A/N Alright, so this chapter and pov wasn't here before. But I got an idea, and this is what happened. Let me know what you think. Also, almost all chapters from this point forward are being altered in some way that affects the storyline. Not all of them, but most. Warning: This one is sad.
Lee knows Father isn't coming home when he hears his mother's distressed shout from the kitchen. He'd seen a traveler wandering in earlier, a man battered and starved nearly to the edge of death. A man looking that way almost never brings good news.
He rushes back inside, and finds his mother weeping at the kitchen table. He looks at the man suspiciously.
"I'm not here to hurt you or your mother. I bring news of your father."
"No." Lee says. He doesn't want to hear it. If he doesn't hear it, it will be a mistake and Dad will come home with Sensu.
"Listen, boy," The man reaches a kind hand out to him.
"NO!" Lee shouts. He turns and runs out of the house and back down the road. The man is too weak to follow him.
He runs until he can run no more. He climbs a tree, where usually nobody thinks to look.
He tries to stifle the sobs coming from him, but all in vain.
He isn't sure how long it is before his tears abate, but when they do, he thinks of what he must do next.
I shouldn't have run away like that. A soldier wouldn't run. Sensu wouldn't! He thinks to himself.
A bird squirrel looks at him quzzically from a few branches above.
"I know I should go back and comfort Mom." He tells the critter. "But I don't know how to help her. I do all that I can already. I bring water from the well, fix the roof like Dad showed me before..." He bites his lip and blinks. "And I clean the barns and feed the animals. But, now Dad's not coming back. Ever."
He starts to cry again, and talks through his tears. He isn't sure that what he says is intelligible anymore, but the bird squirrel seems to understand. It climbs over to him, curious and innocent. He pets it absentmindedly.
"I never really wanted to stay here. To get married to Su Lin. Or any girl. Sensu always said that after the war, he'd go to Gao Ling as a trader or merchant. And when he made enough money, selling whatever it was, he was going to bring us and we were going to live in a big house, and I'd go to school. But we haven't heard from Sensu in months! And Dad's gone. I know he is! And I don't know what to do! I do my chores and try to stay out of trouble. Honest! I even stay close to home. I haven't been back to the Scroll Cave since Daddy left. But there's a whole world out there! And I don't wanna leave Mom alone, but I don't wanna spend my whole life here either, nothing ever happens! And Dad's not here anymore! He can't show me the stars, or how to grow stuff, or how to plan the village Fall Festival. Dad's gone. Daddy's gone!" He rambles.
The bird squirrel moves closer to him, almost protectively. They stay like that for a while.
((page break))
When Lee wakes up, he isn't sure at first where he is. He's in a rather uncomfortable position and wonders if he fell asleep in the rafters while fixing the roof again. He opens his eyes and sees a black canopy of leaves above him, and a network of branches below.
The events of the past few hours come rushing back to him.
Dad's gone. He thinks again. A lump comes into his throat, and he wants to cry, but it's like he has no tears left. His eyes remain stubbornly dry.
He knows his mother is probably worried sick about him right now, and that he should go back. But he isn't ready to deal with the full weight and reality of their situation just yet.
He leans back on some unevenly spaced branches and looks up at the stars through the narrow opening of the tree's leafy canopy.
The wind starts to blow gently, and the leaves whisper. The cool air and the sound wraps him in a sort of blanket, runs invisible comforting hands over his shoulders, and cools his face. His mind starts to wander.
((page break))
"Daddy! You said you'd take me skywatching tonight!" Four year old Lee said, attacking his father from behind.
His father laughed as he caught Lee on his back, piggyback style, and spun around, crashing them into a haystack in the barn.
"Was that tonight?" His dad feigned confusion. "I thought that was next week."
"Daddy!" Lee protested. He got up and started tugging on his dad's hand, insistently.
"Alright! Alright! I surrender! Mercy!" Dad got up and took his son's hand.
"Where are you going?" Sensu asked, as he came up the path from the pastures for supper.
"To the stars." Lee said, chewing his fingers a bit.
"Don't you mean "to see the stars"?" Sensu asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah!"
"Does Mom know?" He asked, skeptically.
