as the turn of the worlds, part nine
Sorry for the lateness. I, uh, I got sucked into a fanfic.
Title: As the Turn of the Worlds; Book One: Objects in Space
Chapter Title: Persephone
Rating: High T/Low M
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble; Mai/Jet, Zuko/Katara (est. relationship), Smellerbee/Longshot (est. relationship), Toph/Haru, Suki/Sokka
Summary: Aang never woke up from the iceberg, and the world went on without him -- and without the Avatar. Now, three thousand years later, the world is highly advanced, the Avatar is a barely-remembered myth, and a man smuggles a large box onto a transport ship...
Chapter Summary: In which Jet and Toph fail to fit in at the fancy party, the final main character is introduced, and Aang continues to be heart-breaking.
FFN // LJ // AO3
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(on freedom)
"Toph, hold still," Katara said, weirdly agitated. Toph groaned and tried not to jerk away as the other woman applied mascara to her eyes. She'd had to remove the visor that she always wore (because Jet told her it was either she take off the visor or she wear shoes, and Toph was not about to wear shoes) and it was weird to feel people touching her eyes. She didn't like it. Her eyes were off-limits as far as she was concerned, useless balls that didn't do any good and, if it wouldn't hurt so bad, she would have gotten rid of them by now. But Katara seemed to think differently -- she had cooed over Toph's eyes when she took the visor off, and said that they were beautiful.
"That feels awful, stop it," she grumbled, but Katara refused to stop.
"You need to look the part," she insisted. "You and I both want to get this over with, so just sit still and let me do your makeup, all right? I'm almost done."
"Good, because this stuff stinks."
"It does not," Katara snapped, but Toph shook her head (Katara groaned and began pulling out wipes to clean up).
"It does, your sense of smell just sucks so bad you can't tell that it stinks."
She couldn't see it, but she knew Katara was rolling her eyes. She huffed as the Companion cleaned off whatever mistake Toph's sudden movement had caused and began re-applying mascara. It felt like she was dragging a brush through Toph's eyelashes. "Hold still. There." Finally, Katara was done, and Toph was just about to sigh happily and go tinker with the engine or something to make her feel normal again, but the Companion stopped her. "Not yet, you need a dress."
"Uh, that wasn't in the agreement," she said bluntly, horrified at the thought of actually having to wear a dress. How would she flee the cops if she had a big poofy thing around her hips? That just wasn't practical.
"Yes, it was," Katara replied. "You can't go to a gala in... that," she said delicately, pointing at Toph's clothes. Okay, so she wasn't exactly dressed formally, but her breast bindings were opaque (she knew, she'd asked every salesperson on Ariel when she'd bought them) and her pants, while baggy, covered her ankles and everything. Sure, she'd known that the belt and gloves would have to go, but other than that, she thought she looked nice. The Duke told her so -- and Pipsqueak, too, so she knew it wasn't just the Duke being a horny teenager.
"What's wrong with my outfit?" she growled, and Katara sighed.
"It's fine for the work you do, but for a formal gala, you need something better. What kind of style might you want?"
"Uh, will Mai's clothes even fit me?" she asked, poking with her toes until she had managed to get one foot under the rug -- finally, she could see properly.
"Hmm, they'll be a bit long, and probably a little tight in the chest, but I think we can find something," Katara mused, and walked over to the wardrobe.
"Something light," Toph said, "I need to be able to run, in case something goes wrong."
"Right..." she muttered, "Let's see... no, no, hmm... no, no... ooh, this one will be perfect. Here, try it on."
--
(at the administrator's gala on the fifteenth floor of saint ninian's hospital in new omashu)
Haru hated hospital administrators. They were all assholes who had completely forgotten about the people they (technically) worked for, made too much money, and didn't even know how to hold a scalpel right anymore. Not to mention the fact that they were all boring old men.
He sighed into his champagne and watched Wing enviously as he danced with the beautiful black-haired Companion he'd hired for the night, wishing he'd thought to hire a Companion. That would make this more fun, and the promise of a little more later on tonight would do wonders for his currently-nasty mood. Just as he was considering going down to the rest of the hospital to check on his patients (even though he was off-duty, he was here, so he may as well), the house manager announced another couple arriving. He took a deep breath and tried not to get mad.
"The Lady Toph Bei Fong, and escort," the maître d’ said, and Haru raised an eyebrow -- Bei Fong? Surely not the Bei Fongs? What would one of the oldest and most powerful families on Ariel be doing at an administrator's gala on Persephone? He turned (along with almost everyone) at the name, to see who was arriving.
