A/N. Katara chapter ! I'm so sorry for spoiling, but there are mentions of horrible things… So if you would rather skip this one, I'll put up a summary at the end so people will know what happened without the gruesome details.

"So… Are you sure about this?"

Katara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. They had had this discussion twice now. Yes, she was sure. It was the perfect time! Aang wasn't here, nor was that… firebender. If they were to explore the temple without having to deal with a knife in their back, or the possibility for the airbender to find a loved one amid the rubble…

"Yes. That idiotic prince managed to do it, so why wouldn't we?" She brisked. They were standing next to the small holes that had been carved into the rock of the canyon, those that led to the buildings on the left side of the terrasse. On the right side of the temple buildings, they had explored as far as they could, meaning not too far… They had only managed to get to the Pai Sho building. Afterwards, the next set of buildings there had only been accessible to airbenders.

So they had come back, and were now contemplating the holes in the rock.

"You do realize I could make a bridge." Toph muttered behind her.

"I know. But that would destroy parts of the temple, and I think Aang wouldn't like that…" The waterbender said. They also had already discussed this. No, they were not going to make a literal staircase to each building.

"It would make our life easier." The blind girl said, as Sokka nodded beside her.

"Could you do it without damaging the temple or the canyon?" Katara knew the answer to that question, as did Toph. The earthbender didn't respond. So… climbing it was.

"Just… Just follow me. If Zuko could do it, we can too." Katara checked the wraps around her arms. She would hate if they became loose while climbing and would hinder her. Inhaling softly, she thought about what Aang used to say at the start of their journey, when she and Sokka had not yet been used to flying.

Just let the wind flow. You can't stop it, so why not enjoy it?

Katara put a hand in the first hole. To her surprise, there was a deep cavity with more than enough space to put a hand, and even a small indentation to have more grip. She put a foot towards the hole at the bottom, and discovered that it had been carved in the same way as those for your hands.

At least, that made climbing slightly easier.

"I'll stay here with The Duke." Teo spoke from behind them. Yeah… That would be better. Katara couldn't imagine how the child would manage to reach the holes, and Teo… well, he could probably fly over with his glider. But he didn't know the air currents here as he did them in his home in the north.

As Katara shuffled to the next set of holes, she had to force herself to stare at the rock in front of her. Not at the bottom. Or… lack of anything underneath her feet. If Aang had been here, she wouldn't have been afraid. The airbender would have caught any of them if they fell… But now, without that insurance, the waterbender felt cold sweat drip slowly in her back.

Next set.

And then, again, another pair.

Beside her, she could hear someone else beginning to climb. Probably Sokka…and when she heard to soft groan, she knew it was her brother. But she had to focus on this.

It took them way too long to reach the other side. Normally, there would probably have been another building between the Great Terrasse and the building they were climbing to, but that had been the school building… The one that Combustion Man had destroyed. So, there was no pause between, and Katara kept her eyes fixed on the rocky wall in front of her.

Do. Not. Look. Down.

The waterbender nearly kissed the ground when she arrived at the building where they had first seen Combustion Man two days ago… She felt how her whole back was clamy from sweat, and her knees trembled slightly as she saw what she had actually done… It was surely a good hundred yards from the Great Terrasse to the place where she was standing… And all that, while holding on for dear life to a few holes in the rock. Yeah… if they could find another way back, that would be great.

And indeed, the next person to arrive was her brother, who looked slightly green.

"I looked down… Tui and La, that is not pleasant." Sokka grumbled. Katara couldn't help but smile slightly. Yeah, she understood perfectly what that felt like. Looking back to the rock, she saw Haru and Toph climbing the last few yards. She had to admit, it was praiseworthy that the blind girl had actually taken the risk to come with them.

Katara couldn't help to feel slightly awkward around Haru now. Sure, it had not really been clear what he had wanted, but she had a slight feeling the earthbender had a crush on her. Which, under normal circumstances would be… Well, awkward enough. But now? Spirits, now was just not a good time to add that kind of drama to her life. And frankly… She didn't want to. If Zuko revealed himself to be a traitor, as she was sure he would, they could kill him, and she could resume her normal…

No. She could not.

