Chapter 23: Heart set Blind
Heart cracking,
Heart set,
Heart with future met,
But eyes shall stay blind ‘til you see them.
The morning light was a dim glow at the horizon, a shining disk that promised to unfurl as the day grew older. Beneath it, its streaks of gold and fire lit up the rows of craggy pinnacles ahead of them, the mountains slumbering giants to the sun’s wakening caress. Aang inhaled the clean, sweet scent of the air at this altitude and smiled softly at the way the sun stroked the leaves of the trees below. Even with all the ugliness he had seen, there was still so much beauty in this world. And even though there was something special in his connection with people through his role as the Avatar and his self as Aang, there was always something else about the natural beauty of earth that sung to him as an Air Nomad.
A muttered snore rent the peaceable silence, the sound brought a smile to Aang’s face. Casting one more glance at the beautiful sight around him - brilliantly clouded skies, growing sun, shadowed green mountains, he turned to regard his last human companion. A small twinge raked his heart at the thought. He knew it was stupid; Team Avatar would be together soon enough after everything quieted down. But still, he couldn’t help but sigh.
Then again, there was always a light to the shadow, a blessing to the loss. Toph’s quiet snores barely disturbed the pristine atmosphere around them as they soared high above the steepled tops and their low hanging trees. And as the Last Airbender, Aang could appreciate silence.
His gaze focused. His earthbending teacher was so small in the vast emptiness of that saddle. She lay curled up against the side, Momo wrapped around her shoulders and draping his warmth against her chest. Occasionally, his ears dangled a little too far and brushed her nose, and she gave a quiet snort of discontent and turned over a little. Aang smiled again. Well, perhaps he wasn’t so alone.
Perhaps it was enough.
Turning back, Aang settled his gaze once again on the soaring peaks ahead. It was funny, he thought, how all the Air Temples had always been built on mountains. Of course, it made sense; the high pinnacles of stone were only the means to the end of being surrounded by air, serenity and peace. And yet, now that he thought about it, it also seemed somehow ironic that airbenders made their home on the greatest natural triumph of their opposite element. Somehow strange that the monks striving for earthly detachment would find their enlightenment on top of the earth itself.
Huh. Aang could feel something niggling at the back of his mind, like an epiphany waiting to be discovered, but he shrugged it off and directed Appa ahead. It had been quite a travel, and he was tired. And if it was important, the Guru would likely bring it up, maybe in plainer language that he could understand. Just like he had...
“If you leave now, you won’t be able to get into the Avatar state at all!”
The remembered words rung like an echo in his mind. He winced, and before he could stop it, their sound triggered off a flood of images as well.
Azula’s lightning. The rock at his back. The times of certainty couple with the times of terror. A fully realised Avatar... and yet also an unbalanced one. In control. Not in control. Katara in chains...
Aang swallowed, feeling his skin prickle. Perhaps this hadn’t been a good idea after all. Almost unconsciously, his hands began to nudge at Appa’s reins, steering them back towards the City of Walls and Secrets.
And then there was a giant sneeze.
Out of shock, Aang’s hands jerked back straight. Appa groaned slightly in irritation and readjusted his flight. From the saddle, a string of muttered curses began.
“Alright, that’s enough you ball of fluff! Aargh, Twinkletoes, how can you stand this?”
Aang turned, consciously shoving away his darker thoughts to the back of his head. “Stand what, Sifu Toph?”
“Momo’s hair!” The lemur in question chittered innocently. “It... it tickles and it...” Toph growled, and shook a finger in the direction of a puffy cloud. “Just stay away from me next time, you hear?”
Aang watched with amusement as Momo cocked his head, as if considering her order. And then, with a happy chirrup, he leapt back to curl around her shoulders.
Toph howled in outrage. Aang laughed his head off. Momo purred as the earthbender’s grubby hands gradually stopped trying to beat him off and instead began grudgingly stroking him. A string of muttered curses lit the air once more, and Aang grinned, feeling more lighthearted than he had in days. “Oh, come off it Toph. We all know you love him.”
“Yeah?” the little earthbender grumbled. “He comes near my face when I’m sleeping again, and I’ll show him love.”
The scowl on her face was ruined by Momo sliding over the edge of her hair and patting down her fringe, and the sight of them set Aang off into a fit of chuckles again. Toph rudely shoved the lemur back up, contemplated her words a little, and then wrinkled her nose. “Solid ground would help too. How far away are we anyway, Twinkletoes? I kinda lost track of time while I was napping.”
