tampered | Log: Ongoing

"Nah, it's concrete. They make it with cement- and water, and gravel." Lyra burst in.

The spot she had in mind was a broad ledge a few stories up. To get there, you had to climbe a tall tree that grew along next to the building, then scale a few metres of scaffolding. Pantalaimon shot up the tree, and Lyra followed him, taking care not to crush the eggs.

Aang watched as they climbed up, puzzled. He shrugged and spun his hands, creating a gust of concentrated air that blew him up onto the ledge, touching down just as she reached it.

"So...I guess that means you're not an Airbender.."

Lyra's surprise showed up on her and Pantalaimon's faces.

"How'd you do that?" She asked as she settled down on the ledge, looking at him with interest.

"I'm an Airbender. Well, technically I'm the Avatar. But I was born an Airbender. Why, don't they have bending where you come from?"

He crossed his legs under him and gathered the currents in the air to form what looked very like a miniature of his air-surfing ball.

"Nah," Lyra shook her head, then grabbed an egg. Waiting patiently for a few moments she dropped it. A few seconds later there was a loud shriek as it crashed onto the head of a pedestrian.

"What's the Avatar?"

The arrow-headed boy had to stifle his laughter as the egg hit an unsuspecting passerby. Concentrating, he airbended 3 eggs out into midair above the street, lining them up in a row. With a snicker, he let them drop. A few seconds later there was an explosion of profanity and exclamations.

"I'm the only one who can control all the elements. The Avatar keeps the balance in the world. He's reincarnated into a different one of the four nations every time. It's a cycle."

Lyra snickered "Good aim!", then dropped another egg, and was immediatly rewarded with another shriek.

"Sorry, I've never heard of it before. Your world only has four countries?. We don't have anything like that in my world- well, I might count for that I guess. So you wanted me to tell you about the city?" Her voice, she thought to herself, was far to cheerful for the things she was about to say.

"Thanks! Monk Gyatsu and I used to bake cakes together, then we'd airbend them onto the heads of the other elder monks. They didn't like me that much...just Gyatsu. He was my only real friend. And Appa, of course."

He nodded.

"Yeah, well it used to..."

He ticked off his fingers as he spoke.

"Before I got frozen in the ice, everything was peaceful. Fire Nation, Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, and Air Nomads all got along. But..not too long after I was frozen, the Fire Nation attacked. Fire Lord Sozin harnessed the power of a comet and made the Firebenders' powers grow. The first thing they did was attack the Air Temples. I guess they wanted to break the Avatar cycle. They did the same thing to the Water Tribes, but they weren't wiped out. I'm...the last Airbender there is."

His expression, which had begun to fall, brightened at the mention of information about the city.

"Yeah! This place looks great!"

"Eh... It's not so great when there are curses. There are these four gods, see, and they set up curses to make people miserable, and then they use the misery to fuel the countdown." Lyra's face had become grim, and Pantalaimon sat solemnly in her lap. She dropped another egg, and peered glumly over the ledge as it crashed into the pavement.

"Countdown?"

Aang looked up from where he was airbending eggs through a tunnel of air and shooting them like potatoes from a potatoe gun at unsuspecting passersby.

"Countdown to what?"

Lyra's face was stony. Pantalaimon gazed grimly into the boy's eyes as well.

"Countdown... To the end of all worlds. That ticking you've been hearing? That's the countdown. I've been trying to find some way to stop it but..." she trailed off helplessly. "I've been trying to read the alethiometer, but it won't come clear to often!"

"The end of all worlds? But...but Avatar Roku said that if I can master the elements and defeat the Fire Lord before the end of the summer, then I can SAVE the world!"

"I know! I thought by saving the Dust and breaking the knife, we'd stopped it from happening! Then a few months later I got sucked here!" Lyra hurled an at a pedestrian passing below, and was rewarded with an angry shout.

"It's not fair!"

The young Avatar nodded, stretching out on his stomach and dropping an egg onto another head, not even smiling when an angry bout of profanity accompanied the sound of it's shattering.

