Chapter 12
Ten years ago
"Tsk, watch where you're going!"
The girl shrank back from the washerwoman's sharp scolding. Liquid pooled on the floor from the bucket she'd kicked over, spreading over the bamboo planks and around her shoes.
"I'm sorry, Yi Tai Tai. It was an accident," the girl said in a small voice.
But Yi Tai Tai talked over the girl like she hadn't even spoken. "Look at the mess you made! But I suppose you can't expect too much from someone fresh off a Water Tribe boat."
The girl reddened at the washerwoman's words. She wasn't sure what the woman meant, but her tone was unmistakable.
To avoid displeasing the washerwoman further, the girl grabbed a thick scrap of cloth and began to mop up the spill with frantic, clumsy movements. The woman watched her for a terrible moment before turning her critical eye on the other girls under her charge.
As the girl cleaned up the mess, she blinked back the tears that burned in her eyes. The room that housed the laundry smelled pleasant enough—the delicate scents of sandalwood and gardenia mingled with the humid air. But the perfumes of the soap that cleaned the clothes of merchants and the occasional aristocrat could not mask the bare walls or the clotheslines that stretched across the space like a deranged spider's web.
These aromas might be commonplace in the Earth Kingdom, but to the girl, they were exotic and foreign. They tickled her nose and coated her skin like a veneer that gilded an unforgiving reality.
No Earth Kingdom fragrance, however flowery or refined, could match the smell of caribou hide and suaasat stew and the salty spray of open sea. The smell of home.
Home. The girl missed home. But her father had brought their family to this great city in the Earth Kingdom so they would be safe. To begin new lives within these impenetrable walls, shielded from the war.
The girl no longer huddled under her sealskin blankets, dreading that the morning would bring flame and smoke and new horrors. She now slept under a tattered wool throw and woke up to the brassy shouts of their neighbors and the odors of mouse urine and rotting cabbage. Her legs ached from running errands at the laundry and from fleeing jeering voices that called her a water peasant, or worse.
But they were safe. They were survivors. That's what her father would tell her as he rocked her to sleep on nights when the tears wouldn't stop coming. And she did feel safe, because her father's arms protected her. The stares of outsiders and the hunger that gnawed at her belly could not touch her when her father's arms surrounded her—her harbor from the storms of life.
Aang trudged against the winds that howled over the snow fields. Icy gusts sliced through his shell of heated air currents, but he paid them no attention. He was consumed with confusion and thoughts of Katara.
The two seemed to go together quite frequently these days.
Ever since he had run into Katara on the night of his arrival, they had circled each other in a tantalizing dance. When one of them pulled too close, the other would push away. Sometimes he did the pulling and she did the pushing, and sometimes it was the other way around. But most of the time, he would freely admit, the one doing the pulling was himself.
Aang knew he had to let her go. He had no choice. Letting go of Katara was the final step to freeing himself from the guilt that weighed him down.
But his desire proved stronger than his will—his desire to gravitate to Katara, to give in to her irresistible attraction. If he really wanted to let her go, he shouldn't have offered to soothe her bruised wrist. But the thought of someone—Amarak—harming Katara had filled him with insensible rage and a profound ache in his spirit.
Aang was supposed to let her go, not enmesh himself deeper in her orbit. But Katara had been hurt. He would never be able to just shrug off her injury. He needed to let her go, but he still loved her. He loved her so much that he would do anything to make sure she was unharmed, even if it meant making decisions that were unwise.
But that was the crux of his problem, wasn't it? He loved her too much to do what was wise—and the wise thing to do, for a second time in his life, was to let her go.
And then he had asked her to come with him to the ice caves. Another unwise decision. He'd made that request right after they had just shared a soft moment, the heat of his touch on her wrist melding them together. Soothing Katara's aches had always been an intimate experience for both of them. Why did he think this time would be any different?
Over the last several months of living without Katara, the yearning he'd cherished for her had dulled with time. But last night, her unquestioning trust as he bent away her pain, the quiet sigh of her breath dusting over his skin, had ignited something inside him. His yearning for her had flared back to life, blazing furious and bright, and Aang was helpless in its grip.
But not totally helpless, he tried to tell himself.
Because he had been able to resist Katara, his attraction to her. Sort of.
Okay, maybe not all that well.
