Chapter Text
That evening, the dancing and music picked up early. Kira, standing at the kitchen window as she oversaw the distribution of dinner, was trying her best to look grumpy at the disturbance in her hall, but she was tapping her feet and hiding a smile. It wasn’t long after everyone had picked up their meal that she gave up the pretence and joined a group dance.
Aang sat in a cool corner, cross-legged, and ate his rice slowly, watching Shoji dance. He was a terrible dancer, something he had in common with most of the people there, but they all threw themselves into it so entirely that it was easy to overlook.
“How was your day?” Leluk asked, taking a seat next to him. “Work hard?”
“Sure smells like you worked hard,” Riichi added, also sitting down.
“Ha-ha,” Aang replied sarcastically. “It was alright.”
“Wait until after dark to go to the baths,” Leluk advised. “Most people bathe early, there’ll be hardly anyone there late at night.”
“Probably nobody,” Riichi added. “It’s kind of bad manners to make noise while everyone is sleeping.”
“You’ll get a pass though, don’t worry,” Leluk added.
“Thanks guys,” Aang said. “What were you up to?”
“Patrols and guard duty mostly,” Riichi said. “Then I was sharpening swords for hours. They try to keep us busy. Idle hands make Koh’s work and all that.”
“What about you. Leluk?” Aang asked.
“With the seamstress,” Leluk said quietly. “I help her make and repair clothes. Sometimes we watch the very little ones, when their parents are needed elsewhere.”
“Only you two?” Aang asked. “Seems like a lot of work.”
“We get help from others sometimes,” Leluk said. “When we need it. When they want to.”
“My friend always fixed our clothes for us,” Aang reminisced. “She always complained how it was so much work, but she said she kind of enjoyed it. I tried to learn, but it drove me mad.”
Riichi laughed. “You don’t seem mad to me.”
“You don’t know me well enough then.”
The song finished with a long-held note, and Shoji hurried over. “I want to do the song of the green dragon next, but Mala won’t play it without the flute part. Please!”
Leluk crossed his arms. “No.”
“Just one song! You know you’re the best here!”
“It’s never just one.”
“Pretty please! The green dragon is my favourite!”
Aang watched with a half-smile. Leluk’s resolve was already crumbling, obvious even to Aang, and it wasn’t long before he was dragged away, taking Riichi’s hand so that he wouldn’t have to go alone.
He supposed he looked contented enough, because he sat and watched without being also pulled into the midst, clapping along even after Riichi and Shoji had disappeared upstairs to the courtyard, and Leluk had managed to escape the small band of instrument players and join hands with some women moving back and forth in a line.
When the shouting in the room became a bit much, Aang returned his bowl to the kitchen and sneaked away with the stealth he had learned from years of avoiding being caught in mischief. Or by Katara and Sokka.
In the upstairs courtyard, Riichi and Shoij were taking part in a dance that involved everyone moving around in a big circle, spinning and reversing directions. Aang didn’t stay for long. The clash of cymbals was loud, and his head felt too full.
Ducking under a wooden barrier clearly put up to deter entry, Aang descended a narrow and crumbling spiral staircase. Towards the bottom, the stairs were gone, and he jumped the last few feet to the ground.
Just outside was a small garden. Well, it had been a garden, when Aang was young. He had vague memories of walking through the square and adjoining terrace, looking up at the tall flowers that grew from every patch of earth, taller than him at the time. Rainwater dripped through a series of clever little passages from the upper parts of the temple, keeping the garden cool and moist, and in the hot summer the Abbess would redirect water from the taps through bamboo poles to keep her garden blooming.
The Abbess had worked on the garden since she was a child, and faithfully cultivated the many flowers that Aang remembered. She had always called it the Rose Garden, for the rose bushes that climbed along the trellises on every wall, and along the ornate stone balustrade that kept absent-minded sisters from wandering over the edge into the canyon.
It was empty now. The walls were there, and the balustrade too, though parts had crumbled away, and the skeleton of the terrace stood empty of the paper dividers and shelves and tools and little sprigs of new growth that had once filled it. The earth patches were hard and crusted, and only the smallest weeds grew from it. A creeping vine descended from above, and made its way through the water channels to hang over the edge.
Aang sat at the balustrade, legs hanging through the gaps, face rested against the cool stone column. From above, music and singing drifted down to him on the cool breeze, and far below, he could just about spot the dark twinkle of the river winding its way along the bottom of the gorge.
The Abbess and the Mother Superior had been twin pillars of strength and kindness whom everyone looked up to. Aang could still see in his mind’s eye their faces wrinkled by smiling as they told the group of novices from the Southern Temple that they were welcome to stay if they felt a connection. Over half of the girls and a handful of boys decided to stay, and Aang had spent the entire night agonising over it, eventually ending up in this garden to contemplate the decision.
The Abbess had told him to listen to his soul, and the Mother Superior to follow his heart. He wasn’t sure if they could have known about the Avatar Spirit inside him at the time, subconsciously connected to her home centuries before, but eventually he decided to return to his own home in the Southern Temple, to Gyatso.
