FALLEN ANGEL

SOFIMAC16

THE Air Temple was a place that he had always called his home, for more than one reason, and as Aang stood there looking at it he felt all of the memories flooding back to him. As Katara, Zuko, Sokka, Toph and Suki were walking around and looking at once was an amazing place his memories over took everything. These weren’t the memories that he would share with his friends, they were ones that were special to him and were kept locked away until the others were asleep or they had gone back to their respective places all over again. As Appa flew across Sokka’s head, hitting it with his foot, and then flying back up into the sky, Aang sat as if he was meditating and looked out at his friends.

They had been through a lot together and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to share these memories with them, it was just he didn’t think that they were relevant to what they had shared over the past three years. With the Fire Lord and Azula safely locked away, Zuko had taken his rightful place as the Fire Lord and had done the one thing that his father had never strived to do in his life, he had created peace. While it had taken a while for the other nations to begin to trust the Fire nation once again, the first layer had been paved and with Zuko being the one starting all of the talks in a civil manor, things had started to get back to the way they had been when Aang was young.

Toph had gone back to see her parents and had managed to make them understand that she wasn’t as defenceless as what they believed her to be, or at least she had also started to pave a new path. Suki had gone back to her village where she had started to spread the word of what Zuko wanted to do and it was with her help that Zuko made the first contact with the Earth nation. Sokka and Katara returned to their tribe where they were greeted by Gran-Gran and to their surprise their father. Katara told Aang later that she was sure that she had never seen so much pride in their father’s eyes as what they saw when they had arrived home. Sokka and Katara had also worked on trying to create a bridge between the Fire Nation and the Water Nation. It didn’t take long for people in the Southern Water Tribe to see that what Zuko said was true, for Sokka to agree with him was proof enough for them as he had been dead set against the Fire Nation when he had left.

Aang had travelled around for a little while, helping to build bridges when he was needed and visiting his friends as he went; but eventually he went back to the place that he had once called home and it was here that he had been for the past year – trying to restore the Temple back to its former glory. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the help that he needed, people from all over the world were offering to help rebuild the Temple and when Aang needed the help he asked for it. But a lot of the rebuilding Aang had done on his own with his bending abilities. So now with things almost complete, Aang had invited his friends up to the Temple to see what he had done.

Katara was over looking at some of the carving that Aang had managed to find and restore, Toph was having fun rebuilding a wall that had been caved in and making it look as it had over a hundred years ago, Suki was catching berries that Momo was throwing down from a tree – regardless of whether they were edible to humans or not and Sokka was trying to explain an air bending game to Zuko. There seemed to be something for them all to do, except for Aang who was feeling content just watching his friends as they looked at his newly renovated home.

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there just watching his friends, but it was the sound of someone sitting down next to him that brought Aang out of his thoughts. He turned his attention to Katara who was sitting down next to him and looking out at the others who were all doing their own thing. Over the past three year Katara had grown into a beautiful young woman and while many men would agree they wouldn’t voice their opinions out loud when Lord Zuko was near in fear that they would soon find themselves roasted and hanging off some tree. It hadn’t taken a fool to see that the young Fire Lord had feelings for the Water Bender and the moment that Aang had realised that Katara returned those feelings he knew that there wouldn’t be a change in this world that he was going to be able to get her to notice him. After all while Aang was the Avatar, Zuko had more experience in duelling.

As Aang turned his attention back out to the group that were in front of him he realised that they had all grouped up in some way or form. Zuko and Katara, Sokka and Suki and Toph had found a young Earth Bending about her age that she had finally agreed to liking. All in all everyone had someone.

‘You’ve done a great job,’ Katara said and Aang turned his head to look at her. ‘The Temple looks better now than it did the first time we visited.’ All Aang did was nod. ‘I wanted to ask you something though. Over there, there are some carvings that I really don’t understand. I know that they have something to do with an Avatar but I just don’t know which one.’

‘What carvings?’ Aang asked.