But he'd been able to hold back, sometimes. There had been so many times when he could have touched Katara, even kissed her, but he didn't.
I was able to hold back when it mattered.
And then he had woken up in the ice cave, frozen to the marrow, with Katara curled around him like a pentapus. She had said she was only warming him up. But it had been more than that. She had been doing more than just saving his life. She had been pleading for him to come back—he had felt it in her arms. An embrace that was desperate and completely stripped of reservations.
She had been holding him like she loved him.
And being so close to Katara, with his arms clasped around her back, with no barriers between them…
Aang had almost kissed her.
But he didn't.
And good thing, too.
Because kissing Katara would have made letting go of her so much harder—maybe even impossible.
And, besides, she probably would have pushed him away.
But kiss or no kiss, she had run from him anyway.
Aang raised his eyes, searching the snow fields for signs that he was nearing the village. Snow had begun to fall, a swirling, thick veil that almost blotted out the hulking silhouettes of tents and igloos in the distance. At least the village was in sight now. He didn't know how much time he and Katara had spent in the ice caves, but he probably had to hustle if he didn't want to be late for the trade meeting this morning.
He scanned the ground ahead of him for Katara's tracks. The heavy snowfall had filled in her footprints, turning them into broad dimples in the white expanse.
Katara's flight from him in the ice caves had hit him like a punch in the gut. Maybe it was the suddenness, after they had just been so tender with each other. Or maybe it was because he kept imagining that Katara wanted to be near him, when in reality, she had tried to do everything she could to stay away from him.
Aang grabbed at his forehead in frustration. I'm such an idiot! Why do I keep thinking that she still feels something for me?
He could still see her back, the hood of her parka bobbing up and down as she ran away from him. A sight that was not so different from the time she had fled from him on Ember Island—after he had kissed her, when she'd just told him that she was confused about her feelings.
But there had been no confusion about her feelings when she whirled on her heel and disappeared into the theater.
There had been no confusion this time, either.
Katara doesn't want anything to do with me. Not back in Ba Sing Se, and not here in the Southern Water Tribe.
But something about the way she had fled from him this time bothered him. The reason why she had fled.
On Ember Island, the reason had been obvious. Katara had made it clear she didn't want a relationship at the time, but Aang had kissed her anyway.
But what was the reason this time, in the ice caves? They had been about to kiss—or so it had seemed—and then Katara had started shivering. She had been cold, so she had pulled away to button up her parka. After she had unwound herself from around him, the empty space she left behind was a stark reminder of the rupture between them.
The moment they'd shared had passed. The spell, broken.
And then Aang had remembered that he needed to let her go.
So he had given her cloak back to her. She needed it more than he did, anyway. Had she sensed that he was shedding the part of her that she had given to him? Was that why she had run away?
But no. That didn't seem right. It had to be something else.
What had happened next?
Katara had been cold, and Aang wanted to help her warm up before they set off for the village. He had called up a flame in his hand to provide some heat.
And then she had bolted away from him. As if she'd been spooked.
Had he come on too strong? Maybe she hadn't wanted his help. He hadn't asked her if she did. He had just gone ahead and created the fire—the fire that blazed with the warmth of his affection for her. Calling up the fire had felt like the natural thing to do. It was what he would have done if they had still been together.
But they weren't together.
And maybe that made all the difference.
The village walls loomed in front of Aang. He entered through a wide gap that would eventually become an entrance in its own right—Taika Gate, named after a mythical figure in Water Tribe lore. The name, Taika, tickled his memory. He had heard it before. But trying to remember was like straining to hear an echo of the past, faded and pulled thin by the passage of one hundred years.
He raised his staff to greet the sentries, who nodded to him as he passed through. So many people had moved back to the Southern Water Tribe that this section of wall had to be demolished and rebuilt to expand the perimeter of the village. It was a substantial undertaking that involved many laborers and a handful of waterbenders who had been recruited from the North—and which sometimes included Katara.
Workers dotted the wall like otter penguins on an iceberg. Katara wasn't among them, of course. She was probably at the meeting tent already—which was where Aang needed to be, too.
A low whoosh, then an explosion of light. Someone cried out.
"Hey, watch it!" yelled a worker at the foot of the wall. She held her arms across her face and backed away from another worker holding a torch. Large fan-like flames billowed from the torch's pitch-soaked knob.
