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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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."

"They are?" he asks excitedly, and then follows it up with, "They...they did? Are they all okay?"

"They are and they are," Wan answered. "They were trapped in the Dreaming for a year. Everyone that stayed was. Zuko and I got back late last month and found out what happened from Valdis. Then we ran into Katara and Sokka a couple weeks later. Katara and Zuko are a bit rocky right now."

Aang is quiet as he processes all of this. Helping, or not depending on one's point of view, is the fact that each name elicits a memory in the back of his mind to jog.

Zuko and I...

A mental image of Wan and Zuko kissing appears.

Katara and Sokka...

The last time he saw the each of them. Sokka before the battle, Katara as he left to go home.

Katara and Zuko...

The look on her face after they walked in on Zuko and Wan.

"...oh."
Well...this is awkward.

Wan glanced down, smiling a little ruefully at Aang's expression, "Don't worry so much. Zuko and I are ah... we're kind of dating. Now. We made it official. Since we both managed to come back and remembered what happened. And Katara... she'll move on. I know she eventually dates you, in your time. Korra told me a little about that. So I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Oh I know that I don't," he says easily, mind shifting to his-time Katara. "At least at home I don't, here though..."

His face scrunches in thought. His-time Katara has already lived through this, and so has chosen him. This-time's Katara hasn't gotten there yet, and that means...ugh, that means no kisses good night. No hand holding. No snuggles by the fire.

Because she's still hasn't chosen him over Zuko.
The guy who's with...his previous incarnation.

"I'm happy for you and Zuko though."

"Here, she just needs some time," Wan reassured Aang. "And thanks. If it's awkward for you, I'll understand. I don't have to bring it up."

He sighs, shoulders slumping.
"I know, but it's just...it's going to be weird wanting to touch and kiss someone who hasn't chosen me yet, that's all."

Weird and sucktastic. He misses her already.

"Wait...if what's awkward? You and Zuko? Why would that be awkward?

"I don't know, you just seemed upset when you said you were happy for us," Wan answered with some hesitation. "Like you were trying to be nice when you didn't want to be. If you're pretending, you don't have to."

"I'm not pretending!" he protests. "I..." then he stops and sighs. "I am really happy for the both of you, especially now that Zuko and I are such good friends, I...I'm just...jealous is all.

I'm sorry."

Wan stopped walking when Aang did and then pulled him into a tight hug.

"It's okay. I know it hurts right now and it's okay for you to feel that. I'll try not to bring it up much."

Aang returns the hug in kind.

"No, please don't. Don't muffle your joy because of me. I'm okay. I'll be okay. Happiness is in too short a supply for you to keep yours quiet, so don't on my account. Promise?"

"I just don't want to hurt you," Wan said softly, honestly. "I don't mind muffling it a little when you're around so you don't have to hurt."

But he was also genuinely relieved Aang was saying he didn't have to. As much as he didn't want to hurt Aang, he didn't like having to tiptoe around his feelings for someone when that person made him so happy.

"Not being fully yourself would hurt me more," he says offering Wan a small smile.

Better nate than lever

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