Note: The prompt for this chapter is Height Difference.
For this year's Kataang Week 2021, all prompts I've written for will connect an over-arching story.
Growth
Aang boarded the airship with the others as they babbled jokes in the background. Sokka, Toph, and Suki were throwing barbs at the Fire Lord he had just defeated. Ozai, in his utter worthlessness, was a limp puppet with his strings cut. Aang found it, for better or for worse, just a little bit amusing. Probably more amusing than he should have.
The image of a life-sized ragdoll increased when it was Toph who decided that it would be her spirts-forsaken right to drag Ozai onto the ramp and up into the loading dock of the ship.
"What's that Loser Lord?" mocked Toph as she metalbended Ozai along on a makeshift gurney complete with elongated belts of steel around his torso and limbs. "Were you saying something? I couldn't hear you over all your whining."
Ozai groaned something intelligible.
Sokka limped with his broken leg, an arm around Suki's shoulder. "I think he was trying not to drool," he added with a grin. "Kind of hard if the Avatar just kicked your butt if you ask me."
Suki chuckled, urging the rest of them along. "Hurry up, slowpokes. We have a Fire Nation capital to get to," she said.
They made it on the airship together, collapsing onto the nearest chairs as soon as Ozai was secured. The weariness set in faster than Aang anticipated. He was worn and his clothes were mostly disintegrated into fire. All he had on was a pair of ragged brown pants. He was sure that there were burns all over him, maybe even a few internal injuries he could not feel yet. He was not looking forward to finding out.
After a moment of exhausted wallowing, he and Sokka were directed to a spot in the medical bay. Suki deemed them both the most incapacitated out of the four of them. Minus, of course, Ozai himself.
"Now, I don't want either of you standing up until we land," she commanded, hands propped on her hips. Even after a battle well fought, she kept an impeccable stance. Aang could hardly guess she was ever winded. "I'll get Katara to heal you two, but you don't want her killing you before she does it properly, got it?"
Sokka sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he replied as he plopped himself onto a cot.
Aang fought a gasp when he heard Katara's name, felt it bubble just beyond his reach. He watched Suki leave the room. She shut the metal door behind her and twisted the latch. The echo of the name trailed behind her like a phantom from her lips.
His heart thudded just a little quicker, his chest constricted just a little more. The leftover smoke in the air urged him along, wanting him to choke on the wonder of just the thought.
In the midst of battle, there was not anything else that Aang thought of. There were clashes, debris flying, fear for his life, and he only thought of that. But when the dust settled, his bruises felt, his muscles aching deeply, he could only think of her.
He realized that things suddenly turned from "What if?" to "What now?" Yet, it was so much more than that. They had made it out alive, but there was still the mystery of if she and Zuko did as well.
He could not bear to think that they did not. That she did not.
Aang rested against the cool surface of the wall. He felt the hum of the ship as it came to life, the fluttering butterflies in his stomach as they started to tilt upward and towards the sky. He imagined that if she were there, he would feel something similar.
Sokka cleared his throat and Aang turned his attention toward him. "So," drawled Sokka, "A lion turtle, huh? You can just take away people's bending like that? Can you give someone bending?"
Aang laughed, shaking his head. "Yeah, a lion turtle. According to legend, they gave the power of the elements to humans a long time ago. I learned that from Wan Shi Tong's library. Though, I don't think I could give people something that wasn't already there, if that's what you're asking."
Sokka looked surprised for a bit, his eyes wide. "Oh," he said, placing his hands on his lap. "I didn't mean that you'd give me bending like…as a thing. I was wondering if you could...you know…mess with people. Prank them a little. Maybe even…switch elements with someone? You know, scare people into thinking Toph is the Avatar because that would be terrifying."
The look on Sokka's face was earnest, and if Aang was honest with himself, he knew from the moment Sokka went prattling on about messing with people that he was serious about it.
Aang burst out into laughter.
"Hey, hey!" Sokka pouted, raising his arms in a placating gesture. "I wasn't kidding!"
