Chapter 13

Once the girl had finished cleaning up the spill, she dumped the sodden cloth scraps into the bucket. She was about to wipe her hands on her tunic when someone grasped her elbow.

"Always rinse your hands well after touching soapy water," said the young woman who had grabbed her arm. It was Ling, one of the teenage girls who worked at the laundry. She held the girl's hands over an empty bucket and poured clean water over them.

Ling held out her own hands, which were chapped and red. "Too much time in the soapy water will ruin your hands. The alkali eats away at the skin." Her mouth twitched into an ironic smile. "I would know."

Then she knelt and peered at the girl. "You can't be more than five or six years old. How did someone so young come to work in Yi Shan Laundry House?"

"My father told me Yi Tai Tai needed my help," the girl replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "And if I help Yi Tai Tai, she will help my family."

Ling studied her carefully. Then she nodded. "I see."

A sudden burst of shouting filtered through the rice paper windows. Several girls rose from their buckets and pushed open the nearest window.

Just as quickly as they had begun, the shouts stopped. The deep voices of men took their place.

"What's happening?" the girl asked.

Ling opened another window and looked down into the courtyard below. "Trouble."

The girl had to grip the windowsill and stand on her toes to see what was happening below. Three men in wide-brimmed hats and dark robes were questioning a young boy. Her stomach twisted when she saw that the boy had a wolf tail and skin as dark as hers. She had seen this same scene play out over and over—city folk surrounding a lone Water Triber like a pack of wolves cornering an arctic hare. And she also knew this scene because she had lived it herself.

One of the men knelt in front of the boy. "And what is your father's name?" the man asked. His voice was gentle, but he crouched like a hawk about to pounce on a snow rat.

The boy cowered in fear. "My father's name," he said, his voice trembling, "is Nilak."

The girl's blood went cold. She didn't understand what was happening, or why the men were asking about the boy's father. She didn't even know who the boy was.

But the boy told the men that his father's name was Nilak.

Nilak was her father's name, too.

And she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that when the boy said her father's name, he was really speaking a curse.


Sokka stared at Aang in uncomprehending silence.

When he found his voice again, he said, "What do you mean, you couldn't go into the Avatar State?"

Panic rose up in Aang's throat, sharp and acidic. He clutched his head between his hands and began to pace back and forth. "I mean that I couldn't do it. I thought I did, but I didn't. And I don't know why."

"Maybe you weren't angry enough."

"I was pretty angry, Sokka."

"Or maybe you've matured so much that you don't actually fly into a rage anymore."

"Oh, I definitely flew into a rage."

"No, I mean the Avatar State kind of rage. You know, where you're so mad that you literally blow everyone away—"

Aang threw his hands down in frustration. "I know what you mean, Sokka! I know how destructive I can be when I'm in the Avatar State. You don't need to rub it in my face!"

Sokka held up his hands in apology. "Okay, okay. I'm just trying to help you figure out what's going on."

Aang's breathing was coming too fast. He was getting lightheaded. He couldn't feel the ground under his feet. He had to sit down.

"I don't think anyone can help me figure out what's going on," he said. His legs buckled under him, and he fell to his knees on the snow-packed ground.

At least he was sitting now. That was better. But his head was still spinning, spinning, spinning. He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

Finally, everything stopped moving.

There. Much better.

"Maybe you're taking longer to trigger the Avatar State than you used to," Sokka continued, apparently determined to reason his way to the bottom of Aang's problem. "Maybe you calmed down before it happened. Or maybe being mad isn't enough. Maybe you need a really, really good reason now to glow it up."

Aang gave him an incredulous stare.

"Not that threatening to bother Katara isn't a good reason," Sokka added hastily. "But maybe it has to be more than that. Someone's life needs to be in danger. Like your life, or Katara's." He snapped his fingers. "Oh! I know! I've got it! You go into the Avatar State when you or someone you care about is in mortal danger, or when something's going on that's more than just a threat. Something needs to actually happen. Someone really important to you has to be taken away, like the time when the sandbenders kidnapped Appa in the desert—"

Aang covered his face again with his hands and groaned. Sokka was a good friend, and he had been the only constant in Aang's life since Katara left. But there were times when Aang wished his friend knew when he wanted to talk and when he needed space. It was times like this that he wished he could get away to somewhere quiet and just be alone.