‘They are over there,’ Katara said pointing past Suki and before Toph. Aang got to his feet and walked over to the wall, Katara not far behind. As he walked over, Aang tried to remember whether he had gotten any of the carvings on this wall fixed. He couldn’t remember anyone doing anything about those carvings; in fact he didn’t think that there were any carvings over here. When he got to the wall he had a look. There were carvings there and as he looked at them he got this weird sense of déjà vu.

‘If they are from a past Avatar then they must of been and air bender, why else would they be carved in the walls of an Air Temple?’ Sokka suggested.

Aang started to agree with him until he started to study the carvings. As Aang looked at them, the memories that he had been keeping to himself started to flow through his mind and he didn’t even hear a word that the others had been saying. It wasn’t until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he was brought out of his memories. He looked at the hand and then followed the arm up to Zuko who had been watching the Avatar carefully. For a couple of minutes Aang said nothing until the others started to talk again.

‘They look pretty old,’ Suki said as Zuko took his hand off Aang’s shoulder.

‘They look old because they are,’ Toph said. ‘I can feel it. The stone is just over a hundred years old.’

‘Just over?’ Katara said and looked at Aang.

Aang, while listening to the conversation that had been happening behind him, had reached out and touched the wall. It wasn’t any particular carving that he had reached out for as it seemed to the others, it had been a particular carving. It was of a young woman who was holding playing with a baby. She was doing some sort of bending and to anyone that had been looking at the carving they would have guessed that she was bending either air or water.

‘What do you think Aang?’ Katara asked, waiting for the Air Bender to turn and look at them.

‘Think of what?’ Aang asked, not turning at all.

‘How old do you think the carvings are? I think they came from the air bender before you personally,’ Sokka said.

‘Yeah. Maybe,’ Aang said as he ran his hand over the carving he had been touching. When he came to the bottom of the carving Aang turned and looked at his friends.

‘Appas been gone for a while. I’m gonna go and see if I can find him,’ and without waiting for a reply from any of the others standing in front of him, Aang walked off. As Aang grabbed his staff the others looked at the carvings. Zuko on the other hand watched as the Avatar took off in the air.

‘Toph, how old do you think the carvings are?’ Zuko asked and the Earth Bender turned and stood looking at the Fire Lord.

‘Like I said, the wall it’s self is properly just over a hundred years old.’

‘When you say just over what do you mean?’ Zuko asked.

‘It’s about a hundred and twenty years old at its maximum,’ Toph explained.

‘A hundred and twenty?’ Sokka asked.

‘That’s when I guess the first layer of stone was laid. I’d properly guess that the whole wall was built in about five years. The first carvings I’m guessing started after that when the Air Bender was born.’

‘Wait a second,’ Sokka said. ‘Are you saying that this Air Bender in the carvings is Aang?’

‘It’s a guess, Sokka,’ Katara said. ‘Toph did say she was only guessing, right?’

Toph nodded and turned to look at the Fire Lord who had been silent throughout the discussion. Zuko was looking towards the sky where they could see Aang gliding around. It was obvious that the Avatar wasn’t looking for Appa as he had said he was. Zuko knew that the bison knew the area better then what Aang did which meant that Aang knew who the carvings were of and he just didn’t want to talk about it just yet. The Fire Lord was taking a wild guess but he had a feeling that what Sokka had said was right and that the carvings were of the fifteen year old that was currently gliding around the sky. Turning around, Zuko walked over and looked at the carving that Aang had touched. Whoever the woman was she had once been someone that Aang had cared for very much

IT was late that night when Aang walked back into the Temple. Momo was perched happily on his shoulder and with one final look at Appa who was sleeping happily in his shelter; Aang closed the door with a flick of his hand and a whirl of wind. The torches had been burning for a couple of hours and Aang was sure that the others were happy that Zuko had been the one to light them. While it was amusing to watch Sokka try and light a fire after about two hours it got annoying and Aang had wished on several occasions that he had been born a fire bender first instead of an air bender. Sure he could easily put the fire out but starting it was another thing all together.

