As One Fey

An Avatar: the Last Airbender plotbunny

By

EvilFuzzy9


It is strange to realize how quickly the Atani must live their lives. The secondborn of Eru, these late-comers and usurpers, have such a pitiable fate. Indeed, I do pity them. They are too wretched and miserable to earn my scorn.

So brief is their allotted time in this world, so uncertain is the final doom of their fëar, what they call souls. Death is inevitable for them, inescapable, an utter certainty.

I pity them.

The Other retreats now into himself. He pities himself as I pity his kind.

I cannot begrudge him this misery.

Much has happened, so much, so quickly. These "humans" are hasty creatures, for they are fleeting and have only a little time in which to live their lives. So rash they are, so quick to action, so passionate and impulsive.

They go northward; we three fly to the Northern pole of the world, to the last haven of the Other's homely, savage kindred.

Much has happened.

Avatar. This is something of which I have no knowledge. Though I reckon more clearly now the visions of my past, ever since the near oneness of myself and the Other, and remember well much lore of the spirits, the Powers which shaped the world, whom to me were as neighbors and teachers, I yet can recall nothing of this being, this entity.

She is mortal, and yet not. And "she," I say, for I perceive now that the core of her being is akin to the Valier, though of a lesser order. A maia, she be, yet the boy, her vessel, is Atani, a mortal man still in his youth.

A spirit of light.

What is the Avatar? Why does she meddle in the affairs of mortals? Fools though Men be, I reckon they should at least have the right to learn from their own follies.

But that is not what the Valar desire, is it? They want nothing less than utter lordship over the Children of Eru, those Lords of the West who seduced my forebear and his kin from the shores of Cuivienen, where our people were happy and free. Oppressors, they are, and ever have been. They know aught else.

I do not trust her. That one of the Ainu should... defile these poor creatures in such a way, forcing their being into a mortal's hröa... It is a vile act, a perversion of the most profound sort.

Avatar.

Who are you, spirit, maia? Are you a thrall of the Enemy, the blackest and most hated? Or do you clam allegiance to the Valar?

Not that it matters to me. Morgoth or Manwë, I see no difference. Abductors, deceivers, all. They are alike, all of them the same.

I do not trust them. I do not trust the "Avatar".

No succor of hers do I abide, nor aid of hers my pride suffer. She is wholly wicked, I am sure. I pity the boy who carries her, whose hröa she infests, mortal fëa suppressed. I pity him, even as I pity the Other.

I pity Aang; I pity Sokka.

Neither can control their power. But where the former is possessed by that skulking maia, that twisted spirit of light who coils about the very essence of his being, the latter is simply afraid of his own potential, and overwhelmed by the intensity of that which burns within him.

The Other cannot control his fire – our fire – and his body cannot endure it. The Atani are fragile, and ill-fit to endure the harsh elements.

Alas, were he but born with an Eldarin hröa, he would suffer not from such meager hurts. His flesh is burned, scarred, deformed: a pattern of charred skin, stark and raw against a dusky brown.

Lame he is not, but perhaps limited. Every movement is bought with pain, however small. It taxes him in ways I had never known possible. More now than ever does the Other hate and fear the flames within himself.

Not solely for the scars on his skin, either. Much sorrow has he brought upon his head, acting in haste and without thought. He sought to save the village of Kyoshi, to aid the warrior maidens who gave him succor, showed him respect.

Had he failed entirely to bend the flames, I think, it would have been better.

It was burning, the village was on fire. Sokka saw it, and he knew what he had to do. The Kyoshi Warriors were taking care of those ash-makers without a problem, but these flames could not be allowed to spread.

He barely knew what he was doing, or how he would do it. The scars on his hands hurt terribly as he raised them up, trying to mimic one of Aang's airbending stances. He moved his arms like he had seen his sister do, watching Katara practice those "push and pull" exercises with her bending.

Fire responded to the grip of his chi. He moved it, trying to draw it away to where it could do no harm, trying to move it like he had seen his sister move water.

But fire was not water.

A flash of heat. His grip faltered, his stance slipped. He quailed for an instant, feeling the power he held and not trusting himself fully to constrain it.

Flame was alive. It sensed the weakening of his resolve. It leapt away, free of Sokka's control.

Right at Suki.


A/N: Soooo... I actually updated. Like, holy crap, I am almost as surprised by this as you guys are. Over half a bloody year, but I've finally got another chapter for this. It probably helps that LNW, one of the major draws on my creative resources, is starting to near its end, and I've begun casting my attention back to other, unfinished works.

...finally getting the second season Legend of Korra DVD in the mail, and knowing there is now a third season airing, getting my mind back into the Avatarverse, may also have something to do with it.

Updated: 7-14-14

TTFN and R&R!

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