Chapter 21

"Katara, there's something you need to know."

Under Aang's arm, Katara went still. His heart raced, his stomach diving like the time when he stared down a sheer cliffside before his very first glider flight.

"I have chosen attachment before," he told her. "And there were…consequences."

Katara slipped out from under his arm and sat back on her heels, facing him. But she still hung on to his hand. "What are you talking about, Aang?" she asked, her eyes wide.

Aang swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips. His mouth had suddenly gone dry.

"I made a decision when I was at the Eastern Air Temple," he began. "It was a decision that changed both of our lives." He clenched his other hand into a fist. The guilt was creeping back, and he fought to keep it from swallowing him up. "I didn't have a choice, Katara," he said, almost pleading with her. "There was nothing else I could do. I couldn't just leave you—"

"Aang, what are you talking about?" she said, interrupting his rambling. "What does any of this have to do with the thing you burned?"

He was breathing too fast. The room was starting to spin. He had to slow down.

"I burned my bandages," he said, still talking a little too quickly. "They were spotted with blood. The bandages were white, and the bloodstains were dark. Your ribbon is white, and the triangles are black. I can see why you thought I was burning your ribbon."

Her brow furrowed even deeper in confusion. "Okay…"

"They were bandages from the time you healed me during the war," he said, trying to explain. "After…" He trailed off, not really knowing how to say after you brought me back from the dead. "After…"

"After what?"

"…After I woke up."

Memories from those dark days pressed down on them, heavy and silent. Katara's fingers tightened around his hand.

"Why did you keep the bandages, Aang?" she asked, her question breaking the stillness.

"There was blood on them," he replied. "The wound on my back had opened up. I don't know if you remember. We were in a cave, and I went to a Fire Nation school earlier that day disguised as a student."

Katara nodded. Within his hand, her fingers went rigid and tense.

"Your wound must have opened because you've moved around more today than you have in the last three weeks," she had told him. "The stress of being active must have torn it open."

The flickering light from the fire cast deep shadows over her face.

"I'm sorry, Katara," he had said.

"Aang…it's not your fault."

But in her eyes, he saw what she had left unspoken: It's mine.

Aang gently stroked the back of her hand, trying to soothe away the pain of remembering. "I told you I got rid of the bandages, but I didn't. I just didn't want you to see them again. I didn't want you to even think about them."

"Why didn't you get rid of them?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them. I don't really know why. If I got rid of them without telling you, it would feel like I was pretending that the crystal catacombs, my injuries—like none of that ever happened.

"There were other times, too," he continued. "Other times I didn't tell you about. Whenever I could, I used the bandages to bind up my wounds so you wouldn't have to see. I didn't tell you about those times because I knew you would worry."

Katara frowned. "But why didn't you say something? I could have healed you. You should have told me," she insisted. "Why did you feel like you had to hide the times you got hurt?"

"Because every time I got hurt, you would hurt, too," Aang said softly. He folded her hand between both of his, like he was sheltering an injured bird. "You were still hurting from…"

watching me die

"…losing me in the crystal catacombs. I didn't want to…"

hurt you even more

"…make things harder for you."

With her free hand, Katara touched one of his blue arrows with trembling fingers. Aang captured this hand, too, and he stroked her palms with his thumbs until they stopped shaking.

After her breathing calmed, Katara shifted closer. Still facing him, she nestled her knees against his hips, pressing the length of her thigh up against his. Their hands, still clasped together, bridged the distance between them.

"You said something, earlier, about choosing attachment," she said. "And that something happened." Then she gave him a questioning look. "I still don't understand why you burned the bandages, either."

But instead of answering right away, Aang closed his eyes and breathed in.

He was back on the cliffside for his first glider flight, about to jump off the ledge.

"Don't think about jumping. Just do it," Gyatso had told him with an encouraging smile. "If you trust that the wind will catch you, the wind will carry you where you need to go."

Shifting the glider on his back, Aang took a running step—and another and another and another.

Then he leaped.

Aang let out a long breath and opened his eyes.

Katara was watching him with a quizzical expression.

"Do you remember what I told you about the time I went into the Avatar State on my own?" he asked her. "When we were fighting Zuko and Azula in the crystal catacombs?"

She nodded. "Yeah. You sat down in the middle of the battle and earthbent the crystals around yourself. You said needed to concentrate to enter the Avatar State. And I think there was something called…chakra?"

"That's right. I needed to open the final chakra to go into the Avatar State. But I wasn't concentrating. Not exactly."