The worker with the torch tried to swivel the flames away from his workmate while still facing her, an awkward maneuver. "Sorry, Elika," he said sheepishly as he struggled with the unwieldy flame.
Elika huffed an exasperated sigh and propped her fists on her hips. "Just be careful the next time you light one of those things," she grumbled. "I know we need powerful flames to break down the wall. But I don't trust this new-fangled technology. Pitch that burns twice as long and three times as strong? I didn't spend my life surviving firebender raids to be burned by some idiot's invention. I don't trust it."
Trust…
Aang watched as Elika warily allowed the other worker to bring the flame back around.
That's it!
Aang coming on too strong wasn't the only thing that had frightened Katara away. Something had flashed through her eyes right after he summoned the fire in his hands.
Panic.
And…something else.
She had flinched, her body curling up, her fingers digging into the ground. As if…
As if she had been in pain.
Panic and pain. And then she had fled.
Because she didn't trust the fire in his palm.
"Hey, Aang! You heading over to the meeting tent?" Sokka was jogging down the path toward Aang and greeted him with a jaunty wave.
Aang nodded as Sokka fell into step beside him. "Yeah. I just got back from the ice caves."
His friend peered around him as if looking for something. "Where's Katara? Isn't she supposed to be with you?"
"Uh, yeah," Aang replied, forcing a chuckle. "She came back first. She…had something she needed to take care of."
Sokka just shrugged, accepting his answer. "So did you find the spirit?"
"No, I didn't. There was no sign of any spirit who might live in the ice caves. No one in the spirit world seemed to know what I was talking about."
"Huh. That's strange," Sokka said. "Maybe it's just hanging out in the caves, then?"
"I guess. But spirits normally don't spend a lot of time in the human world. It would be unusual for the spirit to spend all of its time in the caves."
"I'll take your word for it. All this spirit world stuff is out of my wheelhouse."
After their conversation petered out, Aang and Sokka walked together in silence, their footsteps crunching in the snow.
Aang glanced at his friend. Sokka's eyes were blue like his sister's, and they shone with the same keen intelligence. But where Katara's eyes burned with fire and compassion, Sokka's glinted with cleverness and calculated skepticism. Even though Sokka often acted like a good-natured idiot, his easy smile vanished whenever he was confronted with either of two things: superstition, or threats to someone he cared about—which was usually Katara.
The latter reason was why Aang found it hard to confide in Sokka. Even though Sokka had always been supportive of his relationship with Katara, he was still her brother. Aang couldn't talk to him about his deepest fears or his dearest hopes for his relationship with Katara. The few times he had tried, Sokka had been overly positive or instinctively protective. But whatever his reaction, Sokka missed the real point of Aang's concerns almost every time.
Not only that, empathy was not exactly Sokka's strong suit. Aang had had quiet conversations with Sokka before, especially after the breakup. But while Aang was thankful for his friend's listening ear, his talks with Sokka did not usually involve two hearts opening up and understanding each other. Instead, Aang would start with saying something casual to test the waters before jumping in. Good thing he did, too. Sokka would often throw out a sarcastic quip or a breezy answer when he didn't want to get too deep—and that was if he even understood why Aang wanted to talk in the first place.
But Sokka was the only person who knew Katara better than Aang did. Aang didn't have to bare his soul to talk to him about Katara. There were other ways to find out what he wanted to know.
"Hey, Sokka," Aang began. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"How does Katara feel about fire?"
Sokka's forehead crinkled in puzzlement. "How does Katara feel about fire? That's kind of a vague question."
I don't trust it, the worker had said about the flames pouring out of the torch. She hadn't been talking about just any fire.
"Not just any fire," Aang said, cupping his hand in front of him. He could almost see the flame dancing above his palm, flickering to the beat of his heart. "How does she feel about firebending?"
Sokka scratched the back of his head with his mittened fingers. "Eh, you could say she's not a fan. Firebenders aren't exactly her favorite people."
"Right…"
Come to think of it, aside from his soothing technique, Aang rarely firebent around Katara. Sometimes he would firebend to start a fire or create some light, but he had never summoned a flame as close to her as he had in the ice caves, almost right in her face.
Sokka threw him an apologetic glance. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean you. Sometimes I forget you're a firebender, too."