No… Aang and she still had to hide, even if that prince was not with them. Because the more people knew… The greater the danger. For her… For him. For them both.

The two earthbenders arrived, and Katara exhaled softly, relieved that they had all made it to this building. From their own terrasse, it had not seemed that big, but now, she saw that it some sort of courtyard nearly as big as the Great Terrasse… So, it was an important building probably. The columns that held the stonework to the canyon wall were all big and square... But still seemed elegant. Squinting her eyes, she realized that every inch of the pillars was covered by scenes.

The closest one, she saw rows and rows of stone nuns sitting in a meditative position that she knew all too well, pressing their fists together to let the arrows join. Then, the scenes changed into things she didn't know. It seemed… to be moments of some sort of ceremony?

"Those are not all Air Nomads." Her brother, who had apparently been looking at the same thing, came to stand beside her and pointed to one of the higher up scenes.

He was right… one of the scenes, high above them, depicted five individuals were pictured. One was unmistakably an Air Nomad nun, with the shaven forehead, tattoos and forehead… But the others were not. One made her think of the clothes the Earth King had worn… Even with the crown and all...

Realization hit her.

It was an Earth King… Had to be.

Two of the five individuals were even more surprising, for she recognized the patterns on their clothes… Water Tribe… The long hair, the beards and the clubs at their hips betrayed their ethnicity quite easily. The sculptures didn't have the big fur parka's, but that had to be expected, seen the climate…

And the last… Well, that startled her the most.

A man, in long flowing robes and a small beard and a long moustache, had his arms wide, and was even… smiling… But the hair piece in his topknot betrayed him. A Fire Lord… A happy Fire Lord.

"Are those… The leaders of the nations?" Sokka muttered.

"Think so…" Katara couldn't fit this in her own image of the world. She had always learnt that leaders did not, under any circumstances, meet up with their counterparts, and certainly not to walk happily through an Air Temple… But of course, that had been different before the war… Had Sozin ever walked these hallways? Thinking about what he was going to do? Had he come here, to make notes prepare the attack?

Had he seen the small children playing happily in this temple, thinking that any of those could be the Avatar he so feared?

"The world really went to shit during the war, didn't it?" Sokka grumbled. Katara understood what he meant. With what she was seeing here, and what Aang had told her… Well, it sounded like the world had been so wonderful before…

Not like it was now. A century ago, the water tribes didn't have to starve… The Earth Kingdom wasn't ravaged by war and disease… And the Air Nomads had still been alive… Tui and La, what had they really lost? Most of the Southern Water Tribe was gone… And so many people lost family and friends. Katara sighed. It was no use thinking about what was… No, what was important now, was surviving the coming weeks… The future she wanted would have to wait.

"Come one… We need to look through this building." She spoke, and began to walk.

They were exploring the building for several reasons. First, their firewood was all but gone, and Sokka had not wanted to leave the temple in case Aang came back, or Appa came without the airbender. Second, Aang had told them that somewhere in the temple was a vegetable garden and an orchard… So, it would be nice to have some fresh ingredients for their supper, which had become rather stale and boring…

But also, they had wanted to know more about the temple, in case they needed to move from the terrasse. They needed a place to stay that was less likely to be seen, because the light of their campfire could probably be seen from miles around… And if a Fire Nation scout spotted it… They were screwed.

Katara had also wanted to explore more of the temple… Because it was really not normal that they had not found any remains, from Fire Nation soldiers or Air Nomads… Sure, there were those in the river below, but those had probably belonged to the people living in the valleys around the temple, and not to the nuns or novices…

And Aang had told her… Well, everything he wanted her to know for the moment, Katara supposed. He had not told her more about Jinora than the fact that she had been his sister, and a good friend. He had told her that the Air Nomad girl had been more like a friend than a sibling, which she found strange… She couldn't imagine being friends with Sokka. They loved each other, but it was so much stronger than just friendship… Perhaps that was because she and her brother had actually grown up together?

