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31_days2006-11-20 10:14 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-11-20 10:14 pm
[Nov. 20] [Avatar] Pieces of me you've never seen
Title: Pieces of me you've never seen
Day/Theme: November 20 - the village awaits the new moon
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Hahn
Rating: PG
Just before he hit the water like a sack full of bait, Hahn realized that his plan to take the Fire Nation ship by surprise had perhaps not been as well thought out as it could have been.
What happened after that wasn't very clear, but he did remember thinking, as he bobbed in the waves, drifting towards unconsciousness and hoping against hope that someone managed to find him before he drowned, that things had gone awfully dark all of a sudden.
Some time later, he woke up in the infirmary. He was rather pleased with himself for not drowning, so at first he didn't understand why everyone kept telling him how sorry they were. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the concussion, or maybe it was the lingering shock from the hypothermia, but it took him a lot longer than it should have to realize what they were talking about: his fiancée was dead.
Yue was dead. What was he supposed to say to that? That he was sorry, too? Probably. Hahn was not exactly known for being self-aware, but he had a vague notion that people were expecting him to be broken, inconsolable, a wreck, a ruin. Yes, utter collapse would have been the seemly reaction under the circumstances, but instead he just found that he was more confused and curious than anything else.
Much of his bemusement had to do with some things about the moon, and some fish, and some other things that just didn't make any sense, but he was also plagued by the notion that he had missed some vital clue, some essential fact he had failed to think through the way he had failed to think things through when infiltrating that Fire Nation ship.
In time, perhaps, he might figure out what that something was, and also what he was supposed to feel about all of this. In the meantime it was probably in his best interest to remain silent. And if people mistook his silence for grieving, then so much the better.
Over the next several days, Yue's friends (he had no idea she'd had so many) continued to stop by, 'just to see how you're holding up'--or so they said. Truth be told, they really didn't seem to be too interested in Hahn, or how he was feeling, or how well his recovery was going.
Instead, all they wanted to talk about Yue. They insisted on telling him about trivial things she had said, or pointless little kindnesses she'd bestowed. They spoke to him of times shared, and about the way her smile would show first in her eyes and then in her mouth.
At first, he found this to be highly annoying. Weren't they supposed to be asking after him, and how he was doing? But no--they insisted on telling him her favorite foods and her favorite books, or about rare flashes of temper that he'd never seen for himself, or a surprisingly sly wit that he'd never even suspected was there.
And then, when someone inevitably cut off in the middle of some story about a childhood pet or a cooking misadventure, half-laughing, half-crying, and chiding themselves for telling him a story he'd no doubt heard hundreds of times before, he surprised himself by asking them to continue.
He even found himself asking people to repeat certain stories two, three, and even four times, and after a whlie, he could almost believe he had been there to see the Great Cake Disaster for himself, or that he had been the one she'd confided in when she was tired of being strong and composed after her mother's death. Bit by bit, all the little details and anecdotes, all the assorted facts and trivia began to piece themselves together into a portrait of someone Hahn was beginning to think he would have liked very much indeed.
Inevitably, though, Hahn's visitors would ask him to share stories of his time with Yue. When that happened, all he could do was turn his face to the wall and tell them that he was tired, and besides, he wasn't really wasn't ready to talk about it--not now, and possibly not ever.
"We know," they would say, smiling at him as they might at a dying man or a congenital idiot. "We miss her, too." And then they would look out at the rising moon with such longing that he felt very small and very uncomfortable, and he wished they would just leave, already.
And once his visitors had gone, leaving behind a few sympathetic platitudes on their way out, Hahn would look out his window at the rising moon and wonder what it was they hoped to see there, and if it was possible to miss somebody he'd never really met.
Day/Theme: November 20 - the village awaits the new moon
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Hahn
Rating: PG
Just before he hit the water like a sack full of bait, Hahn realized that his plan to take the Fire Nation ship by surprise had perhaps not been as well thought out as it could have been.
What happened after that wasn't very clear, but he did remember thinking, as he bobbed in the waves, drifting towards unconsciousness and hoping against hope that someone managed to find him before he drowned, that things had gone awfully dark all of a sudden.
Some time later, he woke up in the infirmary. He was rather pleased with himself for not drowning, so at first he didn't understand why everyone kept telling him how sorry they were. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the concussion, or maybe it was the lingering shock from the hypothermia, but it took him a lot longer than it should have to realize what they were talking about: his fiancée was dead.
Yue was dead. What was he supposed to say to that? That he was sorry, too? Probably. Hahn was not exactly known for being self-aware, but he had a vague notion that people were expecting him to be broken, inconsolable, a wreck, a ruin. Yes, utter collapse would have been the seemly reaction under the circumstances, but instead he just found that he was more confused and curious than anything else.
Much of his bemusement had to do with some things about the moon, and some fish, and some other things that just didn't make any sense, but he was also plagued by the notion that he had missed some vital clue, some essential fact he had failed to think through the way he had failed to think things through when infiltrating that Fire Nation ship.
In time, perhaps, he might figure out what that something was, and also what he was supposed to feel about all of this. In the meantime it was probably in his best interest to remain silent. And if people mistook his silence for grieving, then so much the better.
Over the next several days, Yue's friends (he had no idea she'd had so many) continued to stop by, 'just to see how you're holding up'--or so they said. Truth be told, they really didn't seem to be too interested in Hahn, or how he was feeling, or how well his recovery was going.
Instead, all they wanted to talk about Yue. They insisted on telling him about trivial things she had said, or pointless little kindnesses she'd bestowed. They spoke to him of times shared, and about the way her smile would show first in her eyes and then in her mouth.
At first, he found this to be highly annoying. Weren't they supposed to be asking after him, and how he was doing? But no--they insisted on telling him her favorite foods and her favorite books, or about rare flashes of temper that he'd never seen for himself, or a surprisingly sly wit that he'd never even suspected was there.
And then, when someone inevitably cut off in the middle of some story about a childhood pet or a cooking misadventure, half-laughing, half-crying, and chiding themselves for telling him a story he'd no doubt heard hundreds of times before, he surprised himself by asking them to continue.
He even found himself asking people to repeat certain stories two, three, and even four times, and after a whlie, he could almost believe he had been there to see the Great Cake Disaster for himself, or that he had been the one she'd confided in when she was tired of being strong and composed after her mother's death. Bit by bit, all the little details and anecdotes, all the assorted facts and trivia began to piece themselves together into a portrait of someone Hahn was beginning to think he would have liked very much indeed.
Inevitably, though, Hahn's visitors would ask him to share stories of his time with Yue. When that happened, all he could do was turn his face to the wall and tell them that he was tired, and besides, he wasn't really wasn't ready to talk about it--not now, and possibly not ever.
"We know," they would say, smiling at him as they might at a dying man or a congenital idiot. "We miss her, too." And then they would look out at the rising moon with such longing that he felt very small and very uncomfortable, and he wished they would just leave, already.
And once his visitors had gone, leaving behind a few sympathetic platitudes on their way out, Hahn would look out his window at the rising moon and wonder what it was they hoped to see there, and if it was possible to miss somebody he'd never really met.