[muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

[geonomy]

Who: You! Me! Everybody!
Broadcast: idk but we've sure got a pretty broad cast of folks eh, eh
Action: HECK YEAH PLANET MINGLE
When: 10/7 until plot update or recaptcha

It's a deep, deep forest filled to the brim with fungi, mysterious life forms, and pitch black darkness. Explore if you dare and discover all these things and more! Just don't get lost...

Comments

[bryces_pup]

[She laughs at his imitation.]

Wasn't he the one who was supposed to be saving your world?

[alwayscomeback]

He was. But he sometimes just wanted to be a kid, y'know? Forget the weight of the world.

[bryces_pup]

I... can understand that. [She, too, had to grow up quite a bit during her stint of saving the world. Some nights, she longed for the days of just being a nobleborn girl whose biggest worries were what idiot she'd wind up having to marry and finding time to practice her swordwork.] Did he have chances to be a child, if just for a little bit?

[alwayscomeback]

Sometimes, with us. He got the chance to goof about a couple of times, it was good for him.

[Sokka smiles, a little sad. ]

He didn't get to do it as much, the closer the end of the war we got. He...had a lot to face, in that final battle.

[bryces_pup]

I am sorry. Someone that young - none of you should have had to do such a thing at that age.

[alwayscomeback]

It would have been worse if we'd done nothing.

...Anyway, it's not like any of us could really be kids anymore. Not the way things were.

[bryces_pup]

Why does it always seem to be youth who pay for the mistakes of their elders?

[Oh dear, there's a bit of bitterness in her tone.]

[alwayscomeback]

Honestly, our thing has been going for a hundred years. It's just...not stopped. Until we stepped in, anyway.

[bryces_pup]

Mmm. You said Aang was this Avatar and had to stop this war, correct? But Avatars reincarnate. If this had been going on for so long, why hadn't the Avatar before Aang done something to stop it?

[alwayscomeback]

[Oh boy. Good job opening that can of worms, Riona. Sokka exhales.]

When the war was just starting, a hundred years ago- Aang...err, he was scared, didn't want the pressure. So he kind of- okay this sounds weird, just go with it he ran away and froze himself in an iceberg? For a hundred years.

So he's kind of thirteen. But also a hundred and thirteen at the same time? It's complicated. But that's why he hadn't stopped it, because he was literally out of commission. He... he actually really hates himself for that. I don't think he's ever really forgiven himself.

[bryces_pup]

...that is not at all what I was expecting.

[But who could expect that honestly??]

I understand his being afraid, especially at such a young age. Admittedly, freezing yourself in an iceberg seems a little drastic, but still, I sympathize.

[alwayscomeback]

If you did, I'd be worried about you.

[Only crazy people expect iceberg children. ]

I don't think he meant for it to happen, it just kinda...did. It was hard for him, it still is. All his people were slaughtered while he was asleep- the Fire Nation knew the next Avatar was an Airbender and they just killed them all looking for him.

[bryces_pup]

[Riona wishes that that shocked her, but it doesn't. Tyrants ran a plenty in Thedas as well. They are a universal evil.]

Tragic, but for the best that he was not there. He'd likely have died along with them. But I know that's much easier for someone else to say. Accepting it is far more difficult. But I hope he makes peace with it, someday.

[alwayscomeback]

That's what we told him. He wouldn't have been able to defend himself properly. He hadn't got full control on his powers. He would have been a sitting duck and if he'd died, then it would have been at least a decade before the next Avatar would have been old enough to do anything.

I hope he does, too. I doubt he ever will- not really, but he lives with it better than he used to.

[bryces_pup]

[Logically, that still might have ended the war and everything much sooner, but that would have come at the cost of Aang's life, something Riona's not comfortable with admitting, so she won't.

Besides, who knows if the next Avatar would have been able to even do it.]

That's all he can do. I know all too well guilt is never easily bucked.

[alwayscomeback]

[And the world would have been set on fire anyway. Sokka exhales. ]

Boy isn't it. But hey, everything is better now. Korra told me new Airbenders have shown up in her time so that's...good. They're coming back.

[bryces_pup]

Aang was truly the last one?

[alwayscomeback]

He was. It's some weird...spirity stuff that's bringing them back. I don't quite get it. But for a logn time, yeah. Aang was the very last one of his whole people. It...had to be tough.