"Then what were you doing?"

Aang absently stroked the back of her hand as he gathered his thoughts and his courage.

"Before the battle, I went to the Eastern Air Temple and met Guru Pathik. He taught me how to open my chakras."

"Right…I remember you talking about the guru."

"But I didn't tell you how I opened the chakras."

"Now that you mention it, I don't think you did."

"Chakras are pools of energy flowing through our bodies, and each one has a purpose," Aang explained. "But they can be blocked by unresolved emotions, such as fear or shame."

"Okay…"

"There are seven chakras, and I needed to unblock each one to gain full control of the Avatar State. The guru guided me in opening each chakra. But I left him before I opened the last one."

Katara stared at him in shock. "Why did you do that? Why didn't you open the last chakra before you came to rescue me?"

Aang willed himself to hold her gaze, to not look away. "Because the last chakra is blocked by earthly attachment. To open that chakra, I had to let go of the things that attach me to the world." He wrapped his fingers more securely around her hands, as if afraid she would slip away somehow. "I had to let go of you."

Her mouth dropped open. "What?"

"I already started to let go of you at the Eastern Air Temple," he said quickly. "But then I saw a vision. You were chained to a wall, and you were yelling and screaming. I didn't know who had captured you or how or why. I just knew you were in danger. I had to choose between your life or the Avatar State." His eyes dropped to their entwined hands. "And I chose you."

"You chose me?" she whispered tightly.

"Guru Pathik said I had to let you go to master the Avatar State. But I couldn't. Not when your life was on the line."

"Aang…"

"That's why I stopped in the middle of the fight and buried myself in crystal. We were losing, and the only thing that could help us win was the Avatar State."

"Why didn't you let me go?" Katara said, her voice rising with urgency.

"I did, Katara. You were surrounded by Zuko and Azula and the Dai Li, but I let you go. I had to. There was nothing else I could—"

"No, that's not what I mean!" she almost shouted. "Why didn't you let me go when you were at the Air Temple?" Her breath came gasping and heavy, and her face contorted with anguish. "Why did you choose me, Aang?"

"I—"

"If you didn't choose me, you wouldn't have died!"

Something broke within Katara. Fingers like claws clutched at her face, and her body crumpled into a ball. The sobs that ripped from her throat were hardly human—screaming wails half-crazed and wild, as if her spirit was being split apart.

Ignoring the sharp pain in his belly, Aang bent forward and surrounded Katara with his arms. Her anguished cries tore his own heart open, and his spirit bled along with her tears. As her body trembled within his arms, the guilt he had started to let drift away came roaring back and speared him through his core. The guilt that his failure had damaged Katara's heart and wounded her spirit two years ago—a trauma that never really healed, that opened up every time he was injured or in mortal danger. Every sob, every cry drove the guilt deeper and deeper.

Aang held Katara as she wept. He cradled the back of her head, burying his fingers in the root of her braid. "I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear. The words left his lips like a confession, a prayer to a people lost to the ashes.

"I'll try my best to cherish the love you've given me" he had said as he hung on to Gyatso's hands, trying in vain to keep his friend—his father—from fading away. "I'll try my best to honor you and our people."

"I'm sorry," he murmured again, this time a plea to the girl who dampened his shoulder with her grief, even as the salt of his own sorrow ran over his lips.

Gyatso had smiled at him. "You don't have to try," he had said. "You already have."

For the second time that day, Aang let out his self-blame.

But this time, he let it go. He let it go all the way, a breath of toxic air leaving his spirit.

And finally, after years of heartache and shame and guilt—

Finally, he forgave himself for failing the world. For hurting Katara.

He forgave himself, once and for all.

Eventually, Katara's sobbing faded into sniffles, and her body no longer trembled. Her breathing slowed, turning steady and even beneath his hands.

"I chose you, Katara," Aang said quietly. "I chose you because that was the only choice I could make." His arms wrapped further around her, holding her even closer. "If I let you go to master the Avatar State, knowing that you could have gotten hurt or even—even—died—"

He stuttered over the word died, but he forced himself to go on. "If I lost you because I made the wrong choice," he said, a quiver rippling through his words, "I would have lost myself."

Katara wound her arms around his back and clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder. She took a shuddering breath. "But I lost you, instead," she whispered brokenly.

Aang's heart ached with the heaviness of her sorrow, and he dreaded the return of his guilt. "I'm so sorry, Katara. I didn't have a choice." But this time, the guilt stayed away. "I couldn't leave you. You were chained and trapped and maybe even hurt."

