t e n e t
There is a saying among the Air Nomads that all roads lead to the middle. Are you ever at the beginning, or end, of anything? The first step outside your door is not the first in your journey. It begins with an idea, a dream, a need.
Sometimes the need is minute- a basket of fruit to make a custard tart, a tonic for an unsettled stomach.
Sometimes the need is earth-shattering. Sometimes, it sends you spiraling down a path you never expected, and at the end of your journey, when you finally have your feet under you again, you're back where you started: right in the middle.
When Aang was little- four or five- Gyatso used to comfort him with idioms about beginnings and middles and ends. They were never leaving a friend behind, they were simply already on their way to meet the next one. It didn't stop the little boy from crying in the monk's thin arms, unaware of the glares he received from the Elders for their closeness. Gyatso never cared. Air Nation philosophy was hard for children.
Instead, he'd give Aang a toothy smile, wipe tears from mottled cheeks, and send him on his way to fight the monsters and save the princesses. All the things little boys do when they feel safe exactly where they are.
It is with a grim air, a foreboding sense of duty that the Elders strip away that safety some years later. The return of the Avatar- the beginning of a new era.
"Is it really, though?" Gyatso asks him when they return to their adjoined chambers. "Where we not standing in this room, not two hours ago? Clothes still strewn about, philosophical scrolls still unread, Airbending lessons unfinished?"
It's not the same thing, of course, and Aang stubbornly tells him so. The old man pats him on the back affectionately and returns to his own reading, spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose with the balance of an acrobat.
He's wrong, Aang thinks, and the next time he plays with his friends, they only serve to emphasize that belief.
"But I'm still me," he insists when they tell him he'd have an unfair advantage. "I was me before, I'll be me tomorrow. I'm still the same."
Nothing is the same. Not on the playground, not in the classroom, not in lessons. No matter where he is on the journey, or in cycle, the difference is staggering. The safety and comfort he once knew is thrown to the wind, and before he knows it, so is he.
a n c h o r
She's beautiful. It's immediately obvious. Deep russet skin, slanted eyes like a cat. Wide, strong cheekbones over a demure chin. She smiles at him like she's known him all her life.
He brings the girl and her brother back to their village. They tell him where he is and he scratches his head at that, because it's nowhere near where he started and he doesn't remember getting there.
Gaps in memories, lost time.
It doesn't take long for time to find him. He left behind one hundred years, but it catches him in an instant, and he's drowning, sinking, water threatening swallow him whole. She's there, though, and he never has to ask for her. Innately, she seems to understand that he's lost, that to lose the beginning is to lose the middle is to lose the end. The only way to stop yourself from drifting is to toss out an anchor and hold on. She offers her hand.
h e r e
The Earth Kingdom general swears there has only ever been one war. Before the Fire Nation, it was a great civil war, and before that, the Northern Water Tribe attacked northern Earth Kingdom territory for fishing grounds, and before that there was something else. Context stood up in a little line like Pai Sho tiles, all falling with the weight of misplaced ambition or greed.
End this chapter, the general says, and the next chapter will start as soon as you turn the page.
When Aang despairs that the general is right, she is there, sitting on the edge of his bed with a soft hand to his forehead. The fears in his heart- failure, loss, nothingness- spill over like an overfilled cup. She wipes away the mess with her steady breathing, her gentle hand. A nod here, a smile there. The warmth of her presses against him when the cup threatens to spill over again.
"We haven't reached the end, yet," she whispers, her lips by his ear. "So that means there is a world of possibility."
The first time she kisses him is in the dark, and he can tell that even she doesn't know what it means. As a final hope, her lips find his. They are soft, and warm. Her breath fans across him, her eyes flutter closed, lashes brushing against his cheek. When they open, she pulls away, because the darkness is gone, banished by the ethereal glow of stepping stones leading toward the sun. They are already halfway there.
She doesn't speak of it again. She flushes at the sight of him for a week or two, and then, after a while, it is only his memory of the way her lips caught his own that keeps the kiss alive. The way her eyes shone, all soft at the edges, indescribable, under that weak light. Here we are now, they seemed to say. Where do we go next?
She doesn't speak of it again, but he remembers there is a world of possibility.
r e p r i s e
His head is in her lap, her hands cradle his face. Her lips are slightly parted, concern is written in the dark circles under her eyes.
Another long gap in his memory is there, too, and he shies away from it, as angry as he is confused.
Dead. Again.
She helps him remove his shirt, guides him into bed, murmuring comfortingly about the way time has passed while he was asleep, about how things may not be as bad as they seem. That part is familiar. The anxious note is different, the way she grips his folded shirt against her chest after he hands it to her.
The confusion is a wave that keeps building, and as always, it seems as though he's been dropped into the middle of a situation with no beginning or end.
Again, he is drowning. Again, he is swallowed whole, and yet again, she finds him.
Only this time, when she offers her hand, she pulls him into her. Her arms wrap tight around him. She doesn't let go for a long time.
g a m b i t
Their little fire sends smoke curling through a ragged hole in the center of the ceiling, a relic of one hundred years of disuse. Aang's companions are sleeping, but he is awake, unable to escape the feeling of searching and searching and searching, only to find emptiness. Only to be right back where he started. Maybe even further behind.