Aang half-heartedly pulled up a creeper from beside him. The Abbess and the Mother Superior were so clear in his mind, their smiles and their frowns, and the way they would look at each other, communicating silently. The way the temple denizens always greeted them respectfully as they walked through, and how they would respond in kind, and ask thoughtful questions, and be genuinely interested in the response. How the Mother Superior cooled the classrooms with a fresh breeze, and the Abbess would summon updrafts when novices practising gliding drifted too far down the canyon and couldn’t get back. The sisters would play tag and splash the visiting novices with fountain water, and pull them back with strong winds and fists in the backs of their tunics when they got too close to the edge.
Aang sat, and remembered as much as he could. During his long trip from the Earth Kingdom, he had tried to recall those weeks he had spent in the temple each year, but actually being there awakened memories he didn’t know he had.
He concentrated on the details, the way the Mother Superior’s habit had swished around her ankles, and the way the Abbess ditched her outer robes and ran the length of the temple twice every morning before meditation. The way the Mother Superior moved like she was barely touching the ground. The way the Abbess smiled with her entire face.
Aang curled his hand into a fist and dug his fingernails into his palms. Maybe if he remembered enough details he could forgive himself for not being there when the Fire Nation attacked. Forgive himself for not even remembering their names.
Perhaps Aang drifted off, lulled to sleep by the distant music and the comforting breeze, but when he next became aware of his surroundings, the temple was silent except for the rustle of the wind, and the moon was high in the sky, peeking through the clouds.
Aang lifted his shoulders, and his back twinged. God, he wished he were twelve again. And that Toph had perhaps been a little gentler with her training.
He pulled his legs back from the edge and stood, stretching his arms up in the air until the knot in his back loosened. Simultaneously he became very distinctly aware that he still had not washed, caught up in the dancing and music, and tired from his journey.
Wrinkling his nose, Aang climbed back up the crumbling staircase and tiptoed through the silent temple. Only once he encountered people, a patrol of two women carrying short swords and a lit torch, who waved him on when they saw who it was, and continued their path around the occupied parts of the temple. Aang had to imagine there were sentries posted aboveground at the outside of the temple as well.
The bathing room was completely deserted when Aang entered. There were two sets of rooms, a larger one just in front, and a smaller one off to the side. Shoji had told him that everybody tended to use the large one, as it was the only one with a working pump, and the side room was often set aside for certain times for just women or just men who were too shy to use the mixed room. Aang had had to tamp down his surprise. When he was young, women were in the vast majority in the temple, and used the larger room, and the men used the smaller one.
Hesitating at the doorways hung with cloth for privacy, Aang couldn’t quite bring himself to go into the larger room. Although much had changed in the years since he woke from the iceberg, and he had relearned much of the different ways of life, it still felt disrespectful for him to knowingly enter what would have been forbidden for him.
Instead, he went through to the smaller room. The changing room was clean, with hooks and stone cubbies lined along the wall to put clothes in. Peering through the doorway, Aang could see the wide tubs along the wall. The floor was clean, but the inside of the tubs still dirty. In the middle of the room was a large bamboo bath, and buckets lined around. Off to the side, the pump was rusted, and the tubes usually used to fill the baths had plants growing out of them.
Aang toed off his shoes and socks, and hung his hooded cloak over a hook. He went inside and stood on the edge of a tub and looked down the pipe. Of course, the darkness made it impossible to see down. Instead, he reached out with his earthbending, trying to ‘see’ down the pipe. To his surprise, nothing seemed blocked, and he could even just about feel the underground reservoir if he concentrated.
He climbed down and headed over to the pump. Repeating what he did before, he could tell there was some damage to the pipe system. He summoned water to his hand from the puddles in the bottom of the buckets and sent it down the nozzle of the pump, feeling his way down the pipe until he reached the obstruction. It seemed to be some sort of thick thing blocking the tube. He summoned water from the other end and pushed through, until sludge poured from the end of the pump and the water ran clear.
He poured a few buckets of water for himself, cautiously looking out for any footsteps around the corner. Although he had never gotten the hang of heating up water the way Katara had, he managed to make the water less ice-cold.
He washed himself thoroughly, enjoying being completely clean for the first time in a long while. His hair was growing back a little, and he thought about the small razor blade in his luggage, he’ll have to shave his head when he gets the chance. Similarly, his chin stubble was making an appearance. He had been so proud of it when it was first coming through, although Sokka’s was far mightier, but now he found it an annoyance more than anything.
For long minutes, Aang poured the water over himself, luxuriating in the cleanliness. Although he enjoyed stream-baths, it really didn’t compare to the crisp mountain water that fed the Western Temple. It had a whole other feel to it. Maybe it was nostalgia.
Just as he felt most at ease, he heard the tell-tale sound of footsteps down the corridor.
He scrambled for his cloak, dropping the scoop he was using, letting it clatter on the floor.
The footsteps stopped, as Aang did up the clasp on his cloak, ensuring his head was covered.
Just as Aang was pulling on his trousers, the footsteps receded.
Although Aang found it strange, he didn’t want to go back to bathing, his heart racing from the adrenaline. He hurriedly dressed, and slunk back to his dark rooms, settling himself down to sleep.