He closed his eyes and let Sokka's words roll over him. Maybe I need to relax. Concentrate. Maybe there's too much going on. Maybe that's why I can't enter the Avatar State.

Aang took several slow, cleansing breaths. Then he reached within himself for the raging storm that was the Avatar State. Haltingly, hesitantly. Afraid of what he might discover.

He reached within himself and found—

Nothing.

No!

Someone was breathing hard. Panting. Aang realized it was himself.

Sokka's voice filtered through the terror that smothered his senses. "—and how important that person is to you determines the threshold for triggering the Avatar State–"

Aang's head was spinning again, and the steady stream of his friend's words only made the spinning worse. If things continued on like this, he was going to throw up.

He needed to shut out the rest of the world. He needed to calm himself down. He needed to hear himself think.

Wait a minute…

That's it!

I need to shut out the world.

I need to hear myself think.

That sudden understanding was like the sun breaking through the clouds, its brilliant rays burning away the fog in his mind. His breathing slowed and returned to its usual steady rhythm.

Aang gave his head a shake. He picked up his staff and sprung to his feet. "Thanks, Sokka. You helped me figure it out."

"—and then your anger has to reach a point of no return–" Sokka stopped in midsentence and blinked. "What? I did?"

"Yeah, you did." Aang rapped his staff on the ground, and the wings of his glider whooshed open. "I'm going to need a few minutes. Tell everyone I'm sorry for making them wait. I'll try not to take too long."

Air currents swirled around him and caught the underside of the glider wings. He grabbed the handlebars and mounted the glider and let the wind lift him into the air.

Instead of taking off right away, Aang circled higher and higher, above the tents and the igloos, to survey the wreckage below. The scene that met his eyes made his spirit sink.

The tents closest to the spot where he had confronted Amarak were nearly flattened, their walls of sealskin pelts stripped off from the poles.

I did this.

Broken furniture and pots and tools and debris were strewn over the ground, as if scattered by a powerful blast.

I did this. And I wasn't even in the Avatar State.

People below huddled together and held their arms above them, as if taking cover from him. Only the igloos, with their walls of solid ice, remained untouched.

Losing the Avatar State isn't my only problem.

"Aang! Where are you going?" Sokka called up to him.

"There's someone I need to talk to," Aang replied. Then the wind picked up, and he flew away.


Aang sat on the floor of his tent, meditating with a string of beads stretched between his hands. He passed the small wooden beads beneath his thumbs until the medallion etched with the symbol for air dangled between his fists. The other three medallions—water, earth, and fire—hung below his hands like the pendants of a sacred necklace.

With eyes closed, he breathed in and out, a slow inhale followed by a deliberate exhale. As he breathed, he turned his focus within himself and beyond, reaching through lifetimes to find the one who might be able to help him with his problem.

When he breathed out again, another awareness awoke inside of him. He opened his eyes.

Aang was no longer in his tent in the South Pole. His surroundings had dropped away, and he was now in a place where nothing existed except for himself and the woman seated across from him.

The bright colors of her robes were dulled by the muted glow of this place—a place that was not exactly the spirit world, but rather a waypoint between the realm of humans and the plane of spirits. This was the place where Aang traveled to when he communed with his past lives.

But it wasn't the nostalgia of her clothing, or the kind lines around her eyes, or the poised straightness of her posture that captured his attention. It was the arrow centered on her forehead. The blue shone through the twilight glow of this place, standing out against her pale skin and the dark hair that flowed down her back.

For the next few moments, Aang would look into the eyes of someone who bore the mark of his people. He was still the last airbender—an unchanging, unbending truth that had been burned into his spirit by one hundred years of fire. But for the next few moments—moments that would be all too brief—he would no longer be the only airbender.

"Hello, Avatar Aang," said the woman.

Her voice was gentle but strong, like a stream that could carry the delicate bloom of a water lily yet also erode solid stone. A manner of speech that was rare in the world but commonplace among Air Nomads.

