InsaneJournal

The Cyclic Dance [A:tLA, Roku & Kyoshi, G]
Title: The Cyclic Dance
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: G
Genre: Vignette
Words: 200
Notes/Warnings: Done for 'the dance' @ theavatar100. Jossed by "The Avatar and the Firelord".
Summary: In the end, the difference between Avatars is the same as the difference between spring and summer.
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender copyright Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko/Nickelodeon and this derivative work was created without permission.


Roku had learned that the difference between incarnations of the Avatar -- fire, air, water and earth, male and female -- was as illusionary as the difference between past and present. Avatar Roku was Avatar Kyoshi -- changed, spring shifted to summer, but the same land underneath. A necessary shift, for balance and a new perspective, but not revolutionary. Not the way the Fire Lord mentioned it, with talk of what one could do with a Fire Nation Avatar. He was bound as much to the other three countries as to the land of this incarnation's birth.

It was more apparent as he kept getting older. He awoke from dreams that he knew had been memories once upon a time, expecting to see greens and stone, or blues and ice, instead of scarlet and lava. He never forgot he was the Avatar, but it worried his attendants that it stopped mattering which one.

He knew he was dead when the Avatar Kyoshi knelt by his bedside when he awoke. The room behind her was covered in the white of mourning.

"What now?" the Avatar asked.

"We wait," the Avatar answered. "Soon an Airbending child will be born, and the dance will continue."