and crowded around him, clamoring for him to do more tricks. And Aang—being Aang—was more than happy to oblige.

After the children ran off to play a game of catch, Katara and Aang resumed their walk to the train station. They chatted about harmless subjects, such as Sokka's most recent food obsession and the latest news from Toph about her metalbending academy. Katara did her best to keep her manner light and avoid thinking about what Aang had said about letting go. Aang was acting like his usual cheerful self, but there was a tautness around his eyes that hadn't been there before. He also twined his arm around hers and clutched her hand, pressing their shoulders together as they walked.

For someone who had just been talking about letting go, he was sure holding on tight.


Katara couldn't get her conversation with Aang out of her head.

The next few nights, she lay awake in bed, hearing his words over and over.

Letting go of someone means you stop holding on.

Even if it means giving them up.

She tossed and turned, trying to pick out the meaning from his words. Was he going to let go of his attachment to her someday? He'd said he had no choice. Maybe he was still figuring it out. Or maybe he had already made up his mind and was waiting for the right moment to separate himself from her.

But it couldn't be that easy, could it? Because he loved her just as much as she loved him.

She could still feel his arms around her, strong and firm, when he had talked about letting go. He hadn't acted like he wanted to let her go. In fact, it had seemed like he wanted to hold on to her no matter what.

Wait. What had he said, exactly, about Air Nomads who didn't detach themselves from the world?

Sometimes there isn't a choice.

She'd assumed he had meant that seeking detachment wasn't a choice, and that it was something expected for an Air Nomad. Maybe even required.

But he could have meant something entirely different. He could have meant that loving her left him no choice but to give up on seeking spiritual detachment. Because he didn't want to stop loving her.

Or because he can't stop loving me, she thought. The same way I can't stop loving him.

His words drifted back up to the surface of her mind.

Sometimes there isn't a choice.

She remembered the forlorn timbre of his voice, the way he had closed in on himself when he spoke. Had he been forced to do something? Or give something up?

Katara raked her fingers through her hair, which was spread out beneath her on her pillow. She was so confused. There was no way she could ask Aang about it, either. What could she possibly say?

Even if you love me now, are you planning to let go of me someday?

Does loving me mean you have to give up your spiritual practices, one of the few things you have left of your people?

She couldn't expect him to answer questions like that. Not truthfully. Nor in a way that wouldn't crush her completely. He may not even know the answers himself. Maybe he was still struggling to decide what to do.

But Katara had to understand what letting go meant to Aang, because the torture of not knowing would strain her heart to her breaking point. She had to understand, even if the answer destroyed her. Better to shatter her spirit now than to die a little every day, always wondering if she was the cause of his pain or if he was on the verge of leaving her for good.

And she knew just the person to ask.


The sun shone through the rice paper windows and bathed the teahouse in a lazy afternoon light. Chaya was nearly vacant in the after-lunch off hours, with only two other patrons hunched over their tea on opposite ends of the dining room. Katara sat alone at the table she and Aang had shared with Takit the week before, alternating between watching the door and staring out an open window, with an occasional sip of her cold tea.

She had come early to gather her thoughts and rehearse her questions. When she had first entered the teahouse, the quiet atmosphere had calmed her troubled spirit. But as she waited, the tangle of anxiety in her belly only clenched tighter. The near-silence stifled her breath, and the sharp tap of porcelain cups on polished wood jarred her nerves.

Nothing could prepare Katara for what she was about to learn. But she had to find out the truth for herself. For Aang's sake. And for her own sake.

The groan of hinges jerked her attention back to the door as it swung inward and admitted a flustered Takit. He listed to one side, weighed down by the bulk of his bulging satchel, which he dropped into a chair at Katara's table with a thunk.

"Sorry I'm late," he said as he pulled out the chair opposite her. "I wanted to make sure I hunted down every reference I could find."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Takit glanced at the empty spot beside her. "Are we waiting for Avatar Aang, too?"

She shook her head. "This is something I need to talk to you about alone. Without him."

Other than a slight raise of his eyebrows, he didn't question her explanation.

