Previously, on A viper-lizard's tales : Grandmother Shami does her best to tell Aang about everything that happened during the past hundred years Aang spent in his iceberg, although she only knows of what the elders told her in her youth, and what she lived through as she grew. She tells him of how Sozin, and later Azulon's decrees turned Sea Walkers against Air Nomads in their struggle for survival, and how the few airbenders she knew personally as a child left long ago, following tales of survivors hiding in the mountains. They promised to give word of their survival, but never did. As for the Sea Walkers, they were forced into abandoning their old way of life by the constant pressure put on them by Fire Nation authorities.
A. N. : Lighter chapter today ? Kind of ? We're only just dealing with some good old Aangst, is what I mean. Pretty normal stuff for this fic... Y'know, sometimes it just hits me how depressing this story must be to binge. A moment of silence for all the readers who make that choice.
It's silent for a while after.
Aang had to close his eyes after a certain point, unable to take any more of this, but just as unable to stop listening. He thinks Grandmother Shami's tears were the tipping point – seeing her weep as she talked of the children she lost, of the cousins who left and never gave sign of life…
It was already hard enough, hearing her talk about what the elders had told her, things she had not lived, that made Aang want to cover his ears and run away, to go back to before he asked to know. But her voice was warm and soft, her face kind, always attentive to his need for her to pause and take a minute so he could start breathing again.
He could rely on her presence to ground him, same as Jet's hand on his back.
When the story stopped being things she heard, and started being things she lived, though… Her own grief was too much for Aang to carry as well.
He sobs in Jet's shoulder, cries at the enormity of what happened, at the realization that he might really be the last airbender, and not just the last one to remember the old world. He can see it now, the people of Kyoshi Island apologizing for their refusal to help any more, apologizing for their fear of being targeted in turn. The Southern Water Tribes suffering raid after raid, blaming the Air Nomads until they were gone and the raids still didn't stop. The danger of sheltering an airbender, the betrayals, the selling out for fear or for trade.
The flight for mountains and survivors the Fire Nation could not have ignored, but the hope –
If someone told Aang there was even just a slight, impossible chance that he isn't the only one in the world, he would follow that lead in a heartbeat. And anyone following the same stories would find him too. Easy as that.
He screams, hands gripping Jet's arms like a lifeline, warm and slightly wet under his fingernails.
Distantly, Aang hears a voice at the back of his mind saying that it's not such a bad thing he can't reach the Avatar State anymore.
He remembers Gyatso's body then, and feels the air tearing through his vocal cords more than he hears the broken sound coming out of his mouth.
The wet patches of cloth under his eyes are cold and uncomfortable. There's a gross mix of snot and saliva running from his chin onto Jet's chest. His nose is so clogged that he can't even breathe through it anymore.
He feels so, so tired. Empty – no, emptied out rather, all the pain and grief and tears having exited his body, along with the rest of his energy.
He just stays there, limp, his head against Jet's shoulder, painfully aware of how awkward this position is for the both of them, aware of how wet and gross his face is, of how sore his throat and his hands and the inside of his eyes are. The forearm protections of the uniform cling too tight to his skin.
Even Jet's hands rubbing his back comfortingly are too warm, too close, too much.
Aang leans back slowly, hands pressed flat against Jet's biceps to push himself upright. Raising an arm to wipe off the tears and snot from his face, Aang notices the red stains on his palms and at the tip of his fingers.
Sticky, half-dried blood, on his hands and on Jet's arms. Sorry, Aang says. Jet waves him off with a reassuring smile – this stuff happens – but… Aang wishes he could do something, heal Jet just like Katara can. Fix things.
He looks up at Grandmother Shami. He can't turn back time, he understands that now. Even after he beats the Fire Lord, the world won't ever go back to how it used to be – without Air Nomads, Sea Walkers won't be able to sail as far from the coast as they used to. Without their old Masters, waterbenders from the South will have to reinvent a new style, different from the old one for no other reason than because it just can't be the old style without the old ways still in living memory.
Aang can't fix things perfectly, no matter how much he wants to. But – he unties his headband, uses the cloth to press on the indents left by his nails in Jet's skin, to at least clean at little of the blood – that doesn't mean he can give up either.
He cannot promise a return to the days of spending life at sea without ever seeing earth. But he will do everything in his power to ensure that no one will be sent to war again, that no one will have to make the same kind of impossible choice between death and betrayal again.
He promises. Swears on his name, swears on his role of Avatar, swears on the memories he carries as the – as the last airbender.
And he – he knows it's dangerous for him to be here, for everyone living in this town. He won't, can't ask for shelter or help of anything of that sort. All he asks is trade. Money for food and clothing. And then he and Jet will leave, and no one will ever know.
Grandmother Shami shakes her head. Child, she calls him. While it is true that sheltering him here would be impossible, she shall not refuse help of any kind. Not to a cousin, not to one she is so indebted towards, not to the only hope they have in this world.
They will provide for him – food, clothing, anything he needs. Not as trade partners, but as Family.
It is the least they can do.