Echo Slowly, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

The rules for this story are at the end so as not to spoil the surprise.

I don't own Avatar.

Falling Slowly

"I don't know," said Katara, glancing over the edge while making sure not to shift much of her weight in its direction. She fought down an attack of vertigo? "It's easy enough for you. But I don't think I want to, thank you."

Aang gleefully tapped his staff to the ground, its wings spreading out instantly with a click. All alone in her hesitance, Katara had no escape from the persistence in his stance. "It's the only way to get to at all day echo chamber," he said, his smile showing that what he wanted to fly her through the canyon more than anything, even more than for that shared amazement of the ancient corridor from his childhood.

Words of protest rose to Katara's mind only to fall again as she contemplated what he was asking of her. Without being able to push any words out her mouth, she tried to think only of the Northern Air Temple, soaring through the air with Teo's guidance. But no matter how she tried, she couldn't detach her mind from the gargantuan drop in front of her. "Even if the all day echo chamber is so great," Katara said with a gulp, "I don't think it's for me."

"It's best not to think about it," said Aang cheerfully, setting the glider against his back. "Always hold onto me and you'll be just fine." He was clearly oblivious of how much a terrified fool she felt like standing there, unable to speak or shake her head. Always hold onto me and you'll be just fine. Like there was the any possibility she would let go.

Eyes on the ground, Katara took a few light steps towards Aang, then wrapped her stiff arms around him. She closed her eyes for takeoff. It wasn't like flying with Appa, she told herself, her dooming voice unwilling to offer her peace. The glider was so much smaller, so much more flimsy, not built to take the weight…

Aang didn't take off right away. Instead he stroked her hair smoothly, making her open her round blue eyes to look at him with surprise. "It's all right," he said. "I'm here with you."

Katara could only nod once, blinking her eyes at him uncertainly.

"And we're off!" Aang announced with a laugh as they fell from the sky, Katara reclamping her eyes shut and squeezing Aang even more tightly. "I can't steer very well if you fidget, so try not to react to the twists and turns." His jubilant voice was almost lost in the rush of wind blowing past Katara's eardrums. Twists and turns? Was this just play for him? Games were all he could think of while she felt the force of gravity that tugged on her entire body like never before, urging her to plummet to the unseen depths in a bottomless fall that would doubtlessly amount to nothing more than a painful death at the end of an endless scream. Katara mind visualized the papery wings that held the two bodies suspended over the abyss as her eyes remained squeezed shut. Even if the glider was made none other than the famous Mechanist himself, Katara unwittingly forced herself into doubting them with a fervor. They'll hold, they're meant to hold, she told herself again and again. They'll hold, they're meant to hold. Will they rip in half as the childish Avatar enjoys his play? Will they wear themselves out from all his tricks? No, they'll hold, they're meant to hold.

And yet, as she felt her momentum shifting as the pair flew through the air, Katara began to feel an inkling like she did at the Northern Air Temple, the freedom and limitless expansiveness coupled with the stretching sky. She remembered the view from her glider back in the North as well as the sights from Appa's back, the gorgeous demagnification of everything she ever knew until it looked like a collection of oddly colored children's building blocks. Still, the fear hadn't completely left her, and she could only open her eyes after a triumph in will power. Take a look. You don't want to miss this view. But Katara forgot her lack of control in this situation, the game-playing airbender piloting the glider the whimsical master of her fate. His carefree air tricks ruined the possibly majestic view, making her feel as if she were in a steadily sinking ship, her hands tied and unable to bend herself to safety. Eyes closed again, she renewed her anaconda grip around Aang's waist. They'll hold. They're meant to hold.

"And we're here," chirped Aang, landing the pair in a standing position. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" He extended his index finger to his left to point. "The all day echo chamber is over there. Ready to see it?" Aang surveyed the area with a broad smile, doubtlessly feeling a sense of relief to be somewhere that had the familiarity of home.

Katara didn't notice any of this. Her arms were still wrapped around him, her eyes still squeezed shut.

"We've landed," said Aang softly into the back of her neck. "We're on still ground now. You've got to let go of me at some time."

The first thing Katara saw once she opened her eyes was the immense vertical distance they had flown. The knot in her stomach hadn't been fueled by an imagined plummet. She could make out in the shadowy distance the glowing remains of Zuko's afternoon campfire, lighting a pea-sized window of an upside-down house. From this distance the buildings looked like crystals dangling from the top of a cave, the tips sharp enough to divide a person in two. While inside the buildings it was easy enough to forget they were built upside-down. Now Katara couldn't shake the feeling that they were coming closer, falling tip-first on top of them, even though when she looked again the buildings had, in fact, remained embedded in the earth above her.

Aang took her by the hand and led her down a corridor. "This way!" he yipped. Diving into a crevasse in the side of the canyon, the pair was soon unable to see anything at all.

"Can you light a torch or something?" said Katara, an element of control returning to her voice. "I keep thinking I'm going to run into a wall or something."