After Takit ordered his usual cup of oolong, he leaned back in his chair, hands folded in front of him. "So you wanted to talk about detachment in Air Nomad culture?"

Katara twisted her fingers together. Her resolve was beginning to waver. Did she really want to know?

"Yes," she said anyway.

"Detachment is one of the most fascinating aspects of Air Nomad society," Takit began, the words tumbling out of him as he spoke with barely contained enthusiasm. "The Air Nomads were a people who believed in communal living. They shared everything from possessions to chores to child rearing duties. This mode of living ensured that no one became overly attached to another person or material things."

"Is that why the men and the women lived apart?" She had asked Aang that same question before, too. It would have been too distracting to meditate if we didn't, he had said with a laugh and a kiss to her forehead.

She hadn't read anything into his answer then, but now she saw it in a different light. And this time, she needed to hear the answer from someone else.

Takit nodded. "According to interviews with Avatar Aang, the Air Nomads did not have a tradition of marriage."

After the war ended, Aang had given countless interviews to scholars of the Earth Kingdom—and even a handful from the Fire Nation—about the Air Nomads and their way of life. In the beginning, Katara had been at his side for every interview, holding his trembling hand as his voice stumbled and faltered. He was eager to share his experiences to help the scholars preserve the last remnants of his culture. But the wound of loss was opened anew every time he relived his memories of the people he had loved and lost. His friends and family, the life he'd left behind, now nothing more than ink on paper. Later, in the evenings, Katara would hold him. Sometimes he cried. Sometimes he grieved in silence.

Aang had accommodated every interview at first. But the effort was exhausting, and Katara had reassured him that turning down some—or all—of the interviews did not mean he was abandoning the legacy of his people. But even when he became more selective, he still attended so many that Katara could not accompany him every time. Eventually, she stopped going with him altogether. But he was never truly alone, because she had given him her hair ribbon—the one he sometimes held while meditating—to bring with him to every session.

When Aang went to interviews without her, he would wind the narrow strip of cloth around his hand, the patterned triangles like tiny black arrows wrapped around the blue arrow underneath. In this way, she still held his hand even though she wasn't there with him. And she was always there to hold him when it was over.

"To keep themselves from becoming too attached to a romantic partner, the men and women lived apart. Each gender further separated into two groups that lived apart, as well," Takit continued. "As best as Avatar Aang could recall from his life before the war, most Air Nomads took a partner from a different temple at some point in their lives. Some only had one partner in a lifetime, while others had several. Air Nomad partners never lived together, but they would write letters and sometimes visit each other. That was how they practiced detachment while satisfying their need for, ah, human relationships."

Takit's sterile description of love in Air Nomad culture chilled Katara's heart. Was he describing her future with Aang? She and Aang had talked about marriage before, even as early as the day they kissed in front of the Jasmine Dragon. She had assumed that his ideas about marriage were the same as hers. But he was from a different time and from a culture that had died out one hundred years ago. What if marriage meant something else entirely to Aang?

"This is probably a stupid question," Katara said. "Did Air Nomads ever marry?"

"It's not a stupid question. And yes, some of them married. It was rare, but it happened."

"Who did they marry? Other Air Nomads?"

Takit shook his head. "The Air Nomads never married each other. The ones who did marry took spouses from one of the other nations, where marriage was expected."

So Aang wants to marry me because that's what my culture expects him to do.

But something else that Takit had said nagged at her. "Why was marriage rare?" she asked.

He hesitated before responding. "Worldly attachments weakened Air Nomad spirituality," he said carefully.

Katara frowned. Takit's answer didn't seem to follow her question. She also noticed the way he was looking at her. Wary. As if he had finally recognized the motive behind her questions.

"What does that mean?" she asked. "What happens when they lose their spirituality?"

"Their airbending abilities would weaken, as well."

"Marriage did that?"

"Worldly attachments did."

"Such as marriage."

More hesitation. Then, "Yes."

A tense silence hung over them.

Takit cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I should be discussing this with—"

"Tell me about Air Nomad spirituality," Katara said, talking over him. "Why are attachments so important?"

