LNYE FIC treat: Remnants in the Mist, for crossedwires

[whitelotusmods]

Title: Remnants in the Mist
By: recessional
For: crossedwires, here
Rating: G and Warm Fuzzies
Character(s)/Ship(s): OCs, Aang, Katara, Appa, Momo
Content Notes: No standard content advisories; note that story assumes Aang and Katara were involved, but broke up.
Summary: In which Aang gets a lovely shock.


There were considerably worse postings than helping decontaminate the Southern Air Temple. Here there were relatively comfortable barracks, regular food that wasn't just a litany of dried and reconstituted monkey-crap with as much duo jiao as it took to make it palatable, a reasonable colonel who had reasonable subordinate officers, and (and this was the best part) absolutely nobody trying to kill you at any time, although you did stand at risk of stumbling over the occasional un-exploded mine - but for a decent firebender, that wasn't so much of a problem.

Jan was comfortably aware of this, but to tell the truth, the fog was starting to get on his nerves. It seemed to blow in every day, at different times, and sit on the mountain-top for hours before dissipating, and you really couldn't get anything done if you weren't already in an area that needed work. Fire didn't burn it off, and the currents of wind in the fog were chilly and clammy. Not to mention dense as soup.

So he wasn't thrilled when Captain Kao came over and told him to round up his squad, one of the scouts had seen . . . something on one of the eastern slopes, and Jan was the lucky devil who got to go check it out.

"I hate you," he told Kao, because there were some things that came with being friends with a man for ten years, especially when no one else was around to hear. Kao grinned at him and slapped him on the back.

"Consider it a way to pass the time."

"I really hate you," Jan muttered, but got to his feet off the stone he'd been using as a chair, swallowed the last of his soup, and bellowed out into the fog for his squad to assemble.


The Southern Temple had been the last of the Air Nomad temples to fall, and been the site of the most vicious fighting. It had managed to hold out beyond the passage of Sozin's Comet, and that was why it needed decontamination. Jan had been in a few of the chambers, when they first got here, and there wasn't much that was creepier than seeing the skeleton of a dead airbender surrounded by the equally dead remains of his fallen foes. It was hard to think how you'd use air to kill that many people all at once, and Jan didn't tend to want to think about it. The Avatar was creepy enough as it was.

At the other temples - the inhabited Northern Temple, the overgrown Eastern Temple and the weird-as-anything Western Temple - it had been over before the Comet past, and, well, everything had been wiped out by fire. Here, in the South, the struggle had gone on for weeks, and there were quite a few nasty surprises, deliberate and not, left for the unwary.

Rumour had it the Avatar intended for all the Temples to be reinhabited, somehow or another and that was why the Fire Lord was ordering this one cleaned out, as a personal favour.

The eastern side was pretty much clear. Still, Jan put a couple of his men and women on the lookout for anything exciting that the engineers might have missed. It wouldn't be the first time that engineer carelessness lead to soldiers' deaths, and Jan both wasn't looking to get himself blown up, and hated writing notification letters back to families, especially when he knew the deceased was the only kid, or a husband, or a wife, or something else. Which covered most of his people, when it came down to it.

"Any idea what we're actually looking for, sir?" Sejin, one of his best firebenders, asked, her voice low.

"'Something,'" Jan grunted, quoting the scouts. "She said the fog was too thick to see for sure, and she was out alone so she didn't get further. She said it sounded big, and it sounded restless."

"Greeeat," Sejin muttered, drawing it out. Jan shot her a wry grin, and they went forward in silence. He liked Sejin; she had a good future ahead of her. She had her quirks - she was death on anyone who said anything sideways about the Fire Lady, and Jan had never managed to figure out why - but who didn't? She kept her head regardless of the crisis, didn't seem to know the meaning of fear but did know the meaning of "don't be a bloody idiot", and had a clerk-husband and a kid back in the Capitol. Not to mention she happened to be a damn good firebender. Jan saw her going far, and was pretty pleased about that.

