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The kitchen at two in the morning was the only room in the temple that didn’t echo. It smelled of toasted sesame, cold stone, and the dampness left behind after the dinner pots had been scrubbed clean. Katara stood at the low wooden counter, wrapping a warm loaf of flatbread in a clean linen cloth and setting it beside an earthenware bowl of roasted root vegetables.
She rested her palms flat against the butcher block and closed her eyes. Her forearms throbbed with that dull, bone-deep ache that only came after hours of holding heavy currents together, restoring shattered irrigation canals down in the valley while Earth Kingdom elders stood on the riverbank, debating water rights over her head as though she weren't standing right there. They had treated Aang the same way during the morning council. They spoke about him as if he were an ancient, sacred weapon they’d finally managed to unearth and claim. They didn't see the way his knees cracked when he stood up after six hours of meditating, or how he still flinched if a wooden door slammed too hard in the wind.
They want to eat him alive, she thought, her fingers tightening against the wood until her knuckles turned white. She picked up the wooden tray, balancing the tea kettle, the bowl, and the wrapped bread against her hip, and stepped out into the dark.
She found him four levels up, on the narrow overhang above the eastern dormitories. The wind up here was sharp and smelled of snow from the high passes. A single oil lamp sat on the stone ledge, its small yellow flame flickering behind a cracked glass cylinder, casting long, dancing shadows across the tiles.
Aang was sitting cross-legged in the center of the terrace, surrounded by thin strips of oiled leather, small iron rivets, three different grades of dried rasps, and the dismantled ribbing of his glider. He was stripped to the waist, his orange robes folded neatly off to the side, his bare back bowed over a long arc of shaved pine. The blue arrow down his spine caught the lantern light as his shoulders moved. He didn't turn around when her boots hit the stone, but the draft softened at once, curling around her ankles before drifting away.
"You're going to freeze your ears off," she said quietly.
Aang’s shoulders dropped half an inch. He let out a long breath that turned into a plume of white steam in the cold air, setting down a small brass file against the leather mat. "The wood swells down in the hall," he said, his voice gravelly from disuse. "If I fit the joints inside, they bind when I take it up into the draft. It has to be done up here."
Katara walked over, setting the tray down on a flat stone pillar just out of reach of his scattered tools. "It's two in the morning, Aang."
"Is it?" He looked up then, his grey eyes blinking against the pale yellow glow of the lamp. He looked younger with pine dust on his nose, but there were faint, dark smudges beneath his eyes that hadn't been there two weeks ago. "I thought it was... maybe eleven."
"Dinner was five hours ago." She picked up the bowl of vegetables and the flatbread, stepping into his workspace and dropping unceremoniously to her knees in front of him. "Eat."
"Katara, I'm fine, I'm almost done with the tail-housing—"
"I'm fine," Aang snapped softly, the edge in his voice slipping out before he could catch it.
He froze instantly, looking up at her with wide, apologetic eyes, but Katara didn't even blink. She just stepped closer, her knees crunching against the pine shavings scattered on the stone.
"You're not fine," she argued softly, her voice dropping into that low tone that always meant trouble. "You haven't been fine since Tuesday. Eat the bread, Aang, or I'll freeze your glider to the floor."
Aang held her gaze for a long, tense second, his chest heaving under his pale skin. Then, all at once, the fight drained out of him. He let out a frustrated exhale, his shoulders slumping as he reached out and took the bread from her hand. "I'm sorry," he muttered, staring at the grain. "I didn't mean to snap."
"I know," she murmured, her tone softening immediately. She reached out, her thumb gently brushing the smudge of pine dust off his cheekbone. "Eat."
His stomach growled loudly enough to echo off the stone arch behind them, breaking the last of the tension. A sheepish grin tugged at his mouth, and for just a second he looked like the boy she'd pulled from the iceberg instead of the Avatar. He stuffed half the bread into his mouth at once, chewing like he hadn't eaten in days. Maybe he hadn't. Katara sat back on her heels and looked over the glider parts scattered around them. The main staff lay across the stone, its polished surface scarred from three days earlier, when an earthen overhang had collapsed during the canal repairs, and Aang had used it to brace a falling girder.
"Is it bad?" she asked.
"Two snapped ribs," Aang said around a bite of sweet potato. "And the silk along the wing-fold is frayed. If I take a hard thermal over the ridge, it’s going to tear."
He sounded casual, but Katara heard the underlying thread of panic. The glider wasn't just wood and cloth. It was the last design from the Southern Temple, built from memory and modified a dozen times over the last six years. It was more than that. It was freedom.
"Well," she said, leaning over to pick up a spool of waxed linen thread and a small bone needle from his kit. "Good thing you have help."
Aang paused, a cup of warm tea halfway to his mouth. "You don't have to stay up here, Katara. Sokka told me you lifted a whole retaining wall by yourself today."
