A/N: Well Friends, this is it! The End! This last chapter is HUGE (double the size of most), but we have finally made it.
I need to give a very special and grateful thank you to my incredible beta, FlameoHotwife! This last chapter is dedicated to her. Send your love her way, because it takes a very dedicated person to stick with a story this long, and a very intelligent and talented person to improve it in all the countless ways she has! You're amazing, FlameoHotwife! Thank you for doing this mammoth undertaking with me!
I also want to thank you for joining me on this journey, and if you liked this story, please consider leaving a comment. It's a joy for me to hear your thoughts.
And now, enjoy the conclusion to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle…
….
The flight to the Southern Air Temple took two full days.
Throughout the flight they didn't encounter any Fire Nation ships, on the sea or in the air. Katara was surprised that more effort was not expended to find Aang. Perhaps it was because Ozai was dead? Or was Azula just letting them leave?
Katara didn't know, but whatever the reason, she was grateful.
Aang's mood had taken a sudden downward shift after Katara had healed him in the ocean. She could tell that he'd tried to smile for her sake, but a weighty cloud seemed to have descended upon him.
And she couldn't blame him. So much had happened to him in the previous hours: nearly marrying a woman he'd never been in love with, being suddenly enlightened to the fact that his whole life in the Fire Palace had been a lie, and then being offered a live-or-die choice to join the Rebellion. He'd faced a failed escape, a whipping, and betrayal. He'd been attacked by the man he'd called Father, shot with lightning, and watched Ozai die at the hands of Azula, his deranged adoptive sister and ex-fiancee. And then he'd had to stay up all night helping his sky bison to fly.
So yeah. Aang had plenty of reasons to be down.
"We should, you know, probably get some rest," Aang had suggested as he'd trudged heavily out of the water and back towards where Appa lay in the deep shade of the trees.
"You rest, Aang," Katara had said, following him into the shade of the trees. "I slept a bit on the way here. I'll keep watch."
"We can take turns," Aang said, yawning largely.
"Sure. You sleep first. We can switch in a few hours," she'd said with a small smile, knowing full well she hadn't intended to wake him.
But she did watch over him—her turn to keep him safe.
Aang had fallen asleep almost the minute he'd laid down on Appa's tail and hadn't stirred until nightfall.
As Katara had watched Aang's exhausted body relax in sleep—seeing the way his brow, adorned with the last sacred mark his lost people, softened vulnerably—an intense desire to protect him kindled inside her.
Katara thought of who she had been before she'd met Aang, before she had allowed him to change her. She had come to the Fire Nation a woman full of anger and resentment, jaded by the ugliness she'd seen in humanity. But Aang had helped change that. He'd given her hope. Aang had uncovered within her the long-held belief that there was still goodness and fun and peace to be had after all.
War loomed ahead of them, but Katara vowed to shelter Aang as much as she could. He'd been through so much, and yet there was still something so good and pure and innocent about him. As though the world could not touch him somehow.
Thinking of the violence she had witnessed already in her short life, Katara wondered if weapons ever could truly bring peace. Perhaps Aang's gentle soul was paradoxically exactly what was needed to end the war.
True, he had been groomed to be a weapon, and yet at heart, she knew that Aang was no warrior. He was a peacemaker. And who better to save the world from war than a maker of peace?
When Aang and Appa had both awoken, they'd flown through the night to a tiny southern Earth Kingdom island, called Kyoshi, where Aang and Appa had again slept through the day. Katara had ventured into the town and bought supplies with some of Sokka's money: food, soap, a cooking pot, a sewing kit, some cloth and a couple of blankets, among other things.
That evening when he awoke, Aang's mood had lightened and he seemed a bit more like himself again. As they'd shared their evening meal in preparation for another flight through the night, Aang had talked fondly of his home in the Southern Air Temple.
But eventually Aang's mood had turned more pensive, even apprehensive.
"I'm both afraid and excited," he'd confided. "I am anxious to go home, to prove to myself that my life before the iceberg actually happened. Sometimes..." Aang's voice suddenly got quiet, and his eyes darted to the fire, unfocused. "Sometimes it feels like my childhood there was just a dream, and I'd imagined the whole thing. I haven't been home in... well, a really long time. And I know what you've said... about what happened to my people..."
He'd paused then and looked absently off into the distance. "But I can hardly believe it's true. All I can remember is a temple full of laughter and chants and bison." Katara had reached for his hand then and he'd held hers tightly. "I can't seem to picture it any other way… And I'm not sure I want to change that memory."
But they both knew this was something he needed to do. So they had finished their meal, packed up their things, and flown off towards Aang's old home.
The waterbender stirred from sleep on Appa's back at the sound of Aang's voice.
"Katara, we're almost there."
Katara looked up to see that they were no longer flying over the seemingly endless dark ocean, but were now amidst the towering peaks of the Patola mountains, which were just beginning to glimmer to life with the first rays of the new day. They were gaining elevation quickly, and Katara could see Aang moving his arms in wide circles, airbending to help Appa get the lift he needed to rise sharply above the peak in front of them.
And then there it was: The Southern Air Temple! The view took Katara's breath away.
The Temple stood upon a lone peak, its upward spiraling towers looking almost like a crown of glory upon the mountain's royal head. The rising sun shone down on the winding paths and white walls of the temple, making the place look majestic and other-worldly. For Katara, Air Temples had been features of legends, of stories from long, long ago. She could hardly believe that what she saw was real.
Aang directed Appa near the top of the temple, and they dropped into a cobblestone courtyard. As Katara climbed down, she heard Aang speak to Appa. "We're home, Buddy."
…
Aang could feel the difference in the temple immediately.
Of course it was easy to see the lack of bison and monks and children laughing and flying about, but the feeling went far deeper than that.
It was the Air.
The air in the temple had always leaped and swirled, darting back and forth joyfully, tugging teasingly at their robes and then running on, inviting the benders to chase it. The air in the temple had been cheerful and eager to play like the family's favorite pet puppy-bear.
But now the air milled about aimlessly: stagnant, starved, and forlorn. It had become lonely and wild. In some places the air howled endlessly in long, sorrowful mourning. While in other spots it stewed unhealthily, still and pensive. The wind still spoke, but no one answered. And a hundred years without a playmate had made it unfriendly.
Aang felt afraid. Scared to reach out and stroke it for fear the air here would turn its teeth on him and bite the airbender who had abandoned it all those eons ago. Would it rise up and hate him for leaving the others to die without him? Could it ever forgive him for running away?
