Letters from the Falling Sky

Author's Note: I apologize for the wait. As some of you know, I was overseas for the entire summer, so my plans to finish the story by the time August rolled around didn't quite match up. But, here I am, back with another chapter. Hopefully you guys haven't lost interest in the story yet. Go back and read some chapters if you have the time! It's a great refresher!

Thanks to those of you who have stuck with me this far. My update pace can be annoying. I remember when I first started writing this; I came out with like…a new chapter every week. Those were the glory days.

Finger-lickin'-love,

scorpiaux

.18.

When Katara first mounted Appa after her four year break, she felt the exhilaration of her distant childhood brush against her stomach. The fact that Aang was a childhood love seemed to make all the difference, and Appa—in some twisted, perverse way—was an embodiment of this connection. His saddle was, technically, the first time she and Aang had slept close together. It was also where they discussed his duties as the Avatar for the first time. And, if she remembers correctly, it was Appa who led to the introduction, "Yeah, and this is Katara. My flying sister."

"Mama!" Lynnie was sitting next to her mother with her two faithful Appa dolls by her side. Her voice was light and soft this high up. "We're going so fast!" she cried excitedly. "What happens if we fall?"

"We won't fall, darling."

"It's almost happened before," Toph mentioned, grimacing. This was also her first time on Appa in four years and, as Katara and Sokka could clearly tell, the flight wasn't exactly how Toph preferred to spend her morning. She was paler than usual and her right hand knuckles were reddened from grasping the side handle for so long. Even her trip to the South Pole with Sokka on a navy ship was paradise compared to her blind endeavors through the clouds.

"We're almost there," Aang reported from the front, sensing the earthbender's discomfort.

"Lovely," Toph murmured.

In the hours after their departure from the South Pole, Aang had noticed a slight change in his fiancée's attitude. Katara had the same frightened, tense look she had ten years ago, when traveling outside of the tribal grounds had seemed like the stuff of myth. He had felt it too—the familiarity. They were back ten years ago, when Aang was twelve, and Katara fourteen, and Sokka still an awkward boy of sixteen. Toph wasn't there yet; neither was Lynnie. They were living the first days over again. And when Aang turned around and caught a glimpse of Katara smiling at him with the corner of her mouth, he nearly started to laugh at himself. It was so easy to forget that they had ever left one another. It was so easy to forget that they were troubled adults now, with a child who happened to be an airbender.

And his engagement ring, perfectly matched with the golden chain, couldn't have looked more perfect around Katara's neck. Life, Aang decided, was subtly hilarious.

When they landed, Lynnie was the first to jump off of the beast's side. She looked at the palace city with more repressed wonder. Then, with an Appa doll in each hand and a backpack full of Little Miss Mai dolls strapped to her shoulders, she began to venture towards the cobblestone pathway alone.

Her mother grabbed her arm in alarm and frowned. "Not by yourself, Lynnie," she warned crossly, holding the girl close. "We have to go as a group. And you have to stay next to me."

The child turned back to the palace city. "We have to hurry then, Mama!" She sighed audibly and kicked at the ground. "What if we miss something?"

"Like what?"

"Like the grass!" Lynnie bent down and picked up a handful of the plant, displaying it proudly to her parents. "There's so much of it. And the trees! Look how big they are!" Kya Lynn tried, in vain, to struggle free from Katara's grasp. "I want to see it all!" she exclaimed, trudging against her mother's weight.

Aang finished unpacking their luggage and grinned. "We will," he promised. "But you have to stay with us, Lynnie. It can be dangerous when you are so far away from home."

He didn't know it at that exact moment, but Aang's advice would remain with Lynnie years afterward, in an era with a different life and a different mindset. It can be dangerous when you are so far away from home. The power in those words was deafening, and at a tender age of four years, Lynnie would later be surprised at how she had managed to remember them.

"Where are we supposed to meet?" Sokka asked, fatigue straining his voice. "Isn't there going to be a hotel room? With a bed?"

Toph punched his shoulder, which resulted in a grunt of discomfort and a stagger in Sokka's step. "Stop complaining! Even pregnant women don't complain as much as you do."

Katara bit her lip and stared uncomfortably at the back of Toph's head.

Aang—who was painstakingly oblivious—looked at the invitation he had folded into his tunic. "There is supposed to be a hotel room. According to this, it's five blocks that way." He pointed behind him and then looked up to Sokka. "But it says that we should confirm our attendance in the palace courtyard first. So…maybe some of us can go to the hotel and some of us can go see Zuko?"

"A hotel would be nice," Katara agreed, leaning her weight on a nearby fence post. "Lynnie can use some rest. It's been a long morning."

"I'll go with Aang and Toph, then," Sokka volunteered. His suggestion made the earthbender raise a brow. "I'm not pregnant lady," the warrior informed, tapping his left bicep. "Besides, I need to congratulate Zuzu. I didn't think he had it in him."

Toph laughed in her typical cynical manner, "Mai certainly did."

"Who's Zuzu?" Kya Lynn inquired, putting down her bison dolls long enough to rub her eyes.

