Dawn fell behind the mountains like a curtain of pale light as Aang, Katara, and Sokka stopped on a hilltop from which the city of Omashu could be seen: a gigantic fortress of stone, alive and in constant movement even from a distance. The delivery canals ran through it like luminous veins. The wind blew hard, moving Katara's blue cloak and Sokka's hair as Appa groaned softly, restless.
But it wasn't the city that was tensing the atmosphere.
It was the memory.
Ren Yang.
Aang was the least trying to hide it. Every so often he brought his hand to his chest, right where the boy had held him the day of the attack on Kyoshi Island. There was no pain, but there was an emotional mark: something between respect and disturbance.
Katara noticed every gesture, every glance away.
"Aang…" she murmured. "Are you thinking about him again?"*
The Avatar exhaled, long, looking at the city.
"It's just that… I've never met anyone like him. He helped me… and at the same time, he scared me. But he was smiling. How can someone smile while facing an army?"
Katara also remembered that smile. That strange contrast between kindness and something deeper, almost unfathomable. Something that made her feel watched even now.
"Let's just… be alert," she said, gripping the water pouch that hung at her side. "We don't really know who he is."*
Sokka, for his part, was the most agitated, though he pretended otherwise.
"Of course we know who he is!" he grumbled. "He's a weird guy, strong as a lion-buffalo, nice as a monk but with eyes that say 'I'm analyzing you to see how useful you are'. I don't like it. I don't like any of it."*
Aang looked back at Omashu.
"But he saved us… he risked his life for us."
Sokka scoffed.
"Yeah, that's ALSO very suspicious. Who risks their life for a group of strangers they just met?"
Aang fell silent. Because deep down, he knew Ren Yang did have a reason. One he couldn't comprehend. And that was what disturbed him most.
Katara took a few steps and put her hand on the Avatar's shoulder.
"We'll be okay. Omashu is huge, full of good people, and nobody knows us here. He won't be able to find us here."
But when she said it, her own voice wavered.
Because a doubt planted itself in her mind without permission:
"What if he already knows we came?"*
Aang took a deep breath.
"Let's go."
Appa descended slowly on the outskirts of the city, and soon after they crossed the enormous gates of Omashu in improvised clothes, following almost to the letter the canon of their original adventure.
❖ Aang insisted, with a childish smile, on using the name "Bonzu Pippinpaddle Opsokopolis III".
❖ Katara pressed her lips, frustrated, trying not to attract attention.
❖ Sokka tried to act grown-up… with too much success.
Aang was excited. He was almost recovering his childish energy. He almost forgot the shadow that followed them like a whisper.
But the memory returned when an Omashu guard looked at him with interest.
For a second, the Avatar felt something cold run down his spine.
The same feeling he had when Ren Yang held him by the neck with absolute calm on Kyoshi Island.
The same look he had seen in him:
analytical, calculating, capable of reading his weaknesses.
He shook his head to chase those thoughts away.
Katara saw him.
"Aang… are you okay?"
"Yes," he lied.
But as they advanced among the stone streets, watching the deliverymen glide through the delivery canals, the laughter of children, and the chaotic energy of the city, a thought coiled in his mind like a patient snake:
"If Ren Yang wanted to find us… he could."*
The adventure continued as in the canon.
Aang wanted to have fun. He wanted to live a happy memory.
He wanted to escape, even for a few hours, from the image of the moon-white boy who had faced an army without hesitation.
The ride on the delivery canals was total chaos.
Aang laughed.
Katara screamed.
Sokka feared for his life.
But even while laughing, even while enjoying the adrenaline, a part of Aang couldn't stop hearing an echo in his mind:
"I know we'll see each other again."
A phrase said by Ren Yang the night the Avatar left Kyoshi Island behind.
Aang tried to think it was just a premonition.
An Avatar's intuition.
But his soul knew it was more than that.
That Ren hadn't let him go.
He had let him advance.
And that was different.
When they were finally arrested and brought before King Bumi, Katara and Sokka were tense for obvious reasons…
But Aang was tense for a deeper reason.
Because the old king was studying him.
Analyzing him.
With the same impossible gaze as Ren Yang.
And for a terrifying instant… Aang wondered if perhaps all the truly dangerous people in the world shared that look.
Or if Ren Yang had simply awakened a new fear in him. One that would stay there, like a ghost, no matter how many cities he visited.
Later, as Aang ran through the corridors of Omashu trying to solve the trials Bumi set for him, his mind went back and forth between the present and the white shadow of the recent past.
"I have to do what's right…" he whispered, jumping between rocks that moved under his feet. "I have to protect Katara, Sokka… and the world."*
But behind that determination was another thought, murmured, secret, inevitable:
"And I have to understand who Ren Yang really is."*
Because for the first time since waking up in the ice…
Aang felt that maybe he wasn't just running from his duty.
