tushanshu_logs | Better nate than lever

Entry tags:

Better nate than lever

Characters: Aang and...you?
Date: *cough*January*cough*
Location: Outskirts of the Metal Sector
Situation: Aang has just arrived, his memory is a bit fuzzy.
Warnings/Rating: None yet, but we'll keep you posted

"Tell me, then. What are the terms of your agreement?" he asked the other Avatar seated across the table from him. Not just any other Avatar, but Yang Chen the Air Nomad that had preceded him in the cycle.

"First," she started to respond, but was cut short when the earth beneath them moved. No, that wasn't right. It didn't move, it jolted. And not like any earthquake that Aang had ever felt before. Something was wrong. Very very wrong, and he didn't need Yang Chen's expression to tell him so.

There was a loud crack and then....everything around Aang went white.
Something had pulled him from the Spirit World and thrown him back into his body...hard.

His eyes hurt as he opened them, the light of day blinding his vision until he adjusted. The ground...wait, why was there light of day at all? He was in a restaurant with the Air Acolytes. Why ground? Where were the floorboards?

Aang's mind reeled. None of this was right. His first attempt at sitting up resulted in a wave of nausea that kept him down for another ten count. Steeling his resolve, as well as his stomach, he finally managed to sit, and then eventually stand.

The world around him was not the one he started from. This wasn't the town or the refinery.
Maybe this was a glimpse of the future?

"Yang Chen?" he called to no one in particular...

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The moment Aang's spirit arrived on the turtle, Wan was aware of it. The tug on his soul was undeniable and he dropped what he was doing (literally. he'd apologize to Zuko about the broken plates in the kitchen later) to fly out the door and head on over. It took him several minutes to get there, even flying as fast as he safely could, but it was mostly during the time Aang was pushing the nausea down.

When he landed, he was all smiles and there was no hesitation as he ran over and pulled his future life into a hug, "Aang!"

Seismic sense told him someone was running in his direction, but because of the mental fog that still clung tightly to his mind there was little he could do that wasn't merely turning towards the person.

Who then gathered him up into a hug.

Okay...this is different. It's not an unwelcome turn of events. Aang likes hugs.

"...hi?"

"Hi!" Wan pulled back to look at him a little more properly, taking in the physical changes. "You got bigger!"

"I did?"

Aang just...blinks at the man.
It's not that he doesn't know he's grown, because...obviously he has, but how does this man know this? Does he know him? It...feels like he might. This all feels so familiar.

Why don't any of the thoughts in his mind make a straight line?

"You did!" he confirmed, still not aware there was anything wrong just yet, and pulled Aang back into a hug. "I'm so happy to see you. I missed you. Korra hasn't come back yet, but if you're here, maybe we'll get to see her again, too. You don't know how much I've missed the two of you."

"I...I guess I really didn't," he says as he returns the man's hug.

Because it's kind of the truth.
Aang really doesn't know how long Wan has missed him, mostly because Aang isn't entirely sure who Wan is.

Which is what leads him to ask the question:

"Do I know you?"

Wan froze, then pulled back so he could put his head into his hands. Aang didn't remember him. He'd only just arrived and his memories hadn't sorted themselves out. Of course. And Wan had come in without giving him any chance to get orientated.

"Yeah, you do," he said with sigh and a rueful smile. "I'm Wan. Avatar Wan. One of your past lives."

Aang blinked.

"Wan?"

He blinked again, and then he knew.
Just like he knew the toys to choose from the hundred presented to him.
Like he knew the statue in the sanctuary was Roku even before they'd ever actually spoken.
Like...he knew many things regarding the previous Avatars...

Now his eyes widened as he smiled broadly.
"Wan!"

Now it's his turn to hug.

Wan's smile returned full force as Aang's recognition came back to him and he accepted the hug with as much eagerness as the one he'd given. That was enough. More memories could come later. Just being known was enough.

"I really, really missed you, Aang. It's been a year on Tu Vishan since we all left. And it's been e- it's been longer for me, in my era."

Some men feel the need to hit while they hug, as if the act of hugging wasn't manly enough for them or something. Aang is not one of these men.

"A year? A whole year? Wait," he stops and pulls back. "How long has it been for you?"

Wan was not one of them either. Manliness wasn't a priority of his. But at the question he did pull back so he could shrug and smile wanely, "Eight. It sometimes feels a lot longer than that. There's been a lot of changes in the world since I became the Avatar."

"I can't wait to hear all about them." And he means it: every single change.