As he walked through the lighted hallways of the Temple to the main area where he was sure that his friends would be, Aang looked down the hallway where the Sanctuary was. The doors were open wide like they had been for the past year that he had been at the Temple. He felt at peace while walking through the statues of his previous lives. He was among people that understood what growing up as the Avatar had been like and what keeping the peace between the nations was like. It was the thought that the many before him had been able to do it that made Aang know that he was going to be able to bring peace back to the world like it had been when he was a young boy. Walking through the statues Aang came to Roku and looked up at the Avatar before him.

It had once seemed weird looking at the people he had been before but he now felt like he was at peace with the thought; after all it was with their help he had managed to tame the Avatar State that lead to him binding Zuko’s father’s bending abilities. Now looking at the previous Avatar Aang was struck with one question he wanted to ask the man now that he hadn’t talked to him in so long.

‘Did you ever find a wall that told your history? One that held all the memories that you held so close and precious that you didn’t feel that you could share them with anyone because you didn’t know if they would be able to understand?’ Aang asked and then looked around the room. ‘Did any of you find a wall like the one I found today?’

The sound of his voice echoed for a couple of minutes and once Aang could no longer hear the sound he sat down on the stone floor. It was the first time that he had come in here and not found the answers that he was looking for. He couldn’t understand why the wall was affecting him in such away. He didn’t know why he had never actually found the wall in the first place. The only thing that Aang could think of was that it was something that he wasn’t supposed to know about until he was older, just like with him finding out that he was the Avatar. He felt this tightening in his chest and as he turned his hands into fists he looked up at Roku once more.

‘Did you ever find a wall that held memories of you and your mother?’ Aang whispered as he felt a sensation that he only felt when he had been little and about to cry. As a tear fell down his cheek, Aang got to his feet and grabbed his staff that was lying beside him. He walked out of the sanctuary, right past Toph who had been just about to walk into the hallway and out into the courtyard. Feeling out for the Air Bender, Toph made sure to keep where he was in the back of her mind as she went off to find the others.

She might not be able to see him, but Toph knew that the Avatar was upset and when the Avatar was upset it usually wasn’t a good thing.

Aang stood looking out at the deserted courtyard. It was the one place in the gardens that he had yet been unable to get to; he had been hoping that his friends would help him with fixing it up while these were here. Placing his staff on the ground Aang looked around the courtyard before raising his hands. Slowly the stone paving underneath his feet began to shake and realign its self so it was flat and you weren’t worried about tripping over. Then all of the grass and moss that had been growing in between the stone began to sink back into the ground and the vines that had been starting to overtake parts of the stone work flew back up in the trees. Bit by bit, Aang started to pull the courtyard back into line and start to transform the over grown garden into a beautifully planned area.

Just as it had been when he was younger.

All of the frustration that Aang had been feeling over the past couple of hours began to flow out of him as he bended the garden back into its former glory. He was so focused that he didn’t even hear the footsteps of his friends. They watched as the Avatar started to move a bit more and get completely engrossed in the bending of the garden. But it wasn’t just that that they were watching. The arrows that the Avatar had on his body were glowing on and off. It was kind of like watching the coals of a fire as they tried to stay alight. It seemed that Aang had reached a point where he could either go into the Avatar state and use his complete power or he could just bend normally. It was really up to Aang what he wanted to do. As they watched Zuko voiced the one thing that they were all thinking.

‘What will happen if he goes into the Avatar state if he is as upset as what Toph sat he was?’

Behind him he heard the sound of Katara as she called out to him. Slowly Aang started to slow down his bending until he was standing there just looking at the work he had done. The tight feeling that he had in his chest was still there, it seemed that no amount of bending was going to make the feeling go away. As he heard the sound of his friends walking towards him, Aang knelt down and picked up the staff that was lying on the ground next to him. As his hand wrapped around the wood, he saw the feet of his friends and then lowly began to get back to his full height.

‘Aang what’s wrong?’ Katara asked as the Air Bender looked out at the courtyard, not even facing them. ‘Has this got something to do with the wall?’