Instantly, the Avatar sobered. Twisting back to the front, he saw with a start that the range that had seemed distant before had somehow grown bigger during his distraction.
Much bigger.
Aang swallowed. “Not that far,” he said weakly, trying to inject some cheerfulness in his voice. He knew that the long air journeys were always harder on his earthbending teacher. A renewed surge of gratefulness for her presence nestled in his chest, but it didn’t manage to dislodge the growing nervousness inside his stomach. “In fact, we should probably be there soon.”
“Great,” Toph yawned, turning back to cushion her head against her folded arms. “I’ll finally be able to see soon.” She paused. “Are you okay, Twinkles?”
The change was so abrupt that Aang nearly fell off his perch. Almost. As it was, he jerked around to face her impassive face again. But her blind eyes gave nothing away as he shook, and it was with a quelling breath that he tried to still himself.
“Just fine,” he said, a big fake smile perched on his face. He didn’t know to whose benefit it was, since Katara, Sokka and Zuko weren’t present. But it sure made him feel better, and since they weren’t on the ground, she couldn’t tell if he was lying anyway.
Toph crossed her arms, and he immediately disabused himself of that notion. “Suuuure, Twinkletoes,” she drawled. “Now seriously, tell me what’s up. I don’t want to have to beat it out of you.”
Aang swallowed, turned away again, and faced the mountains. They would be landing soon, if he didn’t change their course. He wondered what to say. If Sokka and Suki had been here, he knew he would have been able to bluff them. Zuko was a different matter, but he usually respected privacy. As for Katara - Aang’s chest constricted a little as he remembered all those times that her beautiful blue eyes had brightened with hope and she’d patted his shoulder. He swallowed. For someone who he loved, he sure had a hard time telling her his problems, sometimes.
Aang sighed. Well, none of them were with him now. Only Toph. Toph, who he’d never been able to bluff, and who wouldn’t hesitate to follow through on her threat if he tried to evade her.
What way was left but honesty? The decision, once made, surprised him with the peace it left in his wake. Toph wouldn’t judge. She wouldn’t look at him as if he’d just crushed all her hope in the world. She would bluntly assess the situation and tell him straight off whether he was wrong or right, or what he should do in her eyes.
That sort of solidity felt comforting, right now. Especially when he felt like the balance within him was veering out of control.
So he took a deep breath and told the truth.
Toph didn’t bat an eyelid as he spoke, his back to her and his eyes on the mountains as if they were his death sentence. He told her about his first visit. About opening the chakras. She listened silently as he told her of his blocks of fear, guilt, and illusions. And then, when he reached the part where it had been so easy to lie to Sokka, she didn’t flinch when he told the bare and unadulterated facts.
She listened soundlessly until the end. And it was only when he finished, and his head dropped with bleakness, that she replied.
“So basically, you’re telling me that you could have saved Ba Sing Se if you’d stayed? That you could have stopped this all long before the comet?”
Her tone was neutral, and that was what saved him. Instead of bursting out in defense, Aang lowered his head in his own shame. “It was... hard, Toph,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t even ready up until a few days ago. I... was it fair to ask me to let go of Katara?” his head suddenly raised again, and his gray eyes burned with stubbornness. “It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t! They.... they tried to take so much from me. Gyatso. My childhood. Everything. And then they ask me to save the world when I’m not ready, and try to take away the only person that meant something to me! The girl who brought me to life, who gave me hope again! It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t!”
So lost was he in his anger, in the helpless feeling of frustration welling up in his stomach, that he barely heard Toph speak. But when she did, it was with such a flat, odd tone that he immediately snapped to attention.
“The only person that meant something, huh?” Toph cocked her head, her voice no longer neutral. “Gee, Aang. Nothing’s ever fair.”
Aang. Instantly, he knew they were treading on different ground, and his anger at the world faded to caution. “Uh, Toph?”
He turned to meet her blank eyes, and for once, they chilled him. But even as he quailed, she softened, and he felt the difference like wind over the mountains. “Look, Twinkles. I know things have been rough for you, and now you’re scared and guilty about going back to this Guru. But come on, think about it. If he’s so enlightened, he’ll forgive you, right?”
The constriction in his chest loosened a little. “Yeah... I guess.”
“Plus, you’re coming back because you know he’ll be able to help you, right?”
An unwilling smile formed at the corner of his lips. “Right.”
“Then there’s no problem,” she shrugged and lay down again, her sightless eyes to the sky. “Wake me up when we get there.”