He laughed, a light chuckle that was cut off as he shivered with the cutting wind that blew past. Wan looked up and around, "Right. It's still winter isn't it." He'd lost himself in being happy about Aang's return that he'd forgotten to keep his temperature up.

"Why don't we talk as we walk? How long as it been for you, in your time? Tell me what's happened to you and I'll tell you all about the world at the start of our era."

Aang looks up and around after Wan does. Is it cold? He hadn't noticed. Ambient temperatures are for other people, apparently.

He gestures for Wan to lead, because truth be told...he has no idea where to go, but he does answer the question, leading with what he believes Wan will be the most interested in.

"I met a lionturtle."

There's definitely excitement at that statement, "You did? Did you talk to it? You talked to it, right? What did it say?"

"I did! It called to me, though I didn't know it was doing it at the time. I just knew I had to go, you know? And there was this island, only it wasn't an island, it was the lionturtle."

He pauses, going introspective for a moment.

"I needed wisdom, and my past lives weren't being very helpful. No offense."

Eyebrows shot up, "...did you talk to me?"

He shakes his head sullenly.

"I only only ever see you here," he says with a sigh.

"Everyone was telling me that I was going to have to kill Fire Lord Ozai. Even his own son and the Air Nomad Avatar before me. But...I couldn't do it. I just...knew there had to be another way."

Wan tilted his head to the side and thought about that for a bit before answering slowly, "Sometimes death is the only way. But I think it should be left as the last resort. Something done only when all the other options are gone. I'm not saying you're wrong about what they said, you're the one that talked to them. But it's also hard to believe that it would be the first and only choice they'd give you if were asking for advice. At the same time... they come from lives I haven't lived yet. I don't know what my soul has been through in those lives."

He shrugged slowly, smiling, "But I'm pretty sure that no matter what they said, they were telling you what they thought was the right thing. And sometimes the right thing isn't what you want to hear."

Another pause before he asked: "Did you kill him? Or did you find another way?"

"I know. I just, the whole war started with aggression, and ending it with aggression would only have fed into the cycle, instead of breaking it. I had the opportunity. I...I could have ended him, but I didn't, and he called me weak."

Aang looks away, towards the horizon.

"But I knew he was wrong. The Monks had always taught us that violence was the weapon of the weak. What the world needed wasn't for me to be weak, but for me to be strong, and the lionturtle taught me how to do that."

He pauses, remembering very vividly how badly Wan reacted to Katara's bloodbending, and hoping beyond all hope that he would not have as similar a reaction to Aang's next confession.

"I took his bending away."

"'Even when you have the power, you're afraid to use it'," Wan murmured, his eyes unfocused as he was lost in the memory of a similar time in his life. He came back to himself to hear the rest of it and slung his arm around Aang after he finished.

"The Lion Turtles gave me the power of the elements. If one of them trusted you with the knowledge to remove that same power, then it means it trusted you to use the power wisely," Wan said slowly. "I think you used it wisely."

Aang flinched slightly at the contact, not because it was unwelcome...but because it was unexpected. After getting Wan's validation, his shoulders sag in relief.

"Thank you, Wan. I...sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice, but I think that no matter what I'd chosen I'd be thinking that."

"I guess it's my turn to tell you what's happened," he snorted, leaning a little against Aang. "Well, after I defeated Vaatu and sealed him in the Tree of Time, I decided that the only way other humans could be prevented from releasing him was to close the portals to the Spirit World. It would make physically entering the Spirit World impossible. But before I closed them, I had to travel everywhere and ask all the other spirits of the world to return to their homes in the Spirit World. That took some time to do. After those that were willing to leave left, I closed the portals and again traveled the world, finding every lion turtle I could to tell them what I had done. They, in turn, decided that with the spirits returned to the Spirit World, they would stop being the protectors of mankind and that humans could no longer live in the cities on their backs. It's been a few years since then. The nations I've been told about here are starting to form and there have been wars between different groups of humans that I've done my best to stop or end peacefully. But it's been difficult. Most humans don't like me or they fear me. Or both. I'm doing my best to teach everyone I can how to learn to live together in peace. It's just... it's going to be a long path to walk."

"Yeah,it really really is," he says quietly.
Aang in turn leans into Wan, finding comfort in the other man's presence. A sense of peace he wasn't aware he was missing, but that he remembers vividly from his goodbye with Korra.

"But a long path worth walking. Especially with a friend."

"Raava's the best friend I've ever had," he said, smiling fondly. "But from what I understand, I get to have a lot of best friends in my lives to come. And speaking of best friends, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko are here. Zuko went home like you and me, and Sokka and Katara, they stayed here."

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