Title: Baby's Breath
Author: liberateourtime
Rating: K+
Summary: Five births. One death. The cycle continues.
Author's Note: First Avatar fic. Ever. Don't be with with the hatin'. I can only improve.



i. a circle has no end

His skin prickles with the knowledge of what is to come. His vision is not what it used to be. The candles around his bed seem dimmer than usual, their blue fire flickering and fading in the dying light.

"Avatar Roku--" A voice at the door. Softer than it should be.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale--

ii. it just begins again

--Inhale.

Blurred faces and the faintest flicker of fire. It's gone before he can remember, settling away in the pit of his mind, ready and waiting for When The Time Comes.

"Aang, Aang."

Soft. Smell. Care-taker. Love.

Wind across his face, sliding and invisible. He coos and stretches out his hand, pudgy fingers reaching to feel, to touch. The seas divide, the ground shakes, candles explode into crackles of ember and flame, the wind sings and glides.

Silence. Aang breathes. Aang sleeps.

iii. burn the world to let it know you're there

Iroh watches. The eternal loop of fun fight fire me that runs in his sixteen year old brain stops for this one instant.

(time stops) Ozai sleeps. His thumb is shoved firmly in his mouth like he's determined not to let it get away. His eyelids are faintly purple in the darkened room, shadows cast across his face by the fireplace. Iroh watches. Iroh listens.

Iroh breathes.

Ozai opens his eyes. The flames in the fireplace disappear, leaving the acrid smell of smoke and sending everything into darkness. (time starts)

iv. brave soldier boy
"Con-grat-u-lations." Ozai sounds out the word, his six year old mouth still having trouble getting around those bigger words. With Iroh's careful tutoring, Ozai had been slowly mastering the art of speech. Iroh sits on the edge of Rin's bed, finding it difficult to turn his eyes away from his wife and child to his brother.

He has a child. (he has a brother)

Ozai pouts and his arms cross over his tiny little chest, eying his rival with narrowed golden eyes. Right then and there, he decides that he hates little boys.

Lu Ten breathes. Ozai and Iroh are divided forever.


v. fluid in motion

He gasps. He chokes.

"Please breathe." Spirits hear me.

"He's too small."

"Sokka, please."

Sokka gasps. Sokka chokes. Sokka breathes.

Sokka fights.

vi. lucky

The scurrying of footsteps and the fact that Mommy has been gone for quite a while leave Zuko shaken and scared. Daddy always talks about The War and surely this must be it. The unrecognizable feeling that coils in his stomach reminds him of the Bad Monster stories that Daddy tells when Mommy isn't looking.

"Prince Zuko, what are you doing here alone?"

"Unc."

Zuko would later learn that the word to describe the emotion he felt was neglected.

Azula breathes. Zuko is forgotten.