Every Impossible Thing

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Author's note: Okay. So you may (or may not) recognize this story as Primary Days, a fanfiction I began eight years ago on a shared account, Sumioney. Eventually my co-authors and I stopped updating, and the rest is basically history. Since then, however, the plot bunny for this story has never really left me alone. The original story has undergone a couple of re-writes, but I finally made the decision to move it to my primary account here. I'm also re-writing everything from the ground up, as a lot of the details of the story have changed for me.

You can go back and read the first five chapters, but the writing isn't great and a lot of it is changing. And unlike the original, I imagine the chapters for this story are going to be on the shorter side, sort of like a series of oneshots rather than a comprehensive fic. It will probably vary.

Also, a note about the setting: this is considered post-series AU, and disregards all comics and LoK.

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1. Yesteryears

Life had not changed much on the outside.

School was punctually attended, rules still strictly enforced, and Hide-and-Explode still a favorite of the children.

If anything had changed, it was On Ji herself. She was no longer the twelve-year-old girl who had quietly submitted to every tradition, nor was she so firmly planted in her roots. One happenstance meeting, and the shifting of her nation, set a course so changed from what she had known.

The years following had rolled by like dust, smoky and quick. They had flown by as fast as Kuzon had come and gone, before she could even blink.

The Fire Nation had changed in ways, and stubbornly held onto its identity in others; for both the better and the worse, On Ji believed. Like so many others, On Ji's relationship with her country was a complicated one. She was relieved not to see her homeland razed in the name of reparation, but it was bittersweet still to see the sordid history between four nations draw to an uneasy close.

Into a new era, On Ji's world crept. But even before the theaters of a century-long war has closed, On Ji had taken her own steps into the unknown. It was the difference one person, the difference one day could make. It still awed her, six years after the fact. Some days it made her feel as if she could accomplish anything.

Most days, she thought of him and what he had done for her. Especially today, at the mouth of the cave where she had re-learned – or first learned – what it meant to be alive. Truly, wholly present.

Even to herself, it sounded like one of the Ember Island Players's overbearing, romanticized dramas. Boy, girl, a dance, a spark of interest. In the end, they are tragically separated by years and distance and mystery. Fill each scene in with enough pining and exaggerated histrionics, and a playact is born.

What the play would never convey, however, was what On Ji felt more than anything: a pure thankfulness. Whatever secondary things she had let her mind wander over paled in comparison to the depth of her gratefulness to Kuzon.

To him, it might have only been a night of dancing. To the others, and to her, it had meant more.

On Ji stepped into the cave. It stretched wide to each side and out some distance before her. The platforms, mysteriously convenient, occupied a generous portion of the center of the cave. On Ji skirted the dais where the musicians would have played if this were a night of cave dancing, and then drifted along the very right side of the cavern. She ran a hand along the wall, bumping her fingers along each jagged edge in rhythm to the song building in her mind.

Then, piece by piece, her movements formed. It was arms against ribs, all curved lines, and knees bent and nimble. With a sharp intake of breath, she outstretched both legs, turning into a pirouette it had taken weeks to master. Her feet went flat, and her body did want it knew to do for Kuzon's Phoenix Flight. Each move, cultivated over the years, came naturally to her. It no longer required thought. She was no bender, but she felt as if she moved with the same purpose as one.

It was not fire she bent with her movements. It was arms and legs and hands and feet. It was On Ji, energy coursing from one limb to the next until her lungs burned.

On Ji slowed her steps to allow the stitch in her side a moment's relief, humming beneath her breath. And when she felt ready, she would try it. It was sure to be no more successful than her last attempt and the attempt before that, but On Ji was determined.

The Chamelephant Strut.

It was the move Kuzon used that most intrigued, and most eluded, On Ji. She had been able to piece together so many of his other dances and forms, but some sequence to his Chamelephant Strut always failed her. It was in the feet, but she never could figure out how to correct herself.

Always she tried.

Placing her hands palm down, On Ji jumped high, striking each uncurled hand left and right. When her first foot touched ground, she knew at once her angle was miscalculated. The move required quickness, balance, and precision. On Ji usually had two of the three, but never in the same combination. Always her feet betrayed her. It was a frustration to feel her left foot slide against the cave floor until her entire body gave way beneath.

After the dust around her settled and she moved each limb to check for pain, On Ji rolled over onto her back, eyes closed.

She said, "Definitely next time."

A moment passed.

"You just messed up the sequence of your feet a little," said a voice breezily from the entrance of the cave.

Jerking her eyes open, On Ji scrambled to her feet.

"I-" she began mid-rise, grasping for words.

On Ji froze the moment she was on her feet, every part of her sharply focused on the source of the voice.

She could not quite believe what she saw.

Leaving the bright cast of the afternoon and entering into the cooler shadow of the cave, was a boy as unmistakable as could be. Wrapped in the orange and yellow robes of the Air Nomads and bearing the blue arrows of an acknowledged airbender stood the Avatar. Even if she had not seen the scrolls of his likeness, there was no mistaking who he was. He was the last of his kind.

"Instead of keeping your left foot stiff and angled, keep on your toes. Try to anticipate your landing as little as possible. Your body knows what to do."

On Ji stood still and straight, trying to reconcile his voice, inexplicably familiar, with his words and his presence. Something about toes. The Avatar, in a cave, in her cave, talking about toes.

What.

He waited patiently for her to process his words. When her body lost some of its startled tension, he floated over to her like a breeze, his grin stretched wide.

"Trust yourself," he said, "and be light on your toes. Like air."

Like air. On Ji snorted, even as she struggled to bring some sense of awareness back to herself. On Ji felt slanted and boneless, a little to do with her fall and a lot to do with the Avatar hovering over her.

When he finished his instruction, he showed her the connected movements to the elusive Chamelephant Strut. In three, four, five movements he had completed the dance and returned to her expectantly.

"You try it," he said, gesturing widely to the cave.

"Oh," On Ji said.

In a remote cave near her childhood home, On Ji danced in front of the Avatar of her generation. She moved slowly on her first attempt, skidding on her landing as she had before. She did not quite fall, but it was a near thing.

"Again," he said, and On Ji obliged.

Six more times she obliged, as each time he pointed out where her form had failed. He had a good eye, and each attempt On Ji came closer to completing the move with his instruction. It was on the seventh try that On Ji's foot landed true, one strut to the next, until she had successfully completed her first Chamelephant Strut.

"I did it," On Ji said in wonder.

"You did!" the Avatar echoed, pleased.

As her amazement faded, the realization returned. She was with the Avatar. Alone. In a cave.

"What are you–?"

"Let's call it for old time's sake, shall we?"

On Ji appraised the Avatar again, his robes, tattoos, unconcerned brown eyes, and wondered how her cave and this moment had any thread of commonality with the greatest bender of their time. Perhaps it was a simple as dance. Dance was something On Ji knew to be unifying, and perhaps today it was a simple chance of fate. Her, the Avatar, the cave.

Old time's sake.

On Ji nodded, bemused. "Dance-" she began.

"Is an expression of one's self that no one can ever take away from you," the Avatar interrupted, and something in On Ji's mind clicked together as he did. He said each word as if he had plucked it from her mind.

It was more than the words. It was the voice, and when she peered closer, it was also the face. Then it was everything, coming sharply into focus all at once.

"Kuzon?"

The Avatar grinned and leapt into a gust of bending and out from the cave, leaving his answer in the air.