The baby in her arms weighed her down. The boy clinging to her clothes was shaking in fear.
The wind whipped around her, the girls too far away, but holding on to each other.
And in the distance, a grey form stood, turned, and shouted - before vanishing over the edge of the world.
“Excuse me, professor. It’s time for me to lock up.”
Pema jerked awake with a gasp.
Crouched down beside the table was a tall man, bald, but with an impressively long goatee.
He’s no student, she thought, frowning at him.
He wavered, nearly falling backwards onto his butt, clearly worried he had upset her.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Khandro. Your phone alarm went off about half an hour ago. When you didn’t wake up, I switched it off for you.”
The man started to stand up, wavered, and reached out to grab the table to steady himself, but missed, and grabbed her hand instead.
Her shock prevented her from resisting his inertia, and she fell on top of him, flat on the floor. Her free hand hit him at the collarbone before sliding off to the floor, barely enough to keep her face from crashing into his.
They froze in shock, both holding their breath.
His blink broke the spell.
Pema scrambled clumsily, trying to get up without touching him - especially staying away from his physical reaction to their proximity. She stumbled and rolled off of him, falling backwards against the leg of the table, dislodging one of the books - right into his stomach.
His pained exclamation jolted her further, and she tried to grab the book to get it out of the way. But he curled away from her, effectively pulling the book out of her reach.
“I’m so sorry! Are you ok? Let me get that out of your way -” she ventured.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees, coughed, and shook his head, dropping it into his hands.
It took her a moment to realize he was laughing.
He curled into himself, picked up the book, and twisted so that he could sit on the floor, facing her. He fumbled with the book until he could get a good look at the cover.
Rubbing her back where she had run into the table leg, she maneuvered herself to a vertical position, her feet splayed out to one side. It gave her a moment to look over this rather distinguished man, clearly several years her senior.
There was something about him…
He opened the book, his fingers hovering above the pages, less tracing the words than feeling the book. She felt herself studying his face, realizing his eyes didn’t seem like they were really focused on the pages, either. But there was something about his face that felt like he was smiling. Even if she would be hard-pressed to say why.
“My father loved writing this,” he said.
Pema blinked, and furrowed her brow. “Aang Gyatso was your father?”
The man smiled softly, still rubbing his fingertips over the pages, turning them without really reading anything. “I’m glad someone is still reading this. He wrote it when I was a kid. These are the stories he would tell when my siblings and I had nightmares.”
Something shifted, and he brought his bright, grey eyes to hers. Pema startled again, unsure when she had ever seen eyes quite the same shade before.
“I think you were having a nightmare. You were reaching out. It sounded like you were shouting at someone, like you were telling them not to do something.”
Something about his voice clicked in her mind. “You were in my dream. You were behind me. We were running away.” She paused. “But I don’t know why. And I don’t know why there were so many children.”
His smile brightened, but was tilted just a little. He looked down at the book, and without consulting the table of contents, he flipped to the page he wanted, traced the chapter title, and passed the book to her to read.
“You were reading Turning The Tides. It’s the story of people running away from terrorists. Their protector stayed behind to slow the bad guys down. The family got away for a few days, but the protector was injured, and the family was captured after all. Until the new hero rescued them.”
She felt her blood run cold. The mother’s name was… Pema.
The professor skimmed the page without turning it. Rohan, Meelo, Jinora, Ikki…
“Tenzin,” she breathed, looking up.
“Your name is Tenzin.”
He just raised an eyebrow and nodded, once.
She looked back at the book, back up at him.
“Tenzin… I had just put this book on my table. I was doing some research, found it on the shelf, and hadn’t gotten to it yet.”
Her chest nearly seized with the effort to both breath and hold her breath.
“Why do I know these names? I’ve never heard this story in my life.”
His face relaxed, and Pema thought she could drown in that loving - loving?? - expression.
“I was raised to believe that friendships can last more than one lifetime.”