"Yeah...it's like we did it all for nothing..."

He glanced up at the girl, cocking his head to one side.

"So, you have to save your world too?"

"Well more like a bunch of worlds- and I thought I'd already done it... I know I have to stop the countdown, I'm just not sure how- I've tried to be cheerful, 'cause being miserable would just make it worse... And some of the other people here are scary," Lyra imitated Aang's posture, letting another egg fall onto another unsuspecting head.

He nodded. Like the girl, he definitely understood what it was like to smile even when you didn't want to. He rolled over onto his back and stared at the clouds overhead, floating an egg around above him.

"So...what's your world like, Lyra?"

"Well, kind of like this one, except there isn't so much technology. The church used to have a lot of power, but they've got a lot less now," Lyra added in a satisfied tone of voice.

"I live in a city called Oxford, I grew up in Jordan College- it's one of the oldest and richest and most famous colleges in Oxford," Lyra was always willing to boast of the College's accomplishments.

"I guess what really makes our world special is our dæmons though. They're like our souls, but outside of our bodies. Pantalaimon's mine," she explained, gesturing to the pine marten.

"Oxford? That's a strange name. What's a college?"

He studied the pine marten. Reaching out a hand, he made as if to pet the small animal, but thought better of it.

"He kindof reminds me of Momo. So...he's your spirit? But...how can your body move if your spirit's outside of it? That doesn't make sense.."

"A college is a place for Scholars. They study stuff there," Lyra explained matter of factly, though both girl and dæmon flinched back as he reached forward.

"Well, we're still connected- no matter how far away he goes, we're still one being," she explained defensively, "Anyway, there's a part of my spirit that isn't Pantalaimon, and that's the part inside of my body. It's called my ghost."

He nodded, seeming to understand.

"So...it's like a school. That's neat. I didn't go to school, I was raised at the temple. But the Monks taught me everything I know about Airbending."

Dropping another egg over the side, he watched as it hit the ground in front of a woman dressed in fancy clothes who screamed and jumped back a few feet.

"So that mean's your spirit's split in two. That's neat. People here can do all sorts of things. This one guy said he could bend space!"

"Well I didn't go to school until a few months ago either- I'm to young to go to college, so the scholars'd just teach me whenever they had the time," Lyra explained.

"Split in two? We never thought of it that way... Bend space? Wonder how you can do that? I can do something cool to," Lyra bragged.

His eyes perked up. He loved to show off, and it was even more fun if he had someone to show off WITH.

"Really? What can you do? I wanna see."

Lyra sat up, then reached into her bag and pulled out a small package. She carefully unwrapped the cloth wrappings, revealing a device that looked like a large golden compass.

"I can read this," she said briefly, "If you want to see how it works, you have to ask me a question."

"Um....ok."

He sat back and thought for a moment, then turned slightly red.

"Can..can it answer ANY question?"

Lyra blinked. "Well, it's answered every one I've asked."

He nodded, fiddling with his fingers and glancing away, face red.

"Can it...can it tell you...if..if someone likes you?"

Lyra stared blankly.

"I've never asked actually- I think that's the sort of thing people can figure out on their own. I could try it though."

He fidgeted a bit more.

"Can...can you ask it if...if Katara likes me? Like, likes me, likes me?"

"Alright" Lyra said blankly, twirling the three knobs on the alethiometer to the proper positions. She focused on the dancing needle for a moment, then looked up.

"She doesn't feel that way about you right now," she said hesitantly, "But she might if you told her."

His face fell at her words, but brightened a bit when she added the last part.

"Really? That's so neat, you're like a fortuneteller or something. I wish I could tell the future like that."

"It's not really telling the future- I think it can predict consequences or something like that, but it's never really told me the future, just what's going on right now, or what happened in the past. It's a symbol reader- and I en't a fortune teller," Lyra explained as she began to put the alethiometer back into its wrappings.