They kept the secret, let Aang stay dead for their gambit. And they lost. The Avatar had returned- again- only this time, their footing was even more unstable. Great cities had fallen to the inexorable march of greed and time, and all Aang had to show for it was a failed play. The sun was renewed over the same dynasty upon which it had darkened.
If war is a game of chess, Aang only has a few pieces left on the board.
Across the room- too far across the room- she rolls over, facing him. She sees that he is awake, and she tucks her face deeper under her blankets. Her eyes peek out, blue lost in the shadows cast by a flickering flame, and it is a long time before they shift slowly away, almost wistful.
The other people in the room are a gag, a scrap of fabric over his mouth to keep in all the things he would breathe into reality if they were alone.
Once, he would have bet his life that she knows what he is thinking. That she is thinking the same, so he doesn't have to say anything.
He isn't so sure, anymore.
Because, before, when his lips met hers- out in the sun this time, nowhere to hide, no secrets to keep- she kissed him back.
And then she never said another word.
m o r a l
A story could be told in the flicker of white, the whisper of blue. That deep pool of black. The little yellow reflections of the lantern light.
She has always been the balm to soothe the ache, to allay his fears, to guide him from the cold of loneliness, of isolation, with the warmth of her constant companionship. Today, he asks too much of her.
"With all of this? With everything? That is more than I have to give," she says.
All those times she listened, all those whispered fireside conversations, and he couldn't do the same for her.
The moral of the story is hammered home in the downturn of her lips. That one little divot between her brows, the one that curves slightly to the left.
She walks away, and he curls inward upon himself in shame.
Minutes, hours, days go by. He apologizes and she accepts, but nothing is the same. She is withdrawn, and it's his fault. He swears to himself that he'll make it up to her, that he'll be the pillar of comfort and strength she has always been for him. The next time she needs him, he won't fail. Whatever she has for him, whatever there is to give, he'll accept it and be grateful she saw fit to share it.
It is a week before she gives him the opportunity. She knocks on his door late one evening, unshed tears standing in her eyes, and they fall at the sight of him. He guides her to sit on the moth-eaten bed, the coverlets still dusty no matter how many times they've been shaken out, and he kneels before her. She says nothing for a while, only reaches for his hand.
"This is all I have right now," she mumbles into the dark. "But one day, I hope..."
He squeezes her hand. "This is enough."
r e u n i o n
The sky is a bruised orange and purple, like dusk, as the tail of the comet disappears over the horizon. He breathes deep as the weight of one burden falls from his shoulders like so many grains of sand.
Someone asks him what it feels like. They say it must be freeing. That peace will find him quickly.
Peace won't find him until he sees her again. She's embroiled in a battle of her own, far to the east. She isn't alone but she isn't with him, and until he's standing at her side, he will not take an easy breath.
To anyone who doesn't know them, their reunion must seem underwhelming. He tentatively rests one foot on the bottom step of a wide stairway, and holds his hand out to her as she glides down to him. He feels her pulse at her wrist as her hand slides into his. Her smile is gentle, but her heart is racing when their fingers thread together.
All around the courtyard cheers erupt, because the task is done, and another begins. Friends and companions and lovers cling to one another. Some weep, some shout with joy. Others still stand silent and numb, eyes a thousand miles away. Aang's eyes sweep the throng, lingering here and there on the faces that feature in his dreams, the ones that flicker into his mind's eye every time he is asked who he does this for.
There is one face he'd rather see than imagine, and he turns to her, the tip of his nose brushing her hair as he locks on to a little cut at her temple, to the underlying bruise that only serves to emphasize it. He wants to press his lips to it. He refrains.
Instead, he pulls her closer with the gentlest tension of his wrist. A suggestion, really. One she can refuse.
She doesn't. The long line of her body leans against him, and her head comes to rest on one shoulder. He closes his eyes. In the middle of a crowd, peace finds him quickly.
m i d d l e
He doubts he will ever see another sunset without thinking of the tail of a comet, the deep orange followed by a twilight purple. The city of Ba Sing Se is a thousand miles from that place, and his purpose here is wildly different. But everything is connected; every stop is respite on one long journey.
His hands curl over the stone railing of the balcony, and he breathes in city air- not his favorite, he'll admit, but he's no less happy to be here.
The air moves, carries a new scent. Jasmine and the lilacs she helped their host repot earlier. There is a softer scent, too, and when she leans against the railing beside him, he realizes it is the flower in her hair. The long stem keeps the brown locks behind one ear, out of her face, but the wind gently stirs the rest, casting a soft veil over her when she smiles at him.
She pulls him in for a hug and he rests his chin on her shoulder. They remain silent. Nothing need be said; at the end of one journey or the beginning of another, all roads lead to this moment, to this sunset-bathed balcony in Ba Sing Se.
So when she turns to him, her hand finding his cheek and an answer in her eyes, neither of them wait. They meet in the middle.