All of the breath left his lungs.
She was stunning. Her long, straight black hair was arranged into a cascading bun that fell over her shoulders like a waterfall, her clear green eyes were sharp and pale (and... unfocused?), and she was wearing a lovely, slinky, long mint-colored dress that hugged her chest and hips tightly. Even the Companion paled next to her, and that was saying something.
Next to the beauty in green, her escort looked decidedly diminished, although Haru was a bit biased against anyone who dared to have such a girl on his arm -- the man looked scruffy, unshaven and uncomfortable in slightly shabby clothes. He didn't deserve a girl like her, Haru decided immediately.
Whispers chorused through the crowd, and the beast leaned over and said something to the beauty, who shrugged and turned a little as a waiter brought in a fruit tray. Her escort rolled his eyes and let her go follow the fruit, then began awkwardly trying to make conversation with a few people in the crowd.
Haru was not the only man watching the beauty's progress, and he wasn't the first one to strike up a conversation with her.
"Lady Bei Fong," a man Haru vaguely recognized as being a vice president, "I would be delighted if you would dance with me."
"No," she replied bluntly, and ran her fingers lightly over the moon peaches. That was when it struck him -- the girl was blind! "I don't dance," she added, as a vaguely apologetic afterthought.
"So, you are one of the Bei Fongs," Haru asked lightly, "from Ariel?"
Something passed over her face, but then she smiled. "Yup, originally. Help me out here, will you? Which moon peach looks best?"
"This one," he said, picking out the ripest one and watching her bite into it with ecstasy on her face. He shifted a little uncomfortably. "Would you like a napkin?" he asked, licking his lips and praying internally that she said no.
"Oh," she muttered, "right, yeah, thanks."
Damn.
She dabbed lightly at her lips with the napkin and rubbed her hands to clean the juice off them, looking a little sad at the loss of the delicious fruit. "You say you don't dance," he started, dismayed at the hoarse sound of his own voice, and coughed, "why is that?"
She shrugged. "I can't see," she replied, "so I'd run into people."
"What if you were following?"
"I don't follow," she snapped, and Haru grinned.
"You would rather not dance than follow?"
"Exactly," she said, and punched him lightly in the shoulder (he was surprised that she somehow knew where his shoulder was). "You're picking up on this, Mister Fancy."
"Uh," he said uncertainly, and then held out a hand. "My name is Haru."
"Sure thing, Mister Fancy Haru."
This certainly made things much more interesting.
--
Jet almost walked into Mai, he was too busy watching that mustachioed jerk, making sure he didn't hurt Toph in some way. It wasn't that he suddenly felt protective of his mechanic, but he didn't want to clean up the mess that might erupt if she felt wronged by some creeper trying to cop a feel, especially since they were on a mission and her unexpected popularity had already screwed with his simple plan.
"Whoa, sorry," he said, and Mai raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, I would suggest you watch your step," she replied, and he smirked.
"I'd rather watch your steps," he countered, knowing that she couldn't do what she really wanted to do (hit him) since they were at a fancy party. Her date stepped between her and him.
"Good sir," the man said sarcastically, "is there something you want?"
"A dance," he replied, and then blinked, "with the lady." Behind the man, he could see Mai smirking at his near-screw-up. "If you aren't opposed to allowing a poor plebian the privilege?" He ignored Mai's client entirely after that and reached out to take Mai's hand. She rolled her eyes but went along with him, muttering a I'll be back in a moment to her date. He pulled her close to start the dance -- a sort of waltz -- and smiled brightly at her. "How's your night?" he asked cheerfully.
"Rather dull," she replied quietly, and pushed against his hands, taking the lead. Jet, however, was not one to follow. "Don't you have a job to do?" she asked, as he took the lead from her again.
"I do, but some creep has my mechanic in thrall. This is the best way to keep an eye on them," he added, spinning her out and bringing her back in against him. He liked this, the way Mai danced. She challenged him, always had, and he thrived on challenge. Sure, they spent more time arguing than not, but he'd rather argue with Mai than talk to most people any day of the week.
Mai glanced around him to see Toph and that creep dancing. "That's Doctor Qin," she whispered. "He's a trauma surgeon."
"Trauma surgeon, you say?" he asked, and, while he was distracted, Mai started leading again. He gave her a reproachful look, and she smirked, then picked up the pace of the dance.
