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350 word drabble: Day Trip
May. 18th, 2013 11:21 pmWritten for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avatar_500 prompt #75, Thrill.
Summary: Because the Fire Nation had taken her freedom away from the people who had taken it from her, and nothing had changed.
Day Trip
She showed the train attendant her passport and sat down on the bench with the throngs of farmers and laborers heading out for the day to the agricultural district. The tenements and shops sped by, below and beside the train tracks, and she could hear the faint whoosh of earthbending as it pushed them along. As the tunnel through the wall that marked the end of the lower ring blocked out the buildings and the streets, Jin closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, Ba Sing Se's outer wall lay in the distance, beyond the hills, and trees, and rippling pastureland.
When the train at last stopped at the outer wall, Jin didn't climb down with the rest. She slipped away and clambered up on the ladders and handholds meant for the people whose homes were built into the wall's inward face. There was no one on top of the wall. No soldiers, no interlopers, no Fire Nation princess, as far as Jin could see on the miles of undulating wall, there was nobody but Jin.
Now that the Fire Nation had conquered the city, she guessed there was nobody to watch out for anymore.
Here, on the top of the wall, Jin could look down on the outside and see the barren desert stones, so different from the fair farmland and parks just inside. She could look out over all of Ba Sing Se, and see the fields, and roofs, and courtyards, the palace, and the glittering lake waters in the distance.
There were still Dai Li agents hidden behind the walls,. There were still tens of thousands, millions of people. There was still the same job, and the same landlord to pay, the same hunger, and the same gang to placate.
There was nothing new except that crippling feeling of loss. And out there, on top of the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, Jin sat hugging her knees, and trying to find something, anything they had really lost, something, someday, they could win back.
But Ba Sing Se was silent for her in the distance.
avatar_500 prompt #75, Thrill.Summary: Because the Fire Nation had taken her freedom away from the people who had taken it from her, and nothing had changed.
Day Trip
She showed the train attendant her passport and sat down on the bench with the throngs of farmers and laborers heading out for the day to the agricultural district. The tenements and shops sped by, below and beside the train tracks, and she could hear the faint whoosh of earthbending as it pushed them along. As the tunnel through the wall that marked the end of the lower ring blocked out the buildings and the streets, Jin closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, Ba Sing Se's outer wall lay in the distance, beyond the hills, and trees, and rippling pastureland.
When the train at last stopped at the outer wall, Jin didn't climb down with the rest. She slipped away and clambered up on the ladders and handholds meant for the people whose homes were built into the wall's inward face. There was no one on top of the wall. No soldiers, no interlopers, no Fire Nation princess, as far as Jin could see on the miles of undulating wall, there was nobody but Jin.
Now that the Fire Nation had conquered the city, she guessed there was nobody to watch out for anymore.
Here, on the top of the wall, Jin could look down on the outside and see the barren desert stones, so different from the fair farmland and parks just inside. She could look out over all of Ba Sing Se, and see the fields, and roofs, and courtyards, the palace, and the glittering lake waters in the distance.
There were still Dai Li agents hidden behind the walls,. There were still tens of thousands, millions of people. There was still the same job, and the same landlord to pay, the same hunger, and the same gang to placate.
There was nothing new except that crippling feeling of loss. And out there, on top of the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, Jin sat hugging her knees, and trying to find something, anything they had really lost, something, someday, they could win back.
But Ba Sing Se was silent for her in the distance.
