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Tenzin outgrows his toys quicker than her other children.
Kya is a wistful wanderer, with bright eyes and a character that is at once eager to please and willing to learn, while Bumi is a reckless spirit, his hair sticking up from his head in a wild mane and a crooked smile gracing his face.
But Tenzin is an old soul, different from his older siblings; he spends all his spare time practicing his airbending rather than playing and sneaking cactus juice from the kitchen cabinet. Bumi is a fighter and Kya a healer, but Tenzin is a master of air, his hands moving in swishing and swirling flourishes, summoning large gusts of wind and controlled tornadoes with ease. Just like his father, Katara remembers. Just like Aang, long ago in a war-stricken land; but this is a peaceful time, and she knows her son need not grow old so quickly.
As if he is determined to prove her wrong, he does anyway.
"You're too young," Katara tells him, her fist clenched in her blue robes. "There's time, Tenzin, to decide, there's no need to hurry -" but when she tries to comfort him, to lay a hand on his shoulder, he brushes it off.
"Stop, Mom. This is what I want to do." Tenzin's voice is soft. "I know it, and I've always known it. Dad says he can start the ceremony tomorrow. I've been in training for long enough."
Her eyes fill with tears, but she isn't sure if they are from grief or from pride; Katara's mind whispers pride and she makes herself believe it.
Aang and Katara stand watching the children - are they still children? they are to her - laugh around a campfire on an otherwise deserted Ember Island beach.
There is Zuko's daughter, beautiful and delicate, a sly glint in her eye; trickster Bumi, his arm draped around the heiress's shoulders, a clueless grin stretching his mouth; lovely Kya, strumming a pipa and singing a familiar song about a cave for lovers; Lin, bare feet dug into the sand and lidded eyes lingering on Katara's youngest son; and him, somber Tenzin, already a man grown with blue tattoos tracing the lines of his body. Tenzin, in whose sturdy hands rests the fate of the airbenders.
Aang's smile is audible in his voice. "Better than expected, huh?"
Laughing, Katara just tucks her arm into his. "Between the two of us, we managed."
Tenzin holds her when Aang dies. He smells like her husband: like autumn leaves falling and glaciers cracking, like a hot summer breeze and a cool spring sunrise, like freedom and everything therein.
"It'll be okay, Mom," he says, stroking her hair. "He'll always be here with us."
"He's gone, Tenzin." A sigh and a sob.
He taps her head. "Not in here. He isn't gone in the ways that matter, not for us."
Katara thinks of the boy in the iceberg and smiles through the tears.