"Don't even think about it," she muttered, and he smiled.
"Think about what, my beautiful lady? The only things I'm thinking about right now are in your dress."
She rolled her eyes, too used to his flirting (and his dirty jokes) to get angry. "You're plotting, I know that look."
"Plotting to get you out of your dress?" he mused. "Well, yes, but I think your john has that gig tonight. Have fun, too, he looks like he's good in bed."
"He isn't," she said in a low voice, "I've seen him before."
A laugh bubbled out from his chest before he could stop it. "I thought Companions didn't kiss and tell."
"There won't be much kissing tonight," she replied, smirking a bit and picking up the pace again. He made a face and tried to take the lead again, but she wouldn't let him, which led to them almost tripping over each other's feet. He started laughing, and then Mai snickered, and then her client came up and shoved himself between them.
"Hey," he started, but the man clutched Mai's arm tightly.
"The song is over," he said sharply. "Mai, come with me."
"It was just a dance," he replied, "chill out."
"You wouldn't understand the nuances of the relationship between a Companion and her client," the man snapped. "Tonight, the Lady is mine."
This turned Jet's stomach. It was one thing to joke with Mai about sex, but the way this guy was talking, he seemed to think that he really owned her -- and Jet didn't like the sound of that. Mai didn't belong to anyone but Mai, and this asshole needed to figure that out. "She doesn't belong to you, no matter how much money you pay."
"Tonight, she does," the man growled.
Jet snarled at the man, and was just about to punch him, when something small and green latched onto his arm. "Jet, darling," Toph trilled, sounding completely unlike Toph, "I was wondering where you were! Come dance with me, I love this song!"
He scowled at the client as he walked away, Mai on his arm (she turned and shrugged at him a little as she left), and then at Toph. "Why'd you interrupt me? And where the hell have you been?"
"You were about to hit him," she replied quietly. "Which was a terrible idea. And I've been dancing with a cool doctor, thanks."
"We have to get to work," Jet barked. "And punching him wasn't a terrible idea. Did you hear what he was saying about Mai? Fuck that guy."
"Yeah, she will," Toph said, raising an eyebrow (it was weird to actually be able to see her eyebrows), "and yes, it was. You know that's a challenge to a duel on this planet, right?"
"It's a what?"
"Exactly. You mentioned work?"
--
(on freedom)
Aang was confused.
In general, but right now he was especially confused. Everyone was gone, and he seemed to be alone in the -- place. He took a deep breath and tried to meditate, figuring that that was probably safer than running around, and he was pretty sure that Katara had told him to stay in the blue room with the sleeping (injured?) girl on the bed.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing in a silent swamp. He bit his lip, and tentatively called out, "Monk Gyatso?" but nothing answered. He began to trudge through the muck -- he was in the spirit world, that much he knew, but he had thought there would be, well, spirits in the spirit world. Instead, he was alone.
"Hello?" he asked, looking around. It was twilight in the swamp, and eerie shadows were everywhere. The creepy atmosphere was compounded by the total emptiness of the place. "Is anyone here?!" he yelled at the top of his voice, and something in the distance stirred.
Slowly, agonizingly, something rose from the depths and began to make its way towards him -- a dragon. It peered at him with ancient eyes and bowed, and he crawled onto its head. Dragons were Fire Nation creatures, right? So perhaps this was the spirit animal of the previous Avatar (he felt a pang when he thought about his spirit animal -- where was Appa?).
The dragon flew him to a small, deserted island, and Aang stared in horror at the devastation of the planet -- what had happened here? How long had he been asleep? He walked into an empty ruin of a temple and picked his way through the wreckage, until finally, he reached the top and looked around while the dragon curled up among the stones and slowly began to fade away, like it had been a huge effort to show up at all. As the dragon faded, an old man appeared.
"Avatar Roku," Aang breathed, and the old man looked at him, then began to speak -- but his mouth moved slower than his voice.
"Avatar Aang. It's been a while."
"What happened?" he asked, so relieved to be understood that he didn't stop to wonder why it seemed like such a struggle for Roku to talk. "Where am I? Where is everybody? What happened to the spirit world? How long was I asleep?"
"It has been a long while," Roku said, eyes mournful. "You were frozen in sleep for three millennia."
Everything stopped.
