A Day in the Life of an Avatar [OPEN!]

[all_the_aangles]

WHO: Aang and You!
⚔️️ WHAT: Things!
🕒 WHEN: Daylight!
🗺️ WHERE: Places!
⚠️ WARNINGS: None, Aang is just being Aang.



Aang...wandered.

It had started out as just a consequence of being in a new place; somewhere he could explore, at a leisurely sort of pace, and discover new things. It had turned into something more akin to a passion.

This place was filled with heroes - it did not need an Avatar.

So he explored - places, and people. He subsisted as something like an odd-jobs man. He helped out various business in the market place, for instance. A bit of repair work, cleaning, organizing - whatever they needed. He particularly enjoyed sweeping. There was something beautiful to such an act, a calm repetition and carrying out of purpose. It wasn't destructive, and it improved. That was more than enough for him.

He could often be found, calmly sweeping, in any number of places.

He tried his hand at carpentry, too, working on various job sites - wherever would take him, really. It was making something that he enjoyed; creating something with his hands and honest sweat - no violence, no destruction.

His friends had their own tasks and so he was...left to his own devices, really. Not all of it was fantastic; he missed the time he'd used to spend around Katara dearly, and made the most out of what time he could - Sokka, too, and Zuko.

There were also classes, which he found fascinating. He wasn't the most punctual student, of course - being the sort to stop and observe a religious ceremony for an hour on the way to classes. But he loved some of them. Every cultural offering he could find, he tried to observe or participate in it. Some people invited him to learn their native dances, and that was, perhaps, the sweetest thing of all.

He did practice his magic, and his progress - especially with air - had been prodigious; but he used it to amuse children mostly, telling stories to those who gathered about his world, illustrating it by making small clouds. Though he had to admit - the now Labrador-sized Appa was the real star of those shows.

Come the evenings, he could be found meditating in open fields, or on rocks - breathing in the freedom of thousands of cultures, and the peace that brought him.

So went the days of Aang - once the Avatar, now very happily just Aang.

Comments

[all_the_aangles]

He gestured to a spot next to him, shifting over a bit. She seemed like someone with something on her minds.

"Sure, if you want."

[writtendestiny]

"Thank you..."

Something on her mind would be an understatement at the best of times, but she takes the offered spot with a faint smile in Aang's direction and pulls her legs up into a half-lotus position, curling her hands loosely over her ankles.

"You can go back to what you were doing, if you want. I didn't mean to interrupt."

[all_the_aangles]

He folded his under him, hands in his lap, looking at her.

"I could. Or we could talk. It looks like you want to, sort of. And that's great - I'm a pretty good sounding board."

He smiled.

"Or a good listener, if that's what you need."

[writtendestiny]

"I wouldn't want to bother you."

She knows why she's like this. Why she shuts people out immediately without daring to let them get too close. Poison chews her lip for a moment after her immediate response to the calm young man, then looks down at her hands.

"I suppose I did that already," she admits with a rueful smile. "I don't know, I'm just... spending a lot of time on my own these days, even though I don't think I really want to."

[all_the_aangles]

"I'm hard to bother," he replied with a chuckle. He moves his staff, tracing a pattern of the elements in the dirt at their feet. "It takes professional work these days to bother me."

But he nods at the latter, looking at her.

"Solitude can be great. But people help. I always try to balance things out."

[writtendestiny]

"I'll keep that in mind," she murmurs with a small, wry smile. Poison could easily consider herself a professional person-botherer, given she has tended in the past to go out of her way to aggravate certain people, but she doesn't feel any need to do that here.

"I spent a lot of time by myself growing up." Poison says, then she hums softly. "People thought I was weird, so I didn't bother with them either."

She looks down, picking at the grass in front of her.

"When I made friends, finally, I did like it. But... I've been to a few places like this one now, and making friends just feels like setting myself up to lose them."

[all_the_aangles]

He's quiet, thinking about that for a long moment.

"I think you never lose them," he replied, "not really. The memories stay, and that keeps them with you. As for making new ones, well. That's a choice you have to make, I suppose."

[writtendestiny]

"Sometimes the memories aren't enough."

Or they're too much. Sometimes she'd rather not have them, and she has so many memories now that she'd get rid of if she could. Or... would she? It's strange to think about.

"Sometimes you just want the people. Don't you ever feel like that?"

[all_the_aangles]

"Sometimes," he replies. "I had family, a people, once. They're all gone now. I'm all that's left of them. In a way, I suppose, I have to think the way I do. It's the only way to keep their memory vital."

"But it helps that some of my current friends are here. The people who've become like a new family."

[writtendestiny]

"I lost my family, too," she says with a sigh. Not in the same way - they're still alive, mostly - but she can't go back to them. Not even if she wanted to.

"But..." And it's hard to dig herself out of the negativity she carries around with her like a cloak, but she's going to try to have a... constructive conversation. "I've been in a few places like this. I've met a lot of people that I cared for, and lost them all. What would you do if it just... kept happening?"

[all_the_aangles]

"Age, for a start," he replies, with a bit of a smile.

He shrugged. "I carry them with me always," he replied. "Change is the only constant in life, after all. Memories are wonderful, but you can't stop creating new ones, right?"

[writtendestiny]

"They're not always wonderful," she breathes out, leaning back on her hands and tilting her head back up at the sky. Not always, and a lot of the memories she has of people she can no longer reach just hurt.

"But it must be nice, to be able to look at it like that." Poison's a little envious, really. She's never had that kind of peaceful mindset.

"Were you meditating, just now?"

[all_the_aangles]

"No, but they're the ones I focus on," he replied. And he nods.

"It's something that needs consistent practice."

[writtendestiny]

Poison hums thoughtfully.

"Someone tried to tell me about it once, but he didn't make it sound very appealing." But then, she thought the guy was an idiot from the first conversation they had and he's done nothing within her perception to prove otherwise since.

"Does it work?"

[all_the_aangles]

"Most of the time," he replied, "most of the time."

He sighed, smiling faintly.

"Nobody can manage it perfectly, after all."

[writtendestiny]

"Ah... it's one of those things."

Some of the more irritating things, to Poison, are those things which can never be fully perfected. Which... goes for many things, really. Unfortunately.

"... How does it feel for you, when you do it?"

Maybe he can make it sound better.

[all_the_aangles]

"Meditating? Peaceful, in the end. Like the world just sort of...falls away, like water off your shoulders."

He smiles, closing his eyes.

"Calmness, a unique kind of calm. For a while, the world is just what you make it. And a universe inside."

[writtendestiny]

The young woman lets out a soft, almost amused hum. He can't have any idea how ironic his choice of words is. But he sure makes it sound better than Morgan ever managed to.

She glances across at him, then settles in place and shuts her eyes as well.

"Okay. Can't hurt to give it a try."

[all_the_aangles]

He looked at her, head tilted.

"It'd easier back home. I could help you clear your chi, clear out all the things that get in the way. Help you find some inner peace. Here we have to do it the hard way."

[writtendestiny]

"Chi?"

She opens her eyes again and looks over at him, curious about what he means by doing things the hard way.

"What does that mean?"

[all_the_aangles]

"The life force that flows through us. Our emotions, even physical conditions can block it, disrupt its flow. Often we don't even know it's been disrupted."