☯ 1. The barrier has fallen and the entirety of the Avatar world is open for exploration. If you're going to the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom or any of the Air Temples, you might have a few days to travel. Stuck on a boat, airship or flying bison; yeesh! Those headed to the Fire Nation have the option of taking an ominous-looking portal located on Air Temple Island which will zip them straight there! No matter the destination, the population of each nation seems a little... thinned out.
☯ 2. Do you have an OU counterpart somewhere? Does that counterpart have some kind of bending-related ability? Then today is your lucky today! Gone are the days of bending (or non-bending); today, you get the powers your OU counterpart has! Alternatively, you thought you were out of the woods when everyone else had their bending messed up; not so anymore!
☯ 3. The city is in desperate need of vigilantes. Maybe. Vandals are ruining the city. Some are destroying property while others are making inappropriate graffiti on the walls and streets of the city.
☯ 4. Fresh off the boat? You know, now that all the barriers have dropped? Well you better find yourself a place to live and a place to work; otherwise you might as well make yourself home in Avatar Korra Park or ask for help on Air Temple Island.
[He shakes his head.] I'm afraid my abilities extend only as far as firebending, not time and space. [He might sound a little sheepish. Though if energybending exists, who knows what else could be possible?] There have been a great many disturbances in the world of late, bringing people from the past -- even past lives of the Avatar -- to the present.
I, the Avatars, and many others are still trying to understand what is happening.
I have sent a human to bring him. He will explain the imbalance, and it will be addressed.
[Pause, and then with all wryness,] If the human kept to her task. Her attention span seemed to be . . . short. If she does not return soon, I will send you.
[She is quiet after that for some moments, the water of the pool rippling around her.] For now, you will stay with me and tell me what happened after you and your mother re-met.
Very well. [He bows his head in respect to her wishes. He won't protest if she does send him, though. This spirit helped his mother, and in doing so, let her have a safe and happy life. Even if it was difficult to come to terms with at the time -- especially for poor little Kiyi -- he is, in a way, very grateful to the Mother of Faces for her compassion.
So Lord Zuko complies to her other order, and sits at the edge of the fountain.]
Where to begin? When we were reunited... Mother had regained her memories, so she explained everything to me. Why she disappeared all those years ago, how she had found her husband, and the true nature of her relationship to my father, who had driven her into hiding. You see, I had heard my father's side of the story, but he would never tell me the full truth of what he knew.
[Any anger and bitterness he might once have held in his voice towards Ozai, though, has all but faded. Having a family of his own -- one he can love and who loves him unconditionally -- has proved a great healer in that regard. His past with Ozai, while he'll never forget it, is nothing more than a distant, harrowing memory.]
In return, I told her everything she had missed, in those five years she had been gone. She and her family journeyed to spend time with me at the royal palace, but eventually, she decided to return to her hometown of Hira'a to live the rest of her days in peace.
[She does not always get the stories that go with the faces she creates . . . and frankly, she enjoys them -- when they end properly, as this one has.]
You saw one another often until the end.
[She has the habit of asking things by not asking them at all.]
[He doesn't seem put off by the question-as-statement.] Yes, and she was blessed to live a long and happy life with the man she loved, not the one she had been forced to marry.
[He cracks a small, wistful smile. Like many in his life, he misses his mother dearly. Ordinarly it's something he wouldn't dwell upon, but perhaps a timeless spirit like this can understand an old man's nostalgia far better than most.]
She even had the good fortune to live long enough to meet her great grandchild.
[Yes, she can understand, even appreciate . . . for things had as well as things lost. Her pale faces are impossible to read, though the lines of her mouths have softened, and the water in the pool laps gently.]
Everything was as it should have been. Mother and child together, and generations after.
[So she knew about that, did she? Of course she would -- she probably knows plenty about the state of her creations, even if she doesn't follow the rest of the courses of the lives. He frowns up at her many faces, growing solemn once more.]
Yes. At the end of the war, his bending was removed, and he was imprisoned as a war criminal.
[Having touched him, she knows -- can feel the handiwork that went into the scar, the other minor abrasions that have affected her work over time, even though she may not know the reasoning behind them. Actions are not intentions; they are only the after effects.]
A man willing to scar the face of a child, to murder others . . . he was allowed to live.
[He detects the disapproval. Unsurprising that the Fire Lord would have angered many spirits, too, after all the Fire Nation did to them and to nature, not just to their fellow human beings.]
For a time, I thought Avatar Aang should have killed him. He was a monster, and the world would be a better place without him.
But... Aang never believed in taking lives, and he was above petty desires like revenge. My father's bending was already taken away -- there was no way he could harm anyone else. And, as much as I hated it, he was the only chance I had of finding my mother again.
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rctimes2014-11-19 12:01 am
no subject
I, the Avatars, and many others are still trying to understand what is happening.
no subject
It is inexcusable.
I will speak with the Avatar.
no subject
[If anyone can help the spirits, it would be them, at least. And the Mother of Faces has listened to Aang before.]
no subject
[Pause, and then with all wryness,] If the human kept to her task. Her attention span seemed to be . . . short. If she does not return soon, I will send you.
[She is quiet after that for some moments, the water of the pool rippling around her.] For now, you will stay with me and tell me what happened after you and your mother re-met.
no subject
So Lord Zuko complies to her other order, and sits at the edge of the fountain.]
Where to begin? When we were reunited... Mother had regained her memories, so she explained everything to me. Why she disappeared all those years ago, how she had found her husband, and the true nature of her relationship to my father, who had driven her into hiding. You see, I had heard my father's side of the story, but he would never tell me the full truth of what he knew.
[Any anger and bitterness he might once have held in his voice towards Ozai, though, has all but faded. Having a family of his own -- one he can love and who loves him unconditionally -- has proved a great healer in that regard. His past with Ozai, while he'll never forget it, is nothing more than a distant, harrowing memory.]
In return, I told her everything she had missed, in those five years she had been gone. She and her family journeyed to spend time with me at the royal palace, but eventually, she decided to return to her hometown of Hira'a to live the rest of her days in peace.
no subject
You saw one another often until the end.
[She has the habit of asking things by not asking them at all.]
no subject
[He cracks a small, wistful smile. Like many in his life, he misses his mother dearly. Ordinarly it's something he wouldn't dwell upon, but perhaps a timeless spirit like this can understand an old man's nostalgia far better than most.]
She even had the good fortune to live long enough to meet her great grandchild.
no subject
Everything was as it should have been. Mother and child together, and generations after.
And the man who marred my work, he was punished.
no subject
Yes. At the end of the war, his bending was removed, and he was imprisoned as a war criminal.
no subject
A man willing to scar the face of a child, to murder others . . . he was allowed to live.
[There is a frown in her voice.]
no subject
For a time, I thought Avatar Aang should have killed him. He was a monster, and the world would be a better place without him.
But... Aang never believed in taking lives, and he was above petty desires like revenge. My father's bending was already taken away -- there was no way he could harm anyone else. And, as much as I hated it, he was the only chance I had of finding my mother again.
no subject
[The words are clipped, tart.]
You simply open the door that he finds another means to do so.
If the Avatar has not learned this, he has much to discover.