"What?" he breathed. "I was... three thousand years? That's impossible!" he shouted, stumbling over the rocks to get to Roku. "I just left -- it was just a few hours! I can't -- you can't -- no -- " he gasped several times, then looked at Roku, whose face betrayed his sorrow, and knew that the old Avatar wasn't lying to him. He took a step backward, and then screamed.
--
Iroh burst into the shuttle and startled Katara awake. She turned over and looked at him, and then grabbed one of Mai's robes and hastily pulled it over her shoulders. "What's going on, what's wrong?" she asked, and Iroh shook his head.
"It's the Avatar," he said. "Something... he's..."
She didn't wait for him to say anything further.
When she got to the Infirmary, she saw Pipsqueak and the Duke standing in the center, protecting Bee with their bodies, as wind swept in from nowhere in a cyclone. The Avatar was sitting, cross-legged, on the table right where she'd left him, but his eyes and the tattoos on his body were glowing. Without even the start of a clue as to what was happening, she ran in and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. "It's okay," she shouted, "it'll all be okay!" She didn't know who she was reassuring, but it felt like the right thing to say. "Shh, Appa," she said, although she knew that wasn't his name. It was all she had to call him.
"What the hell is happening?" the Duke screamed, and then ducked as the wind picked up a hard plastic box and threw it around in the room.
"I don't know," she yelled back, and pulled the boy into a tight hug even though he didn't respond to her. "Shh, baby, shh," she murmured. "I'll make it all okay."
The words were familiar, she realized; her mother had said the same thing to her when Zhao's army was pouring in from the sky and she was trying to learn how to bend water and they'd called for the unnatural freak to come out. Shh, baby, shh, I'll make it all okay, Mother had said, and then walked out to die for her. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat and clung tighter to the Avatar as the wind slowly died down and the glow left his eyes and tattoos.
When she looked at him, she saw that he was shaking and sobbing hysterically. She glanced at Iroh, who walked into the Infirmary, now that it was safer, and laid a hand on the boy's. "The Avatar is the link to the spirit world," he said quietly. "I think... he must have gone there for answers."
"And he found them?" she whispered. Iroh nodded, and Katara held the boy as he cried for all the things he'd lost.
Her chest hurt.
"Shh," she muttered around tears that were threatening to fall from her own eyes. "Shh, baby, it'll be okay, fong sam. I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here."
Title: As the Turn of the Worlds; Book One: Objects in Space
Chapter Title: Persephone
Rating: High T/Low M
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble; Mai/Jet, Zuko/Katara (est. relationship), Smellerbee/Longshot (est. relationship), Toph/Haru, Suki/Sokka
Summary: Aang never woke up from the iceberg, and the world went on without him -- and without the Avatar. Now, three thousand years later, the world is highly advanced, the Avatar is a barely-remembered myth, and a man smuggles a large box onto a transport ship...
Chapter Summary: In which Jet and Toph fail to fit in at the fancy party, the final main character is introduced, and Aang continues to be heart-breaking.
FFN // LJ // AO3
|< first // << back // here \\ next >> \\ last >|
(on freedom)
"Toph, hold still," Katara said, weirdly agitated. Toph groaned and tried not to jerk away as the other woman applied mascara to her eyes. She'd had to remove the visor that she always wore (because Jet told her it was either she take off the visor or she wear shoes, and Toph was not about to wear shoes) and it was weird to feel people touching her eyes. She didn't like it. Her eyes were off-limits as far as she was concerned, useless balls that didn't do any good and, if it wouldn't hurt so bad, she would have gotten rid of them by now. But Katara seemed to think differently -- she had cooed over Toph's eyes when she took the visor off, and said that they were beautiful.
"That feels awful, stop it," she grumbled, but Katara refused to stop.
"You need to look the part," she insisted. "You and I both want to get this over with, so just sit still and let me do your makeup, all right? I'm almost done."
"Good, because this stuff stinks."
"It does not," Katara snapped, but Toph shook her head (Katara groaned and began pulling out wipes to clean up).
"It does, your sense of smell just sucks so bad you can't tell that it stinks."
She couldn't see it, but she knew Katara was rolling her eyes. She huffed as the Companion cleaned off whatever mistake Toph's sudden movement had caused and began re-applying mascara. It felt like she was dragging a brush through Toph's eyelashes. "Hold still. There." Finally, Katara was done, and Toph was just about to sigh happily and go tinker with the engine or something to make her feel normal again, but the Companion stopped her. "Not yet, you need a dress."
