Aang (
actually112) wrote in
thecapitol2014-10-03 12:00 am
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Entry tags:
I have regained my breath
Who| Aang and YOU
What| He's fresh out of the arena and he's a little ball of sad.
Where| Training Center; Roof, D4 suite, and everywhere else
When| Late 11th week of the mall arena.
Warnings/Notes| Sadness, references to child death, references to fictional genocide
D4 Suite
Aang woke up being able to hear again. There was no hole in his chest, and he could breathe.
He felt dead inside.
Dying was horrible. He could feel it--his soul, the Avatar spirit battering his chest, trying to escape, but trapped. He could feel himself dying in a way he wasn't meant to, without moving on to someone else. Would the Avatar cycle have been over had they let him stay dead, or would the Avatar spirit escape again once his body rotted and split open to allow it out?
Maybe it had moved on after the darkness overtook him. Maybe, for the briefest moment, he had been a waterbender baby. And then maybe he had died in his new mother's arms.
He staggers into the common area, blankly looking around, not looking all there. His legs feel wrong. His arms feel wrong. His lungs and ears feel wrong. Everything is wrong.
The Roof
It didn't take him long to realize that the autumnal equinox had come and gone. He was 113. It had been 101 years since the Air Nomads were wiped from the earth. Here, in this place of color and strange machines, after watching people die and suffer, without even the wind to whistle in his ears and guide him, he has never felt so alone.
He goes up. He finds stairs, and he goes up until he can't go up anymore. To the roof. The wind blows around him, but it doesn't speak to him like it should. He sits on the ground, overlooking all the towering buildings, buildings full of people who had laughed as they observed his suffering.
He sits down, hugs his knees, and lets tears flow silently down his face. Nothing. His struggles had been for nothing.
Aang takes a deep breath as the wind blows away his tears, and begins to sing. Those who observed him humming on Zuko's chest as he died would recognize the melody, but none of the lyrics are translated like everything else is. That is because there aren't lyrics--he lets out noises from deep in his chest, from high in his throat, making sounds that humans can't make without practice. He's imitating the wind, with its wails and puffs and whistles and moans. The lyrics are nonsense, and yet they mean everything to Aang.
It's the wind. It's all he has left of his people now.
Everywhere
After his grieving, it hits him that he's alive. And so will everyone else be.
His face is a little blotchy, but to hell with that. He's exploring, getting lost, getting found again, wandering into random districts and finding the common area and climbing onto dummies in the training area.
He is looking for friends, old and new and potential.
He doesn't have the Air Nomads, but he has them.
What| He's fresh out of the arena and he's a little ball of sad.
Where| Training Center; Roof, D4 suite, and everywhere else
When| Late 11th week of the mall arena.
Warnings/Notes| Sadness, references to child death, references to fictional genocide
D4 Suite
Aang woke up being able to hear again. There was no hole in his chest, and he could breathe.
He felt dead inside.
Dying was horrible. He could feel it--his soul, the Avatar spirit battering his chest, trying to escape, but trapped. He could feel himself dying in a way he wasn't meant to, without moving on to someone else. Would the Avatar cycle have been over had they let him stay dead, or would the Avatar spirit escape again once his body rotted and split open to allow it out?
Maybe it had moved on after the darkness overtook him. Maybe, for the briefest moment, he had been a waterbender baby. And then maybe he had died in his new mother's arms.
He staggers into the common area, blankly looking around, not looking all there. His legs feel wrong. His arms feel wrong. His lungs and ears feel wrong. Everything is wrong.
The Roof
It didn't take him long to realize that the autumnal equinox had come and gone. He was 113. It had been 101 years since the Air Nomads were wiped from the earth. Here, in this place of color and strange machines, after watching people die and suffer, without even the wind to whistle in his ears and guide him, he has never felt so alone.
He goes up. He finds stairs, and he goes up until he can't go up anymore. To the roof. The wind blows around him, but it doesn't speak to him like it should. He sits on the ground, overlooking all the towering buildings, buildings full of people who had laughed as they observed his suffering.
He sits down, hugs his knees, and lets tears flow silently down his face. Nothing. His struggles had been for nothing.
Aang takes a deep breath as the wind blows away his tears, and begins to sing. Those who observed him humming on Zuko's chest as he died would recognize the melody, but none of the lyrics are translated like everything else is. That is because there aren't lyrics--he lets out noises from deep in his chest, from high in his throat, making sounds that humans can't make without practice. He's imitating the wind, with its wails and puffs and whistles and moans. The lyrics are nonsense, and yet they mean everything to Aang.
It's the wind. It's all he has left of his people now.
Everywhere
After his grieving, it hits him that he's alive. And so will everyone else be.
His face is a little blotchy, but to hell with that. He's exploring, getting lost, getting found again, wandering into random districts and finding the common area and climbing onto dummies in the training area.
He is looking for friends, old and new and potential.
He doesn't have the Air Nomads, but he has them.
no subject
That isn't really information he had been planning on sharing, but his brain-to-mouth filter isn't quite up and running yet.
"Are you sure you're okay? You seemed really sick when..." When he was ushered out and one of Bucky's friends killed him as a mercy, but he doesn't want to say that.
no subject
He may not understand a lot of what Aang is talking about but he can agree on that.
Bucky nods firmly. "We are reset after death to the same physical condition we were in on first arrival." which means aside from a little minor weight loss he's completely physically fit. "You are no longer injured, correct?" he says as an example.
no subject
He leans against the counter, fiddling with the hem of the weird garment they've provided for him (a shirt), simultaneously expressing his discomfort with it and giving his hands something to do, somewhere to focus all the built up energy. "No. I'm not hurt. There's not a hole in my chest or anything like that. How do they do that?"
no subject
"I don't know." he answers truthfully. "We come back exactly as we were when first brought here. My hair was cut before the arena, now it is long again."
