(A/N)- Hello readers! Been a while, I know. I was caught up with other projects.
But I'm here now with a chapter update, so I do hope you enjoy. Let's dive right into "The Storm", shall we?
Disclaimer: Haaa, nope, not me.
Lonely
Angka rubbed grit out of her eyes, yawning again. She leaned around the stall, peeking at her reflection in a glass plate hung up to catch the sun.
She frowned.
She looked awful. Lines and dark circles lining her eyelids, hair frizzy. She sighed, slumping against the wooden support, wishing she could close her eyes for just a minute and have a good hour's sleep without seeing... everything that had been causing her haggard appearance.
She smeared a hand over her face.
The anniversary was coming up, wasn't it? Was that why she had been replaying things over and over in her head?
"You all right?" a voice broke into her thoughts.
Angka shook herself, forcing a smile for Sokki. "Yeah... just haven't been sleeping that well lately."
"So I've noticed," Sokki drawled. Her eyes softening with concern she came around, dropping an arm across Angka's shoulders. "Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it?" she asked the younger girl seriously.
Angka shook her head lightly. "Like, I told Katar this morning, I think I just need some rest."
"Hey," Sokki cautioned, taking both her shoulders and turning to face her. "Don't bottle things up. Katar can always tell and he's going to be super annoying about making sure you're okay."
"Is that a bad thing?" she asked, a confused expression on her face.
"It's—" Sokki shook herself. "Never mind," she dismissed, stepping back. "Come on, let's not get too far behind."
They trotted to catch up to Katar, who was busy carefully considering a melon he was shaking.
"I dunno if I like the sound of that swishing," he told the vendor uncertainly.
"Swishing means it's ripe!" she insisted. "It's the ripe juices swishing around, huh?"
"I think it's true, Katar," Angka piped up. She beamed broadly at him, projecting a practiced happiness. "Swishing means it's ripe."
He smiled back at her, then turned sheepishly to the vendor.
"I just realized we're out of money anyway," he said, putting the melon back.
She huffed in disgust, turning away from them and shooing them with her hands.
The three of them trudged off, Sokki grumbling about her empty stomach and Katar quietly apologizing to Angka..
-ATLA-
"Out of food and out of money," Sokki complained, when they stopped for a moment on the docks. "Now what are we supposed to do?"
"You could try using your womanly wiles on some poor sap," Katar suggested flatly. "Maybe flirt your way into getting us some food."
Sokki screwed up her face in disgust. "Ha ha wise guy, very funny, why don't you flirt your way into getting us some food?"
Katar shrugged, open-palmed. "You're the one complaining."
"I could do it!" Angka suggested brightly.
"No," Katar said at once, sternly.
She wilted slightly. "But—"
Their conversation petered off as a loud argument from behind them drew their attention. An old man and woman were squaring off, their voices carrying across the dock.
"You shouldn't go out there! Please! The fish can wait!" the old woman was saying. "There's going to be a terrible storm!"
Angka gave a little flinch, her eyes darting nervously up towards the wide blue sky. The old couple's argument continued but it was noise in her ears, her mind drifting back to images from her dream. The looming thundercloud. The lightning flashing way too close. The feeling of being utterly alone.
She didn't pull out of it until she heard Sokki unexpectedly volunteer herself as the man's replacement fish-hauler.
What? she thought in confusion.
The question must have showed on her face, for when Sokki looked back at her and Katar she said, "What? A job means money and money means food, I see this as a completely viable solution!"
Katar sighed. "I hate it when you're right," he grumbled.
Angka didn't reply, her gaze drifting back towards the clear horizon, small anxious flickers in her heart.
-ATLA-
The flickers had become an outright churning.
Gray clouds were gathering over the ocean, tall and ominous-looking. It made Angka jittery just looking at them.
"Sokki, maybe this isn't such a good idea..." she said, fidgeting as Sokki helped the old fisherman load up his boat. She waved a hand towards the stormclouds. "Look at the sky."
Sokki shook her head. "I said I was gonna do this job. I can't back out just because of some bad weather," she said, taking some folded nets down below.
Angka bit her lip harshly, wanting to argue. Wanting to describe how terrifying it was to be in the heart of a raging typhoon, at the mercy of the wind and waves, buffeted in every direction by merciless rain.
Her skin could almost feel the cold lashing drops even now...