She also had very good ears, so when she stopped dead and held up a fisted hand, signal for freeze and be quiet, Jan echoed it immediately, and the rest of the squad obeyed. Sejin's eye's closed and her brows drew into a faint frown, just visible in the mist, and then she pointed to the south-east of their position and indicated, half, maybe less than half a mile.

They hadn't gone very far through the trees, quiet as they could, before Jan could hear it, too: a low, slightly mournful sound, repeating itself, and coming with what felt like the shaking of trees. The fog seemed even denser here - and then, as they crept closer, careful as anything, Jan thought he heard a second sound: small and high and almost keening. Like a tired animal in pain.

When the mist in front of them thinned enough to see, though, and the mournful sound stopped and was replaced by an even lower, threatening growl, Jan could do nothing but stand and stare, and knew his squad was doing the same.

"Sweet spirits of fire and death defend us," Sejin whispered, and two of the others made warding signs. The growl kept going, though, and ramped up its threat, so Jan cleared his throat so he could speak.

"Everyone back up," he said, softly. "Slowly. Carefully. Put your weapons down and don't even think of bending. We don't want to give it any ideas."

"Sir," said someone - the new boy, Lee - "it's just a - "

"Shut your mouth," Jan said, as sharply as he dared. "You have no idea what you're talking about; I fought on Black Sun, so I do, and you just volunteered yourself to run as fast as your skinny legs can carry you back up that hill and tell the Colonel there needs to be a black-ribbon message in the sky back to the Fire Lord yesterday. Now move."


****


Spirits could be as difficult to deal with as people; not all of them were as easy to appease as Hei Bai. When you added that to difficult people, you got a headache, and ten days of trying to find a compromise between the unreasonable demands of an angry spirit who, really, had a lot of reasons to be angry, and the unreasonable refusals of defensive people, a lot of whom hadn't actually done anything more wrong than trying to make a good harvest a little more assured and secure.

Eventually, the village headwoman had said, grudgingly, "Very well. If you can bring up another spring over by the gorge, then we'll leave the pool alone," and eventually, the White Bird had also grudgingly allowed that it didn't mind so much if Aang shifted the rocks there to let the spring come up, as long as the people made sure to leave an offering to acknowledge that the water belonged to it, and then Aang had taken Appa and Momo up to the top of a nearby hill where nobody was around so he could flop out on the grass and stare at the sky.

Momo landed on his outstretched arm and chattered at length, which Aang decided was a derisive comment on the whole thing. "You said it, Momo," he replied, with feeling. "I thought we'd never get done there."

Appa snorted, and Aang's conscience twinged him a little, so he said, "I gotta say, though, at least nobody was actually going to kill each other over this. Just . . .flood a lot, and mess up the foundations of houses, and stuff."

Appa gave a low, slightly mournful sounding roar, which Momo seconded with a chitter and a leap up to Appa's head, and Aang sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I know. We need a vacation. But every time we try to take one something else goes wrong." Sometimes, privately, he thought Kuruk had been at least partly right: if he hadn't been around, most of these problems would have got solved by the people who were part of them, all on their own. The trick was, you could never tell which ones those ones were, and which ones were like the Gan Jin and the Zhang and setting up an area for a hundred years of wrangling.

Aang picked himself up off the grass and scooted back so he could lean against Appa's side instead. Momo alighted on Aang's knee, and Aang scratched him behind the ears. "Northern Air Temple, or Ba Sing Se?" he asked, feeling that both of them should have the opportunity to offer an opinion. Of course, inasmuch as he could tell, each of them decided something different (Momo putting in a vote for Ba Sing Se, Appa for the Northern Air Temple), which didn't help much, but Aang figured that was what he should have expected, considering his own divided mind. "Okay," he said, laughing a little, "how about a nap and a snack first, and then we'll decide where we're going."

That seemed to meet with everyone's approval, and Aang settled back into Appa's fur, Momo curling up in Aang's lap. The day was warm, and the sun was nice; it didn't take to long to drop off. Aang had learned, these days, to take sleep whenever he could.