He studied her, as if weighing how to answer her question, or whether he should answer it at all. "I believe the Avatar is the best person to ask."

Katara breathed in and breathed out, slow and steady, trying not to explode from frustration. "I. Am. Asking. You," she said, with pointed emphasis on every word.

Instead of replying, Takit rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a scroll, which he unrolled on the table. The parchment was filled with rows of tiny characters written in a meticulous hand.

"What is this?" she asked.

He pushed the scroll toward her. "Avatar Aang's answer to your question. It's an interview he gave to my mentor, Professor Song Ming." He tapped his finger on a section near the middle. "You should start here."

Katara stared at the writing. She had never seen such impeccable penmanship before. How was it possible to create such even brush strokes and uniform characters? But the handwriting, in all its perfection, was also rigid and cold. She touched the character for peace in Aang's name. Her eyes roved down each line of text, trying to pick out the warmth of his voice within the crisp brush strokes.

Song Ming: What is the goal of Air Nomad spirituality?

Avatar Aang: There really aren't any goals in spirituality.

Song Ming: But the Air Nomads must have aspired to something greater than themselves. The texts you helped us find discuss detachment quite a lot.

Avatar Aang: Letting go of attachments is an important practice for an Air Nomad.

Song Ming: Is that the goal, then? To detach yourself from this world?

Avatar Aang: Like I said, it's not really a goal. More like a state of being.

Song Ming: What do you mean?

Avatar Aang: You don't just let go of all your attachments and somehow achieve a goal. It's something you practice and you keep practicing for the rest of your life. Letting go of something means that you stop clinging to it. You stop worrying about it. You stop letting it control what you do.

Song Ming: Like letting go of fears?

Avatar Aang: Yes. That's a great example.

Song Ming: What about relationships?

Avatar Aang: Relationships can be attachments, too.

Song Ming: Were any Air Nomads successful at letting go of relationships and material things? Did any succeed in completely detaching themselves from the world?

Avatar Aang: Like I said, it's not about success.

Song Ming: Let me rephrase. Were any Air Nomads considered to be deeply spiritual because they detached themselves from the world?

Avatar Aang: I don't like calling it detachment, because that sounds so cold. But yes, some Air Nomads have let go of their attachments. They've learned to set their spirits free. They lived without being bound to the things that weighed them down.

Song Ming: Have you succeeded in letting go of attachments in your own life?

Avatar Aang: Again, it's not about success. But to answer your question, yes. [A long pause] Kind of.

Song Ming: Please explain.

Avatar Aang: Sometimes you have to hold on until you're forced to let go. Sometimes there isn't a choice.

Song Ming: What do you mean?

Avatar Aang: Can we please talk about something else?

Katara stopped reading. Her eyes still moved down the lines of text, but they were nothing more than strokes of black ink. The words no longer held any meaning. It was only when she breathed in, a bracing gasp of air that made her head spin, that she realized she'd been holding her breath. She blinked, trying to clear her head.

The words she'd just read burned in her mind. She could almost hear Aang's voice.

Letting go of something means that you stop clinging to it.

Relationships can be attachments, too.

Sometimes you have to hold on until you're forced to let go.

Sometimes there isn't a choice.

What did it all mean? Was Aang saying what she thought he was saying?

And when the professor asked for more details, he had evaded her question. Just as he had with the Air Acolytes, and with Katara herself.

"Are you all right?" Takit was looking at her with concern.

Katara stood up abruptly, her chair scraping across the floor. "I need to go." She tossed some coins onto the table. "That should cover the cost of my tea. And yours, too. Thanks for meeting with me today."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn't wait for his reply. Getting to the door was the only thing she cared about.

She burst out of the teahouse and into the glaring afternoon light, letting the door slam so hard that it rattled the wooden frame. Pedestrians squeezed past her while vendors hawked their wares in the din of the busy street.

But Katara hardly noticed any of this as she pushed through the bustling avenue. She had only one thing on her mind.

I need to talk to Aang.