Aang began to back-step on the cobblestones, fear gripping his insides in a chokehold. He had to get away! He had no thought where to run, only that he had to.
But as he stepped backward to go, she touched him. Katara's forearm curled around his own, her hand slipping warm and solid into his. Her tangible warmth standing next to him, her side up against his, broke him from his panic.
He looked to her and she held his eye. When she squeezed his hand, he felt his heart rate slow back to normal, and the nervous energy dissipate from inside him. You can do this, her touch said to him. I'm here with you.
As usual Aang hadn't thought more than one step ahead, so now that he was here he wasn't entirely sure what to do. So he simply walked—something he realized he had rarely done here, because as a boy he and his friends had always jumped, raced or flown around the grounds. But now he walked. Walked through the empty courtyards, hallways, and meditation plazas. Katara walked with him, saying nothing, but never removing her hand from his, her touch anchoring him.
All around there were signs of the conflict. Broken walls blown to bits in explosions. Fire scorch marks that crawled and clawed up the stones like ravenous black talons.
And then there were the bones.
Shock would ripple through him every time he'd round a corner to find some remnant there. His mind trying desperately not to give the body a name.
There were far fewer bodies than there had been monks who'd lived here, but Aang knew that most had surely been carried away by scavengers, or blown or washed away by storms. Some had long since turned to dust and been carried away in the winds.
Katara was there the whole time, silent but so strong, letting him grasp her hand tightly, his eyes squeezing shut to block out the images. She would stand with him until he was ready to go on.
Time became a blur as they walked quietly through the Southern Air Temple—the dormitories, the kitchens, the library—silently taking in the lifeless emptiness of it.
The airball court, the meditation hall, the stables. Happy places full of laughter and song and community, now all silent. Silent except for the air that, a hundred years later, still mourned them.
For years Aang had tried not to think about his life before the iceberg. It had been one of his many strategies to try to be satisfied with his life in the Fire Palace. But today he was flooded with memories, so many he was sure he would drown. The happier the memory the more painful it was to remember.
But when he opened the next door, Aang's breath stopped altogether.
Bodies littered the room—far more than he had seen elsewhere. All around were the bones and armor of long-dead firebenders. And one airbender: Gyatso. His Gyatso. His wise and playful, mischievous and ever loving Gyatso. Gyatso's skeleton was wearing the necklace that he had always worn—the one Aang had played with hundreds of times during formal instruction when he'd leaned bored and fidgety onto his mentor's lap, fiddling with the beads and the tassels, tracing with his chubby baby fingers the spirals carved into the necklace's face—
And for the first time all day, Aang was completely overcome. Of course he had known already that Gyatso was dead (it had been more than a century and Aang had had years to come to grips with this truth), but to see his kind and peaceful mentor, surrounded by firebenders… to know that his gentle soul had been snuffed out in an act of senseless violence… and to see that in his last moments, Gyatso had been driven to kill—the bodies of the firebenders testament to it—was more pain than Aang could bear.
Aang let go of Katara for the first time since she'd first grabbed his hand in the cobblestoned courtyard. He dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands and sobbed. The reality of it, the tragedy of it all, finally crashed over him, burying him in an avalanche of grief. His pain—his anger—was so big, so strong, that he felt his thousand lives convulse into life, yanking on his soul as though he'd been hooked through the navel and was now being dragged, hand over thousandth hand, downward to the bottom of the sea.
The wind swirled and roared in his ears like white rapids in the spring melts, the stones under his feet surging as hot fire burst from his mouth in a roar of agony. He opened his thousand eyes in a flash of white light, the power of the Avatar vibrating through every cell in his body.
And Aang lost himself.
His own consciousness blended in a fearful blur of lives long past, a thousand familiar voices crying as one in his head, crying of loss, loss, loss.
But then, she was there again. Katara. Her arms real and solid, clinging to him and wrapping around his shattering soul as strong and eternal as the roots of the never-ending banyan tree.
And Aang came back.
He slumped onto Katara and cried and cried and cried, while she stroked his hair and held him, promising with her every touch that she understood and she would stay with him.
"I'm sorry that I didn't believe you, Katara."
A long pause…
"I'm sorry that what I told you was true."
…
The next days blurred in and out of focus for Aang, the way that a telescope does when the dial is twisted.
Aang had not wanted to stay in the temple itself, so they had made camp a short way down the path. Each day he and Katara returned to the temple and walked through its hollow hallways. The wind still mourned through the halls, echoing like a tomb. But not all the memories that came to him hurt as they had that first day. And Katara listened every time he wanted to talk about them.
One day they found chimes on the ground, chimes that had once lined the outer rim of the Assembly Hall. Their stings had long-since burned to ash, but the chimes themselves, the brass tubes of various sizes and lengths, had survived. Aang and Katara gathered them up, and in the evenings before bed, strung them anew with the thinnest branches from the willows and some of the thread from Katara's sewing kit.
In their walks they hung the re-strung chimes around the temple. Aang hoped that they would alleviate some of the wind's stagnancy, it's sadness. He hoped the chimes would bring back the familiar Voice of the Wind here that he'd known as a child. But so far it hadn't.
One day as they spent time in the temple burying bones and hanging chimes, Aang and Katara came to the outer door of the Hall of Avatars. Aang looked at it for a long while, remembering how Monk Gyatso had told him that—when he was ready—someone would meet him there.
Was he ready now?
Aang knew that despite being the Master of All Four Elements, he had not been acting as Master of his own destiny. For so long Aang had had so little say in his own life, nearly every choice over the last seven years having been made for him. As a prince he had lived with lies on his lips and self-deceit in his actions, turning his back on his people and his oaths, as he everyday fought for a man he'd feared enough to call Father. Even though Ozai had never cared for him that way… not like Gyatso…
But now both men were dead: the man he'd called Father out of fear; and the Father he'd never called by that name, but who matched all definitions of the word in love and support.
For a moment longer Aang looked at the door, with its tremendous airbending lock. He felt air jingle by his palms like keys.
But how could he become The Avatar, when he wasn't even sure who Aang was anymore?
This door was meant to be opened by an Air Nomad. So he turned and walked away.
Days passed and yet still he stayed. Antsy to flee, but knowing he couldn't. Not yet.
It was a strange feeling to have no one telling him what he should do. Of course, Aang could think of all sorts of things he'd like to do—ride the elephant koi, fly on a glider again, run away from his responsibilities forever, taking Katara with him—just to name a few.