"The girl with the tattoos has some sense," the old woman snorted from her safe position on the docks. "You should listen to her," she huffed. She stormed off, walking stiff-backed away from the pier where the fisherman's boat was docked.
The old man paused a moment, eyes scrunching. "Girl with tattoos..." he repeated, standing up and turning around.
Angka waved shyly at the scrutinizing look he sent her way.
"Airbender tattoos..." the fisherman said, face changing with realization. "Well, I'll be a hogmonkey's uncle." He stepped off the boat, coming up to her and Katar on the pier, wrinkled brows narrow and tired eyes strangely piercing. "You're the Avatar, ain't ya?" he declared.
She felt Katar fluff up beside her as he declared with pride, "That's right!"
Angka smiled, then immediately stopped when the man scolded her for it.
"Well don't be so smiley about it!" he snapped. "The Avatar disappeared for a hundred years!"
She wilted slightly, throat dry as he loomed over her, slow-burning anger on his face and in his voice and stiff posture.
He jabbed a harsh finger into her chest.
"Ya turned your back on the world!" he growled.
She gasped and flinched back but Katar was already there, slapping the man's hand away.
"Don't yell at her!" he scolded. "Angka would never turn her back on anyone!"
The old man rolled his eyes and grumped something about imagining the last hundred years of war and pain and death and Katar yelled back at him for it but it was all static in her ears.
"Angka... why did you disappear?"
The horrible guilt hitting her gullet. The way the corners of her eyes pulled.
"I didn't mean to..." she said quietly.
She took several steps backwards without realizing it, even the passion in Katar's voice as he defended her fading into gray noise.
I didn't mean to, repeated inside her head as she softly got out her glider.
A small whish! extended the fan folds.
I didn't mean to.
She took to the air, letting the warm currents and her airbending lift her off the ground, over the village rooftops, out over the mountains.
I'm sorry.
-ATLA-
Rain dripped off his clothes as he stepped through the cave entrance. Katar peered into the dim interior. Angka was a small ball curled up, her back to him, body posture morose and miserable.
"Angka?" he called.
She stirred a bit at the sound of his voice, though she didn't turn around.
"I'm sorry for running away..." she said quietly.
"It's okay," he jumped to reassure her. "That fisherman was a total jerk."
He waited to see her turn around, her face lighting up again, but all she did was continue sitting there.
"Actually... he was right," she told him.
Something stung in his heart at the thought of Angka believing the fisherman's harsh words about her. He stepped forward. "What do you mean?" he asked in concern.
She squeezed herself tighter, hugging her knees. "I don't wanna talk about it," she strained.
His chest wrenched. He made it to her side, coming around and kneeling down next to her, placing a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Does it have to do with your dream?" he asked.
She stayed quiet, her face gray and pinched.
His fingers squeezed a little tighter. "Come on.. talk to me," he urged.
She pulled her head up with a small sigh.
"Okay. It's kind of a long story though."
Katar glanced outside at the downpour. The once blue sky was now ashen gray, lashed with rain and flashing lightning. Appa and Momo both nosed their way into the cave, shaking themselves dry. "Well, we're not going anywhere for a while," he commented dryly.
The corners of her mouth twitched faintly at that, and she leaned contentedly into Appa's nose as the sky bison came up to nuzzle her.
Katar smiled and started to get up.
"I'm going to try to get a little fire going," he promised.
-ATLA-
When they were settled, a warm crackling fire heating their faces, damp clothes beginning to dry and Momo curled up comfortably in Angka's lap, Katar broached the subject again.
He poked sticks into the little blaze, glancing up at her. "So..." he began hesitantly, picking out what to say. "Why exactly do you think that old man was right when he said... what he said?" he asked. He tried not to add his scalding opinions about what, precisely, the man had said, which he was still steaming about.
Angka glanced up from stroking Momo's back.
"I'm honestly not sure where to begin," she told him, looking a bit sheepish.
He shrugged. "Try from the beginning?" he suggested.
She inhaled slowly.
"Okay... that would probably be the day they told me I was the Avatar."
-ATLA-
Giggles drifted up from their circle, as the girls huddled close together over something. Conspiratorial whispers drifted up from them.
"Okay okay!" Angka piped up. "On three."
The girls scrambled around, two of them skitting off to the side, one ducking behind another as she stood in nervously excited anticipation.