"Does anyone know what this building was?" Haru asked behind them.

"No idea… Aang told me that the building that fell down was the school of the Temple, but I don't know what this one is." Katara answered, still feeling rather awkward about the whole garden thing. Sure, the earthbender had been nice about it, and maybe she had just misinterpreted his meaning.

"There are some very big rooms on the floor beneath us. Then, several smaller, and at the tip of the structure, or the bottom, I don't know how to call it, there is a single room." Toph spoke up. The waterbender had finished healing the burns this morning, and the blind girl was now able to "see" once more.

That was useful. If there was something they would rather not see, Toph would be able to detect it before they would see it.

"The big room, are they circular?" Katara asked. Each temple she had visited had those enormous circular rooms, and Aang had told her those had been used for meditation.

"Yeah. There are some debris on the floor if my senses are correct, but nothing major." Toph nodded.

Ah… So, they had found the meditation buildings. The terrasse on which they stood had two arches, one leading into the rock wall of the canon. The Air Nomads had probably carved rooms into the canyon itself. The other, she saw, opened on a large staircase that winded down, probably to that first floor that Toph had talked about.

"Well, come on. This place seems more secure than the terrasse we are using now. So, if the building is not going to collapse on us, then it would be a good place to stay." Sokka said, and was the first to move, walking to the entrance that led into the carved-out caves. Katara followed, casting a last look on the pillars. Those scenes… It had seemed so idealistic. Everyone getting along with each other. That was a dream she had not had since she was a child.

As she entered the dark space, she felt the cold and humidity hit her, and was greeted by a grumbling Sokka, who was trying to light a small candle that he had always with him in his pocket in case of this. She saw the sparks of the flint and steel, and mere seconds later, the candles sputtered and lit a small space around them.

"It seems alright. But if we move to this building, we'll not use this place. Too damp, too cold…" Her brother spoke softly, as if he was talking more to himself than to her.

"We have to ask Aang before we move anything here, who knows… Perhaps people were not allowed here." The waterbender spoke softly, as Toph and Haru followed her. It was still weird to think that there had been parts that had been forbidden for a specific group of people. She had never expected the Air Nomads to have this kind of intolerance. But… they had separated the women and men in their temples…

In the Water Tribes, this separation had been more than normal. Her grandmother had even told her once that before the hard times, when there were enough people to do chores and so on, women were isolated once a month when the blood came… It had seemed too patriarchal and discriminating to her…

But hey, that was the Water Tribe for you…

"Storage." Haru's voice cut off her thoughts, and Katara looked up, seeing how her brother held the candle high. They were standing in a long corridor, with rooms on either side, and the first room on the left was filled with wooden crates.

So… The Fire Nation had not looted this part? Oh, Aang would be happy to know that! At least there was something left of the belongings of the people who had lived here. As Sokka walked deeper into the hallway, the other rooms seemed to deliver the same kinds of results. Maybe, if they had time and moved to this building, they could open some of the crates, and look inside of them. If it had been the food storage, it was all long gone, of course. But if it had been something else… She seemed to recall that Aang had told her once that the Western Air Temple had been known for their glass production.

"Come on, we will come back with Air Head, and open some of these. He will perhaps know what they are. We still need to look through the rest of the building." Sokka spoke up and blew out the candle. The only light now came from the entrance, where the afternoon light shone brightly. Katara turned around and quickly left the damp and cold cave.

Toph followed, then Haru, and finally, her brother exited the dark corridor. Katara turned to the other entrance, the one with the staircase. For some reason… It felt as if something waited for them at the end of the stairs. As if something evil waited them. The waterbender couldn't quite explain the feeling… But it felt like something heavy lay on her stomach, pressing it down.

"You feel that too?" Toph whispered, as Haru and Sokka walked passed them, towards the stairs.