However, Aang knew that this time he wouldn't run away. His life wasn't his own—it hadn't been his own from the moment he'd been born, even though he hadn't known that until he'd turned twelve and the elder monks had told him that he was the Avatar. As much as he wished he wasn't, he was the Avatar, and he wouldn't abandon the world again.
But walking now through the corridors of his carefree childhood, Aang was endlessly grateful for the ignorance he'd enjoyed as a child. Grateful that he'd been allotted twelve years of happiness before the weight of his destiny had descended upon him. He knew Gyatso had fought valiantly to give him that gift, and he loved his mentor all the more for it.
The more time he spent here at his childhood home, the more grateful he was that Katara had come with him. The emptiness of the temple and the stale way the air meandered gave Aang an ever-creeping sense of isolation, of being all alone. The last. But Katara's hand in his, her compassion and strength, kept him grounded. It was chilling to picture how this would have gone for Aang if Katara hadn't come with him. Aang was grateful to his bones that she had.
With Katara's endless support, and with each passing day spent here, Aang began to feel himself unfragmenting—as though he was bit by bit putting the deconstructed pieces of himself back together.
Aang knew that he could not remove the experiences that had happened to him since running away from this home all those years ago. But he could take them—all of them, even the bitter ones—and examine them, learn from them, and choose which pieces to use as foundational building blocks of who he wanted to be. He discovered with a bit of surprise, that some of his strongest parts had been forged in his darkest moments. He'd learned the value of standing firm for what really mattered, of being true to himself. It may not be the path of least resistance, but he would choose to swallow bitter if it came with the sweet drink of his own peace of conscience.
Aang knew that in fighting for the Firelord, he had compromised himself in ways that shamed him now. But Aang was also aware that there were others out there who, although speaking with a different voice, would want the same thing that Ozai had—to use him as a weapon.
For the past seven years Aang had believed everything he'd been told. But he'd been told lies. So before Aang could leave—before he could go to meet Zuko and the Rebellion (or anyone else for that matter)—he needed to find his own center and become master of his own destiny.
He needed to find balance within himself and repair his broken oaths.
…
"Katara?"
"Hm?" Katara answered, looking up from the pot she'd been cleaning out in the small stream near their campsite. This morning Katara had eaten breakfast alone—Aang having opted to forego breakfast. He had skipped dinner the night before as well.
Katara smiled when she saw him coming down the path returning from a long morning meditation. He wore a swath of saffron yellow cloth over his shoulder that tied with a sash over his black pants. In one of their long chats in Aang's room back in the fire palace, Aang had once mentioned missing the cheery yellows and oranges that the monks and nuns had worn. So when Katara had seen this cloth at the market in Kyoshi, she'd bought it for him. Originally she'd planned to sew it into a shirt to replace his torn black one, but when she'd shown it to him, Aang had asked her if he could keep it just as it was. He now wore it slung over one shoulder, leaving his other arm bare. Katara would be lying if she said she didn't like the extra skin this style showed…
"Um," Aang looked a little nervous as he approached her. "I was wondering… if you could help me with something?"
"Of course, Aang. What can I do?"
"Um, well it's… my hair…"
Katara looked at his hair. Except at night when he took it down, Aang still wore his hair up in the traditional top-knot of the Fire Nation.
"What about it?" she asked, walking up and pushing a stray black strand of hair back from his face. "You have lovely hair."
"Well," he began, grimacing slightly at her praise. "I was wondering if you could… help me shave it off?"
"Oh," she said, a bit startled, although if she'd stopped to think about it, she shouldn't have been. She'd seen plenty of images of bald air nomad monks in the art pieces in the temple, their blue arrows prominent on their brows. And she'd known that Aang used to shave his head when he was a child. So she shouldn't have been surprised. She supposed she'd just… gotten used to him with hair.
But of course she was happy to help. "Sure, Aang."
Aang came closer to where she was by the water's edge. He pulled a short knife out of his pocket—one he must have brought in his satchel from the Fire Nation.
"In the Fire Nation cutting your hair off is shameful," Aang said, looking down at the knife in his hand.
Katara knew this already.
Not long after starting her travels with Zuko and Iroh, the news had come to them that Ozai had adopted the Avatar as his son—his new son. When he'd heard, Zuko had disappeared for over 48 hours. There had been a time when 'the Avatar' had been Zuko's one hope of returning home. Now, not only had Zuko failed to capture the Avatar, but the very quarry he'd hunted had taken his place in his Father's heart, and by his side.
While Zuko had been missing Uncle hadn't said much, but Katara had known he'd been worried sick about his nephew. When Zuko had finally returned, he'd brought with him a wanted poster for himself. Now that the Firelord had a replacement, Ozai apparently wanted his banished son eliminated.
That night Zuko and Iroh had both cut their hair. Katara hadn't fully understood the significance of the act, but she knew it meant a renouncement of their titles and social status—a permanent break with the Fire Nation.
Despite how much Zuko had changed over the years, and how much he'd come to recognize the follies of his motherland—becoming even grateful for his break with it—Katara knew that Zuko had still resented the Avatar. Zuko was perhaps one of the few people Katara knew who had hated the Avatar more than she had.
Katara looked at Aang, wondering how Zuko would react when he met the Avatar again. And how would he react to her being with Aang?
Aang began to speak, drawing Katara's focus back. "Not long after I moved from prison into the palace, I shaved my hair off. Counselor Zhao just about lost it. He said my bald head was a disgrace—a 'dishonor and rejection of the homeland and the Firelord's benevolence.'"
Aang's eyes looked downward, and Katara saw him begin to rub his forearm—a motion she hadn't seen him do as much lately—but then he consciously stopped himself.
"They couldn't understand why we Air Nomads would shave our heads—they told me it was another testament to our barbarism. But it wasn't… I mean isn't. It's a way for us to feel the Air more closely; to be more in tune with our element. It's a symbol of detachment from worldly things. It's a symbol of freedom."
Aang finally brought his eyes up to hers. "And I'm ready now. To be free again."
Katara swallowed a lump in her throat. She knew that Aang took none of this lightly, and that his time here at the temple was far more than just a way to learn for himself what had really happened to the other airbenders. By now Aang had already come to grips with that horrific reality. Yet he stayed here still. And it wasn't because he enjoyed it—Katara knew that everyday he had to fight the urge to get away, to close his eyes and turn away from all of the pain this place brought him—and yet still he chose to stay. Katara was not sure why or what he was waiting for, but she was sure that whatever the reasons, today Aang was closer to what he was seeking.
"You want me to…shave your hair?"