"Uh, that wasn't in the agreement," she said bluntly, horrified at the thought of actually having to wear a dress. How would she flee the cops if she had a big poofy thing around her hips? That just wasn't practical.
"Yes, it was," Katara replied. "You can't go to a gala in... that," she said delicately, pointing at Toph's clothes. Okay, so she wasn't exactly dressed formally, but her breast bindings were opaque (she knew, she'd asked every salesperson on Ariel when she'd bought them) and her pants, while baggy, covered her ankles and everything. Sure, she'd known that the belt and gloves would have to go, but other than that, she thought she looked nice. The Duke told her so -- and Pipsqueak, too, so she knew it wasn't just the Duke being a horny teenager.
"What's wrong with my outfit?" she growled, and Katara sighed.
"It's fine for the work you do, but for a formal gala, you need something better. What kind of style might you want?"
"Uh, will Mai's clothes even fit me?" she asked, poking with her toes until she had managed to get one foot under the rug -- finally, she could see properly.
"Hmm, they'll be a bit long, and probably a little tight in the chest, but I think we can find something," Katara mused, and walked over to the wardrobe.
"Something light," Toph said, "I need to be able to run, in case something goes wrong."
"Right..." she muttered, "Let's see... no, no, hmm... no, no... ooh, this one will be perfect. Here, try it on."
--
(at the administrator's gala on the fifteenth floor of saint ninian's hospital in new omashu)
Haru hated hospital administrators. They were all assholes who had completely forgotten about the people they (technically) worked for, made too much money, and didn't even know how to hold a scalpel right anymore. Not to mention the fact that they were all boring old men.
He sighed into his champagne and watched Wing enviously as he danced with the beautiful black-haired Companion he'd hired for the night, wishing he'd thought to hire a Companion. That would make this more fun, and the promise of a little more later on tonight would do wonders for his currently-nasty mood. Just as he was considering going down to the rest of the hospital to check on his patients (even though he was off-duty, he was here, so he may as well), the house manager announced another couple arriving. He took a deep breath and tried not to get mad.
"The Lady Toph Bei Fong, and escort," the maître d’ said, and Haru raised an eyebrow -- Bei Fong? Surely not the Bei Fongs? What would one of the oldest and most powerful families on Ariel be doing at an administrator's gala on Persephone? He turned (along with almost everyone) at the name, to see who was arriving.
All of the breath left his lungs.
She was stunning. Her long, straight black hair was arranged into a cascading bun that fell over her shoulders like a waterfall, her clear green eyes were sharp and pale (and... unfocused?), and she was wearing a lovely, slinky, long mint-colored dress that hugged her chest and hips tightly. Even the Companion paled next to her, and that was saying something.
Next to the beauty in green, her escort looked decidedly diminished, although Haru was a bit biased against anyone who dared to have such a girl on his arm -- the man looked scruffy, unshaven and uncomfortable in slightly shabby clothes. He didn't deserve a girl like her, Haru decided immediately.
Whispers chorused through the crowd, and the beast leaned over and said something to the beauty, who shrugged and turned a little as a waiter brought in a fruit tray. Her escort rolled his eyes and let her go follow the fruit, then began awkwardly trying to make conversation with a few people in the crowd.
Haru was not the only man watching the beauty's progress, and he wasn't the first one to strike up a conversation with her.
"Lady Bei Fong," a man Haru vaguely recognized as being a vice president, "I would be delighted if you would dance with me."
"No," she replied bluntly, and ran her fingers lightly over the moon peaches. That was when it struck him -- the girl was blind! "I don't dance," she added, as a vaguely apologetic afterthought.
"So, you are one of the Bei Fongs," Haru asked lightly, "from Ariel?"
Something passed over her face, but then she smiled. "Yup, originally. Help me out here, will you? Which moon peach looks best?"
"This one," he said, picking out the ripest one and watching her bite into it with ecstasy on her face. He shifted a little uncomfortably. "Would you like a napkin?" he asked, licking his lips and praying internally that she said no.
"Oh," she muttered, "right, yeah, thanks."
Damn.
She dabbed lightly at her lips with the napkin and rubbed her hands to clean the juice off them, looking a little sad at the loss of the delicious fruit. "You say you don't dance," he started, dismayed at the hoarse sound of his own voice, and coughed, "why is that?"
She shrugged. "I can't see," she replied, "so I'd run into people."
"What if you were following?"
"I don't follow," she snapped, and Haru grinned.