"No worries," Aang replied, even though Sokka's reaction only made him worry more.
Was that it, then? Did firebending so close to Katara trigger a long-buried fear? After all, her childhood had been scarred by Fire Nation raids. And then, just a few short years ago, she'd been burned by firebending—by Aang himself.
Yet Katara was the one who had encouraged Aang to learn how to soothe away pain by bending fire into heat. But perhaps her reaction to firebending hinged on the delicate balance that separated simple warmth from naked flame.
"Do you remember the time when Jeong Jeong tried to teach me how to firebend?" Aang said lightly, as if he was asking about the weather.
"Yeah. What about it?"
"I was being reckless, and I burned Katara by accident. Do you think…that it still bothers her?"
Sokka shrugged. "Probably not. If it still bothered her, she wouldn't have spent two years dating the guy who burned her."
Even though Sokka's tone was nonchalant, Aang didn't miss the edge to his friend's words. Right after he had burned Katara, Sokka had tackled him to the ground. Aang could still taste the grit of dirt in his mouth. Afterwards, with Katara's newfound ability to heal—and the tincture of time—Sokka no longer seemed to hold Aang's mistake against him.
But although Sokka had gotten over the incident, he clearly hadn't forgotten that Aang was the one who had burned his sister.
If this was how Sokka reacted to the mention of him burning Katara, Aang cringed to think what his friend would do if he ever learned about Aang's decision—the decision that had led to the fall of the Earth Kingdom and the doomed invasion. Because Aang's failures had not just been setbacks in the war. His failures had meant injury and prison for Sokka's father, and heartbreak and suffering for his sister.
No, Sokka could never learn the truth about the Eastern Air Temple and the crystal catacombs. Not Sokka.
Not Katara.
Not anyone.
As Aang and Sokka continued to wind their way toward the village center, where the meeting tent was located, the march of several pairs of feet reached Aang's ears. The determination in their steps made him look up.
Headed toward him and Sokka on a cross-path were two men flanked by attendants, all of them wearing parkas in the square cut of the Northern style.
Amarak. And the serious-looking older man must be his father, Ivuluk.
As Amarak and his father drew near, the air around them grew hard. To Aang's dismay, the Northerners—they were Southerners, really, but the proud lift of their shoulders suggested that they saw themselves otherwise—turned onto the same path. Since the path was only wide enough for four people, the attendants fell back behind the two men, and Aang found himself walking almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Amarak.
Aang stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the stiffness stilting his movements as he tried to maintain his composure. When he noticed himself matching Amarak's stride, he changed the rhythm of his steps. Aang was not about walk in lockstep with the man who had hurt Katara.
On his other side, Sokka had straightened his posture, holding his shoulders taut and his chin high. To Aang's surprise, his friend had nothing to say to the man who had bullied his sister. In fact, he did not even acknowledge Amarak or his father. But then again, Sokka was probably bound by the same obligations that had tied Katara's hands.
"Don't interfere with me or my father, Avatar," Amarak said without preamble. "Foreigners have no place sticking their noses into Water Tribe business."
Aang gritted his teeth. "What business is that, exactly?" he said, careful to keep his tone level.
"You mean you don't know? Your girlfriend didn't go running to you about what happened?"
A beat of hesitation. And then, "She's not my girlfriend."
For Aang, pulling those words from his mouth was like pulling out a bumble wasp's stinger. The words slid out easily enough, but the barbs left behind burrowed even deeper into his heart.
But Aang said those words anyway, because they were true.
And because saying those words was the first step to letting go of Katara.
"'She's not my girlfriend,'" Amarak repeated, mocking Aang's answer. An infuriating smirk stretched across his face as he peered at Aang. "Are you sure about that?"
Aang balled his hands into fists, but he didn't rise to the bait.
"Whatever business you have with my sister is my business, too, Amarak," Sokka said, the coolness of his voice barely masking the anger that seethed beneath his words.
"My business is Water Tribe business," Amarak said, radiating smug superiority. "I've devoted my time and energy to helping the Southern Water Tribe rebuild. Unlike some people who have forgotten who they are and would rather gallivant around the world on a sky bison."
"I'm sorry, what?" His face as dark as a thundercloud, Sokka crossed in front of Aang to confront Amarak, forcing the other man to halt in his tracks.
