Ziggy's Corner, This is my first attempt to write an Avatar story so I hope that I do a good job here. 'Cause I have an idea for at least two other stories besides this one.

FLAMES OF HATE

Avatar Roku lay in his bed, beads of sweat slowly trickling down his face. His breathing was labored, and he could barely open his eyes without his brain screaming in protest. It was almost the end of his race, and he knew it, this was what it felt when he had died the last time that he was a fire bender. Of course then he was a woman, and some of her priests had thought she was suffering from a hot flash, but even then she had known that it was the end.

So I am once again to be an air bender. Roku smiled and tried to put his hands behind the back of his head, but found it to be impossible. One of his attendants rushed to his aide, but he shook his head. "I'm fine," he said in an iron, but weakening voice.

"Avatar Roku," another priest said, slowly approaching his bed. The avatar turned and looked at the other man as he sat down next to him. "Sir, you have a visitor, Fire Lord Renjiro and the prince are here to see you."

Roku smiled and nodded, "Of course, let them in," he said with a weak chuckle. The priest rose and opened the large metal doors that shut the ailing avatar in his room, and allowed the fifty year old ruler of the fire nation, and his oldest son, the sixteen year old heir to the kingdom. The Fire Lord, dressed in long crimson red robes made of very fine silk, a vibrant orange girdle, and short black boots. His son's colors were similar, but darker in shade, and unlike his smiling father, he wore a grim scowl that made many of the priests edge far away.

"It is good to see you, Lord Renjiro," Roku managed to squeak out through his snow white bearded mouth.

"It is very good to see you still alive, my Lord Avatar," the nobleman said giving a slight bow to the bedded man. "It is a shame that you can not be up and about, the people are very anxious in your absence."

"As I am in theirs," Roku said with quiet laughter. How he wished he could be up and about, to greet the people more and more, or at least have them come in, so he couple mediate their problems, to joke with them, to bless the children – how he missed the laughter of children. They no longer even allowed him to visit the halls of the avatars, to seek comfort with his past lives. There was even a rumor that he had heard that all over the world, they were already beginning to make a statue in his honor, something that was only done once an avatar was on death's door.

So they don't want to come right out and say it, but they know I am about to die. How the world has changed. "How are affairs of state?"

"Since when are you interested in politics, old man?" Renjiro said with a sad laugh. He sat down next to the bed, and motioned for his son to join him, but the teenager scowled even more and stomped over to a dark corner. Renjiro sighed and looked at the old avatar.

"Please forgive my son, Avatar Roku, as he has been in bad spirits, for some time now," the noble man said with a groan. A twist of the next and eyes narrowing brought the boy closer, but not nearly close enough to suit a father's taste.

"Ah, the troubles of youth," Roku said, smiling. He turned to face the boy, but saw nothing but shadows and distaste in those dark eyes.

"What troubles me is what troubles everyone, old man," the boy snapped. The room filled with collective gasps at the bitterness of the words, and the boldness of the proclamation. The prince felt his muscles tighten as his father snapped his name, and demanded an apology, but the boy held tight his convictions.

"Father, the people do not need the 'blessing' of some old shaman that claims to constantly be reincarnated every he dies, they need and want order." He turned to his father, his young slender body growing tighter with every word. His long black hair, tips dyed blood red, glowed in the mid-Spring air and sunlight. "This silly superstition of each nation ruling the world by the claims of dozens of con men and women is ridiculous."

Renjiro rose to his feet as if he had never had sat, and glared at the boy. "That will be enough blasphemy, for one day, child."

"If the Avatar is so great, then why do criminals still gather in the forests, and the seas of the world?" the teen shouted, pounding a fist into the wall of the elderly holy man's room. "People are killed, murdered, and I don't want to even begin to say what happens to single, young women who travel alone in forests."

"Enough," the Fire Lord's famous anger was now growing. He snapped the boy's name yet again and ordered him from the room.

"Why? The Water nation and those silly Air benders do nothing to enforce laws to protect villagers or pilgrims, and the Earth nation only guards her own borders, while asking us to help with our soldiers, while expecting us to protect our own people too! They are lazy father, the world is amiss in laziness, and ancient hocus pocus." He turned his wrath on the old man lying on the bed.

"Where were you when my mother and sister, were brutally assaulted in the Denikai Forest? Where were you when a group of your own nuns leading a batch of children to the ocean to visit the Water Nation, only to be captured and made slaves of by pirates!"

He was become hysterical, his body shaking like a wild storm. Fire priests and other guardsman rushed into the room, and tried to restrain the boy, but he used fire bending to shake them off. His father, horrified by the anger, stood motionless. "The avatars are a tradition the world needs to do without, your stagnant age and uselessness has come to an end, so do the world a favor, and when you die 'again' this time, stay dead."

He turned to his father and his dark brown eyes glowed with hot flames, the edges of his eyes turning orange. "Father, the world needs a strong leader, a strong nation to guide it into a true era of peace, why can't you see that, damn it!"

"Enough," Renjiro roared. The Fire Lord leapt into the air, and with a spinning round kick, sent a wave of fire, which knocked his son off his feet. The priests and guards were quick to restrain him as soon as his back landed on the cold marble floor. "Take my son to his quarters, and secure it. I'll be along and have a talk with him."

