Chapter Text
Aang sat on the edge of a cliff.
His legs dangled limply over the precipice.
The sea breeze gently tousled the red robes draped over his shoulders, the bandages still wrapped around his body, and the short, still-unfamiliar crop of chestnut hair.
Bright flags of his failure.
They had stopped on some island in the Fire Nation. Far from villages, tiny settlements, and paths winding through the lively tropical forests, on some high ground, out of sight of human eyeyes.
In other words, they were hiding. Concealing their identities. Keeping secret the one thing the whole world ought to know – the Avatar was alive.
Instead, the world believed the Avatar was dead. Killed. By the princess of the Fire Nation.
And that said more than any words could have about what people should expect next.
Aang had failed everyone. Again.
And every time the weight of that inescapable conclusion settled upon him, his eyes stung treacherously and his breathing grew uneven. His own helplessness and uselessness made him want to howl and tear out the newly grown hair from his head. To rip out, along with it, the knowledge of his failure.
But he couldn't.
Those thoughts had sunk deep inside him, scratching and clinging like prickly burrs. They stalked him like a predator stalking its prey. Lurked at the edge of his consciousness, reminding him of themselves in everything he saw and heard.
The lands of the Fire Nation where they were hiding. The plants and animals found only in this hot, humid climate. The people dressed in red.
Everything was a reminder of who he had lost to.
Appa. His sky bison, his companion, his best friend, who had been frozen alongside him for a century in the biting cold of an iceberg. Momo. A winged lemur who had spent years alone among the bones and ruins of an exterminated people.
They told him, without words, how much had changed during the time he had been gone. They reminded him of those he had betrayed and lost because he had been unable to overcome his childish selfishness and had run away a hundred years ago.
And because of that, the three of them – including Aang – were now the last of their kind.
Sokka and Katara. Teenagers whose young shoulders had been burdened with responsibility for the entire Southern Water Tribe, full of elders and children, because the adults had been forced to sail away and fight.
Toph. Not even a teenager, who had never known a nomadic life before, yet whom he had dragged along with him after selfishly insisting that she, of all people, should become his earthbending teacher.
Those three had become his family.
And his soldiers.
With smooth skin that had yet to grow rough, even after half a year of traveling.
With a determined gleam in their young, wide eyes that had not gone out despite countless battles fought simply to stay alive.
With hope for a better future in their brave hearts, still uncrushed after so many failures.
This was their life now because Aang, still selfish, could not let them go.
And, like a double-edged blade, they forced him to think about what could have been if he had been smarter, about what he had allowed to happen by being trapped inside a block of ice for a century. They had grown up like this because of him. Worse still, they were right in the middle of it.
And then there was Katara.
The girl whose face he had seen in this new, unfamiliar, terrifying light. The only waterbender at the South Pole, the one who had brought him back to life. If it hadn't been for her, he would have died.
And the world would have lost its chance at salvation from the bloody slaughter that had begun with the Air Nomads and continued to this day.
The world would have lost the Avatar, the master of all four elements, the one who could rightfully defeat Ozai without starting even more brutal battles.
The world would have truly lost its hope.
And so, after Ba Sing Se, after Azula and her lightning, whenever Aang looked at his friends, he saw nothing but a cruel reminder of his monumental failure. Of his shame. Of his guilt.
That was why, whenever he had the chance, he ran away.
Not far. Just somewhere he could sit in silence and solitude. Whether intentionally or not, it was always somewhere high up.
Like now.
His storm-gray, exhausted eyes bored into the abyss beneath him.
Far below, the deep blue ocean gently embraced the jagged rocks with its waves. Warm yet fresh, faintly salty, the breeze playfully wound its way between the rocky peaks, whistling as though beckoning him closer.
And it called to him.
So strongly. Strong enough to make his pulse hammer wildly in his ears, his fingers tremble violently, and a sharp pain stab through his chest.
Every time, he felt an irresistible temptation.
Just take one step.
And cast off from his weak, unseasoned, inadequate-for-the-task shoulders the responsibility of global proportions that dragged him down, down, and further down every single day.
Cast off the guilt and shame that had wrapped themselves around his very essence in a dense, coal-black web, binding him hand and foot, filling his mouth with bitter soot, clouding his eyes, tickling his nose with the smell of smoke, and seeping into his lungs until he could no longer breathe deeply.
Cast off the grief for everyone he had lost, which had stretched behind him like cold from the moment he had emerged from the iceberg, brushing his heels and crawling up his body like frost, wrapping him in layer upon layer of unending sorrow.
A spasm tightened his throat.
Take one step, and surrender himself to the mercy of the elements. To the wind that was his birthright, promising not to catch him. To the gentle water, promising to shelter him and carry him away. To the steadfast earth, promising to bury him.
Take one step, and let the abyss open its tender arms and drag him far, far away, wrap him in loving, cotton-soft darkness, and hide him deep, deep away from everyone and everything.
Take one step, and everything would be all right.
His eyes stung.
He swallowed the lump in his throat, dry as ash.
His fingers clenched around a sparse tuft of green grass that had stubbornly pushed its way through the cracked soil and stone. A light breeze curled around him, and he breathed in the humid air. The setting sun illuminated him, surrounding his hunched silhouette with a crimson rim, like flames that promised nothing.
Take one step.
And let everyone down one last time.
Aang shuddered.
The thought was like a bolt of lightning, shooting through his exposed nerves with searing pain and jolting him back to his senses.
Unfortunately, he couldn't allow himself to take that step.
But he wanted to. So badly. Dizzingly badly, until black spots danced before his eyes, until there was a heaviness at the back of his head, until an insistent itch seemed to throb throughout his entire body. He wanted to.
But then Katara appeared before his eyes. Sokka. Toph. Children of war.
A war that he had allowed to happen.
A war the Fire Nation would win, and the world would come to an end if Aang let his desire overpower his duty.
Responsibility rested on his shoulders, whether he had asked for it or not.
And what he wanted didn't matter.
Clenching his fists, Aang rose unsteadily to his feet, accidentally tearing out a few clumps of grass.
He brushed the green blades from his hands and sharply turned away from the mournfully beckoning abyss.
He looked toward the place where their camp lay hidden behind a multitude of bushes, boulders, and short trees, put together by his friends while he had been shirking his duties here.
In his stormy eyes, exhaustion gave way to the stillness of determination.
They were here because of him.
And because of him, after everything, they would return home.
He had to.