Of all the ways Aang had expected to wake up, Katara's voice shouting his name from a Fire Nation courier balloon (flying all the appropriate flags of diplomacy) had not been high on the list. For one really, really bad moment - a gut-twisting, mouth-dryingly bad moment - he thought that meant something had gone horribly wrong with Zuko, or with Sokka, or anyone else, and Aang felt his stomach trying to climb up his ribs to choke him.

Then Katara was hopping down out of the balloon when it got close to the ground (much to the dismay of the pilot) and running towards him, and Aang could see that she looked . . .excited, and like she was suppressing the biggest grin ever, and these things did not tend to go along with Horrible Stuff Happening to the Group. He relaxed. Slightly.

Momo had leapt into the air the moment he'd woken up, and dived down to land on Katara's shoulder. She laughed and patted his head. "Good to see you, too, Momo," she told him. She looked good; she looked happy. She was in blue again, which he always thought looked the most like her. She looked like life was treating her really well.

And that didn't even make Aang's chest hurt anymore. Huh.

"Hi, Katara," he started, before she threw her arms around his shoulders to hug him and made him blink. Okay, so something was going really well?

"You have to come to the Southern Air Temple," she said. "Right now."

She looked like she was going to explode with . . . .something. The courier-balloon had set down, but the pilot hadn't come out. "Why?" he asked, cautiously. "Is something wrong?"

"No! But it's a surprise." Katara always looked kind of hilarious when she was sitting on that kind of glee, and it was infectious; he had no idea what was going on, but hey, who cared? "Really seriously, you have to come. Right now. You and Appa. And Momo," she added, when he squawked in protest, and she ruffled his head.

Appa gave a soft roar, indicating (Aang thought) that he felt he was being really restrained by not knocking Katara over and licking her face, but he would appreciate some attention. Right now. Katara laughed and threw her arms around one of Appa's legs. "Yes, you too, Appa. Definitely you." She turned back to Aang. "If we leave now, we can get there tomorrow."

"A surprise?" Aang said, and then grinned. This was almost better than a vacation. Especially since - whether they just hadn't had time, with Katara's obvious excitement, or not - they weren't being awkward with each other. Aang liked not being awkward. "Okay. But Appa can go a lot faster than that thing." He waved his hand at the courier balloon.

Katara beamed. "I know."

They left the balloon there, Katara tossing the pilot instructions to hit one of the nearest towns for refuel, and then go home.

"You're not going to give me any hints at all?" Aang asked, as Appa took to the air, not really needing any direction at all to get to the place Aang had been born. Aang and Katara settled in Appa's saddle, Katara bright-eyed and delighted, and Momo still claiming her lap or her shoulder for attention. Aang had felt kind of bad for Momo. The complications of human relationships were kind of beyond him; all he knew was he didn't get to see Katara anymore, and that stank.

"No," she said, tucking her legs to the side. "Not a single hint. Except that it will make you really, really happy." Her eyes turned critical for a moment. "Which, frankly, it looks like you could use."

Aang groaned. "Tell me about it. No, wait, let me tell you about it, because really, I already know all about it, because I keep living through it."

"Okay," said Katara, "then tell me about it."

"You know what happens," Aang began, "when a village decides to expand its irrigation system, so it won't be hit by drought every two years, by digging into a pool that belongs to a really cranky bird-spirit?"

"Ooooh," Katara said, wincing, and Aang sighed.

"Yeah. So we got there half a month ago - "

Katara was a good listener for stuff like this. Toph was universally unsympathetic - well, she was sympathetic on Toph-terms, which were unique and not always what Aang was looking for - Sokka always tried to offer solutions, a lot of which weren't helpful (thought admittedly some of which were), and Aang always felt like complaining to Iroh was admitting that he didn't know how to do his own job. Which was probably ridiculous (among other things, sometimes he didn't, although the whole world began to give him the feeling that Avatars were always just figuring it out as they went along) but still meant he didn't have human company to vent at all that often. Katara just listened, and made faces at the appropriate times, and sympathetic noises, and stuff like that.