"I could do it myself… I probably should do it myself. But I… I'm not sure…" Aang began to rub his forearm again, a visible shake in his hand. "I just… it's been a long time, and I hoped… you could help me. To be strong enough."
A part of Katara melted. For Aang this clearly meant more than a simple haircut, the return of his tic showing how emotionally challenging this was for him. The fact that he would ask her for help showed how much he trusted her.
Aang had confided to Katara that, as a Prince of the Fire Nation, he'd had to live a double life: on the outside being what was expected of him, even if it was disingenuous to his inner feelings. But he hadn't had anyone—outside of Appa he was sure to add—that he could let his guard down with, someone that he could truly be himself with. "Until you came into my life," he'd said gratefully.
Katara slipped her hand into Aang's, halting his nervous habit and smiling kindly. "I'd be honored to help, Aang."
Aang softened, the expanse of his gratitude and love for her unabashed in his eyes. The openness in his look made her heart pound. In a world of strategy and intrigue and war, Katara was not used to this kind of blatant guilelessness, and it made her blush.
To hide her warm cheeks, Katara led Aang to sit down on a boulder near the stream. Together they took off his saffron sash, which Katara folded carefully and set nearby. Aang then reached up and gripped his topknot with one hand, bringing the knife up to the base of it. Katara saw his chest expand and release with a fortifying breath—
—and then he cut it off.
His remaining short black hair fell down around his face. But the topknot, held together by a fire-insignia tie, he brought down into his lap to examine.
Aang laughed a relieved huff. There were tears in his eyes when he held the tight little knot up for Katara to see. "I did it."
She smiled encouragingly at him.
Aang laughed again and breathed deeply before tossing the bun into the stream, watching it float away down the current.
"Goody-bye high maintenance!" he laughed, looking visibly lighter. Katara laughed too and stepped behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. Aang reached up and gave her the knife.
As a small child Katara had watched her mother shave the sides of her brother's head, and, after her mom was gone, she'd seen Gran Gran do it for him. As he'd grown older he'd eventually learned to shave it himself. Katara had always watched with interest. So, although she had never shaved someone's head before, she knew the basics of what to do.
Katara ran her fingers lightly through the remainder of Aang's uneven hair. She then went to work cutting the longer bits with the razor-sharpe blade, until all that remained was a short black fuzz. Then, using the soap she'd brought with her to wash her dishes, she rubbed a good lather on her hands and massaged the bubbles over Aang's head.
Although there was nothing inherently provocative about washing and cutting Aang's hair, there was something unexplainably intimate about it. Despite the fact that the two of them had shared kisses, their bodies drawing together with yearning and restraint, Katara was sure that they had never been more emotionally exposed than right now. Being invited in, to share this moment with Aang made Katara feel trusted and vulnerable, as though they'd stripped down to their souls and now stood bare before one another.
The blade made clean rows in the foamy soap as she brought it carefully across Aang's scalp. She started along the sides and back so that it was only with the final few strokes of the blade that the broad arrow on Aang's forehead finally connected with the thick blue line that traveled down his spine.
After a final rinse, Aang stood up and faced Katara. He looked so different that at first she felt a little shy, almost in awe of him. The blue tattoo of his ancestry now stood out boldly, no longer hidden, but running long and continuous over his head and down his back as it was meant to. It was like looking at an entirely different person, as though a whole nation had been reborn in him right now. In this moment. And she had been here to witness it! Katara felt overwhelmed by that privilege.
Without his dark hair to contrast, Aang's already stunning dark eyes now looked even more prominent. And right now those eyes were happy—full of light as though a burden had finally been lifted off him.
"Thank you, Katara."
She nodded, smiling. But when Katara realized she was staring at him, she ducked her head bashfully and turned to retrieve his yellow wrap. Although he didn't need her to, Katara placed the cloth over his shoulder, even tying the sash low around his hips herself.
Then she stepped back to take him in.
"Well… how do I look?" he asked, a small hint of uncertainty in his tone.
Katara thought of the many murals she'd seen throughout the temple—the mosaics, statues, and frescos of monks in their yellow robes with their blue-arrowed brows soft in meditation, the wind swirling around their bare tattooed arms—and she smiled, nodding with the rightness of it. "You look perfect, Aang."
Aang closed his eyes and smiled softly. He inclined his head this way and that toward the breeze, as though someone had called his name. He ran a gratified hand over his head and smiled. "Like an Air Nomad?"
Katara took a step forward and ran her hand from the tip of his arrow down the back of his head, marveling at the smoothness there and how handsome he looked. "Yes," she answered, tears welling in her eyes.
She couldn't help herself then; she leaned up and captured his lips in her own, hoping he could feel her overwhelming love and approval and gratitude. Aang responded exuberantly, stealing her breath with a bold kiss before pulling back with a dazzling smile.
He took a deep breath and let it out in a satisfied rush. "I think I'm ready now."
"Ready for what?"
"I'm ready to meet someone. Someone I should have gone to see a long time ago."
….
Together they took the last two chimes they had finished re-stringing last night, and hung them in the temple—one in a little square courtyard flanked on either side by arching doorways, and the other under an overhang that covered an outdoor staircase. The chimes clinked cheerfully as they put them up, but—just like all the others—once they were hung in place, the wind seemed apathetic to them, refusing to make them sing. Katara could see that their silence brought a sort of sadness to Aang that she didn't quite understand. She knew that Aang could easily bend a breeze to make the chimes ring, but for whatever reason, he never did.
Unlike most days, when they walked slowly, meandering their way through the temple in no particular direction, today Aang was clearly headed somewhere specific.
Katara soon found herself looking up at an imposing rounded door, framed by the trunk of an ancient arching tree. They had been here once before, but they hadn't gone in.
But now Aang stood surely before the solid wooden door with its strange convoluted pipes. Letting go of her hand, he took a deep breath and then pushed forward, bending long streams of air into the pipes. The pipes shook, whistling, until the locks turned one by one and the great door swung open.
Aang then took Katara's hand again, giving it a squeeze, before walking with her into the vast, cool chamber.
Before her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, Katara thought the room was full of people. But as her vision focused, she realized that the people were really just statues—hundreds of statues standing in one long, swirling line starting at the center of the echoing room, and spiraling outward and upward, like the inside of a gigantic conch shell. Katara strained her eyes, but she couldn't see the end of where the statues disappeared up into the dark of the rounding upward pathway. The ceiling, and the statues, seemed to go on forever.
"They're Avatars!" she said in surprise, noticing how the statues repeated the avatar cycle by their nationalities—Water, Earth, Fire and Air. "These are your past lives, Aang!"