Aang stared at her. There was something different in the air between them now, something a little more distant, and he didn’t like it. If only he could put his finger on it, though...
Her last words hit him, and he turned just as Appa let out a moan of relief and sunk onto stone. Quickly, Aang scrambled to his feet and looked up at the temple in front of him. At its remembered sight, the guilt and fear sunk through him again, and he wavered.
“Toph?” he asked uncertainly.
Her body tensed. “What?”
Funnily enough, her voice was enough to bring him back to earth. Aang took a deep breath, and then sighed as he scanned the premises and saw a little brown figure, high up in the temple, sitting motionlessly in the lotus position.
“We’re here.”
8 8 8
“How much longer?”
Her voice was whipped away by wind and the crunch of basilisk claws in the grass, but since her arms were tightly linked around her companion’s shoulders as they rode, she was heard.
“At least five hours,” Mai replied, her voice clipped and her golden eyes straight ahead and scanning the horizon. “Try to relax. It’s going to be a long ride.”
Katara sighed, and tried to listen. Her arms and fingers felt like lead as she clung on for dear life, their passage blowing cold wind in her face. Around them, the Fire Nation landscape sped past as they went, the flowers and grass of the plains bled bright of colour by the night. Distantly, they could hear the rustle of prey and predator amongst the stems, but mostly everything was drowned out by the wind and the sound of the basilisk’s claws springing on the turf.
As Katara focused on the wideness of the plains, of the openness, she found herself beginning to relax. They’d made it out of the forest not that long ago, their passage suspiciously undisturbed. Katara had felt the rigidity of Mai’s body in front of her for every step they took on the forest paths, as if the noblewoman were just waiting for an ambush.
In truth, she had been too. But she’d been too weary, too tired to do much but try to keep her guard up. She sagged in the saddle, even as she tried not to lean too much on the girl in front of her and give her weakness away. But it was hard. Her body hadn’t yet had time to replenish itself or her blood, the surge of near-miraculous healing draining her of her last reserves. The twelve hour bout of unconsciousness hadn’t helped as much as it should have either. To top it all off, they had broken into the camp of their enemy and found Zuko’s scouts less than three hours after she’d woken.
So. She was absolutely exhausted. Katara closed her eyes and tried to keep herself steady, berating herself for having pushed so hard to reach the caves. It wasn’t as if one more night would have hurt them. As it was, it had taken every inch of adrenaline and strength to get in when it had ended up being a simple walk-in-and-free operation.
She hated to think what would have happened if the camp had actually been occupied.
Katara sighed, resolutely pushed the horrifying image away, and tried to mentally gauge the time. She hazarded a bleak guess that they’d been riding for less than an hour and groaned. By Mai’s calculations, it would take at least the rest of the night to ride back to the gleaming capitol of the Fire Nation. Five more hours to go, and she was already exhausted.
Katara closed her eyes briefly. La, she wasn’t sure if she could even make it that far. It was still taking strength to hold on - strength that was ebbing away much faster than she would have liked. Inwardly she cursed herself again for pushing herself so hard, but she was much too proud to ask Mai to stop.
For now, at least. Katara felt her muscles groan, and wondered which would give out first. Pride she had in abundance, she knew, but that also had to be matched up with her common sense. The sense which was whispering, ghostly in her ear and sounding suspiciously like Yue, that she’d be useless if she fell off the basilisk and broke her neck.
Katara blinked. That image was not appealing.
“Uh... Mai?” she crept closer, trying to crane her neck to reach the noblewoman’s ear even as she firmly and resolutely squashed down her pride. “Could we... rest?”
For a moment, she thought the other girl hadn’t heard her. But then Mai’s face swung to meet her own, and she saw the tightness in it melt to scrutiny.
And... and was that... guilt?
No. It was gone as quickly as it came, and so she must have imagined it. Mai’s features smoothed over into an impassive mask, and she jerked her head in a nod before turning back and pulling on the basilisk’s reins. Katara breathed a sigh of relief and forgot about the moment as she slid to the ground.
Mai followed soon after, her sharp gaze assessing. “We don’t need a fire,” she said abruptly, walking the basilisk over to a low-lying shrub and tethering him there. “It’s warm enough as is.”
“Yeah,” Katara nodded, moving wearily over. “Just our bedrolls will do. Here...”
“No,” the other girl spun around. “Go sit down. You look like death decided to bleed on you.”
Katara’s jaw dropped, but her body had other ideas as her legs collapsed beneath her. “Uh... thanks?”
