milliways_bar | Re-Entrance [under new munagement. Have read RPs with the old Aang. Poke me if I forget something]

If Aang were the type to keep a journal, a sampling of entries would have sounded like this:

Day One (Post-iceburg)

Have been freed from iceburg where I was apparently trapped for a hundred years by a pretty girl. Hundred years = bad. Pretty girl = good. Pretty girl's brother = funny-looking when covered in bison snot.

Now: penguin-sledding with pretty girl! Yey!

Day Five

Sokka in a dress. Ahaha.

Day Fifteen

Sliding around Omashu still fun!

Day Sixteen

Bumi also still crazy. But it's okay because he's a genius!

Day Twenty-six

Getting stuck in caves = not always a bad thing

Which leads up to what today's imaginary entry in Aang's imaginary journal would read...

Day Thirty-Something...I think.

Need real food. Onion and banana juice is not real food, no matter how "spiritually sustaining" Guru Pahtick claims it is. Suspect that he, like most old people I've ever met, is slightly crazy. Still not fully realized Avatar yet.

Now he'd have something else to add to that imaginary entry: Went to bar, because he stumbled in barefoot and half-asleep, rubbing at his eyes, after a night of strange dreams involving connected pools of water filled with onions and bananas.

His stomach spoke first, growling loudly, and then he spoke next, deliriously happy: "Real food!"

And ran over to the bar.

Welcome back to Milliways, you bald little monkey.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No. I wouldn't. If I was just an Air Nomad, maybe. But I'm not."

He had a duty not just to his people, not just to his home, lost now to time and decay, but to the world, and that, at least, was something he understand, regardless of all his doubt and mistakes.

He hopped down from the table.

"Nobody deserves to not be able to go home--believe me, I know. But at least you might be able to go home again someday--my home is gone--because of your people. And a lot of people don't have homes anymore, don't have families. I'm not doing this to just--make your life miserable or something, I'm trying to make everyone's lives better. Including the lives of people in the Fire Nation--if there's no war, then they won't keep sending people off to never come home again."

Whether they were soldiers or Fire Nation princes.

"You are delusional! Savior of the world, Balance? It's all a lie, Avatar! You don't know anything! You don't-- even think-- what it'll be like. What'll happen when my Father falls, fool? Do you think there aren't a hundred vipers in his court who won't take up the sword? Or my sister? What do you think she'll do if she attains the throne?" he cuts the air with his hand, flame still streaming from his fingertips with the motion.

"And what about the rest of the world? Do you think they'll leave us alone once you've brought my people to their knees, destoryed their strength, shattered a fleet or army or two?" His eyes were blazing, and the air was hot, so very-- very-- hot.

His teeth are white when they're bared in a snarl. "Or did you forget the North, and what you did there. Do you think you won't do it again? Won't have to? This is war, and if you think you can bring balance to the world without bringing us as low in recompsense for a high as we have gone, you are are ten times the fool! End your life and hope you come out smarter in the next!"

"I'll stop the war, and when your sister and the other people hungry for power try to rise up in court, I'll stop them, just like I did for the Earth King," Aang said, starting to get angry under the calm of his voice. "If I stop the war and I have to fight the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes to protect your people, then I will."

A pause. "And I can stop your people without fighting a whole army or destroying another fleet. I have a way."

He wasn't going to tell Zuko what it was, of course.

But that was the beauty of the eclipse--all the Firebenders powerless so that he didn't need to hurt them to make it happen.

"I'm not a lie."

A coward, once, maybe.

"Everything you promise is false," Zuko says, his body tense. "You're a lie, balance is not happening, not ever--! You don't -- you can't -- make a world exist like that! You're just another power, like everything else!"
Yin and yang; Moon and Sun; Boy and Wolf-- balance was hard.

"No. I'm not," he said, and he started to walk away. He didn't turn his back mind you, but he knew who and what he was.

If Zuko wanted to wave off that knowledge, he could, but it wasn't worth it to stand around and listen to it.

"Coward. Wars will happen whether or not you -- or any of your past lives -- are around!" Zuko calls after his back. "You aren't a savior! You're just a bully with four elements!"

"They'd go on longer without me. Your father is the bully."

There were cycles to be maintained and cycles to be broken. One war always led to more if someone didn't step in. That was a cycle that had to be broken.

"Then you're in excellent company! Tyrants and fools, the BOTH OF YOU!"

Didn't expect THAT ANSWER, did you, Aang?

That made him stop.

And turn around.

And look at Zuko like he was RETARDED.

"Because just like your dad, and grandfather, and gread-grandfather, I massacre my entire people and the Water Tribes all the time."

Then, he paused.

"And if you think your father is so awful, why are you trying so hard to win his favor? I don't think I'm the fool."

"You don't have a father," Zuko says, his lip curled. "You'd have no concept-- no understanding."

You can't know what it's like to be an unloved son.

"You forget the rage you displayed in the North. I doubt any of the fleet's kin will be so quick let that memory fade. You are as much a monster and a fool as he is -- wanting the world to bend to your ideas. You aren't any different."

Neither of you want me to go home.

"I had a father," Aang said.

A father who loved him. A father and a master and a best friend.

"I found his bones in the Southern Air Temple, surrounded by the bones of dead Firebenders. I had other fathers besides him and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and cousins, and a whole family. We weren't all related by blood, but I had a family, and they're all gone now."

Aang shook his head. "And despite it, that wasn't my anger in the North. That was the rage of the Ocean Spirit, because of what was done to the Moon. You can ask your uncle if you don't believe me--he knew.

The spirits are angry because of what's happening to the world."

The forests were burned and the Hei Bai stole people away, and the Ocean Spirit had raged.

"That wasn't me--that wasn't what I wanted, hurting all those soldiers--that was the world lashing back at your people through me."

"You're just avoiding responsbility. Again: I call you coward!" Zuko says, his hands tight, trembling from knuckles to bicep. GOD how he wanted to hurt that boy, glaring at him with hate.
I want it all back.
His dogs whined miserably -- but there was an edge there, rolling beneath, a warning. They were with their alpha, and did not understand this screaming and yelling, but they knew everyone was unhappy.

Aang wasn't their priority, though. Zuko was.

"You just want to live in a dream world, just like uncle does. The world doesn't work that way; nothing falls into place neatly. You can't even take responsbility for your actions. A spirit did it-- through you, huh?" His lips were curled. "Coward. Filthy, lying coward!"

"If I wanted to avoid responsibility, I'd just stop fighting," Aang pointed out, and then he was done.

He turned to walk away again.

Zuko wanted to burn a hole in his back, strike now--
So this is how the proud Captain Zhao acts in defeat...
--but something (someone) stays his hand.

His hands themselves are shaky, unsteady-- and he feels bile burning his throat.

These discussions never leave him stable. He turns the other way, and heads outside into the cold. The chill suited his mood, and while the dogs followed him out...

Zuko was thoroughly alone.

Re-Entrance [under new munagement. Have read RPs with the old Aang. Poke me if I forget something]

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