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31_days2006-11-27 08:27 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-11-27 08:27 pm
[Nov. 27] [Avatar] Samsara
Title: Samsara
Day/Theme: November 27 - why should I leave you, to wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Appa
Rating: PG
The world is new again. He is free to lumber through the skies, pulling the air around and under him as he has since he was a calf. If the small, comforting weight of his boy is on not on his neck, then he is flying alongside, always comfortably close even when not in sight.
The world is new, but he is ever haunted by the shadows of the world's end. A shadow hangs over him that has nothing to do with cloud cover. When he flies over water, he jerks and shies whenever a flash of reflected light catches him by surprise. There are times when even though he can feel his boy flying alongside him, he constantly swivels his head to see that he is there. (This invariably causes the loud one who rides his neck when his boy is flying to shriek like a young female, but he cannot break the habit.)
When they are groundbound, and his boy disappears into one building or another, the world ends. Alone, Appa fidgets and frets, shuffling from side to side and waiting for the building to start sinking into the earth, or for the cutting ropes to leap out of the sand and bind him to the ground. But the instant his boy comes out again, smiling and bounding over to bury his face in Appa's fur, the shadow abates, the world is reborn. His tongue sweeps over his boy, knocking him laughing to the ground, and he forgets the time they spent apart, he forgets the straining and rumbling of the earth, he forgets the ropes, he forgets the cages, he forgets the thorns and the fire and the chains. It as is if they never were.
At night, though, the shadows return with sleep and with dreams of pacing through ruined halls that are full of memories but strangely absent of his siblings and his boy. It is an empty world, a world that has ended, but just as he thinks that this ending will have no ending of its own, the old man appears and rests a hand on Appa's nose. He laughs and rests his forehead against the bison's own, and the shadow fades.
Instead of a fire that hurts, he remembers a churning heat that bears him aloft as well as any wind, and he remembers a person on his neck who is his boy and yet is not his boy, and the wind does not ruffle through a heavy coat but rather glides over smooth scales. Instead of chains that bind him under stone and away from the sky, he remembers moving through the earth, free and unafraid, and his boy is a a grown female (but still his boy all the same), and she walks beside him, fingers tangled in fur that is now dark and coarse.
"Every ending leads to a new beginning," he says, and although Appa does not quite understand, the words comfort him and he knows that tomorrow, the shadows will not haunt him nearly as much as they had the day before.
And with that, the old man lifts his head and Appa wakes to find his boy curled up asleep in the crook of his neck, and so the world begins again, just as it has every morning since before he could remember.
Day/Theme: November 27 - why should I leave you, to wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Appa
Rating: PG
The world is new again. He is free to lumber through the skies, pulling the air around and under him as he has since he was a calf. If the small, comforting weight of his boy is on not on his neck, then he is flying alongside, always comfortably close even when not in sight.
The world is new, but he is ever haunted by the shadows of the world's end. A shadow hangs over him that has nothing to do with cloud cover. When he flies over water, he jerks and shies whenever a flash of reflected light catches him by surprise. There are times when even though he can feel his boy flying alongside him, he constantly swivels his head to see that he is there. (This invariably causes the loud one who rides his neck when his boy is flying to shriek like a young female, but he cannot break the habit.)
When they are groundbound, and his boy disappears into one building or another, the world ends. Alone, Appa fidgets and frets, shuffling from side to side and waiting for the building to start sinking into the earth, or for the cutting ropes to leap out of the sand and bind him to the ground. But the instant his boy comes out again, smiling and bounding over to bury his face in Appa's fur, the shadow abates, the world is reborn. His tongue sweeps over his boy, knocking him laughing to the ground, and he forgets the time they spent apart, he forgets the straining and rumbling of the earth, he forgets the ropes, he forgets the cages, he forgets the thorns and the fire and the chains. It as is if they never were.
At night, though, the shadows return with sleep and with dreams of pacing through ruined halls that are full of memories but strangely absent of his siblings and his boy. It is an empty world, a world that has ended, but just as he thinks that this ending will have no ending of its own, the old man appears and rests a hand on Appa's nose. He laughs and rests his forehead against the bison's own, and the shadow fades.
Instead of a fire that hurts, he remembers a churning heat that bears him aloft as well as any wind, and he remembers a person on his neck who is his boy and yet is not his boy, and the wind does not ruffle through a heavy coat but rather glides over smooth scales. Instead of chains that bind him under stone and away from the sky, he remembers moving through the earth, free and unafraid, and his boy is a a grown female (but still his boy all the same), and she walks beside him, fingers tangled in fur that is now dark and coarse.
"Every ending leads to a new beginning," he says, and although Appa does not quite understand, the words comfort him and he knows that tomorrow, the shadows will not haunt him nearly as much as they had the day before.
And with that, the old man lifts his head and Appa wakes to find his boy curled up asleep in the crook of his neck, and so the world begins again, just as it has every morning since before he could remember.