Katara was quiet. At first, he thought that his words had reassured her.

But then she said, "When you broke into my prison in the catacombs, I was so happy to see you. I knew you would come." She scoffed bitterly. "If only I knew the price you would pay."

"Katara…" He rubbed his hand in soothing circles over her back, wishing he could somehow take her pain away.

But she wriggled out of his arms and sat back, away from him. She folded her hands in her lap, pinching her thumbs so hard that the nails nearly turned white.

"Why do you keep choosing me, Aang?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were opening your chakras with the guru, you chose me over the Avatar State. When you needed someone to come with you to the ice caves, you asked me instead of Pakku. And now, you're choosing me again. You're choosing me even though you know that strong attachments can weaken you."

Aang grasped her hands, like he was clutching at the string of a kite that was slipping away. "Katara, I'll talk to my past lives today. The airbenders. I'll ask them about marriage and airbending. I'll do it right now."

But Katara shook her head. "No, Aang, it doesn't matter anymore. Whatever the answer is, it won't make a difference."

Her words should have reassured him, but they didn't. His stomach churned with unease.

"Why not? Why won't it make a difference?"

"Even if you find out that your attachment to me won't harm your airbending, there will always be something else."

"Katara, we can't live in fear of the future," Aang said, desperate to calm her anxiety. "Do you remember what I said about being a bender when we first met? 'You have to let go of fear.'"

"This isn't about fear!" She yanked her hands out of his grip. "I stayed away from you because I didn't want to be the reason why you lost your airbending. I didn't want to drag you down to your death!"

The look Katara gave him then chilled him to the bone. She looked at him with the eyes of someone scarred by the horror of watching her loved ones die, haunted by memories that would not dim and guilt that would not fade.

"But it already happened, Aang. You chose me over the Avatar State. And you died," she said, with sobs choking her words. "I dragged you down, after all."

"Katara…" He reached for her, but she pushed herself off the bed.

"It's not safe for you to be with me, Aang!" she yelled. She stumbled away from him, limping on her injured leg. "Nothing good comes out of choosing me!"

"No, Katara, that's not true." Aang heaved himself off the bed to follow her. "I chose you back then, and I'm choosing you now because—"

He grimaced as a sudden pain shot through his gut. His knees buckled, and his legs collapsed under him.

"Aang!" Katara gasped.

She dashed to his side and threw her arms around him before he could hit the floor. She staggered under his weight. They fell together, slowly, until they landed gently on the ground.

Aang leaned with Katara against the side of the bed. Their breaths formed a duet of disjointed pants and gasps, heaving from pain that seared the body as well as the spirit.

"Why do you keep choosing me, even when you know it will hurt you?" she said, with tears leaking from her eyes.

But as she asked the question, she still held her arms around him. She hadn't let him go. Her arms fit perfectly around his chest, as if that was where they were supposed to be all along.

Aang trailed his fingers from her temple to her chin, tracing the shape of the face he had once seen in the clouds. "I will always choose you, Katara."

"But why?" she whispered.

"'Love is a form of energy,'" he answered. "My people may be lost, but their love still lives on. Their love lives on in me." His hand drifted down to where her hand rested on his chest. "Their love was reborn in my love…" He threaded their fingers together. "…for you."

Katara took his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek. She shut her eyes, as though trying to absorb the depth of his love. "Gran Gran once told me that my destiny was intertwined with yours. This is our destiny, isn't it?" she said. The heat of her tears burned into his skin. "We love each other too much to stay apart. Even if our love destroys you." Her voice trembled from under the weight of her words. "Even if it destroys me."

Aang raised his other hand and framed her face. "Katara, your love doesn't destroy me," he said. "Your love gives me life."

Her eyes fluttered open. Blue irises gazed at him, shining with doubt. "How can you be so sure?"

"Your love brings me back, Katara. After Zuko captured me in your village, I tried to escape his ship and he knocked me into the ocean. I almost drowned, but then I heard your voice. You were calling to me. Hearing your voice saved me. When strong emotions send me into the Avatar State, you're the one who brings me back to myself. And in the ice caves, when you were trying to keep me from freezing to death, something kept pulling at me while I was in the spirit world. That something was you, Katara. You called me back. You saved my life."

Katara's face softened as he spoke. His heart flared with hope.

Aang's hands traveled downward until he was cradling the base of her neck, his thumb caressing the underside of her chin. "And after I was shot down by lightning, you brought me back to life. You saved me, Katara."

