A/N: I actually wrote this way back when the Avatar Pairing Generator was a thing, around 2008 or so. The Generator spit out this ship, and I decided to accept the challenge. Kind of forgot it in my WIP folder until now.
PATHLESS
It is said that when one dies, all the damage of one's soul is healed, and it becomes as perfect as it was always intended to be. All the detritus of a confused life impurely lived is cast off to allow the natural radiance of the heart to shine through. The soul, removed from the sweat and panic of day-to-day life, is granted the ability to see the larger picture, and thus gains a wisdom beyond its earthly years.
Jet isn't convinced.
He does grant that the other souls he sometimes meets while wandering the supposed next world do seem somehow larger than life, as though he is meeting figures of legend rather than people like himself. They are calm, wise, magnanimous, and exude a power and charisma that he sincerely doubts most of them had while walking the mortal coil.
They don't impress him. In his eyes, they've given up.
He also grants that dead people are less inclined to do stupid things, such as try to kill each other— obviously a fruitless endeavour as spirits cannot be wounded— or search for power. There's just no point to it. Power in life is given to those who can control the necessities of said life, such as wealth and security. The dead have no need to eat, or drink, or keep shelter over their heads. There is nothing to want, and thus no monopolies to be had.
This means, of course, that there are no oppressors, no dictators, no heartless overarching governments with well-muscled military arms to hold the people down. This is a world with no need for freedom fighters.
This is a problem for Jet, because he really doesn't know how to be anything else.
x
There's this woman. He's seen her a few times, but she makes him uneasy so he always goes another direction before she sees him back. There are tattoos on her hands and her scalp and her feet that are just like that Aang kid's, so he figures she must be an airbender. Logically that means that she's been dead for a whole lot longer than he was ever alive. That kind of creeps him out, because even though she's gotta be almost two hundred years "old", she looks about his age and is kind of attractive in a half-bald way, and Jet does not go for older women.
Looking for enemies and never finding them is boring, but that's all he can think of to do in this stagnant place. Maybe one day he'll get bored enough to give in and go talk to her. Who knows, maybe she's bored too.
x
Nothing seems all that surprising in the spirit world. Everything seems to happen in some kind of slow motion. Maybe that's why a situation that would have had him halfway up the nearest tree with his swords out back when he was alive is only managing to make his eyebrows rise a little.
The airbender woman is in his house.
Well, not 'house,' exactly. Houses don't tend to last all that long in the spirit world, being useless and unnatural human constructions. She is in his lean-to. She has his makeshift leaf-and-charcoal journal between her fingers, and is perusing it with seeming deep interest.
"Well met, young rebel," she says without looking up. "How goes the hunt?"
"What the— That's mine, you crazy half-bald witch!" he bellows, reaching to snatch it out of her hands.
Bending arts don't work in the spirit realm. He knows this. He's met many benders since dying and they've all said so. Therefore, it's beyond him how she got from sitting cross-legged in front of him to standing behind him outside the lean-to several steps away without him ever seeing her move. He draws his swords, pointless as it is, because now he's a little freaked out and holding them makes him feel a little less helpless.
"Correction: I am only one-third bald," she says, completely unfazed. "I would be less bald even than that, but hair does not grow here."
Jet stares.
She flips the page. "Dear journal," she reads, "met a Fire Nation guy today who died a little while after I did. Didn't really feel like killing him, even if I could do that here. The mist was too fuzzy. Hate this place."
"Give that—"
"Dear journal, really bored today. Or was that yesterday? Can't remember. Really hate this place."
She speaks slowly, but her voice is like an inexorable force whose course cannot be altered or stopped until it has completed its intended journey. Trying to interrupt her is like trying to stop a river with just his arms. He is helpless.
"—back—"
"You are a very stubborn man, young rebel," she says. "There are no days here, nor nights, nor even sleep to mark a cycle. Holding on to the illusion of time passing is very difficult. Most do not bother."
Jet grinds his teeth over his wheatstalk, relishing the feel of irritation. Emotions here are pretty weak imitations of their earthly selves, so he's happy for what he can get. "Yeah, well—"
"Do you perhaps equate the cessation of time with real death? I can tell from your desperate clinging to the trappings of an existence which is no longer valid that you have not accepted the reality of your death. You view this place as a sort of second life, another world with different rules, but one in which you can still live."