Sokka stuck his finger in Amarak's face. "When you were a kid, did you go to bed dreaming about Fire Nation raids, only to wake up and find that your worst nightmares had come true?" he demanded. "Did you have to single-handedly defend your tribe because all of the men had left to fight the Fire Nation?
"This is my village, and this is my home. We depended on each other to survive, and we still do. My village is my family just as much as Gran Gran, my dad, and Katara. You are in no position to tell me that my tribe's business isn't my business, too."
Amarak said nothing. He only returned Sokka's fierce glare with a scowl of his own.
Finally, Amarak said, "Your sister owes me and my father a proper apology. And she's going to give us one."
Aang didn't like the sound of that. Amarak and his father had joined his and Sokka's path while they were making their way to the meeting tent. With a sinking feeling, Aang knew that this was no coincidence.
"You can't just barge into the trade meeting," Aang protested. "We're at a crucial point in the negotiations today."
"We're not planning to disturb the meeting, young man," Ivuluk said in a rumbling baritone. With his dark beard peppered with gray and his steel-blue eyes, Amarak's father resembled an arctic wolf sizing up his prey. "We're only going there to fetch Katara."
"You're going to fetch Katara?" Sokka said incredulously.
Aang couldn't believe his ears. "You—you can't do that!" he said, his voice rising with anger. "Katara's not a—a thing that you can fetch! She's not a bucket, or a hunting spear that you can pick up and take with you whenever you want. She's a person, just like you—"
"We will only need a few minutes, if she is wise enough to cooperate and apologize," Ivuluk said, cutting through Aang's protests with maddening calmness. "I'm sure no one will miss her."
At first, Aang could only gape at Ivuluk, stunned by the man's audacity. Once he recovered his voice, he said, "Katara is as much a part of the trade negotiations as I am. You can't just walk in and make her leave!"
"If Katara was an elder, her presence at the meeting would be understandable," Ivuluk said with condescending patience, as if he was explaining to a child why water was wet. "But she is just a woman, and barely out of girlhood at that. Young women do not belong in a meeting tent discussing the matters of men."
"Katara is not 'just a woman!'" Aang said, now spluttering with rage. "She's a woman who fought to end the war. She's a woman who might be chieftain one day. And even if she was none of those things, she doesn't need to be anything more than a woman to deserve the same respect you would give to a man!"
Even in the midst of his tirade, Aang's admission that Katara might become chieftain cut through another tie that tethered him to her. The pain of that separation sliced through him like a knife.
Amarak arched a supercilious eyebrow. "Women don't become chieftain in the Water Tribes, Avatar. You obviously don't know how things work around here. No, Katara won't become chieftain. The most she'll ever be is the chieftain's wife."
Horror struck Aang's heart. If Sokka didn't become chieftain, Katara would be just like Yue—marrying for political reasons and becoming the wife of someone who desired influence and power, not love. But even if Sokka did take on the mantle of chieftain, that did not mean Katara would be free of men seeking her hand to advance their own interests.
His own feelings aside, Aang couldn't imagine a more suffocating future for someone as independent and strong-willed as Katara.
He shot Sokka a desperate look. "Please tell me this isn't true."
"It isn't," his friend said, giving Amarak a flat stare. "You obviously aren't from around here, Amarak."
But the big Water Tribe man was unfazed. "Is that so?" he said. "When was the last time you had a woman as your chieftain?"
Sokka held up his forefinger and opened his mouth to reply. "Well, uh…" he stammered.
"You see? You've only ever had a man as your leader. It's the natural order of things."
"Hey, that's not true! Just because I can't remember doesn't mean that we haven't had chieftains who were women!"
"Wait a minute," Aang interjected. "I think the Southern Water Tribe was led by a woman before. Back in my time, before the war, the chieftain was a man. But I remember someone mentioning a woman who was chieftain several generations before I was born. Her name was…"
That was when he remembered. The name of the unfinished entrance to the village, Taika Gate, was so familiar to him because he had heard it before.
"Her name was Taika."
But Sokka looked doubtful. "Taika? I always thought she was a legend. She was the daughter of a wolf spirit and a human, and she led our tribe to settle where our village is today. The stories say that she could fight off ten men with nothing but her bare hands. Even the tide obeyed her will."