For a couple of minutes Aang said nothing, nor did he do nothing. Then all of a sudden he turned and started to walk back towards the Temple. They watched as he walked away and then he suddenly stopped. He did nothing for what seemed like an eternity and then he turned to look at them. ‘This has got everything to do with the wall,’ Aang replied and then walked off.

A couple of minutes later the group caught up with Aang at the wall they had found earlier. He was just standing there looking at it, as if he was waiting for it to start talking to him. His hands were hanging either side of him and as he looked he knew that his friends were waiting for him to start talking.

‘You were right Toph,’ Aang said. ‘You were right about the age of the wall.’

‘How do you know?’ Suki asked.

‘Because I can remember everything that happened here,’ Aang explained. There was silence until Sokka spoke.

‘Were you, you when all this happened or were you a different Avatar?’

‘I was me,’ Aang said and then reached out to touch the carving of the woman in front of him. It was a different carving that he touched this time, this time the woman was standing and watching as a child practised their bending. ‘And this was my mother.’

‘Your mother?’ Katara asked and Aang nodded. ‘You’ve never mentioned her before.’

‘My memories of her are mine and mine alone,’ Aang explained.

‘So you don’t want to talk about it then?’ Suki asked. Aang was quiet for a few minutes and then he started to speak.

‘My mother was an Air bender. She had learnt how to bend in this very Temple, she left here when she was sixteen after mastering Air bending and then decided that she wanted to see the world. She would tell me stories of what adventures she would have and the people that she would meet. The other Masters frowned upon it but they never had the heart to tell her that the stories that I was being told should not be told to a toddler or even an eight year old,’ Aang explained as he turned and sat down on the ground, the others following in his example.

‘She met my father on her travels and they travelled around together. I believe that she wrote to her own Master telling him of my father. I found the letter after she had died and was told a simple story of why he did not approve of him. From what I could remember he was very nice when he was younger, but as their relationship developed his jealousy and violent steaks became apparent. It wasn’t until my mother saw him do something to another person with her own eyes that she believed what she had been told by the others and left him. She later found out that she was with child and she returned here where she felt safe and want to bring me up.

‘I was born here at the temple. I have no idea in which room, but I do remember the room where we slept when I was younger. It’s the one I sleep in at the moment. She was one of the kindest people that I ever knew. She always had time for everyone and tried to help people the best she could. If she couldn’t help then she would stay with the person until she could find the help that person needed. I think that might have been the reason why she had stayed with my father as long as she had. She thought that she might be able to help him or at least balance out his faults. Turns out she just made the faults more noticeable.

‘I learnt after I found out I was the Avatar that my mother hadn’t been as shocked as what many of the masters had been when they learnt that I was the Avatar. She explained to them that she had just known that there was something special about me from the moment that she first felt me moving around inside of her. Once she had the special something confirmed she had started to show me the basics of air bending.’

‘How old were you?’ Suki asked.

‘I don’t know exactly. I do remember knowing how to do some things an air bender does know until they hit thirteen before I was five. I guess that the Avatar talent made me progress faster then what a lot of the masters thought I would progress.’ Aang paused for a couple of minutes, trying to think of what next to tell them. ‘My mother was good at teaching so she usually helped teach the basics to the new air benders that would arrive before they were assigned a master. She would just teach them how to hold their body, how to meditate and how to clear you mind. Once they knew how to do all that correctly they were tested and then assigned a master. I think I saw hundreds of children being taught by my mother when I wasn’t being taught myself.

‘When I turned ten things started to change though. I never got the full story from the masters but they said that a couple of weeks after I turned ten, my mother got news of my father being nearby. She hadn’t told him about me but he had heard stories and wanted to know whether he had fathered the Avatar or not. She had planned on going down and talking with him, trying to get him to leave but he wasn’t going to have any of it. He wanted to see me and to know whether he had fathered the new Avatar. I think it was going to be something he could throw around to people to show just how great a Bender he actually was. There was no word from my mother for a couple of days and the Masters were beginning to get nervous.