Katara came home to a mostly empty house. The common areas were deserted except for the main sitting room, where a curled up Momo was snoozing on the windowsill. Just because Momo was home didn't mean that Aang was, too. These days, Aang usually left the winged lemur at the house when he was out on Avatar business.

None of her friends answered when she called their names. Suki was visiting for the week, so she and Sokka were probably spending the afternoon together out on the town. Aang was nowhere in sight.

Even so, there was a small chance that Aang was home. If he was, Katara had to find him. She had to talk to him. She had to know what he had meant when he answered—or, more importantly, didn't answer—Song Ming's questions about his own attachments.

Katara knew she was an attachment in his life. She had to be. And she was bringing him down.

So what did he want to do about that? How did she fit into his life?

Maybe she didn't fit into his life at all.

The door to Aang's bedroom, which was across the hall from hers, had been left ajar. She peered through the opening. The windows were open, letting in the summer breeze and the occasional trill of birdsong. Aang was seated in the middle of the room, meditating with his fists pressed together and his legs folded across. But what drew her eye was not his furrowed brow or the uncharacteristic frown on his lips, but the white ribbon with black triangles that was wrapped around both hands.

Aang lifted his hands and brought the ribbon to his lips. He remained still, with his head bowed as he kissed this part of her that she had given to him. Katara continued to watch him from the doorway, surprised that he hadn't acknowledged her presence. With his senses heightened by airbending and earthbending, Aang was usually impossible to sneak up on. He noticed everything.

He lowered his hands and exhaled, a slow and even release of breath. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the cherry tree outside the window, his gaze half-lidded and absent. Only when Katara shifted her feet, her clothes rustling in the stillness, did he notice her.

"Hi sweetie," he said brightly. He bounded to his feet to meet her, but not before he slipped the ribbon off his hands and into the folds of his robes.

Aang crossed the room and took her hands and planted a kiss on her lips. Did the pressure of his mouth on hers seem a bit too hasty? Was his grip on her hands a little too tight? Or was she just imagining things?

"Hi," she said, studying his face. He smiled at her, but the usual clear gray of his eyes was clouded with…something. Worry? Anxiety? "How was your meeting?"

"Filled with long-winded officials. I wanted to tell them they could just write a memo next time instead of making us their prisoners." He rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I think they just like to hear themselves talk."

Then he laughed and slipped his arms around her waist. "I missed you," he murmured as he nuzzled her hair, which she had chosen to wear loose that day.

"Missed you, too." Katara rested her head on his shoulder and buried her nose in his neck, losing herself in his scent and the sweet aroma of sandalwood. She wanted to stay like this forever, surrounded by his arms and basking in his warmth, with no thought to the future. No worrying about whether loving Aang was like catching a penguin fish, only to have him slip through the net.

"How was your afternoon? Did you have a good time meeting up with Yura?"

Aang's question shattered the peace that had settled over Katara, pulling her back into a reality as harsh as the cold arctic sun. She had told him that she was meeting with Yura, a waterbender healer from the Northern Water Tribe. Yura's husband had traveled to Ba Sing Se for a trading expedition, and she had come with him. Katara had been delighted to run across a fellow waterbender healer, and Yura had been grateful to find a friend in another Water Tribe woman. It also didn't hurt that by befriending Yura, Katara might eventually be able to entice more healers in the North to venture outside of their homeland.

But Katara hadn't met up with Yura, of course. She hated keeping the truth from Aang. But if he knew she had met with Takit, he would find it…

Unusual.

There it was, that word again. Unusual.

Just like her and Aang.

"It was good," she said.

Katara leaned back in the circle of his arms. She ran her fingers down the soft, flowing fabric of his robes draped across his chest. The vivid orange-red of saffron and the cheerful gold of chrysanthemums. So different from her own seal fur and yak hide that were dyed to match the endless blue of the ocean.

The Water Tribes lived off the land and the sea while the Air Nomads roamed the skies. A cranefish might sometimes land to rest its wings, but an otter penguin could never fly.

"Aang, did the Air Nomads ever marry people from another culture?" she asked as her finger traced a crease in his robes.

"A few of them did. Why?"