Maybe he was also running from someone.
When the Omashu adventure ended and they escaped illustrating exactly the events of the canon, the group gathered outside the walls as Appa floated heavily in front of them.
Sokka sighed.
"Alright. One less crazy kingdom on the list."
Katara crossed her arms.
"At least we learned something."
Aang looked at her.
"What thing?"
She approached and placed her hand over his chest, right where he still felt that invisible mark.
"That no matter how far we go…
some presences just come with us."
Aang lowered his gaze.
And for the first time in days, he accepted something he had avoided admitting:
Ren Yang was still there.
In his thoughts.
In his memories.
In his future.
A crossed destiny that was just beginning.
As Appa rose into the sky, the Avatar looked back.
Toward Omashu.
Toward the path traveled.
And thought, with a shiver:
"He'll show up. I know he'll show up."*
And he didn't know if he was looking forward to that moment…
or if he feared its arrival.
Katara didn't usually stay quiet after a mission.
She always had something to say: a complaint to Sokka, a question about their destination, a word of encouragement for Aang… something.
But after Kyoshi Island, after the impossible fire that disintegrated without burning, after the calm smile of the white boy who faced a battalion without raising his voice…
Silence clung to her like a second skin.
She didn't want to think about him.
She didn't want to remember him.
She didn't want to feel anything that had to do with him.
Ren Yang.
Even the name made her clench her jaw.
And yet, every so often—during nights at camp, when the fire crackled in front of them—his memory appeared without permission.
Like an inevitable reflection in the water she herself controlled.
During the journey to Omashu, Katara watched Aang with a growing concern.
Every time the Avatar stared distractedly at the clouds, she knew who he was looking for, even if he didn't say it out loud.
The worrying part wasn't that Aang was thinking about Ren Yang.
The worrying part was that she was too.
Not in the same way.
Not with curiosity, nor with admiration, nor with simple fear.
What she felt was… more complicated.
The first time she saw Ren Yang, she perceived him as a kind, strange boy, too polite for someone from the Fire Nation.
But later, when she saw him face Zuko's soldiers with that unnatural calm, with that soft smile that didn't match the violence he was executing…
Katara felt something she had never felt before.
Something that chilled her from the inside.
Something that irritated her.
Something that intrigued her.
She didn't know if she wanted to look away…
or if she couldn't.
From Omashu, as they walked the streets and tried to avoid attention, Ren Yang appeared in her head like a persistent echo.
When a city guard looked at her with distrust, she experienced again a sensation she had forgotten:
the uncomfortable certainty of being evaluated.
Like when Ren looked her in the eyes that time on Kyoshi.
Not with desire.
Not with hate.
Not with tenderness.
But with a kind of emotional analysis that made her feel naked… in a sense different from the physical.
As if he could read her.
As if he knew exactly what made her doubt.
What made her fear.
What made her strong.
That sensation had been so invasive that Katara forced herself not to meet his gaze again.
But she couldn't forget how, even while fighting Zuko, Ren took a moment to look specifically at her…
and smiled.
A smile that wasn't arrogant.
Nor cruel.
Nor mocking.
It was something worse.
It was a smile of recognition.
As if she had a role in a game she didn't yet understand.
During Bumi's trial in Omashu, while they waited in the cell for Aang to return, Katara found herself thinking something that made her feel silly:
"Ren Yang would have known what to do."*
Sokka heard her whisper it unintentionally and looked at her, offended.
"Are you serious? That guy? We shouldn't trust a piece of food he's touched!"
Katara gritted her teeth.
"I don't trust him. Not at all."
But when she said it, very deep fibers of her being trembled.
Because it wasn't true.
Not entirely.
There was a part of her—small, insignificant, but real—that did trust him.
Or wanted to.
Or wanted to understand him.
That was the real problem.
Ren Yang had made her doubt herself.
Her emotions.
Her ability to judge people.
And Katara hated that.
She hated feeling that someone could psychologically push her without even trying.
She hated remembering the instant Ren approached her and watched her as if her very existence was interesting.
She hated… that he mattered to her.
Just a little.
But enough to unsettle her.
When they escaped from Omashu and Aang talked about returning one day, Katara looked at the horizon and pressed her lips.
She wanted peace.
She wanted security.
She wanted a break.
But in the deepest, quietest, most unconfessable part of her heart…
She knew Ren Yang was still there.
In her past.
In her present.
And, worse, in her future.
A white, smiling shadow.
A danger.
A presence.
A question without an answer.
And what terrified her most wasn't that he might be an enemy…
But that, when they crossed paths again, she wouldn't know if she would be able to face him…
…or if a part of her would want to listen.