The next few weeks, Hao spent his time burying the dead, fire nation and air nomad alike. He just couldn't bare looking at the corpses everywhere he looked. He dug the graves by hand, not having brought a shovel and thus he didn't dig one grave for one person, that would've consumed months of nothing but digging holes and refilling them, so he made graves of a dozen, keeping fire nation and air nomads separated.
He buried the children first, he couldn't bare looking at them.
Three weeks of digging but finally, the last air nomad was buried. Satisfied, he took an apple from a nearby tree, digging in. It was sweet and juicy. Hao threw another apple behind him, which Kaze caught. Kaze was a winged lemur whom had befriended him over the time he spent there. He might very well be the last of his kind.
"Do you know where the monks kept their scrolls?" Hao asked Kaze. The small beast inclined his head and began jumping away. Hao followed the cream colored lemur through the halls, up to a door, one which he had faced many times since he came here, one he couldn't open. It had pipes on it, through which air could travel. It was like the fire doors in the capital. One needed a stream of fire to open them and Hao suspected this was the same but for air but he couldn't muster any winds strong enough to open them. He tried using fire bending and earth bending stances which he had observed on the battlefield but no matter what he did, it wasn't strong enough.
"I don't know the right movements to get in and you tell me this is the only way inside?"
Kaze scuttled towards a small, circular tunnel on the wall, just barely big enough that he might make it through, though not Hao, he was too big, "this leads to the inner parts? Could you bring me the scrolls?"
Kaze nodded and headed inside. A few minutes later, he came back with a-, "a bug? No, Kaze, I need a scroll"
Kaze nodded as if he understood but he returned with a pottery fragment, "no! Something like- this!"
Hao pulled up a rolled up scroll containing a map. Kaze looked at it, tracing it with nimble fingers before nodding. It took an hour but Kaze eventually returned with three scrolls, "good work", Hao beamed, petting the small lemur.
Opening the scrolls, one was a history of the air nomads, several meters of parchment, Kaze had barely squeezed it through the hole, and the other two were bending scrolls. During the day, he practiced the kata's in the morning and midday and read the history in the afternoon.
After a month, he got the basics of normal pushes down, which allowed him to open the door. Inside, there was a hall with statues of avatars and further in, there was a library, untouched by the inferno which had been the fire nation's attack. There, he learned of the true philosophy of air bending. It was unlike the fire and earth bending which he encountered. Over the next few months, he internalised the teachings.
"Air is the element of freedom", he repeated as he danced like a leaf in the wind through the gates swinging wildly, "to understand the wind is to understand flow in the world. You do not fight against the current, you move alongside it", he slipped through the gates, not missing a beat in this dance which was air bending, changing direction when the current of air changed, "a leaf doesn't choose the direction in which the air blows it"
When he made it out on the other side, he heard something, a voice. He had been living without hearing another human's voice for so long that hearing one was quite surprising. Six months, he had been on this temple for six months, surviving on nothing but fruit and vegetables.
"There it is, the southern air temple", the voice was young, so full of wonder, "we are home buddy! We are home"
Hai moved closer to the voice, hushing Kaze from making any noise. There stood three children, two water tribe kids in their blue parkas and one boy in yellow and orange clothes, baggy, with an airbending master's tattoo's. He was no older than twelve. By their side was a flying bison, another animal thought to be extinct. Was this truly the avatar? Hesitantly, Hao approached, hands in the air, "I mean you no harm"
The water tribe boy turned his club on him, "who are you? A fire nation spy? Have you followed us?"
Hao stopped at the edge of the cliff, looking down on them. With a turn, he jumped, using the wind to slow his descent.
The Avatar's eyes grew wide, "see, I told you there were still air nomads here. My name is Aang, these are Sokka and Katara. Where are the elders? They will want to see me and probably scold me for running away hehehe"
Sokka, the water tribe boy lowered his club, "I thought all the airbenders were gone… have they truly been hiding here?!"
Hao's eyes shone with sadness, looking at the three young ones, "I'm so sorry", he whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"Follow me", he guided the confused children to the graves.
"This isn't… is it?" Aang's eyes started to tear up.
"I'm afraid so, I came here only half a year ago. Back then, I didn't know I was an earth bender. I listened to the wind and it brought me here. From then on, I have been surviving on the gardens left by the monks, just me and Kaze"
"Kaze? Is there another one?"
"Come here, Kaze", Hao whistled and the cream colored lemur flew onto his shoulder.
"Food!" Sokka's mouth was salivating.
"No, Kaze isn't food, he is a friend. There are plenty of fruit and vegetables though, feel free to pick an apple from the orchard" Hao smiled as Sokka ran towards where he had pointed, fully forgetting his suspicions.
"Thank you for burying them", Aangs voice was weak and hesitant, "I really thought they would be here. How did the fire nation even get up here?"