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

Chapter Seven: A Distant Memory, A Distant Regret

AANG POV

Aang felt the heat before he saw the flames. He threw himself to the side and rolled, throwing a wall of rock between him and the others and the fire, leaving only the strange girl at its mercy. That strange girl that he couldn't help recognizing. He just felt so drawn to her...why?

His wall crumbled revealing the girl, who had thrown up a wall of her own. They all simply stood, staring at the miracle before them.  

Zuko. His hair loose around his face and hands bloody from climbing the rock. There was sweat dripping down his face and his clothes were smoking from the sheer power he had just released. His chest was heaving and his eyes bore into the girls. He had lost his sword and so simply pointed with a red hot finger. 

"You," he heaved, "You...didn't try to kill me?" Katara let out a mix between a laugh and a splutter. 

"Zuko!? She threw you off the cliff?!" Zuko shook his head.

"But she caught me." Aang turned back to this girl, her red bandanna blowing slightly in the wind. He spun his staff and stuck it into the ground. 

"I am Avatar Aang," he announced, "You will answer my questions or face the wrath of all Avatars past." She narrowed her eyes. 

"Avatar Aang now huh? You never used to like the title..." Aang flung out his hand, forming an ice knife to hold under her chin. 

"Shut up. Free them," he ordered, motioning to his friends. She sighed, but complied. Katara ran straight to his side, reading her water. Sokka helped Toph to her feet and slowly made his way over to Zuko. The girl flicked Aang's weapon.

"An airbender never attacks an unarmed opponent." Aang rolled his eyes, pushing it further into her neck.

"Don't lecture me on my own culture."

"Our culture." She reached up to her face covering, slowly, never breaking eye contact with Aang. She began to sing again.

"I feel at home when I'm around you,
And I'll gladly say again
I hope the encore lasts forever
Now there's time for us to spend."

When she sang the last words, her red scarf dropped to the floor and Aang felt a hundred distant memories flood into his brain, overloading ever sense he had. His ice pick turned to water and fell to the floor. He felt his knees give way and he fell forward. 

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Aang found himself sitting on the floor of the courtyard, his back to one of the columns.     

He focused his eyes on Sokka in front of him, holding water to his mouth. He could vaguely hear arguing. Everything slowly came back to his mind. He opened his mouth and only one word came to his mind.

"Nalo." Everything went quiet. Another face came into focus beside Sokka. Katara.

"What sweetie? Are you alright? Drink something." Aang shook his head.

"Not what, who. Where's Nalo?" he asked. Katara frowned and pulled Sokka aside. A girl stood a few feet away, pulling her hair back. She turned to face him and smiled. "How?" asked Aang. She opened her mouth to explain, Katara cut her off.

"So that's your name? Nalo? Mind telling us what on earth you're doing out here?" Nalo dropped her hair and sank down to the floor against the column. 

"I live here." she said simply. Katara started to argue but Aang shook his hand.

"Katara, everyone, this is Nalo. We...grew up together. Here. At the Eastern Air Temple." No one spoke for a while.

"You know what," started Sokka, pointing his boomerang at Aang, "this might as well happen." Zuko and Toph laughed. Nalo took that as a sign to shuffle closer to Aang and begin her story. 

"Aang and I lived here before he went to be trained in the Southern Temple. He was really my only friend considering my situation..."

"Your 'situation'?" asked Katara, sitting next to Aang and lacing her hand through his.

"Yes...first non-bender born to the Air Nomads since they migrated to the temples, thousands of years ago," explained Nalo. Sokka opened his mouth, no doubt to point out how just moments ago she had bended not one, but four elements, was promptly shut up by jab in the ribs from Toph. "I wasn't shunned as such - the Air Nomads have too much love for life to do that - I was just looked down on. It only got worse once Aang left."

"Why did you leave here?" asked Toph. 

"It's the ways of the Air Nomads. Boys are trained in the southern and northern temples, whilst girls the east and west. You're raised more communally, so homesickness would never be a problem  -"

"As every temple is everyone's home," finished Nalo. "Aang left to train to become a master. We communicated through letters, stories of his training and my continual failings at it. Once it was announced to us that he was the Avatar, his letters became filled with a loneliness that I recognized. So, when they announced you were coming back, I thought we could...work through it together. But you never came..."

"And the Fire Nation did," mused Zuko, looking around and fully taking in the damage done to the temple around them. 

"It was like a sea of black, red and gold. I just remember heat and sweat and cries. There was blood and fire and...people. Dead people. Evil people. We had no army. No defenses. We were unarmed and vulnerable. Once they figured out how to get to the temple, we didn't stand a chance against their machines. Master after master went down. Women, girls and babies. They didn't care who you were.
I hid. And I hate myself for it. I was a coward. And it didn't even matter in the end. They still found me. Backed me to the edge of the tallest tower. Ten grown, master fire benders backing a twelve year-old girl over a cliff. They had dragged a dying master with them. She begged them not to hurt me - said I couldn't even bend. The leader slit her throat, threw her off the ledge and gave me an ultimatum; hand over the Avatar's location or die as she had. In reality I only had one option. No one knew where Aang was. He lit his hand on fire and I just jumped. Right off of there," she pointed upwards to the middle tower, it's once gold paint faded with time, "and just hoped the impact killed me before they did." 

Aang felt a tear roll down his face. Then another. Another. He had never heard about the genocide of his people in this way. Someone who saw it. Who lived it. Who regretted it as much as he did. He did the only thing he could think of; he pulled his hand out of Katara's and flung his arms around Nalo. He sobbed into her shirt, apologizing over and over again. She snaked her arms around his and squeezed. It felt like the first and last hug Aang had ever had. It felt like the songs they used to sing as kids, and it felt like the first time he had managed to bend air. It left like the fruit pies and custard tarts from the temple kitchens. It left like summer and winter in one. It felt like the Avatar State and Iroh's tea. It felt like flying on Appa's back and everything good that was left in this world. 

It felt like a very distant memory. One of happiness and love. And the feeling of a distant and deep regret falling off their shoulders could be felt by every Air Bender that had and would ever live.