Aang could not speak for several long minutes. When Roku had told him of the brutal way in which the Avatar cycle could be broken, he had never imagined it could ever really happen. But it seemed, without himself as Avatar, it could.
No, thought Aang, confusion still clouding his mind, it would happen. Roku suddenly spoke into Aang's dejected thoughts.
"Do not imagine it is only the nameless and faceless masses whose lives you have touched, Aang. The ones you know…and love, their lives would have been very different without you, as well."
"What do you mean?" Aang said, a wave of dread dropping through his stomach as he thought of Katara and Sokka.
"Would you like to see?" Roku asked gently.
Aang nodded, a part of him desperately wanting to see what Roku had to show him. There was another part of him, however, one that dreaded what he would see more than he ever thought possible.
Suddenly Aang, along with Roku, was falling through darkness once again and this time when he opened his eyes he was in a very different place from the one he had left. It took him several moments but Aang soon recognized where he was. He had only been here once before, but it was where his entire life had changed. He was in Katara and Sokka's village in the southern Water Tribe. It was here he had met his best friends and Aang could not help but smile, despite himself, when he remembered how Katara had taught him to catch penguins. It seemed like a different time, somehow. A different life.
"Where are they?" Aang asked Roku?
"Your friends are there, on that pier," Roku replied softly.
Aang looked, and quickly spotted Sokka and Katara. He knew better than to try to call out to them, but his brow furrowed in confusion when he noticed something odd. Aang was used to seeing Sokka in his warm, functional, blue water tribe coat. Now, though, he was outfitted with his arrow quiver, his boomerang, and donned the gray and white war paint Aang had seen him wearing only once before.
He was standing next to an older man, well built, handsome, but grave, who Aang knew must be Sokka's father. He also wore the traditional water tribe soldier's attire. As Aang's eyes sought out Katara, he was shocked to see that her face was pale and wan, and that her eyes were bloodshot, as though she had just been weeping.
"What's going on?" Aang asked, a ripple of fear now penetrating the confusion he felt.
"This is when Sokka and Katara's father, Hakoda, leaves for the earth kingdom. To fight in the war against the fire nation."
"But Sokka doesn't go with him. He's too young."
Roku shook his head sadly.
"There is no other option in this realm, young Aang. Even one as young as fourteen, for that is how old Sokka is, must go to the front lines. They will not send him into the actual fighting for some time, of course, but they start his training now."
"So….Katara's left here all by herself?"
"Yes, Aang. And that's not all. Without a way to leave her water tribe, she never masters waterbending. She manages to teach herself some bending, of course. She is a clever girl."
Aang could not help but smile at that.
"Yeah, she is."
Aang's smile quickly faded, however, as another thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Roku tell me. What happens to them…in the end?"
Roku looked down and was silent. It seemed that he, who Aang had always known to maintain perfect control, was now at a loss.
"They…die, don't they?" Aang said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"They are your friends, Aang, and they are the same people you know now. You know that they fight valiantly to the last. Without mastering waterbending, though, Katara is able to mount little resistance and her village quickly falls. Hakoda and Sokka fight against the fire nation side by side for some time, but eventually they become prisoners of war. They both perish in the attempt to free themselves and their fellow soldiers. Aang, I'm-"
"No!" Aang said, his voice unnaturally harsh. "No more. I can't take it anymore."
Aang tried, tried with all his might, but could not banish the image of Katara fighting a losing battle against an invading fire nation army. He could see in his mind's eye Sokka's face, covered in war paint and with eyes hardened by years of war, as he lead the soldiers in a last-ditch escape attempt. It did not surprise him that even without him his friends turned out to be brave and loyal people…people who died young. Died much too young.
Before he even knew what was happening Aang was seated on the ground, though he could not remember having sat down. His face was buried in his hands and his eyes were shut tight, as if trying to block out the images but they simply kept coming.
He could imagine, even welcome, a world in which he was not the Avatar. He could imagine a world in which he did not even exist. In the part of himself that he never spoke of, never revealed to anyone, he would even be glad of it. But a world in which his friends were gone, in which their young lives were cut short by the fire nation, that was something Aang could not bear. Soon enough he found himself unable to hold back the wracking sobs.