"What happened to them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did they stay in the temples?"

Aang slid his hands up her back and gathered her in. "No, they didn't. They left to build a life with their new families."

"Did any of them return to the temples? You know, to visit?"

"Now that you mention it, I don't think they did." He sounded surprised, as if he had never thought about it before. "Not that I remember."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Maybe they didn't have a reason to anymore. Or maybe it was too much to come back to the life they had given up."

Because they had given up their airbending, Katara thought. They didn't want to be reminded of what they had lost.

A cranefish living at the otter penguin's side was cursed to remain tied to the earth.

"I see," she said. "No other reason?"

Aang shrugged. "Not that I can think of."

Katara flattened her hands on his chest. The beating of his heart under her palms felt faster than usual.

She wasn't Toph, who could read between the lines of heartbeats as naturally as bending the earth beneath her feet. But Katara knew Aang's heartbeat well enough to tell when he was calm and when he was not.

He's lying. He's lying to protect me from the truth about attachments and airbending.

"Someone is asking a lot of questions about marriage," Aang said in a teasing tone. He arched an eyebrow. "Something on your mind?"

"Not really."

"But you seem worried."

She looked down at her fingers splayed across his chest. How much longer would she be able to stay close to him like this? "Worried?" she said, forcing a laugh. "I'm not worried."

"You're worried. I can tell." Aang tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stroked her cheek with his thumb. "You know you can tell me anything."

Katara wanted to. She wanted to tell him. But she didn't want to hear his answer. She didn't want to hear lies about how their relationship had nothing to do with his spiritual practices or his airbending. She didn't want to hear the truth—that his love for her clipped his wings and hung like a weight around his neck—because hearing the truth would break her.

She clenched his robes in her fist, fighting back tears. "I don't want you to give anything up because of me."

He trailed his fingers down her cheek until they came to rest under her chin. "I won't be giving anything up by marrying you."

His words sent a shiver through her. They had only talked about marriage as a what if and maybe someday. But now he was talking like they had already decided to get married, as if marriage was no longer an if but a when.

"I'll be gaining the whole world," he said softly.

He nudged her chin up, and she closed her eyes as his lips met hers. His kiss was both a tender reassurance and a heated brush against an untapped well of need. It was also a promise, one that bound him to her, and her to him.

Which was exactly what Katara feared.

If Aang ever lost his airbending because of her, if he ever lost the core of who he was, she would never be able to forgive herself.

But Aang was the Avatar. He wouldn't lose his airbending completely, would he? Probably not. But he was still an Air Nomad, and attachments dragged him down. Katara dragged him down. If his airbending weakened because of her, if he was hurt—if he died because of her, it would be the same as if she had killed him herself.

When they pulled apart, she laid her head in the curve of his neck, the memory of his kiss—his promise—lingering on her lips. Part of her wanted to cling to him, secure in his love and in the promise of a life together. Ever since they had declared their love for each other in the sunset of Ba Sing Se, she had dreamed about living at Aang's side. Nights surrounded by his warmth, mornings waking up to sleepy gray eyes. Dashing after their children, who would laugh and shriek while stringing their parents along on a merry chase. Sitting side by side, sharing a cup of tea in the twilight years of their lives.

But as Katara snuggled into Aang, she caught a flash of black-on-white nestled within the folds of his robes. Her hair ribbon, hidden away like a secret that pretended not to exist as long as no one saw it or mentioned it. The ribbon he had bound around his hands and held to his lips as if making a confession. Had he been struggling with letting her go? Or asking for forgiveness as he clung to her ever more tightly? Whatever he had been doing, it wasn't something he'd meant her to see.

Katara knew then, without a doubt, what she had to do. She would do what Aang could not, and she would do it because she loved him.

I need to let him go.


The following weeks tested Katara's resolve. She had to summon every ounce of her will to stop sneaking into Aang's room for morning cuddles in his bed. But she could resist as long as she stayed in her own room until breakfast. It was much harder to turn him away when he appeared at her door. At first, she had let him in and melted into his arms as they shared hungry kisses of lovers who had been apart for too long. But as her love for him surged anew, its roots growing ever deeper into her heart, she knew they could not continue on like this.