So Aang found himself getting rid of about two full years of complaining right then and there, and when he realized it, he felt a bit self-conscious. "So," he said, a little awkwardly, "how are things going in the Fire Nation?"

"Well," Katara said, looking thoughtful, "someone tried to assassinate Mai last month."

"What?" Aang sat up, and Momo startled. "Nobody told me." It came out a little more accusing. Katara shrugged, but looked a little guilty.

"We kind of tried to keep it from getting out. I mean, people try to kill Zuko all the time, but it doesn't usually get anywhere. This was a little more serious. On the other hand, we did finally convince everyone that yes, the coal-mines were tainting the whole island's water-table and really needed to be dealt with right now, so that was good."

"That is good," Aang agreed. "How's Zuko?" He was more than a little bit proud of how he managed to make the question genuinely casual. Katara made a face, and then laughed, wryly.

"Honestly? When I saw how tired you looked, I thought 'wow, Aang looks like Zuko right now,'" she replied, shaking her head. Aang's mouth quirked.

"I keep thinking, 'oh, it'll get easier as I et older'," Aang said, honestly, "but I'm not sure if that's true."

Momo chittered a pretty much unintelligible comment. They lapsed into silence for a bit, which Aang broke with a yawn.

"You can sleep if you want," Katara offered, immediately. "I know where we're going and so does Appa." She smiled. "And nobody's likely to be shooting anything at us, these days."

Sleep actually sounded like a good idea, so Aang nodded, fended off another yawn, and lay down.


The Southern Temple looked, and felt, a lot different. Aang hadn't been back since the clean-up had started, because when he had the time to do things for fun, he wanted to be around people, and not around reminders of a past that seemed even more melancholy to him now than they had before. The Northern Temple was full of life, and the Eastern Temple meant time to talk with Pathik, so he went there instead, whenever he felt homesick.

There were people everywhere now, but they were here to work and not to live, so it didn't quite take away the empty feeling. They'd mostly set up camp and temporary barracks outside the temple rooms themselves, too; it wasn't immediately obvious why, but Aang was a little bit grateful. The head knew some things that the emotions weren't ready to admit yet, and the issue of firebenders in an Air Temple was one of them.

To Aang's surprise, though, Katara guided Appa away from the main landing places and a little way down the eastern slope; when Aang squinted, he could see an area where some of the trees were down and what looked like a kind of rough . . .house, or maybe stable, had been put up with them, with a clearing in front of it.

He caught sight of something small and white that darted from the trees to the building, and then shook his head and frowned, rubbing at his eyes to clear them. For a second, the white thing had looked like -

Then Appa let out a sudden roar, and dove for the ground, knocking Aang off-balance and making Katara squeak (although Aang wasn't going to tell her he noticed). Momo squawked too, and took to the air, plummeting with them until Appa landed, harder than usual, in the clearing, a number of Fire Nation soldiers and support-staff scattering out of his way with their own cries of alarm. Katara and Aang both launched themselves free of Appa's back as the bison shook himself, and then roared again, thought quieter and more like a question.

"Buddy," Aang said, when he'd landed on the ground, "what - "

The second roar stopped him. The second roar stopped him because it didn't come from Appa. It didn't even sound like Appa. It was lighter, and there was a different tone to it, and it came from the building, which was bigger than Aang had thought and shadowed inside so he couldn't see. It didn't come from Appa, and it didn't sound like Appa -

But it was still a bison. Aang knew that sound in his blood.

Appa gave a low reply, and then sat back heavily onto the ground, legs folding under him. He put his head down, made the same noise a second time, and then appeared to wait, while Aang stared and (he could see out of the corner of his eye) Katara bit her lip.

