Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Hidden in the Myst ❯ Lifetime Companions ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: Don't own anything Avatar, any of the copyrights to the characters, storyline, etcetc. Write for fun only.

Rated: G

Warning: Spoilers for episode one and two.

 

=#= Lifetime Companions =#=

 

He has always made friends easily.

 

With an air bison as a companion, he has always been free. Free to go where the winds take them, free to visit new lands and leave with happy memories. The southern air temple has always been “home” in as much as any nomad considers one place a permanent residence.

 

Like strings of lanterns, his friends are the bright spots in his travels. Their stationary, rooted lives make them a part of his destinations. Very few in his young life have been a part of the journey.

 

Appa is one of them. Gyatso was also one.

 

And so, when he looks up and sees her for the first time, he is sensitive enough to recognize that here is another.

 

Katara.

 

Perhaps it is wrong of him to say nothing, to observe her in her stationary, comfortable life. A mere feeling, and yet he knows that very shortly her orderly life will be shaken up and she will be offered a choice. He cannot help the special interest he takes in her, delighted to find someone that will not only be a friend, but a traveling companion as well.

 

He is quick to offer to take her to the North Pole to find a water bending master. Her uncertainty curbs his eagerness as he realizes that she must leave behind everything she's ever known in order to go. He has always left places knowing he will return again. For her it is different. Her departure carries with it a finality that his has never had.

 

Conscience makes him refuse to be the wedge that drives her apart from her people, even if it drives her closer to him. Even if she is the only familiar, comforting presence in a world that has aged one hundred years since he last breathed its air.

 

Innate compassion makes him want to protect the lives of the water tribe when the fire benders' attack. Danger to her, and he is willing to surrender himself so that she and those she cares about won't be hurt.

 

Surprise, relief, and gratitude greet the sight of her and her brother on Appa, coming to his rescue. Exhaustion and dread herald the end of the Avatar state as the truth about him is reflected in her eyes.

 

The revelation he ran away from becomes the obligation he is forced to face. He is capable of shrugging off the burden of a world in need—but not the hope he sees in her eyes. Gently, invisibly, her belief becomes the thread that binds him to his errant destiny.

 

And he does not resent her for it. Because he knows she will be beside him every step of the way.

 

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