Aang shook his head at his friend. "I'm pretty sure she was a real person, Sokka. I know she was. I would bet my arrow on it. I don't know how much of the legend is true, but it sounds like she was a strong woman and a powerful waterbender, too."
But Amarak waved away Aang's words like they were mere snow flurries. "It doesn't matter if Taika was real or not. Even if she was your chieftain at one point, she's only one woman in a long line of men. She's the exception, not the rule. And the rule is that men lead, women follow."
Sokka crossed his arms over his chest and looked ready to chew through metal. "I don't know what rock you've been living under, Amarak. But in this tribe, the chieftain and his family make the rules. Not you."
Amarak cocked his head to the side and looked down his nose at Sokka. "Oh no? Then maybe you should explain to me why the chieftain gave me and my father full control over the workers and supplies sent to us from the North and put us in charge of rebuilding this village. We've been making the rules while you've been gone, Sokka."
"The only reason my father is allowing you to lead the rebuilding effort is because Chief Arnook listens to you and your father!"
"And we're fighting to protect your tribe's interests."
Sokka narrowed his eyes at Amarak. "You're fighting for my tribe, huh?"
Too late, Amarak realized his blunder. "Your tribe is my tribe, too," he said in a hasty attempt to backpedal. "I'm just as much of a Southern Water Triber as you are."
"Are you really?" Sokka drew himself up to his full height and stood nose to nose with Amarak. "For some reason, I'm not so sure."
Sokka and Amarak stared each other down, two tiger seals puffing out their chests in a display of intimidation. A silent battle of wills over territory that each one believed was rightfully theirs.
It's like waiting for a pile of fireworks to explode, Aang realized. I'd better get us out of here before something happens.
Aang stepped away from the two men. Maybe moving down the path would draw Sokka after him. "Come on, Sokka, we should go. The meeting isn't going to start without us, and we don't want to make everyone wait."
At first, Aang was afraid that his friend hadn't heard him. But after another tense moment, Sokka finally backed down. He started walking down the path and passed Aang without another word.
"Don't follow us, either of you," Aang said to Amarak and his father. He gave Amarak a pointed glare. "And leave Katara alone."
But Amarak wasn't the type to just lay down and give up. "Is that a threat?" he growled.
"No. It's a warning."
"You may be the Avatar, but you have no authority over us. This is our tribe. You can't tell us what to do," Amarak said, stepping up to Aang, his looming height an unmistakable challenge.
Aang had to look up at Amarak to return his unfriendly stare. Even though the Water Tribe man was bigger and taller, Aang stood his ground. "I'm telling you to leave Katara alone. Don't ever lay a finger on her again."
Amarak rolled his eyes. "All I did was grab her hand. She came whining to you about that?"
The other man's dismissive attitude sparked something deep inside of Aang—the first flicker of a fire as full of fury as it was ancient. "You didn't just grab her hand. You hurt Katara!"
"She insulted me in public and tried to run away. If she didn't like it when I tried to stop her, then that's her problem. She brought this on herself."
Amarak's words only kindled the rage building inside of Aang. "You were the one who grabbed her! You can't blame her for that!"
"It never would have happened if that little mink snake hadn't insulted me in the first place. Besides, she was the one who froze me in a block of ice!" Amarak's face twisted into an angry snarl. "And she went crying to you about how I grabbed her hand? She's a waterbender, and she turned her bending on me!"
"A reckless abuse of power!" Ivuluk declared indignantly, his nostrils flaring. "She's a menace, and she needs to be reined in."
"If Katara knows what's good for her and her tribe, she's going to apologize," Amarak said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." With that, he deliberately shouldered his way past Aang and started down the path in the direction of the meeting tent.
But Amarak had only taken a few steps when a breeze picked up and snowflakes swirled around him. The breeze soon quickened into a gale wind, which rotated into a whirling vortex that trapped Amarak and his father with an enraged Avatar.
"You leave Katara alone!" Aang roared as he shoved the end of his staff at Amarak. "Don't even think about making her apologize. If you ever bother her again, you're going to regret it!"
Aang rode the fury raging through his veins, not caring that Amarak and his father were cowering before him. All he knew was that Amarak had hurt Katara and wasn't going to stop harassing her.
I'm not going to let Amarak get away with it.