When the other bison limped out, it was obvious that her leg was badly hurt, but also that it had been splinted and wrapped up. Aang had no idea how any of the soldiers had convinced her to let them anywhere near her, but they had, and they'd built her shelter, and now she limped out with a wary look at all the humans, and came and settled down beside Appa.

Aang stared, open-mouthed, and then both her babies - one of them the small white thing he'd seen run - came trotting out, too, and one of them took to the air to come and sniff at Appa's face.

Aang stared at the impossible with wide eyes, until Katara touched his arm and made him jump. Beside her was a Fire Nation soldier, who bowed low, her hands pressed together. "Avatar," she said, respectfully. "We are honoured you could come."

Aang pointed at the bison, and the calves, and managed (barely) to say, "How - ?" and then ran out of words. The soldier bowed again.

"We found her by accident," she replied, "and only because she was hurt. It took us a while to get her to believe we weren't going to hurt her, but we managed."

"Sejin sat still for a day and a half, just far enough away not to scare her," Katara said, in the voice of hers that meant she thought someone was being too modest.

The soldier, Sejin, shrugged. "She still doesn't entirely trust us, but she did let me take a look at the leg and she's been willing to eat the food we've gathered. I wound up sort of de-facto in charge," she said, self-deprecatingly, "because she threatens to bite my head off less than everyone else's. And now we think we know why it's so misty all the time - Lady Katara says that the wind-buffalo were the first airbenders?"

"Yeah," Aang managed, hoarsely. "So they'd bring in the mist to make sure - " he stopped. "But we were here," he said, to Katara, because he thought she'd get it. She nodded.

"But it's been generations, Aang," she said, gently. "They wouldn't know an airbender - or a waterbender - from any other kind of human, even if we were with a flying bison." She nodded to Appa. "I mean, if we'd stuck around longer, maybe one of the younger ones had come to investigate, but - "

Aang supposed that was true. It hurt a bit, but sometimes truth did. "You're sure there's others?" he asked, which was kind of a stupid question, because bison-calves didn't come from nowhere and neither did full-grown bison. But Sejin nodded seriously.

"Since we found Xi - uh," she paused, "that's what we're calling her. She seemed to need a name." When Aang nodded, she went on, "Since we found Xi, we've been keeping an eye and ear out. They're pretty smart; they hide a lot of their tracks and, um, spoor, and things, when humans are around. But if you're looking . . . " She trailed off and made a gesture with one hand.

Aang turned back to stare at the other bison, at Xi. She was smaller than Appa, and her arrow was a bit shaggy, but she didn't have anyone to look after her till now. She and Appa had been sniffing each other, as the little ones ran and flew around, chasing after Momo and running into both adult bison without much in the way of cares, and eventually Xi leaned forward and touched Appa's nose with hers.

Appa turned to look at Aang, and lowed softly. Aang nodded. He stepped forward very carefully, one hand out. He slowed down as Xi tensed and narrowed her big eyes at him, but he didn't stop, and eventually he got close enough that she could sniff his hand. And then that he could lay his hand on her muzzle.

"Hello," he said, softly. "I'm Aang. I'm really, really happy to meet you."

Xi's eyes pored over him for a moment, before she snorted softly and turned her head back away, and one of the bison-calfs ran straight into Aang's side and knocked him off balance. He fell over, accidentally catching the baby in a tumble of limbs and fur, and lucky he didn't get knocked in the head at all. The calf squawked and got itself free, and then darted away to hide behind its mother, who sighed in the way that only flying bison could sigh.

Aang stayed on the ground for a minute, long enough that Katara walked (carefully, slowly, and without sudden movements) over to him and looked down, her face a little concerned. "Aang?" she said, tentatively.

It took a moment, but Aang realized that the blur in his eyes came from tears. And that his mouth was stretched into a grin. Crying, and grinning, as Katara leaned down he flung himself at her and said, "Best surprise ever," when she managed not to be knocked over.

Appa gave a low sound that Aang figured was agreement. Xi just sighed.

Momo squealed a protest, but that was only because one of the calves had caught his tail.