Avatar the Last Airbender - Book 4: Air (The Master of the Lion Turtles)

Chapter Seventeen: History of Ashes

AANG POV

Standing in the room with a charred ceiling and battered furniture, staring at his each of the bodies lying on the floor, Aang felt shame and anger bubble in his chest.

The room had been used to hold momentous from his trips with Katara and their friends - rugs and pelts had lined the floors and walls, vases and ornaments had rested on shelves and covered cabinets. 

Aang told himself it was all for future Avatars, to help them understand the world that he and his friends built after the 100 year war - but in reality, he loved spending time in this space, letting his eyes roam over the paintings and pottery, remembering the beautiful landscapes and people they had met on their journeys.

But now...

Tables flipped. Painting destroyed. Ceramics shattered. Figures dismembered and rugs annihilated. The anger rose further and further in his chest, forming a tight grip around his heart. Years of work, travel and memories. Gone. Up in smoke. Turned to ashes.   

Some Avatar he was. He couldn't even protect this microcosm of the world he was creating, never mind the actual thing. 

Toph slipped from his back and rested her feet on the floor, a small gasp escaping her lips. 

Aang stepped further into the room, his robe moving around him like a ghost. He needed to clear his mind, focus on what mattered most - his family. He couldn't relax, despite the quite. 

He directed his senses to the floor, honing in on each vibration he could feel. Nine bodies. 

Four of them had to be his friends. The ice wall was the obvious answer. He raised his hands and shifted his weight, pulling the ice so it became water and then flowed through the air towards him. 

The ice was rested against his neck before he even had time to drop the water. His eyes doubled in size and he slowly lowered his gaze to the figure beside him. He made eye contact with her and Katara let out a sigh of relief, lowering her ice. 

Aang couldn't control his actions. He threw his arms around her, the fear and pain from their arguments earlier melting away because she was here and she was okay. She wrapped her arms back around him and squeezed, forcing a shaky breath out of his lungs. He ran his hand up her back and through her hair, resting it on the back of her head and pulling it towards his face, connecting his lips to her forehead in a feather light kiss. Her shoulders relaxed and he felt her melt slightly into his chest. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, like a leaf in the wind, but she heard. The slight press of her lips into his chest was all the answer he needed. The dark tendrils of anger around his heart loosened as it swelled with his pure adoration for her. How could she ever think he felt differently? He made himself a silent promise to do everything in his power so she never felt that way again. 

The left wall 

He whirled his body round, pulling water from the floor, walls, ceiling and air, hanging the wave over the heads of the figures. 

"Aang," one of them whispered. Sokka had managed to heave a shivering and bleeding Zuko to his feet, carrying all of his weight himself. Zuko tried to open his good eye, only to tense up in pain. Aang couldn't believe the state of him - his hair was stuck to his face through a mix of blood and sweat, his cloak was missing and instead Sokka's parka covered his ripped robes, his good eye was now black and bruised and there was a rough red mark around his neck. 

Aang let the water seep back into the floor and walls. 

Nalo appeared from behind Aang, gripping the side and arm of a beaten but still standing Hakoda. Toph clicked her tongue, using the metal rods on her uniform to guy the remaining men in the room together, all of them groaning slightly.