Aang was disturbed from his meditation by an arrow whizzing by his head, embedding itself into a tree on top of the hill he was on. It was followed by a hasty yell.

"Sorry!" A Yu-Yan archer ran up to the arrow that was shot and unwrapped a scroll that had been wrapped around it. "The Firelord sent out a message that was to be delivered to you and a couple other people personally. And I am so used to delivering messages like this. Sorry about the arrow. I know we're not at war. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad."

Aang unleashed a belly laugh that seemed to lift the archer's spirits a bit. "Hey, I remember you! You and your buddies tried to kidnap me a while ago, right?" The archer looked doubly as sheepish now. "Hey, don't worry buddy, we're all friends now, right? You and your archer buddies wouldn't try something like that again, right?" Aang gestured towards the Yu-Yan fighter. "Now what was that message you were going to deliver?"

The archer shrugged. "He just gave me the envelope and said it was important. I haven't looked at it." And he handed the scroll to Aang. "I'm sure it's nothing bad though, the Firelord seemed pretty happy as he was handing it to me."

Aang reached out and took the scroll. The archer waited patiently.

"What are you waiting for? Am I supposed to do something? Tip you? I have no money."

"Oh no, I just wanted to hear what the message was."

"So do I, Mr. Yu-Yan . . . so do I."

"You know that's not my name, right? That's just what we're called."

"Oh no, I have to go." And with those words, Aang took a running jump off the hill, unfurled his staff into a glider, and shot a blast of air propelling him out of the range of humiliation. He wasn't fast enough, however, to escape the sounds of gentle laughing. As Aaang was gliding away, he thought about all the things the Firelord could be sending him a message about.

Rebellions? Those had all been mostly quelled in a couple of years following the fall of the Phoenix King.

Some more weird therapies for his sister? She seemed like she was doing well now. The gain of her mother and a lot of talking seemed to make her more sane.

Something . . . spirit world related? Aang had been dealing with the aftereffects of the phoenix king for these last eight years. Spirits had become restless, especially with the rise of more and more industry which was chopping up forests and polluting lakes. But it would have to be a major spirit for Zuko to need his help. The Fire Temple Priests were actually pretty good at dealing with wayward spirits, and a spirit that could overpower them would have already made itself shown to Aang.

Aang had no idea what was left, so he found a nice tree to land on and finally unrolled the scroll.

"Marriage!?"

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Aang shouldn't have been surprised. Mai and Zuko had been together for about five years now. Zuko as the firelord and Mai as some sort of aristocrat, it made an amount of sense. But Zuko was just a child, not five years older than Aang himself, and there was no way that Aang was going to be ready for marriage in five years. The main problem Aang had with what was going on was that Zuko would be the first, and then everyone else would follow. Zuko and Mai would get married, then Sokka and Suki (those two were engaged in all but name already), and then probably Katara.

Katara . . .

Aang fell in love with Katara right when he came out of the ice. She was the first and the prettiest girl he had ever seen at that point, and, if he was being honest, she still was. She was sweet and caring and without her, they probably wouldn't have won the war.

And he kissed her.

Right before the Black Sun Invasion, when Katara told Aang how proud she was, he took it as some sort of romantic gesture and kissed her like an idiot. After he took away the Phoenix King's bending and ended the war for good, they kissed again, this time more mutual. It was such a shame that they didn't work out long term.

He didn't work out long term.

They had fun, here and there, between him gliding away to put out the fires of insurrection or her trying to rebuild the Southern Water Tribe. He just always thought that once the world was put back together they would just spend more time together, get married one day, live the life he had dreamed of since he met her. He loved her, and he thought she loved him, and everything was going to be picture perfect.

Everytime he left, he would write a little note to her and leave it with her to read when he was gone. Never too long, usually just three, four, six pages here and there. He would spend his time apart just thinking of her reading what he wrote, so she wouldn't be alone while he was gone. Sometimes, when he asked or if it was his birthday, he would get a little letter himself, but it wasn't nearly as often. He just liked writing better than her, even though he thought she was much better at it.

He would come back, they would just spend days together, only interrupted by her father's relatively frequent requests to have his daughter back. Life at the Southern Water Tribe was apparently always exciting. They had a routine or something. It wasn't anything to do with him.

One day though, it turned out that it might've been him, just a little bit.

He was out of the Southern Water Tribe because of some weird squabble between one of the Fire Nation colonies and an Earth Kingdom city. Apparently the territory that the colony was founded on was that city's, at least it was over four hundred years ago. Then the Earth Kingdom had abandoned it and it was grown over by plants. The Fire Nation had colonized it a century and a half ago, before Aang was even born. It was, all in all, a pretty strange situation to be advocating for the Fire Nation. They had been there for a while though and had made a home for themselves, and Aang had thought it unfair for them to give that all up for some land claims the Earth Nation had that had no bearing on how the land was used. Aang had read up on some land law, forgot it all instantly, and then stood behind Zuko and Bumi, trying to look intimidating. Apparently having the Avatar there was just the type of pressure that city to drop their grievance.

The next day, Aang had come back to a crying Katara.

"I can't do this anymore," her shoulders were shaking and her eyes were wet, but her voice was still clear. "You don't deserve what I'm doing to you."

"Wait, what? What's going on?"

"I can't be with you anymore. I just can't."

Aang didn't believe what he was hearing. "What? Did I do something? I can do it better, just let me know what it is."

"That's just it, Aang, you're always like this. You're all 'It's okay, I'll do better, I know you're not there yet and it's fine.' What if I'm never there?"

"It's fine if you're never there, as long as I'm with you, it's enough."

"Stop saying things like that, it's weird," Katara was sounding angry now. "You want to spend all your time with me all the time."

"I thought you wanted to, too," Aang was nearly in tears himself, "and I can stop. I can only see you some of the time. I just . . . I just love spending time with you, and whenever I can, I will."

Katara had a hitch in her throat before she continued speaking, "You have to understand why our relationship can't be like this. I do care for you, just, not in the right way, not enough. So we're not together."

"But-"

"There's nothing you can say." And Katara closed the door.

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Aang started to wander around the world after that. He would meet up sometimes with Zuko, mostly for diplomatic things but they would hang out after, play pai sho, drink tea. Everyone else though -Katara, Sokka, Toph, Suki, and anyone who he had met during his war against the Fire Nation - everyone else, Aang tried to stay away from. Now though, for Zuko's wedding, he probably had to see them again.