"We're here already," said Aang, coming to an abrupt stop. Momentum almost sent Katara crashing into him. "Raise your hands up to feel the door." Katara did, and indeed her fingertips brushed against the side of a hole in the ceiling. Feeling around, the threshold seemed to be just large enough for a thin person to fit through. She blinked a few times. Was he serious? "Don't be down," said Aang reassuringly. "You probably want to hear the echo of a hopeful voice."

Katara couldn't help but smile at that bit of encouragement. "Thanks," she said, reaching her arms up and hoisting herself up.

Unlike anything she could expect, the room above was so vast that it was nearly agoraphobic. It was like being in a giant dome, the top being so far away that it looked to be the same distance as the sky. Throughout the dome in precise formations there were tiny glowing holes poked like scissors through black paper, an expanse of stars glistening above. And yet, even with the light twinkling through the simulated night sky, you had to hold your hand inches from your eyes to see anything, and even then you had to make a choice of which finger you would be able to see in any discernable detail.

"Wow, it's amazing!" said Katara in a breathy near-whisper.

"Wow, it's amazing!" said the all day echo chamber in a breathy near-whisper.

"You've made it," said Aang, sounding like he was grinning. Falling slowly, his voice slipped smoothly into her ear. "What do you think now? Are you happy we came?"

"You've made it," said Aang, sounding like he was grinning. Falling slowly, his voice slipped smoothly into her ear. "What do you think now? Are you happy we came?"

"Wow, it's amazing!" said Katara in a breathy near-whisper.

"You said that already," said Aang, confused.

"You've made it," said Aang before Katara could respond, sounding like he was grinning.

Aang sighed, and with a whooshing sound the echoing voices evaporated into the starry dome. "Sometimes you have to reset it," he explained.

"I see," said Katara, nodding.

"Sometimes you have to reset it," he explained.

Another gush of wind, another resetting of the all day echo chamber.

Eyes adjusting to the dark, Katara could make out the starlit outline of Aang's bald head, a dim band of light threading from the top of his dome, along his ornamental ears, and down to his chin. The image was such that Katara thought to herself with a sense of accomplishment on behalf of her eyes, 'I know he's looking at me,' the way a detective knows something that cannot be seen by eyesight alone. 'And I wonder if he can't see me looking back at him.' She wanted to go into his mind to see from behind that outlined frame and look back at herself, how she herself looked as if drawn in silver calligraphy against black paper. Maybe he could see more than she. He was an air monk, after all, and he had experience in the all day echo chamber.

"And…?" he said. "What do you want to say? Jokes? Emotions? Moods? Messages?" His outline shifted in a way that looked to take his attention off the private sense of 'you and me' and off towards the 'them' of the glimmering dots in the constructed night sky.

"And…?" said the all day echo chamber. "What do you…" Aang interrupted with a whoosh of air, the 'erase me' button.

"I don't know," said Katara in a whisper, as though speaking low would prevent an irritating echo. It didn't, but at least she could speak over the echo if she needed to. "I want to be in the room, you know. Just experience it for a little while. And see I look like I'm painted black." She raised her arm in front of her face and turned over her hand to look at the faint glimmer rolling over her knuckles, the echo of her whispering bouncing around like a hallway of crickets.

"You sure?" Aang said. He didn't seem to have ever learned how to whisper properly, not able to match her in softness. He erased the echoes, and the pair was thrown into silence. All that could be heard were the light tapping of footsteps, reverberating around their ears like an amateur drum choir. Aang must have suffered through the lack of conversation grudgingly, but Katara couldn't get enough.

After Katara had drunkenly wandered through the seemingly limitless expanse so much that her neck ached from looking up for so long, she told Aang, who had drifted some distance away, that she was ready to leave. She tried to speak in a near-whisper, but her voice carried with surprising power through the echoing cathedral. Aang erased it before helping her find the narrow ground exit, leading her by the elbow. Soon enough Katara's toes prodded the gap. And Aang whispered into her ear with warm breath that she should go first so he could erase the last of the echoes. And she warred with the tiny hole so tightly packed that she worried she might take a layer of skin off her nose. And her eyes felt the instinctual relief at the presence of an increase in light, no matter how small, in the cavern she now stood. And the sound of a distant gust of air came to Katara's ears, and with it the graceful drop of the airbender himself, unworried of a brush with the walls of the exit. 'No one in the world could do that like yourself,' Katara thought at him.

"It's time to get ready for dinner," he said, patting his robes clean. Katara looked at her own outfit and noticed a thin layer of dust had gathered on her as well. "Just look at that sunset! I'm glad you liked it so much. I think the all day echo chamber won you over." He smiled with all his teeth.

"It's already sunset?" Katara said, the smile that had taken up residence on her face since arriving in the all day echo chamber fading sorely. As if on cue her stomach gurgled. "This is bad! The others are probably worried about us! Take me back up, okay?" Katara couldn't help this feeling in her chest like that of a steadily sinking ship from taking root.

"Don't worry," chirped Aang. "I told Sokka we might be late. He said he'll work on dinner."

Katara arched an eyebrow. "Sokka? Work on dinner?"