"We won't be long. Do you want to go with us?" Dad picked Lee up and held a hand out to Sensu.
"I'm too old for handholding, Dad!" He protested.
"Alright. Sure. Hurt your Dad's feelings! I see how it is!" Gansu pretended to be hurt. He threw his hand over his heart in a sort of wounded gesture.
"Ok! Ok! I'm sorry. Can I still come?" Sensu laughed, reaching out a hand.
So, they wandered across the vast fields towards a small mountain, coming to a little hidden trail, going past a cave that looked like it had been roughly cut into the side of the mountain's rocky wall. Lee had wanted badly to explore in there. So far, he'd had little luck in sneaking away this far from home. It was too far of a walk and he was always missed before he got even halfway.
At the top of the hill, the air was cold and sharp. It was almost autumn. They laid down on the grass and Dad started to point out pictures in the sky.
"They're called, 'constellations'. They tell stories about the world and teach us lessons about how to be good people." Dad tells them.
"My teacher in Chin Village says that they're only fables. They didn't actually happen." Sensu retorted.
"That's why you're only there half the school year, Sensu. Your teachers teach by telling you what to think. Not how to think. I want my boys to grow up to do their own thinking, and not let people tell them what to do without having a very good reason." Dad answered.
Lee vaguely sees two dragons outlined by the stars. They are close to each other, but almost completely separate from the other pictures.
"Who are they?" Lee asked, pointing.
"They are ShuangLong. The Twin Dragons. Ran and Shaw, I believe. The old Fire Nation myths say the dragons were the first true Firebenders. Ran and Shaw were supposedly the last of their kind. The Fire Nation killed them all."
"Why would they kill their teachers?" Lee wondered aloud.
"Well, if they were anything like my teacher in Chin Village, then I could see why." Sensu spat.
"Enough, Sensu! Your teacher may not teach you the way that I want you to be taught, and you may not like him much either. But it's your responsibility to respect him and to honor his rules while you are at his school. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Dad. How about those stars there?" He pointed to two shapes that vaguely resembled fish.
"Tui and La, the first Waterbenders. They have taken a mortal form somewhere here in our world. They represent balance in the oceans, push and pull, night, and kindness."
"What are the stars, Dad?" Lee asked.
"Well, that depends on who you ask. Some people think it's all just a painting in the sky the Spirits put there for us to brighten our mood, tell us the time, and to help us find our way across land and sea. Others say that they are a sort of Spirit World for humans, and that each one is a dear friend or family member, watching over us to the end of time."
"I hope that it's Human Spirits." Sensu's voice got all soft and quiet. Lee looked over at his brother and was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "Granddad and Grandmom always loved the sky and the stars. They'd love to see the world from up there."
"That they would." Dad's voice held a certain tone of knowing. He reached over and pulled Sensu into a hug.
Lee kept watching the stars, sparing an occasional glance at his brother. Granddad and Grandmom had died three years before. Sensu knew them well, but Lee did not. He didn't know how to help his brother, so he let Dad do that part.
He wondered what it would be like to be a star. He wondered what it would be like to hover so high above the world, that a single glance would reveal the entire Earth Kingdom. He wasn't actually sure how big it was, just that it took several days to get Sensu to school when autumn began.
He didn't think he'd be able to see much detail from that far away. His family's farm would appear to be a speck in the world, or maybe he wouldn't see it at all. The thought made him feel very small and distant. Almost like he already was a star, lost in the vast space of the night sky.
He reached a hand over the grass and squeezed a large rock to make sure he was still safely on the ground. He was almost disappointed when he discovered that he was, but he wasn't entirely sure why he felt that way.
He found that he couldn't get back into the stars again when he tried.
"I think I'm going to go help Mom set up the table now." Sensu said, getting up and heading down the hill towards home. Lee couldn't see his eyes in the dark, but Sensu wiped at them as he walked away.
"Dad, do you really think that Granddad and Grandmom are up there?" Lee asked.
"I don't know for sure, Lee. But they are always in our hearts. And as long as they are in our hearts, I'm sure they can never go away." Dad pulled him close.
"Do you think they can hear us from so far away?"
"Perhaps. They may not know time and distance the way that we do."
"You mean time and distance can change?"