"Aang, don't tell anyone about it- I'm dead serious. Some people here are real dangerous and I don't want them to find out about it," Lyra warned, her face suddenly fierce as she glared at Aang.

He nodded, a bit surprised at her sudden change of mood.

"I..I won't tell. But...you have to promise not to tell about me being the Avatar. If there are any Fire Nation here, they'd be chasing me again."

Lyra nodded.

"Alright, I won't tell a soul. But be careful- I dunno how bad the Fire Nation is, but some people here, they're really bad," she warned, before grabbing another egg, which soon smashed onto some unfortunates head.

"So what are you going to do?"

He tossed two more eggs over, using his Airbending to select his targets, and shrugged.

"Dunno. We were looking for Appa. Then..I woke up here. But I need to find a way back, the others are probably wondering where I am. I hope..I hope I didn't hurt them..."

He couldn't help but think back to the last memories of the desert that he had. Of how he had entered the Avatar state, but then blacked out. What if he HAD hurt them? What if he'd..killed his friends?

"Good luck with that," Lyra said, "Getting out of here en't so easy as getting in- the City doesn't want its food to get out or something. Me, I'm staying until the countdown's stopped. But I heard a lot of people, they found other people from their own worlds here. Not me though, but maybe your friends, they'll show up here?" Honestly, she didn't know. But she knew what it was like to have a friend vanish, and to not know whether they were even alive.

"You really think they might show up here? But...what about the Fire Nation? If the comet comes back while I'm here..then not even the Avatar will be able to make things right again."

Her words worried him. Sure, this place seemed like fun. But...while he was here having fun, what would happen to all the people who were depending on him? He sighed, and flopped down on his stomach, frowning at the City.

"I wish they were here NOW...I don't even know where Appa is. At least if he was here, I could sleep in his fur. I guess I'll have to try and earthbend something like Toph does. But...I'm not that good at Earthbending yet..."

Lyra shrugged, "I dunno. Sounds like it's happened to other people though- and it seems like time's kind of funny here- one guy, he was from the same world as some other people, but from a different time. This city's weird. It en't natural Aang, it's wrong and I hate it," she said tersely.

"But... If you need to stay somewhere, you could sleep in one of the empty flats. There are a lot of 'em in these twelve buildings- like that one over there," she added, pointing at a nearby building.

"And there's a temple you could stay in if you wanted to- there's a lady who lives there, she's giving me sword lessons!" Lyra added.

He nodded, following the direction of her finger.

"Stay in an empty place? You mean, there are houses just sitting around empty?"

"Well not houses, more like flats, but yeah they're empty- most people like to share with someone, 'cause it helps the ticking go away," Lyra explained.

"I dunno why they're there- it's creepy, but at least people don't have sleep outside- it's starting to get awful cold now- I think it'll snow soon- winter's almost here!" Lyra added.

"Winter?! But it can't be winter yet! It's the middle of June!"

"You're not serious. I got here a few weeks ago, in the middle of November-" Lyra stopped.

"Like I said, time's weird here. I thought it was the same time in all worlds though- guess I was wrong about that to," This thought worried Lyra- what if Will's world had a different time than hers?

"So...it can be a different time in different worlds? Really? No wonder things are so strange here..."

He seemed distressed, but moreso over the fact taht things were so different then the fact that he was in a different world entirely from his own.

"Yeah- it's weird isn't it? Different times- at the same time?" Lyra stared pensively down at the street as she dropped another egg. She didn't notice if it hit or not.

"So what's your world like- I mean, what was it like before the war?" Lyra was eager to change the subject to less vexing matters.

He sat up, clasping his feet in front of him in a half-lotus style and rocking back and forth on a cushion of air.

"Well, I grew up at the Air Temple, until I found out that I was the Avatar. The four nations were peaceful, then. Everyone got along, and I had friends in all three of the other nations."

Lyra smiled slightly, "Peaceful huh? That must have been nice."

She frowned, "We're almost out of eggs- lets make the last ones count!"

Log: Ongoing

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