Epilogue:
« Si on juge de l'amour par la plupart de ses effets, il ressemble plus à la haine qu'à l'amitié. »
- François de la Rochefoucauld
Rough translation: "If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it resembles hate more than it does friendship."
Aang woke to the pitter patter of rain drops on his face and opened his eyes to see a slate grey sky misty with rain. He heard vague snoring from the tent where Sokka and Katara were no doubt sleeping peacefully, sheltered from the rain. There were no noises from Toph's earth tent, but he reasoned it was because he couldn't hear them through her walls and not because there weren't any.
His thoughts drifted back to the dream he'd had and suddenly it was like an epiphany. Scattered snippets exploded in his head as he recalled the future he had seen. They were out of order now, dimmed by consciousness. He closed his eyes to trawl the edges of his mind, wondering if what he had seen was prophecy.
These kinds of dreams were becoming more frequent as the summer solstice approached, but they had always been of the past, never of events yet to come. He most often dreamed of his failed attempt to take control of the Avatar state and the dire consequences he had almost suffered. Never, never, never had he dreamed of a future where the war had been over, where peace was a possibility.
He puzzled over the things he had seen, confused by the common theme. Zuko. Katara. Only a few short weeks ago he had betrayed the world for something Aang thought he would never get, betrayed the world with someone who had tried to kill it (he knew now he was the world). The Zuko in his dream had seemed to regret his actions to a fault, to have caved inside himself like a plant denied water. Aang recalled all too well the representative of water his dream self had given Zuko. The words Zuko had whispered only in a dream returned with force…What child…what child indeed. Although he had not seen the child, Aang knew that child…almost like he knew himself. He was abruptly overwhelmed with the need to know if what he had seen was the truth, the future as it would be.
He closed his eyes once again, concentrating until the beat of his heart slowed to match the gentle pattern the rain was leaving over the earth. Gradually he saw time was a circle—no beginning and no end. The past was the future and the present a mix of the two with all three melded together to make Time one. Time fell on Aang's face, a part of the rain, and seeped into the waiting ground while he realized his dreams showed what had already happened, what was still happening, and what would happen again. His visions were patchworks of past and present and future swirled together until they were an ultimate mysterious truth he didn't have to power to question, although he knew from his dreams he someday would in a way he could never imagine.
He drifted away again, not allowing the wetness of Time to deter his dreams.