Aang was able to calm himself down for a moment. "Yeah, I know," he said, "It just sounded exactly like something you would say." He paused for a breath, staring at his friend with a soft smile. "It was nice. Almost like coming home."
Sokka blinked. He opened his lips a few times, but nothing came out. Instead, he placed a hand on Aang's back, and smiled at him.
It was silent for a while before Sokka asked, "So, how was it when you took away Ozai's bending?" He gave Aang a pointed look. "It looked pretty crazy from where we were with all the light beams."
Aang remembered what the lion turtle told him: "To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed." Instead of sharing this with Sokka, he said, "Yeah, it was pretty crazy."
The truth was what he recalled in that moment was pure unadulterated terror. Orange clashing against blue, night and day, bright and dark. He could not see what the difference was in all the chaos. All he knew was that he wanted to end the war his way, the way he believed it should be. Because what was peace if not for a peaceful beginning and a peaceful culmination?
It was what his people, his culture, taught him. The memory of Gyatso one rainy spring evening when he was small appeared and reminded him, "All life is sacred…even the life of the tiniest spider fly. You think that its life is any less important than yours? You and I, just like this spider fly caught in its own web, are part of a greater whole…of a greater balance."
The thought had given him purpose, joy even. But Aang was still a person who had lost everything, and when he was about to tell Sokka about his experience, he could not help but remember one last thing.
A voice had reverberated through him as he felt the battle of wills reach its climax, as he had fought through Ozai's wishes and dreams of burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground, seeing it in visions and grotesque images of blackened, skeletal people.
And he had thought, just for a second, that that was how Gyatso died. Distorted and unrecognizable and scorched.
A great and terrible voice had spoken into his ear at that point, right before he proved that his spirit was unbendable. To hate me is to give me breath. To fight me is to give me strength, it had said. Deep, ominous. Familiar. There is darkness you have failed to recognize.
Then, just like that, it had vanished.
To Sokka, Aang said, "I'll tell you more about it when we land. I'm pretty tired."
Very soon he was dozing off, only to be awakened by the screeching of metal on metal. His eyes snapped open, and he found that the airship had stopped moving. Suki had come for them, telling them to disembark.
"The Fire Nation capital," she remarked. "I never thought I'd ever make it to this place in one piece." She nodded at the two of them. "Let's see if we can get you guys healed up."
At the suggestion, Aang suddenly remembered his worry. Without thinking, he bolted through the door, sprinting through the maze of the vessel on pure adrenaline alone. He was not sure how he remembered where to go, but he was sure that the prospect of seeing Katara on the other side of it all had something to do with it.
He almost stumbled out the exit, tripping over himself on the ramp that slanted down onto the palace courtyard. He glanced up, and it was silent for the longest time as he spotted Katara's figure hovering over a propped-up form that leaned against a pillar on the steps.
Aang slowed, and then stopped. She looked up, and as soon as their eyes met, it was as if the whole world was about to collapse in on itself and Aang would never notice.
Zuko, looking worse for wear and with a torn tunic, nudged at Katara's side and that seemed to urge her forward.
That was the catalyst for everything that came after.
Aang ran and so did Katara. They met in the center between the steps and the airship, colliding into each other's arms, holding each other so tightly that Aang could feel how hard his heart thud in his chest. He could feel every part of him sigh in both relief and exhilaration.
His chin hooked onto her shoulder, pressing into the soft blue fabric there. She shuddered out his name, and he was sure that he could feel her tears pool onto his neck as she too pressed her face next to his.
"You made it," Katara whispered, "You made it."
Aang sagged into her embrace. "You did too," he added. "We both did."
They pulled apart and he could see how pink her cheeks were, how red her glittering eyes were along the edges of them. Her arms remained draped around his shoulders, and his hands rested just above her waist.
Katara smiled. "You're taller," she observed, laughing a little. Almost as if in awe. "You're almost as tall as me. I guess I never noticed until now." She pulled him close once more, this time without the desperation they both displayed only minutes before. "I'm glad that there's time for me to see you grow more."
Aang did not notice as their other friends started to encircle them with their own hugs until they sank to the ground together. Katara did not let him go.