Had been commonplace among Air Nomads.

Even though Yangchen wore a serene expression, her eyes were steeped in an unspoken sorrow. Her sorrow mirrored the grief that shadowed Aang's steps and overwhelmed him in the quiet, unguarded moments. Even though she had lived her life in a world where the air temples had bustled with activity, she felt their people's extinction just as keenly as Aang did.

Tears stung Aang's eyes, and his throat closed up. He struggled to speak. "Avatar Yangchen," he said hoarsely. "I need your help."

Yangchen's face softened at the rawness of his emotions. "You are weighed down by many burdens."

Aang nodded. "Something happened today that should have made me enter the Avatar State. I thought I did, but I didn't. I couldn't. I felt it, I felt the power—the power of the Avatar spirit," he said, the words spilling out of him in a rush. "I felt it, it was right there, it was so close. But I couldn't get to it. I couldn't get to it, and I don't know why."

Yangchen didn't say anything. Instead, she just watched him, like a mentor waiting for her pupil to work out his thoughts. Her gentle patience soothed him, and his fevered panic began to fade.

He tried again. Slowly, this time. "I think it has something to do with the anger inside of me," he said. "Amarak and his father said some things that set me off, and I flew off the handle."

"Do you think you would have stayed calm, even if you hadn't been struggling with this anger?"

Yangchen had a point. "No," Aang said with a sigh. "They were going to humiliate Katara, and they acted like they could do whatever they wanted with her. I would have gotten mad anyway.

"But there's more to it than that," he continued. "I think I'm also angry because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because sometimes Katara acts like she still has feelings for me, and then she pulls away. And I'm frustrated because I have all this guilt and I can't let it go, and it's distracting me and totally messing up my life!"

His voice rose to a shout, his last few words ringing in the air.

Aang noticed that he had pitched forward with neck stiff and shoulders tense, like a belligerent cranefish. He sat back and consciously tried to loosen his muscles and soften his posture. Then he hung his head, his cheeks burning with shame. "I'm sorry, Avatar Yangchen. I didn't mean to yell at you."

But Aang's outburst bothered Yangchen no more than a storm buffeting the stone walls of an air temple. "You are under a great deal of stress, young airbender," she said calmly. "When emotions run strong, they sometimes show themselves in unexpected ways."

"My emotions have been getting the better of me," Aang admitted. "Right before I came here to meet with you, I got so mad that I lashed out with my airbending. I almost attacked two defenseless people, and I wasn't even in the Avatar State! I was still in control of myself." His voice dropped, low and quiet, as he spoke the terrible truth. "I knew what I was doing."

Confessing his actions aloud made them sound even worse. Aang wanted to shrink away and disappear into the void that surrounded him and Yangchen. "I'm so ashamed of myself, Avatar Yangchen."

"Strong emotions can be a sign of something deeper going on," she said, her steady voice settling his frayed spirit. "If something is troubling you, you need to address it. Otherwise, it will simmer and fester until it grows out of your control."

"Strong emotions…" Aang said, turning over Yangchen's words like rolling a Pai Sho tile between his fingers. "I used to go into the Avatar State when I got really angry or upset, whether I wanted to or not. But I can't do it now, no matter how intense my emotions are. Not anymore.

"It's like something is holding me back from the Avatar State. I felt it when I flew into a rage at Amarak and his father. And I felt it before that, in the ice caves, when Katara told me Amarak was the one who had hurt her. I got so angry that the air around me burst into wind, and I thought I had gone into the Avatar State for a moment. But now that I think about it, I didn't. Even after I attacked Amarak and his father, after I had already calmed down, I tried to touch the Avatar State—and I couldn't."

Yangchen's expression grew thoughtful. "If you can't reach the Avatar State whether you are calm or upset, that can only mean one thing: something is blocking your chakra."

Aang jerked back in surprise. "What? How can something be blocking my chakra? I unlocked my chakras two years ago, and the only thing that blocked me after that was Azula's lightning. Nothing like that has happened again."

