Chapter Text
Aang has been having a no-good-very-bad-can-I-go-sleep-in-my-iceberg-for-another-100-years kind of day, balance and harmony be damned (Spirits, he didn’t mean that). This is a slight improvement to yesterday, if he is being honest with himself. But the monks had taught him to live in the present, so he is going to focus on the no-good-very-bad-ness of today, nevermind that the monks had also taught him to not let life and its vagaries bother him. But that was before his entire culture was annihilated in a ceaseless war and now he’s lost Appa and his friends and his glider. He thinks he has earned the right to be angry. Because if he isn’t angry, then he has to confront this feeling—he is not going to call it anything because it is all-too-familiar from the Southern Air Temple and he didn’t think it could grow like this, not when he had thought it had frozen into its final form inside him—that feels bigger than his whole body, the whole world, and he cannot he cannot he cannot break.
Momo—his last remaining friend, the last piece of his history other than himself how can a creature that fits in his palms be so boundlessly precious—peeks out from his hiding place inside Aang’s tunic and chirps at him, which either means that the lemur is hungry or that he feels everything Aang is feeling and is trying to comfort him. Since his stomach chooses this moment to grumble loudly at him, Aang decides that it is the former.
He needs to find food, both for himself and Momo. At least I don’t have to worry about feeding Appa , he thinks bitterly, viciously, the feeling coated in anger and acid only hurting himself.
He isn’t sure how he is going to accomplish the procurement-of-food thing though. He is out of money. Katara is—was—the keeper of the money, the same Katara who is spirits-knows-where in Dai Li captivity, along with the rest of his friends, his brain supplies unhelpfully, and the feeling somehow becomes bigger. Maybe Toph can earthbend them out and then they’ll come find him. But the Dai Li is too smart to let Toph be in a situation where she can earthbend, not after what they saw her do, and he shudders his thoughts to a stop. He cannot—will not— think about that. He will find them and get them back. And Appa too. He cannot lose anyone else. He doesn’t know how he can lose so much and still be, because right now, he feels like a ghost with too many missing limbs, untethered from this world he is supposed to protect.
Chitter. He is brought out of his morose reverie by Momo, once again. Right, food.
First, he needs to orient himself—he is not quite sure where he is, aside from the fact that he is somewhere in the Middle Ring. He has been hiding here since the rest of the group got captured the day before, in the hopes that it would be harder for the Dai Li to track him down outside the Upper Ring. So far, it seems to have worked, thank Avatar Yangchen.
He wanders past several shuttered storefronts before he realises that he is in the financial district—his brain grasps at a wisp of a memory of Joo Dee explaining the layout of the city on the journey to the Upper Ring—it looks different at night, eerily still and devoid of life. He decides that he has a better chance of scrounging up some form of sustenance in the residential district; he is sure that at least some of the houses in the Middle Ring have fruit trees.
Once the decision is made, he roots himself to the earth and extends his seismic sense, letting his awareness spread past rows of crowded buildings. Not too far, he senses the structures getting less dense, and gradually, houses take shape. He needs to head southeast.
“Shh, Momo,” he gently shushes the lemur who has decided that this is as good a time as any to let his raging hunger be known.
As he pulls the tendrils of his earthbending back to himself, he maps out his path and scans for any potential threats, lingering only when he feels the need to make out finer details. He quickly pulls back when he encounters the silhouettes of two people leaning into each other under the awning of a house at the edge of his senses, embarrassed at having intruded upon a potentially private moment. Closer to his location, he spends some time on the pack of what he thinks are pygmy pumas (his seismic sense isn’t quite as fine as Toph’s, not this far out), something about the gambolling shapes lifting his spirits marginally. And then, his receding awareness snags on a figure crumpled against the wall of an alleyway not too far from him (how did he miss that before?).
It is unusual, to say the least, to find someone shelterless in the middle ring, so he focuses his seismic sense. They are motionless and he is not sure if he can detect a heartbeat and the way the figure is slumped is unnatural, so he decides to investigate; he doesn’t feel right about leaving someone who needs help in the middle of the night (he should be able to help someone in this Spirits-forsaken city, the bitterness whispers to him).
“Sorry Momo, food is going to have to wait,” he whispers to his shirt, and is rewarded with two baleful eyes staring back at him. But Momo seems to understand and scurries back into the warmth of his chest.
He keeps his seismic sense trained on the figure and starts walking. It is not too far of a walk and soon, he rounds the corner of the alley housing the stranger. It is dark and he can barely make out the lanky shape in the corner, but they seem to be breathing, albeit shallowly. He notices more details as he inches closer: the shaggy hair casting most of the face in shadows, the small pool of sticky liquid that crystallises from the general darkness, and then, the unmistakable scar blanketing half of the battered face.
Fucking monkeyfeathers!