#taangweek2020

The Air Nomads are incredibly fortunate to have their culture preserved in such a beautiful way. 

The world has a gaping, empty hole without their presence, an entire way of life wiped out save for one boy.  And so it is an immense blessing, however small it may be, to have the four Air Temples left completely intact.  Aang is hopeful that one day, when the war is behind them and there is peace and trust between the nations, their intricate beauty can be shared with the rest of the world once more.  Perhaps there will come a day when people can live here again and learn the ways of the Air Nomads.

Maybe that is too hopeful, but it is a comforting thought on long and lonely nights when the feeling of how alone he is in the world weighs heavy on Aang.  From the moment he was told of his Avatar status, he became an outcast amongst his peers; but at least then, he was still surrounded by the airbending monks who had raised and grown up with him.  

Now, lying on a cot in the horrendously empty Western Air Temple, where once the female Air Nomads were raised and trained, the weight of his place in the world as the last airbender again bears on him.  True, he has his friends who have literally gone to the ends of the Earth for him.  They can’t, however, make up for the stinging ache in his chest as he takes note of the ways the paint has chipped and faded, the stone has cracked, the moss has overtaken the darkest corners of each room.  And so he finds comfort in dreams of what the Temples could look like after the war, teeming with life once more, him passing down the Air Nomads’ traditions to new groups of people, ensuring they will not be forgotten.

He has never dared to voice these dreams. 

They are not the only secret he keeps from the others, either.  When they first arrived at the Western Air Temple, he excitedly showed his friends around; he showed them the rooms where the girls and the higher monks slept, the dining areas, the training arenas, the spiritual commons, explaining in detail what he could remember from his last visit.  

Yet there is one room--attached to the bedroom he claimed as his own by a small corridor, hidden behind a jutting wall that blends into the rest of the room to the passing eye--that he kept to himself.  It is on nights such as these, when he is particularly mourning the loss of his race, that he ventures inside this room and sits on the dirty floor.  There are faded paintings on each of the walls, depicting Avatar Yangchen’s childhood in the Air Temple.  Aang smiles as he imagines her running through the halls with the other Nomad children, laughing as he had in those simpler days before he was shackled with the responsibility of being the Avatar.  

“Thought you said you were giving us the full tour,” a voice sounds behind him, making him jump.  He whirls around to see the familiar figure of a blind earthbender standing behind him.  

“Toph!” he exclaims, standing and brushing the dirt off his pants.  “How did you get in here?  How did you find me?”

She scoffs at that.  “Uh, I walked through the door, same as you.” She lifts one foot off the ground and points at it.  “I can see this whole place, remember?” Her brazen tone, tinged with harsh humor as always, is enough to shake some of his burning longing and let slip a chuckle.  She looks at him with her pale, sightless eyes and he is reminded that though she is blind, Toph sees more than any of them could ever dream of.  

“Wanna tell me why you’re keeping this place a secret?”  He starts to interject, but she cuts him off.  “Don’t lie to me, Twinkletoes.”

Aang’s smile slips away and he takes back his seat upon the floor, sighing.  “I don’t know.  I guess, I just...wanted part of the Air Nomads to myself for just a while.  It’s like...like a connection to my family and friends.  And I felt like, if I shared it with you guys, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go by myself to feel close to them.  It’s hard to explain, I guess.” 

There is a beat of silence.  To his surprise, Toph sits next to him, crossing her legs, close enough that their knees almost touch.  He expects a rough joke, maybe even an awkward dismissal and change of subject.  Instead, she places a hand on her own knee, gingerly reaching out to rest the tips of her fingers against his.  “I get that,” she says quietly.

He blushes, unsure of how to react.  He has seen Toph express a wide range of emotions, even something close to vulnerability, but never this.  Looking at her hand, he isn't even sure what to call it; the way her fingers arch over the small gap between them, all reaching to touch him, makes it clear the gesture isn't an accident.  

"What's in here?" She asks him, breaking his train of thought.  He is reminded that the room is all but empty, and a hollow sorrow invades his lungs, forcing out the air and threatening to drown him.  He can remember so clearly how this room once was.  He had visited the Western Air Temple with the monks a few short months before he was told that he was the Avatar, before he ran away, before he was frozen in an iceberg for 100 years while his people were slaughtered.  

The paintings of Yangchen were vivid then, well kept, colors bright enough to reflect her youthful joy.  The room had not been empty then.  It had been a small library of sorts, one of the many dedications throughout the Temple to the previous Air Nomad Avatar.  What he now calls his bedroom had been the main library, filled to the ceiling with books on varying topics transcribed from around the world.  This room, however, had been home to scrolls and artifacts from Yangchen herself.  There were once cushions upon the floor surrounding a small table for the monks who maintained the library to complete their studies.  Nearly every inch of the room had either displays of what few earthly possessions Yangchen kept throughout her life or scrolls composed of letters to and from the Avatar, writings about her life and the impacts she had.

All of that is gone now, destroyed by the Fire Nation all those years ago.  

"This was a library for Avatar Yangchen," he says lamely, unsure how to release all the grief he has caged up inside of him.

"So, you come and sit in a completely empty room because it used to be a library dedicated to your past life?" She asks, less gentle than before, sounding more like the Toph he is used to.  

"No!  I mean, it's not completely empty."  He describes the beautiful, if decrepit, paintings they now sit before, trying his best to do them justice for the girl who otherwise wouldn’t know they are there.  He pauses and looks at her.

"They make me feel happy.  I don't know if I really remember Yangchen’s life or if it's just my own memories, but either way, they remind me of my childhood and what it was like to grow up with the monks.  These paintings, they're some of the only ones left in the world depicting Air Nomads that were actually made by Air Nomads."

"You come in here to feel connected to them when you really feel like you're alone," she says, more of a statement than a question.  Aang nods, sliding his hand across his leg until it just barely grazes her fingertips.  

"I mean, obviously I always carry it with me, but sometimes it just really hits me that I'm the last one.  It's my responsibility to carry on the traditions of my entire culture, and I don't know if I can do that.  That's a lot of pressure and it's not even taking account for all the other pressures I have."

Both of them are silent for a while.  Aang contemplates everything he's gotten off his chest just now.  He thought he would feel violated, in a way, if anyone ever found him in here, but in actuality, he feels like a lot of his grief has been freed.  He knows it is only temporary, that it will return sooner or later, but he is grateful.  He's shared a lot of his longing for his people with Katara and Sokka, but they never really got it the way he wanted them to: Sokka just didn't know how to relate, wasn't comfortable enough with his own feelings, and Katara always pitied him and felt like she needed to baby him.  

Toph, on the other hand, took it in stride.  She always lets him air his troubles and tries to share them.  He doesn't think he’s ever properly appreciated that about her until right now.  He looks at her hand, still touching him as slightly as she possibly could, and wonders what it would be like to hold it.  

She inclines her head towards him and asks, "So what does that mean?  How do you plan to carry on your traditions?”

“Well...I’d like to restore the Air Temples first, I guess, when all this is over.  Maybe I’ll find some followers who would listen to the history and ways of the monks, even help restore some of the scrolls and artwork.”  Aang finds himself blushing and bowing his head, embarrassed by the vulnerable thoughts he had never told anyone until now.  For a moment, he is afraid Toph will tease him, point out all the flaws in his ideas, scold him for dreaming of this when he is days away from fighting the Fire Lord.

Instead, he suddenly finds her hand on top of his, fingers squeezing gently.  He lifts his head in surprise to see her offering a small smile.