"Because you have opened your chakras once before, it will take something quite profound to block them again," Yangchen explained. "The anger and frustration you harbor may provide a clue. They may point to something that has affected you deeply and perhaps remains unresolved. Something that has altered your life. Something you can't let go."

Upon hearing Yangchen's wisdom, Aang immediately understood the root of his problem, the thing that mucked up the flow of his chakra and the course of his life.

"My past," he said. "My failure in the crystal catacombs. I made a decision that ended up hurting so many people. I hurt the people around me. The people who trusted me. The people I love. A few months ago, I was reminded of my mistakes. An Air Acolyte wanted to know more. Katara wanted to know more. But I couldn't tell them. I can't tell them. I can't tell anybody.

"Ever since then, the shame and guilt I feel about my failures have been following me around. And I can't seem to let it go."

Aang stared at his hands resting in his lap. He could almost see his shame and his guilt etched into the lines of his palms.

"You need to let go, Avatar Aang," Yangchen said. "You need to find a way to accept the consequences of your actions. You are the Avatar. You will wrestle with decisions like this time and time again, and you will make choices that end up hurting others. It is the burden that Avatars before you have carried, and it is the burden that Avatars who come after you will continue to bear."

As Yangchen spoke, she reminded Aang of the healers who used to reside in the air temples. Whether they were waterbenders or not, the healers had all seemed the same to him—warm in their compassion, yet firm and unyieldingly practical.

"I know," he said. "It's just that this decision was different, somehow. It wasn't like the time I ran away from the Southern Air Temple. This time, I knew what I was doing. I knew what could happen if I decided to leave the guru to save Katara. I knew I could lose.

"And I did lose. I did worse than lose—I died. If Katara didn't have the spirit water from the North Pole, I would have been gone for good, and the Avatar cycle would have been permanently broken. And it would have been all my fault."

"You must learn to live with your mistakes, Aang." Instead of remaining smooth and composed, Yangchen's voice wavered as if bending from the weight of the burdens she must have carried. "You must learn to accept your mistakes without letting them become who you are. Learn to forgive yourself, and then let them go."

Across from Aang no longer sat a past Avatar who was blessed with the wisdom of experience, but one who had lived with and suffered from the consequences of decisions wrought by her own hand. As he looked into Yangchen's eyes, he saw himself. An Avatar who was vulnerable, who had made mistakes. An Avatar who was human.

A lump rose in his throat. For the first time since the disaster in the crystal catacombs, he had found someone who understood his struggles.

But being understood wasn't enough. Aang had to face down his demons himself. No one could do that for him.

Accept your mistakes, learn to forgive yourself, and let them go.

I did it before, when I first unlocked my chakras.

Why can't I do it again?

He clawed at the loose fabric of his trousers, clenching fistfuls of cloth in his hands. "I…I can't. I've been trying to, but I can't."

"You need to let go of your past deeds," Yangchen said. Her voice was steady again, but her eyes still shone with tears. Aang had the feeling she saw herself in him, too. "The Avatar State depends on it. Your own well-being depends on it."

Even though being understood didn't solve Aang's problems, it solidified his resolve. Knowing that Avatar Yangchen had once walked the same path was like having the wind at his back, lifting him high over the mountains that once blocked his way.

And now that he had crested the peak of his confusion and doubt, he saw clearly what he had to do. This was just like the time when he had stolen Monk Tashi's staff and couldn't shake off the burden of guilt. To let go of his guilt, he had to let go of the past.

"If we carry the past with us all the time, it will weigh us down," Gyatso had told Aang. "It is only when we learn to set it down that we can walk away and leave it behind."

Aang knew he had to set down the past—the Eastern Air Temple and the crystal catacombs—and leave it all behind. He had already tried. But part of him still refused to let go of the past. Part of him refused to let go of Katara.

But he had to let go. He had to let go of Katara and walk away.

"You're right, Avatar Yangchen," Aang said. "I've been clinging to the past far too tightly. I know what I need to do to let go of the past and let go of my mistakes. I just have to do it."


Author's note: Thanks for reading - if you enjoyed this chapter, I would love to hear from you!

Next chapter in 2 weeks ❤️