"The Spirit World is a strange place, Lee. I wouldn't be surprised by anything that we found there."
"But Dad, how can we know what the Spirit World looks like? People can't go there."
"The Avatar can. And there are some people who can meditate their way in, although it's very rare. It's said that the Air Nomads had monks among them who could journey into and out of the Spirit World during the Winter Solstice. But that might only be a myth."
"Nobody has seen Air Nomads or Airbenders for a long time. Right?"
"That's right."
"How do we know they were real?"
"Well, because they were the first ones attacked by the Fire Nation when the War started. They aren't here anymore because of that."
"Did you know any?"
"Well, they were around a long time ago, Lee. Nobody really remembers ever meeting one. Some people think that a few Air Nomads may have escaped and hidden among us. I can certainly believe in the descendants of Air Nomads. I've known a few people that I've suspected to have been related to them. But I have never met an actual Airbender."
"I wonder what they were like."
"Well, they could fly with little gliders. And big animals called Sky Bison. They had huge Temples on mountains hidden in the clouds. Like castles. They were said to be very hard to get into. I'm not sure how Fire Nation soldiers managed to do it. Some say that the Temples are still there. Others say they were destroyed a hundred years ago."
"How long is a hundred years?"
"Very long. I'm only seventy years old myself. And Sensu is about ten years old now. So, a hundred years is me plus three of Sensu."
That made sense to Lee.
"Your mom is probably getting worried about us by now. We should get back. What do you think?"
They wandered back down the hill, Lee staring up at the stars and thinking of flight, and big flying animals and giant castles in the clouds.
((page break))
Lee sighs and wonders if Dad can see him now. Could hear him crying in the tree earlier in the day. He knows Dad would want him to help Mom and to be happy for him going to join the stars.
Until the end of time.
As he drops out of the tree and starts walking home, he wonders what the end of time could look like. Was it a place? Could it be found? Or was it just that one day would be the last day of the world and the stars and everything and that would be it?
He met a boy in Kyoshi once, when he was eight years old, that claimed to be able to see time as a bunch of lines. Asked to predict the future, he'd tell a story of a lady from the Fire Nation, banished by her husband, hiding in the Earth Kingdom, then visiting the Water Tribes, then hiding in Ba Sing Se, and finally, taking refuge in...
An Air Temple!
Lee stops walking, remembering the boy saying that he couldn't see a future that didn't exist, in places that didn't exist. That meant there had to be at least one Air Temple left!
Lee had wanted to ask the boy about his own future, but the next time they ventured to Kyoshi to sell meat, the boy was gone. The villagers said that he and his family had disappeared one day without warning. Nobody had known where they had gone or why.
He arrives home and opens the door. The lights are out and his mom is nowhere to be found. Fearing a raider attack, he rushes over and pounds on the door of the nearest neighbor.
"Lee! You worried your poor mother out of her mind! Where have you been? We've looked all over for you!" The elderly lady hisses. She beckons him inside and looks him over for injury.
"Sela! Lee's here. He's alright! None the worse for wear! Though hungry, I hope. He ought to be sent to bed without dinner." She goes over to the stove and turns some meat over the fire.
"No. It's alright. He's been out this late before." Mom comes over and hugs him.
"I'm sorry I ran away, Mom." He says, around the lump in his throat.
"It's alright. I know why you did. Just don't stay out so late, Lee. You know I get worried. I'm sorry for scaring you." She rubs her hand through his hair.
"I just didn't know what to do. I felt like if I didn't hear it, it wouldn't be true." His voice is muffled by her shirt.
"Oh Lee. I'm afraid it's very true. Daddy isn't coming home and we don't know where Sensu is. It's very sad, and I don't know what we're going to do without them. But we're going to find a way. We always have before."
"Can we move somewhere else? It doesn't feel like home here anymore." He moves away from her to sit on a little foot stool by the warmth of the stove.
"We'll see what happens. For now, let's eat and go to bed. Everything will seem brighter in the morning." Mom gives him a final rub on his back and seats herself at the table.
The neighbor lady hands them some vegetable soup and some of the meat.
Lee looks at the stars again outside the window over the stove, wishing he was anywhere but here.