Mai said nothing. Katara watched as she opened the bags with an almost detached viciousness, pulling out the two bedrolls from their separate packs and laying them in the grass. Katara crawled into hers gratefully as Mai turned back, going through their belongings with a single-minded determination as she began to hunt for sustenance. Soon enough, a pack of rations and a water bottle joined their rolls on the ground. And it was only then that Mai sat down across from her, her drawn face showing her own tiredness, and the two girls reached for the food together.
They ate in silence for a while, Katara taking slow, measured sips of water as her body readjusted once more. The quiet, slightly relaxed atmosphere spoke the volumes that both girls could not. In their shared acknowledgement of tiredness, they realised that they’d both been pushing themselves and each other too much. After all, both had tasted near death in the last few days, and yet they had fought, run, and rescued as if nothing had happened.
After everything, the adrenaline was beginning to wear off. Katara groaned as she felt the tiredness catch up to her, as everything crashed down like a tsunami. Even before her blood loss, she’d been pushed to the limits with her solo war. The exhaustion wrote itself across her face now as she settled down, and the other girl caught it.
“Are you all right?” Mai asked abruptly.
Katara’s eyes flew open in surprise, just in time to catch a mirrored look of shock on the noblewoman’s face. Hmm. Interesting. She smiled wearily to put the other girl at ease.
“I’ll live,” she said wryly, feeling the weight of her body pull down in her bones. “I mean, it’s not as if I haven’t been doing this the past week. Or the past year, for that matter,” she tilted her head and chuckled in faint realisation. “Then again, I must admit that it wasn’t often I fought one against twelve while I was with Aang.”
“One against twelve?” Mai’s eyebrow lifted. “That hardly seems like good odds.”
Katara chuckled dryly. “Oh, I know. Believe me, I know. And they just got better.”
The tone in the waterbender’s voice left little to the imagination. Mai thought first of twelve, then fifteen, then twenty... and her eyes narrowed even as her wavering instincts confirmed Katara was not lying.
So she said the only thing she could. “How?”
And whatever she’d been expecting, she hadn’t expected this. Katara’s smile froze on her face, and then it melted into a light frown as she bit her lip. Mai watched with interest as the transformation continued, as her eyes went dark and her hands twisted unconsciously in her lap.
“That’s right, you... you didn’t see it in the last battle,” she said, almost reflectively. “I didn’t even have time before they sprung the trap.”
Mai’s ears perked and she leaned forwards.
“And you haven’t seen it before. No one has except... except Sokka, Aang, and Zuko. But, you see...”
She took a deep, quelling breath. “I’m a waterbender.”
After the build-up, the statement seemed rather anti-climatic. Mai snorted. “Gee, I never would have guessed,” she said dryly.
Katara flushed. “No, that’s not what I meant. I...” she sighed and buried her face in her hands for a moment. When she looked up again, her blue eyes were luminescent. “I’m not explaining very well.”
“You’re telling me.”
Katara shot her an irritated look. Mai stared blandly right back at her, the question mark still hovering over her face. The waterbender looked away first with a sigh.
“Okay, uh, how about I describe it this way. Waterbenders bend water, right?”
Mai didn’t even deign that with a comment. Katara flushed again, and hurried on.
“We-ell... it’s like, water’s in lots of things. If you’re a strong enough waterbender, you can bend not just the water in the river, but also the water inside plants, or even the water inside air!”
Mai digested that, her face remaining neutral. The possibilities were interesting, certainly. More than she would have guessed. Still, she didn’t see how that could be relevant to fighting off a whole company of trained Firebending soldiers unless...
Unless...
Katara took a deep breath, and this time Mai took one unconsciously with her. “Or in my case, even the water inside blood. Bloodbending.”
Time seemed to shift in stasis. In front of her, Mai saw the truth in Katara’s expressive face, the conflict that still warred within her, but she did not try to analyse it. The turmoil on the waterbender’s features suggested that she had only recently come to terms with her frightening power, but Mai wasn’t interested in ideological debates. Instead, a question which had lurked in her mind for a while resurfaced.
When she spoke, it was calmly, and her golden eyes were blank. “So,” she asked, “Is that how you killed Azula?”
Katara flinched. “No!” she protested vehemently, before the memories swept over her, into her and through her. And then she sank down into herself. “Actually I guess it was,” she said quietly. “I - it was one of the moves I used to bring her down.”
