milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There are points in the rafters where two beams cross. Some of those points intersect with vertical supports; others don't, providing a broader flat surface at the junction.

A laptop is balanced on one. Early 21st century model, sleek and advanced for its time; a knowledgeable eye, given a close look at the specs, might notice that a few components look suspiciously... well, alien. And that a simple laptop probably shouldn't be capable of quite so many things.

River is reading something on it.

She's a huddle inside her long brown coat; her face is pale and tear-splotched, with dark circles under her narrowed eyes, and hot slow tears spill down her cheeks. But she doesn't move, except to scroll down, and she doesn't look away.

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River flicks a glance at him (eyes teary, red, filled with some strong emotion that could be fury or frustration or grief or a mixture of all three) and back away.

He hated not being able to fix things.

Things included anything and everything. It was sort of ingrained that if something was wrong, no matter who it involved, it hurt.

"Nothing stays," he said. "Whatever's causing you grief now, it'll change. Eventually...everything balances out."

River is very still for a moment.

And then, "'Cept," she says, flat and bitter, to the screen, "the things that don't."

Aang looked up at her.

"They do--it's just no one watches long enough to see it happen," he said, "If everything stayed bad forever, there'd never be any good in the world--in any world. Wars end. What's broken gets fixed. And what's hurt heals. Maybe not to the way it used to be, but enough for there to be balance again."

River's head snaps up -- and that's a glare, there, hot and fierce.

"I'm watching," she snarls.

"The applications are flawed. Pick another fulcrum."

He didn't understand. The words were too big, but he didn't need to understand the words to figure out the ideas behind them.

"How long have you watched?" he asked her, defiantly, but not unkindly.

"It's not cogent," River informs him flatly, and turns back to her laptop.

"Pissing contest. You'll poison the water."

"I'm not arguing to argue. I just...know..." Fainter now. "Wars end, and everything...everything is..."

He hung his head.

Softly, "Do you?"

He thought about it for a moment.

"I thought I knew." He looked up at her, gray eyes full of uncertainty and hope all at once. "It's just harder now, to believe in things--that doesn't mean they aren't true though."

River just looks tired, tired and frustrated and sad, and punches another series of keys on the laptop.

There was a rueful expression on his face for a moment, and then he dropped off the rafter.

Down below, the front door of the bar opened and was left open for a moment, and a mountain breeze blew in, the summer wind carrying the faint smell of vines and sweet flowers, and lotus blossoms.

Then the door closed enough, and Aang jumped up with a little gust of air propelling him, and climbed back up onto the rafter, something clutched in his hand.

The Airbenders were gone, but in the temple, the flowers still bloomed--the apple and cherry blossoms that were there all spring and summer, the lotuses in the pools, the wildflowers on the mountainside--and it was a little bunch of flowers that he put down next to the plate of cookies.

"I don't know you, but I really hope that whatever it is...that it gets better, and that if you're worrying about someone else, that they'll be okay," he said. He was awkward again for a moment. "Things get better. They do."

Then he jumped off the rafter again, and was gone, the front door opening and closing again.

He'd left behind little white-pink apple blossoms.

For 'better things to come.'

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