Author's Note: Please excuse the complete re-write of On Ji's parents. They played a much bigger part in the first version of the story, but now they mostly exist to spoil On Ji.
A reminder on setting: this is mostly canon-compliant to the show, but is considered post-series AU and disregards all comics and LoK. And I'm pretty sure books aren't really a thing at this point in the ATLA universe (scrolls, right?), but...I wanted books. So.
Every Impossible Thing
3. The Boy in the Cave
"The moon is high. She is far above me, distant and beautiful. I am below. I want and dream. I offer pearls and paints and fine fur-trimmed robes, presents to be envied by every lady. She does not preen or flush. She goes on as ever, pulling on the tides, my goddess," On Ji read carefully, flattening the book against her knees.
On the floor below, her mother and father sat over a low-set table, lost to the game of Pai Sho spread between them. On Ji peeked briefly over the pages of her book at them. She bent back the last page of the sealskin-bound Tulukaruk and His Tales of the Moon.
She placed her finger under the final line of text. "My love...is bitter work."
In the end, the moon – Kaguya, Dae-Soo, Changxi, or whichever nation's goddess was invoked – was not moved. Tulukaruk spent the rest of his lifetime half-mad in love with the moon, writing sonnets and free-verse in the hopes of winning her love. The pursuit had driven him out of his mind. Yet even among great skeptics of the Tribes, he was a genius acknowledged. Madness and brilliance danced a narrow line, On Ji supposed.
Below, her father nodded his approval. "Very lovely, my dear."
Without looking up, he lowered his tile to an adjoining space. He missed the tug of On Ji's grin as it came and went.
On Ji set aside her book for the steaming cup of oolong at her side. Satisfied by the heat rising to warm her face, she took a gulp. Few things in life were as satisfying as a good cup of tea.
On Ji's mother adjusted her glasses, reaching for a tile across the board. "Agreed. Your vowels would put the Master Orator of the Ember Island Players to shame, darling. Though I cannot say from which backwater village they plucked him from."
On Ji laughed at that. The Master Orator of the Ember Island Players was not fondly regarded in her family. Her mother never missed the chance to malign him when the opportunity presented itself.
"Min, dearest." Her father patted her mother's hand across the board, all innocence. "It was years ago. He did not butcher The Fire Lily as bad as all that."
Min cast her husband an unimpressed look. She pinched a tile fiercely between two fingers, waving over the board like an empress commanding her armies. "I'll thank you not to pat my hand. Really, Ping, as though you're placating a Messenger Hawk with ruffled feathers."
Though neither agreed aloud, she was exactly like a Messenger Hawk with ruffled feathers. On Ji and Ping shared a glance, laughter alight between their crinkled eyes.
The Fire Lily had been her mother's debut novel. It was also the first of many works that would be developed into seasonal programs for the most prominent troupe on Ember Island: The Ember Island Players. It was Min's darling project, written in the year of her only child's birth. She was fiercely protective of its integrity. On Ji was not there to witness the infamous slight, but her mother had retold it so often, it was as tangible to her as the cup of tea in her hands.
"Thank you, mama, papa," On Ji said as she watched her father place his next tile on the board.
The Fire Lily and the Ember Island Players were forgotten as the evening wore on in silence and contentment. On Ji finished her tea and fetched another cupful. Her parents played Pai Sho the way airbenders might have - slow and patient, their silence full with thinking and planning. Others played it wild and quick, some with the gleam of a gamble in their eyes.
On Ji peeled her eyes from their game and to the lamps against the walls and candles on end tables. Judging by the amount of oil still burning in the lamps and the lengths of wax left in the dishes, it was not too late in the evening to begin another book.
On Ji left them, traveling over to the largest of the four bookshelves. Each was filled end to end with plays, novels, anthologies, and the like. She ran her hand along the spines of the books, fingers bumping over works from every corner of the world: a fisherman's guide to the Unagi from the Earth Kingdom, a romance of Tui and La from the Northern Water Tribe, a selection of battle tactics from the Southern Water tribe, and creation myths from all four temples of the Nomads.
Beside them all, On Ji's hand hesitated over The Modern Fire Lord: Sozin to Azulon, 58 BG-95 AG.
She swallowed, feeling a cold, heavy dread settle deep in her stomach.
So much Fire Nation history – such culture and enrichment, centuries upon centuriesof her people – all eclipsed. It had all been snuffed out in two and a half generations of rulers who could not subdue their avarice. What could the world see now but their destruction and greed? What was left but the genocide their past rulers had incited? Who could blame them, with such a terrible legacy.
On Ji withdrew her hand. There was no changing what had become of the world. Facing the thoughts of her nation's crimes was too much on a night like this, with family and Pai Sho and the warm feeling of togetherness all around.
"Which should we move onto next?" she asked, clearing her mind as she reached for a book cased in a worn brown leather. "I was thinking The Annotated Philosophy of Avatar Yangchen."
