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“Tagah.”
The Air Nomad turned as soon as he heard his name and came face-to-face with the Avatar- the tall, gorgeous woman who had given him wings and taught him to fly. She did not feel the same feelings, but he’d always love her for what she had done for him.
He bowed. “Avatar Sonam. What can I do for you?”
“Come with me,” she requested, bowing in return. “I have a flight to undertake, and I wish for you to join me.”
Surprise and pleasure blossomed in Tagah’s chest. Sonam was solitary by nature; much like previous avatars, save her predecessor, she preferred the company of animals and spirits to man. As well, she was quite frequently too occupied leading her (their) people to waste any of her precious free time on others.
“It is my honor, Avatar,” Tagah said, letting some of his affection for her slip through into his voice and onto his face.
Sonam almost smiled, but there was something off in her gray eyes that Tagah couldn’t quite recognize. “Let us go, then.”
They climbed on top of Sonam’s bison, Dolma, and then they were off. The fresh mountain air was sharp and cold, but to the two Air Nomads it was comforting. It was liberating. The sky was their home.
A few hours passed like this, in peaceful quiet. Tagah remembered growing up on the ground, where there were so many people and so much noise; this place was entirely the opposite. It was serene, opposed to the ground’s chaos. For a man who’d grown up in chaos, this was everything he’d ever wanted. Especially since he cared for Sonam so (too) much.
Soon, though, the silence was shattered as their destination finally appeared in the distance.
“Mount Baihu,” Tagah realized as a different set of mountains gradually appeared. “What…why are we here?”
“You will see,” Sonam promised.
But she didn’t meet his inquiring gaze. And he knew then that something was wrong. She was not loquacious, but she always answered questions with the unerring patience of a teacher. For her to ignore his question- a question from her best pupil- meant that she was worried.
And whatever worried the Avatar, the greatest bender of them all and the protector of the world, should terrify him. But he trusted her. She wouldn’t lead him wrong.
*
Everything hurt. His mouth felt as dry as the Si Wong Desert. Tagah shifted and bit back a groan- his limbs felt as heavy as lead and as weak as a newborn bison calf. Cold stone lay under him and he wondered blearily if he’d gotten drunk and passed out in the streets of Jharana.
But something wasn’t right. This stone was far too rough to belong to belong to the city. It felt like mountain stone, coarse and unyielding, sharp and rough. And then Tagah realized he was falling.
Get up, get up, get up-
His eyes flew open.
*
They landed on the peak. In front of them loomed a cave, as large as a dragon and as dark as a sea-squid’s ink. Instinctively, a shudder ran down Tagah’s spine. He’d never really liked the underground, even before receiving his bending- it was so dark, so enclosed, a prison born from the earth. Becoming an Air Nomad had only made his fear worse. So had the conflict with the earth-wielders.
“Look into the cave. What do you see in the darkness?”
“I see a cage,” Tagah whispered.
“I see our future,” Sonam said, her voice thickening with grief. “I see death and destruction.”
Tagah blinked.
What?
“The Avatar cannot see the future,” he replied, but it came out sounding more like a question.
Sonam turned to face him. Wind began to whirl, scattering snow in every direction. Her gray eyes were stormy, and yet carried a steel-strong determination within. He knew immediately that whatever she’d decided to do, there was no turning back. She had chosen the path, and everyone else would just have to follow.
“I have had visions as of late,” she explained, her voice grim, “of a future where our people are wiped from existence. Hunted and slain like animals.”
“We can make sure that doesn’t happen. We can- we can fight, defend ourselves,” Tagah pleaded.
“Not against this,” the Avatar whispered. “Our culture will be gone. Our knowledge will be lost. Unless…”
She met his gaze and Tagah knew what was coming. He could feel it in his bones, in his breaking heart.
“No.” He backed away, towards Dolma. “No, Sonam, please.”
The bison, picking up on the tension, let out a nervous roar.