Aang didn't say anything, but he squeezed her hand tighter.
They walked to the center of the room, and Aang stood before the final statue. It was of a tall Firebender with a double-flamed crown pinned in his top-knot.
"This is Avatar Roku," Aang said. He then let out a long, accepting breath. "I think this is who I've come to see."
"How do you know?"
"I'm not sure… I just… know it somehow."
Aang then let go of her hand and placed his fists together, their blue arrows pointing towards one another. He took a deep breath and, as he released it, he looked deeply into the eyes of the statue of Avatar Roku.
At first Aang simply looked at the statue, seeming to slip into a bit of a trance. But then, suddenly, his eyes and tattoos burst with white light! The statue of Roku's eyes lit as well, followed immediately by the next statue, and the next one, and the next, their eyes lighting up in a quick, sequential spiral like knocked over dominos. As the lights traveled around the line of avatars, the conch shell room was soon glowing from the endless eyes of Aang's past lives.
…
Katara wasn't sure how long Aang was "gone"—three hours? four? But the whole time—while his silent, glowing body stood as still as any of the statues—Katara stayed nearby. It was eerie to have him there, but not there at the same time.
Aang's eyes remained open, but blind in that glowing, white stare. Empty. She wondered where Aang, her Aang, was at that moment. Because as far as she could tell, his body was totally vulnerable to the human world, as helpless as a baby sleeping soundly. Although she knew them to be alone here at the temple, the thought still had her uncorking the stopper from the water skin Otōto had given her, keeping her water at the ready to defend Aang if needed.
At one point she tentatively touched his arm. He didn't stir. His skin under her hand was soft and warm as usual, but there was something else there too: a humming that vibrated with stored up energy—like the coiled muscles of a tiger-roo that was crouched and ready to spring, teeming with potential, but waiting.
Katara had gotten so comfortable being with Aang, so used to him, that this reminder that inside her gentle airbender lived an ancient god-spirit was unsettling. An uncomfortable pit formed in her stomach that she couldn't discern what it meant.
As she waited—her water at the ready to protect Aang if needed—Katara walked along the row of endless avatars. She recognized a few of them, particularly those from the Water Tribes because she was more familiar with their legends. But most of them she didn't know, especially as she walked further "back in time" following the statues as they panned outward, swirling up the walls of the large round room. Katara examined their faces, looking for something familiar. These were all Aang? The thought made her feel small, and lonely enough that she walked back to the center of the room to wait closer to Aang.
Katara observed Aang. His body need only be rotated to stand next to Avatar Roku, instead of in front of him, and he could be his own statue in line.
The endlessness of the Avatar began to feel very real, a thought that was both awe-inspiring and intimidating. Being in love with an All-Powerful Eternal Being was not something she had ever planned on or desired. She just wanted Aang. She knew he was both, though, and that was something she needed to reconcile within herself, because she did love him. All of him.
She looked into his white glowing eyes and wished for him to return to her.
Just then, the light from Aang's eyes and tattoos faded, his own grey eyes reappearing. And then there he was. Her Aang. A soft smile emerged on his face, the one he reserved just for her.
"Aang!" she said feeling inordinately relieved. "You're back!"
"Yeah," he breathed, a happy irony in his smile, even has he exuded an incredible sense of calm, of wholeness. Of peace. "I am."
…
Aang opened his eyes to the most stunning sight: Katara's beautiful face looking right at him.
Aang blinked, returning mentally from the journey he'd just been on—traveling to the spirit world and meeting with his own past reincarnation, Avatar Roku. Aang had spent what felt like days with Roku, so to find himself still standing here, unmoved from his spot facing Roku's statue, was more than a little disorienting.
Aang focused on the wonderful woman in front of him.
"Aang! You're back!" she said.
"Yeah, I am," he answered—in more ways than she knew. Not only was he back in the physical world, but he was back to himself.
Aang had accomplished so much with Roku—a spiritual voyage of healing, enlightenment and reconciliation.
But it hadn't been easy.
Roku had shown Aang how the war began, making bare his own mistakes. Roku had shown Aang how in sparing his friend, Firelord Sozin, the world had descended into war. Sorrow, pain, and compassion furrowed Roku's brow when he spoke, "I'm the cause of so much pain, and so much violence. To the world. And to you. Can you ever forgive me for the pain I've caused you?"
Aang had searched far into his soul, and found that the answer was surprisingly easy. "Of course I can forgive you, Roku."
Roku's golden eyes had then turned on him, as if boring deep into his soul. "And can you forgive yourself, Aang?"
Aang thought of the continuation of the war, of the extermination of his people—of how he had run away and disappeared for a hundred years. So much suffering had happened because he'd been gone.
He then thought of his life since waking up from the iceberg, and he was filled with guilt, with shame. He thought of all the people he'd killed in the Caldera City Bay. And of how later, because of fear, he had allowed the Firelord to weaponize him, teaching him to manipulate the elements for violence. He had betrayed himself while living as a prince of the Fire Nation. He'd believed so many lies.
Could he forgive himself? This was a much more difficult ask.
"And yet," Roku's voice had resonated, as if in his own head, "I am you. Why do you find it so easy to extend forgiveness to me, while withholding it from yourself?"
And thus they'd begun the long and arduous challenge of self-reconciliation. Sitting across from himself, Aang had been guided through the toilsome—and liberating—self-examination required to cleanse his chakras. In this process, Aang had been forced to acknowledging his shortcomings and traumas, but then had also been given permission to let them go.
So that by the time Aang opened his eyes to see Katara standing before him, he felt new. New and old. Reborn. Like a renewed start as the boy he'd once been.
Aang took a deep and satisfied breath, looking around him with fresh eyes.
"Come on!" He grabbed Katara's hand and pulled her, nearly bounding from the room. Katara laughed, feeding off of his joy, and ran to keep up with him. Her laughter sounded like music, and he felt a similar harmony bubble up from his own chest. Laugher. A sound that hadn't felt so light in him since he'd been a child running through these very halls.
When they got outside, to the courtyard they had first landed in, Aang led Katara to a stone bench to sit down. "Stay here," he said feeling joyous anticipation behind his smile.
Aang then returned to the center of the courtyard and closed his eyes. The late-afternoon sunlight warmed his bare shoulder and shone with rosy pinkness through his closed lids. Aang turned his face calmly toward it, inhaling deeply.
But when his ears caught hold of the forlorn wail of the wind that was caught in the temple walls, Aang sobered. The wind mourned for the lost airbenders; it had been howling and crying through these empty halls for over a hundred years. Aang recognized the sound; his own soul had made these sounds, an empty sorrowing wind through his rib cage.