Without waiting for reply, On Ji removed the book from the shelf. Satisfied, she tucked it beneath her arm and shuffled back to her chair.
As she settled, legs crossed and book resting on knee, Min looked up from the board to meet her daughter's eye. "The Nomads again?"
Surprised by her mother's question, On Ji cast her glance down to the book in her hands. She could swear the room grew warmer with the curious gleam in her mother's eye. Stroking the tough leather of the book, On Ji measured her words.
How much should she give away, to a mother who was too sharp and too good at reading into things? She was every bit the writer, always intuitive, always combing through words to uncover their meaning.
On Ji's interest was not coincidental, and her mother suspected.
Since On Ji's encounter in the cave six months prior, she'd been more and more curious about the Nomads. They were a people all extinct but one. Her curiosity had been kindled and had not waned; it grew and she heeded the longing to learn more.
Here, books and scrolls were her most rewarding resource. In the months following, she had reviewed countless texts on his people - science, folktales, religion, history, philosophy. She needed to know who the Airbenders had been...what the world with them had once been like.
She had never lived in a world with Airbenders, save the boy in the cave.
On Ji was rescued from having to explain herself as her father suddenly asked, "Would you like me to pick up additional reading material?"
On Ji's shoulders relaxed as her mother's attention was drawn to her father, and mercifully away from her well-aimed questions. Nothing short of a small miracle had just been granted.
"From the Fire Lord's library? Is it really okay?"
"Of course, my turtle duckling. Being a royal librarian has it perks, you know. Not many"–as he said this he winked–"but I do have access to the Fire Lord's rather extensive collection."
Ping waggled his eyebrows at his daughter.
"One day, I may even meet the Fire Lord himself. Wouldn't that be impressive?"
Min laughed, laying down a tile. "Yes, but I'm sure he is much too busy to honor his libraries. Pity though it may be. You should settle for General Kang or Iroh. Perhaps the Avatar?"
"Mm, perhaps," Ping said, bending forward to re-evaluate the board.
On Ji's stomach flopped, and her mind filled with images of hand movements, dancing feet, and Kuzon's storm-colored eyes. Kuzon, whose image twisted and warped into a tall, lean-muscled young man with blue tattoos and ceremonial robes. She could feel her cheeks heating, throwing her gaze into her lap.
And well.
Who was to say the Avatar was who she believed he was? All she knew about the master bender was he was intimate friends with the Fire Lord and had a spirit in his eyes so like the mysterious boy from her past. A boy who had shown her how to dance. In the end, he was nothing but a stranger. He was nothing more than speculation.
Of meeting the Avatar, she had no doubt. That did not make him Kuzon.
...And yet. She'd had six months to think on it. She'd had months to talk herself out of her suspicions, to pick apart her near-certainty the Avatar and brief schoolmate were one in the same. Six months had come and gone, and she still believed she held a strange and inexplicable truth in her hands.
A sudden slap! of a Pai Sho tile jarred On Ji from her thoughts.
"Ha!" exclaimed Min, a satisfied smile stretching across her face like a waxing moon.
"Your win tonight, Min." Ping bowed his head in deference. A picture in defeat.
On Ji, surprised and stiff from the loss of her previous thoughts, pried her book open. Her heart was a mess, but at least her mother and father would never guess at the truth.
She began. Her words gently blew off the dust. "Raised in the Western Air Temple, Yangchen…"
Years had passed.
It had been countless days since Aang found himself reaching inward for guidance. In those years, he had endured every hardship and obstacle without Avatars of past. With the war behind him, he had loosened his reliance on their wisdom.
The time to mature into his own Avatarhood had come, hadn't it? Aang could not afford to be weak in the face of rebuilding a world. He turned instead to friends and allies, a patchwork of family gathered across the nations.
His past lives slept, and he let them be.
…Until now. Like a hand unclenching, some inner, troubled part of Aang had decided it was time to reunite with spirits of the past. Tentative and uncertain, his hand reached out into the darkness.
His call did not go unanswered.
As Aang settled deeper into sleep, tucked deep in his chambers of Zuko's palace, with its catacombs and long, winding halls, a gradual awareness crept through his consciousness. He felt a tugging from one realm into the next as his mind closed and then unfurled. He blossomed from consciousness to dream.
Aang took in a breath, squinting through low, silvery clouds as they billowed around him. Smoky and crisp, the air felt distinctly like a morning chill lingering through the Eastern Air Temple. The distant echo of water dripped in time with his breaths. Everywhere around him felt full with mystery and memory. Indistinct, yet ancient.
A thin line existed between the realm of the Spirits and the realm of dreams. Especially true for the Avatar, Aang walked with one foot in each world. Like everything else, it was a balancing act. One Aang felt more and more was bound to unravel.
