The following weeks are spent at sea. Sailing around the Earthkingdom half-islands to the south, with waterbenders, takes only two weeks, even with Appa's additional weight. Aang himself is also a veritable breath of fresh wind for when a lull sets in.
There is something to be said for being back on open waters. In the past years, I've only rarely gone on expeditions this far out to check on the Fire Nation's advance, admittedly usually after I did something that had a lot of people vaguely cross with me. Or I had enough of palace guard duty. Sometimes both. Now, with everything that's happened, the ocean plays a healing factor for me, and I imagine many others, if their faces are any indication. We've lost much.
Too much.
It's easy to push it down and aside. How do you even deal with-
Pakku is teaching both Aang and Katara, Sokka is practising some moves with the warriors on board. It's good. It gives everyone time to just enjoy life.
It also gives Team Avatar a chance to witness Pakku's and my training duels. Both of us show off a bit with that audience. Naturally, when Pakku begins to send large waves at me in short intervals, I go beneath the disturbances and disrupt his footing. Forced to join me beneath the surface, our training evolves into a large scale underwater torrent. Which is fun, but not much of a show unless you can sense what's going on. And that is a talent very, very few benders have.
We migrate back to the surface and make it a battle of sneak-attacks. Pakku nearly guts me with a subtly bended slash of his finger. I almost take his arm off with a hard yank from a tendril of water I bended behind his back.
It gets a little less dignified after that.
When we've both worn ourselves out, we slink back on board. Katara, Aang and Sokka look about to lose their eyes from the sheer astonishment on their faces.
"I didn't know you could do half those things!" Katara tells Pakku, who pulls his hair into a leather band. "And that stuff underwater, I-"
I close Aang's mouth for him. Sokka looks a little ill. He's probably realising what kind of monster his sister could become. So Katara can sense the bending of others. That marks her as full of potential.
"Don't attempt them on your own. Some of that's quite dangerous, Katara," Pakku cautions. She glares at me in response. I have no idea why she projects her feelings of inadequacy into anger at me. I wouldn't be adequate in her circumstances. She's doing well.
...
It's an exquisitely humid day when Sokka approaches me as I watch Katara take some more bending lessons very seriously. She's diligent about her progress, which is admirable, but I feel that by this point, only practise will make her improve the way she desires to.
And experience. Which in certain ways is one and the same problem.
Sokka seems to want to talk about something, but can't find the right words.
'What's on your mind?' I don't ask, and he looks caught out even without the question. So it might be a subject he knows is sensitive to both of us. As of now, only one matter comes to mind, and I won't be the one to move the conversation in that direction.
Sokka sits down beside me and remains silent.
This might be, for now, for the best. I raise a hand to squeeze his shoulder, what for, I don't know. His back rounds as he puts his face in his hands. Mine moves to the back of his neck, applying gentle pressure to the stiff muscles there.
We both ignore his wet gasps of breath.
My throat is sewn shut. My chest is numb.
There is nothing to say.
… sorry.
...
I'm on deck, enjoying the breeze and some booze, as well as the half-moon-shine when Aang comes up the hatch. His bald head glistens with sweat and he looks distraught.
"Nightmare?" I ask softly, and his shoulders draw up to his ears.
He turns to look at me lounging against the mast. "Yeah…"
"Want to talk about it?" I pat the ground next to me and he comes to sit, but stays silent. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I met Yue?"
He shakes his head, "No."
I don't know why I'm telling this to him and not Sokka. Maybe because it's my memory of her and he met her at a time when she was… different. "Alright, so I was ten years old and Pakku had just taught me how to bend water into steam. I was experimenting with colours at the time, and figured green mist had to look fun. I was right. I was also correct in my assumption that flooding a council member's house with the stuff had to be funny."
Aang laughs and the tightness around his eyes begins to fade away a little. In turn, around mine, it grows.
"Anyway, I was running from the warriors sent out to catch the culprit when I was almost cornered. They forgot I was a bender though, and left me the canal open as an escape. I took the chance, but a boat was in my path," Aang's eyes widen, "Yeah. I landed Yue and her escort in the canal. Because I fished them out, Pakku caught me. She hated me ever since."
Aang laughs a little. Then, we sit in silence. I look to the horizon for… comfort? One, thin, almost indistinguishable line where the glittering ocean meets the starry sky. This hasn't changed. There will always be the edge of the world to chase.
"I was in the Avatar state. But I was outside my body watching myself. It was scary, I was scary," he divulges and hunches his shoulders. Ah. Well, this is the great and terrible burden of the Avatar. He is the most powerful being we know of in this world, and he, as a twelve-year-old boy, is beginning to learn that. He realises that thirty benders could barely accomplish what he would do in the Avatar State. That's a scary thing. I can only hope that Aang, as he is, will never quite loose that fear. If he did, it would be a terrifying thing indeed.
"Aang… being the Avatar comes with many gifts and many burdens," I try to say this as best, as gently as I can. We're all human and he's a child with too much on his slim shoulders to carry entirely on his own. "But that's true for any bender. Sure, water can heal, fire can warm, earth can provide shelter and air can allow you to fly. And yet, they're all incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Aang, I believe your hands are definitely not the wrong ones."
He looks at me with wide eyes. "How can you say that? You were there, weren't you? You saw me!"
I can feel my face harden. "I did. I also killed Admiral Zhao just minutes before."
He flinches back. Yes, little Avatar, you're only human, just like me.
"See, Aang, you're not the scariest one here," I add softly. Yue seemed to know some of that all along, even as she treated me with less caution and more familiarity. There has always been a grown man inside this body, and it makes for a strange combination of impatience, disregard and autonomy. I have pushing grief and empathy down to an artform.
We sit a while longer in silence then, before he goes back below deck. I spend the rest of the night wondering if it hadn't been better to take Zhao prisoner. But I was in no condition to do so and Iroh would've had to help his fellow Fire Nation soldier out. Maybe. I can't be sure.
Iroh's priority is, and will always be Zuko. So, had he figured it would be better to keep Zhao alive and with them, I'd have undoubtedly died or been taken prisoner myself.
(That doesn't make the killing alright, though.)
I bare my teeth in silent laughter.
What a mess.
...
Don't forget to throw some power stones :)
...
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