"One... two... three!" Angka counted, before sending a twisting burst of air into the standing girl's face.
They all squealed as the miniature whirlwind blasted back the girl's long hair, twisting it around and around before fizzling out.
She laughed, reaching a hand back to feel the twist.
"It's actually not half-bad!" she declared. She pulled it up flat against the back of her skull. "Look, I could totally pin it up just like this!"
Angka grinned broadly. "Do me next!" she said.
She reached for the band holding her long hair back and undid it, letting the brown locks spill down freely.
A voice called down to them from the bridge above, interrupting them.
"Angka?"
The girls parted, and Angka glanced up to see Nun Choenyi softly beckoning her to come.
"Can we talk for a minute, sweetie?" she asked.
Angka puzzled at the worried pinch in her guardian's expression, the tight concern in the nun's brown eyes. But she folded the hairband back around her hair dutifully.
"I'll be right back," she promised her friends.
She lifted herself up onto the bridge level with a puff of airbending. The bright smile on her faded a little as Choenyi merely motioned with her hand, already turning around.
"Come with me," she urged. "We have some visitors."
Angka puzzled even more at that. Visitors?
She followed Choenyi to a central courtyard. Her steps slowed as she saw the orange-clad group clustered on one side. Her heart began to beat quicker.
It was the Council of Monks from the Southern Air Temple. Angka had only seen them in person once or twice, at inter-temple Air Nomad celebrations, but from their bearing and high-ranking raiment, it could only be them.
Her feet rooted in place when their murmuring ceased, and they all turned heads to look at her.
"Am... I in trouble?" she asked nervously.
"Oh no!" Monk Gyatso rushed to assure her, his wrinkled face spreading with a smile. "Quite the opposite in fact."
The head elder nudged his way forward through the midst of them.
"Angka," he said. "We have something very important to tell you."
She tried to straighten a bit, look very attentive and polite. "Okay... What is it?"
He pinned her with a serious look.
"You are the next Avatar."
-ATLA-
Katar gaped in awe, his mouth open slightly.
"How did they know it was you?" he asked.
Angka fiddled with Momo's tail, running it through her fingers. "The toys I played with the most when I was little. I 'chose them out of thousands'," she explained, quoting what she'd been told. "They were relics that belonged to previous Avatars." She drew her legs up a little closer, careful not to squish the sleeping lemur in her lap. "Normally I'd have been told when I turned sixteen but..."
She bit her lip, remembering the dire words about rumors of war, trouble brewing on the horizon.
"Anyway," she dismissed. "After that... everything changed."
-ATLA-
Angka flicked her staff idly at the pink blossoms scattered across the floor, sending them spinning up into the air. They floated back down slowly and she flicked them again, the normally delightful exercise not seeming to have any effect on her mood today.
"Sweet pea?" Choenyi's voice called from just inside the courtyard.
Angka looked up quickly. Her guardian and the other nuns had been in conference with the high elders all afternoon, deciding the next course of action for her now that she was out as the Avatar.
She put away her staff, clasping it behind her in her hands as she came to attention.
"So... did they make a decision?" she asked anxiously.
Choenyi nodded. "They have." Her eyes lowered. "You'll be starting your Avatar training right away."
"Oh," she said, slumping a little. Her mind was still reeling with the whirlwind of it all. She tried to muster up a sliver of excitement at the prospect of learning waterbending, earthbending, all that, but her heart just didn't feel it. "I guess... I guess I thought I'd have more time to adjust."
"I know, honey," Choenyi said sympathetically, resting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I thought we'd have more time too." Straightening, she folded her hands back into her sleeves. "You'd better get packed up. You leave in the morning."
The words sent a jolt of alarm through her.
"Wait, leave?" she repeated. Her eyes held tiny flickers of panic. "What am I leaving for? I thought I'd be doing my training here!"
Choenyi glanced to the side uncomfortably. "About that..."
Angka's hands gripped her staff a little tighter.
Shaking herself, Choenyi continued. "I know you were supposed to transfer to the Western temple for the summer but..." She shook her head. "The monks think it will be safer if... if you stayed with them. At the Southern temple."
Angka felt her insides sinking.
"What about all my friends?" she asked, softly. "My bison?"
"Appa will be going with you, of course," Choenyi rushed to assure her.
