A. N. : So uh, I've been keeping things from you. All this time, Ukon's name was actually written as 鬱金 (curcuma/turmeric). While in-universe his "the Yellow" nickname referred to his strong ties to the Air Nomads, out of universe it's just a bad joke on my part. I'm very sorry.

Aang bows.

If he still had any energy left in him, he might start crying again. Instead, he just listens as Grandmother Shami asks Ichirou – who had settled with the children by his side, comforting them during the worst parts of the tale – to go back to his cousins' shop with Jet and find something suitable for their needs.

Listens as Grandmother Shami asks the children to help her get up, before sending them to tell the people in town that the two strangers are to be treated as friends, as shall any of the people they might bring, and to prepare a basket with enough food to last them a week, rice and dried fish and pickled vegetables, as well as seaweed and spices.

Then she turns to Aang. Come with me, child – she holds out a hand for him to grab – there is something I would like you to have.

Aang takes her hand. Tells Jet not to worry, he'll be fine, focus on getting Suki some good clothes else Sokka will yell at you – Jet exaggeratedly says he'll look for the uh, shittiest stuff on purpose then, and nods once when Aang laughs at him. Right before passing the threshold, he whistles once, brown tawny-swallow, and Aang does the same back at him.

Alive and well.

After Jet leaves, and Aang is alone with Grandmother Shami, she leads him to the back of the room, to a space under the floorboards he has to open for her. Inside is an old, plain wooden chest.

Those are all the things Ukon the Yellow kept for Aang, Grandmother Shami tells him. And oh, Ukon really thought, really hoped they would meet again, didn't he ? Even as he grew and earned a nickname and the world changed around him.

Hands shaking, Aang opens the box. Inside are – things clearly accumulated over the years, with little material value. A tornado-shaped seashell with a dark stripe spiralling from its tip to where the mollusc would have been. Driftwood in the vague shape of a flying bison. Prayer beads made of wood and bone and glass and stone cobbled together, with the wrong number of beads. A skirt made from the cloth of various monk garbs patched together the old Sea Walker way. Spiral seashells. Spiral teeth. Spiral claws. Sea glass the color of sunrise. Miniature gliders, of varying quality and age, built from twigs and old sails. A dusty jar of spices.

And Aang thinks, some of those probably aren't so much for him as they were things that reminded Ukon of him.

He keeps on pulling out item after item, placing each one on the floor next to him, as gently as he can. The last one, at the bottom of the box, is a threadbare piece of cloth, worn out by years of use and by the salted sea winds, the once vibrant eggyolk color now almost completely faded.

Aang ties the scarf around his head, just like – last year – all these years ago when Ukon and him had dressed as each other. When Gyatso and Ukon's dad had laughed together and no one could have ever imagined what was to come.

He thinks this is why it's so worn out. Why Ukon… Ukon probably wore it himself, maybe even to the very end. For the memories. The times of fun and belief that things would never really change.

Ukon would have made a terrible monk.

There is no incense here, in this makeshift shrine to everything time and war took from the world, no prayer wheel either, but Aang prays anyway. For the past. For the future.

Destruction of the old for the sake of new growth. The world, ephemeral like a sand drawing. Actions repeated but never the same, brush strokes that can never be identical, the tale of the calligrapher who lost his mind in the pursuit of perfection.

A war that needs to end. A world thought eternal, lost forever. Time that will never turn back.

Old teachings Aang carries with him, the words of the Gurus from long ago echoing today still.

He thinks there's a difference between Ukon's box, his attachments, and the things Aang cannot afford to lose. He wants to think there is, but maybe it's all about refusing to let the Fire Nation's war take everything from them, in both cases.

Maybe not wanting to let memories die is fine, for now. Maybe being afraid to die is fine, just a little.

Maybe it was fine for Gyatso to break his vows to save the others, at the time.

Aang just refuses to do the same, to save the world he knew.