Author's note: I've been rewatching ATLA and I got a bit of inspiration...😅 Hope you enjoy! This fic opens with the final scene of "The Awakening" (S3E01).
The rush of airbending ruffled Katara's dark red cloak as Aang leaped onto a rock among the lava trails of Crescent Island. He gazed down at the glowing red cracks in the volcanic rock. A staff of battered wood and tattered cloth drooped from his hands, the wounded remains of his Air Nomad glider.
Aang's glider was missing its tail fin and most of its wings. Thin wooden struts jutted out from the shaft like broken ribs. No one wanted to say it, but everyone knew the truth.
His glider was useless now.
Aang stood atop the rock, a tiny speck against the looming red and black mass of the volcano. Even his own robe of red and black seemed to swallow him up.
Katara knew what he was about to do. But knowing didn't make what happened next any easier to bear.
Another burst of air as he spun the glider above his head, and a heart-sinking thunk as he planted the shaft into the lava. He jumped down to join Katara and their friends. Together, they beheld his glider in the silence of mourners before a funeral pyre, remembering for the last time what was lost to them forever.
Flames raced up the shaft in a faint whoosh, eating up the waterlogged wood like dry tinder. The glider that once belonged to the last airbender was now a blazing monument of fire.
The four friends watched as flames consumed the broken remnant of Aang's people. Grief and anguish held them breathless. Even Aang had not entirely escaped the fire that had destroyed everything he loved.
Someone's foot scuffed the ground. The tautness in the air slackened, and they had permission to breathe again. Sokka and Toph headed back to Appa, the heaviness of the moment trailing behind them like the cloaks on their backs. Katara turned to follow, but she hesitated.
Aang was the only one who hadn't moved. His eyes were still watching the burning glider.
Katara went to him. She wanted to comfort him, but her hand hovered above his shoulder, uncertain. The last time she tried to reassure him when he was upset, he had ripped the Fire Nation hanging off the wall of his room and asked her to leave.
As if sensing her presence, he turned his head. This time, he wasn't frustrated or angry. His body engulfed in a robe made for a Fire Nation soldier, Aang was small and vulnerable. He had never looked so alone.
Katara almost asked, Are you okay? But of course he wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay.
Her hand came to rest on his shoulder. The dull roar of the volcano could not drown out the sobs that shook his body within her arms as his hands clenched the folds of her cloak.
The wind should have whistled past Katara's ears as they flew across the sky in Appa's saddle, but the air was unnaturally still. The cloud that she and Aang had bent around Appa as camouflage probably had something to do with it.
Sokka had taken the reins to spare Aang the task of steering. Toph occupied her usual spot, with her arms clinging to the raised ridge of the saddle as she stared into the distance with unseeing eyes.
Aang sat next to Katara with his back hunched, hugging his knees to his chest. The white bandages around his arms and torso were a stark reminder that he should be resting and healing even as the world needed him to fight.
"Are you okay?" she asked him. This seemed like a better time for that question. "Are you hurting anywhere?"
Aang shook his head.
Katara wasn't sure which question he was responding to. She was about to ask again when he suddenly spoke.
"When I flew off to face Ozai alone, I didn't think I was going to make it," he said. "But then I saw the spirits of Roku and Yue. They helped me believe in myself again, and I promised them that I wouldn't give up.
"But when I see the Air Temples empty and falling apart, I can't help feeling that the Fire Nation already won. They wiped out my people. I'm the only one left. The Fire Nation isn't going to stop until they get rid of me, too."
"That's even more reason why you shouldn't give up," Toph said from the other side of the saddle. "Don't let the Fire Nation win for good."
"I'm not giving up," Aang insisted. "I'm going to survive. I have to survive."
"You're gonna survive, Aang," Sokka said, twisting around to look back at them from his perch on Appa's head. "We're all gonna survive. We have the eclipse and the element of surprise on our side for the invasion."
But as Aang's fingers dug into the knees of his tattered yellow pants, Katara could tell that surviving wasn't the only thing on his mind. She touched his elbow. "Something else is bothering you, isn't it?"
Aang unfolded his body with a sigh. He leaned back against the tall ridge of the saddle. "Even if I survive, I'm only one person. I may be an Air Nomad, but I don't know everything about my culture. Like my glider. I don't know anything about making gliders. The monks who built my glider were killed by Fire Lord Sozin one hundred years ago. My glider was the only thing left of them and their knowledge.
"Every time I lose something from my life before the war, it's like another piece of me is just…gone. There's nothing there anymore. Just like my glider." He bent his head and clutched at the dark hair that had grown over his arrow. "I don't know how much more I can lose."
"Aang…" Katara began. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and gently lifted his hand away from his head. She rested his hand in her palm. In that moment, she had never seen anything more beautiful than his blue arrow tattoo.
"You've lost so much, but you're still an Air Nomad," she told him. "Even if you have to hide your arrows for a while, they'll always be a part of you. Your memories of your people, your way of living—those are things that no one can take away from you." Her thumb skimmed over the arrow on the back of his hand. "Not even the Fire Nation."
Aang was quiet as he mulled over her words. He didn't let go of her hand.
"You're right," he said. "No matter what I might lose to the Fire Nation, I won't lose myself. I'll do whatever it takes to survive. I won't let the Fire Nation win."
He balled his other hand into a fist. "I wasn't there to protect my people when the Fire Nation attacked. But this time, it's going to be different. I'm going to be the Avatar the world needs."
Aang raised his head and looked at her. His eyes still held the grief of a loss that could never be brought back, but there was something more. Something deep, something that pulled at her—the same way his gray eyes had pulled her in when she broke him out of the iceberg.
In that moment, all Katara could see was him.
"And this time," he said, his fingers clasping her hand ever so slightly, "I'll be there to protect the people I love."
Author's note: Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, reviews are always appreciated 💖