"But no one else will," Angka concluded.
A sad shake of the nun's head. "I'm afraid not."
Angka gave a long sigh, turning everything over in her head and her heart. Tumultuous emotion pulsed through her, and she recalled meditation lessons to calm her mind and put herself more at ease.
"All right..." she said. "I understand."
Choenyi wrapped her up in an unexpected hug.
"You're going to do great," she promised in a whisper.
It was all Angka could do to keep from crumbling.
-ATLA-
Angka stared morosely into the fire. Telling the story had brought up old buried feelings. Grief, for the people she'd lost and would never see again. Guilt, for leaving them when they'd needed her.
Katar was looking at her with sympathy. "It must've been hard," he said. "Leaving your home."
She shrugged idly. "It wasn't all bad," she said. "Monk Gyatso was always nice to me." A fond smile touched her lips. "Took me out of lessons to blast custard pies on people's heads," she chuckled.
The smile left her face.
"But I just never felt... normal after that."
-ATLA-
He found her sulking under a willow tree, curled up against the trunk with her arms crossed.
"What's the matter, Angka?" he asked kindly.
She slumped down further.
"The boys won't let me play," she complained. "They said I had an unfair advantage because I'm the Avatar."
"Oh nonsense!" Gyatso dismissed, waving his hand. He reached down to pull her up. "They're just afraid they'll get their hineys kicked by a girl."
That brought a brief smile to Angka's face, before she dropped her head again, standing in place.
She was always so acutely aware of the fact that she was the only girl there. She slept apart from the others. Bathed separately. Had her clothes segregated out from the pile come laundry day. The monks tried to treat her like everyone else in lessons and training but they could never stop the whispers among the initiates, the curious stares, the weird way everyone her age gave her more space than she needed. Everyone knew the situation wasn't normal, and pretend as they might, even when some of the boys tried to reach out to her, there was always a sense of apprehension, of guarded caution, of an emotional wall that fenced her out. It wasn't like anyone was unfriendly... but it made her miss her old friends all the more. She missed being treated like everyone else, no more important than any of them. She missed the normalcy, the carefree lack of worry.
The monks emphasized over and over again that she had a destiny to fulfill, a grave duty to the world, and she wanted to be helpful. She wanted to be a good Avatar. But...
She hated how isolated she felt.
"Now," Gyatso said, interrupting her solemn thoughts, "let's go have a few rounds of pai sho."
She followed along behind him as he led the way inside.
-ATLA-
Katar listened soberly. The events Angka was describing had happened over a hundred years ago and yet he felt the sharp acuteness of her hurt as it it was fresh from yesterday.
"It must've been hard..." he said quietly. "Being set apart from the others like that."
He'd intended it as a quiet comfort, a word of sympathy to try and soothe the ache she clearly still felt. But when he looked up at her he saw that her head was turned away, her eyes screwed tightly shut as if holding back tears.
His heart tightened.
"Angka?" he called, worry lacing every syllable.
She inhaled shakily, through unshed tears.
"I'm... I'm sorry I didn't... I didn't mean to disappear," she said, reaching up and rubbing furiously at her eyes. "I was just... I just felt... so alone."
-ATLA-
Gyatso wandered into her room, approaching softly, gently.
"Angka?" he called. "You missed the evening meal. Is there something—?"
His words cut off as he realized the room was empty.
Panic flared in his heart. His eyes jerked around, frantically searching. There was a scroll placed on the pillow of his ward's bed, and he snatched it up, ripping open the seal and unfurling it.
"I'm sorry," read the first line. "I know you're trying, but I'm just so homesick. I'll be back in a couple days."
The paper dropped from his hands as the quiet horror hit him.
-ATLA-
"You ran away?"
Katar's words held no judgment, just a grim acknowledgment of the facts.
She nodded.
"I did," she strained, her voice close to sobbing. "I just couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to be home. With my friends. With Choenyi. Just for a couple days." Her breath hitched. "I was so lonely," she whispered thinly.
Her mind replayed the last few moments before waking up in Katar's arms; the sizzling lighting passing far too close to Appa's head, the lashing rain, blinding, stinging in her eyes so she couldn't see, booms of thunder peeling so loud she thought she'd go deaf.
