[September 2] [Avatar: The Last Airbender] Old

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

Title: Old
Day/Theme: September 2/none of a kind
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Aang/Katara
Rating: G
Word Count: 258
Warning: Character Death



“You’re too old to cry,” Aang told himself. “You’ve been too old for much too long now.” But his eyes were wet as he buried his face in Appa’s fur. “Good-bye my friend.”

Katara came out from the house and walked toward him. “He’s gone,” Aang told her.

“I’m so sorry,” she told him.

“There are airbenders now,” he said. And there were, three of their children and one grandchild already. “But there will never be any more sky bison.”

She tucked a strand of graying hair behind her ear and put her arms around him. “I know,” she said simply.

“I’ll bury him here,” Aang said, and she nodded. Air nomads had not buried the sky bison; they had found remote places to die on their own, but Appa had wanted to die by the house of people he loved. The Avatar could bend earth; he would bury his friend.

“No one will ever know what it was like… each of us finding our little bison in the monastery, mothers and their babies flying on the backs of grown ones.”

“You’ll tell them, Aang,” Katara said. “And they’ll tell their children.”

“People will forget,” he said.

“We’ll have Sokka write it down,” she replied. Aang nodded.

“The sky bison were harmless,” he said. “They didn’t need to—“ He cut off his own words. “I won’t bring up old wounds.”

"You forgive them," she said.

"I have to. I'm the Avatar."

By the body of the last sky bison, Aang began to cry, and Katara held him.