"Sokka stood on a rock and yelled directions while I did the actual work," she said, reaching for the bone needle. "And I'm staying." She moved behind him, close enough that her knees rested against his lower back. Aang stiffened in surprise, then slowly relaxed, letting his head fall back against her with a quiet sigh. Closing her eyes, Katara drew a ribbon of water from the canteen at her waist. It shimmered softly between her hands as she warmed it before pressing it gently to the base of his skull, working her way down into the tight muscles of his shoulders. As a waterbender, she didn't have to guess how worn out he was. She could feel it in the tension beneath her hands, in the way his heart still raced after days of pushing himself too hard.
Aang let out a slow breath, his head tipping back against her. "Don't stop."
"You're holding your breath again," she murmured, her fingers working deep into the knot beside his spine. "You do it every time you're forced into a corner."
Aang was silent for a long moment. Above them, the stars were sharp and cold. Down below, the wind whistled through the high marble archways.
When he spoke again, the air around them subtly shifted. Without even realizing it, Aang's airbending answered her touch. The chill faded around them, and before long his breathing had settled into the same slow rhythm as hers.
"They want to build a monument," Aang said quietly. "In the lower courtyard. A bronze statue. Thirty feet high."
Katara’s hands paused for a fraction of a second against his skin. "Where the young lemurs learn to land?"
"Yeah." His brows furrowed into a frown and he looked away for a moment to compose himself. For just a second, Katara thought he sounded almost angry. "The Earth Kingdom delegation brought the blueprints today. They told me it's to 'commemorate the new era.' I told them the thermals swirl off the metal down there, and it would slam the fledglings into the stone wall. And they just... looked at me, Katara. Like I was worrying about grasshoppers while they were trying to build an empire."
His fingers tightened on his knees, his knuckles white.
"It feels like everybody wants a piece of the Avatar," he whispered, the raw truth finally breaking through his quiet voice, "but nobody wants to leave room for Aang."
Katara leaned down, resting her chin firmly on his bare shoulder, her breath warm against his neck.
"I leave room," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "I don't care about their bronze statue, and I don't care about their council meetings. If they push you any harder tomorrow, I'll freeze the floor under their chairs until their knees turn blue."
Aang burst out laughing—a real, ringing sound that scattered a roosting crow-pigeon from the rafters twenty feet above them. "Please don't. Chief Hakoda spent two hours apologizing to the Northern delegate last time you did that."
"He was being rude to you," Katara said simply, though a small, satisfied smile touched her lips against his skin. "He deserved the ice."
They worked together for the next hour in a comfortable, rhythmic quiet.
Katara sat beside him, using her fine-tipped bone needle to double-stitch the frayed silk along the wing-struts, her stitches neat and tight. Aang worked on the wooden ribbing, his hands steady as he applied fresh cedar resin to the split pine, holding the wood flat against the stone while it set. Every so often, their shoulders bumped, or Aang would reach over to take a tool from her side of the mat, his fingers lingering over hers, his thumb tracing the curve of her hand before pulling away.
"Hold this," Aang said, breaking the silence.
He held out two thin strips of cedar that needed to be bound together with waxed cord. Katara set her needle down and pressed her fingers against the wood, holding the strips flat while Aang looped the cord around them, pulling it tight with a sharp, swift tug of his wrists.
His face was inches from hers.
In the dim light of the oil lamp, she could see the tiny gold flecks in his gray eyes, the slight curve of his mouth, the way his dark eyelashes cast long shadows across his cheeks. He wasn't looking at the wood anymore. He was looking at her lips.
"What?" she asked softly.
"Nothing," he murmured, his fingers tying off the knot without looking at his hands. He reached out, his knuckles brushing the soft fur lining of her collar, then moving higher, his palm cupping the side of her jaw. His skin was warm, smelling faintly of cedar resin and wind. "Just... you're here."
"I'm always here," she said, leaning into his touch.
"Good," he whispered, sliding closer until there was no space left between them on the cold stone. "Because I think I'd be pretty lost without you, Kat."
He leaned in and kissed her. It was slow and warm. He tasted of sweet tea and flatbread, with the scent of pine and mountain air lingering on his skin. Katara let out a soft sigh against his mouth, her fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his neck as she pulled him closer until his bare chest pressed against her tunic. Aang's arm slipped around her waist, lifting her gently until she was sitting in his lap, wrapped in his warmth. When they finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead against hers, his eyes searching hers in the glow of the lamp.
"Stay up here with me?" he whispered.
"The glider isn't finished," she reminded him, her lips curving into a small smile.
With a lazy, unconscious flick of his wrist, a tiny gust of air swept out from Aang's sleeve, nudging the tray, the tools, and the wooden struts safely against the wall, clearing a wide space on the terrace.
"It can dry until morning," he said.