"You would rather not dance than follow?"
"Exactly," she said, and punched him lightly in the shoulder (he was surprised that she somehow knew where his shoulder was). "You're picking up on this, Mister Fancy."
"Uh," he said uncertainly, and then held out a hand. "My name is Haru."
"Sure thing, Mister Fancy Haru."
This certainly made things much more interesting.
--
Jet almost walked into Mai, he was too busy watching that mustachioed jerk, making sure he didn't hurt Toph in some way. It wasn't that he suddenly felt protective of his mechanic, but he didn't want to clean up the mess that might erupt if she felt wronged by some creeper trying to cop a feel, especially since they were on a mission and her unexpected popularity had already screwed with his simple plan.
"Whoa, sorry," he said, and Mai raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, I would suggest you watch your step," she replied, and he smirked.
"I'd rather watch your steps," he countered, knowing that she couldn't do what she really wanted to do (hit him) since they were at a fancy party. Her date stepped between her and him.
"Good sir," the man said sarcastically, "is there something you want?"
"A dance," he replied, and then blinked, "with the lady." Behind the man, he could see Mai smirking at his near-screw-up. "If you aren't opposed to allowing a poor plebian the privilege?" He ignored Mai's client entirely after that and reached out to take Mai's hand. She rolled her eyes but went along with him, muttering a I'll be back in a moment to her date. He pulled her close to start the dance -- a sort of waltz -- and smiled brightly at her. "How's your night?" he asked cheerfully.
"Rather dull," she replied quietly, and pushed against his hands, taking the lead. Jet, however, was not one to follow. "Don't you have a job to do?" she asked, as he took the lead from her again.
"I do, but some creep has my mechanic in thrall. This is the best way to keep an eye on them," he added, spinning her out and bringing her back in against him. He liked this, the way Mai danced. She challenged him, always had, and he thrived on challenge. Sure, they spent more time arguing than not, but he'd rather argue with Mai than talk to most people any day of the week.
Mai glanced around him to see Toph and that creep dancing. "That's Doctor Qin," she whispered. "He's a trauma surgeon."
"Trauma surgeon, you say?" he asked, and, while he was distracted, Mai started leading again. He gave her a reproachful look, and she smirked, then picked up the pace of the dance.
"Don't even think about it," she muttered, and he smiled.
"Think about what, my beautiful lady? The only things I'm thinking about right now are in your dress."
She rolled her eyes, too used to his flirting (and his dirty jokes) to get angry. "You're plotting, I know that look."
"Plotting to get you out of your dress?" he mused. "Well, yes, but I think your john has that gig tonight. Have fun, too, he looks like he's good in bed."
"He isn't," she said in a low voice, "I've seen him before."
A laugh bubbled out from his chest before he could stop it. "I thought Companions didn't kiss and tell."
"There won't be much kissing tonight," she replied, smirking a bit and picking up the pace again. He made a face and tried to take the lead again, but she wouldn't let him, which led to them almost tripping over each other's feet. He started laughing, and then Mai snickered, and then her client came up and shoved himself between them.
"Hey," he started, but the man clutched Mai's arm tightly.
"The song is over," he said sharply. "Mai, come with me."
"It was just a dance," he replied, "chill out."
"You wouldn't understand the nuances of the relationship between a Companion and her client," the man snapped. "Tonight, the Lady is mine."
This turned Jet's stomach. It was one thing to joke with Mai about sex, but the way this guy was talking, he seemed to think that he really owned her -- and Jet didn't like the sound of that. Mai didn't belong to anyone but Mai, and this asshole needed to figure that out. "She doesn't belong to you, no matter how much money you pay."
"Tonight, she does," the man growled.
Jet snarled at the man, and was just about to punch him, when something small and green latched onto his arm. "Jet, darling," Toph trilled, sounding completely unlike Toph, "I was wondering where you were! Come dance with me, I love this song!"
He scowled at the client as he walked away, Mai on his arm (she turned and shrugged at him a little as she left), and then at Toph. "Why'd you interrupt me? And where the hell have you been?"
"You were about to hit him," she replied quietly. "Which was a terrible idea. And I've been dancing with a cool doctor, thanks."
"We have to get to work," Jet barked. "And punching him wasn't a terrible idea. Did you hear what he was saying about Mai? Fuck that guy."
"Yeah, she will," Toph said, raising an eyebrow (it was weird to actually be able to see her eyebrows), "and yes, it was. You know that's a challenge to a duel on this planet, right?"