Mai nodded and regarded the girl distantly, not quite sure what to say next. After all, how was she supposed to respond to that? To the anguish now bleeding out through Katara’s face? She checked through her Court repertoire - false sympathy, irritation, threat, fake amusement... none of them fit. She sifted through them again with growing annoyance, but found nothing.
Mai took a breath. She stilled herself, and then cast away the rules. And when the words came, they surprised her.
“I would have killed her. For Zuko.”
Her lips tasted dry. Her throat was parched. Katara’s head snapped up at the sound and she laughed shortly. “I did kill her,” the waterbender said. “For Zuko.”
Something in her voice made Mai’s mind catch. Unbidden, she felt her eyebrow raise as she remembered the little that Ty Lee had told her. “I thought she was about to kill you at the time?’
Katara paused. “That too,” she amended, resting her chin on her hands. The movement didn’t take her out of range of Mai’s arresting look, and the question mark in it was enough to stir up a vague memory in the waterbender’s mind. When it finally clicked, she sat up with a start.
“You... you’re his girlfriend, aren’t you?” Katara stammered. “The one Sokka told me about.”
The question was innocent, but suddenly Mai’s mood turned black and she swung away. “I wasn’t aware that Zuko dumping me was such common knowledge,” she said darkly, realising that that made no sense even as it came out of her mouth. But it didn’t seem to matter; the effect was pronounced enough. Katara’s eyes went huge and she quickly scrambled over to place a hand across the other girl’s fingers.
“Oh, I’m so sorry...”
Mai pushed Katara off without thinking. There was a half-second delay, and then the waterbender’s eyes clouded and the noblewoman felt like cursing. “Don’t be,” she said thickly. The words sounded lame to her own ears, and nowhere near enough to assuage to sting of her instinctual rejection. She bit her lip, annoyed at herself for even talking about Zuko, let alone feeling awkward in the aftermath of her actions. What was this? Feeling in prison and afterwards had been one thing, but this... ever since she had woken up properly from her near-drowning, things had seemed so sharp and clear in their confusion. It was as if the waterbender was magnetic, drawing feelings to her like rain. Feelings that Mai still wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Katara chewed her lip and looked down. “Still...” she faltered sadly, before looking up again with renewed determination. “If it makes you feel better, I think he really cares about you.”
Mai didn’t move, but somewhere inside her, something broke with irrevocable finality. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Although the rejection of a few moments ago was still fresh, Katara moved again, this time to just sit closer. “Hey, don’t think like that!” she chided Mai gently. There was a pause between her next sentence, as if she was unsure for a moment, and then she recovered and forged ahead once more. “If it is love, then I’m sure you two will find a way.”
Mai said nothing. Love. Love. She’d thought the same kind of things once, when she was a young girl with ribbons in her hair. And then again when she’d lain down in her bed for the first time in three years knowing that he was home. Hah. Love. That word had taken on far too many meanings for her when, so soon after, she’d woken up with a letter on her table. A letter.
Katara didn’t seem to notice her companion’s brewing thoughts. Her eyes were wide and only faintly tainted, and a small laugh suddenly bubbled up unbidden in her throat. “Besides, it’s Zuko we’re talking about,” she reminded herself drolly. “If he feels, then he feels.”
“That’s the problem,” Mai suddenly said, surprising herself. “It’s not about what he feels. It’s about what I feel. What I felt.”
Katara stared at her uncertainly. “But I thought... at the Boiling Rock... you love him.”
Mai remembered the heat, remembered the whirring of the gondolas and the dreadful noise of the saws. She remembered seeing him again, seeing the sorrow and stubbornness written on his face, seeing his eyes after he’d locked her in the cell, and then again when their gazes had bypassed steam and distance and air to meet. And Mai let a slow, knife-like curve lift her lips. “You know what they say about love.”
Katara looked at her blankly. She remembered many Water Tribe sayings; ones that spoke about love using the sweet warmth of light against the brutal reality of ice, and ones that talked about the flickers of flame that made life possible and worth living amongst the snow. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of any that would invite that kind of smile.
Mai saw her bewildered glance and the smile grew more bittersweet. “‘Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together’,” she shook her head. “I don’t know who said that. But it works for me.”
She raised her eyes to meet Katara’s limpid ones, saw the waterbender begin to open her mouth to comfort her, and cut her off. “Look, let’s just say that I’m glad we stopped,” she said abruptly. “I don’t want to go back to the capitol, not just yet.”
