Chapter Text
FROM CHAPTER 2 (Abstention)
Aang had always been inquisitive. Curious. Gyatso had always said so, his eyes warm and his tone complimentary. The other elders… less so. Especially after they told him he was the Avatar. His questions slowed down lessons and prompted deviations, which admittedly was often Aang’s goal. He’d get bored and confused and he’d find something else interesting to think about and then he’d have a million questions about that.
Katara said she liked his questions during training, that it showed his thought process and allowed her to tailor her instruction. Toph hated them, but grumbled her way through answers, seeming to find answering them the quickest way to be done with them. Zuko tolerated the questions, though any hesitation tended to be more about his own uncertainty than any annoyance at Aang. Most days, at least.
So Aang was used to having a thousand questions in his head and he was even used to varying levels of trying to hold himself back.
But today Aang was literally made of questions, a thousand thoughts stitched together with only haphazard threads of self restraint and better sense.
There was another Avatar here. And she was alive and real and only a few years older than him. Every other Avatar he’d talked to had been old and dead and done with the job and they’d been filled with certainty and wisdom and absolution. Or they were statues.
But Korra? Korra was flesh and bone and doubt, her fingers ever fidgeting at her sides and her eyes refusing to rest anywhere long. And she was stuck in the job, right in the thick of it, just like he was.
For the first time in two years—really, Aang’s entire life, not that he’d known it—Aang was no longer singular.
Like him, Korra was an Avatar.
Like him, Korra could airbend.
Unlike him, though, she knew his future. And so, not only was Aang made of questions, he was made of questions he couldn’t ask.
Who taught you to airbend?
Do I help bring balance after the war?
Who taught you to airbend?
What happens to me? To my friends?
Are there any more airbenders?
How do you handle it? Can you handle it? Do you sometimes feel like you can’t?
Who taught you to airbend?
Please tell me someone taught you to airbend.
He asked none of them, like he knows he shouldn’t, and instead watched as Korra turned slowly in the giant, red-dripped room. Her eyes were wide, lips curving up just a little. “This room is…”
“Giant, yeah,” Aang agreed, remembering his first night after the comet, when he’d sat in the center of the bed, unable to fall back asleep after his first nightmare. He’d dreamed of fire and screams and woken to the color of blood and burns and killers.
How was he supposed to sleep like this when he was used to Sokka snoring quietly and Toph snoring loudly, or Katara constantly shifting in her sleep and Zuko sleeping still as the dead until the exact moment the sun crested the horizon, or Momo changing who he slept with randomly throughout the night and Appa grumbling in his deep breaths.
He was used to wind and rustling leaves and skittering animals and distant thunder and an open sky.
He was used to tiny rooms and hard beds and choruses of lemurs and a life that felt weightless like the wind.
He had really tried to get some sleep. Katara, Sokka, Suki, and Toph had been so excited for their private rooms and soft sheets. And Aang felt exhausted in body and spirit and mind, but there was too much space and way, way too much silence. Even with the luxurious bed and unlocked door and wide open window (against security recommendations), the room reminded him of his few stints in Fire Nation cells—on Zuko’s boat and in Pohai Stronghold.
And he couldn’t stop himself from thinking another question better left unasked: Why do I feel like this?
Mere hours ago he’d ended the hundred year war, the war that had begun with the slaughter of his people. He’d taken the first massive step to world peace and balance, making sure no one was ever harmed like the nomads ever again. He’d won. He’d won.
Why didn’t he feel victorious?
Why were his people still gone?
Korra collapsed in the bed with a loud flop and Aang hoped she didn’t notice him jump, pulled from his memories. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept in a bed this soft.”
Why have you never been to the palace? Is there a bad relationship with the current Fire Lord? Who’s the Fire Lord? How’s Zuko? Is he alive? Are my friends alive? “They don’t give the Avatar nice accommodations in the future?” he asked instead.
“I haven’t actually visited Caldera before. Apparently I need to if this is how they treat their guests.”
Aang liked Korra. She reminded him of Sokka in flashes, grinning easy and relaxing easier, even when the wary glint in his eyes never disappeared. “Well, this is the formal room set aside for the Avatar, so in theory you should be able to stay in this exact room. I sort of hope the mattress is replaced before then though.”
Korra sat up suddenly at that, brows furrowed, immediately on guard. Like Sokka would be. “Wait. Then why aren’t you staying here?”
“Oh, I, uh… I’m not used to such big rooms all to myself…” he admitted, trying not to use that tone that always made Sokka and Katara glance at each other in concern. “I asked Zuko if I could sleep in a different room and he said that technically any room I slept in became the official Avatar quarters so…” He shrugged, not really able to find any more words that wouldn’t give away too much about himself.
What do you already know about me that I don’t? What should I not even bother hiding?
“I’ll make sure someone comes to find you before my meeting ends tomorrow,” Aang told her, “and we’ll get started on spirit research right away.”
“Thanks. And, for what it’s worth…” Korra said, shuffling to the edge of the bed. “I really am sorry. I know that just because the war is over, that doesn’t necessarily mean things are calm for you right now. I don’t mean to be one more thing.”
Do you sometimes think you’d be a good Avatar if you didn’t have to worry about being The Avatar too?
“I like helping people,” he said honestly. If he wasn’t the Avatar, he’d be an air nomad, travelling the world and still trying to find ways to help. “And all of these meetings and paperwork and… politics that’s helping people too,” he reluctantly conceded, a reminder he had to give himself daily. “And in a big way, it just… It’s different. Besides, if we can’t trust our past lives, who can we?” he asked.
Do I mess everything up? Do I leave a mess for you like Roku left me?
Korra started to get that Katara-and-Sokka-are-reading-too-much-into-him-and-they’re-concerned look, so he shrugged and quickly added, “I promise I’ll get you back home. I’m sure the people who love you miss you.”
And then Korra’s expression shifted. A flicker of the lips, a twitch between the brows. “Thank you,” she told him. “I really appreciate that. I mean it.”
Aang nodded and bid her good night and wondered if that was how he looked when he didn’t want to talk about something.