"It's a what?"
"Exactly. You mentioned work?"
--
(on freedom)
Aang was confused.
In general, but right now he was especially confused. Everyone was gone, and he seemed to be alone in the -- place. He took a deep breath and tried to meditate, figuring that that was probably safer than running around, and he was pretty sure that Katara had told him to stay in the blue room with the sleeping (injured?) girl on the bed.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing in a silent swamp. He bit his lip, and tentatively called out, "Monk Gyatso?" but nothing answered. He began to trudge through the muck -- he was in the spirit world, that much he knew, but he had thought there would be, well, spirits in the spirit world. Instead, he was alone.
"Hello?" he asked, looking around. It was twilight in the swamp, and eerie shadows were everywhere. The creepy atmosphere was compounded by the total emptiness of the place. "Is anyone here?!" he yelled at the top of his voice, and something in the distance stirred.
Slowly, agonizingly, something rose from the depths and began to make its way towards him -- a dragon. It peered at him with ancient eyes and bowed, and he crawled onto its head. Dragons were Fire Nation creatures, right? So perhaps this was the spirit animal of the previous Avatar (he felt a pang when he thought about his spirit animal -- where was Appa?).
The dragon flew him to a small, deserted island, and Aang stared in horror at the devastation of the planet -- what had happened here? How long had he been asleep? He walked into an empty ruin of a temple and picked his way through the wreckage, until finally, he reached the top and looked around while the dragon curled up among the stones and slowly began to fade away, like it had been a huge effort to show up at all. As the dragon faded, an old man appeared.
"Avatar Roku," Aang breathed, and the old man looked at him, then began to speak -- but his mouth moved slower than his voice.
"Avatar Aang. It's been a while."
"What happened?" he asked, so relieved to be understood that he didn't stop to wonder why it seemed like such a struggle for Roku to talk. "Where am I? Where is everybody? What happened to the spirit world? How long was I asleep?"
"It has been a long while," Roku said, eyes mournful. "You were frozen in sleep for three millennia."
Everything stopped.
"What?" he breathed. "I was... three thousand years? That's impossible!" he shouted, stumbling over the rocks to get to Roku. "I just left -- it was just a few hours! I can't -- you can't -- no -- " he gasped several times, then looked at Roku, whose face betrayed his sorrow, and knew that the old Avatar wasn't lying to him. He took a step backward, and then screamed.
--
Iroh burst into the shuttle and startled Katara awake. She turned over and looked at him, and then grabbed one of Mai's robes and hastily pulled it over her shoulders. "What's going on, what's wrong?" she asked, and Iroh shook his head.
"It's the Avatar," he said. "Something... he's..."
She didn't wait for him to say anything further.
When she got to the Infirmary, she saw Pipsqueak and the Duke standing in the center, protecting Bee with their bodies, as wind swept in from nowhere in a cyclone. The Avatar was sitting, cross-legged, on the table right where she'd left him, but his eyes and the tattoos on his body were glowing. Without even the start of a clue as to what was happening, she ran in and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. "It's okay," she shouted, "it'll all be okay!" She didn't know who she was reassuring, but it felt like the right thing to say. "Shh, Appa," she said, although she knew that wasn't his name. It was all she had to call him.
"What the hell is happening?" the Duke screamed, and then ducked as the wind picked up a hard plastic box and threw it around in the room.
"I don't know," she yelled back, and pulled the boy into a tight hug even though he didn't respond to her. "Shh, baby, shh," she murmured. "I'll make it all okay."
The words were familiar, she realized; her mother had said the same thing to her when Zhao's army was pouring in from the sky and she was trying to learn how to bend water and they'd called for the unnatural freak to come out. Shh, baby, shh, I'll make it all okay, Mother had said, and then walked out to die for her. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat and clung tighter to the Avatar as the wind slowly died down and the glow left his eyes and tattoos.
When she looked at him, she saw that he was shaking and sobbing hysterically. She glanced at Iroh, who walked into the Infirmary, now that it was safer, and laid a hand on the boy's. "The Avatar is the link to the spirit world," he said quietly. "I think... he must have gone there for answers."
"And he found them?" she whispered. Iroh nodded, and Katara held the boy as he cried for all the things he'd lost.
Her chest hurt.
"Shh," she muttered around tears that were threatening to fall from her own eyes. "Shh, baby, it'll be okay, fong sam. I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here."