"Sara! Sara! I just got a great idea!"

The old waterbender called Sara sighed despairingly. She cast one last longing glance towards the hole inhabited just 5 seconds ago by a turtle-seal she had hoped to call dinner, before slowly turning to face her former pupil. "What, avatar Bak?" she asked with strained politeness.

"Oh nothing, just dropping by to say hello," he said. Sara stared at him incredulously.

"Bak, as you might have noticed," Sara stopped as she remembered who she was talking to. "I was in the middle of something. You said you had an idea?"

"Oh okay, if you really want to know!" He said happily. Sara immediately regretted asking.

"I'm gonna freeze myself!"

Sara didn't quite know how to respond. "But- but- "

"haha, butt." Bak snickered. Sara groaned internally. After 29 years, he still found that joke funny.

"But," she said, "What in the names of spirits-" She cut herself off.

"… Do you want to do that for?" she finished politely.

Bak gave her a look that clearly conveyed just how stupid he thought she was. Sara returned the look with unpliable dignity, but couldn't help but grip her war-axe just a little tighter.

"Because," he drawled as though she was a five-year-old, "it would be awesome."

Sara closed her eyes and counted to ten.

"Party-pooper." He said, at her lack of enthusiasm.

Make that twenty.

"Bak, reasons aside, you could very easily make a mistake, and kill yourself." Not that she would mind that.

"Okay. So it's gonna go like this: I'm knocking my fists together, and boom: Ultimate defense. What do you think?" he said.

"Well…" Sara said hesitantly. She was pretty sure he didn't honestly want her feedback, and she was pretty sure she didn't really want to get involved if she could help it. Still. "What will you do then?"

"What?" he asked.

"When you're frozen. What will you do then?" she clarified.

"Oh, yeah, I'll probably fall into coma. Hmm, I guess I'll be kinda helpless; you'll have to break me out of the ice afterwards. Okay, tired of talking now."

Ignoring Sara's indignant protests, Bak skipped a few steps away. He was going to put quite a lot of power into it, since, according to his calculations, it would actually create a pillar of light. Of course, his "calculations" mostly consisted of him staring into air and making insane leaps of logic, but it always worked, so he was pretty sure there would be a pillar of light... And that was reason enough for him to freeze himself.
Still... Something felt... Missing. Or rather, not quite right. What could it possibly be..? Oh, he knew!

"Okay Sara, so I'm just going to make a storm to make it more dramatic, okay?" he said as he threw his arms around, casually unleashing more chi than Sara ever had in her lifetime. Sara made a strange choking sound from the back of her throat.

With the wind whipping his hair up, Bak levitated a few inches above the ice using pure airbending. Taking a deep breath, he let his blue eyes survey across the icebergs- or well iceberg, since the storm made for very poor visibility, and there was only one iceberg close enough. Still, Bak looked towards the distance where he imagined the icebergs to be, and marveled at their beauty.
As he was just about to enter a descriptive monologue about his childhood in the unfriendly mountains, a small impressively aggressive flake of snow, abruptly, but perhaps not unexpectedly, smashed against his retina.

Sara sighed and waited. She was starting to get a bit cold, standing around in the wind like that.

With perfect grace, Bak straightened himself as though the last 30 seconds had never happened. Closing his eyes to focus (Because the wind, of course, had nothing to do with it), Bak opened his arms wide and imagined himself as part of the howling wind. Every snowflake was part of him, he was part of the cycle, and as he thought this and comprehended it, his chi, energi, whatever they call it, swelled and roared as the storm surrounding him. Bak took a deep breath.

Suddenly exploding into motion, Bak curled up, focusing the energy inwards. In one smooth motion, he strook his fists together. Each fist held the power of a small tornado. The result was very similar to an explosion, as it blasted outwards. In the blink of an eye, the shockwave had travelled proximally 15 feet out, before it stopped, as Bak reined in the blast.

Still in momentum, the air curled back inwards. The conflicting winds crashed. Moments away from being crushed by wind-pressure, Bak channeled the entire chi he still had in his body into ice. Rushing out, the freezing chi reacted powerfully with the churning winds. Cracking and groaning in protest, the wind itself hardened and froze. Everything stopped, even the raging storm outside Bak's little bubble calmed, and the only thing remaining was the gem-like mountain of ice mysteriously illuminated by a soft blue light emanating from within, and in the very middle was Bak, as an almost unnoticable dark spot in the brilliant shifting lights.

Unintentionally, totally despite herself, Sara was impressed. Then she realized who she was impressed with, and immediately felt ashamed of herself. Confident that no-one were watching, she allowed herself the luxury of burying her head in her hands.