He listened, feeling the Air's restless scratch in the courtyards and corridors, as it paced, trapped. The temple had been designed for easy airflow, but somehow in the genocide, that flow had been disrupted leading to a hundred years of stagnant air, as though the death of the airbenders had left their element damned in perpetual grieving.
Eyes still closed, Aang lifted his arms calmly in front of him and began to turn, his feet light, heel to toe, as he shifted, coaxing the Air to join him in the circle walk. At first it resisted, stubborn and obstinate. But when a light breeze finally caressed softly over his newly shaven head, Aang smiled.
"There you are," he whispered, tears welling under his closed eyelids. "I've missed you."
Aang then turned a much larger, and deeper circle, sweeping his arms around, calling the wind to join him. As the wind spiraled around him, kicking up leaves and twigs in the sunshine, Aang began to pray, repeating the words of an oath he'd made as a boy, but that he made again now with new perspective and conviction.
When his prayer ended, Aang suddenly stopped in the center of the wind, letting the air pull at his saffron clothes and swirl around him like a gentle whirlpool.
He was Aang the Air Nomad once again—
—so he was now prepared to become Aang the Avatar.
Standing still while the air swirled around him, Aang opened his eyes and reached into his soul, calling to his past lives to join him—and they replied easily. Aang felt their presence flash white in his tattoos and his eyes, the glow then disappearing as quickly as it had come.
Aang felt the power within him, could feel the Avatars teeming in his soul.
As the power waited for his command, Aang wondered at how he had once feared this above all other things—had dreaded the Avatar State inside him. But now, the companionship of his past lives felt whole and warm and comforting. Like a reunion with loved ones after a long absence, who were now overjoyed to see you.
Cradling the power in his core, Aang stepped backward, turning all the way around, before letting the power release out his arms.
And the Air obeyed. Happily!
With 100-fold power the wind rushed outward, swirling and racing along the walls, flooding the buildings and filling the hallways, sweeping every corner, to chase away the melancholy and grief. Circling around the buildings, the wind swept out the leaves and debris, blowing them away as it sailed about the rounded towers, pushing and racing upward and upward until it soared into the sky like a tornado, expelling the stale and replacing it with new breath, free and joyous.
And the chimes began to sing! As the Air wound its way throughout the whole temple, cleansing it, more and more chimes joined in the song. Their merry voices laughing once again.
The chimes sounded like the laughter of his friends, his family. And for a moment it felt like the airbenders were back.
Like always Aang missed them. But unlike before, this time—despite the tears that streamed down his face—Aang didn't feel the bitterness of grief. This time what he felt was that strange happy-sad feeling of knowing that even though something Good was now gone, he was still grateful to have had it, the memory of that Good tasting sweet as honey.
When Aang stopped bending, the strength of the wind calmed, but the breeze still blew on its own, happily dancing along its currents, following the carefully and intentionally designed curves of the Airbender's architecture, keeping the chimes giggling merrily.
Aang felt the last whips of power from his past lives release. And he sighed, a new contentment expanding in his chest.
Tears streaming down his face, a huge grin broke out on his face as he turned toward Katara.
"Aang! That was incredible!" Katara leaped up from her seat on the stone bench and bounded towards him. Aang laughed and scooped her up, swinging her around and squeezing her tightly.
"Aang, how did you…? I mean, what happened in that room with all the statues?"
"I guess you could say that I reconciled with myself. Or selves," he amended.
Katara arched one eyebrow, tipping ear to the tinkling of the chimes. "It feels so… different."
"The Air had mourned long enough," Aang said, his thoughts turning to his own grief. How would the other airbenders want him to live? Moping about being sad all the time? The thought was so un-Air Nomad that it was almost laughable. Aang felt lighter, knowing that it was more than just the wind currents that were unburdened.
"So I set it free."
….
"You know you're going to spoil him that way," Katara said, watching Aang hand-feed pieces of moonpeach to the flying lemur that lay blissful and fat on Aang's folded legs.
Aang and Katara had just finished dinner—a meal Aang had eaten with particular gusto, having fasted for the previous twenty-four hours—and were now sitting back contentedly in their little camp, an air of comfortable levity between them. They had already packed up what they needed to leave the temple in the morning, so right now they had time to just be together; to relax.
The winged lemur in Aang's lap had found them in the courtyard just minutes after Aang had used the Avatar State to redirect the air in the temple. Up until then, they hadn't seen much animal life at all near the temple. But this little guy, who Aang had named Momo, had come scampering up to them, climbing right up Aang's body to perch on his now-bald head. He'd balanced his curious little lemur hands on Aang's forehead and tipped his head upside down to stare at Aang with his enormous green eyes.
Since then Aang had been feeding Momo a steady supply of food. Gaining trust, he'd claimed, but Katara suspected it had as much to do with bribery than anything else.
"This is an age-old, proven bonding method, Katara," Aang asserted while using his knife to cut up another half peach into lemur-sized bites. "And don't think I won't use the same tactic with our kids either, because I will!"
Katara's eyes blew wide at Aang's comment, and a half-second later Aang froze, realizing what he'd just said out loud. Aang's ears went scarlet and he glanced at her with an adorably flustered shock.
It's not that Katara hadn't thought about it before—marrying Aang and sharing a family with him—because she had. She just hadn't know that he thought about it too. Aang's slip, although clearly embarrassing for him, filled Katara with an immeasurably happy flutter.
But that didn't mean she planned to let him off easy. "Oh is that right?" she said arching her eyebrow teasingly. "Our kids?"
However, Aang surprised her. After thawing from his original frozen dismay, his eyes returned to hers and he grinned. "Won't that be fun?" he said flirtatiously, the blazon, snarkiness in his unwavering gaze leaving her with burning cheeks. "Every one of them with your beauty and my charm."
But just then, Momo roused from his lazy, glutenous stupor in Aang's lap and hopped into Katara's, where he circled twice and then curled up contentedly.
Katara laughed and gave Aang a look of smug triumph as she ran her hand slowly along Momo's back, the lemur leaning into it languorously. "Your charm, huh?"
"Traitor!" Aang whispered as he threw an arm up in pretend accusation towards Momo. "Even with bribery, I'm doomed." He sat back with a huff, but the twinkle in his eyes as he looked at Katara undermined his mock-offense. "I guess I'll never be able to compete with you, Katara. You will just always be liked best."
