Fall of the White Lotus [Zutara/Taang]

49 | Family

Music: Painted World, Two Steps From Hell

                       After the crisp but sunny wedding day, the Fire Nation woke to a blood red sun appearing on the horizon, announcing the coming of rain in Royal Caldera City. And even before the palace began to stir to eventually discover that the Fire Lord and Fire Lady had escaped to Ember Island, another mythical flying creature lifted itself from the barren wasteland between the Fire Nation Royal Palace and the courtyard, off on a new journey of discovery for his two passengers.

It took Aang and Toph a few hours to reach the mountain range stretching across the northern mainland.

Sitting on Appa's head, Toph enjoyed the cold wind streaming past her face as she leaned against Aang's sinewy body. Although she had enjoyed living with Uncle for the past three years, a rush of excitement went through her at the thought that from now on, it would be her and Aang, and she didn't really care where they would eventually settle down - as long as she was with Aang and could do something to support the community. Stretching out her feet, she grinned in contentment, glad to be wearing her normal clothes again. Aang had been very much impressed with how she'd looked yesterday, and she was grateful to Katara and Suki for helping her find a dress, but the Blind Bandit could only endure so many choral dances. In her memory, however, lingered the feeling of Aang's body against hers during a particularly passionate Fire Nation dance, and she couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"We're almost there," Aang said softly above her head as Appa lowered altitude and Momo hopped from Aang to Toph's shoulders. His body had tensed and his heartbeat had sped up. He was bracing himself. But for what?

Half an hour later, they landed on a dusty square at the abandoned hill town. After a hundred years, it was a crumbled pile of stones and ruins of simple wooden houses overgrown with climbers and weeds. Once, the houses would have had thatched roofs, but after decades of decay only gaping holes were left where once the roofs had been.

Even after all this time, it was still clear the inhabitants had left in a hurry. Cooking pots were left on stoves, and bones of cattle in decayed corrals showed the inhabitants had had no choice but to leave their animals behind.

The Avatar and his girlfriend were the first to see it in more than a hundred years, as it could only be reached through the sky and none of the Fire Lords had cared to risk losing a precious war balloon to investigate the mysterious gale-force winds barricading the entrance to the insignificant little village. Until now, when the present Fire Lord had sent his friend the Avatar to take a look.

Silently, Aang and Toph picked their way through the abandoned village until they reached a gorge with numerous caverns, where they were welcomed by a whistling wind that had dislocated entire rock formations and barricaded the pathway down the mountain.

Toph stepped forward and removed a particularly large rock barring the entrance, when Aang unexpectedly held her back.

"Wait, Toph. Please. I just..."

The petite earthbender turned around, her feet now registering the surge of emotions that coursed through Aang as he took a step closer to the mountain pass. On his shoulder, Momo had grown quiet.

"Aang..." she began, softer than usual.

"It's an artificial air current, Toph," he then said in the strangest voice she'd ever heard him use. It sounded both choked and hopeful. "This wind is not created by the weather of the world." He swallowed and took her hand. "We...we have to be careful."

Together, they went into the gorge, stepping onto the rubble of the rock Toph had just crumbled. Through her "sight", she noticed how her boyfriend closed his eyes and took a stance and, in the next moment, cleared the entire pass from the gale-force winds flowing through it. A silence suddenly descended upon the pass and the village behind it - a silence it hadn't experienced for over a hundred years.