"Yeah… You are sure it is empty?" She said back. It was so weird… It felt like there was something bad down there.

"Yes. As I said, some debris, leaves, a ruin. But nothing like a pile of dead bodies…" Toph answered, but Katara knew that the blind girl was feeling the same weird feeling as she was experiencing.

Why were they feeling that emotion? Katara slowly took a step towards the entrance, then another. And another. Behind her, Toph followed. As she was walking to the stairs, she saw Haru and Sokka disappear into the building.

"Wood." Toph suddenly spoke.

"Wood?" Katara had arrived at the top of the staircase, looking down. The stairs went straight, to another arch, behind which she could see a tiled floor.

"I can't sense wood." Toph's eyes widened.

"So…"

"It's nothing. I'm sure. Just a weird feeling." The blind girl shrugged, and quickly walked past the waterbender.

Katara shook her head slightly, not knowing what to make of it. She began to walk down the steps and saw how her brother arrived at the arch. And stopped.

Haru arrived next to Sokka. And stopped.

Katara couldn't hear what they whispered, but she knew that there was a reason why they had stopped so suddenly, without entering the room. And she dreaded what was to come. With a lot of willpower, she took the last few steps, and came to stand between the two men.

The room in front of them was a wide, circular one, with big windows from which the glass had been broken years ago. The tiled floor formed a mosaic, on which she could see flowers and animals. But what attracted most of the attention in the room wasn't the beautiful architecture.

No. It was the person hanging from one of the wooden beams.

Well… person…

The skin had dried horribly, stretching tightly over the skull and had turned to a dark grey. The empty eye sockets stared at them, with the mouth open. The teeth had fallen out. Some of the hair of the person was still attached to the skull, but clearly it wasn't a lot. The yellow and orange robes of the mummified person had rotten but were still clearly those of an Air Nomad.

The grey skin even still showed the tattoos.

Katara felt her lunch make his way back up, quickly turned and bend down, spilling the content of her stomach on the stair behind her.

"We found something, didn't we?" Toph sounded sad.

"Yes." Sokka voice was hard.

"What in the name of the Spirits…" Haru muttered.

"Welcome to the Air Temples. Apparently, in this one, the soldiers decided to have some fun." Her brother's voice trembled, and Katara could hear it was from pure rage. Rage, anger for what had happened to the people of his friend.

"What is it?" The blind girl asked.

"They hung a person from the beams of the ceiling." Katara whipped her mouth, tasting the bitterness of her stomach content. Toph had probably feared this, and that was why she had talked about the fact she couldn't sense wood.

"They suffocated an Air Nomad." Sokka growled.

Yeah… That was probably the worst way to die for an airbender… How had the soldiers even managed that? Katara knew that Aang could hold his breath for an unnatural long time…

Katara softly pushed the two men beside her away, walking into the room. It was the only person hanging there, luckily… But still, she could feel those empty sockets fixating on her as she walked up to the mummified woman.

For if she had hair, it had to be a woman…

As she approached, she could see the body had a pendant around her neck, but she couldn't see it clearly, from the height it hung.

Please, don't be Jinora, don't be her.

The rope had been cast over the wooden beam and attached to one of the slender pillars in the room.

"Sokka, can you…"

"On it." Her brother drew his knife and walked to the pillar. Katara watched as Haru quickly followed him, and as Sokka cut the rope, Haru held it to make sure the body didn't collapse against the tiled floor. As the two men lowered the woman slowly, Toph came to stand next to her.

"Sorry…" She whispered.

"Toph, you didn't know. It isn't your fault." Katara understood what the blind girl meant. She had been sorry for the fact she hadn't managed to warn them about it.

The feet of the dead woman touched the ground, and Katara quickly stepped to it, taking the hard stiff legs and pulled softly, to make sure the body could be laid down on the floor. As she did, the robes opened slightly, and she saw that the woman still wore her bindings. At least… at least that had not happened.

But still… She had died.

