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.
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Then he finally finds something vaguely familiar. He takes out a glass bowl of loose leaf green tea. "I think this is tea. Unless they made it look like tea and it's actually something else." Which... he wouldn't be surprised at anymore. They have exploding eggs here.
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"Find a good tea kettle. Porcelain's good. You pour a little boiling water into it to make it warm. Then you cover it up and wait for it to get hot before you pour the water out and put in the tea leaves. Then you pour in more hot water and let it steep." He glances at the tea again. "I think this is green tea, so you're supposed to boil the water, then put out the fire and let it cool for a minute before you pour it into the kettle, right?"
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He lightly pats his chest before opening up the cupboards for a kettle. "But it's settling back, I think."
He takes out a ceramic kettle, offering it to Roland. "Is this okay?"
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The bit about the baby - he'd like dearly to ask about that, because it seems so different from what he'd been raised to believe happened to the ka after a body dies, and different from the two major religions he knows some little about. With a sliver of regret, Roland shuts his curiosity away. The boy might answer if Roland asks, in this state, but that does not mean that he should.
He sets the lid back on the bowl, setting it aside. "Anything that can be done to help it settle?"
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"Ceramic is good. It holds heat pretty well, like porcelain. We can use this."
He slides it onto the counter, tilting his head as he tries to look into himself, to somehow touch the Avatar Spirit.
It is quite an unhappy spirit right now, but he's unhappy too. The two things are probably related, he thinks dryly.
"Wait, I think. It'll be okay. It just needs time." He needs time too. To get used to his body again, to move as smoothly as he usually does.
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And it feels so weird and wrong, but relieving at the same time, in a twisted way. How would he help his world if he was a baby while Ozai burned the Earth Kingdom? And what about the airbenders? He is the last one.
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He's calm when he says it. There aren't any outward signs of distress at the thought. He rests his hands on the edge of the counter, staring at the bowl of tea instead of at Roland.
"But the only way to win is to kill, and I'd rather do this over and over again than kill someone."
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What exactly is it, Roland wonders, that he's trying to do? Is he trying to convince this child to kill? Or worse, to admit that the longer he spends as a tribute, the more those high ideals may fade? Roland sighs, setting the pot back on the stove, shaking his head. "Cry your pardon. We all have our own ways of dealing with this place."