Why, oh why, did the avatar have to be Bak?

Shaking the thoughts out of her head, she dragged her feet towards the flashy sphere. And why, she thought, why do I always have to pull the cherry-chestnuts out of the fire for him?

With a weary sigh, she heaved up her war-axe. And hesitated. She gave the ice a considering look over. She hesitated further.

She had always thought that Bak would grow out of his childishness one day, as most children do. Discovering that the brat was the avatar had only bolstered her belief. However, after 33 years, Sara had to admit that it wasn't looking optimistic. If anything, he had only become even more insufferable, and prone to accidents. Just last month, he had almost buried the village in an avalanche… It really wasn't fair that she always had to look out for him…

"… Well, no harm if I leave him there for a while." she said, and headed back to the village with uncharacteristically brisk steps, and even stranger, a smile on her lips.

A few hours later, a huge groan was heard as the ice-shelf broke off and the glowing iceberg drifted towards the sea.

Somewhere else entirely, yet still approximately the same place, a gathering of spirits gaped as the glowing iceberg slowly sunk under the ocean. Everyone seemed reluctant to take the first word.

"Well…" one finally said "Should we help him out?"

The others looked disgusted by the very thought of it.

"Never mind then," he hastily amended. "But what're we going to do then? A new avatar can't be born before Bak is dead, and he could stay like that forever!"

"We could always kill him," someone muttered to himself.

"Don't be silly," the first said automatically, but looking as though he wasn't sure he really meant it, "We can't kill the avatar..."

"Well, why don't we just leave him there? I'm sure we don't need him that much." Mumbles of agreement was heard.

"But we'll still have to break him out at some point..."

Suffering silence ensued.

"You know..." someone said hopefully, "why don't we just make a new avatar, and pretend Bak never happened?"

"That's brilliant!" Muttering agreements were exchanged.

"And you know what?" a young spirit with terrible fashion-sense said as though he'd just thought of something.

Everyone looked towards him curiously.

"As long as he stays there, he won't join us here."

The dead avatars gasped.

A few centuries later, the same gathering of spirits, plus a few extra who had drippled in through the years, gaped as they watched their young avatar pull the exact same stunt.

"It seems he's stuck there," a female monk, who wasn't old enough to have experienced Bak, remarked.

"We'll just have to break him out then," the newest spirit said.

"We can't…" an ancient avatar said absentmindedly.

The not so ancient avatars looked skeptical.

"He did it in the avatar mode..."

At that, most seemed to understand, though a few still looked uncertain.

Roku glanced around, hoping someone would step up with an explanation.

"Normally, we would bust him out using the avatar-mode, but he got locked down while in the avatar-mode." someone leaned in and whispered helpfully to the new guy.

"The world is going to need the avatar," a bald man with bushy beard bemoaned.

"You don't say," someone mumbled acidly.

"How about asking another spirit for help? I know someone who could do it."

"Are you crazy? I don't care how much you trust that spirit, but if you hadn't noticed, Aang's a sitting duck there! If he dies like that, we're goners. No this needs to be kept between us."

Sighs and mutterings were heard as the spirits cast about for another solution.

"… How about… No sorry."
"… and that'll trigger the seagull, which will then slip on a puddle of ice, into the ocean where it will distract a fi-"

"… Get out of here Rube."

"… There's always the ocean spirit, what was his name, La?"

"You're kidding right? That guy won't lift a finger if his life depended on it."

"… Oh..! I know-"

"No, no that won't work…"

As every suggestion got turned over and contemplated, silence soon fell over the gathering as the options started to dry out.

"… Should-" someone reluctantly forced out, before falling back into silence. He could hardly bear to suggest it, but it was desperate times.

"… Should we break out Bak?"

Everyone froze in horror (except the newer avatars, who just looked confused).
One of them suddenly let out an amused huff. "Nah, we're not that desperate yet. Give it a hundred years; if Aang still isn't out by that time, then we might consider it."

As though a switch had been turned, everyone loosened up, and scattered laughter broke out. Yeah, there was no way it was gonna take that long.

"Hey I just realized something."
Everyone turned towards the young speaker, whose fashion-sense hadn't improved in the slightest, with mild curiosity.

"If we die like this, Bak will be the only avatar left."

The dead avatars gasped horrified.

Author notes:

Oh gods, it took me so long to write this. I went over it at least a thousand times, obsessively looking for mistakes or awkward sentences, rewriting new bits all the time. In the end, I'm (almost) satisfied with the result. There's still a few scenes I would have wanted to do more gracefully, but alas, no-one's perfect.

Reviews would be much appreciated, as I'm now very anxious to know if my awkward scenes are too obvious or not.