“I’m sorry,” Sonam said softly. “You’re the only person I can trust to preserve our culture.”
“This isn’t trust! This is-” Tagah’s voice broke. “This is murder!”
I loved you. I loved you, and you’re killing me. I would’ve followed you to hell and back, and you’re killing me.
“You won’t die,” Sonam promised. “You can’t. The future of the Air Nomads depends on you.”
He tried to step back, step closer to Dolma, but he found that he couldn’t. His feet were frozen to the ground. Sonam flicked her wrist and Tagah found himself standing in the entrance to the cave, still frozen in place.
“Sonam, please, there’s got to be another way,” he begged, falling tears freezing on his face.
“There isn’t,” Sonam said, a sad smile on her face and tears falling down her own face.
She stepped forward until she was so close to Tagah that he could’ve reached out and a ran a hand through her short hair.
“You are the greatest of us, Tagah. You will save our people. I know it.”
“Sonam…”
She leaned forward and kissed him. Tagah, against his will, melted into it. He’d wanted this for so long, this intimacy, this affection– but this was nowhere near what he’d expected or wanted it to be. This, this was…this was a good-bye. This was
“I believe in you, Tagah,” she whispered against his lips.
I believed in you too. I believed in you so much I followed you to my doom.
Then she pulled back, her eyes and tattoos starting to glow a brilliant white, and Tagah didn’t look away as his world began to fade. He wanted to remember her, the woman he’d loved.
The woman who had damned him to save their people.
*
Tagah saw an unconscious Nomad beside him, who looked barely in his twenties if that, and he grabbed the kid just as the rock beneath them shattered and gave way. Summoning all of his strength, and pushing past his exhaustion and foggy head, Tagah formed a ball of air beneath them, spiriting them away from the falling debris.
But then he looked up and saw there was an entire spirits-damned mountain just about to fall on them.
No.
He wasn’t going to die here. Neither was this kid. He refused. He had no idea of how long it had been since Sonam had- had locked him away, though judging by this kid’s tattoos it had been quite a while, and he refused to have survived this long just to die here.
And this kid still has a life worth living.
So he called to the air, and the air responded. His muscles burned from overexertion after such a long time of disuse, and exhaustion wracked him, but Tagah managed to summon enough air to hold the mountain up.
The kid began to stir, and Tagah hoped desperately that he would join in, otherwise this would prove to be a very futile exercise. Thankfully, upon seeing what Tagah was doing, the kid copied him, taking some of the weight off of Tagah.
Tagah nearly buckled as another wave of exhaustion hit him, but he kept strong, until an air bison with several people on it swooped in and rescued them, flying them out from under the mountain and towards safety. He gratefully let go of the air that had been keeping the mountain off of them, and all-but collapsed onto the bison’s saddle.
“I thought you were looking for a staff,” he vaguely heard a young man dressed like a water-bender address the young Air Nomad. “Who’s this guy?”
The kid turned around, his gray eyes seeming so much like Sonam’s.
“An air bender,” the kid said, awe in his voice.
Something about his tone wasn’t quite right- why was he so in awe over another airbender?- but Tagah didn’t have the strength to worry about it. His eyes rolled back into his head and darkness overcame him yet again.
At least he heard the breeze singing instead of the earth screaming. At least he could taste fresh air and not dirt and rock. He was grateful for that. It meant he was not dead and was not a prisoner.
It meant he wasn’t where the love of his life had betrayed him, trapped in a frozen coffin in an unmarked grave in a cemetery very few could reach.
*
He was first aware of voices. That, and softness beneath him. At first he thought he was home, back in Jharana, perhaps at the healer’s, and that everything had been but a horrible dream. But then he heard a voice he recognized…and not from Jharana.
“-the tattoos are ancient,” the kid he’d met at the mountain was saying.
He’s real.
“He smells good for an old guy,” a female voice remarked.
“Ew!” Several people said in unison.
“What? My senses tell me this guy is pretty attractive.”