"But that was because I had the spirit water from the North Pole. What about—" Her breath hitched in a sob, and she shuddered. "What about next time, Aang? How am I supposed to bring you back the next time you—the next time—you—"

Aang kissed her forehead as she struggled with the words that wouldn't come. She hooked her hands over his arms, clinging to him as though he was her anchor.

"I'm not sure you even needed the spirit water, Katara," he said. "It was you who brought me back."

"But Aang, that's impossible. It couldn't have been me. It was the spirit water. I know you're the Avatar, and unusual things happen around you all the time. But some things just aren't possible. Not even with the Avatar."

"I can't explain how I know this, but I do," he said. "You brought me back, and you're the one who keeps bringing me back. You are my tether to this world." He touched their foreheads together. "And without you, I am lost," he murmured.

Her breath feathered over his lips, shaky and uncertain.

"But if I'm the one who tethers you to the world, how do you know I won't bring you down someday?" she protested. "I saved you after you were shot down with lightning. But if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have died in the first place. How is it a good thing for me to tie you down?"

"You don't tie me down, Katara. It's like…" Aang racked his brain for a way to give voice to the truth he knew in his bones. "It's like a kite. Not the airbender kind of kite, but the kind of kite that needs a string."

When Katara frowned in confusion, he realized that she had never seen an airbender kite before. And he probably wasn't making much sense, either.

"The string keeps the kite from flying away," he said. There. That was it. He brightened, excited that he had discovered how to explain the situation to her. "You're the string, Katara. You keep me from drifting away."

Katara shook her head. "I don't know, Aang. I want to believe you, but I can't." She sighed. "I love you, and I want to be with you. But every time I look at you, I only see myself dragging you down."

As Aang brushed away her tears with his thumbs, as her pulse fluttered beneath his palms, he realized something. He didn't have all the answers, and he couldn't give Katara the answers she wanted. But even if he did have the right answers to all of her questions, nothing he did or said was going to soothe away her worries or ease her guilt.

Because the only one who could put her worries and guilt to rest was Katara herself.

Aang knew what he had to do. He was no longer the nearly-thirteen-year-old boy who had stolen a kiss from the girl he loved because he was petrified of losing her.

He was older, now. And more importantly, he was wiser.

Aang knew he had to let Katara go.

This time, though, he wasn't leaving her in danger so he could unleash one of the most destructive forces in the universe. He wasn't cutting out her presence from his heart so he could deaden the guilt that had haunted him for so long.

This time, Aang was letting her go so she could find the answers for herself. He was letting her go so she could discover how to bring peace back into her life.

And this time, he was letting her go because he loved her.

"Katara," he said, taking her hands in his own. "I love you more than I can ever say. More deeply than I even understand. And it's because I love you that I think we should wait before taking the next step."

Katara stared at him, eyes wide and anxious. "Aang, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we shouldn't be together. Not yet."

Her mouth dropped open. "Wh-What do you mean? Why not?"

Aang smoothed back the hair from her face, the strands that had pulled free from her braid during the days and nights she had stayed awake, healing him and watching over him. "I love you, Katara, and I want to be with you. I love you so much that it hurts, sometimes. But I can't stand seeing you tear yourself up inside."

"But Aang—we just—we came back together just now, and—"

He gently cupped her face between his hands. "Katara, I know you're hurting. Both of us have been hurting for a long time. When I lost my life in the crystal catacombs, everything changed for us.

"After you saved me, I blamed myself for the consequences of my actions," he continued. The words flowed easily now, as if letting go of his guilt had unblocked not only his chakra, but also the truth dammed up inside. "I felt so guilty when I saw how much you suffered because of what happened. Because of me. Every time I got hurt, I could tell that you were back in the catacombs watching lightning strike me down, or back on the Fire Nation ship trying to heal me when you knew I might never wake up."

Aang glided his hands down her arms and took hold of her hands. "That's why I didn't tell you about my decision at the Eastern Air Temple. I knew you would blame yourself for my death when the blame really belongs to me."

"Aang, you didn't do anything wrong—" Katara began, shaking her head.

"I know. But the guilt ate me up anyway."

He took a deep breath in and out, trying to dispel the heaviness that threatened to smother him.

"I didn't tell anyone what happened at the Eastern Air Temple because I was ashamed," he went on. "I was afraid that everyone would blame me for the capture of Ba Sing Se and the fall of the Earth Kingdom. And I didn't want you to suffer any more than you already had. That's why I hid the bandages from you.