Katara lifted her chin and smirked. Aang's eyes darted to her lips and she saw his focus stumble, as though his train of thought had suddenly shifted tracks. When she caught his eye next he flushed with a bashful distraction.
Aang glancing enviously at the lemur in Katara's lap. "Momo gets all the luck," he pouted.
Katara laughed and ran her hands down to the ends of Momo's long ears while the lemur-bat cooed blissfully.
Aang's eyebrows raised slightly in unfiltered envy. Abruptly he stood up and grabbed his knapsack, breaking the infatuated awkwardness that tingled between them. After rummaged through his knapsack, he finally pulled something out—"Aha! Here it is!"—and set it between them with a triumphant flourish.
"This time we play for truths. Whole truths. No more secrets."
Katara looked down at the pai sho game—the very same one they had played in the palace that first night that Katara had gone to Aang's room—with a bit of surprise. She had had no idea that he had brought it with him!
"Sure," she answered with a wry, teasing smile. "The truth."
Aang earthbent a low raised platform for the pai sho game. Katara slid to the ground from the log she'd been sitting on, and leaned her back against it while Aang sat down across the board from her. Together they set up the game.
There was something both sad and optimistic about playing this game again. It reminded them both of the prison they'd lived in in Caldera City—the fear, the chains, the lies. Katara even noticed Aang begin to rub his forearms again as he sat down, although he quickly stopped himself. But playing it here, with the wide open sky above them, the fresh smell of ripe moonpeaches wafting down from the orchard, and the distant laughing tinkle of chimes in the temple dancing in the happy breeze, felt like their own conscious rebellion. As though by playing this here, they could symbolically forge new associations to break those formed in bondage.
As each of them began to claim tiles, their questions to one another started fairly light. Katara talked about missing her Gran Gran's stewed sea prunes and of how as a child she'd always felt left out when her Dad took Sokka, but not her, on the annual arctic hippo hunts over the tundra. Aang told about the way he and the other boys in the temple competed to see who could blow their sheng pipes the longest on one airbended breath. They had thought they were pretty good when Dulop, one of the older boys, managed to keep one note going for four whole minutes. But then Monk Pasang had come down and wowed them all by playing not just one note, but a lovely song for fifteen whole minutes on one long and controlled airbender breath!
When Aang claimed Katara's Horse tile he asked teasingly, "So… do you miss my hair?" The question was trivial enough, but Katara discerned a small twinge of apprehension in the way he tapped his leg when he asked.
Katara tipped her head, making a show of observing him closely. "I'll admit I'm still surprised sometimes when I look at you, because I'd gotten used to you with hair. But no. I don't miss it. This fits you better. I like this look."
A small dimple appeared at the corner of Aang's mouth, and he looked down to hide his relieved smile.
"Frankly I can see why you airbenders don't want hair," Katara said, pulling the tie from her ponytail and trying to run her fingers through her tangles. "That whirlwind from earlier made a mess of my hair that I still haven't had time to untangle yet. Now I know why you shaved your hair first, Aang," she teased.
"Oh I think you look great when your hair is a mess," Aang enthused, but then stumbling to correct himself, "I mean, when it looks tussled…" he shrugged bashfully, "…like now."
Katara smiled at his obvious, if a bit bumbling, adoration. It made her love him more.
Katara worked at the tangles a moment longer before Aang popped up from his spot on the ground. "I can help with that!" He then grabbed a gold comb from his satchel and sat down on the log behind her. He lifted her long locks up onto his knee and began working the comb through the ends of it.
"Well, while you do that," Katara said, trying to keep her voice light despite the way her stomach fluttered excitedly at Aang touch, "I'll just take this." And Katara slid her Goat to claim Aang's Lily tile.
Aang groaned. "I didn't even see that!"
Katara laughed triumphantly. "Okay, my turn then."
Katara's thoughts turned to the Hall of Avatars, of the endless white stares of Aang's past lives. And she felt that same uncomfortable pit form in her stomach again. Something akin to jealousy of those strangers that weren't Aang, and yet were. Jealousy of the other loves that the Avatar had surely had in his infinite lifetimes. Jealousy that one day Aang would die, be reborn, and forget her.
She hesitated, not sure if she should ask what she wanted to know. But finally she let the words out. "Do you remember anything… from your past lives?"
Aang continued to detangles her hair with his comb as he answered simply. "No. I remember nothing."
A large part of Katara was relieved—knowing that Aang remembered nothing made some things so much simpler. However, there was another, much more complicated piece of her, that was devastated.
"I suppose it's a good thing I don't remember. A mercy really," Aang said as Katara grappled with her conflicting feelings.
"How so?"
"Well, what if in my next life, I still feel for you like I do now? My love for you would haunt me. I would forever yearn for you, when I couldn't have you. It would be torture." Aang's hands paused their brushing, his voice becoming quiet as he spoke. "I got a glimpse of that when I was engaged to Azula. I still loved you, but I didn't think I could ever be with you. It was agony."
Katara understood. She'd felt the same.
"It's a mercy that I'll forget," Aang said. "Otherwise, this life's happiness would rob all my next lives of joy."
Katara contemplated this. She supposed she agreed. She didn't want the Avatar's love anyway. She just wanted Aang's. So she supposed she was glad he remembered nothing from before, even if it meant that one day he would forget her too.
"Frankly I don't like thinking about it much," Aang admitted as he resumed his work on her hair. "I'd rather live in the now." Aang pecked a kiss on Katara's cheek. "Because this is a great moment to be."
Katara smiled. Because she agreed. Regardless of how long the Avatar's spirit had lived before, or would live after, Katara could lay claim on this lifetime, and live out the rest of her life with Aang.
They slowly continued their pai sho game, Katara moving Aang's tiles as he directed, while Aang combed through the tangles in her hair. Once he could comb all the way down the long brown waves without catching, Aang handed her the comb and began to braid, weaving small bits of hair in as he moved downward. The feel of his hands in her hair caused Katara's eyelids to droop in unfocused pleasure.
Aang reached the end of the braid and wrapped Katara's hair tie around it, just as Katara took Aang's Water Buffalo pai sho tile.
"Where did you learn to braid hair, Aang?" she asked, looking at the intricate braid over her shoulder.
"Ty Lee. She used to braid mine and I'd braid hers."
Katara felt another small pang of jealousy spring in her chest—Ty Lee was undeniably beautiful and she had seemed especially fond of Aang. "Was she your…girlfriend?"