Aang whipped his staff skyward. The vortex surrounding them spun faster and faster. Snow swirled into a white blur, and his fur-trimmed cloak whipped like a banner in a storm.
I'm going to make him pay.
"Please! Please, stop!"
A man's voice. Pleading, crying, nearly drowned out by the wind and the fury rushing in Aang's ears.
"I'm sorry! I won't go near Katara again!"
The vortex began to slow.
"Please…have mercy on us, Avatar! I'm begging you! Please stop!"
Aang's cloak fluttered down and came to rest against his back as the gale softened into a light breeze. The wrath inside of him died along with the wind.
No longer blinded by rage, Aang could see clearly again. Amarak and his father were crouched on the ground, trembling and covering their heads with their arms. Only after the wind disappeared did they dare to peer through their fingers. When they saw that Aang made no move to threaten them, they scrambled to their feet and scurried away, whimpering with fear.
Aang dropped his staff and fell to one knee. His legs no longer had the strength to hold him up. He often felt this way after coming out of the Avatar State—drained.
Footsteps trotted toward him. It was Sokka.
"That was totally awesome!" Sokka crowed. A wide grin split his face. "You should have seen the looks on their faces!"
Aang rose to his feet with a groan. "Yeah," he said listlessly. He had seen the looks on the two men's faces—faces that had been masks of utter terror.
But Aang's unenthusiastic reaction didn't seem to faze his friend. "That'll teach them not to mess with us," he said with triumphant hands on his hips. "I thought you were gonna go all Avatar State on them, but I guess the wind was enough to scare them off."
Aang blinked. "Wait…what? I didn't go into the Avatar State?"
"Nope."
"Are you sure?"
Sokka looked at him like he had grown a third eye. "Of course I'm sure. You were mad as all get out, but your eyes and your arrows didn't do the glowy thing that they do."
The truth hit Aang like a ten-ton boulder. Sokka was right. Aang thought that the Avatar State had taken him over, overwhelming him with the wrath of a thousand lifetimes. But the surge of power that came with the Avatar State had been absent. He had given his warning to Amarak with his own voice, not the combined voices of his past lives. Not only that, Amarak's pleas for mercy had been enough to appease his anger. Aang never would have come out of the Avatar State on his own, not while he was consumed by its white-hot fury, spiraling out of control. Not without Katara.
The rage, the wind—that had all been Aang. Just Aang.
Surprise turned to revulsion as Aang understood just how violent his anger had been. Anger that had been fueled not only by Amarak's insulting remarks, but also by frustration with Katara's mixed signals and his own struggles with guilt. And he had almost taken out his anger on two ordinary men. Any question about whether Amarak was the secret waterbender had now been erased. Amarak wasn't the waterbender. Aang was sure of it.
Just when he didn't think he could feel any worse, a slow realization came over him that tightened his stomach into a queasy knot. He clutched at his middle, trying not to double over.
When Aang had flown into a rage at Amarak and his father, he thought he had entered the Avatar State. All the signs had been there—the gale-force winds, his unrestrained fury, his complete disregard for the safety of everyone around him.
But there was one important difference. The overwhelming power of his past lives hadn't burst through the barrier that separated him from the Avatars who had come before him. He had sensed the power, because it was a part of him whether he tapped into it or not. But even at the peak of his fury, instead of breaking through and crashing over him like a flood, the unbridled power of the Avatar's spirit had remained quiet—as if it was out of reach.
"It looks like you've truly mastered the Avatar State, my friend. No matter how ticked off you get, you can still hold back—but only if you want to, of course," Sokka observed, oblivious to his friend's inner turmoil. He gave Aang a good-humored slap on the back. "Avatar Aang, you're all grown up now."
But Aang hardly heard a word that Sokka had said. "Sokka, I didn't go into the Avatar State. And it wasn't because I was holding back."
"Huh? You weren't holding back?"
Aang shook his head.
Sokka frowned at his friend. "Then what happened?"
"I didn't go into the Avatar State," Aang said, "because I couldn't."
Author's Note: Come join the Kataang Cafe discord server if you'd like to grab a (virtual) drink and chat about our favorite couple!
Invite link: Because FFnet doesn't allow me to post the whole thing, the URL is (without spaces) discord . gg /6hSZsFGeRY
Next chapter in 2 weeks! See you then 😊