"But instead of making things better, hiding the truth only made things worse," Aang said. His fingers tightened around her hands. He had come so close to losing her for good. "It made things worse for both of us."

Katara leaned her head against the side of the bed and let out a slow breath, almost like a sigh. As if she was letting the weight of the truth settle over her.

"The guilt would crop up every now and then—usually when I saw you worrying about my safety or my injuries," he continued. "But the guilt really came back last summer, when an Air Acolyte asked me if I had ever let go of someone I loved. And then you started asking me the same thing. After you left me, the guilt only got worse. It was taking over my life. I had to make it go away, somehow.

"That's when I remembered the bloody bandages. That's when I knew I had to get rid of them. So I burned them. But the guilt didn't go away. And then, when I came to the South Pole for the trade conference, I saw you." He pressed her hands to his chest. "Seeing you reminded me of everything that went wrong in the crystal catacombs. I also blamed myself for somehow driving you away. The guilt and shame got so bad that they blocked my chakra." Aang gingerly touched Katara's leg in the place where the ice spike had driven through. "That's why I couldn't go into the Avatar State."

Something between a sob and a gasp escaped from Katara. She threw her arms around Aang's shoulders and held him tight.

"I knew I couldn't go into the Avatar State even before Sakari and Takit took us into the ice caves," he said, wrapping his arms around her. "I figured it out on the morning of the second trade meeting." He played with the idea of explaining exactly how he had discovered this problem. But he didn't really want to talk about his encounter with Amarak. That was a story for another time.

"That's when I came to the conclusion that I had to let you go," he continued. "Not just let you go out of my life. I thought I had to let go of my love for you, too. I thought I had to let go of you completely."

Katara's breath was a sharp hiss of air. Aang unwound her arms from his shoulders and gathered her hands between his.

"But I didn't let go of you, Katara," he said softly. "I didn't let go of my love for you. Because that's not what I needed to do to get rid of my guilt."

"So…what did you need to do?" she said hoarsely.

"I met an old friend, and he pointed me in the right direction." Aang thought about mentioning that the friend was Gyatso, but trying to explain how they met might be too much at the moment. "He helped me figure out that my guilt came from the blame I kept putting on myself. And if I wanted to get rid of my guilt, I had to let out my self-blame and let it go." He pressed her hands together with her palms flat and fingers pointing upward, and his own hands surrounding hers mirrored the gesture. "He showed me how to forgive myself."

He touched his lips to Katara's steepled hands, a kiss to the tips of her fingers. "And I did," he said. "After all these years, I was finally able to forgive myself and let go of my guilt."

Aang threaded their fingers together then, and they sat against the side of the bed, holding hands in silence.

After a while, Katara said, "I'm really glad you told me all of this, Aang. Even though…" She closed her eyes. "Even though I can't help thinking that I'm to blame, too. That the blame rests entirely on me. If I hadn't gotten captured by Azula in the first place, or if you didn't love me, or—"

"Katara." Aang laid his hands on her shoulders. "You are not to blame. Neither of us are. Even if we could have done things differently back then, we can't change what happened. We have to find a way to leave the past behind and move forward."

She opened her eyes and touched her trembling fingers to his cheek. "But what happened in the past can happen again in the future. If I tether you to the world, you're going to choose me again, no matter what it means for you. I'm going to bring you down again someday."

Aang grasped her fingers and cupped her hand between both of his. "That's why I don't think we should be together. Not yet."

"Not yet?" she said, tears brimming in her eyes. "Then when can we be in a relationship, Aang? When I'm no longer an attachment for you? When you no longer love me?"

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm saying that we can't be together if it's only going to destroy you with guilt." He longed to kiss away her tears, to soothe away her hurt. But he knew his comfort would only be fleeting and would make things worse in the long run. "I can't watch that happen to you. I love you too much."

Katara looked at their hands nestled together in his lap. "I feel like you're so close, but at the same time, you're still so far away. Like you're right there, but I can't get to you. Like I can never have you."

Aang fought the impulse to brush his fingers over her cheek. "Our relationship won't survive if you believe that you're dragging me down," he said gently. "The same way that our relationship couldn't survive the guilt that took over everything I did.

"I wish I could help you figure out what to do with your fear and your pain, Katara. But I don't think I can. Not when I'm so close to the problem." Aang glanced at his hands holding hers, arrows of blue surrounding ocean-kissed brown. As much as he wanted to stay wrapped up in her, they needed to separate. Katara needed space to unravel the guilt tangling up her spirit. "Not when I'm part of the problem."