"Well, yeah," Jet replied, anger dissipating in favour of confusion. "Isn't it? And hang on, who are you anyway? You can't just walk into other people's—"
"No, it is not. This is not life. The spirit world is one of timeless existence, an ocean rather than a river. It has no direction, no destination, no path. It is all there is, all at once. You are trying to exist as a linear being in a non-linear world and it will only make you miserable."
"Would you shut up for two seconds and tell me who you are?"
"Seconds do not exist. Neither, for that matter, do I."
"You're talking to me. I see you. I hear you. That means in my book that you exist, so tell me your damn name before I totally lose it."
The woman smiles. It does something to her face, makes her look friendly and nice and prettier than usual. "When I was alive, my name was Yangchen. I hope you realize that 'losing it' would have little effect beyond unbalancing your chakras, as nothing you do can have any effect on my spiritual reality."
"I'm Jet. And, uh... what?"
"You are yet ignorant of the ways of this world. I have seen you asking what people choose to appear to you about the world of the living, rather than trying to understand the workings of this world. You carry great attachment to something you can no longer influence. It does you no good."
He cocks an eyebrow at her quizzically. "Are you actually capable of answering a question straight out?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Well that's, uh, good then."
"Not particularly. Explain to me the purpose of this... construction."
"My lean-to?"
"Yes. You are in no danger or discomfort from the elements. What purpose does it serve?"
"I guess it—"
"You cannot let go of your fear of death despite the fact that it has already happened and cannot happen again."
"No, I'm not—"
"Yes, you are."
"Would you shut up and let me talk!"
"Why?"
Jet's mouth opens, gapes soundlessly, then closes. He glares at her sullenly. "It's polite."
"Manners are a living-world mechanism designed to prevent conflict out of the fear of death. They have no place here."
"Is it possible to win an argument with you?"
"No."
"Oh."
In Yangchen's hands, the diary wavers like a mirage in the heat. Jet's eyes widen in alarm and he snatches it from her. It is solid once again in his hands. Behind him, the lean-to is gone. The trees are just as they were when he arrived here. He looks down at his hands, and the diary wavers once again.
"Dammit, look what you did," Jet snarls at her. "My lean-to is gone!"
"You forgot its existence. Thus, it no longer exists."
"Yeah, I know. I get it. I really do, all right? What I believe shapes this place, or at least it shapes what I see. And what I want to see is my world. Is that so wrong?"
Yangchen meets his eyes sorrowfully. "You are so much like me," she says sadly, reaching out to place a hand on his chest as though trying to read his heart. "You yearn for the battle, for an opposing force to push against so you do not have to find your own balance. You are a warrior, born to make hard decisions, born to walk a harsh and narrow path. I understand. I was also a warrior while I lived."
He shifts uncomfortably under the heat of her hand and her unwavering gaze, but can't think of anything to say.
"I won my war. I created peace in my world, just as I had always wished for. Then I came here, and realized that there can only be peace when there is a possibility of war which does not come to pass. Here, where there is never war, neither is there true peace. Thus, as I did, you search for conflict so that you may overcome it. It is a fruitless, thankless task, growing weeds for the sole purpose of pulling them."
"But a world without conflict... there's no... I don't know what I'm trying to say here."
Yangchen smiles a little wider and lets her hands fall. "I do. You are trying to say that a world without conflict, a world without duality and opposing forces which keep it in motion, is a dead world. You are right. This world is dead. You are dead. You have the choice now to accept that and thus truly die at last, or to continue moving in a world without momentum despite having nowhere to move towards. What will you choose?"
"I got maybe half of that, but I think I know what you're asking: I'm not going to sit on my ass and blend into the landscape. I want to cause a ruckus. I want to wake this place up, light a fire under it, make it a semi-decent place for a human being to live. Exist. Whatever. Point is—"
"Good. You'll come with me, then."
"—I'm sick of hanging around doing— Wait, what?"
"I am not content to sleep either. Just like you, I wish to live, even if it is impossible. I wish to continue moving. Of course, all places in this world are everywhere at once, and so there can be no real journeys... therefore, I am on a journey to create places to journey to. Will you come with me?"
Jet grins widely and rolls his wheat-stalk to the other side of his mouth, then slings his arm around her. She lets it stay there. "Sounds like a half-decent plan to me. Where to?"
She looks up at him with her grey airbender eyes, quirks her oddly red mouth, and raises an eyebrow at him as if the answer should be obvious. It is.
Jet suddenly feels appreciably less dead in at least one way.
"Right," he says. "Let's hit the road."
X