Air 气

The sound of laughter reaches the tree whose roots he's currently using as a pillow, and he lazily opens one eye to watch his girlfriend goofing off with the airbending kids. A small grin slips onto his face when he sees Meelo and Ikki tag-team Korra, using their airbending to leap straight up onto her shoulders. A few feet away from the scuffle, Jinora moves through her forms, ready for her father's lesson. He's pretty sure she's rolling her eyes as Korra yells.

He knows Korra is frequently frustrated by the patience and exactitude that airbending often requires, the wonderful contradiction of control and freedom, but he's fascinated by it. He briefly considers asking Master Tenzin if he could join their early morning meditation (another thing he knows Korra hates), but even as the thought enters his mind he knows he will never actually speak his desire aloud. It wouldn't change anything. He doesn't know how the Air Acolytes can do it, how they can follow all the customs and traditions, because in the end, it's just a game. No matter how well they act like Air Nomads, they still won't be airbenders.

He's pragmatic, maybe too pragmatic sometimes, he knows this, but if he isn't he thinks he might go crazy. If he lets himself think and ponder and question, then he'll just start hating himself, and even though he's aware that suppressing things can't be healthy, he's sure that loathing something integral to his nature is probably pretty unhealthy as well. Even now all he has to do is close his eyes to remember the grief and terror and above all shock as he tried desperately to shield his brother's eyes from the awful scene unfolding right in front of them. He remembers having to explain to a confused Bo that their parents were never coming back, and he remembers the disgust and the anger he felt in the following months whenever he was forced to firebend.

But he's already learned that dwelling on all of it is useless. This is the hand that life has dealt him, and he can either wallow in angst forever or accept it. He is a firebender, and the truth is, his firebending has saved his life, and the lives of those he loves, on several occasions.

However, that doesn't stop him from watching wistfully as the orange-and-yellow-clad figures lift off, leaving the rest of the world behind them.