The chill of the night wraps around him, palpable even under the robes. Balancing on the edge of the cold metal, his hands clasped about a fold in the statue's cloak, he pushes himself off, leaping towards another ledge and crawling forward. This close, he can feel the tingle of the spiritual energy pulsing beneath his palms, his spirit drawn to the very top. The smooth dome, slick with an evening rainshower, is the most difficult to ascend.

Yet his life has always been difficult to ascend.

Overhead, the stars are smothered with the darkness of the cloudy night, the behemoths brooding as they swim through the sky, covering him in his vulnerable position. Outwardly he says nothing, but in his heart he murmurs a prayer of thanks to the spirits, and finds his way blindly to the centre of the statue's head. His pockets are weighed down not with candles or flowers, though these he removes from his robes, but with grief and sorrow, surrounding him as an aura, as a film of stone around the gold of his spirit. Spark rocks strike under his deft fingers, the pure white candle lit ablaze, a sliver of light in the choking blanket of shadows around him. Yet the shadows are comforting in their own way: Here, the benders cannot find him, save for those with seismic sense.

He assumes lotus position, bringing his hands together, his gaze trained on the wick of the candle, on the small ember burning faintly. "As faintly as our lives. Each one of us, here for an instant, gone the next." His fingers shake as he touches the rim of his mask that has hidden him for so long he can no longer remember his own face. "Anything can wipe us out. A swift movement." The candle slips half a millimetre; he does not move to right it. "A weak drop of water." His cloak is soaked through from the wetness still glistening on the statue's head, an echo of the past, now residing in the future. "A breath." The mask allows his warmth, infused with his spiritual chi, to pass over its lip, and the flame nearly dies. But not quite.

"A sign from the spirits," he whispers. Closing his eyes, he focuses on what little time he has left. "My hero. The first energybender in millennia, the first Avatar to recognise that removing one's bending is better than bloodshed, murder, genocide. Please, Avatar Aang, give me the strength to continue to stand against the benders, to lead the world into a land of equality, peace, and hope. Please, Avatar Aang. I need you." From the folds of his robes he draws a single lotus flower, fragile petals uncurling in his palm, and recalls when it was a symbol of wisdom. A breath carries it into the air and over the water, where it disappears into the night.

His words are level, layered; his spirit weeps with sadness and joy. "Happy birthday, Avatar Aang."