300 word drabble: The Shadow of Inaction
Feb. 10th, 2013 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishWritten for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avatar_500 prompt #70, Chakra.
Summary: There is no Avatar that has not felt the icy touch of failure.
The Shadow of Inaction
The hand that held the paintbrush didn't shake, as steady as the earth beneath her. Kyoshi's mirror was a rock in her hand. The face she painted onto herself was still as stone.
Three days ago she had changed the very shape of the earth itself. She had made an island, a new born land torn from the edge of another. She had felt down to the depths of the earth and touched the fires that burned within. She had seen the slabs of stone that fit over the earth's brightly burning core like a child's puzzle and ripped out a new piece. In her very body, she had felt the slow shift of the earth, and forced the earth to roar. The fires of the earth had bubbled up. She had quenched them. The ground had quaked. She had quelled it. There was a man who had fallen to his death at the bottom of the new-made cliff, and she had done nothing about that.
The black line of coal she painted over her eyebrow sat above the red like a shadow. There was a man who had died who should have died a long time ago before his shadow had spread over the Earth Kingdom. It was the Avatar's duty to care about the whole world, not only her home. She could remake the world. She had. She just hadn't bothered before.
No matter how hard she looked, her eyes didn't glow, and the shame that clenched at her made her wonder, afraid, if she had so failed her duty that the universe itself had taken it away.
She couldn't feel the world around her, only the earth under her feet, the air she breathed, the sunlight from the window, and the water in the ocean beside her.
avatar_500 prompt #70, Chakra.Summary: There is no Avatar that has not felt the icy touch of failure.
The Shadow of Inaction
The hand that held the paintbrush didn't shake, as steady as the earth beneath her. Kyoshi's mirror was a rock in her hand. The face she painted onto herself was still as stone.
Three days ago she had changed the very shape of the earth itself. She had made an island, a new born land torn from the edge of another. She had felt down to the depths of the earth and touched the fires that burned within. She had seen the slabs of stone that fit over the earth's brightly burning core like a child's puzzle and ripped out a new piece. In her very body, she had felt the slow shift of the earth, and forced the earth to roar. The fires of the earth had bubbled up. She had quenched them. The ground had quaked. She had quelled it. There was a man who had fallen to his death at the bottom of the new-made cliff, and she had done nothing about that.
The black line of coal she painted over her eyebrow sat above the red like a shadow. There was a man who had died who should have died a long time ago before his shadow had spread over the Earth Kingdom. It was the Avatar's duty to care about the whole world, not only her home. She could remake the world. She had. She just hadn't bothered before.
No matter how hard she looked, her eyes didn't glow, and the shame that clenched at her made her wonder, afraid, if she had so failed her duty that the universe itself had taken it away.
She couldn't feel the world around her, only the earth under her feet, the air she breathed, the sunlight from the window, and the water in the ocean beside her.