“Toph!” Another woman scolded.
“Someone else confirm!”
“This is serious,” the other woman sighed.
“What does attractive even mean?” A male voice complained.
“Just give me a straight confirmation,” the first woman demanded. “Is he attractive?”
“He’s very attractive,” another male voice confirmed.
“Ew.”
“What?”
“It’s in the bone structure,” the second man deadpanned.
The realization than hit Tagah like an iron-tipped arrow. It was real. Sonam’s words, her locking him in ice, him waking up and saving the kid, the bison showing up and saving them, this weird discussion amongst his rescuers (about his attractiveness of all things, what in the spirits?) was real.
His heart lurched and he shot up, his breathing coming fast and his chest aching. He opened his eyes and he found himself laying (now sitting) in a tent with a group of young adults around him- two water-benders, the other Air Nomad, a fire-bender, and an-
“Earth-bender,” Tagah growled, panic shooting up his spine.
One of them was in here. He needed to act, before she attacked the others. He moved to air-bend at her, but the younger Air Nomad stopped him and placed a comforting hand on his arm.
“Woah, woah, woah! You’re okay, you’re safe,” he soothed.
“Yeesh,” the earth-bender muttered. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the mountain.”
So they’re friends. I guess they can’t all be murderous and egotistical. Hn. Either that, or she’s manipulated him. Let’s keep an eye on her and see which it is. I’m not losing another one of us to them…but I also don’t want to act irrationally, like they do.
“Where am I?” Tagah demanded. “Where’s Avatar Sonam?”
I don’t what I’m going to do i-when I see her, but I’m going to give her a piece of my mind. I loved her, I followed her to the ends of the skies, and she did this to me?
“I don’t know how to explain it, but you’ve been asleep a very long time,” the other Air Nomad explained. “I’m the Avatar now.”
Tagah could see it, now that he looked at the kid closer. He had Sonam’s eyes and despite his youth he carried himself like someone far older. Like someone who’d been burdened with a great power since they were born.
She’s gone. She’s gone. And this Avatar is also an Air Nomad, which means the cycle’s repeated at least once. It’s been a very long time indeed.
Tagah, processing the death of his betrayer/teacher/lover, stared blankly at the other people, his mind whirling faster than a tornado.
She’s gone. She’s gone and I’m still here, because she trapped me in an mountain for spirits-know-how-long.
“Well, Sonam may be long gone, but on the bright side, you woke up at the perfect time! Everyone will be amazed to see another air bender. Aang’s not the last one anymore!” The male water bender grinned, pulling the younger Air Nomad in for an awkward sideways hug.
That pulled Tagah out of his ruminations.
“What do you mean, last?” Tagah demanded, his heart beating wildly.
“I have had visions of late,” Sonam had said, that day, moments before the betrayal, “of a future where our people are wiped from existence. Hunted and slain like animals.”
Had she been right? Had she really foreseen the future? Had she truly predicted the end of their nation?
Was she right to lock me away so I could teach the last airbender? To turn me into a master of the air, waiting in the coldness for a student?
The younger Air Nomad- Avatar Aang-’s face fell. “The Air Nomads…they’ve been wiped out. There’s only me.”
Tagah knew what it was like to be alone. He’d been the only non-bender in his family, in his village, and it- it had been horrible. He’d felt like a ghost. Unseen, unwanted, unheard. Sonam had changed that, had given him a new life when she’d given him airbending.
Bad enough to be the only nonbender in a place full of them. But to be the last of an entire nation? Spirits above, that poor kid. Tagah could only guess on how bad that must’ve been. And to find another person that belonged to the same nation after all this time…gods.
“And now me,” Tagah replied, and Aang beamed at him.
Sonam betrayed me. She locked me away and sacrificed me like a cow-pig she’d hand-raised but still slaughtered. But I’m here now, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well be useful and help keep the culture alive. And help this poor kid while I’m at it. He needs it.