So one morning, she locked the door and stashed the key under a heavy vase in the far corner of her room. When Aang knocked on her door, she sat on her hands and willed herself not to dash to the vase and scramble for the key. When he asked to come in, it took everything she had to say no.

When he asked why and what's wrong, she said, "I need some space."

He didn't question her or push for answers. All he said was, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Katara teetered on the brink. Aang was so close. All she had to do was open the door. She sat frozen and unbreathing, afraid that the slightest movement would send her toppling over the edge and back into his arms.

"No," she heard herself say, as if her mouth belonged to someone else. "I just need some space right now."

And he gave it to her.

They stopped seeing each other in the mornings, but they still lived in the same house. Katara quickly discovered how excruciating it was to sit near Aang without allowing herself to touch him, so she made herself stay as far away from him as possible.

Aang picked up the hint. One rainy morning, less than a week after she had locked him out, Katara went to the sitting room to find Sokka. The roof was leaking, and she wanted to talk to Sokka about hiring someone to fix it. Aang, who had been lounging in a chair next to her brother, immediately stood up and walked out of the room. Katara stopped in her tracks, stunned. With great difficulty, she discussed her errand with Sokka and excused herself. Then she dashed back to her room and spent the rest of the morning sobbing on her bed. She cried not just for herself, but for Aang and for what they had become. She grieved for what they had lost. She wept because she wished with all her heart for another alternative, but there was none.

Later, when their friends asked her if something was wrong, she would mutter, "We're on a break."

She wondered what Aang was telling them.

The distance between them grew over time. Little by little, she retreated from Aang, and little by little, he gave her more space. But no matter how far apart they drifted, he was still in her life. She saw him at home and when they went out with their friends. She saw him in the billowing robes of a passing Air Acolyte and in the sunset beyond the walls of Ba Sing Se. She saw him everywhere, all the time.

Katara knew that she had to leave Ba Sing Se. But even though she had stretched the connection between her and Aang as thin as she could, she could not bring herself to break it.

For the first time in her life, she found herself wishing that she had never fallen in love with Aang. Things would have been easier—and much less complicated—if they had just stayed friends. If they had been friends and nothing more, he would have been safe from her. But Katara was in love with Aang, and being in love with Aang made letting go of him impossible.

Impossible, until one autumn evening.

Katara padded down the hall to her room to get ready for bed, not bothering to mask the slap slap of her house slippers on the tiled floor. Since she shared the same hallway with Aang, excursions to and from her room were fraught with the danger of running into him. But she soon figured out that if he heard her coming, he would stay out of her way until she was gone. Because he knew that was what she would have wanted.

He had left his door ajar as usual. She was about to slip into her room when a flickering light, like the fitful dance of an open flame, from inside his room caught her eye. Worried that something in his room had caught on fire, she pushed his door wider and peered inside.

Aang sat in the middle of the room in lotus position, his back to her and his knees jutting out on either side of him. His figure was no more than a dark silhouette, backlit by a small fire he held cupped in his palm. He lifted his other hand over the fire. Though the room was dim, she could make out a length of cloth wrapped around his fingers. With deliberate slowness, he let the strip of cloth fall, one loop at a time, into the fire.

In the flickering light, as the strip caught fire, she glimpsed something that stopped her breath.

A flash of black on white, just before the flames engulfed the cloth.

My ribbon.

The coils of the cloth twisted like a dying mink snake, writhing slowly in the flames.

Aang is burning my ribbon.

Katara's legs buckled under her. She crouched on the floor outside of Aang's room, holding her head in shaking hands, shivering from a chill colder than the frigid arctic night. The only part of her that wasn't cold were the hot tears leaking from her eyes.

Two months after she had first asked Aang about letting go, after they had pulled away from each other, after they had become ghosts in each other's lives—

Aang had decided to let go of her.

Now she could finally let go of him, too.

The next morning, she took the train to the merchant district in the Middle Ring and booked a one-way passage to the Southern Water Tribe.