As the body laid on the ground, Katara quickly took a step towards the chest area and bend down to look and the pendant. The wood had cracked and turned slightly mouldy, but she could still see that the emblem was one circular air symbol.

"It's not…" She spoke before shutting her mouth. On the mosaic of the Great Terrasse, Jinora had worn a pendant with five twirling wind symbols… At least, it was not her.

"Not?" Sokka asked, as he came to stand beside her.

"Ehm… Later?" She wouldn't tell her brother what she knew… Aang had told it to her, and her alone, for a reason… But they had all heard him a few days ago, crying for the Air Nomad girl as the school building had fallen down.

"Okay." Her brother smiled sadly, knowing it was something private. And she could appreciate the fact that he didn't pry further.

"This is one of the nuns, isn't it?" Toph spoke up from behind her. Katara straightened, turned around and saw how the blind girl and Haru stood a few yards away.

"Yeah… I think so. She has a pendant and wears the same kind of clothes as the statues and the paintings… So, one of the nuns." The waterbender sighed. They had found one… But there were so many more. The mosaic on the terrasse had at least fifty women portrayed on it… Were they going to find them all like that?

"But… why? There would surely have been a battle… Why take the time to hang someone, and one that could breathe under the most difficult circumstances at that? Why… Why the added cruelty?" Sokka spoke, barely above a whisper.

Yeah… that part, Katara didn't understand either. Why had the Fire Nation soldiers stopped, and taken the time to do this?

"Terror." Haru said suddenly.

They all turned their heads to him, and the waterbender saw that there were tears of anger in the pale green eyes of the earthbender.

"In occupied territory, the soldiers did the same. If a village rose up, or killed some soldiers… They would show up, round up all the people, and kill a random person from the crowd. Made a spectacle of it most of the time, so that the people would be cowed into submission."

It was clear to Katara that Haru had seen this happen.

And it seemed to fit…

The room was big enough for a large crowd… and the woman had hung in the centre of the space… If she closed her eyes, Katara could nearly see the crowd of Air Nomads, all in saffron and orange clothes, huddled around the walls of the room… Rows and rows of soldiers standing guard… Hundreds of small children, clutching the robes of the nuns…

No. She didn't want to imagine that.

"Well, I think we can all safely say that we've seen enough for today. We'll have to tell Aang when he gets back…" Her brother spoke, and she saw his pale blue eyes look at her.

"I'll tell him…" She sighed. It was horrible news… but at least, it was not the worst kind of news. Aang knew what to expect, and she would probably leave out the story Haru had told them.

With one last look at the body, Katara turned around, and followed the others up the stairs. Sokka hung back slightly, and as she got to him, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"It wasn't that girl, was it? The one Aang shouted for after Combustion Man?" Her brother whispered his question.

"No… I don't believe it was." She answered truthfully.

"That is a relief… But then again… Where are the others?"

Indeed… Where were the other nuns and novices?

Answers :

First of all, the summary : Katara and the other explore the temple, and find a body of one of the nuns hanging from the ceiling of a room. They find out she had been killed to terrorize the other people living in the temple. It was not Aang's sister.

Also, I'm so sorry for not answering some people last chapter! For some reason, your reviews only showed as I had posted the chapter…

Alyssa : Oh dear, I hope you are feeling alright? And you're welcome, hope you are feeling better!

Jjsmith103 : I absolutely love writing the fluff conversations! And to make tit something just for them, with Aang opening up even more about his past, it is just so satisfying to write! And for Zuko, I had so much fun writing his awkward manner! Some fics make him seem like a cool person, but he is just the most akward guy in existence lol! And of course, that would come to bite him in the ass with that stupid question !

CoyoteLemon : Yeah, I love to write endings like that!

Rak : Indeed! Next chapter will be more about fun and about the trust that is slowly building up between Aang and Zuko, but it will not immediately be like "We are best friends!" like in the show! And of course, the moment he asks that question Aang thinks that Zuko will betray him.