‘Then one night I was woken up by my mother. She had some of our things packed up and one of the Masters was standing at the door. He was looking down the hallway as if watching for someone to come. I asked her what was going on and she explained that we were going to go to the other Temple, they wanted some help with some students and it was only going to be temporary. I followed her and the Master down to a cart. We were going to take it down to a village a day’s ride away. We’d then meet up with a couple of other Air Benders who would take us to temple. Everything was going fine until we hit a road block about an hour later.

‘My mother told me to stay where I was and if she gave the signal then I was to run away from here. She didn’t care which direction, just as long as I got away from the area. I stayed where I was, hoping that the signal didn’t go up, but it did. I climbed out of the cart and had a look down the road. The man who had been driving to cart was lying motionless on the road and my mother was fighting off two other men. I was too focused on watching my mother that I didn’t notice the man coming up behind me, the person I did notice was the man that was coming up behind my mother. I yelled out to her and as she sent the man flying, the man that was behind me grabbed me. I wanted to call out but the man put his hand over my mouth and I couldn’t say a word. He told me to be quiet, everything was going to be fine and that soon I would be with my father. While he was telling me this my mother was fighting off the man that had been trying to sneak up on her.

‘By the time she realised that a man had me, it was too late for her to do anything. The man had begun to walk away as the other kept my mother busy. I think that that was the first time that my mother actually learnt how much power I had.’

‘You went into the Avatar state?’ Zuko asked and Aang nodded.

‘I must have used up so much energy because when I came out of it I was back here at the Temple and one of the Masters was looking after me. Everything came flooding back to me and I wanted to go and find my mother. They gave me something, telling me that it would help with the headache that I had but it actually made me go to sleep. When I woke up the next time I found my mother’s own master sitting in the room with me. He made me promise not to say a word until he had finished explaining everything to me and then I could ask questions.

‘When I had gone into the Avatar state I literally blew the man that held me away. They managed to find him a couple of days later, miles away up a tree talking about powerful Air Bender children running amok. I didn’t stay in the state for very long, just long enough to blow the man holding me and the men my mother had been fighting away. I didn’t even hurt my mother, even now I can’t explain why that is. My mother had picked me up after I had come down and carried me back to the Temple. She explained everything to the Masters and then went about looking after me until I woke up. While I was out my father arrived at the Temple. My mother confronted him about everything that had happened and he told her straight up that he was here for me and that he wasn’t going to leave until he had me. She told him that to get to me he needed to get through her.

‘What happened next the Masters weren’t quite sure because a lot of the damage had already been done by the time they had arrived. My mother began to defend herself and me from my father and she apparently did some pretty amazing bending. But my father was fuelled by rage and he managed to get the upper hand. When the masters arrived he had started to move in on the final blow. The Masters managed to counter the most of it but a lot of the move still managed to hit her and hurt her pretty bad. My father was apparently a pretty powerful bender as it took the majority of the Masters to bring him under control and get him to leave the Temple.’

Aang stopped talking for a couple of minutes and the others just watched him. It was Katara who asked what was on everyone’s mind.

‘And your mother?’

‘She had been badly hurt in the attack my father sent at her. When the Master told me everything that had happened I told him I wanted to talk to her and he explained that it would be a bit hard at the moment. It took me a little bit to understand what he had meant and it was a few minutes before I got the full story out of him. My mother had survived the attack but she was still badly hurt. They did everything that they could to try and heal her; they were still trying when I woke up the first time. They made me go back to sleep so that I wouldn’t see her at her worst. There had just been took much damage done. She died during the night the day before. I managed to persuade the Master to take me to her where I got to say my goodbyes.’

‘So what happened to your father?’ Sokka asked.

‘A couple of days after we buried my mother he came back to the Temple demanding that I go with him because it was his right as a father. The Master didn’t know I was there until I sent him flying out the Temples doors. I walked up to him and told him calmly that I didn’t want to go with the man that had killed my mother. I didn’t want to have a father like that and if I was to call anyone a father then it would be one of the Masters. He left the Temple and didn’t come back. He said that he would see me again someday and if he did I never noticed him.’