Katara looked beyond Aang to the palace city. The courtyard and their reserved hotel were both fairly close to one another. A full seven blocks separated them. But the cobblestone walkways were nice and flat—no snow!—and she knew Aang, Sokka and Toph wouldn't be gone for too long. Her time alone with Lynnie was necessary anyway. The child needed to be fed and bathed, and this would help further bridge the gap that had grown between them since before Gran Gran's death. Katara decided it was a good idea to split up.

"I'll meet you guys back at the hotel," the healer stated, taking Lynnie's hand and a leather travel bag. "Send Mai and Zuko my regards."

It unfolded from there much like a splash of shotgun fire; the stance was unexpected, the outcome unforeseen, and the conclusion a tragedy.

They parted ways without looking back.

Zuko sat with a clouded expression over his eyes, his manner distant. In their cherry-blossom courtyard, he would revisit scenes from his now untouchable childhood, most of which he shared with his mother. He could shut his eyelids and recall her face—so heartbreakingly close to Azula's—and try to remember the subtle undertones of her voice, and the smell of her hair. She had died only four years ago, and it still felt as though it had happened yesterday.

He was a full grown man now, he knew. Twenty-six and married, and Fire Lord. He was living in a comfortable manner with the girl he had grown up with, and sometimes he felt that his little childhood revisits were petty and unnecessary. But he couldn't help it. His mother was, next to Mai, the only person in his life that he had fled into seamlessly, trusted without hesitation, and—perhaps most importantly—loved more than himself.

Her death had caught him off guard. When the news reached him, he demanded to see her body. But there was nothing left of her to show. She had disappeared, and the only thing left was a vast amount of blood, and a few slivers of her hair. He had cried endlessly—cursed his pathetic security—wondered around the streets at night for an answer. It was damaging and harsh and terrible, and now all he had left was scraps and pieces: gentle, torn memories.

Their courtyard was still fashioned the way it had been a decade ago. There was a turtle-duck pond in the back, with a few stone statues of Aang and Zuko that palace officials had recommended. Zuko was slumped in one of two low benches around a metal table. His square fingers surrounded a warm glass of green jasmine tea, with his lips slightly apart, deep in transit thought.

When Mai joined him he looked up and smiled, temporarily unfocused. So much was happening that he simply forgot his place in the kingdom. And because Mai was a part of himself, he also forgot her place. For so long now they merely floated. Two bodies and a kingdom with lots of money and lots of laws. He liked to think that this set of life would change one day. But recently there had been talk of an old group coming back, endearingly named "The Resistance."

"Did you ask Lei Chen to file the new set of civil street conduct laws?" Zuko asked.

Mai replied in an equally distant tone, "Just this morning," before taking a slow sip of her own glass of tea and staring at the center of their elaborately decorated table.

"It's still morning."

"Earlier today."

Zuko nodded. "We have to talk to Lei Chen about The Resistance. I've been hearing about them nonstop all week. Apparently they've got some big scheme centered on the Palace City."

Mai shrugged with utter indifference from her spot. The pool of politics was not something she enjoyed tampering with, and her husband's position—as well as her father's, for that matter—couldn't have concerned her less. Zuko handled the dangerous things, and she posed for doll makers. And everything usually worked out in the end.

But today Zuzu was intent. "What do you think?" he wanted to know, catching her gaze long enough to seem sincere. "What will they do?"

Mai took another sip from her glass and rolled her eyes. "From what I've read," she started, referring to the two tiny scrolls she had glanced at casually a week before, "the Fire Nation is no longer their target."

"They wouldn't go after the Avatar."

"That's what they're so 'focused' on right now, Zuko. They have to be. They can't afford to launch a full scale coup. I still remember when Azula and Ty Lee and I were in Ba Sing Sei ten years ago." Mai smirked a little at the memory. "To launch the coup we had to have thousands of earthbenders. The Resistance is just a mock gang. They're too small to hurt us."

Zuko's voice rose without him noticing. "And Aang?" he asked, concerned. "They can't touch Aang, either."

"Aang is one person," Mai answered softly, standing up and touching her husband's shoulder. "Aang doesn't have the security the palace does. If you were The Resistance, and if you knew that the more valuable target was also the one who was less protected, what do you think you would do?"

"Hmph." Zuko also stood and stretched his arms high above his head. "If they are a mock gang, then they wouldn't delve into the Avatar. He's the most powerful being in the universe."

"Without security guards," Mai reminded, and bent down and pulled out a weed that had grown in the wrong place.

When the Fire Lord looked to the entrance of the courtyard, he could have sworn he saw the lanky form of the boy who had helped him save the world. He squinted and rubbed his eyes feverishly. Aang hadn't visited in what had felt like forever, and his presence now would only mean bad news.

The memory of his mother's death suddenly fled into Zuko's frame again, and his vision blinked and blurred without his willing it to. He supported his weight with one hand on the table and watched the courtyard gates intently. Aang couldn't be here. That was the sarcastic warrior boy or the rough-and-tumble earthbender miss walking beside him. They were not here. Mai wasn't here. No one was here.

Zuko felt a sharp pressure on the flex of his neck and chest. It felt as though everyone, except his mother, was already dead.