"You will not be around to play the meek, shepherd forever Father," the boy called out as he was drug off. "And I'm not the only one in the kingdom who thinks like I do. A future is coming; a bright future, and not you nor your precious Avatar can stop it!" The last words echoed through the room as the avatar's door was slammed shut.

Renjiro looked at the avatar, his face wide with horror. His skin was pale white, and his eyes were darker than a starless night. Even the bright red wall covers seemed to dull in the atmosphere now. "I- I am so sorry, Avatar Roku, my son, I had no idea he had so much hatred in his soul." He dropped to his knees, as if coming to a priest before confession, "Ever since my wife and daughter were ravaged and murdered by those bandits three years ago he has grown so distant." Tears began to form in his eyes. "I've tried to soothe him, to help him with his grief, but I was not strong enough."

"I'm so very sorry, Renjiro about your wife and daughter," the avatar's words were bitter and full of absolute sorrow. "I wish that I could have stopped it."

"A legion of my best soldiers could not stop it," Renjiro said, shaking his thin, skull like head his thinning black hair capturing what light there was in the room. "You were on a mission to the Earth nation, a peace mission, I understand that. It is not your fault." The avatar belongs to the world, not to one single nation. Surprisingly he began to laugh for a few minutes, before explaining his action. "It must be a hard life, one that I thank the fates saw fit that did not belong to me," his head snapped up for a moment, and his eyes swirled at the older man before lowering again. "I apologize for that, Avatar Roku."

The avatar stared at him and then began laughing himself. "There is no need to apologize Renjiro," he said, as he regained his senses. "There has been many a time that I have longed the fates that they had created me a farmer, I'd even accept a dung worker in a stable sometimes, than to this life." The two men and a few of the priests chuckled, and then the avatar sighed a painful gasp of breathe, and waved everyone away. "I can only thank you for your kindness."

"And I yours, Avatar Roku," the Fire Lord said, tears running down his cheeks. The older man motioned for him to inch closer and whispered something in his ear, and as the Fire Lord pulled back the tears flowed down even more. "It would be my most gracious honor, Roku."

The avatar forced his pained arm forward, and placed a hand on the noble man's head. He said a few phrases in an ancient language, a very archaic ritual, and then smiled. "Well, I hope that when the time comes, and we meet again, it will be as favorable as it has been this day," he said with an agonized laugh. "After all, I know that air benders aren't one hundred percent you most favorite of people," he gave the Fire Lord a playful wink and leaned back in his bed.

"You could come back as a rhino, and still find favor in my court, Avatar Roku," Rinjiro said, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Be at peace, my dear friend."

The avatar smiled slowly and looked deeply in the eyes of his old friend, one who had grown up with him, who pulled many pranks with him when they were teenagers. As he had done so many, many times, for thousands of years, Avatar Roku opened his mouth and spoke very familiar words, "I am at peace."

There was an eerie calm, and all around the room, one by one, the candles that littered the walls of the avatar's room went out with a puff of wind. Avatar Roku's eyes grew bright for a moment, and then duller until they looked as cold and glassy as a girl's toy doll's eyes.

Avatar Roku, age eighty three, born of poor peasants in the Fire Kingdom, brought up by the Fire priests of the kingdom, and trained as the next avatar, after the death of Avatar Genseku, was dead; his spirit racing toward the body off a young child, somewhere in the Air Nation.

Somewhere nine months later, in the Air Nation, a very young woman groaned with unbelievable agony, lying on her bed, surrounded by her husband and family. The doctor continued to console her, and asked her to push, despite this being her seventh hour of labor. He bit his lips and considered cutting the woman open, but he knew the husband would have hacked his hands off before he would get anywhere near her.

"She's lost a lot of blood," he told the man, looking up. "If we don't do something, she may not make it."

"I don't care," the man whined, "she's the only thing I've got left, and --," he was cut off as a large burst of warm wind pushed open the living quarter's windows, and surrounded the woman's body. "What is going on?" the man screamed.

"I don't know," the doctor, hollered under the roar of the wind. It circled the poor woman, and then flowed into her mouth. An instant later, there was a bright light, and her agony ended. She blinked, and found renewed strength. With a thrust of the new energy filling her body, she pushed, twice, and on the third attempt, a tiny, naked little boy came laughing into the world. Laughing!

The doctor took a look at the boy, whose body was glowing with bright light seconds after he had left his mother's womb, and then at the father. "I'm sorry, but I'm from the Earth Nation, is this a natural birth in the Air Nation?"

"Not that I know of," the father said, looking as the bright blue light slowly diminished from the body. There was an easiness staring at his son's eyes, and despite the unnatural birth, the father could only smile.

"So, what name do you want to give him?" the doctor asked, washing the blood from the boy's body, and handing him to his mother.

Both parents answered in unison. "Aang."

So how was it? And could someone tell me the name of the Fire Lord who was reigning when the comet first came down and gave him extra power? This is the young prince in my story, also the name of the comet, would be nice, though I believe it had the same name as the Fire Lord. Anyway, enough ranting from me, Review, Review, Review!