"Once," Aang said matter of factly. "And as long as we kept things superficial—teaching each other acrobatic moves, talking about tips for radiant auras, and stealing kisses behind Azula's back—she was a great girlfriend. But what we had together never seemed… able to go beyond that. Like trying to swim in too shallow a pond. And I lost interest. Not in her—I mean, Ty Lee is still my friend—but in… well being with her. It just didn't feel right anymore."
Katara thought of her own past romantic interests, and understood. She'd grown and learned things through each, but none of them had lasted. None of them had felt right, not like how she felt about Aang now.
Aang slid off the log to sit on the ground with her. Katara cuddled into his warmth, leaning back into him while he rested against the log. Katara's body began to zing as his tattooed arms encircled her.
Her mind was not concentrating on the game at all anymore, so she was a little surprised when Aang leaned forward to slide his Ginger tile forward to take her Orchid.
"Okay, my question." Aang shifted his body so he could look at her better. "When did you first know you loved me?"
Katara's eyebrows raised at the question. When had she first know that she loved Aang?
Katara thought back to her first few weeks with the Avatar, remembering how much she had hated him. She was now abashed by her thoughts, knowing how wrong her assumptions about him had been. But when had that changed? She thought of the waterbending scroll Aang had lent her, and of the surprise she'd felt when he'd been so eager to heal. Compassion once again filled her chest as she thought back to the first time she had seen Aang's scarred back—a testament to the brutality he'd experienced, challenging her assumption that the Avatar lived a blissful, pampered life as a prince. Katara thought of the first time she'd been brought to his room, of how her fear had turned to confusion when he'd asked her to play a game with him. She thought of seeing him with Appa for the first time, and of his veiled flirtations in the sparring arena. She thought of the many nights they'd spent talking together as she'd gradually discovered the gentle, playful, and good soul behind his Title.
"I'm not sure," she answered honestly. "It just kind of… happened. Gradually. So gradually in fact that by the time I noticed, I'd fallen too far to stop it."
Aang's intense eyes studied hers for a moment longer, before he pulled her closer to him. Turning his face into her hairline he placed a kiss behind her ear. A resulting tremor rippled down her body making every part of her tingle. Her vision blurred as she unintentionally—or intentionally, she genuinely wasn't sure—tipped her head to give Aang better access to her neck as he peppered a series of gentle kisses down to her collarbone.
Katara sighed a gentle note that tasted like candy on her tongue. Aang chuckled into her neck, the warmth of his breath pulling another singing sigh from her without her permission.
"When did you fall in love with me?" she breathed, fighting for conscious thought again, as her mind seemed entirely too willing to slip into a blissful muddle at Aang's touch.
"You want a freebie?" he smirked against her skin. "I didn't see you take one of my tiles," he teased.
So Katara stubbornly willed herself to push away from him and study the pai sho board. As she sat forward, Momo was disturbed from the nap he'd been taking on her lap and scampered off to find a comfortable place on her blanket to resume his slumber. It did not escape her notice the way Aang pouted just a little at the loss of her body against his, but it was his own fault. After a moment, Katara claimed his Ginger tile and turned smugly toward him. "Okay, fine. There. Now you can tell me when you fell in love with me."
"Oh I…" Aang's dark eyes looked at her with besmitten honesty, "I loved you from the moment I saw you, Katara. Maybe I didn't know why at the time, but I knew from that very first day that you were special. That somehow you were meant to be in my life; that you were a piece of my destiny."
Katara swallowed thickly.
"And you were, Katara," Aang continued. "You are! I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't know the truth, I wouldn't be free, without you. You broke me out of that endless nightmare—just as though you'd broken me out of ice a second time. I'm me again because of you."
"You seem pretty sure for a 19 year old," Katara teased, even though her eyes brimmed with tears.
"119 year old!" he corrected her with a smile. "I may not remember, but I think my soul has lived enough lives to know real love when I feel it. So why would I waste any of this life looking anywhere else…" Aang brought his hand up to her face, his own close to hers, "when what I want is right in front of me?"
Katara didn't have the right words to express it, so she brought their lips together, showing him that she felt the same way.
Resting her forehead against his to catch her breath, Katara ran her fingers down the wooden beads of Aang's necklace until they rested on the large, circular pendant on Aang's chest. This necklace had been Monk Gyatso's, and was the only thing she had seen Aang take from the ruins of his old home. "Are you… sure you are ready to leave tomorrow, Aang?"
What Katara had seen today—Aang's display of mastery over his Avatar power, as well as the more subtle, but no less important, peace he seemed to have found within himself—was impressive. But she wanted to be sure that he was ready to face what lay ahead of them. Despite the grief and tragedy they'd faced here at the Air Temple, Katara would be lying if she didn't admit that a part of her was loath to leave. The complexities of politics, the Rebellion, and war loomed ahead of them, and the time they'd taken here, however fleeting, had been a much needed hiatus. Part of her did not want to leave.
But there was confidence in Aang's voice as he spoke. "I'm ready. I've done what I came to do, and it's time now."
Katara listened to the chimes in the distance. "You are ready to leave your home then?"
Aang looked at her steadily, reading something deeper behind her words. Katara had told Aang what had happened to her own home—of how the Fire Nation had destroyed it, and how the Southern Water Tribe didn't exist anymore. And unlike here, with its crumbling walls and ruins leaving testament of the airbenders, her little tribe would have left nothing permanent behind. By now all that had been left behind had surely already been buried by the wild snows or pilfered by foraging animals out in the tundra
Helping Aang work through his grief here at the temple had helped Katara to work through some of her own grief as well. They both had experienced atrocities in their lives that felt too heavy to bear. And alone, maybe they were. But together, each was better able to grieve without being lost. To mourn without it becoming insurmountable.
Aang looked at her with understanding; compassion—not pity—in his eyes. She knew that he of all people understood.
"Home is a concept we Air Nomads seemed to see differently from the other nations," Aang began. "It's true that we had our temples, but they were places of instruction, of gathering, and of childhood more than a permanent residence. We are nomads after all. Our concept of Home was more fluid. Home was something we carried inside us, and shared with the people we love."
Aang looked up the path towards the southern air temple. "This place… it's not my home anymore." He looked significantly at her, those endlessly youthful and ancient eyes boring into hers. "My home is wherever you are."
Katara leaned into Aang, kissing him to show him how much she loved him.
When she pulled back to look at him again, Aang's eyes were dilated with a deliriously transparent love, almost like worship. Immediately he pulled her mouth back to his again.
Katara didn't know where she would be in the coming weeks and months, but somehow she knew that as long as she was with Aang, she would be where she was meant to be.
Because for them, together was Home.
….