"What if it takes me a long time to figure it out, Aang?" she said anxiously. "What if I never do?"

He unclasped their hands and took hold of her shoulders. "Do you remember the day I flew away to hide in a cave during a storm? That was the day I told you that I ran away from my Air Temple and ended up frozen in an iceberg. I blamed myself for not being there to help my people when the Fire Nation attacked." The day of the storm was stamped into his memory—he could still smell the rain, hear the thunder crashing outside the cave. "Do you remember what you said to me back then?"

Katara nodded. "I told you that it was meant to be."

"And you were right. It took me a long time to really believe it, but you were right. It was meant to be." He smiled at her, the first real smile to cross his face in months. "And I think it's true for us, too. I think we're meant to be. I know we are."

The smile she gave him then, through her tears, was like the sun breaking through rain clouds. "Do you remember what else I told you that day?" she said.

Aang shook his head.

"'You give people hope.'" Her smile grew wider, warming him with her glow. "You gave people hope during the war, Aang. And you still do. Every day."

He was overcome with the urge to kiss her then, to feel the warmth of her smile for himself. Even after all his talk of staying apart. Even though he knew he shouldn't.

But he wanted to kiss her anyway. He ignored the voice inside of him that warned him not to. Her eyes slid half-closed as he gently took her face between his hands. They leaned into each other, neither of them able to resist the pull drawing them together.

Aang was just sliding his fingers beneath the soft lobe of her ear when the curtain of animal pelts over the doorway was yanked open.

Sokka stood below the arching ice blocks, staring just as intently at them as they stared at him. He crossed his arms over the front of his dark blue tunic. A smug look slowly spread across his face.

"Welcome back, Aang!" he said, his tone bright and jaunty. "Good to see you awake again."

Aang let out a small sigh of relief. He was grateful that Sokka had interrupted them, or he might have actually kissed Katara when he knew he shouldn't.

Katara didn't seem to feel the same way, though. She narrowed her eyes at her brother.

But before she could chew him out for barging in on them, Sokka said, "Dad and the elders are here with Takit and Sakari." His eyes flicked over to Aang. "We're going to need your help, Aang. Sakari is kind of…in a bind."

That was right. Aang had only been able to stop Sakari by locking her body in a prison of stone. He had been hanging on to consciousness by a thread at that point, and he'd performed his earthbending feat through instinct alone.

But there was one problem. As long as Aang was unconscious, no one in the village could free Sakari. Both trade ministers had traveled with benders for protection, but Hakoda had prohibited benders of either nation from entering the South Sea, where the ministers were provided with Water Tribe warship escorts. Hakoda wanted to keep firebenders out of the Water Tribe, but he couldn't require the Fire Nation to leave their benders behind without asking the Earth Kingdom to do the same. So the firebenders and the earthbenders had been deposited on Yingtao, the nearest populated Earth Kingdom island, which was a three days' sail by boat.

Sokka explained that a Water Tribe ship had been sent to retrieve the earthbenders. But the earthbenders might not be willing to go with the Water Tribers, given the tensions between their nations. Minister Shi was also too important to go on such a lowly errand. But he condescended to write a message summoning the earthbenders to the village to free a girl who was trapped in rock by the Avatar she had almost killed. The paper was stamped with the minister's seal, but the request sounded so strange and suspicious that Hakoda worried that the earthbenders would refuse to come.

There was no guarantee that the earthbenders would come, and no telling when Aang would wake up. So in the meantime, Pakku and several other men had been chipping away at Sakari's prison.

"Perfect timing, my friend," Sokka declared. "Katara thought you might be starting to wake up, but she wasn't sure. So we moved Sakari to this igloo just in case. And look at you now…" He beamed a smile at Aang. "…you woke up, after all!"

Katara glared at her brother. "That's right, Sokka. Aang just woke up," she said sternly. "He needs to rest before—"

But Aang stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "I can help," he said to her. "I'll be fine."

He started to stand, but a jolt of pain shot through his belly and forced him to his knees. Katara laid a hand on his back and studied him with worried eyes.

"I'll be okay," he said. "But I'll need some help to walk."

She gave him one last look before nodding and looping his arm over her shoulders. They rose slowly, like survivors emerging from the ruins of battle, and went to meet Sakari and the elders.

Author's note:

✨itsmoonpeaches is the best beta reader✨

Next chapter coming in one week!

As always, if you liked this chapter, please leave some love ❤️