"He said he'll find something."

Katara breathed out harshly. "This is trouble."

"It'll be okay," Aang reassured her, as though in a rush. "And that's not the point. I wanted to take you out here so we could talk about something. We can't avoid it any longer. I don't want to have to wait for when you go home without me."

Katara swallowed and looked away. She knew what he was referring to. She hadn't thought much about their moment on the top of the submarine, moments before the invasion began. She hadn't wanted to think about it. There was so much on her mind that it simply strained her to add something more to the mental load. She looked up at the reddened sky. "I don't…" she started, speaking from the back of her throat like she was looking for her voice box.

"We've still got time," said Aang. He used his kindest voice, the one she remembered from the end of the Serpent's Pass when he was finally able to slide out of his depressed cowering from his inner pain at losing Appa. Perhaps it was because he used this voice that she didn't insist he return her to the campsite right away.

"I don't know," she said, in the way that didn't mean anything other than for her to gather her thoughts together for the next sentence. She shook her head for the same effect, and said to herself, "Raise this question…" She finally began, "On the day of the invasion I was worried about your safety, too. Of course I was. But I hadn't thought about what was going to happen after, and the thought was just too much. Were you hopeful for a life together after the war? Did you want to hear my voice each night before going to sleep? I wasn't ready to make such a commitment. I'm still not. There's just so much to do and think about that I'm not sure I'm ready for this." She wouldn't look at him, and she gripped the elbow dangling to her side with tense fingers.

"You think too hard," said Aang, in a twist of irony for a monk. His smile had faded to a grave but still warm seriousness. "The Monks used to say that sometimes when you think you have a choice in front of you, you've actually already made it, you're just not ready to admit it yet. You've made it by now, haven't you? There's been plenty of time. I know I've made mine." Katara glanced suspiciously at his hand, afraid it might make an attempt to rest on her shoulder, but instead it respectfully stayed by his side.

Katara inhaled. "Relationships are volatile things," she said. "With so much chaos in the world right now, I need the stability of friendship more than anything." Falling even farther into the depths of her rib cage, Katara felt her heart was slowly acclimating to the timbre of the conversation she wished in vain to avoid.

"Really?" Aang said. "I don't know much about relationships, but I was always told they help keep things stable." He looked up to the sky; Katara could see his chin move from the corner of her eye. "It's a lot like the all day echo chamber. At first you were scared to fly there, but when you arrived you were happier than I've seen you since you were reunited with your father. You have to take that one chance and let yourself fall slowly into something you don't know about, but once you're there it's more wonderful than you could have ever guessed." He chuckled, a short breath through his nose accompanied by a grin. "At least that's what I think. I don't know for sure." He grew serious again, but in a friendly way. "But I believe it enough to try it."

As Aang flew Katara back to the rest of the group, his glider gave off the air of being filled with song. It was as if instead of forcing wind under its wings and shouting, "Fly!" Aang's command was instead, "Sing! Sing your sweet lullaby, the melody of jubilant flight!" Wind batted against its canvass wingspan, and Katara felt she could hear its joy as pitches floating freely into her ears. Of course they held. They were meant to hold. Katara blissfully closed her eyes and squeezed tighter around Aang's warm torso, not wanting to let go but for a different reason this time. If the melody of the glider was that of her own heart, she thought, I'll sing it now.

Fine.

For some time now I've wanted to create a different kind of song fiction. In most song fictions the song plays alongside the story, and the two usually run parallel but not together. They might relate in some way, but it's only through juxtaposition. So I figured, hey, why not try and incorporate the song lyrics themselves into the story? And thus the rules were born:

1) he lyrics appear in order throughout the piece, though not necessarily together. They should be typed bold. You know, to make things easier.

2) Each paragraph that uses words from the lyrics has at least one complete line of lyrics (in this case that amounts to four beats), and a line of lyrics is never split between two paragraphs.

3) The first word in each line of lyrics has to be the first word in a sentence.

4) The moment a word from the lyrics is used and it's that word's "turn," it must be typed bold. In other words, if the next word is "And," it has to be bold the next time it's used (this really only relates to "rule" #3, since it can be hard to start a sentence with "And," but not so much a song lyric).

5) The last word in the lyrics is the last word of the story, in bold.

Anyway, that all boils down to: this took a freaking long time to write. Like months. Longer than I've ever spent on a fan fiction, ever. But it was challenging and rewarding, even though I've got mixed feelings about how it came out. The song is by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and the song is "Falling Slowly" from the movie "Once." I don't own the song or the movie.

-samtana

P.S. Here are the full lyrics for anyone who's interested:

(verse)

I don't know you

But I want you

All the more for that

Words fall through me

Always fool me

And I can't react

Games that never amount

To more than they're worth

Will play themselves out

(chorus)

Take this sinking ship

And point it home

We've still got time

Raise your hopeful voice

You had a choice

You've made it now

(verse)

Falling slowly

Eyes that know me

And I can't go back

Moods that take me

And erase me

And I'm painted black

You have suffered enough

And warred with yourself

It's time that you won