He pulled his heavy, folded orange cloak over from the corner, spreading the thick wool cloth across the stone tiles. Then he reached for his master's glider-staff. With a small click, he released the spring latch, letting the silk wings expand halfway, not full for flight, but just enough to create a wide, curved canopy of oiled orange silk that caught the mountain wind and blocked the cold draft.
Aang pulled Katara down onto the wool blanket beneath the silk canopy, wrapped his arms around her, and tugged his second cloak over both of their shoulders. Beneath the glider, the air was warm enough that the mountain cold couldn't reach them. The orange silk overhead glowed softly in the distant lamplight while the wind whispered around the temple outside. Aang rolled onto his side, propping his head on one hand as he watched her, the quiet look on his face one she usually only saw after the rest of the world had gone to sleep.
"You know," Katara murmured, reaching out to absently trace the curve of his collarbone, "for someone who spent all night working on a glider, you're surprisingly terrible at hiding snacks."
Aang’s eyes widened slightly. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Aang." She raised an eyebrow, her hand sliding down to lightly tap the pocket of his discarded orange robe lying near their feet. "I can smell the candied ginger from here."
A sheepish grin broke across his face. He reached out with a tiny, precise flick of two fingers, using a whisper of air-bending to zip the small paper pouch straight from his robe pocket directly into his waiting palm.
"Technically," he said, opening the pouch and offering the first piece to her, "Gyatso always said sugar before bed helps align the upper chakras."
"Gyatso did not say that," Katara laughed softly, though she didn't hesitate to take the sweet from his fingers, her lips brushing his skin as she took it. "You just have an unstoppable sweet tooth."
"It's an airbender tradition," he insisted, popping a piece into his own mouth. "A very sacred one."
Katara chewed, the spicy sweetness of the ginger warm against her tongue. She looked at him, really looked at him, in the amber light filtering through the silk. His bare shoulders were still dusted with faint traces of pine, his grey eyes bright and clearer than she'd seen them all week. Impulses like this didn't come often during these days, like more recently, when every moment felt heavy with consequence. But here, tucked beneath a wing on a cold mountain, she felt a sudden, playful spark. She closed her eyes and drew a single bead of water from her canteen. With a flick of her wrist, she sent it drifting through the air until it hovered over the tip of Aang's nose. Then she let it fall.
Aang blinked, crossing his eyes to look at his wet nose. "Hey!"
"Oops," she whispered, unable to hide her grin. "My bending slipped."
"Oh, it slipped, did it?" Aang narrowed his eyes, a dangerous, playful smile spreading across his lips. "You know it's very dangerous to attack an air master in his own nest."
Before she could answer, Aang didn't use bending. He just lunged forward, catching her around the waist and pulling her flat onto her back against the wool blanket. Katara let out a muffled gasp of laughter, trying to bring her hands up to push him off, but Aang pinned her wrists gently beside her head, hovering over her with a triumphant look.
"Surrender, Waterbender," he demanded, his breath warm against her cheek.
"Never," Katara gasped, trying not to laugh loudly enough to wake the dormitories four levels down. "I'll freeze your eyebrows off."
"You wouldn't dare. My eyebrows are legendary."
"They're ridiculous."
"They are majestic," he corrected, leaning down to press a swift, lingering kiss against the corner of her jaw, right where her pulse was jumping.
Katara’s playful protest died instantly in her throat. A soft shiver ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold mountain wind. Her hands, released from his grip, came up to cup the back of his neck, her fingers tangling into his robes, pulling him down until his weight rested comfortably over her. Aang’s teasing melted away just as fast. His breath hitched, his forehead coming down to rest against hers. He shifted, his hand sliding down to lock his fingers firmly through hers, resting their joined hands against the wool blanket between them.
"I missed you today," he whispered, his voice so soft it almost disappeared into the wind. "Even when you were standing twenty feet away at the canal. I missed you."
"I was right there," she murmured, her thumb rubbing the back of his hand.
"It's different when everyone's watching," Aang said softly, shifting so he was lying beside her again, his arm tucked securely around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. "When everyone's watching, you're the Water Bender, and I'm the Avatar. Up here..." He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of her head. "Up here, I just get to be Aang. And you're just my Katara."
My Katara.
The words stayed with her. Katara turned her head, burying her face into the warm dip between his neck and shoulder, inhaling the scent of cedar, air, and ginger. She let her leg hook over his, locking them together under the heavy cloak until there wasn't a single whisper of cold air that could reach them.
"I think I like this best," she whispered against his skin. "Just being your Katara."
Aang's arm tightened around her as the air beneath the glider stayed comfortably warm, the mountain cold held at bay without either of them thinking about it. Katara rested her head against his collarbone, her hand spread over his chest, feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath her palm. She closed her eyes, listening to him breathe until sleep quietly found her.
Outside, the world was wide, loud, and full of people waiting for the Avatar.
Tonight, they could wait. Up here, there was only the wind, the trees, the glider beneath them, and the man who had whispered My Katara as though the words belonged to no one else.
Morning would come soon enough.