The others nodded and got to their feet as Aang got to his and turned to look at the carvings. He heard the sound of them walking back to the Temple and he thought he was alone until he heard Zuko started to talk.

‘I can’t help but think that you’re not saying everything,’ Zuko said. ‘There’s something else isn’t there?’ Aang nodded.

‘A couple of days after we buried my mother, my mother’s Master came to me. It seemed that my mother didn’t think that she was going to live to see me become a master of all four elements and so she had written me a letter, years before she died. It explained everything to me and what I just told was a very tame version compared to what she told me in the letter. It is the only thing I have left that is my mother’s and I hope that answers your question.’

Zuko said nothing. All he did was turn and walk off in the direction that the others had gone in. Aang watched the Fire Lord go before turning and looking at the carvings. Once again he ran his hand over them, this time a small smile coming to his face. The tight feeling that he had once had in his chest was gone and he then turned and walked back into the temple to get the sleep that he felt like he needed.

AANG lay on his stomach, hit arrow tattoos in plain sight with the covers of his bed at his waist. As she slept soundly, a woman walked towards him just watching him, a small smile on her face. She was dressed in a female version of Air Bender robes that Aang wore and her dark hair was pulled over one shoulder. If it had been let to fall down her back it properly would have hit the base of her back. Through the see-through material of her sleeves the tell tale tattoos of an Air Bending Master could be see and they were identical to the ones that Aang had. Across her left cheek there was another with the arrow pointing into the middle of her face. She bent across Aang, grabbing the blankets and pulled them up and covering his body. A sigh escaped Aang’s lips as the woman reached out and she ran her hand over the top of the Avatar’s head.

Even though he was deep in sleep, Aang moved towards the touch. The sound of the door opening didn’t make the woman move at all, in fact all it did was make her realise that she only had a few more minutes left. Leaning in and ignoring the person who was at the door, the woman placed a kiss on the Air Bender’s head. With one last touch, the woman knelt down beside Aang’s bed and said only one thing before getting back to her feet: ‘I love you so much, Angel.’

After blowing him one more kiss the woman looked up at the moon and slowly started to disappear in the moonlight.

OUT in the hallway, Katara lent against the wall looking at Zuko. The two of them had come to check on the Air Bender, hoping that he was sleeping peacefully. They had not expected to see a woman in the room with Aang. Zuko had recognised her right away and had pulled Katara out of the room before she had opened her mouth. It only took one look from the Fire Lord for Katara to realise whom was in there with Aang and that he was in no danger. Smiling, Katara took Zuko by the hand and lead him away from the Avatar’s room. As the two of them walked away from the room, Aang shift onto his back and fell deeper into sleep.

AANG looked around the courtyard, he was sure that he had cleaned it up a little earlier on. As he started to turn around he saw someone sitting on a bench behind him and he looked her right in the eyes. They were the same eyes that he had seen in his reflections many times. Walking over to her, Aang never lost contact with her. As he sat down she raised her hand up and placed it on the side of his face. That feeling he had been feeling earlier returned and for the first time Aang felt tears running down his face as he looked at his mother. She smiled and pulled him into a hug. Aang held onto her, not sure if he ever wanted to let her go. She smelt the same as she had when he was little.

When he pulled back Aang had only one question to ask.

‘How long do we have?’

His mother smiled as she caressed his cheek. ‘As long as you want, Angel. As long as you want.’

Aang nodded and looked around the courtyard. It was just so peaceful here. A place where he could relax and just enjoy people’s company. When he turned back and looked at her Aang smiled. This place caused all of the memories to come back to him, they were good and bad and as Aang started to talk with his mother he went back to the new memories that he had, the ones that he had created with his friends and then decided on how much time he wanted to spend with his mother.

AUTHORS NOTE:- And I am now going to be mean and leave it there. I hope I created the ending I was looking for; it’s really up to you as to what he chooses. I hope you like it. Don’t forget to read and review! – sofimac16