The words rung unspoken between them, and Katara nodded in understanding. The wound was still too fresh, too raw for her to be poking around there, and there was only so much healing she could do. And so she followed the other girl’s lead. “To be honest, I don’t either,” she admitted. “I mean, I left so suddenly. I’m worried that it’s not time to go back, or that going back will mean trouble, and yet I know that I also have to. That it’s time.”
The surprised recognition on Mai’s face was enough to tell Katara that she wasn’t the only one, and as she looked closer, the sudden sliver of vulnerability in Mai’s eyes that she saw made her brave. Unthinking, she reached out again, this time to put her hand on the Fire Nation girl’s shoulder. Mai started, but this time she did not push away, and Katara smiled.
They had a chequered, distant history. They had completely different backgrounds. They had the beginnings of a new and cautious friendship. “You know,” Katara said gently, “You’re not alone.”
Mai’s eyes widened fractionally, narrowed, and then relaxed. And what she said next surprised both of them.
“You know,” she said dryly, but Katara was beginning to understand that that was just how Mai spoke, “Neither are you.”
No more words had to be said. The two girls shared a look of implicit understanding, a far cry from the antagonists they’d been, and when the sun rose on their sleeping forms in the morning, both had a miniscule smile tracing their lips.
8 8 8
Climbing the temple was easy - it was a matter of leaping randomly upwards, searching desperately for a handhold when gravity tugged him down once again, and then gleefully surging upwards once more as he found his ground. Aang laughed out loud as he ascended, playing the ancient stone around him like a game as he hopped and skipped from one step to another. The distraction was welcome, so welcome, and for a moment he forgot exactly to whom he was headed, and who he was leaving behind to explore the rest of the Temple with Appa.
Still, the distraction was short lived. Soon he was standing on the same floor, his eyes inexorably drawn to the small brown figure still sitting in that lotus position. His presence looked and felt so ageless that for a moment, Aang was overwhelmed.
But he was Aang. Avatar Aang. The Avatar at twelve, and he had long ago learnt to carry his responsibilities on his shoulders.
Aang stepped forwards. It was one of the hardest steps he’d ever taken. And when he finished stepping, when his unwilling feet and unswaying will brought him closer, Pathik spoke.
“Congratulations, Avatar,” the old guru said, his eyes still closed. “I see you have completed the first step by defeating Fire Lord Ozai.”
His first instinct was to smile. He had to admit he was surprised - it was not the welcome he’d expected. Aang beamed, feeling his heart swell at the praise, but then the rest of the sentence bowled him over. “Wait, did you just say that defeating Ozai was the first step?”
“Of course,” the guru said amiably, like he was talking about the weather. “You have not restored balance yet.”
Aang’s jaw dropped. For at least half a minute, he stood there, staring incredulously at the meditator in front of him. And then he snapped, pitifully.
“You mean there’s more?”
The guru breathed calmly, inhaling once, and then exhaling gracefully. His eyes remained closed. “Of course. You didn’t think it could be as easy as that, did you?”
This time, Aang squeaked.
“Easy?”
Pathik laughed, so lightly and without malicious intent that even in his annoyance, Aang couldn’t feel angry. “Just kidding.”
Aang stopped stone still. Inside, he was dimly aware of an interesting mix of incredulous anger and bittersweet hurt churning inside him, and the combination was enough to make him sick. But then the Guru opened his eyes, and he looked into dark, serious chips of amber.
“But there is more, Avatar Aang,” he said, and his thin, reedy voice somehow sounded as deep and black as the mountains. “Much more.”
Aang blinked. As if that voice were magic, he was suddenly cast back into a memory - one he’d tried to forget, and the images that overwhelmed him were impossible.
Three old men sitting around a blocky table. One old woman with her hands clawing at the rain. Two young girls dancing through blasts of fire, the first sleek with water and the other sharp as steel. A mask of blackened flesh that crumbled away to reveal a scar. The earth shifting beneath feet to crush someone’s bones to powder. The marching of soldiers’ feet over soil and rock, inexorable and deadly. The smell of smoke and burning. Fire. Earth. Water. A child screaming. Someone laughing...
His frozen insides turned to water, and his stiff knees buckled. Aang stumbled forwards a little before catching himself, his voice caught in his throat. And when he finally managed to work his mouth around the block, he could only trust himself to say four words.
Four, pitiful words.
“Where do I start?”
Pathik’s eyes were as fathomless as the mountains. “Right here,” he said, gesturing to the ground next to him. “Sit, Aang, and we will begin your next lesson.”