A solid wall of ocean saltwater smacking her in the face as Appa fell from the sky, loosing her off the saddle, floating in utter darkness as the current spun her about, waters buffeting, couldn't see, couldn't breathe, her fingers numbing as they lost hold of the reins and she drifted and drifted—
She shook her head with a little gasp, furiously casting away the memories. Her heart stayed wrung tight for several moments until she felt like she could breathe normally again.
And rushing into the hollow space left behind was an overwhelming guilt. It was her fault her people were dead. She'd been so focused on her own misery and homesickness. If she had just forced herself through it. If she had only been there...
She took a shuddering breath. "And then the Fire Nation attacked the temple. Attacked all of us. And I wasn't there to help."
Katar was shaking his head. "You don't know what would have—"
"The world needed me and I wasn't there to help!" she cried, her guilt spiral sinking her down and down. She rested her chin on her knees glumly. "The fisherman was right," she moaned miserably. "I did turn my back on the world. I was selfish," she said, voice small. "I let everyone down."
"You're being too hard on yourself," Katar told her gently. "I think..." He hesitated a moment, then forged ahead. "I think it was meant to be. If you had stayed, you would have been killed along with all the other airbenders."
Part of her wished she had been. At least then they would have died together, fighting side by side as one. At least she wouldn't have proved herself a selfish coward, only able to think about how miserable she was and sparing no thought to the duty demanded of her.
"You don't know that," she mumbled into her arms.
When she chanced a glance up at Katar, she was surprised at the fire and conviction in his eyes, kindled by the firelight that shone in the blue depths.
"I know it was meant to be this way," he insisted quietly. "The world needs you now." His face spread with a soft smile, full of gentleness and faith. "You give people hope."
She managed to pull her head from her knees at that, her heart swelling, bursting with a strange emotion she couldn't identify. She felt warm all over, bolstered and encouraged, and sent a teary, grateful look over at her friend.
Katar didn't think she was a failure. He'd waited his whole life for her, he'd told her once, accepted her presence as a reward for his faith.
She was... his hope, she realized quietly. Because she was here, alive and present now, he believed that things could change. That the war could be won. That the world could be at peace again.
It made her want to never let him down.
A genuine smile spread across her cheeks.
If Katar believed in her... maybe she could do anything.
Even beat the Fire Lord.
Even save the world.
She rolled upright, conviction burning in her heart.
"The storm's getting pretty bad. Let's go find Sokki," she said, motioning for him to follow as she strode bravely out of the cave.
-ATLA-
She was floating again, floating in salty blackness, water pressing on all sides of her, screaming inside her head.
The roar of the current echoed in her ears, buffeting, tumultuous. The lack of oxygen was burning around her lungs, dulling out her thoughts and vision.
Her rapidly beating heart refused to let her black out, though.
Through blurred eyes she glimpsed the forms of her friends, Appa, and the old fisherman, clinging desperately to their handholds on Appa's saddle. They would drown if she didn't do something. She would drown. She would disappear again and leave the world hopeless.
She was the Avatar. She couldn't do that.
"You give people hope."
Determinedly, her hand grabbed out at the strap for Appa's reins.
And then something took over.
Her tattoos glowed, power and energy surging through her and it was like an outside force had control of her body and was moving her limbs for her, rushing along behind her one vague thought of what she wanted to do: save her friends.
She sat up on Appa's head and smashed her fists together. Air swirled around her this time, instead of ice, whirling tightly, forming a pocket of breathable space around them. She sensed more than heard Sokki and Katar and the old fisherman settling into the saddle behind her, but stayed concentrated on her task of keeping up the swirling bubble. It seemed so easy to do. Like she'd done it a thousand times before. She wasn't in control of it, but it seemed to just happen naturally.
And when they emerged from the stormy ocean, her Avatar glow fading out into a long startled breath, her mind seemed to break through the surface into open air too.
Angka shook herself, slightly dazed. That was the second (third?) time her Avatar spirit had triggered, taking over her body, almost making her an observer in her own consciousness. It was a weird feeling, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.
But, glancing back, and seeing with sheer shaky relief that Sokki and Katar were okay, a little wet and bedraggled but whole and alive...
She thought she didn't mind so much.
(A/N)- Angka may have some mild unresolved PTSD from the typhoon she got caught in, we delve into her backstory and her motivations for running away, and Katar is the bestest encourager ever.
Thank you for reading my lovelies! I'll see you all next chapter.