The drip and drop of the water, somewhere distant, grew louder. The fog began to move around him, thickening and roiling like a living thing; like the preface of a rainstorm. All around him, the dream moved and grew as Aang waited for whatever or whomever approached.
Suddenly, all movement within the dream stopped. The dream-like world grew perfectly silent for just a moment.
The world shivered, quaking imperceptibly, as the last firebending Avatar in the cycle materialized before Aang. Dignified in his crimson robes, he kept both hands solemnly tucked into each sleeve. His hair, gray like volcanic ash, was kept in a neat top knot secured by Sozin's headpiece.
"Roku," Aang gasped.
Aang drew in a breath at the sight of Roku's spirit, wholly unchanged from their last meeting. In a rush of feeling, Aang bore suddenly the weight of years without his past lives. It was like a fire, like a pain, like a breaking heart – too much all at once – at the sight of his firebending mentor.
Aang could hardly breathe, as he so clearly recognized his past reluctance for what it had been. Pride. Pure, undeniable pride. Pride he could do better, could build better.
"Roku," he said again, approaching the Avatar slowly as though his spirit would startle away. "I've missed you."
"You have grown, Aang," Roku said, the deep rumble of his voice soothing some of the panic in Aang's uncertain heart. "And you have called me here."
He should have called upon Roku sooner; he should kept the connection to his past open, fluid like the winding path of river. When had he stopped thinking like an airbender? When had the spirits begun feeling like a burden – how had he allowed that to happen?
"What do I do, Roku?" Aang asked, the frantic edge of his voice slicing through the cold and fog.
"You are at a precipice," Roku confirmed gravely.
Whether a precipice or an abyss, Aang couldn't say. Lately, he felt like a plaything of the spirits. Between terse meetings and the not-so-subtle jabs of Zuko's court, Aang felt more and more like a cornered animal. He couldn't breathe. He could hardly think. Every passing day, he was more and more suffocated as the world pressed in around him.
Demanding and hoping, expectations and duty.
How could he marry without love? Yet how could he turn his back on his people? On the Avatar Cycle?
"I don't know what do, Roku. What will happen to the Avatar when there is no place for the next airbending Avatar to be born?"
He asked the question he was most afraid of. "Will it all end?"
This was what it felt like to be torn into two, this agonizing divide between his humanity and Avatarhood, two halves of his heart at war. How much was too much to give, and how much not enough?
Roku closed his eyes, eyebrows knitting together. He shook his head.
"I cannot say," he said, sorrowful eyes opening to regard his successor. As Aang began to protest, Roku amended, "I do not know."
"I can't love anyone else, Roku. I can't change my heart."
Roku nodded. "You cannot change the course of the human heart."
Aang saw the ghost of Sozin in his eyes; a friendship haunted by the unfinished business between two people who had once shared everything.
Aang felt the bittersweet ache of being understood. Love and friendship transcended lifetimes, but then so did grief.
How could one love that deeply, and be expected to live on without it?
"This is a sorry burden I have left you. But you will do what you believe is right. That is all we can do, Aang," Roku added, grief and regret sewn into every word. "In this life or the next."
Aang looked away as Roku's spirit began to fade, his wisdom and purpose in this world realized. He waned bit by bit, as the fog around them thickened like storm clouds. The air grew colder, until all Aang felt on him were Roku's sorry, worried eyes.
"Thank you, Roku," he said, but the words felt hollow. Wrong. Empty.
When Aang looked up, Roku was gone.
He sat, crossing his legs. The fog was gone as Roku was, spirited away by whatever had brought it there to begin with. All that remained was the cold and the distant trickling of water.
He considered Roku's words, leaning forward with elbows on knees.
You will do what you believe is right. That is all we can do, Aang, in this life or the next.
Maybe he should summon Kiyoshi or Yangchen, even Kuruk, as he unwittingly had Roku.
But he didn't. He couldn't bear to see them, or to face their guidance. He knew already what they would say, and knew it wasn't what he wanted to hear. He understood the truth and the wisdom and the consequences already, even if Roku would not confirm it himself.
He knew what had to be done. He did not need Kiyoshi or Kuruk to tell him what Roku already had. He did not need to summon Yangchen.
She would say...well, he knew what she would say. It was enough to imagine her apparition, solemn and judging and righteous before him in her yellow robes. She would not understand him, not when she had told him, all those years ago, the Avatar's sole duty was to the world.
More than that, he couldn't explain himself to another Nomad, who understood the gravity and beauty of their culture and people. All that hung in the balance, all that would be lost if he were the world's last airbender.
How could he justify his hesitation to her? His fears? He, the last hope of not only his people, but of the Avatar Cycle? As she had urged, Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice.
He sighed miserably, burying his face into his hands.
There is nothing for me here, he thought.
Aang breathed in deep, anxious and restless, before willing the dream to vanish. As suddenly as it had come, the dream disappeared.
Aang returned to a troubled sleep.