As much proof as was needed that it wasn't just them fixing up their corpses and shocking them back into life but an actual reset. Not to mention some people's corpses were surely damaged beyond possible repair, like anyone who had fallen into the gears on the escalators. It's a puzzle, one Bucky can't begin to figure out, it wasn't part of his skillset.
no subject
Aang's hand immediately goes to his own head. Completely smooth, without any of the patchy stubble that had been growing despite his best efforts in the arena (fun fact: knives are really hard to shave with). "But how does that..."
He shakes his head. He doesn't understand anything here. "Why wouldn't they do that for their own citizens? Why waste so much bringing us in and making us kill each other just to put us back together again?"
no subject
"I don't know." he says again, frowning. "These games are... more than games." Bucky steps back, further into D9's common room. It's as much an invitation as Aang will get from him to come in. "They are important to the function of Panem society."
no subject
Throughout all his excursions in the arena, few people explained what happened outside of the arena. He follows Bucky like a lost puppy, nudging the door closed behind him. "How can something so awful and violent be important to anyone's function? They're doing nothing but hurting people who didn't do anything wrong."
no subject
He doesn't think about what he's doing, it's like his body suddenly starts to act on its own, like muscle-memory taking over. Two glasses are taken out of the cupboard, two plates as well.
When he takes a loaf of bread to start making sandwiches he feels the spectre of a small hand holding onto the back of his shirt and tries to ignore it. There had been a photo in his biography, a smiling gap-toothed boy and three younger dark haired girls, he'd taken it out, kept it in his pocket. It was gone now.
"I am unsure. It does not make sense to me. Someone else may be able to explain it."
no subject
Aang leans on the edge of the counter, looking around at the kitchen curiously before creeping around and investigating. Oh, look, a box full of food and cold air. Oh, a thing that makes fire (he thinks he saw that in his district). Oh, drawers full of flawless metal objects, clearly made by a master blacksmith.
"Do they have all this stuff where you come from?"
no subject
He puts the top slice on each and pauses, "I... some people dislike the crusts, do you?"
no subject
"We have blacksmiths back home who can make eating utensils, but usually, only Water Tribesmen or people rich enough to hire waterbenders can have ice boxes."
no subject
Back in his day he thinks it tasted different, but the stuff the Capitol produces isn't bad, a definite step up from water and protein shakes which was all he ever had to drink under HYDRA. He likes the sweetness of it.
"It's peanut butter." Bucky informs Aang as he hands him the plate and glass. Everyone liked peanut butter. "They're common here and where I come from."
no subject
And... "That's not butter." But it is very peanut-y. But sweeter? Definitely sweeter. And smoother, like someone ground it down into a thick, creamy paste. He chews experimentally, blinking as he swallows. Huh. It's sticky, too. "It's good!"
He should find out how to make this stuff. Maybe when he's back home, he can show it to his friends.
no subject
"No." he agrees to the declaration that it is not butter, it's interesting to watch the expression on Aang's face change as he tastes the sandwich, from puzzlement to enjoyment. "We ate it a lot back home." he says, taking another mouthful, trying to remind himself that he doesn't have to bolt his food down because no one is going to take it away from him here.
no subject
How odd. And how wonderful, at the same time. At least there's one new thing he's encountered today that's good.
He picks up the glass and takes a sip... then promptly gags and starts to cough. "What's that?" Why are there bubbles in his mouth they're burning him and oh by the spirits he has never tasted anything so sweet in his life--
Maybe he should have been warned about carbonated soft drinks.
no subject
Of course, it didn't cross his mind that if Aang came from a world without peanut butter it might also be a world without soda, nor he reaction the kid might have to it. As soon as the coughing starts he drops his sandwich and sits up, leaning forward with a hand hovering near Aang's back until he ascertains that he is not in fact choking.
"It's soda." he answers, thinking he's done something wrong. "You don't like it?"
no subject
"No, it's not that! It's just... we don't have that back home." Of course, Aang feels a little guilty for reacting like that, since Bucky had done something nice for him and he'd been rude about it. That is no way to behave.
So he looks up at Bucky, giving him a reassuring smile and a somewhat sheepish giggle. "Sorry. Didn't expect all the bubbles. Or... the sugar." Seriously. He has never tasted anything so sweet. Not even fruit pies.
no subject
"Oh..." he looks at the glass, "I didn't know." If they didn't have peanut butter perhaps it should have made sense they would have no carbonated drinks either. "I can get water."
He's starting to move already.
no subject
"Mmmmaybe that would be best. While I get used to all the... bubbles?" He tilts his head and presses his cheek against the table to see the bubbles slowly rising to the surface of the liquid and sticking to the sides of the glass. "How do you get so many little bubbles in there?"
no subject
"I don't know." another thing to add onto the pile of things that he doesn't know. A pile which in all honesty is starting to feel like a mountain. "We had this when I was a kid." which was quite a long time ago.
no subject
"Maybe an airbender or a waterbender could do it." He looks back down at the bubbles, now fascinated that he's not gagging from surprise. "But you don't have benders where you come from."
He sips from the water slowly, then goes back to his sandwich. He has not forgotten that in the confusion. "Your world sounds pretty cool."
no subject
"Why do you think that?" Bucky asks, picking up the sandwich and biting into once more, two bites and one half is gone before he takes a swig of soda to chase it down with.